Actually my big problem is with a couple of Canadian mail ISPs (shaw.ca and sympatico.ca). They use some black list service which doesn't have a way of getting a mail server off of their list. I changed my mail log rolling so it would save mail for a year. I ran a check on the logs for the past year and was able to account for every message I sent. A majority of incoming e-mail were open-relay attempts from Taiwan. I finally just blocked Taiwan entirely which dropped the attempts off quite a bit.
Microsoft is a bit crazy. Every few months they flip-flop as to whether they'll receive mail from my domain or bounce it. The only option that seems to be available to me is to pay them to have my domain added to their advertisers list. Since I'm not advertising anything (it's a Mosaic and Stained Glass forum), I won't be paying them.
I never experienced silence. I've had tinnitus since I was very young (I remember telling my parents that I had an "ear ring"). So even using noise canceling headphones doesn't cut out all sound. I hear beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep 24x7.
I use music when I'm working at times (not often) to cut out on all the conversation going on around me. Familiar music that I know the words to really seem to help with productivity. I get a bit more animated and even seem to be more accurate while typing:)
I'm a unix admin but I also do a lot of programming and scripting.
Second this. I'm an older guy and getting back into dinking with electronics by playing with sparkfun stuff. My first kit should be at home when I get there. Can't wait:)
This is very true. I started out back in the 80's as a programmer coming from programming as a hobby. I did very well but was a bit frustrated. Moving into LAN installation and administration then to Unix administration satisfied my desire to program at work and I still program as a hobby. And of course, still enjoy the hell out of it:D
I use Facebook to let members of the forum know if there's a server problem. Most of my 50 or so friends are from the forum with my Facebook Forum page at something over 100 fans. I set up a filter so I can filter out the forum members and get updates from friends and the sites I'm a fan of.
Well maybe and maybe not however there are a lot of government contractors and as a former one, I'd read slashdot and pass along interesting information to my contacts who, most of the time had already read it.
Yea, generally when I'm trying to figure something out, I'll do a search of the 'net for a quick answer and then reach for an O'Reilly (via Safari) or Addison-Wesley book for in-depth knowledge.
The problem for me is that the man page is either a paragraph or two and not much help or 35 pages of incredibly detailed information that's difficult to parse. I'll do a google man page search at times just so I have an easy way to browse the page.
A man page doesn't provide a tutorial and many times don't even provide examples of usage.
That's ok. You're also paying for SPAM. From ISP costs on down to the people who are scammed out of their life savings and go bankrupt (raising rates) or can't afford to take care of themselves so we do.
The main thing would be all the problems I experienced when I did follow the 8 and 9 path. It finally dropped down to a more acceptable level (not that reboots are generally acceptable but once or twice a month is moreso than once or twice a week).
It's more likely that the problems with the 8.x and 9.x installations were that I hadn't fully (using a registry and driver cleaner) removed all the ati drivers from the system before installing the new one.
So I will check the Diamond site and then I might even check out the ATI site and see what's what.
Oh I'm sure there are lots of folks who don't have problems. I don't know what your setup is but problems can be caused by many factors which is what makes tracking them down such a frustrating experience. In my case, I checked my system logs and did a google search on the error and there were numerous reports with the same question. The answer was to disable some feature in the driver. Unfortunately that wasn't an option with my drivers which was why I started chasing driver upgrades from ATI. Eventually with a new 4870, cleaning out everything ATI, and installing the Diamond suite, the problem dropped to a boot once in a while and the crossfire issue.
Yea, one of the real problems was that I started chasing the 8.x and 9.x drivers from ATI and didn't thoroughly remove all the prior ATI drivers first. I'd uninstall and reboot but (based on my final cleanup) there are other entries and drivers that can't be removed via the uninstall process. I would have problem after problem with drivers and reboots until I finally just removed the second card. Heck at one point I could not get my system to come up after upgrading to a 9.x driver. I downreved to 8.x and when it didn't work quite right, I upgraded again to 9.x and it worked. Finally, when I purchased the second 4870, used a driver and registry cleaner to clean every bit of ATI driver from the system, and then installed the current driver suite from Diamond, the reboot problem really dropped down to a low, once in a while problem.
I'll check the Diamond site and see if there's a new suite. I really don't go into Crossfire that often as most games don't support it but the ones that do really look great.
When not gaming I use a three monitor setup. Left in portrait for viewing pdfs, center for the open ssh windows for programming, and right for the browser to see if what I'm doing is working and throw up any errors when I miss something.
When I want to game, I bring it into crossfire mode. That shuts off the video output on the second card which disables the two 17" LCDs and leaves the 21" CRT active. When I'm done gaming and want to reactivate the two LCDs, I flip off crossfire mode which requires a reboot. Upon startup though, the system may reboot 4 or 5 more times.
If I had a dedicated gaming machine, I'd have a... console:)
Some games (like Quake and Doom) don't run unless I deactivate the other two monitors before entering the game (when not enabling crossfire so both cards video output are active).
Honestly, the card can be the hottest thing in existence but if the system reboots due to a driver (per the system log) and there are numerous complaints, maybe you should spend more time getting the drivers right.
I have a pair of ATI 4870's. When I put it into Crossfire mode, the games work great. When I take them back out of crossfire, the system can reboot 4 or 5 times during Windows startup before the system finally starts. Occasionally the system will reboot during regular Windows startup. Log errors indicate a problem with an ati driver. (I have three monitors. Going into crossfire loses access to the other card with two monitors so I have to come out of crossfire to recover.)
Comments in the forums is to upgrade the drivers. But jeeze, I have to use a registry cleaner and driver cleaner to get every little bit of older ati driver from the system or I have no end of driver problems when I upgrade. Once it's cleaned and an upgrade installed, it brings it back to the occasional reboot and reboot when coming back from Crossfire.
If you can't get your drivers right, people won't buy your cards more than once and the folks that do and experience problems will turn folks away from your business. I know I recount this story on the forums I frequent.
Probably suburbs. Down in Dale City we had underground power which was great. We almost never had power outages (I think there were two in the 13 years I lived there, one by a self-immolating squirrel). Up in the historic Fairfax district, they had hard times just keeping the trees trimmed (historical district, don't you know) which of course meant that when the wind blew particularly hard, parts of the city would go dark.
As someone who fights with this, it's not a full feeling that's the problem. Feeling full doesn't keep me from wanting something like ice cream or chips. Desire is more of a problem than feeling full. I can eat to satisfaction and not be full or even eat to bursting but see ice cream or smell ribs or bacon and immediately want some. It takes thought and discipline. It's why I can't leave a bag of chips close by and eat them. I'll mindlessly eat them while programming until I realize I've eaten a whole bag of chips and not remembered doing so.
Yep, another choice of Firefox for adblock, noscript, and noflash. I tried Chrome once but all the ads and flash had me shut it down and bring Firefox back up. I even use Firefox on my Mac instead of Safari due to the blockers even though it causes the Mac to run a bit hotter.
That's cool. So only the guys and gals that work at the airport will mutate. And hey, if you didn't want to mutate, you shouldn't have applied to work at the airport.
(Yes I know that the article says it's passive, I'm responding to the comment.)
Unfortunately for us, O'Reilly's revamped Safari site is now all Flash. It didn't work on the previous Ubuntu version but it does work on 9.10 (as I just discovered).
Another unfortunately "feature" of Safari is that they have folders now where you can store books however on the mobile access, you only have access to the first, default folder. The others are disabled. That sucks too.
Specializing in IT is pretty broad though. I know I've solved a lot of problems as a Unix Admin because I'm also a programmer. I'm amazed at the number of admins who can't even use tar without help.
But still you should have other knowledge bases. I'm into motorcycles and can fix mine without too much trouble as well as go fast and get my knee down in corners. I'm also a gamer (both computer and table-top) which gives me a very broad level of knowledge.
And of course:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Slashdot Mirror
Or can automatically filter out the ExpertSexchange site from my technical queries (yes, I can -expertsexchange tyvm).
[John]
Actually my big problem is with a couple of Canadian mail ISPs (shaw.ca and sympatico.ca). They use some black list service which doesn't have a way of getting a mail server off of their list. I changed my mail log rolling so it would save mail for a year. I ran a check on the logs for the past year and was able to account for every message I sent. A majority of incoming e-mail were open-relay attempts from Taiwan. I finally just blocked Taiwan entirely which dropped the attempts off quite a bit.
Microsoft is a bit crazy. Every few months they flip-flop as to whether they'll receive mail from my domain or bounce it. The only option that seems to be available to me is to pay them to have my domain added to their advertisers list. Since I'm not advertising anything (it's a Mosaic and Stained Glass forum), I won't be paying them.
Carl
How do you feel about listening to sales calls and marketing speak when you're programming?
[John]
I never experienced silence. I've had tinnitus since I was very young (I remember telling my parents that I had an "ear ring"). So even using noise canceling headphones doesn't cut out all sound. I hear beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep 24x7.
I use music when I'm working at times (not often) to cut out on all the conversation going on around me. Familiar music that I know the words to really seem to help with productivity. I get a bit more animated and even seem to be more accurate while typing :)
I'm a unix admin but I also do a lot of programming and scripting.
[John]
Second this. I'm an older guy and getting back into dinking with electronics by playing with sparkfun stuff. My first kit should be at home when I get there. Can't wait :)
[John]
This is very true. I started out back in the 80's as a programmer coming from programming as a hobby. I did very well but was a bit frustrated. Moving into LAN installation and administration then to Unix administration satisfied my desire to program at work and I still program as a hobby. And of course, still enjoy the hell out of it :D
[John]
I use Facebook to let members of the forum know if there's a server problem. Most of my 50 or so friends are from the forum with my Facebook Forum page at something over 100 fans. I set up a filter so I can filter out the forum members and get updates from friends and the sites I'm a fan of.
[John]
Well maybe and maybe not however there are a lot of government contractors and as a former one, I'd read slashdot and pass along interesting information to my contacts who, most of the time had already read it.
[John]
Yea, generally when I'm trying to figure something out, I'll do a search of the 'net for a quick answer and then reach for an O'Reilly (via Safari) or Addison-Wesley book for in-depth knowledge.
The problem for me is that the man page is either a paragraph or two and not much help or 35 pages of incredibly detailed information that's difficult to parse. I'll do a google man page search at times just so I have an easy way to browse the page.
A man page doesn't provide a tutorial and many times don't even provide examples of usage.
[John]
That's ok. You're also paying for SPAM. From ISP costs on down to the people who are scammed out of their life savings and go bankrupt (raising rates) or can't afford to take care of themselves so we do.
[John]
Slows things down for me most of the time. I'll be loading a page and see that at the bottom of the browser.
[John]
Technically they did what they always do. Microsoft bought out another company's browser (spyglass I think it was) and redbadged as their own.
[John]
The main thing would be all the problems I experienced when I did follow the 8 and 9 path. It finally dropped down to a more acceptable level (not that reboots are generally acceptable but once or twice a month is moreso than once or twice a week).
It's more likely that the problems with the 8.x and 9.x installations were that I hadn't fully (using a registry and driver cleaner) removed all the ati drivers from the system before installing the new one.
So I will check the Diamond site and then I might even check out the ATI site and see what's what.
[John]
Oh I'm sure there are lots of folks who don't have problems. I don't know what your setup is but problems can be caused by many factors which is what makes tracking them down such a frustrating experience. In my case, I checked my system logs and did a google search on the error and there were numerous reports with the same question. The answer was to disable some feature in the driver. Unfortunately that wasn't an option with my drivers which was why I started chasing driver upgrades from ATI. Eventually with a new 4870, cleaning out everything ATI, and installing the Diamond suite, the problem dropped to a boot once in a while and the crossfire issue.
[John]
Yea, one of the real problems was that I started chasing the 8.x and 9.x drivers from ATI and didn't thoroughly remove all the prior ATI drivers first. I'd uninstall and reboot but (based on my final cleanup) there are other entries and drivers that can't be removed via the uninstall process. I would have problem after problem with drivers and reboots until I finally just removed the second card. Heck at one point I could not get my system to come up after upgrading to a 9.x driver. I downreved to 8.x and when it didn't work quite right, I upgraded again to 9.x and it worked. Finally, when I purchased the second 4870, used a driver and registry cleaner to clean every bit of ATI driver from the system, and then installed the current driver suite from Diamond, the reboot problem really dropped down to a low, once in a while problem.
I'll check the Diamond site and see if there's a new suite. I really don't go into Crossfire that often as most games don't support it but the ones that do really look great.
[John]
Didn't read the whole comment, eh? :)
When not gaming I use a three monitor setup. Left in portrait for viewing pdfs, center for the open ssh windows for programming, and right for the browser to see if what I'm doing is working and throw up any errors when I miss something.
When I want to game, I bring it into crossfire mode. That shuts off the video output on the second card which disables the two 17" LCDs and leaves the 21" CRT active. When I'm done gaming and want to reactivate the two LCDs, I flip off crossfire mode which requires a reboot. Upon startup though, the system may reboot 4 or 5 more times.
If I had a dedicated gaming machine, I'd have a... console :)
Some games (like Quake and Doom) don't run unless I deactivate the other two monitors before entering the game (when not enabling crossfire so both cards video output are active).
[John]
Honestly, the card can be the hottest thing in existence but if the system reboots due to a driver (per the system log) and there are numerous complaints, maybe you should spend more time getting the drivers right.
I have a pair of ATI 4870's. When I put it into Crossfire mode, the games work great. When I take them back out of crossfire, the system can reboot 4 or 5 times during Windows startup before the system finally starts. Occasionally the system will reboot during regular Windows startup. Log errors indicate a problem with an ati driver. (I have three monitors. Going into crossfire loses access to the other card with two monitors so I have to come out of crossfire to recover.)
Comments in the forums is to upgrade the drivers. But jeeze, I have to use a registry cleaner and driver cleaner to get every little bit of older ati driver from the system or I have no end of driver problems when I upgrade. Once it's cleaned and an upgrade installed, it brings it back to the occasional reboot and reboot when coming back from Crossfire.
If you can't get your drivers right, people won't buy your cards more than once and the folks that do and experience problems will turn folks away from your business. I know I recount this story on the forums I frequent.
[John]
Probably suburbs. Down in Dale City we had underground power which was great. We almost never had power outages (I think there were two in the 13 years I lived there, one by a self-immolating squirrel). Up in the historic Fairfax district, they had hard times just keeping the trees trimmed (historical district, don't you know) which of course meant that when the wind blew particularly hard, parts of the city would go dark.
[John]
As someone who fights with this, it's not a full feeling that's the problem. Feeling full doesn't keep me from wanting something like ice cream or chips. Desire is more of a problem than feeling full. I can eat to satisfaction and not be full or even eat to bursting but see ice cream or smell ribs or bacon and immediately want some. It takes thought and discipline. It's why I can't leave a bag of chips close by and eat them. I'll mindlessly eat them while programming until I realize I've eaten a whole bag of chips and not remembered doing so.
[John]
I still have a Windows 98 SE machine. It's a gaming machine for the older stuff though.
[John]
Yep, another choice of Firefox for adblock, noscript, and noflash. I tried Chrome once but all the ads and flash had me shut it down and bring Firefox back up. I even use Firefox on my Mac instead of Safari due to the blockers even though it causes the Mac to run a bit hotter.
[John]
... in bed
[John]
That's cool. So only the guys and gals that work at the airport will mutate. And hey, if you didn't want to mutate, you shouldn't have applied to work at the airport.
(Yes I know that the article says it's passive, I'm responding to the comment.)
[John]
Unfortunately for us, O'Reilly's revamped Safari site is now all Flash. It didn't work on the previous Ubuntu version but it does work on 9.10 (as I just discovered).
Another unfortunately "feature" of Safari is that they have folders now where you can store books however on the mobile access, you only have access to the first, default folder. The others are disabled. That sucks too.
[John]
Specializing in IT is pretty broad though. I know I've solved a lot of problems as a Unix Admin because I'm also a programmer. I'm amazed at the number of admins who can't even use tar without help.
But still you should have other knowledge bases. I'm into motorcycles and can fix mine without too much trouble as well as go fast and get my knee down in corners. I'm also a gamer (both computer and table-top) which gives me a very broad level of knowledge.
And of course:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
[John]