I keep a couple USB Drives too. But online backup just keeps it all offsite, automatic (because I'd forget) and covers all my boxes.
I've been using OPENRSM CloudBackup for my systems. It works well (even on my crappy DSL connection).
Their software client works on Win MAC and Linux so I even run it on my VPS and Dedicated Servers besides the home systems. And they let me do all those systems (6 and growing) with my one account.
I'm sure there's others. But this one works for me.
Unfortunantly, RFIDs for cattle cost WAY more than the physical chips themselves. There are various organizations which are government approved for their chips/scanners/systems, etc.
And then there are the associations... National Cattlemens Beef Association (The Beef Checkoff), Angus, Charlais, Hereford, Red Poll, etc. who all are in on the action as well.
These organizations make "exclusive deals" with the chip/scanner/systems producers where if you raise Beef, you will use that particular companies system or your cattle won't be registered.
And oh yeah, the Associations are all Government Approved Registries... So there's no competition there at all.
There's a whole industry ramped up to skim every nickle possible from the Beef Producer on this one. It's all a big shake down.
Neat article.. I got The Big Book of Spam awhile back (No, I don't make money from the link). And it's a never ending source of funny.
http://www.thebigbookofspam.com/
I just had Lowes (Home Depot does this too) hook up a 12KW GenSet on a concrete pad outside the house (it has it's own enclosure).
Their installer/electrician put in an automatic transfer switch and connected it up to our propane (in the country, no natural gas here).
Voila! Done, Didn't even cost as much as a good used car and when the power goes out, the heat/AC/computers, TVs fridge, freezers, etc. all just keep running. The only thing that's NOT on the backup system is the clothes dryer and oven.
I keep an online backup and then mount my backup volume as a network drive. That way there's two copies (local and remote) that I can access anytime.
I picked up a huge SATA for about 100 bucks and have OPENRSM CloudBackup take care of the offsite part.
It's easy, cheap, and if I replace the home computer I've already got a place to restore from.
You can do it with S3 if your techy at all too.
The big thing is the way I do it is easy, cheap, and gets the job done without reinventing the wheel.
I just didn't want to deal with it.
I use cloudbackup.openrsm.com and have them buy an account. It can do a whole network of Linux, MAC, and Windows machines with one account, or just a laptop. The client software is free and does network drive of the backup space too.
I figure easy and my friends paying for it works. It's saved my butt a couple times too.
Cavern Technologies in Lenexa Kansas (Kansas City Metro) is another one. 125ft underground, one level, several MILLION sq ft. Even their GenSets are underground!
And they sell real rooms at cage prices too. Pretty impressive stuff.
That no supplier company will do anything about it....
CERTIFICATIONS MEAN NOTHING MORE THAN THOSE WITH THEM CAN PASS TESTS WELL!
That being said, the most meaningful exam sets ever given in the *NIX community were the Sun Interactive exams, where you were told to do things, then had to do them in a simulated environment (a virtual OS really). How you got there didn't matter, just that it worked. Dunno where that code ended up, it was from SunSoft when that was a division that had their own training seperate from the "Zander" organized training centers.
The other meaningful test set was.. errr.. uhhh... The ORIGINAL SCO test suites (before Caldera, before Canopy, the orignal SCO). they were designed to be open material, open book, tested your ability to find answers you didn't know. It was actually a pretty accurate indicator of someone who could get the job done.
But then again, noone ever listened to me about this stuff....
Cray used (uses?) a liquid freon system where each board had a mettalic layer that connected into a slot formed with the cooling tubes. Thus "sinking" the unit to the coolant frame itself.
This system (the Cray one) did not "re-plumb" liquid in/out of cases.
So (IMHO) Cray "mastered" the way to do it. This is just another way to attempt the same effect with different hardware.
Not far off the mark.... However, if one state does establish a no-spam list (like the no-call lists) a HUGE impact against spammers would be felt.
For example...
1) State has "no-spam" act... 2) You get spam 3) You report spam 4) State gets enough complaints to act (not many really) 5) State AG office actually buys something, traces the $$$, gets the bank acct data. 6) State AG gets Court Order freezing the $$Bank Accts$$ until trial concludes. 7) Trial occurs or spammer settles
Result? Just a couple of these from a single state and since spammers don't know where they're sending email, they're gonna get real scared, real fast.
I only hope the Missouri No-Spam act (pending) will end up implementing an approach like this one.
Here is the list of things I would tell your Grandfather:
1) Qualified (i.e. not test taking wonders) MCSE can physically manage about 14 MS Servers... However, a qualified Linux Admin can handle (depending upon variations in OS release) from 50-75. Much lower people cost.
2) The Admin time saved can be either be converted to cash (fewer employee admins), used to increase support of University Departments and Staff, or a combination of the two.
3) No BSA audits, papertrails, etc. which does not mean that inventory isn't maintained, it's just that it doesn't have to be a resource and legal liability issue (read, cheaper to operate).
4) I promise to send my son to this institution when he's ready for College (about 17 years from now).
Is the one left open by an Admin who has no business being an Admin....
But (more seriously), doesn't is just scare the hooey out of you that brute force password cracking is now running around as an autonamous virus on the Net???
Yeesh, I get the willies thinking of every user that I've told "you can't use password as the password".
The most aggravating thing is when there is someone popular only to a very narrow group of people... And that group of people aggravate you constantly thinking I'm someone else...
I have been tempted to tatoo the following on my forehead...
"No, I'm Scott Medlock the Unix Dude, not Scott Medlock the Golf Painter"
Read your stuff... pretty good, actually. However, your assumption that a "do not call" type list would be unusable is slightly off target.
It can be done....
From my post of last Friday Evening...
"I'm from Missouri "And this version of the proposed law sucks big-time. How about they put a million bucks in a pool, open up 50 or 60 tracking bank accounts, and buy whatever it is the spam is selling.... Thus creating a $$$ trail that can be followed, and a judge can just take and put back into the state coffers. Him em where it hurts... in the pocket!
Think about this now....
1) Recieve Spam
2) Report Spam (forward to spam-abuse somewhere official)
3) More than X number received complaints, State goes into action.
4) State dude/dudette actually buys whatever the spam is selling...
5) state office then traces the $$$, get's a judge to freeze the $$$, apply an ADMINISTRATIVE FINE and keep the spammers frozen $$$ til the fine is paid.
6) spammer learns to not screw with Missouri if they can help it (tough, but doable).
Is this easy? No.. Can it be done? Yes, absolutly... If they're gonna write a law, write one that works...
And yes, I'm chatting with several MO Reps and State Senators about it too.
And this version of the proposed law sucks big-time.
How about they put a million bucks in a pool, open up 50 or 60 tracking bank accounts, and buy whatever it is the spam is selling....
Thus creating a $$$ trail that can be followed, and a judge can just take and put back into the state coffers.
Him em where it hurts... in the pocket!
1) My 9yr old nephew installed Mandrake on his computer without any adult supervision, got it on the net, and got his web server running. In an afternoon. Isn't that the very definition of easy?
1-a) My Father got his RedHat system running in under two days (and he's 70yrs old with NO computer experience to speak of). So it's easy on that scale as well.
3) XP completely crashes daily on three systems I know of... Multiple times on one of them. I havn't seen a Linux box yet that crashed without a total screw up with an application, a boneheaded move, or bad hardware. So, that stable thing just isn't true IMHO. (And don't even get me started on security).
4) Office? Capable?? Well, I suppose it is capable, but doesn't do anything I can't do with OpenOffice. Even the MS bigots where I work are switching to OpenOffice. They say it's easier to support (less time/trouble for them).
5) I don't develop outside of vi so I wouldn't know about Visual Studio... But then again, I don't need Visual Studio because I just do it all in my head before I code (personal style / preference thing).
In other words.. MS hasn't won due to quality, features, or anything else other than the ability to maintain a corporate (and partner) focus on delivering their message..
To paraphrase Jim Carville "It's the Marketing... Stupid!"
Which (unfortunantly) means that a company that has been FOUND GUILTY in a Court of Law of doing illegal activity in the realm of limiting competition (i.e. dirty tricks) will most likely fall back to what they know best.
I must NOT concur!
I deal with a quite large accounting department (20+ people) on a daily basis... Moved them totally off of MS and onto Linux with the Accounting System running on a dedicated Linux server with Netscape as the client.
No fuss, No muss, No troubles... In regards to Linux.
They use StarOffice with no complaints, Since the accounting package runs in their browser (and nearly everyone knows how to use a browser) they don't have problems with that.
The only "hitch" was one that we were going to have regardless.... "It's not like the old system"... Different key strokes, etc. But, we planned on that. Prepared documentation that was indexed to their old way of doing things... Had 1 person totally up to speed on the new system available to help as they learned. Had several training sessions with the new software.
We saved TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on the upgrade and are now reaping the benefits of highly reduced maintenance costs.
It would seem that some people just don't get it... Show your Accounting Dept a way to achieve higher ROI and they'll do it. They understand ROI and when we took their needs into account and quantified it in ways they understand it was no problem at all.
Sounds like your company needs management that wants to make and keep more money instead of maintaining the status quo.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the current DHS Secretary is the former Governor of Kansas.......
I've been using OPENRSM CloudBackup for my systems. It works well (even on my crappy DSL connection).
Their software client works on Win MAC and Linux so I even run it on my VPS and Dedicated Servers besides the home systems. And they let me do all those systems (6 and growing) with my one account.
I'm sure there's others. But this one works for me.
Unfortunantly, RFIDs for cattle cost WAY more than the physical chips themselves. There are various organizations which are government approved for their chips/scanners/systems, etc. And then there are the associations... National Cattlemens Beef Association (The Beef Checkoff), Angus, Charlais, Hereford, Red Poll, etc. who all are in on the action as well. These organizations make "exclusive deals" with the chip/scanner/systems producers where if you raise Beef, you will use that particular companies system or your cattle won't be registered. And oh yeah, the Associations are all Government Approved Registries... So there's no competition there at all. There's a whole industry ramped up to skim every nickle possible from the Beef Producer on this one. It's all a big shake down.
Neat article.. I got The Big Book of Spam awhile back (No, I don't make money from the link). And it's a never ending source of funny. http://www.thebigbookofspam.com/
I just had Lowes (Home Depot does this too) hook up a 12KW GenSet on a concrete pad outside the house (it has it's own enclosure). Their installer/electrician put in an automatic transfer switch and connected it up to our propane (in the country, no natural gas here). Voila! Done, Didn't even cost as much as a good used car and when the power goes out, the heat/AC/computers, TVs fridge, freezers, etc. all just keep running. The only thing that's NOT on the backup system is the clothes dryer and oven.
I keep an online backup and then mount my backup volume as a network drive. That way there's two copies (local and remote) that I can access anytime. I picked up a huge SATA for about 100 bucks and have OPENRSM CloudBackup take care of the offsite part. It's easy, cheap, and if I replace the home computer I've already got a place to restore from. You can do it with S3 if your techy at all too. The big thing is the way I do it is easy, cheap, and gets the job done without reinventing the wheel.
I just didn't want to deal with it. I use cloudbackup.openrsm.com and have them buy an account. It can do a whole network of Linux, MAC, and Windows machines with one account, or just a laptop. The client software is free and does network drive of the backup space too. I figure easy and my friends paying for it works. It's saved my butt a couple times too.
Cavern Technologies in Lenexa Kansas (Kansas City Metro) is another one. 125ft underground, one level, several MILLION sq ft. Even their GenSets are underground!
And they sell real rooms at cage prices too. Pretty impressive stuff.
http://www.caverntechnologies.com/
"I am not an anonymous coward... I'm more of a courage challenged incogneto kinda guy"
"Am I just being naive, or does anyone have experience with outsourcing small-scale sysadmin tasks?"
Of Course there are: http://www.epicalliance.com/ is one.
That no supplier company will do anything about it.... CERTIFICATIONS MEAN NOTHING MORE THAN THOSE WITH THEM CAN PASS TESTS WELL! That being said, the most meaningful exam sets ever given in the *NIX community were the Sun Interactive exams, where you were told to do things, then had to do them in a simulated environment (a virtual OS really). How you got there didn't matter, just that it worked. Dunno where that code ended up, it was from SunSoft when that was a division that had their own training seperate from the "Zander" organized training centers. The other meaningful test set was.. errr.. uhhh... The ORIGINAL SCO test suites (before Caldera, before Canopy, the orignal SCO). they were designed to be open material, open book, tested your ability to find answers you didn't know. It was actually a pretty accurate indicator of someone who could get the job done. But then again, noone ever listened to me about this stuff....
Kind of.....
Cray used (uses?) a liquid freon system where each board had a mettalic layer that connected into a slot formed with the cooling tubes. Thus "sinking" the unit to the coolant frame itself.
This system (the Cray one) did not "re-plumb" liquid in/out of cases.
So (IMHO) Cray "mastered" the way to do it. This is just another way to attempt the same effect with different hardware.
Not far off the mark.... However, if one state does establish a no-spam list (like the no-call lists) a HUGE impact against spammers would be felt.
For example...
1) State has "no-spam" act...
2) You get spam
3) You report spam
4) State gets enough complaints to act (not many really)
5) State AG office actually buys something, traces the $$$, gets the bank acct data.
6) State AG gets Court Order freezing the $$Bank Accts$$ until trial concludes.
7) Trial occurs or spammer settles
Result? Just a couple of these from a single state and since spammers don't know where they're sending email, they're gonna get real scared, real fast.
I only hope the Missouri No-Spam act (pending) will end up implementing an approach like this one.
My memory isn't perfect... But I think it was a Gartner survey... Maybe another one... But I think it was Gartner Group.
Here is the list of things I would tell your Grandfather:
1) Qualified (i.e. not test taking wonders) MCSE can physically manage about 14 MS Servers... However, a qualified Linux Admin can handle (depending upon variations in OS release) from 50-75. Much lower people cost.
2) The Admin time saved can be either be converted to cash (fewer employee admins), used to increase support of University Departments and Staff, or a combination of the two.
3) No BSA audits, papertrails, etc. which does not mean that inventory isn't maintained, it's just that it doesn't have to be a resource and legal liability issue (read, cheaper to operate).
4) I promise to send my son to this institution when he's ready for College (about 17 years from now).
Is the one left open by an Admin who has no business being an Admin....
But (more seriously), doesn't is just scare the hooey out of you that brute force password cracking is now running around as an autonamous virus on the Net???
Yeesh, I get the willies thinking of every user that I've told "you can't use password as the password".
People make this way too complex...
Customer says "I want 1 Mbs Burstable to 5Mbs"
ISP says "If you use it, your gonna pay X dollars"
Customer says "Okay" (and signs a contract)
ISP says "Here's the documentation, pay your bill"
Customer says "I'm not paying that, a virus did that"
ISP says "Please look at your contract where YOU are responsible for bandwidth YOUR servers/network uses... Pay your bill"
Customer says "I'm not gonna"
ISP says "If your dumb enough not to protect your stuff, and you don't pay your bill, your outta here"
Customer says "Fine, I'm going elsewhere"
Customer says "New ISP, I want 1Mbs Burstable to 5Mbs"
NewISP says "If you use it, your gonna pay X dollars"
And the cycle starts all over again......
The most aggravating thing is when there is someone popular only to a very narrow group of people... And that group of people aggravate you constantly thinking I'm someone else...
I have been tempted to tatoo the following on my forehead...
"No, I'm Scott Medlock the Unix Dude, not Scott Medlock the Golf Painter"
---
Read your stuff... pretty good, actually. However, your assumption that a "do not call" type list would be unusable is slightly off target.
It can be done....
From my post of last Friday Evening...
"I'm from Missouri "And this version of the proposed law sucks big-time. How about they put a million bucks in a pool, open up 50 or 60 tracking bank accounts, and buy whatever it is the spam is selling.... Thus creating a $$$ trail that can be followed, and a judge can just take and put back into the state coffers. Him em where it hurts... in the pocket!
Think about this now....
1) Recieve Spam
2) Report Spam (forward to spam-abuse somewhere official)
3) More than X number received complaints, State goes into action.
4) State dude/dudette actually buys whatever the spam is selling...
5) state office then traces the $$$, get's a judge to freeze the $$$, apply an ADMINISTRATIVE FINE and keep the spammers frozen $$$ til the fine is paid.
6) spammer learns to not screw with Missouri if they can help it (tough, but doable).
Is this easy? No.. Can it be done? Yes, absolutly... If they're gonna write a law, write one that works...
And yes, I'm chatting with several MO Reps and State Senators about it too.
And this version of the proposed law sucks big-time. How about they put a million bucks in a pool, open up 50 or 60 tracking bank accounts, and buy whatever it is the spam is selling.... Thus creating a $$$ trail that can be followed, and a judge can just take and put back into the state coffers. Him em where it hurts... in the pocket!
Let me count the ways....
1) My 9yr old nephew installed Mandrake on his computer without any adult supervision, got it on the net, and got his web server running. In an afternoon. Isn't that the very definition of easy?
1-a) My Father got his RedHat system running in under two days (and he's 70yrs old with NO computer experience to speak of). So it's easy on that scale as well.
3) XP completely crashes daily on three systems I know of... Multiple times on one of them. I havn't seen a Linux box yet that crashed without a total screw up with an application, a boneheaded move, or bad hardware. So, that stable thing just isn't true IMHO. (And don't even get me started on security).
4) Office? Capable?? Well, I suppose it is capable, but doesn't do anything I can't do with OpenOffice. Even the MS bigots where I work are switching to OpenOffice. They say it's easier to support (less time/trouble for them).
5) I don't develop outside of vi so I wouldn't know about Visual Studio... But then again, I don't need Visual Studio because I just do it all in my head before I code (personal style / preference thing).
In other words.. MS hasn't won due to quality, features, or anything else other than the ability to maintain a corporate (and partner) focus on delivering their message..
To paraphrase Jim Carville "It's the Marketing... Stupid!"
Which (unfortunantly) means that a company that has been FOUND GUILTY in a Court of Law of doing illegal activity in the realm of limiting competition (i.e. dirty tricks) will most likely fall back to what they know best.
I must NOT concur! I deal with a quite large accounting department (20+ people) on a daily basis... Moved them totally off of MS and onto Linux with the Accounting System running on a dedicated Linux server with Netscape as the client. No fuss, No muss, No troubles... In regards to Linux. They use StarOffice with no complaints, Since the accounting package runs in their browser (and nearly everyone knows how to use a browser) they don't have problems with that. The only "hitch" was one that we were going to have regardless.... "It's not like the old system"... Different key strokes, etc. But, we planned on that. Prepared documentation that was indexed to their old way of doing things... Had 1 person totally up to speed on the new system available to help as they learned. Had several training sessions with the new software. We saved TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on the upgrade and are now reaping the benefits of highly reduced maintenance costs. It would seem that some people just don't get it... Show your Accounting Dept a way to achieve higher ROI and they'll do it. They understand ROI and when we took their needs into account and quantified it in ways they understand it was no problem at all. Sounds like your company needs management that wants to make and keep more money instead of maintaining the status quo.