Watch out for those "green" drives. We used ~a dozen of them in various (linux-based, whitebox & "proper" server-based) configurations and found they had the highest failure rate of any drive we've used. At the very least, a) read up on them and b) regardless of drive, monitor their S.M.A.R.T parameters for early signs of
failure (specifically bad sectors) and replace the drives when more than a few of these happen.
The three biggest problems imho with RAID are:
1. The controller issue you mention above -- we use software RAID on linux for this reason (most of the time)
2. Do you know when a drive is actually dead? It can be mostly dead and you don't know unless it gets kicked out of the array. It's scary how often 2 or more drives get booted from an array in short succession too. SMART monitoring is a must (Google did a major study on HD risk failures years back - *any* bad sectors at all, and particularly rate of change in bad sectors were the single biggest indicators of near-certain drive death within 6 months)
3. What happens (specifically to the various layers of caching) under power loss
#3 in particular is why some spend big bucks on expensive RAID solutions, #1 to an extent as well and particularly if you want 'performance'. You don't need this level of crazy, but you still need to be aware where your risks are so you can work around them.
Actually it would require a rewriting of the SMTP protocol:P
However, the standard solution is to use port forwarding on an external unencumbered host accepting inbound port 25 and forwarding to your unblocked port (e.g. 1025). You can use a smarthost to similarly forward external email via another 'unblocked' host.
This generally gets you closer to the benefits of a "local" mail server vs simply hosting your mail server external to your network.
Presumably this definition depends on the jurisdiction. At least in AU a contractor is as DragonWriter describes. A consultant can either be a contractor or an employee of a company. So typically it goes:
Internal roles:
casual employee (works less than full time, includes a 'loading' in their base rate to account for not paying them holiday pay, sick pay, long service leave etc)
part-time employee - same rights as full-time employee, but doesn't work full-time hours
full-time employee, fixed term - a full-time employee with an end-date
full-time employee - a full-time employee with an expectation of ongoing employment
Semi-external roles:
labour hire/temp - internal staff member 'loaned' by a 3rd party e.g. resourcing firm
External roles:
contractor - individual, usually with specialised skills &/or equipment, which is responsible for OUTCOMES not just effort. However they are often paid on an hourly basis. When they are, they are held to a higher standard of quality/responsibility than internal employees. They usually provide their own equipment, often work from home and typically only charge for directly produce work related to the task at hand.
company - of course a 'contract' defines the role provided, but usually the people providing the service on behalf of the company are employees of the external company. e.g. IT Consulting firms. They may be contractors etc. There are many advantages to this situation over hiring a straight contractor or any of the internal roles, but the cost is almost always higher due to overheads.
Dropbox is a decidedly single-user solution. Try running a corporate network of 20 people using add-hoc cloud-based file-sharing with no file locking. And try doing it without getting "Why can't I access xyz file?" or "What happened to my data?" questions every 15 minutes.
File locking sounds like technical minutae until you realise it's probably the single biggest feature requirement of a reliable storage solution. Use a commodity NAS instead of you want free/cheap (just be wary that your backup position is likely to be unknown/untested, but that's probably on a par with giving the task to someone who doesn't know WTF they're doing on raw linux or M$ platforms).
BTW there are some annoying limits with GMail for domains. Again though, beats trying to be a mail admin who doesn't know wtf they are doing:P
With mobile broadband plans like Soul (Optus reseller) 1GB/month for $20 with a free modem over 24 months or Vodafone $39/5GB (which I use), you're going to be hard-pressed to find an ADSL connection that gives you that much speed & data at cost parity on its own, let alone once you throw in the $30 Telstra tax of having to have a landline.
As for a landline, last I checked, unless you get naked DSL, you're up for Telstra's $30/mth plan just for a phone line to use with a non-Telstra ADSL provider. Their
As an IT Consultant, I find most users (even techy ones!) are increasingly heading towards online services and using less and less computing resources (unless they install Vista) - basically using their machine as a Web terminal with some basic local programs - Office, file storage and maybe some utilities. A web browser, maybe an IDE and putty/ssh are all a lot of people need. This kind of usage goes well with mobile broadband, where the drop in latency (kills games and highly interactive client/server apps) and pain of connection (it takes time, and doesn't always work) are offset by both the convenience AND the cost. The cost argument is probably different outside of Aus, but here where you need to spend $50 per month to get more quota with ADSL than you do on mobile broadband, it's significant.
For renters, this is great. Particularly people in share houses (where people moving in/out or one person using all the quota can create issues, let alone the infrastructure cost and hassle of setting up cabling or secure (yet still compatible) wireless). $20/mth buys you 1GB of Internet quota. If you don't bittorrent (and when you're saving $30-$70+ per month by not having ADSL, you can suddenly afford a lot more DVDs) or download heaps, you'll be fine within that 1GB. Just don't expect it to reach the "maximum" speed too often, and don't expect it to feel overly fast. But it's certainly better than dial-up, and heaps more convenience.
Then why don't 99% of the world get it, let alone act on it? Rarely have I been into even a lowly retail store where this philosophy was actually ingrained. Too often, psychological defense mechanisms kick in and the manager just starts trying to justify their position. Nobody gives a rats about their position. That's not to say the customer is always right, but usually the balancing act needs to be a lot more skewed in their favour. It doesn't matter if the customer is wrong. If they actively badmouth you, you lose, not them.
It just says you can't put restrictions on how they use it or the code.
Restrictions such as those embedded in copyright (et al) law precluding your competitors from taking your entire product and selling it to your customers for less than what you do. An Arbitrage opportunity briefly exists until the price of the software reaches zero and you start selling support.
I guess it depends how you define 'they'...
Perhaps we're arguing two sides of the same coin. I was trying to say it's possible to pass and even do quite well, particularly when classes aren't as well-structured as they should be. (This is The University of Melbourne I'm talking about - not some minor institution). If your goal is to simply pass, get ok grades and get your piece of paper, the system makes it all-too-easy for you. If you want to learn something, then no, replicating my statement above isn't going to help you. I almost completely disassociate marks with learning - whilst they can be correlated, I'd rather learn something and get 70 for a subject than get 90 by mastering revision techniques.
Also, I was focussing on 'marginal benefit'. Given the imperfect setting of exams (in that they relate closely to past exams, lecture problems, tutorials, textbook, etc.), then even if you know everything you should about the subject, a few hours of targeted revision on the techniques will yield vastly improved results. Some people learn all they need to during the semester, then just spend a few hours 'tidying it up' at the end. Some people do revision as they go; some don't. If you have a good memory and think about the problems every day (applying them to everyday scenarios, etc.) then you don't necessarily need extra dedicated study. It doesn't diminish your capacity or that of the Institution to do this. It does diminish the Institution's reputation if exams can be passed only with a few hours of revision. Some can, and it's a shame.
I agree completely re wasting time. I'm doing a Masters in Business & IT at the moment, and some subjects have been a waste of time (Strategic Management, Marketing Management, Knowledge Management). Others have been fantastic (Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Project Management, Business Finance). Sometimes you don't know which it will be until well into the semester when it is too late. When I detect a subject I 'hate', I tend to spend proportionally less time studying what I should be studying (according to the lecturer) and more time studying peripheral material, such as heaps of books on corporate history - Apple, Intel, Enron, etc. Sure, you can do that without the college degree, but sometimes college can provide that stimulus. It's what you make of it.
Once your at the exam, even the night before, there's nothing you can do that is going to increase your knowledge
I disagree. For the vast majority of undergrad CS subjects, a day or two of revision was plenty. For the 'soft' subjects (management, etc.) a few hours was more than enough to memorise the buzzwords. Sure, it requires having been to the classes and knowing what's going on, but don't underestimate the marginal benefit of a few hours of targeted revision right before the exam. Particularly when lecturers set exams that are all-too-similar to the tutorial questions, past exams or textbook questions.
If you're talking process-based subjects (e.g. differential calculus), a few hours may not help you. But a higher-level subject on project management? A few hours of dedicated study is all you often need.
In my professional experience as an IT Consultant, I have found HP scanners (mass market end) to be the WORST pieces of junk I have ever seen. I refer specifically to their driver software which is buggy, highly coupled with other software and configuration settings it shouldn't be, makes assumptions about your environment, is not always available from HP's website for download. The scanners themselves are cheaply built and unreliable.
Do not buy a low-end HP scanner no matter what you do.
In my professional experience as an IT Consultant, I have found HP scanners (mass market end) to be the WORST pieces of junk I have ever seen. I refer specifically to their driver software which is buggy, highly coupled with other software and configuration settings it shouldn't be with, makes assumptions about your environment, is not always available from HP's website for download. The scanners themselves are cheaply built and unreliable.
Do not buy a low-end HP scanner no matter what you do.
I tried installing GDS2 on my system, only to have it complain about NOD32. Nothing like having to uninstall your virus scanner to run it!!! (not happening...)
There has been an error with your search
This search query has been blocked at the request of the copyright holder, in compliance with
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA")
I was betting mates this would happen... shame I didn't put a $ figure on it;-)
Simple. The damages would be greater the they leave it. And suing them just prior to launch is guaranteed to get the maximum media coverage.
These kinds of actions, regardless of merit, are clearly designed to be both punitive and attempt to recover the most funds. If they'd done it a year ago, Apple could have changed the name quite easily. But now, there is considerable effort in doing so and reversing all those marketing dollars, every one of which tigerdirect hopes to cash in on.
I think the timing is poor, regardless of the merit of the suit (which will inevitably come down to the interpretation of trademark domains)
DRK
I think every IT professional, if not user, has come across this phenomenon. Even if you keep everything else constant (insomuch as you have control), the thing JUST. GETS. SLOWER. My theory? It's because you get used to faster technologies around you. Use a different computer (faster) at work, and that Mac LC II at home just doesn't seem so quick any more. Even just use it once and you get a different feedback response, something much more closely approximating 'instant'.
Of course, fragmenting etc. affects it, no doubt. But I'm talking even after a reinstall of the exact original software, the thing will just 'feel' slower. It's all based on perception. Win XP is by no means quick, on any hardware I've used (up to P4/2.4), in terms of UI response. Mac OS X is a joke on anything less than Panther on a G4.
Personally I know it's time to upgrade my system when the UI responsiveness is too slow to bear. That usually comes with having to install the latest Internet Software (IE, Real, WMP, etc.) and/or Operating System, just to access poorly-designed websites. But even if I don't upgrade anything, my experiences with using systems elsewhere make my static, unchanging, regularly defragged and reinstalled system just that much less enjoyable to use.
Sure, to your average./ linux geek, not having the _choice_ of desktop environment is sacreligious, but in order to push linux into new markets, a unified, consistent GUI is one of the things needed. Support costs decrease. Documentation (user-level) can be written for a single interface. Users moving from one (UserLinux) system to another receive the same feedback, which reinforces their learning.
What linux _really_ needs (for the purpose of appeasing your everyday, business/home user) is to adopt the approach Apple took with MacOS X. It presents a single unified interface, well-designed apps, etc. but lets you add the rest yourself. It's powerful in the way that OS 9 wasn't. But because it's UNIX underneath, you know you can get in there and change it. You don't need to be an expert to do that - someone else will develop a little GUI wrapper to do it for you. But the fact is it's possible.
We've all known and loved this about Linux for years, but it's mass-market adoption is being stifled by lack of a unified interface. Aesthetics is something Apple learnt a long time ago. It counts.
The point of the various distributions is to target different audiences, to package things in different ways, to pursue different directions. If you don't like one particular distro, choose another. But we really need a distro that is consistent, and doesn't compromise on security (like Lindows). In fact, we need several. Let them fight it out. May the best distro win.
I live in AUS, and this semester I got one two of my textbooks shipped from the US faster than the Uni's bookstore could order it from their supplier. (And that was without priority shipping). It turned out marginally cheaper too, so I decided to pay for the priority shipping.
For most computer texts, it's easier to order from Amazon than pay $AUD retail. (That said, places like Angus & Robertson have 20% off computer books every day).
Thanks to this story, I'll now look elsewhere (such as amazon.co.uk) for my books - but if you think you're being hard done by in the US, try buying stuff here in Australia!!!
Slashdot Mirror
failure (specifically bad sectors) and replace the drives when more than a few of these happen.
The three biggest problems imho with RAID are:
#3 in particular is why some spend big bucks on expensive RAID solutions, #1 to an extent as well and particularly if you want 'performance'. You don't need this level of crazy, but you still need to be aware where your risks are so you can work around them.
> Flawed logic at it's best.
Flawed grammar at its best.
Actually it would require a rewriting of the SMTP protocol :P
However, the standard solution is to use port forwarding on an external unencumbered host accepting inbound port 25 and forwarding to your unblocked port (e.g. 1025). You can use a smarthost to similarly forward external email via another 'unblocked' host.
This generally gets you closer to the benefits of a "local" mail server vs simply hosting your mail server external to your network.
Presumably this definition depends on the jurisdiction. At least in AU a contractor is as DragonWriter describes. A consultant can either be a contractor or an employee of a company. So typically it goes:
Internal roles:
Semi-external roles:
External roles:
David
Dropbox is a decidedly single-user solution. Try running a corporate network of 20 people using add-hoc cloud-based file-sharing with no file locking. And try doing it without getting "Why can't I access xyz file?" or "What happened to my data?" questions every 15 minutes. File locking sounds like technical minutae until you realise it's probably the single biggest feature requirement of a reliable storage solution. Use a commodity NAS instead of you want free/cheap (just be wary that your backup position is likely to be unknown/untested, but that's probably on a par with giving the task to someone who doesn't know WTF they're doing on raw linux or M$ platforms). BTW there are some annoying limits with GMail for domains. Again though, beats trying to be a mail admin who doesn't know wtf they are doing :P
With mobile broadband plans like Soul (Optus reseller) 1GB/month for $20 with a free modem over 24 months or Vodafone $39/5GB (which I use), you're going to be hard-pressed to find an ADSL connection that gives you that much speed & data at cost parity on its own, let alone once you throw in the $30 Telstra tax of having to have a landline.
As for a landline, last I checked, unless you get naked DSL, you're up for Telstra's $30/mth plan just for a phone line to use with a non-Telstra ADSL provider. Their
As an IT Consultant, I find most users (even techy ones!) are increasingly heading towards online services and using less and less computing resources (unless they install Vista) - basically using their machine as a Web terminal with some basic local programs - Office, file storage and maybe some utilities. A web browser, maybe an IDE and putty/ssh are all a lot of people need. This kind of usage goes well with mobile broadband, where the drop in latency (kills games and highly interactive client/server apps) and pain of connection (it takes time, and doesn't always work) are offset by both the convenience AND the cost. The cost argument is probably different outside of Aus, but here where you need to spend $50 per month to get more quota with ADSL than you do on mobile broadband, it's significant.
For renters, this is great. Particularly people in share houses (where people moving in/out or one person using all the quota can create issues, let alone the infrastructure cost and hassle of setting up cabling or secure (yet still compatible) wireless). $20/mth buys you 1GB of Internet quota. If you don't bittorrent (and when you're saving $30-$70+ per month by not having ADSL, you can suddenly afford a lot more DVDs) or download heaps, you'll be fine within that 1GB. Just don't expect it to reach the "maximum" speed too often, and don't expect it to feel overly fast. But it's certainly better than dial-up, and heaps more convenience.
Yes but the past participle as used in the passive is 'smitten', as the poster above you states.
Then why don't 99% of the world get it, let alone act on it? Rarely have I been into even a lowly retail store where this philosophy was actually ingrained. Too often, psychological defense mechanisms kick in and the manager just starts trying to justify their position. Nobody gives a rats about their position. That's not to say the customer is always right, but usually the balancing act needs to be a lot more skewed in their favour. It doesn't matter if the customer is wrong. If they actively badmouth you, you lose, not them.
The problem is when 'most people' are using a different tenth of Office's functionality :P
Yes, so much so that http://www.mirrordot.org/ didn't appear to have time to cache it!
Perhaps we're arguing two sides of the same coin. I was trying to say it's possible to pass and even do quite well, particularly when classes aren't as well-structured as they should be. (This is The University of Melbourne I'm talking about - not some minor institution). If your goal is to simply pass, get ok grades and get your piece of paper, the system makes it all-too-easy for you. If you want to learn something, then no, replicating my statement above isn't going to help you. I almost completely disassociate marks with learning - whilst they can be correlated, I'd rather learn something and get 70 for a subject than get 90 by mastering revision techniques. Also, I was focussing on 'marginal benefit'. Given the imperfect setting of exams (in that they relate closely to past exams, lecture problems, tutorials, textbook, etc.), then even if you know everything you should about the subject, a few hours of targeted revision on the techniques will yield vastly improved results. Some people learn all they need to during the semester, then just spend a few hours 'tidying it up' at the end. Some people do revision as they go; some don't. If you have a good memory and think about the problems every day (applying them to everyday scenarios, etc.) then you don't necessarily need extra dedicated study. It doesn't diminish your capacity or that of the Institution to do this. It does diminish the Institution's reputation if exams can be passed only with a few hours of revision. Some can, and it's a shame. I agree completely re wasting time. I'm doing a Masters in Business & IT at the moment, and some subjects have been a waste of time (Strategic Management, Marketing Management, Knowledge Management). Others have been fantastic (Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Project Management, Business Finance). Sometimes you don't know which it will be until well into the semester when it is too late. When I detect a subject I 'hate', I tend to spend proportionally less time studying what I should be studying (according to the lecturer) and more time studying peripheral material, such as heaps of books on corporate history - Apple, Intel, Enron, etc. Sure, you can do that without the college degree, but sometimes college can provide that stimulus. It's what you make of it.
In my professional experience as an IT Consultant, I have found HP scanners (mass market end) to be the WORST pieces of junk I have ever seen. I refer specifically to their driver software which is buggy, highly coupled with other software and configuration settings it shouldn't be, makes assumptions about your environment, is not always available from HP's website for download. The scanners themselves are cheaply built and unreliable. Do not buy a low-end HP scanner no matter what you do.
In my professional experience as an IT Consultant, I have found HP scanners (mass market end) to be the WORST pieces of junk I have ever seen. I refer specifically to their driver software which is buggy, highly coupled with other software and configuration settings it shouldn't be with, makes assumptions about your environment, is not always available from HP's website for download. The scanners themselves are cheaply built and unreliable. Do not buy a low-end HP scanner no matter what you do.
I tried installing GDS2 on my system, only to have it complain about NOD32. Nothing like having to uninstall your virus scanner to run it!!! (not happening...)
n swer=22898
Further info:
http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?a
Yes, of course. I should have elaborated in my post... clearly this is one site, with one search string via one entry vector 'blocked'.
It is more indicative of the speed of response of Apple's legal team than anything else.
DRK
Simple. The damages would be greater the they leave it. And suing them just prior to launch is guaranteed to get the maximum media coverage. These kinds of actions, regardless of merit, are clearly designed to be both punitive and attempt to recover the most funds. If they'd done it a year ago, Apple could have changed the name quite easily. But now, there is considerable effort in doing so and reversing all those marketing dollars, every one of which tigerdirect hopes to cash in on. I think the timing is poor, regardless of the merit of the suit (which will inevitably come down to the interpretation of trademark domains) DRK
I, for one, welcome our new Diebold overlords.
I think every IT professional, if not user, has come across this phenomenon. Even if you keep everything else constant (insomuch as you have control), the thing JUST. GETS. SLOWER. My theory? It's because you get used to faster technologies around you. Use a different computer (faster) at work, and that Mac LC II at home just doesn't seem so quick any more. Even just use it once and you get a different feedback response, something much more closely approximating 'instant'.
Of course, fragmenting etc. affects it, no doubt. But I'm talking even after a reinstall of the exact original software, the thing will just 'feel' slower. It's all based on perception. Win XP is by no means quick, on any hardware I've used (up to P4/2.4), in terms of UI response. Mac OS X is a joke on anything less than Panther on a G4.
Personally I know it's time to upgrade my system when the UI responsiveness is too slow to bear. That usually comes with having to install the latest Internet Software (IE, Real, WMP, etc.) and/or Operating System, just to access poorly-designed websites. But even if I don't upgrade anything, my experiences with using systems elsewhere make my static, unchanging, regularly defragged and reinstalled system just that much less enjoyable to use.
Sure, to your average ./ linux geek, not having the _choice_ of desktop environment is sacreligious, but in order to push linux into new markets, a unified, consistent GUI is one of the things needed. Support costs decrease. Documentation (user-level) can be written for a single interface. Users moving from one (UserLinux) system to another receive the same feedback, which reinforces their learning.
What linux _really_ needs (for the purpose of appeasing your everyday, business/home user) is to adopt the approach Apple took with MacOS X. It presents a single unified interface, well-designed apps, etc. but lets you add the rest yourself. It's powerful in the way that OS 9 wasn't. But because it's UNIX underneath, you know you can get in there and change it. You don't need to be an expert to do that - someone else will develop a little GUI wrapper to do it for you. But the fact is it's possible.
We've all known and loved this about Linux for years, but it's mass-market adoption is being stifled by lack of a unified interface. Aesthetics is something Apple learnt a long time ago. It counts.
The point of the various distributions is to target different audiences, to package things in different ways, to pursue different directions. If you don't like one particular distro, choose another. But we really need a distro that is consistent, and doesn't compromise on security (like Lindows). In fact, we need several. Let them fight it out. May the best distro win.
I live in AUS, and this semester I got one two of my textbooks shipped from the US faster than the Uni's bookstore could order it from their supplier. (And that was without priority shipping). It turned out marginally cheaper too, so I decided to pay for the priority shipping. For most computer texts, it's easier to order from Amazon than pay $AUD retail. (That said, places like Angus & Robertson have 20% off computer books every day). Thanks to this story, I'll now look elsewhere (such as amazon.co.uk) for my books - but if you think you're being hard done by in the US, try buying stuff here in Australia!!!
My job title is (I think) "IT Administrator", and it encompasses network administration, system administration and some desktop support too.
:-)
Although I tend to use the title "Network Administrator" more often