Human psych 101: If something is Taboo, it is desired more
Example: 10 year old wants T or M rated game, say Half-Life. His parents deny it to him because of the rating, ergo he wants it even MORE, eventually getting it off an older friend or someone with more liberal parents.
Violence vs Sex: American society was hugely victorian at the turn of the century, and with the outlawing of prostitution, sex, depicted in an form became taboo. Granted, society has made several leaps in the past few decades, but the conservatives seem to always prevail, thus the victorian mentality continues here in the US, anything of a sexual nature is restricted to 18+, even though we humans are aware of it's allure from age 12 or so, and because it's taboo, it is desired greatly, leading to misconceptions, and curiosity, and due to the taboos of discussing it in public, we have a massive teen pregnancy rate.
OK, back to the games, violence is more socially accepted than sex for no good reason. I have no qualms in seeing someone get shot up in a bloody mess (very violent), but a scene of a nude body is FORBIDDEN.
the kid has no peers, everyone who knows him in person either likes him (he befriended an equally ego inflated sysadmin with a god complex), or hates him (the linux/windows ubergeek who runs the LAN party gig around here, me and everyone else with a lick of sense).
strange how people like that can even survive, oh, and did i mention that he:
is 17
doesn't know jack about hardware, nor networking beyond getting an FTP connection to his (hosted by someone else) webserver.
this is the kid who held a geforce3 and linksys router hostage until the safe return of an Athlon XP case sticker (i built him his box and didn't give him his case sticker), and $80 for some non-existant PHP code (I gave in, didn't want to get all legal on his ass, wasn't worth the $200)
when he started programming and working with FTP uploading, he thought the two transfer modes were 'binary' and 'A-S-C-2'
He runs a winXP home (again, thinks it's the uberOS), hates linux and doesn't have a firewall/NAT device on his cable modem...
despicable really, and he actually thinks that empty threats of lawsuits and shit like that will keep people off his 6. definatly fits the script kiddle type, and thinks he's the uber1337 at any and all games. am thinking of grabbing his ip and setting up a coordinated packet bombing of his machine, he'd never know where it came from, such people shouldn't even allowed to be called geeks, really makes me sick.
I've been using OO.o for a few months now and have yet to find any big issues with it when compared to O2k.
Tables are easy to use, page numbering may take a bit to find, but until O2k it was a bitch to find there, too.
I like the integrated PDF export, something that if you want to do in MSO, you gotta get acrobat for a few hundred $'s... haven't had a problem yet.
I just sold my friend on OO.o a few months back and he's used it more than I, just made up somthing in calc and exported it to Excel 2k/XP without a hitch (his machine is Windows 2000).
I've also lightly used Linux as a desktop OS (i don't largly due to lack of good 3D support for my geforce4), and find the cross platform compatibility an outright godsend. I used MSO 98 for that mac and found i had to save as an office 97 doc and then open it, converting up automagically to o2k, breaking the reverse compatibility until i resaved as o97. with OO.o, the headache isn't there (though OO.o doesn't do mac classic and an OSX port is still on the way, i rarely use macs anyhow.)
MSO stinks, OO.o is better, any flaws in compatibility is due to the stupidity of the closed source format used by M$. at least with the oo.o files you can open them with your favorite zip utility and see what makes them tick. (Oo.o files are just zip archives containing xml files with the actual formatting and content therein, unlike.docs which are some bastardized... thing.)
I have a shitload of antistats that i've collected over the years, most of the stuff is then put in rubbermaid containers which all have a grounding wire attached to them (the static that builds up is disappaited through you (thats why you get zapped), having a grounding wire (rigged to a suitable metal casing, considering it's a 2nd line of static defense, it works:)
cable ties keep unused cables piled into boxes
I have a 2 foot high 4 post rack that keeps 2 boxes plus stereo amp and VCR organized (just don't get behind the sucker).
I know a would-be hacker, he doesn't know the skills yet (just PHP, MySQL and javascript... so far), but he has the ego for it, overinflated, full of himself, the 'i don't need no stinking rules' 'i'm never ever ever wrong and you always are' type programmer. he shuns every program but his own and touts it as the uber 1337 program it isn't.
frankly, he scares me, fortunatly he is 100% ignorant of networking hardware/software/protocols and is nothing more than a lowly webdev.
the simple solution to this problem:
get a few roommates (read: fellow geeks), rent a big enough house, get 1 cable modem for each person, grab a linux box, a load of NICs and load balancing/traffic shaping software and pipe the P2P stuff through one modem, game ports through another and the HTTP/FTP/POP3/etc stuff through the third, and have one box that runs the kazaa/BT client, communal file sharing if you will, just set it and forget it until it's done. Pooling existing music/video collections also works wonders, if you're stuck in a dorm, 802.11G is your friend, grab an few AP's and cards and setup a little encrypted sharing net within the dorm complex, with a few bucks, one could send a low bandwidth (5Mb/s) link over a few miles to someone off campus who has bandwidth to burn:)
if i want HDTV-sized images on anything bigger than a 21" computer screen, i'll get a DLP projector, some screen goo and a dark room.
to get cool looking GFX on a console, make the screen bigger (32"+), to get good looking GFX on a computer, turn up the res and have a big (19"+) screen.
I'd sure as hell like a DLP projector that can push a 72" 4:3 image onto a wall at a decent resolution, i.e 1280x1024 than a plasma that'll burn in.
when net goes out:
1. fire up xterm, or cmd window (depending on which box i'm on), ping google, if response::)
2. if no ping reply, ping router, if no reply, reboot router, if reply...
3. fire up SSH to router, ping isp dns, google. if reply, check other lan settings for failure, if not...
4. reboot modem (power down for 90s, power down router (modem is picky) if solution doesn't work:
5. open MPC, play Xvid movies til net comes back.
in the event of power failure, all workstation consoles are deactivated and the router and servers left to feed off what remains of the UPS supply, at that point, it matters little if the net is still active.
not really a BSOD but still dumb the local TV BB channel, is powered by Powerpoint viewer under win2k saw the channel with the 2k login screensaver for 2 hours...
later, the PPTviewer was running, but with the taskbar showing:)
and i did see a BSOD at TPA once, got a real kick outta it (thats Tampa Int'l Airport for those not up on the FCC desigs)
I have a similar setup.
a total of three Windows 2000 machines connect to a Samba server (2.x under Red hat 8) running a 220GB RAID 5 and a 110GB EXT3 straight up.
All program files are stored on the windows local drives.
Windows has never and wil never be as network centric as Linux, it isn't built that way. although linux apps won't flinch if installed on remote partitions, windows apps will cry, bitch, moan and then die a very painful death if one thing isn't right.
the three local machine's drives:
5GB (PII)
3GB (XP1800, TV/media player)
40GB + 20GB (game box)
the game box's drive is nearly 30GB full, all program files (games take up a hella lot of space), the 20giger is there as a local cache for my Music and CD ISO's (when i go to LAN parties, the 10GB they take up is a big chunk out of the main drive), as storage for big files temporarily (newly minted ISO's, unencoded DVD rips, PS scratch files, etc.).
the file server is rigged to mount the secondary drive and rsync the files over to the server every night. the 20GB is only used when access time, or local access is an issue (see above).
Program installers, CD ISO's, MP3'S and Xvids all run smoothly over the network, without clogging up the local system.
it's what i have to work with, i would like nothing better than a 4x200GB RAID array, but this is the best I can do.
yes, the 80's are the weak link, but it's better than nothing.
The entire setup yields boatloads of space (220GB in the array with over 130GB left over)
the ~30GB portion left on the 120 drive (after system files) is used to store backups of the critical stuff (only about 5 GB is by most considered 'critical'), the Videos are mostly backed up on CD, though i'm waiting on a DVD burner to burn the rest (too many damn CD's). And the faster access time of the 100GB partition (RAID5 write speed is painful at best, fortunatly, i do very little writing, or if i do, it's slow to begin with (downloads, BitTorrents, etc) gives me the space to do full disk backups of every drive in my lab (2, 3, 5, 20 and 40 gigs, the latter two in my game box.
Is it the best solution? No, is it the best solution under the circumstances? yes. does it work? yes:)
I have a software RAID5 setup under RedHat, for a small network (5 boxes) performance hit is non existent due to each drive having it's own channel.
the setup:
member partition size: 73.5GB (formatted size of 80GB HD:
2x 80GB WD800BB drives
1x 120GB WD1200JB drive (partition = size of other 2) 1x 200GB WD200JB drive, ditto
the whole thing forms a 220GB RAID5 array with about 120GB left over. the majority of the data is divx/xvid movies and such, mp3's programs, ISO's etc. The movies are backed up to CD (also makes convenient loanable copy for my friends who are hard drive/bandwidth challenged), i'm not too worried about totally losing that stuff, with the CD backup set and a friend having the same files on his HD's)
the rest of it that matters (personal data, photos, savegames, etc) can fit on a handful of CD's and is also backed up on a portion of the 111GB on the 200giger (said data is chmodded 700 and far away from any samba shares). If i had a DVD burner, i'd use it, but CDR's are $.25 a piece for backups and work well for now.
for home use, software raid5 is inexpensive, and easy to backup (external HD, DVD, CDR, network drive, etc), if it runs linux, the weak link is your windows boxes, just keep them secure (i.e. lock workstation and/or keep yourself logged out with 2 separate passwords for the workstation and file server), just remember if you do ANY system maintenence on your file server, to UNMOUNT the data storage partition(s) to prevent say a rm -rf / from hosing everything.
i just setup a 29 node XP lab using PowerQuest's Deploy Center, which is basically Driveimage on steroids,
create image of o/s using boot disks, saving image to net server
make boot disk hardcoded to grab and download image from server, run on all clients.
the problem we ran into is the network here is 100 Mbit fiber full dupe backbone, and 10Mbit full dupe UNSWITCHED horizontal runs, the lab workroom was wired into the MDF directly, but all boxes were on 10 mbit line, a 6.2GB image took 9 hours when deployed to 10 boxes at a go (i TOLD the mac-centric admins that it was a royally bad idea...)
the labs at other schools use Deep Freeze http://www.deepfreezeusa.com/
which wipes all data added since the last restart, reverting the system to the old config, any persistant data must be stored on a 2nd partition (called THAWSPACE, used to store info on changes and persistant data) or a network share (drive map or otherwise), the davantage is that the entire system is protected, it can be unlocked with a key combination and password if administration is needed.
common use:
1. setup host system
2. install deep freeze
3. make ghost (or DL) image
4. deploy image to nodes
5. sit back, relax and stop worrying about winboxes
this method of course, costs $$$
unfortunatly, here in Sarasota, FL (50 mi. S of Tampa), we don't get speakeasy DSL (anyone know how to twist the arms of speakeasy/verizon to get a connection down here?)
I used aplus.net for hosting for over 2 years, $14.95 for basic hosting, no PHP/MySQL or anything fancy, then i learned the stuff and suddenly needed it:-/
grabbed an account with a friend of mine, who runs the local LAN gaming group , and used to run a BBS in town but now runs said group, and manages the network for a locally based furniture company. Has redundant setups (three-four, depending on the config), main server, backup at the other co-owner of the BBS/LAN group's house, and a tertiary connection if necessary on the WiNET link for the furniture store (wireless T1;-) )
Pay him the same $15/month, get personal service, all the trimmings on the server, shell access, PHP, MySQL, mail, the works, and a reliable connection, plus it's located 1/4 mile from my house,:)
he uses Internet Junction www.ij.net out of Clearwater, only decent DSL ISP down here (Verizon blocks SMTP/POP access, bastards)
runs $150/mo for a 768/768 SDSL link after you add verizon's charges, pretty shitty if you ask me, but until speakeasy gets around here, it's all we've got.
i'm an indy computer tech guru guy, and run across my share of id10t users every now and then, one of my earliest was a lady with a shiny new 9x gateway box, Comcast @home and AOL (no firewall), she clicked on every single popup that AOL and/or IE gave her, had 10 tons of spyware (gator, bonzai and a dozen others), i managed to get rid of most of em, but she was too damned attached to gator (i just couldn't get through to her)...
anyways, a pal of mine, with an unprotected windows 2000 machine on a cable connection got an shitload of spyware, adware and something hidden that spewed pr0n, not to mention messenger spam (nuked messenger service), adaware didn't do squat (didn't know about S&D at the time).
Solution: save all files on C to D (alt. HD), WDclear (HD diag/write zeros), reinstall 2000, install adaware and the like, teach little sister a lesson (gave her her own user acct with LIMITED access), no problems since.
my personal policy:
1. find offensive adware/spyware/etc
2. run knoppix
3. copy files to linux file server
4. from 2 other win boxes, beat the hell out of said files with adaware, NAV, kaspersky, etc to make files clean
5. wdclear offending box
6. install windows
7. download adaware, antivirus, etc
8. copy files frm server
9. install programs
10. make damn sure no spyware gets on box.
i have all my p2p apps on a PII 350 box, and watch the processes like a hawk, run adawaware and S&D regularly and have been adware free for quite some time, that and my linux firewall blocks everything inbound and adding outbound catches takes 5 seconds.
i gave up on outlook back with O2k, my dad still uses it (he's too damned attached to it, and it does run his one man business), otherwise i use eudora (win2k), squirllmail (anywhere) or Evo on the penguin.
this is a bad thing, glad i don't do MS, i have a feeling that my pal over at bitdiddles, who installs windoze servers for a living (him = MCSE...) is gonna have a field day with this one.
I'll just stick to OpenOffice thank you, does everything M$ can do and is faster, cheaper, etc and outputs PDF without even thinking.
new email system is desperatly needed, IMO.
we got the idiot AOLers sending bloated, HTML+Java+Flash encrusted e-mail messages, i have my mother set up with eudora, set to plain text only (tracking bugs, malware scripts, etcc, yes i have an antivirus, but the last one her box got it didn't catch, so i've had to take extra measures.)), with the plain text, not much shows up, annoys her, but i say it's for the best, and personally now use squirrlmail off my mail server directly, a lot safer than anything else imo.
And we need to teach a new generation of mail users to only reply to messages from people who you want to contact, replying back to someone with a 'no thanks' etc. (big fat worm on mother's box was made ten times worse that way...) is a BAD thing.
i don't use e-mail much anymore, message boards, IM, a touch of IRC and TeamSpeak works wonders, and are spammed a lot less than E-mail (IRC is a private off net box, IM has a blocklist, boards ditto, and Teamspeak has the mute button:)
my parents kept the violent games from me until i was 10 (didn't have a console til then, even then it was a 2nd hand genesis), first 'violent' game = DOOM, i had played it many times before, am i a violent person... HELL NO!
parenting really counts before age 10, it is the parent's responsibility, but frankly some of these M rated games are rated M for no reason.
Duke Nukem: manhattan Project, rated M, WTF?
i played the original at age 10, no problems there... oy.
bought diablo II a few weeks ago M rated, for a pal who's 17 (i r 18, tho i look a hellova lot older), didn't get carded (said amigo was with me and even handed me the game and $$$ in front of said clueless walmart clerk (walmart = nototiously stingy on cardings)
the ESRB ratings are bunk, IMO, they do NOT replace parental judgement.
At my school (district of 36 facilities, 40,000 students,) there are firewalls in place between here and the net (big, overloaded proxy at the district level), my count is at least... 1 at the school level 1 incoming from school to district 1 outgoing to ISP (FLorida dept education) 2 more there
total of 5 firewalls, and two separate proxy systems (the actual content filtering is done at the state level)
the school level firewalls are one way (block all incoming except to machine X, Y, Z (admin), buut allow everything to go out to the net, and some things into the district network.
The most annoying thing, is that they use stateful packet filteringat the district level to block SSH, IMAP, POP and SMTP, but amazingly not 135, 137, etc, now 6667m or any of the higher ups...
i'm forced to telnet to my home gateway (for some obscene reason telnet works, and BTW the NT servers in the district are swiss cheese)
my gateway is rigged to allow only telnet from here and nowhere else:)
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Human psych 101:
If something is Taboo, it is desired more
Example:
10 year old wants T or M rated game, say Half-Life. His parents deny it to him because of the rating, ergo he wants it even MORE, eventually getting it off an older friend or someone with more liberal parents.
Violence vs Sex:
American society was hugely victorian at the turn of the century, and with the outlawing of prostitution, sex, depicted in an form became taboo. Granted, society has made several leaps in the past few decades, but the conservatives seem to always prevail, thus the victorian mentality continues here in the US, anything of a sexual nature is restricted to 18+, even though we humans are aware of it's allure from age 12 or so, and because it's taboo, it is desired greatly, leading to misconceptions, and curiosity, and due to the taboos of discussing it in public, we have a massive teen pregnancy rate.
OK, back to the games, violence is more socially accepted than sex for no good reason. I have no qualms in seeing someone get shot up in a bloody mess (very violent), but a scene of a nude body is FORBIDDEN.
What a strange would we live in, eh?
nor would i want a snake in my head, even if it's a tok'ra.
the kid has no peers, everyone who knows him in person either likes him (he befriended an equally ego inflated sysadmin with a god complex), or hates him (the linux/windows ubergeek who runs the LAN party gig around here, me and everyone else with a lick of sense).
strange how people like that can even survive, oh, and did i mention that he:
is 17
doesn't know jack about hardware, nor networking beyond getting an FTP connection to his (hosted by someone else) webserver.
this is the kid who held a geforce3 and linksys router hostage until the safe return of an Athlon XP case sticker (i built him his box and didn't give him his case sticker), and $80 for some non-existant PHP code (I gave in, didn't want to get all legal on his ass, wasn't worth the $200)
when he started programming and working with FTP uploading, he thought the two transfer modes were 'binary' and 'A-S-C-2'
He runs a winXP home (again, thinks it's the uberOS), hates linux and doesn't have a firewall/NAT device on his cable modem...
despicable really, and he actually thinks that empty threats of lawsuits and shit like that will keep people off his 6. definatly fits the script kiddle type, and thinks he's the uber1337 at any and all games. am thinking of grabbing his ip and setting up a coordinated packet bombing of his machine, he'd never know where it came from, such people shouldn't even allowed to be called geeks, really makes me sick.
I've been using OO.o for a few months now and have yet to find any big issues with it when compared to O2k. .docs which are some bastardized... thing.)
Tables are easy to use, page numbering may take a bit to find, but until O2k it was a bitch to find there, too.
I like the integrated PDF export, something that if you want to do in MSO, you gotta get acrobat for a few hundred $'s... haven't had a problem yet.
I just sold my friend on OO.o a few months back and he's used it more than I, just made up somthing in calc and exported it to Excel 2k/XP without a hitch (his machine is Windows 2000).
I've also lightly used Linux as a desktop OS (i don't largly due to lack of good 3D support for my geforce4), and find the cross platform compatibility an outright godsend. I used MSO 98 for that mac and found i had to save as an office 97 doc and then open it, converting up automagically to o2k, breaking the reverse compatibility until i resaved as o97. with OO.o, the headache isn't there (though OO.o doesn't do mac classic and an OSX port is still on the way, i rarely use macs anyhow.)
MSO stinks, OO.o is better, any flaws in compatibility is due to the stupidity of the closed source format used by M$. at least with the oo.o files you can open them with your favorite zip utility and see what makes them tick. (Oo.o files are just zip archives containing xml files with the actual formatting and content therein, unlike
I have a shitload of antistats that i've collected over the years, most of the stuff is then put in rubbermaid containers which all have a grounding wire attached to them (the static that builds up is disappaited through you (thats why you get zapped), having a grounding wire (rigged to a suitable metal casing, considering it's a 2nd line of static defense, it works :)
cable ties keep unused cables piled into boxes
I have a 2 foot high 4 post rack that keeps 2 boxes plus stereo amp and VCR organized (just don't get behind the sucker).
I know a would-be hacker, he doesn't know the skills yet (just PHP, MySQL and javascript... so far), but he has the ego for it, overinflated, full of himself, the 'i don't need no stinking rules' 'i'm never ever ever wrong and you always are' type programmer. he shuns every program but his own and touts it as the uber 1337 program it isn't.
frankly, he scares me, fortunatly he is 100% ignorant of networking hardware/software/protocols and is nothing more than a lowly webdev.
the simple solution to this problem: get a few roommates (read: fellow geeks), rent a big enough house, get 1 cable modem for each person, grab a linux box, a load of NICs and load balancing/traffic shaping software and pipe the P2P stuff through one modem, game ports through another and the HTTP/FTP/POP3/etc stuff through the third, and have one box that runs the kazaa/BT client, communal file sharing if you will, just set it and forget it until it's done. Pooling existing music/video collections also works wonders, if you're stuck in a dorm, 802.11G is your friend, grab an few AP's and cards and setup a little encrypted sharing net within the dorm complex, with a few bucks, one could send a low bandwidth (5Mb/s) link over a few miles to someone off campus who has bandwidth to burn :)
if i want HDTV-sized images on anything bigger than a 21" computer screen, i'll get a DLP projector, some screen goo and a dark room. to get cool looking GFX on a console, make the screen bigger (32"+), to get good looking GFX on a computer, turn up the res and have a big (19"+) screen. I'd sure as hell like a DLP projector that can push a 72" 4:3 image onto a wall at a decent resolution, i.e 1280x1024 than a plasma that'll burn in.
when net goes out: 1. fire up xterm, or cmd window (depending on which box i'm on), ping google, if response: :)
2. if no ping reply, ping router, if no reply, reboot router, if reply...
3. fire up SSH to router, ping isp dns, google. if reply, check other lan settings for failure, if not...
4. reboot modem (power down for 90s, power down router (modem is picky) if solution doesn't work:
5. open MPC, play Xvid movies til net comes back.
in the event of power failure, all workstation consoles are deactivated and the router and servers left to feed off what remains of the UPS supply, at that point, it matters little if the net is still active.
Windows BSOD on a thinkpad with Red Hat caps about. WTF?
not really a BSOD but still dumb
:)
the local TV BB channel, is powered by Powerpoint viewer under win2k
saw the channel with the 2k login screensaver for 2 hours...
later, the PPTviewer was running, but with the taskbar showing
and i did see a BSOD at TPA once, got a real kick outta it (thats Tampa Int'l Airport for those not up on the FCC desigs)
I have a similar setup.
a total of three Windows 2000 machines connect to a Samba server (2.x under Red hat 8) running a 220GB RAID 5 and a 110GB EXT3 straight up. All program files are stored on the windows local drives.
Windows has never and wil never be as network centric as Linux, it isn't built that way. although linux apps won't flinch if installed on remote partitions, windows apps will cry, bitch, moan and then die a very painful death if one thing isn't right.
the three local machine's drives:
5GB (PII)
3GB (XP1800, TV/media player)
40GB + 20GB (game box)
the game box's drive is nearly 30GB full, all program files (games take up a hella lot of space), the 20giger is there as a local cache for my Music and CD ISO's (when i go to LAN parties, the 10GB they take up is a big chunk out of the main drive), as storage for big files temporarily (newly minted ISO's, unencoded DVD rips, PS scratch files, etc.).
the file server is rigged to mount the secondary drive and rsync the files over to the server every night. the 20GB is only used when access time, or local access is an issue (see above).
Program installers, CD ISO's, MP3'S and Xvids all run smoothly over the network, without clogging up the local system.
As for emulating local disks. Don't.
it's what i have to work with, i would like nothing better than a 4x200GB RAID array, but this is the best I can do. yes, the 80's are the weak link, but it's better than nothing. The entire setup yields boatloads of space (220GB in the array with over 130GB left over) the ~30GB portion left on the 120 drive (after system files) is used to store backups of the critical stuff (only about 5 GB is by most considered 'critical'), the Videos are mostly backed up on CD, though i'm waiting on a DVD burner to burn the rest (too many damn CD's). And the faster access time of the 100GB partition (RAID5 write speed is painful at best, fortunatly, i do very little writing, or if i do, it's slow to begin with (downloads, BitTorrents, etc) gives me the space to do full disk backups of every drive in my lab (2, 3, 5, 20 and 40 gigs, the latter two in my game box. Is it the best solution? No, is it the best solution under the circumstances? yes. does it work? yes :)
I have a software RAID5 setup under RedHat, for a small network (5 boxes) performance hit is non existent due to each drive having it's own channel.
the setup:
member partition size: 73.5GB (formatted size of 80GB HD:
2x 80GB WD800BB drives
1x 120GB WD1200JB drive (partition = size of other 2)
1x 200GB WD200JB drive, ditto
the whole thing forms a 220GB RAID5 array with about 120GB left over. the majority of the data is divx/xvid movies and such, mp3's programs, ISO's etc. The movies are backed up to CD (also makes convenient loanable copy for my friends who are hard drive/bandwidth challenged), i'm not too worried about totally losing that stuff, with the CD backup set and a friend having the same files on his HD's)
the rest of it that matters (personal data, photos, savegames, etc) can fit on a handful of CD's and is also backed up on a portion of the 111GB on the 200giger (said data is chmodded 700 and far away from any samba shares).
If i had a DVD burner, i'd use it, but CDR's are $.25 a piece for backups and work well for now.
for home use, software raid5 is inexpensive, and easy to backup (external HD, DVD, CDR, network drive, etc), if it runs linux, the weak link is your windows boxes, just keep them secure (i.e. lock workstation and/or keep yourself logged out with 2 separate passwords for the workstation and file server), just remember if you do ANY system maintenence on your file server, to UNMOUNT the data storage partition(s) to prevent say a rm -rf / from hosing everything.
...but can it do warp 5? not too shabby, kudos to Walter Matthew Jefferies for a great design, may he rest in peace.
i just setup a 29 node XP lab using PowerQuest's Deploy Center, which is basically Driveimage on steroids, create image of o/s using boot disks, saving image to net server make boot disk hardcoded to grab and download image from server, run on all clients. the problem we ran into is the network here is 100 Mbit fiber full dupe backbone, and 10Mbit full dupe UNSWITCHED horizontal runs, the lab workroom was wired into the MDF directly, but all boxes were on 10 mbit line, a 6.2GB image took 9 hours when deployed to 10 boxes at a go (i TOLD the mac-centric admins that it was a royally bad idea...) the labs at other schools use Deep Freeze http://www.deepfreezeusa.com/ which wipes all data added since the last restart, reverting the system to the old config, any persistant data must be stored on a 2nd partition (called THAWSPACE, used to store info on changes and persistant data) or a network share (drive map or otherwise), the davantage is that the entire system is protected, it can be unlocked with a key combination and password if administration is needed. common use: 1. setup host system 2. install deep freeze 3. make ghost (or DL) image 4. deploy image to nodes 5. sit back, relax and stop worrying about winboxes this method of course, costs $$$
unfortunatly, here in Sarasota, FL (50 mi. S of Tampa), we don't get speakeasy DSL (anyone know how to twist the arms of speakeasy/verizon to get a connection down here?) I used aplus.net for hosting for over 2 years, $14.95 for basic hosting, no PHP/MySQL or anything fancy, then i learned the stuff and suddenly needed it :-/
grabbed an account with a friend of mine, who runs the local LAN gaming group , and used to run a BBS in town but now runs said group, and manages the network for a locally based furniture company. Has redundant setups (three-four, depending on the config), main server, backup at the other co-owner of the BBS/LAN group's house, and a tertiary connection if necessary on the WiNET link for the furniture store (wireless T1 ;-) )
Pay him the same $15/month, get personal service, all the trimmings on the server, shell access, PHP, MySQL, mail, the works, and a reliable connection, plus it's located 1/4 mile from my house, :)
he uses Internet Junction www.ij.net out of Clearwater, only decent DSL ISP down here (Verizon blocks SMTP/POP access, bastards)
runs $150/mo for a 768/768 SDSL link after you add verizon's charges, pretty shitty if you ask me, but until speakeasy gets around here, it's all we've got.
i'm an indy computer tech guru guy, and run across my share of id10t users every now and then, one of my earliest was a lady with a shiny new 9x gateway box, Comcast @home and AOL (no firewall), she clicked on every single popup that AOL and/or IE gave her, had 10 tons of spyware (gator, bonzai and a dozen others), i managed to get rid of most of em, but she was too damned attached to gator (i just couldn't get through to her)... anyways, a pal of mine, with an unprotected windows 2000 machine on a cable connection got an shitload of spyware, adware and something hidden that spewed pr0n, not to mention messenger spam (nuked messenger service), adaware didn't do squat (didn't know about S&D at the time). Solution: save all files on C to D (alt. HD), WDclear (HD diag/write zeros), reinstall 2000, install adaware and the like, teach little sister a lesson (gave her her own user acct with LIMITED access), no problems since. my personal policy: 1. find offensive adware/spyware/etc 2. run knoppix 3. copy files to linux file server 4. from 2 other win boxes, beat the hell out of said files with adaware, NAV, kaspersky, etc to make files clean 5. wdclear offending box 6. install windows 7. download adaware, antivirus, etc 8. copy files frm server 9. install programs 10. make damn sure no spyware gets on box. i have all my p2p apps on a PII 350 box, and watch the processes like a hawk, run adawaware and S&D regularly and have been adware free for quite some time, that and my linux firewall blocks everything inbound and adding outbound catches takes 5 seconds.
oy, i game strictly on the PC and currently have a MS optical 5 button (wired) and a saitek cyborg 3D stick and it still isn't enough.
i gave up on outlook back with O2k, my dad still uses it (he's too damned attached to it, and it does run his one man business), otherwise i use eudora (win2k), squirllmail (anywhere) or Evo on the penguin. this is a bad thing, glad i don't do MS, i have a feeling that my pal over at bitdiddles, who installs windoze servers for a living (him = MCSE...) is gonna have a field day with this one. I'll just stick to OpenOffice thank you, does everything M$ can do and is faster, cheaper, etc and outputs PDF without even thinking.
new email system is desperatly needed, IMO. we got the idiot AOLers sending bloated, HTML+Java+Flash encrusted e-mail messages, i have my mother set up with eudora, set to plain text only (tracking bugs, malware scripts, etcc, yes i have an antivirus, but the last one her box got it didn't catch, so i've had to take extra measures.)), with the plain text, not much shows up, annoys her, but i say it's for the best, and personally now use squirrlmail off my mail server directly, a lot safer than anything else imo. And we need to teach a new generation of mail users to only reply to messages from people who you want to contact, replying back to someone with a 'no thanks' etc. (big fat worm on mother's box was made ten times worse that way...) is a BAD thing. i don't use e-mail much anymore, message boards, IM, a touch of IRC and TeamSpeak works wonders, and are spammed a lot less than E-mail (IRC is a private off net box, IM has a blocklist, boards ditto, and Teamspeak has the mute button :)
i've tried drake 9.1, RH8 and gentoo on my A7N8x-Dx board with a GeForce4, no joy cross the board, gonna grab the torrents for this thing asap.
my parents kept the violent games from me until i was 10 (didn't have a console til then, even then it was a 2nd hand genesis), first 'violent' game = DOOM, i had played it many times before, am i a violent person... HELL NO! parenting really counts before age 10, it is the parent's responsibility, but frankly some of these M rated games are rated M for no reason. Duke Nukem: manhattan Project, rated M, WTF? i played the original at age 10, no problems there... oy. bought diablo II a few weeks ago M rated, for a pal who's 17 (i r 18, tho i look a hellova lot older), didn't get carded (said amigo was with me and even handed me the game and $$$ in front of said clueless walmart clerk (walmart = nototiously stingy on cardings) the ESRB ratings are bunk, IMO, they do NOT replace parental judgement.
At my school (district of 36 facilities, 40,000 students,) there are firewalls in place between here and the net (big, overloaded proxy at the district level), my count is at least...
:)
1 at the school level
1 incoming from school to district
1 outgoing to ISP (FLorida dept education)
2 more there
total of 5 firewalls, and two separate proxy systems (the actual content filtering is done at the state level)
the school level firewalls are one way (block all incoming except to machine X, Y, Z (admin), buut allow everything to go out to the net, and some things into the district network.
The most annoying thing, is that they use stateful packet filteringat the district level to block SSH, IMAP, POP and SMTP, but amazingly not 135, 137, etc, now 6667m or any of the higher ups...
i'm forced to telnet to my home gateway (for some obscene reason telnet works, and BTW the NT servers in the district are swiss cheese)
my gateway is rigged to allow only telnet from here and nowhere else
they do block the strangest things though...
thats what i'm using, makes fax spam eaier to handle.