A few months ago, I downloaded some military briefings from the Gnutella Network. The briefings were zipped and the file contained 21 documents with classifications ranging from For Official Use Only to Secret/NO FORN. Shocked at my discovery, I notified an agency on a nearby military installation. When nothing happened, I notified another agency. I continued this course because no action was taken and for a nation at war, I was concerned for the safety of our soldiers.
Doesn't all information want to be free? Only a true patriot could come up with this reason for banning P2P networks. Great Propaganda and a real good excuse for the mrs when you're caught downloading porn again.
Anyone know if this will support Ogg? I'm still regretting putting my whole music collection into OGG format. IRiver is still a little expensive for me.
It's all well and good to have a CD to back up your precious files (Audio, Video, documents etc) to but this doesn't cut it as a real backup.
With disk space being so cheap now I keep a copy of all of my important data on my server, mapped drives to connect etc. I then have a login script that runs on a workstation and backs that data locally to the workstation (now I have two copies) - Windows users can use Robocopy and *nix users have rsync, both of these tools are exceptional and only copy the newer/changed files so the backup of 50+ gigs of data seldom takes more than 15 minutes.
I then back that up to one of two external hard disks, one of which is always in a safety deposit box.
CDs never were and never should have been a good backup solution. The technology will change. A good backup solution is one that changes with the technology. I know that these external drives will one day be obsolete but to there is no degradation of data like a CD that has flakes falling off of it after 2 months.
It's also far more cost effective and as I upgrade my computers over time I know my files will be updated too and when the tech moves beyond external hard drives I'll change the solution then. Backing up to CD once like that is asking for trouble if you never test the media, like I do on a daily basis, I still have old school assignments from 10+ years ago, pictures and business data that I know I will never lose.
that the FBI is taking care of our national security. This is definitely not a waste of time, money and manpower in my opinion. We should definitely be pandering to the RIAA and whoever they bought this week.
This is pathetic. FBI find some real criminals because this is a joke.
I moved to the US in March of 2001 from New Zealand. After working as a webmaster/network Engineer there I was in for a rude shock once my residency came in 7 months later.
I am now self employed as a network consultant to a few small companies and a small ISP. I install their servers, make up login scripts, train on spyware removal safe web browsing habits, maintain database servers etc. I'm earning about 25K and I'm almost to the point where I can turn away work.
Of course I get terrible returns on the time I have to spend training (we all know it's a love affair), Microsoft products are a nightmare to support and they have the absolute worst support there is.
I was always a Windows man but I have completely retrained myself in Linux. I can do anything on a Linux box that I can on a Windows server. It hasn't done a crap of good for me. I have had some limited success getting Mozilla and Thunderbird accepted on Windows workstations, Open Office is great for making PDF files. Other than that I haven't had any luck getting people to accept Linux workstations. My customers won't touch it knowing that I am the only person within a 100 mile radius that will even work on a Linux machine - Does anyone have any good Linux rollout stories?
I don't know how programmers in the smaller areas get by. At the ISP I work at it we have several hosted customers that employ Ukrainian programmers because they are so cheap. Even now I do the majority of my work through Terminal Services sessions from my Linux Workstation and I'm wondering how much longer I'll be needed...
That being said, there is still a lot of room for people in my position to at least make a living.
Anyone that believes sites like the drudge, slashdot et al at face value is no better than...
Anyone that believes CNN, Fox "News" and any other reliable "news" source at face value.
It's up to the individual to sift through the information and form their OWN OPINION.
There have been several high profile cases recently (NY Times springs to mind) where reporters have been pulling facts out of their arses with no verification of their facts or anything. Then there are the multitudes of stories that get pulled from the main stream because of political pressure, shareholder interests etc.
Every news article is published by someone who has an agenda. It's just the size of the agenda that differs.
I for one welcome any other opinions or news stories from people that were either there or know people that were. It gives me more choice and a broader exposure to the actual story which allows me to make a much more informed decision as to what I do or do not believe.
Journalism is journalism and an opinion is an opinion, no matter the source. As an aside, has anyone heard of a search engine just for news articles that is as up to date as the news is? The real problem with independant reporting is that it's too hard to actually find the well written pieces to begin with.
My wife and I have a music collection that is about 25 Gigs in size now. All of the tracks are ripped into high quality OGG files, CDex is awesome for this. I record some albums as full albums, such as "The Wall" by Pink Floyd but mostly we rip the songs individually and play our music randomly. There are always "lost" songs popping up and it's an awesome way to share my musical tastes fairly with my wife without arguing about what CDs to play.
I have a Celeron 400 Windows 2000 Server that acts as a Proxy server, File Server, Print Server and plugs straight into our Stereo next to the TV (mythTV is next once I upgrade the box). Our friends are ALWAYS commenting positively on the variety of music we have playing and asking how they can set up a system the same.
I doubt we've played an actual CD yet this century and I know that no matter what technologies and formats that the RIAA comes out with I will always be able to play my music the way I wwant it.
The biggest problem I have now is in having to tell my friends that while I can set up a music server for them I'm not allowed to give them copies of any of my music.
Has anyone else thought of just giving up and copying their music collections to a spare hard drive for their friends? Or borrowing a friend's CD for 15 minutes to rip it to your computer? I mean seriously, what better way to share something extremely personal with your friends than giving them a copy of your whole music collection?
I really can't think of a more convenient way to play my music and I don't care what the RIAA does, what legislation comes out or what new technologies come. I have brought CDs, LPs and Tapes and I'm sick of upgrading my music every time the technologies change. Now it doesn't matter as long as my computer has an audio out jack.
I have seen the future, I like it - I'll never go back.
lets give more money to the RIAA so that they can sue people. Now I know artists need to be reimbursed and all, but this is exactly why I won't buy any music online unless it's directly from the artist.
is working on a web site right now that has over 600K pages, almost all of which are generated on the fly by Perl scripts. The server is constantly over 75% cpu use because the site has been known to get over 10000 hits an hour for fairly sustained periods.
What's so amazing is that all those pages are stored on the hard disk and yet another part of the application uses a database for queries, not for storing the web pages or anything, just for storing user data and some statistics.
Every database query has the IP address of the SQL server hard coded into it. The server is still running on a RedHat 6.2 box because the original developers left the company over three years ago and nobody has touched it since.
"This is the way artists have survived since the dawn of humanity"
And this is exactly the point. The very concept of coyright goes against thousands of years of humanity copying and using whatever they find useful to better their lives.
While the Greeks did not invent writing, they copied the concept from somewhere else and their society benefitted greatly from it. The Romans used pumps that were invented elsewhere and without which their aquaducts would have been useless.
I believe that every invention and improvement made in the modern era is a direct result of the education and knowledge that our ancestors invented for us. Seriously, sdo you think Bill Gates could have written Windows without all of the work others had done before him? Without the ability to read and write or do complex mathematic calculations if those ideas and principals had been copyrighted throughout all this time? Of course not, we take what knowledge we can and we build upon it. The end result is the result of work done by thousands (if not millions) of individuals throughout time and it took all of our learning and knowledge to get where we are today. IP laws never helped humanity then and they are not helping humanity now.
I believe that people should be compensated for their intellectual work, but IP laws as they are now don't benefit people, they benefit nobody but companies. IMO IP laws are not natural, they do not add to society and they certainly do not encourage the sharing of knowledge which, in turn would increase research times...
Well I'm at work and in a hurry. I'll stop my rant, sorry if it makes no sense. But all we have, we have because of the collective works of humanity - IP laws bastardise the right of the public to learn and research whatever they like which is a fundamental right our ancestors have always had.
This is not a free service from Microsoft. It is a free update, but the cost of the service will be built into Windows, either through an update fee or with the Operating System tax that goes directly to Microsoft when you buy your computer.
I think it's the only thing Microsoft can do to "make it right". After all, why should third parties be responsible for tracking viruses and such when it's Microsoft's fault for allowing them to exist in the first place?
I am forever telling my customers to buy antivirus software and making sure that their definitions are up to date, this is an added tax that corporations should never have had to pay. It's rediculous that in order to run a Microsoft product less adept users are forced to pay $40 for antivirus software and then $20 a year to keep getting definition updates. It often seems like an added tax that you're forced to pay even after you've already paid Microsoft for the privilege of using Windows.
So good for Microsoft. They've saved the bulk of their customers that much more money per annum and I think it is well past time they did this.
While everyone is concentrating on the whole issue of what happens if they copy code from Windows has anyone started looking at the code for copyright infringements from Microsoft?
Just an interesting thought, I've always wondered how anyone could prove IP infringement against closed source systems.
In my experience I have had quality issues when buying cheap hardware. This includes AMD and various motherboards that AMD CPUs run on. People have been posting that AMD is better because of price, I am only stating that in my experience buying things just because they are cheap is not necessarily a good indicator of value.
And am I intimating that AMD chips are not designed to run 24x7? Of course not, but if you're running poor hardware then it generally will not run as well or last as long as better built hardware.
I make no claims to be a computer guru. I've been working with computers for over 10 years, I own 8 computers that run PPC, AMD and Intel CPU's. I think that qualifies for me to make informed personal obversations about my own experiences with computer hardware.
Now, if you couldn't understand the context I was using before then you should be aware of it now. I'm sorry to have confused you, now that you understand where I am comig from I will once again summarize for you:
In my experience I have found that Intel based computers work better and more reliably than similar AMD based systems. I would attribute a lot of this to the fact that AMD cpu's and hardware tend to be of lower quality than similar Intel based hardware because AMD systems generally appeal to the price minded buyer.
I've had problems with AMD cpu's and poorly made hardware, Mobo's especially. Of course way back in the day there were a lot of applications that simply would not work on AMD architecture - this goes back to Windows 9x but at times AMD cpus were more trouble than they were worth IMO and so I now stick with Intel as much as possible.
I recently got a 2.8 P4 with HT, I found that with a $150 Mobo the price was very competitive with the latest AMD CPU/Mobo combinations. About the only benchmarks that AMD was beating the P4 with were in game playing. For things like video editing and database hosting then the P4 was beating the AMDs. But I really don't read too much into benchmarks anyway.
AMD is definitely cheaper most of the time, but if you don't buy the latest generation of CPU, and lets face it cpu speed is really not a bottleneck anymore anyway. I found that replacing my old 40GB hard drive on my old 1.6 Ghz P4 with a 120GB WD with the 8MB cache increased my performance by at least 400% where memory caching is concerned.
I'm also a great believer in getting what you paid for. I might pay a little more for my Intel cpu, but I know it will overclock further (should I ever require more cpu speed) and that it was designed to be on 24/7.
Every year around this time we celebrate the infamous DNF "when it's finished" release date, I'm still looking forward to it, it's only been what - 7 years since the last one?
I wish my boss were as understanding of deadlines as those at 3DRealms.
While I like Norton Ghost and have used the Enterprize edition many times for rollouts I have found that it's more trouble than it's worth.
With Ghost you HAVE to have the same (or almost the same) hardware on every machine, Windows 2000 isn't too bad with it's improved PnP but NT4 is a bitch to image even with the "same" machines, just one little diffeence and you have to update and test your ghosted changes.
I use my own three pronged approach.
Install Windows. I have a batch file that creates a partition on the fly, copies the cabs to the hard drive and installs the OS.
Once the machine logs in it runs a batch file (according to department) which installs every software package as an MSI file.
Finally I use Robocopy to back up the users data directories to a remote server periodically.
Robocopy > Ghost
It isn't as fast as restoring an image, but it's hardware independant and it's easier to maintain and update packages.
Right now I'm working on something similar with rsync on Linux, it's easier but harder to learn.
John the Kiwi
RedHat has too much stuff turned on by default
on
Two Books On Red Hat 9
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
and that's why I got so confused using it. After changing distribution time and time again I finally settled on Gentoo.
Sure it takes a little longer to set up but once it's done you have a base install with no fluff. SSH isn't turned on, the RHN agent isn't there with me wondering how it got there when I wanted a streamlined system. Those bloated distros are there only to confuse the n00b.
With the portage system I get Gentoo to install a base system then I install applications using portage. For example to install X windows and mozilla I silply type:
emerge xfree emerge mozilla
Come back a few hours later and they work. Nothing else to it.
It's great to see more companies supporting OGG. I use it exclusively for all my CDs and the sound quality is excellent, not to mention the open source (read spyware free) software apps that make for easy audio extraction.
Open Source methodologies have turned the software industry on its head. Many proprietary principals and processes have proved to be uncompetitive and ineffective compared to equivalent Open Source methods.
I've been wondering why a lot of these principals can't be applied to other industries as well. For example, I've always thought that the political arena could benefit greatly from being Open, if every politician had to make their tax returns publicly accessible then the underlying principals and the way said politician votes would be available for everyone to see - in a similar manner to peer review of source code.
Vehicle manufacturing could also be partially Opened. Sure we don't have an Open Source manufacturing plant but shouldn't anyone with the knowledge and ability to design a car be able to submit a design (or improved design) for peer review to someone like Ford before they begin the manufacturing process? I think that companies like Ford should be that confident in their designs that they should have nothing to fear by making them Open to the public? It's not like someone can get a design and be in the position to manufacture millions of cars anyway.
So my questions are thus:
With Open Source making so many inroads in software manufacturing in such a short amount of time do you see realistic potential for the same changes to take place in other industries using similar processes?
What industries might they be?
And have you been approached by anyone that is not in the IT sector to change their businesses practices to be more open in line with the OS software model?
Tried searching Technet the past few days? As someone that uses Technet almost every working day for the past 7 or 8 years and yet I haven't had a valid search work over the past week.
I'm now continually using google to search the Technet site by using "site: microsoft.com". I guess M$ is trying to roll out their new search engine and completely cocked it up.
IMHO the main selling reason behind M$ products is their Technet web site, this is just one more reason to recommend Linux.
John the Kiwi
Not much use until Windows Servers are supported
on
DVD Burner Round-up
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It's all very well to rave about using a DVD burner as a backup device but AFAIK there still isn't a Windows server OS that supports DVD burning yet. I haven't looked at this for a couple of months but I was researching this on a couple of HP Servers we had that only had a gig or so of data to be backed up. Pricewise a DVD kills any of the proprietary tape solutions. Tape software is bloated and overly complicated to use and you can only restore files to a server that has the same type of SCSI drive installed in it. DVD backup would greatly simplify the data only backup process for many many small businesses and yet they still get shafted on backup hardware and software that really shouldn't be required in this day and age.
I think it's a conspiracy between the tape vendors and M$. You can't image a Windows Server and you can't backup files on a Windows server using a DVD drive. It would be an ideal solution for many small businesses but the only way to backup files is to do it from a workstation.
It's a real shame too. When a 40GB SCSI tape solution costs $1500+ and most servers come with 80GB of disk space minimum you start to wonder what the backup industry has been doing over the past 7 or 8 years while the hard drive manufacturers have added so much more space to store data.
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK pop-up blocking is only available in Windows XP SP2.
A few months ago, I downloaded some military briefings from the Gnutella Network. The briefings were zipped and the file contained 21 documents with classifications ranging from For Official Use Only to Secret/NO FORN. Shocked at my discovery, I notified an agency on a nearby military installation. When nothing happened, I notified another agency. I continued this course because no action was taken and for a nation at war, I was concerned for the safety of our soldiers.
Doesn't all information want to be free? Only a true patriot could come up with this reason for banning P2P networks. Great Propaganda and a real good excuse for the mrs when you're caught downloading porn again.
John the Kiwi
Anyone know if this will support Ogg? I'm still regretting putting my whole music collection into OGG format. IRiver is still a little expensive for me.
and damned if they don't.
It's all well and good to have a CD to back up your precious files (Audio, Video, documents etc) to but this doesn't cut it as a real backup.
With disk space being so cheap now I keep a copy of all of my important data on my server, mapped drives to connect etc. I then have a login script that runs on a workstation and backs that data locally to the workstation (now I have two copies) - Windows users can use Robocopy and *nix users have rsync, both of these tools are exceptional and only copy the newer/changed files so the backup of 50+ gigs of data seldom takes more than 15 minutes.
I then back that up to one of two external hard disks, one of which is always in a safety deposit box.
CDs never were and never should have been a good backup solution. The technology will change. A good backup solution is one that changes with the technology. I know that these external drives will one day be obsolete but to there is no degradation of data like a CD that has flakes falling off of it after 2 months.
It's also far more cost effective and as I upgrade my computers over time I know my files will be updated too and when the tech moves beyond external hard drives I'll change the solution then. Backing up to CD once like that is asking for trouble if you never test the media, like I do on a daily basis, I still have old school assignments from 10+ years ago, pictures and business data that I know I will never lose.
John the Kiwi
that the FBI is taking care of our national security. This is definitely not a waste of time, money and manpower in my opinion. We should definitely be pandering to the RIAA and whoever they bought this week.
This is pathetic. FBI find some real criminals because this is a joke.
I moved to the US in March of 2001 from New Zealand. After working as a webmaster/network Engineer there I was in for a rude shock once my residency came in 7 months later.
I am now self employed as a network consultant to a few small companies and a small ISP. I install their servers, make up login scripts, train on spyware removal safe web browsing habits, maintain database servers etc. I'm earning about 25K and I'm almost to the point where I can turn away work.
Of course I get terrible returns on the time I have to spend training (we all know it's a love affair), Microsoft products are a nightmare to support and they have the absolute worst support there is.
I was always a Windows man but I have completely retrained myself in Linux. I can do anything on a Linux box that I can on a Windows server. It hasn't done a crap of good for me. I have had some limited success getting Mozilla and Thunderbird accepted on Windows workstations, Open Office is great for making PDF files. Other than that I haven't had any luck getting people to accept Linux workstations. My customers won't touch it knowing that I am the only person within a 100 mile radius that will even work on a Linux machine - Does anyone have any good Linux rollout stories?
I don't know how programmers in the smaller areas get by. At the ISP I work at it we have several hosted customers that employ Ukrainian programmers because they are so cheap. Even now I do the majority of my work through Terminal Services sessions from my Linux Workstation and I'm wondering how much longer I'll be needed...
That being said, there is still a lot of room for people in my position to at least make a living.
Anyway, that's my 2c
John the Kiwi
MCSE looking for work... 10 years+ experience!
Lets don our tinfoil hats now...
Anyone that believes sites like the drudge, slashdot et al at face value is no better than...
Anyone that believes CNN, Fox "News" and any other reliable "news" source at face value.
It's up to the individual to sift through the information and form their OWN OPINION.
There have been several high profile cases recently (NY Times springs to mind) where reporters have been pulling facts out of their arses with no verification of their facts or anything. Then there are the multitudes of stories that get pulled from the main stream because of political pressure, shareholder interests etc.
Every news article is published by someone who has an agenda. It's just the size of the agenda that differs.
I for one welcome any other opinions or news stories from people that were either there or know people that were. It gives me more choice and a broader exposure to the actual story which allows me to make a much more informed decision as to what I do or do not believe.
Journalism is journalism and an opinion is an opinion, no matter the source. As an aside, has anyone heard of a search engine just for news articles that is as up to date as the news is? The real problem with independant reporting is that it's too hard to actually find the well written pieces to begin with.
John the Kiwi
My wife and I have a music collection that is about 25 Gigs in size now. All of the tracks are ripped into high quality OGG files, CDex is awesome for this. I record some albums as full albums, such as "The Wall" by Pink Floyd but mostly we rip the songs individually and play our music randomly. There are always "lost" songs popping up and it's an awesome way to share my musical tastes fairly with my wife without arguing about what CDs to play.
I have a Celeron 400 Windows 2000 Server that acts as a Proxy server, File Server, Print Server and plugs straight into our Stereo next to the TV (mythTV is next once I upgrade the box). Our friends are ALWAYS commenting positively on the variety of music we have playing and asking how they can set up a system the same.
I doubt we've played an actual CD yet this century and I know that no matter what technologies and formats that the RIAA comes out with I will always be able to play my music the way I wwant it.
The biggest problem I have now is in having to tell my friends that while I can set up a music server for them I'm not allowed to give them copies of any of my music.
Has anyone else thought of just giving up and copying their music collections to a spare hard drive for their friends? Or borrowing a friend's CD for 15 minutes to rip it to your computer? I mean seriously, what better way to share something extremely personal with your friends than giving them a copy of your whole music collection?
I really can't think of a more convenient way to play my music and I don't care what the RIAA does, what legislation comes out or what new technologies come. I have brought CDs, LPs and Tapes and I'm sick of upgrading my music every time the technologies change. Now it doesn't matter as long as my computer has an audio out jack.
I have seen the future, I like it - I'll never go back.
John the Kiwi
lets give more money to the RIAA so that they can sue people. Now I know artists need to be reimbursed and all, but this is exactly why I won't buy any music online unless it's directly from the artist.
JtK
is working on a web site right now that has over 600K pages, almost all of which are generated on the fly by Perl scripts. The server is constantly over 75% cpu use because the site has been known to get over 10000 hits an hour for fairly sustained periods.
What's so amazing is that all those pages are stored on the hard disk and yet another part of the application uses a database for queries, not for storing the web pages or anything, just for storing user data and some statistics.
Every database query has the IP address of the SQL server hard coded into it. The server is still running on a RedHat 6.2 box because the original developers left the company over three years ago and nobody has touched it since.
Luckily they pay me by the hour.
John the Kiwi
"This is the way artists have survived since the dawn of humanity"
And this is exactly the point. The very concept of coyright goes against thousands of years of humanity copying and using whatever they find useful to better their lives.
While the Greeks did not invent writing, they copied the concept from somewhere else and their society benefitted greatly from it. The Romans used pumps that were invented elsewhere and without which their aquaducts would have been useless.
I believe that every invention and improvement made in the modern era is a direct result of the education and knowledge that our ancestors invented for us. Seriously, sdo you think Bill Gates could have written Windows without all of the work others had done before him? Without the ability to read and write or do complex mathematic calculations if those ideas and principals had been copyrighted throughout all this time? Of course not, we take what knowledge we can and we build upon it. The end result is the result of work done by thousands (if not millions) of individuals throughout time and it took all of our learning and knowledge to get where we are today. IP laws never helped humanity then and they are not helping humanity now.
I believe that people should be compensated for their intellectual work, but IP laws as they are now don't benefit people, they benefit nobody but companies. IMO IP laws are not natural, they do not add to society and they certainly do not encourage the sharing of knowledge which, in turn would increase research times...
Well I'm at work and in a hurry. I'll stop my rant, sorry if it makes no sense. But all we have, we have because of the collective works of humanity - IP laws bastardise the right of the public to learn and research whatever they like which is a fundamental right our ancestors have always had.
John the Kiwi
This is not a free service from Microsoft. It is a free update, but the cost of the service will be built into Windows, either through an update fee or with the Operating System tax that goes directly to Microsoft when you buy your computer.
I think it's the only thing Microsoft can do to "make it right". After all, why should third parties be responsible for tracking viruses and such when it's Microsoft's fault for allowing them to exist in the first place?
I am forever telling my customers to buy antivirus software and making sure that their definitions are up to date, this is an added tax that corporations should never have had to pay. It's rediculous that in order to run a Microsoft product less adept users are forced to pay $40 for antivirus software and then $20 a year to keep getting definition updates. It often seems like an added tax that you're forced to pay even after you've already paid Microsoft for the privilege of using Windows.
So good for Microsoft. They've saved the bulk of their customers that much more money per annum and I think it is well past time they did this.
John the Kiwi
While everyone is concentrating on the whole issue of what happens if they copy code from Windows has anyone started looking at the code for copyright infringements from Microsoft?
Just an interesting thought, I've always wondered how anyone could prove IP infringement against closed source systems.
John the Kiwi
I think you're missing my point.
In my experience I have had quality issues when buying cheap hardware. This includes AMD and various motherboards that AMD CPUs run on. People have been posting that AMD is better because of price, I am only stating that in my experience buying things just because they are cheap is not necessarily a good indicator of value.
And am I intimating that AMD chips are not designed to run 24x7? Of course not, but if you're running poor hardware then it generally will not run as well or last as long as better built hardware.
I make no claims to be a computer guru. I've been working with computers for over 10 years, I own 8 computers that run PPC, AMD and Intel CPU's. I think that qualifies for me to make informed personal obversations about my own experiences with computer hardware.
Now, if you couldn't understand the context I was using before then you should be aware of it now. I'm sorry to have confused you, now that you understand where I am comig from I will once again summarize for you:
In my experience I have found that Intel based computers work better and more reliably than similar AMD based systems. I would attribute a lot of this to the fact that AMD cpu's and hardware tend to be of lower quality than similar Intel based hardware because AMD systems generally appeal to the price minded buyer.
Kind Regards
John the Kiwi
I've had problems with AMD cpu's and poorly made hardware, Mobo's especially. Of course way back in the day there were a lot of applications that simply would not work on AMD architecture - this goes back to Windows 9x but at times AMD cpus were more trouble than they were worth IMO and so I now stick with Intel as much as possible.
I recently got a 2.8 P4 with HT, I found that with a $150 Mobo the price was very competitive with the latest AMD CPU/Mobo combinations. About the only benchmarks that AMD was beating the P4 with were in game playing. For things like video editing and database hosting then the P4 was beating the AMDs. But I really don't read too much into benchmarks anyway.
AMD is definitely cheaper most of the time, but if you don't buy the latest generation of CPU, and lets face it cpu speed is really not a bottleneck anymore anyway. I found that replacing my old 40GB hard drive on my old 1.6 Ghz P4 with a 120GB WD with the 8MB cache increased my performance by at least 400% where memory caching is concerned.
I'm also a great believer in getting what you paid for. I might pay a little more for my Intel cpu, but I know it will overclock further (should I ever require more cpu speed) and that it was designed to be on 24/7.
There's my 2c
John the Kiwi
Parent's mirrror link redirects to some nasty images - ignore.
Every year around this time we celebrate the infamous DNF "when it's finished" release date, I'm still looking forward to it, it's only been what - 7 years since the last one?
I wish my boss were as understanding of deadlines as those at 3DRealms.
John the Kiwi
While I like Norton Ghost and have used the Enterprize edition many times for rollouts I have found that it's more trouble than it's worth.
With Ghost you HAVE to have the same (or almost the same) hardware on every machine, Windows 2000 isn't too bad with it's improved PnP but NT4 is a bitch to image even with the "same" machines, just one little diffeence and you have to update and test your ghosted changes.
I use my own three pronged approach.
Install Windows. I have a batch file that creates a partition on the fly, copies the cabs to the hard drive and installs the OS.
Once the machine logs in it runs a batch file (according to department) which installs every software package as an MSI file.
Finally I use Robocopy to back up the users data directories to a remote server periodically.
Robocopy > Ghost
It isn't as fast as restoring an image, but it's hardware independant and it's easier to maintain and update packages.
Right now I'm working on something similar with rsync on Linux, it's easier but harder to learn.
John the Kiwi
and that's why I got so confused using it. After changing distribution time and time again I finally settled on Gentoo.
Sure it takes a little longer to set up but once it's done you have a base install with no fluff. SSH isn't turned on, the RHN agent isn't there with me wondering how it got there when I wanted a streamlined system. Those bloated distros are there only to confuse the n00b.
With the portage system I get Gentoo to install a base system then I install applications using portage. For example to install X windows and mozilla I silply type:
emerge xfree
emerge mozilla
Come back a few hours later and they work. Nothing else to it.
I'll never use a bloated distro again.
John the Kiwi
http://www.johnthekiwi.com
It's great to see more companies supporting OGG. I use it exclusively for all my CDs and the sound quality is excellent, not to mention the open source (read spyware free) software apps that make for easy audio extraction.
John the Kiwi
Hi Bruce
Open Source methodologies have turned the software industry on its head. Many proprietary principals and processes have proved to be uncompetitive and ineffective compared to equivalent Open Source methods.
I've been wondering why a lot of these principals can't be applied to other industries as well. For example, I've always thought that the political arena could benefit greatly from being Open, if every politician had to make their tax returns publicly accessible then the underlying principals and the way said politician votes would be available for everyone to see - in a similar manner to peer review of source code.
Vehicle manufacturing could also be partially Opened. Sure we don't have an Open Source manufacturing plant but shouldn't anyone with the knowledge and ability to design a car be able to submit a design (or improved design) for peer review to someone like Ford before they begin the manufacturing process? I think that companies like Ford should be that confident in their designs that they should have nothing to fear by making them Open to the public? It's not like someone can get a design and be in the position to manufacture millions of cars anyway.
So my questions are thus:
With Open Source making so many inroads in software manufacturing in such a short amount of time do you see realistic potential for the same changes to take place in other industries using similar processes?
What industries might they be?
And have you been approached by anyone that is not in the IT sector to change their businesses practices to be more open in line with the OS software model?
Thanks for reading
John the Kiwi
www.johnthekiwi.com
I thought that about 7-zip at first too. Then I realised that you don't need the interface.
Just right click and pick a folder.
John the Kiwi
www.johnthekiwi.com
Tried searching Technet the past few days? As someone that uses Technet almost every working day for the past 7 or 8 years and yet I haven't had a valid search work over the past week.
I'm now continually using google to search the Technet site by using "site: microsoft.com". I guess M$ is trying to roll out their new search engine and completely cocked it up.
IMHO the main selling reason behind M$ products is their Technet web site, this is just one more reason to recommend Linux.
John the Kiwi
It's all very well to rave about using a DVD burner as a backup device but AFAIK there still isn't a Windows server OS that supports DVD burning yet. I haven't looked at this for a couple of months but I was researching this on a couple of HP Servers we had that only had a gig or so of data to be backed up. Pricewise a DVD kills any of the proprietary tape solutions. Tape software is bloated and overly complicated to use and you can only restore files to a server that has the same type of SCSI drive installed in it. DVD backup would greatly simplify the data only backup process for many many small businesses and yet they still get shafted on backup hardware and software that really shouldn't be required in this day and age.
I think it's a conspiracy between the tape vendors and M$. You can't image a Windows Server and you can't backup files on a Windows server using a DVD drive. It would be an ideal solution for many small businesses but the only way to backup files is to do it from a workstation.
It's a real shame too. When a 40GB SCSI tape solution costs $1500+ and most servers come with 80GB of disk space minimum you start to wonder what the backup industry has been doing over the past 7 or 8 years while the hard drive manufacturers have added so much more space to store data.
That's my 2c
John the Kiwi