TFA was pretty short on details - but coupled with this release from the folks at BEA, which basically allows a Weblogic app server to run directly under VMware (no other OS required); it may give a clue as to future direction. I'll take it all with a grain of salt.
I can see it now, lag hits - and in the interim you watch astonished as your character kills another rabbit and harvests it's spleen for sale back at town. The next gen of this technology will have your character spamming group channels for heals.
This study is definitely not breaking new ground. Most kids past toddler are using computers for internet access (just look at all the kid websites that are mentioned during cartoons these days).
Did people think that most kids get introduced to gaming via a PS3?
See - I would argue that both the N64 and the Dreamcast were killed by consoles that had superior graphics or superior development platforms... not by hype-evaporation.
For example: N64 - killed by the Playstation. Not necessarily better graphics - but it was an easier platform for folks to develop on and perhaps as a result had a much better game library. Dreamcast - Killed by the Playstation 2 which had much better graphics and connectivity.
I just don't see where those 2 threats are a problem for the Wii - especially since it's not trying to compete based on graphics. Sort of how the DS is positioned against the PSP.
You remember all those other game consoles that had HUGE initial success, that had a massive game lineup and huge developer support, that everybody loved - - - and then people just got sick of it and the company went out of business?
Yeah, I don't remember any consoles like that either.
Subtitles for most (if not all) spoken content would be awesome, even better is when it gets kept automatically in an in-game journal as in Deus Ex. This could be considered more accessibility than usability - but it's very nice when you can pull up that critical conversation that you had a few days ago.
This helps solve one of the biggest gaming problems: "Am I supposed to escort the Foozle or KILL the Foozle???"
There's definitely some good shooters from the 90's that would be ripe for a remake:
Strife Greed Realms of the Haunting
These were all sort of sleepers - but had really cool environments and atmoshpere. Strife and Realms of the Haunting were especially good. Damn - I wonder if Realms of the Haunting will run under wine? Greed gets points for coming up with a story that let you play the role of a cow headed space pirate.
So, you need to archive emails for an organization that has multiple flavors of mail servers, and you need the archive to be accessible by internally developed applications.
It sounds like you need all of your mail servers configured to dump incoming and outgoing messages to a database.
I don't do much mucking around with mail servers, so if they don't have any easy integration with databases, I'm sure you could have them log to a file, with a scheduled script that loads any logged messages into the database. This same script could of course do all of the log rotation \ cleanup required. There are plenty of hosted solutions out there for this - but if you want to have the ability to query it from your internally developed applications... I would think that you would want the archive to be stored in-house.
Doh. When I read the parent - I focused on the first instance of "they're" - the one at the end of the sentence slipped right past me. I thought the original poster was correcting: "...they're ditching.Net..", not "...they're only real threat.." That's what I get for snacking on chocolate covered coffee beans all day.:-)
My main issue with the original emergency backup post was the assumption that it would be done in secret.
It still sounds like a bad idea to me - but if it's documented then that removes my biggest objection. Your backup remote access services that you keep running sound frightening - but I guess at the end of the day, much of what's right or wrong depends on the environment.:-)
Most places would not be thrilled to discover that an admin had a backup emergency account in place on a server.
If anyone ever found out about it - and they would - the admin could find themselves in a major fight for their job, not to mention reputation.
Part of the reason this would be such a bad career move, is that so many places face yearly (or more often) audits by outside firms that would just love to discover a privledged user account that can't be adequately explained by documentated procedures. I'm not saying that this kind of thing can't work in a laid back environment... but most places with more than a handful of servers to maintain can't afford to be laid back about this sort of thing.
As other posters have pointed out, if you can't trust anything about the machine your using - then that settles the matter. Your number one goal if this is the case, should be to obtain trusted hardware and a method of getting it online. It goes without saying that everything depends on the level of hostility that you're up against. If getting caught means that you get imprisoned or executed, priority number 1 should be getting out of that country - not getting web pages uploaded.
Even the methods of using proxies to hide your IP only really works by trusting the party that's running the proxy.
This is very do-able, but there are a few gotchas. Your plight made be think about how I would do it if I were in your shoes...here's what I would do:
1. Come up with a (hopefully short) list of items that need to be observed under load. For example, authenticating users and allowing logins, serving up files).
2. For each testing item identified, find a repeatable, scriptable method of testing it. Perl will be your best friend here. For questions consult the great folks at perlmonks.com. You can find very nice modules that will allow you to create scripts that can authenticate to your test server, and report back a time. If you dump all your responses into a csv format, it will make the reporting of the data even easier.
3. Write a separate script to track system performance during the testing period. I couldn't actually tell from your question if the servers you are testing are windows or *nix , but whatever the os, you'll probably want a snapshot of overall CPU utilization and Run Queue size, swap use, disk access times, and memory consumption.
4. Be sure you are testing what you think you're testing! You're testing results will be invalid once you hit a limiting factor. So if you're network link gets overloaded by your test script, then your file transfer test is not a good one.
5. Design your testing scenarios carefully. It's probably best to have as short a test list as possible, and then make them as iterative as possible. For example, first test with having 1 users logon and transfer a file. Second test has 10 simultaneous users logon and transfer a file. Third test has 100 users involved, etc.
The key to all of this stuff, is you want tests that are repeatable, valid, and indicative of production uses. The nice thing about developing these test scripts is that you can use them to test hardware from several diferent vendors. If it seems daunting, just remember that it's better to spend a week of late nights developing the scripts - then to spend the next several months wondering if you're implementing hardware that will hold up to your production workload!
It sounds like you are looking for a way to normalize and compare system (and application?) performance across different hardware platforms. Say hello to SPEC. This is exactly what the organization was formed for. Take a look at their CPU benchmarks. I know you're looking for more of a snapshot, and less of a benchmark - but I would think SPEC is a good place to start.
If you're starting from scratch, so to speak, consider using perl or python to create a text based game, I'm biased towards adventure\rpg type text games, but you could also make a more arcadish style game using ascii characters.
It may not seem as sexy as creating an awesome 3d something or other - but you'll have learned a lot if you can make a game that allows for some of the following:
1. users can create a character, which they can save and load
2. the game keeps an inventory of objects
3. users can interact with certain things in the environment
4. the game tracks and displays high scores
I would encourage you to google 'perl games' or 'python games' to see the kinds of things that can be done.
Good luck! Sounds like you'll have some (fun) late nights ahead!
Personally, I would recommend postnuke. Biggest advantage is that it will be easy to transition to other people, but also flexible enough to allow for heavy customization. Lots of places offer very cheap hosting, and will throw in a preinstalled postnuke, ssh and ftp access, etc. Check these guys out - I've used them for a couple of years now. http://www.hostnuke.com/
Just my $.02 !
Google-watch is just asking some questions about the site that we all love. Hardly FUD.
From the google-watch site:
It's not that we believe Google is evil. What we believe is that Google, Inc. is at a fork in the road, and they have some big decisions to make. This Google Watch site is trying to articulate and publicize the situation at Google, and encourage more scrutiny of their operations. By doing this, we hope to play a small part in maintaining the web as an information tool that is more useful for the masses, than it is for the elites.
It all sounds good to me.
Wonder when the first virus will be released...
on
Cure for Cancer?
·
· Score: 1
Hmmm...Small machines in your bloodstream killing cancer cells.
I wonder how long it will be before there are small machines in your bloodstream killing ALL your cells.
IMHO - something planned to happen 10-15 years from now has a great risk of not happening.
Entirely too much can change. You're talking about a funded project that would have to survive multiple shakes up in Administration (and think of all the Bureaucratic structures a NASA funded project relies on!!!) , not to mention a project that would have to be able to keep it's funding for that long.
Plus - in 10-15 years, it's entirely possible that technology might make this particular project irrelevant.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for pointing that out. How clever and evil of them to name their JVM\OS "Bare Metal"...
TFA was pretty short on details - but coupled with this release from the folks at BEA, which basically allows a Weblogic app server to run directly under VMware (no other OS required); it may give a clue as to future direction. I'll take it all with a grain of salt.
Sounds like MS can keep their lead as long as they release a Halo-class game every month! If only they had thought of that sooner!
I can see it now, lag hits - and in the interim you watch astonished as your character kills another rabbit and harvests it's spleen for sale back at town. The next gen of this technology will have your character spamming group channels for heals.
I was thinking the same thing - and Legal Seafoods is pretty popular for business lunches \ dinners where you have a dozen or more people to seat.
This study is definitely not breaking new ground. Most kids past toddler are using computers for internet access (just look at all the kid websites that are mentioned during cartoons these days).
Did people think that most kids get introduced to gaming via a PS3?
See - I would argue that both the N64 and the Dreamcast were killed by consoles that had superior graphics or superior development platforms... not by hype-evaporation.
For example:
N64 - killed by the Playstation. Not necessarily better graphics - but it was an easier platform for folks to develop on and perhaps as a result had a much better game library.
Dreamcast - Killed by the Playstation 2 which had much better graphics and connectivity.
I just don't see where those 2 threats are a problem for the Wii - especially since it's not trying to compete based on graphics. Sort of how the DS is positioned against the PSP.
You remember all those other game consoles that had HUGE initial success, that had a massive game lineup and huge developer support, that everybody loved - - - and then people just got sick of it and the company went out of business?
Yeah, I don't remember any consoles like that either.
Subtitles for most (if not all) spoken content would be awesome, even better is when it gets kept automatically in an in-game journal as in Deus Ex. This could be considered more accessibility than usability - but it's very nice when you can pull up that critical conversation that you had a few days ago.
This helps solve one of the biggest gaming problems:
"Am I supposed to escort the Foozle or KILL the Foozle???"
There's definitely some good shooters from the 90's that would be ripe for a remake:
Strife
Greed
Realms of the Haunting
These were all sort of sleepers - but had really cool environments and atmoshpere. Strife and Realms of the Haunting were especially good. Damn - I wonder if Realms of the Haunting will run under wine? Greed gets points for coming up with a story that let you play the role of a cow headed space pirate.
So, you need to archive emails for an organization that has multiple flavors of mail servers, and you need the archive to be accessible by internally developed applications.
It sounds like you need all of your mail servers configured to dump incoming and outgoing messages to a database.
I don't do much mucking around with mail servers, so if they don't have any easy integration with databases, I'm sure you could have them log to a file, with a scheduled script that loads any logged messages into the database. This same script could of course do all of the log rotation \ cleanup required.
There are plenty of hosted solutions out there for this - but if you want to have the ability to query it from your internally developed applications... I would think that you would want the archive to be stored in-house.
Doh. When I read the parent - I focused on the first instance of "they're" - the one at the end of the sentence slipped right past me. .Net..", not "...they're only real threat.." :-)
I thought the original poster was correcting: "...they're ditching
That's what I get for snacking on chocolate covered coffee beans all day.
Actually, I think your use of "they're" was entirely appropriate. :-)
As a contraction for "they are" it works nicely.
Care to list some of these mystical sites by name?
Actually, it sounds rather like a university...
I think we more or less agree on this.
:-)
My main issue with the original emergency backup post was the assumption that it would be done in secret.
It still sounds like a bad idea to me - but if it's documented then that removes my biggest objection. Your backup remote access services that you keep running sound frightening - but I guess at the end of the day, much of what's right or wrong depends on the environment.
Most places would not be thrilled to discover that an admin had a backup emergency account in place on a server.
If anyone ever found out about it - and they would - the admin could find themselves in a major fight for their job, not to mention reputation.
Part of the reason this would be such a bad career move, is that so many places face yearly (or more often) audits by outside firms that would just love to discover a privledged user account that can't be adequately explained by documentated procedures. I'm not saying that this kind of thing can't work in a laid back environment... but most places with more than a handful of servers to maintain can't afford to be laid back about this sort of thing.
As other posters have pointed out, if you can't trust anything about the machine your using - then that settles the matter. Your number one goal if this is the case, should be to obtain trusted hardware and a method of getting it online. It goes without saying that everything depends on the level of hostility that you're up against. If getting caught means that you get imprisoned or executed, priority number 1 should be getting out of that country - not getting web pages uploaded.
Even the methods of using proxies to hide your IP only really works by trusting the party that's running the proxy.
This is very do-able, but there are a few gotchas. Your plight made be think about how I would do it if I were in your shoes...here's what I would do:
1. Come up with a (hopefully short) list of items that need to be observed under load. For example, authenticating users and allowing logins, serving up files).
2. For each testing item identified, find a repeatable, scriptable method of testing it. Perl will be your best friend here. For questions consult the great folks at perlmonks.com. You can find very nice modules that will allow you to create scripts that can authenticate to your test server, and report back a time. If you dump all your responses into a csv format, it will make the reporting of the data even easier.
3. Write a separate script to track system performance during the testing period. I couldn't actually tell from your question if the servers you are testing are windows or *nix , but whatever the os, you'll probably want a snapshot of overall CPU utilization and Run Queue size, swap use, disk access times, and memory consumption.
4. Be sure you are testing what you think you're testing! You're testing results will be invalid once you hit a limiting factor. So if you're network link gets overloaded by your test script, then your file transfer test is not a good one.
5. Design your testing scenarios carefully. It's probably best to have as short a test list as possible, and then make them as iterative as possible. For example, first test with having 1 users logon and transfer a file. Second test has 10 simultaneous users logon and transfer a file. Third test has 100 users involved, etc.
The key to all of this stuff, is you want tests that are repeatable, valid, and indicative of production uses. The nice thing about developing these test scripts is that you can use them to test hardware from several diferent vendors. If it seems daunting, just remember that it's better to spend a week of late nights developing the scripts - then to spend the next several months wondering if you're implementing hardware that will hold up to your production workload!
It sounds like you are looking for a way to normalize and compare system (and application?) performance across different hardware platforms.
Say hello to SPEC. This is exactly what the organization was formed for. Take a look at their CPU benchmarks. I know you're looking for more of a snapshot, and less of a benchmark - but I would think SPEC is a good place to start.
If you're starting from scratch, so to speak, consider using perl or python to create a text based game, I'm biased towards adventure\rpg type text games, but you could also make a more arcadish style game using ascii characters.
It may not seem as sexy as creating an awesome 3d something or other - but you'll have learned a lot if you can make a game that allows for some of the following:
1. users can create a character, which they can save and load
2. the game keeps an inventory of objects
3. users can interact with certain things in the environment
4. the game tracks and displays high scores
I would encourage you to google 'perl games' or 'python games' to see the kinds of things that can be done.
Good luck! Sounds like you'll have some (fun) late nights ahead!
Personally, I would recommend postnuke.
Biggest advantage is that it will be easy to transition to other people, but also flexible enough to allow for heavy customization. Lots of places offer very cheap hosting, and will throw in a preinstalled postnuke, ssh and ftp access, etc. Check these guys out - I've used them for a couple of years now. http://www.hostnuke.com/
Just my $.02 !
Google-watch is just asking some questions about the site that we all love. Hardly FUD. From the google-watch site: It's not that we believe Google is evil. What we believe is that Google, Inc. is at a fork in the road, and they have some big decisions to make. This Google Watch site is trying to articulate and publicize the situation at Google, and encourage more scrutiny of their operations. By doing this, we hope to play a small part in maintaining the web as an information tool that is more useful for the masses, than it is for the elites. It all sounds good to me.
http://www.google-watch.org/
Hmmm...Small machines in your bloodstream killing cancer cells. I wonder how long it will be before there are small machines in your bloodstream killing ALL your cells.
IMHO - something planned to happen 10-15 years from now has a great risk of not happening.
Entirely too much can change. You're talking about a funded project that would have to survive multiple shakes up in Administration (and think of all the Bureaucratic structures a NASA funded project relies on!!!) , not to mention a project that would have to be able to keep it's funding for that long.
Plus - in 10-15 years, it's entirely possible that technology might make this particular project irrelevant.