OK, I'll bite. Since I have experience with students in labs. One of the biggest issues is security and consistency. How does one roll out labs quickly? Prevent students from altering settings? If you use standard user logon security, then some method must be employed to have each student have a logon. Assuming the school has an active directory server, then someone needs to figure out how to make OS X authenticate against it, to somehow mount the user's windows home file share on the mac client. What about printers? How to print to that printer attached to the windows server? Does unix print serviecs (lpd) need to be loaded onto the windows print server?
Then there's faculty. If they are opposed to anything but what they are used to, doesn't matter how great it is, they'll flip. Hell, you shoulda seen the grief I got because I put Mozilla on our Windows boxes. Who gets to train them? Doesn't sound like much, but I had faculty complaining when we migrated from NT to XP. They complained we didn't provide training for XP. I'm like, huh? The start menu looks different. Big deal. So imagine throwing a Mac at them!
I'm not saying these are insurmountable issues, but I think it'll take more than a day or two as well. Plus, again, I doubt seriously that it is the sys admins refusing the donations. More like administration.
To give you a hint on my background, my place has a Windows only policy, set above my level. In fact, the last holdouts, marketing, had their G4's replaced with Dells last year. The tech staff confiscated the G4s and set them up in their offices. I got one too. I was so damn impressed with OS X that I went out and bought an iMac for home, and then a few months later, got one of the new 12" PBs. I absolutely love Macs (although I still have me 2.8 Ghz Dell with nvid ti4600 for games!:)
I know Windows desktop environment better than most, including the sheer hell of trying to get it and apps to work in a student lab environment. I have no doubt a Mac environment would have much lower TCO than Windows.
I too am the target of so-called "experts" second guessing us constantly. I grow weary of hearing the ole "My husband is a computer expert and he tells me you're doing it all wrong" crap.
Lazy sys admins? Stupid administrators? How can everyone jump to those conclusions without knowing anything about the situation?
As an admin at a college, one of my biggest problems is academic departments that put in for grants for stuff, get them, then tell us we have no choice but to support it.
Like, for example, some SGI Fuel station running a 3D projection system we were recently notified we have to support . Did anyone build in tech training into the grant for this? Of course not. Just plug it in, forget about it. What about security patches, what if it won't boot, etc, etc...
Or the famous trick of grants everywhere. Many grants require some sort of "in-kind" donation from the institution. So they calculate up IT staff time and cost, use that as the in-kind donation, then expect IT to absorb it into their existing duties.
Now in my shop, we are over a year behind in many projects and have to be restrictive with new ones launched due to budget cutbacks that have cut IT staff while numbers of equipment needing to support continues to climb. So it's possible that even a little extra effort (if it really is that) would not be possible without slashing support to someone else's project.
Now, I admit, if this is a political issue, it is assine. And, since no one really cares about IT load, I would bet that this is the case.
But please, try to temper the ole "lazy sys admin" criticism. It's most likely not warranted.
They have good reason to be scared. They are already in the difficult position of having to increase earnings to satisfy stockholders. How can you gain marketshare when you have it all already? You can't, so you're left with squeezing more money out of current customers and/or expanding into other areas.
So far, the attemps to squeeze more money (licensing changes, move to subscriptions) has failed miserably. Plus more and more customers are balking and becoming ex-customers. Not good.
The attempts to move into other markets isn't doing so well either. So far they are all a cash-drain on the company.
So not only do they face not growing anymore, they may indeed face a downturn.
Now making a few percent less than a boat load of money isn't bad, but if you earned a boat load last year, then that may indicate a trend and trends are bad.
They have a good reason to be scared. They've peaked, jumped the shark^H^H^H^H^H^Hpenguin.
Not only do we run Redhat servers here, but my employer sent me away for redhat-run classes, I got to crash at the Mariott across the street even though the training site was only 30 miles away, ate steak dinner nightly, and got my RHCE, all at no charge to moi!:)
Mbe I wasn't clear, there are entire tracks NOT FOR SALE on Dream Theater CDs. Not as individual tracks or entire album. They are marked partial album and the tracks are missing.:(
Really ridiculous since most of their CDs are basically CD-length stories requiring the entire CD to appreciate it.
Oh well, reminds me of some user here who wanted a 20" LCD that was native at 1600x1200 and then wanted us to set it at 1024x768 since it was too hard to see. Insane...
Anyone know of any benchmarks of I/O for X-RAID? I would guess that it's not as good as a full-fiber-to-the-disk SCSI solution like EMC/Clariion sells, but I wonder how close it is.
(From someone who -- with the annual maintenance cost for my current SANs -- could buy and throw out a fully-populated X-RAID box every quarter and still be ahead...)
Article says more than three million sold. That's down from the previous one million a week in the first two weeks. I wonder how far demand has dropped off.
Mac fans tend to go rabid with new stuff, then slack off on the demand, at least with new hardware introductions. I wonder how much they are selling per day now...
When counting patches for platforms, did you also count patches for all the various software products that can run on that platform? That's what makes some things like redhat go through the roof.
Also, some of the more obscure OSes don't get many patches because no one is looking at them closely. The patch count for DG/UX is near zero for example. Or way back in the early days of NT (circa 3.51 iirc) I remember reading some idiot within Microsoft claiming that NT was more secure because there were far far less bugtraq postings about NT than Unix systems. That was only because back then no one really gave a flying flock() about NT and paid it no mind.
What's more broken, an unpatched system or an unworking system? For example, there was some wailing and nashing of teeth on the windows higher ed mailing list recently because a patch broke active directory's kerberos's ability to authenticate many third-party kerberos clients. That alone can just bring an entire operation to a halt at some places.
A lot of patches may not be needed on a production system, like a patch that prevents a malicious web site operator from inserting some rogue active x control to take over control of system. If your site's operation policy is to not use IE under threat of death on a server, then you should be safe from installing it (unless the patch secretly fixes some other unpublished hole).
So far, from what we've found, there *is* a switch of some sort to run silently. It's just finding the damn thing that's difficult. Look at my top entry in my journal for my rant on this issue. I have several of the different switch flavors listed there...
The 2004 Toyota Prius is going to have bluetooth built in, allegedly for hands-free operation with a bluetooth cell phone.
Now if the Prius would have a calendar that bluetooth-ed synced with my 12" G4 Powerbook, I'd buy the car in a heartbeat! Imagine, having a car that can nag you about upcoming appointments, or the ability to be on a call on the cell phone and have your boss schedule you for an appt, and you just reach down to the multi-function display and punch in your new appointment right before you drive the car into the back of a tanker truck.
Put a dime in front of a visitor and ask him the worth of it. He can't. Nowhere does it say "ten cents" or "10 cents." It just say "One Dime."
It's also the smallest coin. Worked wonders with my little sister when I was a kid. I'd trade her my larger nickels for her small little dimes. Worked wonders!
if Microsoft pulls the plug my music collection evaporates a month after it stops
Oh, that will never happen (remembering the flame wars between pro and anti DIVX folks where the DIVX opponents were saying all of those silver DIVX disks would one day be useless and the pro DIVX folks saying they were full of shit).
I think the final thing when DIVX went under was that those silver DIVX discs would only play for another year or something...
(Awaiting flames from 13 yo/. readers too young to remember DIVX and not understanding the difference between DIVX and DivX...)
Maybe the new chip will be used to explain away why Quark took so long. Perhaps they skipped development for 32 bit OS X and concentrate on the 64 bit processor, etc, etc...
As in, it'll be announced that Quark is available, but only on the new 64-bit power macs, driving the sales of both.
You don't usually have to live in a "big city" to scrap your car, although it certainly makes it easier. Numerous areas outside of large metro areas are served quite well by commuter rail. You can often find places that are on the edge of denser areas near a transit line that also have close walkable or bikable areas in parks or "back roads" areas.
The last time I bought a house, my agent had said he had never heard of anyone with my requirements. I gave him a list like "has to be within 10 minute walk of a transit line that has rush hour service, and 30 minute walk from a line that has non-peak service. Must be within walking distance to a convenience store. Must be within walking distance to decent park land or areas that are unlikely to get developed (trust lands, etc, etc...)
If you have a bunch of kids, then of course, forget it, although you can often still get by with a one-car household instead of two -- if hitched.
Shh, be careful not to give away the secret of carlessness. I don't own a car and hence live as if I'm rich, even though I'm not. That extra several hundred dollars a month I don't spend on payments, fuel, insurance, and repairs goes into other fun stuff, like flying from the pathetic east coast to Arizona 2-3 times a year first class on America West so I can hike Picacho Peak, The White Tanks, Estrella, eat big steaks at Crazy Eds and Pinnacle Peak Patio, etc, etc...
But it is a choice and I'd not want to force others to follow it. Not owning a car can be inconvenient at times, but for those times, there are car rentals. You also need to ensure you buy a house near a decent transit line... But if done right, it's fairly painless.
101 is featured a lot in the film, like the mythical interstate 101 sign at the freeway entrance (although california does have a 101 freeway, it's US route 101, not Interstate 101).
There's a lot of talk about his on road geek newsgroups. See, it's not just computer geeks that lack a life!:)
It's interesting the relationships of the "code" in the matrix, like eating a cake causes a routine to execute in the cake to achieve the desired effect.
So the human subjects in the matrix still are working their brains in their little tubs, so I imagine as they invent things, those things would be adapted, assimilated, and used by the machines running the matrix, especially if...
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... if it was invented in a prior instance or nested concurent instance of the matrix...
Imagine the ability to hack the matrix by writing bad code on purpose. The ssh1 coder would then be a hero, by introducing indirectly a vulnerability into the machine's control system -- if there is one that is...
Slashdot Mirror
Since when? Go ahead and place a tech support call to Microsoft. It's like $225 per incident.
Then there's faculty. If they are opposed to anything but what they are used to, doesn't matter how great it is, they'll flip. Hell, you shoulda seen the grief I got because I put Mozilla on our Windows boxes. Who gets to train them? Doesn't sound like much, but I had faculty complaining when we migrated from NT to XP. They complained we didn't provide training for XP. I'm like, huh? The start menu looks different. Big deal. So imagine throwing a Mac at them!
I'm not saying these are insurmountable issues, but I think it'll take more than a day or two as well. Plus, again, I doubt seriously that it is the sys admins refusing the donations. More like administration.
To give you a hint on my background, my place has a Windows only policy, set above my level. In fact, the last holdouts, marketing, had their G4's replaced with Dells last year. The tech staff confiscated the G4s and set them up in their offices. I got one too. I was so damn impressed with OS X that I went out and bought an iMac for home, and then a few months later, got one of the new 12" PBs. I absolutely love Macs (although I still have me 2.8 Ghz Dell with nvid ti4600 for games! :)
I know Windows desktop environment better than most, including the sheer hell of trying to get it and apps to work in a student lab environment. I have no doubt a Mac environment would have much lower TCO than Windows.
I too am the target of so-called "experts" second guessing us constantly. I grow weary of hearing the ole "My husband is a computer expert and he tells me you're doing it all wrong" crap.
Some of the comments just hit a nerve.
As an admin at a college, one of my biggest problems is academic departments that put in for grants for stuff, get them, then tell us we have no choice but to support it.
Like, for example, some SGI Fuel station running a 3D projection system we were recently notified we have to support . Did anyone build in tech training into the grant for this? Of course not. Just plug it in, forget about it. What about security patches, what if it won't boot, etc, etc...
Or the famous trick of grants everywhere. Many grants require some sort of "in-kind" donation from the institution. So they calculate up IT staff time and cost, use that as the in-kind donation, then expect IT to absorb it into their existing duties.
Now in my shop, we are over a year behind in many projects and have to be restrictive with new ones launched due to budget cutbacks that have cut IT staff while numbers of equipment needing to support continues to climb. So it's possible that even a little extra effort (if it really is that) would not be possible without slashing support to someone else's project.
Now, I admit, if this is a political issue, it is assine. And, since no one really cares about IT load, I would bet that this is the case.
But please, try to temper the ole "lazy sys admin" criticism. It's most likely not warranted.
W2K server? How is it physically connected? Through a fiber channel switch?
I assume you have to manage the array through an attached x-serve, right? Like carve out disks. Does it does LUN masking?
I have Linux and W2K hosts connected up to my EMC Clariion SAN through a pair of brocade switches. Would love to add an X-raid rack into that mix! :)
So far, the attemps to squeeze more money (licensing changes, move to subscriptions) has failed miserably. Plus more and more customers are balking and becoming ex-customers. Not good.
The attempts to move into other markets isn't doing so well either. So far they are all a cash-drain on the company.
So not only do they face not growing anymore, they may indeed face a downturn.
Now making a few percent less than a boat load of money isn't bad, but if you earned a boat load last year, then that may indicate a trend and trends are bad.
They have a good reason to be scared. They've peaked, jumped the shark^H^H^H^H^H^Hpenguin.
Not only do we run Redhat servers here, but my employer sent me away for redhat-run classes, I got to crash at the Mariott across the street even though the training site was only 30 miles away, ate steak dinner nightly, and got my RHCE, all at no charge to moi! :)
Hopefully Redhat makes --enable-lzw the default in their ImageMagick builds now!
Really ridiculous since most of their CDs are basically CD-length stories requiring the entire CD to appreciate it.
Loads of Dream Theater CDs have critical tracks not for sale... A lot of them are very long songs too...
Oh well, reminds me of some user here who wanted a 20" LCD that was native at 1600x1200 and then wanted us to set it at 1024x768 since it was too hard to see. Insane...
(From someone who -- with the annual maintenance cost for my current SANs -- could buy and throw out a fully-populated X-RAID box every quarter and still be ahead...)
Mac fans tend to go rabid with new stuff, then slack off on the demand, at least with new hardware introductions. I wonder how much they are selling per day now...
Also, some of the more obscure OSes don't get many patches because no one is looking at them closely. The patch count for DG/UX is near zero for example. Or way back in the early days of NT (circa 3.51 iirc) I remember reading some idiot within Microsoft claiming that NT was more secure because there were far far less bugtraq postings about NT than Unix systems. That was only because back then no one really gave a flying flock() about NT and paid it no mind.
A lot of patches may not be needed on a production system, like a patch that prevents a malicious web site operator from inserting some rogue active x control to take over control of system. If your site's operation policy is to not use IE under threat of death on a server, then you should be safe from installing it (unless the patch secretly fixes some other unpublished hole).
So far, from what we've found, there *is* a switch of some sort to run silently. It's just finding the damn thing that's difficult. Look at my top entry in my journal for my rant on this issue. I have several of the different switch flavors listed there...
I can't believe no one has thought why this is doomed to fail. Not invented here? Won't be used here. Same for that silly French metric system.
Now if the Prius would have a calendar that bluetooth-ed synced with my 12" G4 Powerbook, I'd buy the car in a heartbeat! Imagine, having a car that can nag you about upcoming appointments, or the ability to be on a call on the cell phone and have your boss schedule you for an appt, and you just reach down to the multi-function display and punch in your new appointment right before you drive the car into the back of a tanker truck.
"Get the feeling" baby!
It's also the smallest coin. Worked wonders with my little sister when I was a kid. I'd trade her my larger nickels for her small little dimes. Worked wonders!
Oh, that will never happen (remembering the flame wars between pro and anti DIVX folks where the DIVX opponents were saying all of those silver DIVX disks would one day be useless and the pro DIVX folks saying they were full of shit).
I think the final thing when DIVX went under was that those silver DIVX discs would only play for another year or something...
(Awaiting flames from 13 yo /. readers too young to remember DIVX and not understanding the difference between DIVX and DivX...)
As in, it'll be announced that Quark is available, but only on the new 64-bit power macs, driving the sales of both.
Doesn't work right in Safari either, so I guess none of the other KHTML browsers can deal with it either.
The last time I bought a house, my agent had said he had never heard of anyone with my requirements. I gave him a list like "has to be within 10 minute walk of a transit line that has rush hour service, and 30 minute walk from a line that has non-peak service. Must be within walking distance to a convenience store. Must be within walking distance to decent park land or areas that are unlikely to get developed (trust lands, etc, etc...)
If you have a bunch of kids, then of course, forget it, although you can often still get by with a one-car household instead of two -- if hitched.
But it is a choice and I'd not want to force others to follow it. Not owning a car can be inconvenient at times, but for those times, there are car rentals. You also need to ensure you buy a house near a decent transit line... But if done right, it's fairly painless.
There's a lot of talk about his on road geek newsgroups. See, it's not just computer geeks that lack a life! :)
So the human subjects in the matrix still are working their brains in their little tubs, so I imagine as they invent things, those things would be adapted, assimilated, and used by the machines running the matrix, especially if...
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Imagine the ability to hack the matrix by writing bad code on purpose. The ssh1 coder would then be a hero, by introducing indirectly a vulnerability into the machine's control system -- if there is one that is...
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