Yes, that is certainly one interpretation. However, another interpretation is that the support person did not understand the question. I need a useful answer to my question, which would be one not open to interpretation.
WinZip has a spanning option: "-&[w] Span to multiple removable disks. Use the optional w suffix to wipe out all files on the removable disk." However, I've never used it, and I don't think it writes directly to DVDs or CDs. There is no way to have WinZip span to multiple zip files of specified length, apparently.
The parent post describes a serious backup scheme, and shows how complicated it is to do it right.
I agree about BackupExec. I've had enormous troubles with Veritas products (formerly Seagate). Two years of arguing with Veritas technical support brought no sufficient answers. (But, my information is now old, since I've had nothing to do with Veritas recently.)
One necessity the parent post did not mention: Encryption. Backups need to be encrypted. They need to be stored in a physically separate location, and such a location may not be completely secure.
Retrospect has encryption built in. This is valuable, since you can take the CDs and put them anywhere for safe-keeping, like at work if they are a home backup. However, the encryption was the CPU intensive DES. Is this still true?
Retrospect had a weird, annoying interface that was a combination of a bad design and an incomplete port from the original Mac platform. Is this still true?
Retrospect also leaves 30 megabyte files on your hard drive that are necessary if you want to look for a file in the backup. Is that still true?
Retrospect was so primitive in some ways that I stopped using it. Dantz did a small upgrade and asked something like $100 for the new version. Dantz is apparently a company that has been sold to people with little technical background. Is that true?
On August 4, I sent this message to Nero technical support:
To: Nero (Ahead Software) Technical Support (techsupport@nero.com)
Subject: Does Nero have the Roxio flaw?
Does Nero 6 Ultra Edition burn to DVD all the files in a directory that is
included in a compilation, or just the files that were there when the
compilation was made?
Roxio Easy CD Creator saves only the files that were in the original
compilation, even though more files may have been added to the folder. This
is, in my opinion, a big problem, since it means that a new compilation must
be made every time for folders in which files are frequently added.
I got back a generic, useless answer:
Dear valued Customer,
Thank you for your email.
Nero is a powerful program it will backup all files.
If you have any further questions please do not hestitate to contact us.
To be specific, there have been 45 megabytes of patches for critical vulnerabilities since Windows XP service pack 1. I know this because over the weekend I installed Windows XP from a CD that has SP1 incorporated, and then I went to windowsupdate.microsoft.com and selected all the critical patches.
From the Slashdot story: "SCO now says there are over a million lines of offending code in Linux and they still won't show them to anybody."
This reminds me of Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1950 Communists in the State Department speech. See the end of the article for
a quote from Senator McCarthy:
"I have in my hand fifty-seven cases of individuals who would appear to be
either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but
who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy."
The number of Communists McCarthy said were in the U.S. State Department also
often changed, too. Soon it was "81 subversives":
The article cited above says, "Senator Lucas of Illinois, Democratic
leader, repeatedly tangled with McCarthy, who also said he has case histories
of 81 subversives--including what he called a 'big three'--who are working in
and with the State Department. Lucas challenged McCarthy to name names.
McCarthy refused, saying Lucas or any other interested authorities could get
the names at McCarthy's office."
"The Senate
voted 67 to 22 to censure McCarthy" (See the end of the article.)
"Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy died soon after the censure, at the age of
48, of hepatitis and liver disease related to alcoholism."
Senator McCarthy gave many people a big Red scare. However, in the end,
everyone realized that he was a liar.
Software failure: Slashdot's system posted my comment in the wrong
position. Hopefully this will be posted as an answer to Jaysyn, under comment
#6704329
My comment: That's right. In several email conversations, I questioned
Vint Cerf about this,
and he said that Al Gore was extremely important in making DarpaNet, a
research tool at a U.S. government organization, into the Internet, a public
utility available to all.
DARPA is the U.S. government's violence research department. DARPA is devoted
to finding more efficient ways to kill people. In the beginning of networking
computers together, there was no intention of benefiting anyone.
According to Mr. Cerf, Al Gore recognized the importance of a public computer
network long before other public officials knew anything about computers, and
made sure the public network had funding.
Some have called Mr. Cerf, "The Father of the Internet", but, as his biography
says, many people were involved. Mr. Gore was the main promoter, "father", of
the public utility we now call the Internet.
That's right. In several email conversations, I questioned Vint Cerf about this,
and he said that Al Gore was extremely important in making DarpaNet, a
research tool at a U.S. government organization, into the Internet, a public
utility available to all.
DARPA is the U.S. government's violence research department. DARPA is devoted
to finding more efficient ways to kill people. In the beginning of networking
computers together, there was no intention of benefiting anyone.
According to Mr. Cerf, Al Gore recognized the importance of a public computer
network long before other public officials knew anything about computers, and
made sure the public network had funding.
Some have called Mr. Cerf, "The Father of the Internet", but, as his biography
says, many people were involved. Mr. Gore was the main promoter, "father", of
the public utility we now call the Internet.
True. However, Niacin is water soluble. I stand by what I said in my earlier 3 posts in this thread. Niacin should be investigated by people interested in becoming more mentally sharp.
My comment above at the beginning of the thread about Niacin was intended to encourage Slashdot readers to do research about Niacin. It was not intended to suggest that someone would take Niacin just because they saw a short message on Slashdot.
My reply just above was meant for rtaylor, not for the parent poster; posted in error.
I tried Creatine and could tell no difference. Creatine is expensive and a few manufacturers will make millions if people start taking it to become smart. Be careful, the "medical reseach" could be an ad, not a medical study. Sometimes even the BBC is scammed.
Sheesh. I spent two hours writing a Slashdot comment about computer power supplies: Think carefully about paying more. But I don't always have time to write a complete article, and sometimes non-thinking people think that an incomplete explanation is an easy reason for attacking someone else and giving vent to their anger.
Large doses of Niacin have been studied extensively because Niacin reduces Cholesterol levels. The amount for reducing Cholesterol is 3 times what I recommended above. I've seen the research studies in medical journals.
I've taken a gram of Niacin every day for more than 20 years, with no problems. My Cholesterol level is very low.
A much cheaper way to boost your brain power is to take Niacin (not Niacinamide). Many people notice that their mental clarity is remarkably better when they have had 500 milligrams of Niacin.
Take Niacin only after meals to avoid skin flushing (redness and tingling which lasts about 15 minutes), and only with an equal quantity of Vitamin C.
There are flush-free Niacin compounds and timed-release versions on the market of varying quality in their ability to prevent flushing.
Antec does NOT make power supplies. The buy them from a Chinese manufacturer, I forget who. I have never liked Antec supplies, they seem very expensive and often limited in features.
More and more companies are basing their business plans on taking advantage of the overclocker, gamer, case modder, or PC enthusiast who doesn't have much technical knowledge. These have slick sales literature and fancy graphics. They also may have no one at the company who knows or cares about the technical details of the product. I feel qualified to say this because, back when I was an electrical engineer, I have designed power supplies and industrial power control devices.
"Monster cables" won't give you better audio than cheap wire of the same gauge. Similarly, paying a lot of money for a power supply is very unlikely to get you any difference in computer performance, provided you buy a quality low-cost supply.
We pay $26 wholesale for our 350 Watt KingWin Kwi-350W power supplies, and they are fine. Froogle.google.com says they can be bought retail for $32. The AnandTech article discusses the Kingwin KWI-450, which they say costs $95. Why didn't they review the supply from Kingwin that is 1/3 the cost?
One guess is that the entire AnandTech article is a hidden Directron.com advertisement. Maybe Directron.com does not want you to know that you don't need to pay more, and that you will derive no benefit from giving Directron more profit.
The AnandTech article says, "Directron.com let us pick one of every new power supply off their shelves in order to put together a sample of 18 of the newer power supplies on the market right now."
The article says about the Kingwin KWI-450WABK, "We received our quad fan Kingwin supply well before the TTGI units had hit American soil. The unit was well received in the lab, but as we noticed when the TTGI units arrived, practically identical in construction. TTGI and Kingwin obtain their components from the same manufacturers in Taiwan."
"Practically identical" does NOT mean identical. Directron's 350 Watt TTGI TT-350SS is $28.99. It looks a lot like the KingWin 350 Watt supply, but is different; the TTGI supply does not have most of the labels that are on the KingWin supply, for example.
Look below at that link for what Directron says about their warranty: "Customer is responsible for returning defective products including DOA due to manufacturer unless testing is paid before shipping." DOA means "Dead on Arrival". Very clearly, Directron says that they do NOT stand behind their products.
Directron's warranty may be translated as, "If what we ship you doesn't work, tough luck, don't bother mentioning it to Directron, you are on your own, complain to the manufacturer, and pay the shipping costs to where the manufacturer is located, but we won't tell you in advance where that is, because you might buy directly from the manufacturer." Only if you pay more will Directron stand behind what they ship. So the true cost is not $28.99, unless you want to take your chances.
I suspect, and I have plenty of evidence, that when companies ask you to pay more for testing if you want a warranty from them, you get absolutely no testing. What you get is only the right to return a DOA unit to them.
Notice something else about that Directron page. The price is an image, not text, from a different server, yimg.com. Does anyone know why they do that? I don't.
There is plenty of evidence that the people at AnandTech have little technical understanding. Maybe the site makes money by doing things their advertisers want, which may be different from what is good for you.
What is the cost to Cisco of being featured in a negative way on Slashdot?
Companies should think about the cost of publicity before they choose to abuse
their customers.
Cisco's cost could be very large. Not only is there support in this Slashdot
story for "Resist Cisco", there is the cost to Cisco of some of the readers
learning for the first time that there are other alternatives.
I've been abused by Cisco, too. My reaction is to try to avoid any dealings
with them. Abusiveness is like them shouting to me, "We're doing poorly, and
we have no other way to make money."
I've watched abusive companies over the years, and discovered that abusiveness
is a good predictor that a company believes it is on the way down.
Novell is an example. Novell was rough on its customers when it had 85% of the
network market. A few years later it was a far smaller company. The
abusiveness helps make you aware of the forecast of insiders about the
prospects of a company.
Exactly right. Big pieces of plastic suffer from fatigue. While aircraft aluminum begins to fatigue in 20 years, under continuous vibration big pieces of polyethylene fatigue and develop huge cracks in 20 days.
The C5 showed that Clive Sinclair has little design sense. It put the driver in a position to see himself crushed as a car ran over him. Of course, hopefully the driver of the car would see the little flag on the C5.
Slashdot Mirror
Would you post your script?
Yes, that is certainly one interpretation. However, another interpretation is that the support person did not understand the question. I need a useful answer to my question, which would be one not open to interpretation.
The new WinZip 9.0 beta has AES encryption, that is being added in the best possible way:
AES Encryption Information
AES Coding Tips for Developers
There are many new features to this upgrade. Upgrades are free to registered users.
WinZip has a spanning option: "-&[w] Span to multiple removable disks. Use the optional w suffix to wipe out all files on the removable disk." However, I've never used it, and I don't think it writes directly to DVDs or CDs. There is no way to have WinZip span to multiple zip files of specified length, apparently.
MOD PARENT UP!!!
The parent post describes a serious backup scheme, and shows how complicated it is to do it right.
I agree about BackupExec. I've had enormous troubles with Veritas products (formerly Seagate). Two years of arguing with Veritas technical support brought no sufficient answers. (But, my information is now old, since I've had nothing to do with Veritas recently.)
One necessity the parent post did not mention: Encryption. Backups need to be encrypted. They need to be stored in a physically separate location, and such a location may not be completely secure.
There should have been one more requirement listed in the Slashdot story: Encryption. If your backups are encrypted, then you can leave them anywhere.
Comments about Dantz Retrospect:
Retrospect has encryption built in. This is valuable, since you can take the CDs and put them anywhere for safe-keeping, like at work if they are a home backup. However, the encryption was the CPU intensive DES. Is this still true?
Retrospect had a weird, annoying interface that was a combination of a bad design and an incomplete port from the original Mac platform. Is this still true?
Retrospect also leaves 30 megabyte files on your hard drive that are necessary if you want to look for a file in the backup. Is that still true?
Retrospect was so primitive in some ways that I stopped using it. Dantz did a small upgrade and asked something like $100 for the new version. Dantz is apparently a company that has been sold to people with little technical background. Is that true?
On August 4, I sent this message to Nero technical support:
To: Nero (Ahead Software) Technical Support (techsupport@nero.com)
Subject: Does Nero have the Roxio flaw?
Does Nero 6 Ultra Edition burn to DVD all the files in a directory that is included in a compilation, or just the files that were there when the compilation was made?
Roxio Easy CD Creator saves only the files that were in the original compilation, even though more files may have been added to the folder. This is, in my opinion, a big problem, since it means that a new compilation must be made every time for folders in which files are frequently added.
I got back a generic, useless answer:
Dear valued Customer,
Thank you for your email.
Nero is a powerful program it will backup all files.
If you have any further questions please do not hestitate to contact us.
best regards
Ismael
US Ahead Support Team
Yes, but you forgot to mention that a large percentage of all cats you have ever known are defective.
Exactly. ALL you need to know about
"... several megs of patches..."
To be specific, there have been 45 megabytes of patches for critical vulnerabilities since Windows XP service pack 1. I know this because over the weekend I installed Windows XP from a CD that has SP1 incorporated, and then I went to windowsupdate.microsoft.com and selected all the critical patches.
From the Slashdot story: "SCO now says there are over a million lines of offending code in Linux and they still won't show them to anybody."
This reminds me of Senator Joseph McCarthy's 1950 Communists in the State Department speech. See the end of the article for a quote from Senator McCarthy:
"I have in my hand fifty-seven cases of individuals who would appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy."
Senator Joseph McCarthy said he would show Dean Acheson, then U.S. Secretary of State, the list, but only under special conditions that often changed. McCarthy said: "It would be a waste of effort to give Acheson the names, then have him deny they are Communists and we can not get the records."
The number of Communists McCarthy said were in the U.S. State Department also often changed, too. Soon it was "81 subversives":
The article cited above says, "Senator Lucas of Illinois, Democratic leader, repeatedly tangled with McCarthy, who also said he has case histories of 81 subversives--including what he called a 'big three'--who are working in and with the State Department. Lucas challenged McCarthy to name names. McCarthy refused, saying Lucas or any other interested authorities could get the names at McCarthy's office."
"The Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure McCarthy" (See the end of the article.) "Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy died soon after the censure, at the age of 48, of hepatitis and liver disease related to alcoholism."
Senator McCarthy gave many people a big Red scare. However, in the end, everyone realized that he was a liar.
To me the most significant feature of .NET is that the languages are more easily de-compiled.
Software failure: Slashdot's system posted my comment in the wrong position. Hopefully this will be posted as an answer to Jaysyn, under comment #6704329
My comment: That's right. In several email conversations, I questioned Vint Cerf about this, and he said that Al Gore was extremely important in making DarpaNet, a research tool at a U.S. government organization, into the Internet, a public utility available to all.
DARPA is the U.S. government's violence research department. DARPA is devoted to finding more efficient ways to kill people. In the beginning of networking computers together, there was no intention of benefiting anyone.
According to Mr. Cerf, Al Gore recognized the importance of a public computer network long before other public officials knew anything about computers, and made sure the public network had funding.
Some have called Mr. Cerf, "The Father of the Internet", but, as his biography says, many people were involved. Mr. Gore was the main promoter, "father", of the public utility we now call the Internet.
That's right. In several email conversations, I questioned Vint Cerf about this, and he said that Al Gore was extremely important in making DarpaNet, a research tool at a U.S. government organization, into the Internet, a public utility available to all.
DARPA is the U.S. government's violence research department. DARPA is devoted to finding more efficient ways to kill people. In the beginning of networking computers together, there was no intention of benefiting anyone.
According to Mr. Cerf, Al Gore recognized the importance of a public computer network long before other public officials knew anything about computers, and made sure the public network had funding.
Some have called Mr. Cerf, "The Father of the Internet", but, as his biography says, many people were involved. Mr. Gore was the main promoter, "father", of the public utility we now call the Internet.
True. However, Niacin is water soluble. I stand by what I said in my earlier 3 posts in this thread. Niacin should be investigated by people interested in becoming more mentally sharp.
My comment above at the beginning of the thread about Niacin was intended to encourage Slashdot readers to do research about Niacin. It was not intended to suggest that someone would take Niacin just because they saw a short message on Slashdot.
My reply just above was meant for rtaylor, not for the parent poster; posted in error.
I tried Creatine and could tell no difference. Creatine is expensive and a few manufacturers will make millions if people start taking it to become smart. Be careful, the "medical reseach" could be an ad, not a medical study. Sometimes even the BBC is scammed.
Sheesh. I spent two hours writing a Slashdot comment about computer power supplies: Think carefully about paying more. But I don't always have time to write a complete article, and sometimes non-thinking people think that an incomplete explanation is an easy reason for attacking someone else and giving vent to their anger.
Large doses of Niacin have been studied extensively because Niacin reduces Cholesterol levels. The amount for reducing Cholesterol is 3 times what I recommended above. I've seen the research studies in medical journals.
I've taken a gram of Niacin every day for more than 20 years, with no problems. My Cholesterol level is very low.
A much cheaper way to boost your brain power is to take Niacin (not Niacinamide). Many people notice that their mental clarity is remarkably better when they have had 500 milligrams of Niacin.
Take Niacin only after meals to avoid skin flushing (redness and tingling which lasts about 15 minutes), and only with an equal quantity of Vitamin C.
There are flush-free Niacin compounds and timed-release versions on the market of varying quality in their ability to prevent flushing.
Niacin is a vitamin, so it is completely safe.
Be careful. The AnandTech article and the comments to the Slashdot article are full of mis-information. Here are reliable comments:
Not wanting to put a downer on things..., #6664769 (Poster says he runs a review lab.)
Design Engineer, Power Supplies, Computers, #6665630
Bad power supply tests, #6666617
and my own comment. Read why I think the memory tests are not reality, but a sales tool: Think carefully about paying more, #6667576
"BUT the power supply had to a very good one
Antec supplies seem extremely expensive to me. I've never noted any extra value.
Antec does NOT make power supplies. The buy them from a Chinese manufacturer, I forget who. I have never liked Antec supplies, they seem very expensive and often limited in features.
Try KingWin supplies. Read about them, and other power supply issues, in my other post, Think carefully about paying more.
More and more companies are basing their business plans on taking advantage of the overclocker, gamer, case modder, or PC enthusiast who doesn't have much technical knowledge. These have slick sales literature and fancy graphics. They also may have no one at the company who knows or cares about the technical details of the product. I feel qualified to say this because, back when I was an electrical engineer, I have designed power supplies and industrial power control devices.
"Monster cables" won't give you better audio than cheap wire of the same gauge. Similarly, paying a lot of money for a power supply is very unlikely to get you any difference in computer performance, provided you buy a quality low-cost supply.
We pay $26 wholesale for our 350 Watt KingWin Kwi-350W power supplies, and they are fine. Froogle.google.com says they can be bought retail for $32. The AnandTech article discusses the Kingwin KWI-450, which they say costs $95. Why didn't they review the supply from Kingwin that is 1/3 the cost?
One guess is that the entire AnandTech article is a hidden Directron.com advertisement. Maybe Directron.com does not want you to know that you don't need to pay more, and that you will derive no benefit from giving Directron more profit.
The AnandTech article says, "Directron.com let us pick one of every new power supply off their shelves in order to put together a sample of 18 of the newer power supplies on the market right now."
The article says about the Kingwin KWI-450WABK, "We received our quad fan Kingwin supply well before the TTGI units had hit American soil. The unit was well received in the lab, but as we noticed when the TTGI units arrived, practically identical in construction. TTGI and Kingwin obtain their components from the same manufacturers in Taiwan."
"Practically identical" does NOT mean identical. Directron's 350 Watt TTGI TT-350SS is $28.99. It looks a lot like the KingWin 350 Watt supply, but is different; the TTGI supply does not have most of the labels that are on the KingWin supply, for example.
Look below at that link for what Directron says about their warranty: "Customer is responsible for returning defective products including DOA due to manufacturer unless testing is paid before shipping." DOA means "Dead on Arrival". Very clearly, Directron says that they do NOT stand behind their products.
Directron's warranty may be translated as, "If what we ship you doesn't work, tough luck, don't bother mentioning it to Directron, you are on your own, complain to the manufacturer, and pay the shipping costs to where the manufacturer is located, but we won't tell you in advance where that is, because you might buy directly from the manufacturer." Only if you pay more will Directron stand behind what they ship. So the true cost is not $28.99, unless you want to take your chances.
I suspect, and I have plenty of evidence, that when companies ask you to pay more for testing if you want a warranty from them, you get absolutely no testing. What you get is only the right to return a DOA unit to them.
Notice something else about that Directron page. The price is an image, not text, from a different server, yimg.com. Does anyone know why they do that? I don't.
There is plenty of evidence that the people at AnandTech have little technical understanding. Maybe the site makes money by doing things their advertisers want, which may be different from what is good for you.
The first page of the AnandTech article says, "We then ran several exhaustive tests on these pow
What is the cost to Cisco of being featured in a negative way on Slashdot? Companies should think about the cost of publicity before they choose to abuse their customers.
Cisco's cost could be very large. Not only is there support in this Slashdot story for "Resist Cisco", there is the cost to Cisco of some of the readers learning for the first time that there are other alternatives.
I've been abused by Cisco, too. My reaction is to try to avoid any dealings with them. Abusiveness is like them shouting to me, "We're doing poorly, and we have no other way to make money."
I've watched abusive companies over the years, and discovered that abusiveness is a good predictor that a company believes it is on the way down. Novell is an example. Novell was rough on its customers when it had 85% of the network market. A few years later it was a far smaller company. The abusiveness helps make you aware of the forecast of insiders about the prospects of a company.
From the article:
"reiser4 171.28s, 30%CPU (1.0000x time; 1.0x CPU)
reiserfs 302.53s, 16%CPU (1.7663x time; 0.53x CPU)
What's interesting:
* reiser4 had highest throughput and most CPU usage"
The comparison seems incomplete to me. Reiser4 took about half the time, with twice the CPU usage. The
Total Work Done by the CPU = Percent * Time.
Reiser4 did the work in half the time, but the total work was roughly equal. Actually, ReiserFS was more efficient considering total CPU cycles.
Exactly right. Big pieces of plastic suffer from fatigue. While aircraft aluminum begins to fatigue in 20 years, under continuous vibration big pieces of polyethylene fatigue and develop huge cracks in 20 days.
The C5 showed that Clive Sinclair has little design sense. It put the driver in a position to see himself crushed as a car ran over him. Of course, hopefully the driver of the car would see the little flag on the C5.