LiveHTTPHeaders has to be my favorite, unfortunately it hasn't yet been updated to work with FF 1.5 (betas or rc). Also installed are ForecastFox and IEView. Love them all!
Raised flooring is useful for several reasons, moving cool air through a data center is only one of them. While requiring air to make severe turns to get out of the floor isn't optimal, most cabinets and the equipment in those cabinets is engineered with this in mind. Air is generally drawn in through the front of the cabinet and device and warm air blows out the back. Fans in the equipment pull the air in - the air doesn't have to "turn" on its own again (not that is really did in the first place). Warm air then rises after leaving the device where it is normally drawn back into the top of the AC unit.
Raised flooring also provides significant storage for those large eletrical "whips" where 30A (in most US DCs any how) circuits are terminated as well as a place to hide miles of copper and fiber cable (preferably not too close to the electrical whips). Where else would you put this stuff? With high density switches and servers, we certainly aren't seeing less cable needed in the data centers. Cabinets that used to hold five or six servers now hold 40 or more. Each of these needs power (typically redundant) and network connectivity (again, typically redundant), so we actually have more cables to hide than ever before.
Cabinets are built with raised flooring in mind. Manufactureres expect your cabling will probably feed up through the floor into the bottom of the cabinet. Sure, there is some space in the top of the cabinets, but nothing like the wide open bottom!
Anyhow, there you have the ideas of someone who is quickly becoming a dinosaur (again) in the industry.
...but you might find performance to actually be better using a hub rather than a switch in this case. From your basic description of your traffic types, it's worth some comparison of both options.
Personally, I'm sick of hearing about Lexmark looking for new ways to rip off consumers. They give away their lower than low end, disposable printers and then charge out the wazoo for ink, and try to prevent people (and companies) from refilling the carts. I've never bought a Lexmark printer myself, but I think an all out boycott of their products is called for. Need a printer? Go HP. Or go anyone else for that matter, so long as it's not a Lexmark.
Don't waste your time, at least if you are in an area as densely populated as the NY/NJ area where I am. Everyone knows someone (you in this case) who "does computers". Competition is fierce, and there are a ton of people that can barely spell PC that call themselves consultants and are out there every day giving you a bad name simply because you appear to the average user to be in the same business.
Your friends and family ask you to work on their machines because they know you will do it for nothing. Once you start charging, they will treat you like you are trying to take advantage of them.
In addition, once you start charging you need to warranty your work. People expect that means if you clean a virus from their PC once, that you should be responsible for cleaning any viruses on their computer for the rest of that computers lifespan at no additional charge.
Finally, you will be at the mercy of whatever people do to their machines, including installing all types of silly $1 software they buy at the grocery store or elsewhere. They paid for it, now they want you to make it run. Or they let their neighbor install something on their machine and now it doesn't work at all. Now it's your problem.
It takes 4-5 hours to properly reinstall Windows, Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, and a handful of other applications that I've come to consider "required" these days. Even if you charge a measly $75 an hour, try telling someone it will cost at least $300 for you to rebuild their machine for them.
Then tell them on top of that fee they have to buy Windows XP for another $150 or so since they lost the CD or never had one. At that point it is "cheaper" for them to call Dell and order a new PC for $300.
I started off monitoring this device via http as well, but did from within Perl so I could set limits and do email notification. I found that using SNMP was simpler as it required a bit less guess work in locating the correct string. For a couple hundred bucks, you can't beat it for a four probe sensor with SNMP support. A real enterprise class solution IMHO.
I've used Sprint's offering the in the NY/NJ area and it was quite good. I've never had a Sprint phone, this was strictly data service and came with a PC card only. I'd say it was as fast as an average DSL line.
And if you lost the scrap of paper you wrote your directory on you had to sit there and listen to the tape to find where each program started/stopped, then load it to see what it was! Brutal.
Oh, and I can confirm that even the cheapest cassettes (3 pack with no cases for $1.99 at K-Mart as I recall) worked fine for my needs.
Now that I think about it though, I used the cassette method for my TI99/4a, not my Apple! By the time I got an Apple it was a IIc!
...that I discovered accidentally. You can install and activate OEM versions of Windows using the the same activation code multiple times so long as the hardware is identical. I accidentally installed the same OEM pack on two machines. Both activated with zero problems within a week of each other. Of course this wouldn't have created too big of an issue since each machine did have it's own key stuck to the side of the machine.
I consider video games, most television, gym equipment, and other "stuff" found in today's prisons to be luxuries. We should be spending our tax money on books, teachers, and other resources that give prisonors a chance at a better life. Should they choose not to take advantage of it, their failure is through no fault but their own.
...a couple of days ago. It was a good piece - interesting stuff. Not sure how much of it made it into the article, but it was interesting how they compared humans to other animals explaning how humans are better suited to distance running. Other animals - dogs was an example I believe they used - are better suited for sprinting.
I tend to agree. Ettercap is a tool I've played with and it has helped me to understand some new concepts, but I haven't really found a good use for it in my day to day Sr Sys Adm career. Other "grey" tools however, such as ethereal and nmap, I wouldn't be without. As the authors pointed out, it's not the tools that are evil.
I did for quite a while! I even hacked together an "ipconfig" for OS/2 (OS/2 used the Unixish ifconfig) in REXX way back when. It's still floating around out there if anyone is interested. Beyond that, I used REXX for scripting user migrations from NT 3.5 to 4.0, login scripts, and pretty much everything else I now use Perl for.
You are not considering the actual cost of owning and running these machines, only the initial cost of hardware. If you learn how to do a proper analysis of the costs associated with each machine over a 3-5 year period, the typical server lifespan, you will find that purchasing an entry level server will be far less expensive. Better memory (ECC), server chipsets (Intel 7xxx vs Intel 865 for example), and chassis designed to provide adequate airflow for a server is a bargain compared to downtime while you fix your Dimension "server" every couple of months.
You can do a 1U P4 3.0 with mirrored Enterprise quality SATA disks and 1GB of ECC RAM for well under $2000. Take a look at the Intel SR1325TP1-E server platform. It's the server chassis with proper cooling with an Intel TP1 board installed. The board has dual onboard nics and the chassis has about five fans. Very nice, and runs $500. Add the CPU for about $200, memory, and disks (SATA, CD, floppy) and you are done.
I've pulled that one once and it worked quite well. I went to lunch after one of those lectures and that was the last they ever saw of me. Another good idea when you pull this stunt is to change your phone number to really screw with them.
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LiveHTTPHeaders has to be my favorite, unfortunately it hasn't yet been updated to work with FF 1.5 (betas or rc). Also installed are ForecastFox and IEView. Love them all!
Agreed. I'd love to see these released on DVD, canon or not. That would make the collection complete, IMHO.
Raised flooring is useful for several reasons, moving cool air through a data center is only one of them. While requiring air to make severe turns to get out of the floor isn't optimal, most cabinets and the equipment in those cabinets is engineered with this in mind. Air is generally drawn in through the front of the cabinet and device and warm air blows out the back. Fans in the equipment pull the air in - the air doesn't have to "turn" on its own again (not that is really did in the first place). Warm air then rises after leaving the device where it is normally drawn back into the top of the AC unit.
Raised flooring also provides significant storage for those large eletrical "whips" where 30A (in most US DCs any how) circuits are terminated as well as a place to hide miles of copper and fiber cable (preferably not too close to the electrical whips). Where else would you put this stuff? With high density switches and servers, we certainly aren't seeing less cable needed in the data centers. Cabinets that used to hold five or six servers now hold 40 or more. Each of these needs power (typically redundant) and network connectivity (again, typically redundant), so we actually have more cables to hide than ever before.
Cabinets are built with raised flooring in mind. Manufactureres expect your cabling will probably feed up through the floor into the bottom of the cabinet. Sure, there is some space in the top of the cabinets, but nothing like the wide open bottom!
Anyhow, there you have the ideas of someone who is quickly becoming a dinosaur (again) in the industry.
...but you might find performance to actually be better using a hub rather than a switch in this case. From your basic description of your traffic types, it's worth some comparison of both options.
Why does this remind me of (the failed) Corel WordPerfect for Java? Was that the entire office suite, or just WP? I forget now...
Personally, I'm sick of hearing about Lexmark looking for new ways to rip off consumers. They give away their lower than low end, disposable printers and then charge out the wazoo for ink, and try to prevent people (and companies) from refilling the carts. I've never bought a Lexmark printer myself, but I think an all out boycott of their products is called for. Need a printer? Go HP. Or go anyone else for that matter, so long as it's not a Lexmark.
They didn't become extinct at all.
I'm so glad I decided to support the software after probably close to 10 years of use by purchasing it a year or two ago. Now they make it free.
Agreed. Postini does a great job. Been using them for years in one capacity or another. I just wish they had a consumer level solution.
This post is probably the most thought out and the closest thing to an actual "business model" I've seen in this thread so far. Nice ideas.
Don't waste your time, at least if you are in an area as densely populated as the NY/NJ area where I am. Everyone knows someone (you in this case) who "does computers". Competition is fierce, and there are a ton of people that can barely spell PC that call themselves consultants and are out there every day giving you a bad name simply because you appear to the average user to be in the same business.
Your friends and family ask you to work on their machines because they know you will do it for nothing. Once you start charging, they will treat you like you are trying to take advantage of them.
In addition, once you start charging you need to warranty your work. People expect that means if you clean a virus from their PC once, that you should be responsible for cleaning any viruses on their computer for the rest of that computers lifespan at no additional charge.
Finally, you will be at the mercy of whatever people do to their machines, including installing all types of silly $1 software they buy at the grocery store or elsewhere. They paid for it, now they want you to make it run. Or they let their neighbor install something on their machine and now it doesn't work at all. Now it's your problem.
It takes 4-5 hours to properly reinstall Windows, Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, and a handful of other applications that I've come to consider "required" these days. Even if you charge a measly $75 an hour, try telling someone it will cost at least $300 for you to rebuild their machine for them.
Then tell them on top of that fee they have to buy Windows XP for another $150 or so since they lost the CD or never had one. At that point it is "cheaper" for them to call Dell and order a new PC for $300.
Been doing that for years here.
I started off monitoring this device via http as well, but did from within Perl so I could set limits and do email notification. I found that using SNMP was simpler as it required a bit less guess work in locating the correct string. For a couple hundred bucks, you can't beat it for a four probe sensor with SNMP support. A real enterprise class solution IMHO.
I've used Sprint's offering the in the NY/NJ area and it was quite good. I've never had a Sprint phone, this was strictly data service and came with a PC card only. I'd say it was as fast as an average DSL line.
And if you lost the scrap of paper you wrote your directory on you had to sit there and listen to the tape to find where each program started/stopped, then load it to see what it was! Brutal.
Oh, and I can confirm that even the cheapest cassettes (3 pack with no cases for $1.99 at K-Mart as I recall) worked fine for my needs.
Now that I think about it though, I used the cassette method for my TI99/4a, not my Apple! By the time I got an Apple it was a IIc!
Denny Crane.
...that I discovered accidentally. You can install and activate OEM versions of Windows using the the same activation code multiple times so long as the hardware is identical. I accidentally installed the same OEM pack on two machines. Both activated with zero problems within a week of each other. Of course this wouldn't have created too big of an issue since each machine did have it's own key stuck to the side of the machine.
According to Yahoo!, Bill's salary is $903,000 per year. Steve Ballmer makes a bit more at $909,000 per year.
I consider video games, most television, gym equipment, and other "stuff" found in today's prisons to be luxuries. We should be spending our tax money on books, teachers, and other resources that give prisonors a chance at a better life. Should they choose not to take advantage of it, their failure is through no fault but their own.
...a couple of days ago. It was a good piece - interesting stuff. Not sure how much of it made it into the article, but it was interesting how they compared humans to other animals explaning how humans are better suited to distance running. Other animals - dogs was an example I believe they used - are better suited for sprinting.
I tend to agree. Ettercap is a tool I've played with and it has helped me to understand some new concepts, but I haven't really found a good use for it in my day to day Sr Sys Adm career. Other "grey" tools however, such as ethereal and nmap, I wouldn't be without. As the authors pointed out, it's not the tools that are evil.
Now I've found tight to be somewhat unstable on my Windows boxes - all XP or 2000. Tight seems to crash expecially when using "best" compression.
I did for quite a while! I even hacked together an "ipconfig" for OS/2 (OS/2 used the Unixish ifconfig) in REXX way back when. It's still floating around out there if anyone is interested. Beyond that, I used REXX for scripting user migrations from NT 3.5 to 4.0, login scripts, and pretty much everything else I now use Perl for.
You are not considering the actual cost of owning and running these machines, only the initial cost of hardware. If you learn how to do a proper analysis of the costs associated with each machine over a 3-5 year period, the typical server lifespan, you will find that purchasing an entry level server will be far less expensive. Better memory (ECC), server chipsets (Intel 7xxx vs Intel 865 for example), and chassis designed to provide adequate airflow for a server is a bargain compared to downtime while you fix your Dimension "server" every couple of months.
You can do a 1U P4 3.0 with mirrored Enterprise quality SATA disks and 1GB of ECC RAM for well under $2000. Take a look at the Intel SR1325TP1-E server platform. It's the server chassis with proper cooling with an Intel TP1 board installed. The board has dual onboard nics and the chassis has about five fans. Very nice, and runs $500. Add the CPU for about $200, memory, and disks (SATA, CD, floppy) and you are done.
I've pulled that one once and it worked quite well. I went to lunch after one of those lectures and that was the last they ever saw of me. Another good idea when you pull this stunt is to change your phone number to really screw with them.