Yes, we had the very same situation in my previous company....At the beginning of this fiasco... As their supplies of motherboards dried up, their willingness to overnight the need parts disappeared. Fast forward another two months, and we were looking at 1 out of 4 GX270s out of service, and Dell unwilling and unable to honor their warrant support (Silver in this case). It took papers from company council to get Dell to agree to a PFR (Proactive Field Replacement) on most GX270s in inventory (~100). During this process, we were told that only certain production runs, which were identifiable by asset tag) were faulty. 3 months later, they were back to replace those also.
In the end, we certified our internal helpdesk technicians as Dell authorized warranty support. By doing this we were at least able to recoup some of the costs, as it does not take much extra time to swap out the motherboard when you are already inside looking for failed caps.
Shortly thereafter, our account reps were calling, asking why their sales volume had dropped off....
Just one of many Dell related storied I can tell.... The one with them moving Gold support to India with no warning was another fun one..
Or my personal favorite:
Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
One thing to watch for, if someone deployed to the base is critically injured or killed, all unofficial communication channels are closed until the next-of-kin can be notified, for understandable reasons. I've been on the US side of one of these blackouts, and although unpleasant and nerve racking, I can understand the reasoning behind the decision.
I've had friends stationed at FOBs in Iraq over the last 4 years. They were able to bring their personal laptop along for the ride. As far as connectivity goes, I am not sure the options presented to them, but they were online in some capacity. On a flight to Vegas during a friends mid-deployment leave, he fired up the laptop, complete with sand from Iraq, much to the annoyance of the other passengers (you can only imagine what infantry guys find amusing)
Check out www.zoneminder.com. I have been using it for a few months now with good results. I have been using the Axis 206 and the 206W IP cameras along with a bt878 based capture card for some older analog cameras that I have laying around. The software seems to support all the options that I need or can think of at the moment. Streaming, motion capture, PTZ, all worked out of the box for me. Sorry if this sounds like an ad, I've just been very happy with the software.
Growing up in rural Oklahoma, I had the good fortune of riding the school bus. In my school district the bus drivers had the freedom to pick their own route through all the backroads, twists, and turns. The only requirement was that they had to pick up every child that needed a ride. Most of these routes were passed down from the departing driver as he trained his replacement. I am not sure how efficient the route was that my driver drove, but as it was a human creation, I'm sure that there was room for improvement. I'm guessing that a computer aided route creation program could shave a few percent off of the mileage/fuel costs. Given that there are not a huge number of stops, the solution should not be that difficult or time intensive. It would just be a matter of convincing a 60 year old man that the computer generated route is better. Have fun with that!
You could take two antennas, and connect them with LMR. Put one antenna in an area with signal, and the other in a dead zone. Each antenna will catch some of the signal for the other to radiate. Granted the losses are high, but you can bend radio around a wall.
From the article, Beagle is only broadcasting a 5 watt signal. Quick calculation..5 watts power output with a free space path loss of ~200db means that the amount of power reaching the Lovell dish is roughly 1/5x10^-66 of a watt.. I'm blown away that they are able to pick that out of the backgound noise at all.
I enroll at the local university, take a few chem classes, then start using my new found knowledge to start large exothermic reactions at home. After blowing a few trees to toothpicks, I get bored and start looking for more/bigger targets. Next thing you know a local supermarket is now laying in ruins.
Who is responsible for this? The college for teaching me? Nope, not a chance. This seems to be a big problem today, wanting to blame anyone but yourself for your actions. If you have the ability to write a virus, I'm willing to bet that you have the sense to decide if its a good idea to release it....
I'm sorry, but if you have a viral infection no amount of antibiotcs are going to help you...maybe Interferon would help, but antibiotics are only effective on bacteria.
Well, by my count a whole eight minutes form the ole C64. I like the idea of this, but who has time to control a toaster from their machine. Isnt it easier to move the dial, but for embeded systems like those in refineries, this is a great idea.
Working in an ISP in Southeastern Oklahoma I can comment on the situation firsthand...The overall availability of broadband sucks. One one side we have the phone company trying to roll out DSL in a town where most of the people are out of range, the local cable company has been in the cable ISP business for a few years now and as time goes on they get more and more restrictive (blocked ports,monthly bandwidth caps and other such nonsense). At work we are busy trying to sell 802.11b wireless> I might be biased, but we have a superior service(better overall bandwidth, no port filtering, competive rates, friendly tech support). The problem in rual areas is that the population density isn't really high enough in this area to roll out high speed access quickly. Granted we are a mom and pop shop, and don't have the corporate resources to just throw towers out at our whims, but each one has to at least show some chance of profits before we move into a new area. And thats the problem...high population density=high profits per tower....The End
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, we had the very same situation in my previous company....At the beginning of this fiasco... As their supplies of motherboards dried up, their willingness to overnight the need parts disappeared. Fast forward another two months, and we were looking at 1 out of 4 GX270s out of service, and Dell unwilling and unable to honor their warrant support (Silver in this case). It took papers from company council to get Dell to agree to a PFR (Proactive Field Replacement) on most GX270s in inventory (~100). During this process, we were told that only certain production runs, which were identifiable by asset tag) were faulty. 3 months later, they were back to replace those also.
In the end, we certified our internal helpdesk technicians as Dell authorized warranty support. By doing this we were at least able to recoup some of the costs, as it does not take much extra time to swap out the motherboard when you are already inside looking for failed caps.
Shortly thereafter, our account reps were calling, asking why their sales volume had dropped off....
Just one of many Dell related storied I can tell.... The one with them moving Gold support to India with no warning was another fun one..
Considering the disappointing margin over the old record.... Cleavland Steamer anyone??
Or my personal favorite: Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
One thing to watch for, if someone deployed to the base is critically injured or killed, all unofficial communication channels are closed until the next-of-kin can be notified, for understandable reasons. I've been on the US side of one of these blackouts, and although unpleasant and nerve racking, I can understand the reasoning behind the decision.
I've had friends stationed at FOBs in Iraq over the last 4 years. They were able to bring their personal laptop along for the ride. As far as connectivity goes, I am not sure the options presented to them, but they were online in some capacity. On a flight to Vegas during a friends mid-deployment leave, he fired up the laptop, complete with sand from Iraq, much to the annoyance of the other passengers (you can only imagine what infantry guys find amusing)
How odd that I was just watching a talk that Linus gave at Google. Link to the talk
Check out www.zoneminder.com. I have been using it for a few months now with good results. I have been using the Axis 206 and the 206W IP cameras along with a bt878 based capture card for some older analog cameras that I have laying around. The software seems to support all the options that I need or can think of at the moment. Streaming, motion capture, PTZ, all worked out of the box for me. Sorry if this sounds like an ad, I've just been very happy with the software.
Growing up in rural Oklahoma, I had the good fortune of riding the school bus. In my school district the bus drivers had the freedom to pick their own route through all the backroads, twists, and turns. The only requirement was that they had to pick up every child that needed a ride. Most of these routes were passed down from the departing driver as he trained his replacement. I am not sure how efficient the route was that my driver drove, but as it was a human creation, I'm sure that there was room for improvement. I'm guessing that a computer aided route creation program could shave a few percent off of the mileage/fuel costs. Given that there are not a huge number of stops, the solution should not be that difficult or time intensive. It would just be a matter of convincing a 60 year old man that the computer generated route is better. Have fun with that!
No, this one only goes to 11.
You could take two antennas, and connect them with LMR. Put one antenna in an area with signal, and the other in a dead zone. Each antenna will catch some of the signal for the other to radiate. Granted the losses are high, but you can bend radio around a wall.
But what if I am??
From the article, Beagle is only broadcasting a 5 watt signal. Quick calculation..5 watts power output with a free space path loss of ~200db means that the amount of power reaching the Lovell dish is roughly 1/5x10^-66 of a watt.. I'm blown away that they are able to pick that out of the backgound noise at all.
Links
Free Space path loss
Nifty WLAN link calculator
Ok, lets follow this logic a bit farther.....
I enroll at the local university, take a few chem classes, then start using my new found knowledge to start large exothermic reactions at home. After blowing a few trees to toothpicks, I get bored and start looking for more/bigger targets. Next thing you know a local supermarket is now laying in ruins.
Who is responsible for this? The college for teaching me? Nope, not a chance. This seems to be a big problem today, wanting to blame anyone but yourself for your actions. If you have the ability to write a virus, I'm willing to bet that you have the sense to decide if its a good idea to release it....
Not if you live in Michigan!!!!
http://www.microsoft.com/trademarks/t-mark/winxp-G uide.htm
Do Not Say:
[Your Product Name] Windows xp
[Your Product Name] XP
Windows XP [Your Product Name]
hmm.....now I can't legally say that I have an Athlon XP(R) CPU...nice
I'm sorry, but if you have a viral infection no amount of antibiotcs are going to help you...maybe Interferon would help, but antibiotics are only effective on bacteria.
15 minutes and the reg server is spouting 500 server errors...Are they running X-servs?? j/k
Well, by my count a whole eight minutes form the ole C64. I like the idea of this, but who has time to control a toaster from their machine. Isnt it easier to move the dial, but for embeded systems like those in refineries, this is a great idea.
Working in an ISP in Southeastern Oklahoma I can comment on the situation firsthand...The overall availability of broadband sucks. One one side we have the phone company trying to roll out DSL in a town where most of the people are out of range, the local cable company has been in the cable ISP business for a few years now and as time goes on they get more and more restrictive (blocked ports,monthly bandwidth caps and other such nonsense). At work we are busy trying to sell 802.11b wireless> I might be biased, but we have a superior service(better overall bandwidth, no port filtering, competive rates, friendly tech support). The problem in rual areas is that the population density isn't really high enough in this area to roll out high speed access quickly. Granted we are a mom and pop shop, and don't have the corporate resources to just throw towers out at our whims, but each one has to at least show some chance of profits before we move into a new area. And thats the problem...high population density=high profits per tower....The End