Lead solder paste does rub off on your skin, and even lead-containing jewelry that was intended to be jewlery can be hazardous, especially to children who may handle it excesively or place it in their mouth. Coated electronic cabling that is meant to be handled by consumers (such as Christmas Lights) usually comes with a California Prop 65 warning that you should wash your hands after handling it! I would treat computer equipment, especially printed circuit boards and coated cables the same.
Ok, apparently slash adds the space by itself (maybe the software needs to be patched), just delete the space between the d and the efault if you paste the link into your url bar.
Microsoft makes a product that does just this. You essentially run your own "windows update" server, which your hundreds of clients can update against once you have reviewed and approved the patches. Never bothered with it though as I only manage 20 computers and I have to say that this has yet to be a serious problem. More of a problem making sure that all those critical updates get installed in a timely manner and the users don't find some way to bypass the automatic update.
More info here if you care:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sus/d efault.mspx
One thing I will say though is that the linux desktops seem to have developed a "clipboard history" which I can't seem to find on mac or windows desktops. I wish I could because I find that thing tremendously useful.
I've heard nothing but great things about the 3ware cards, also, though I have no personal experience. I am running a FBSD 4.9 SOHO server using a promise fastrak ata raid controller with a raid 0+1 array and I've had absolutely no problems. The driver is included in the standard FBSD ata driver and the raid array can be probed using the 'atacontrol' command. I beleive that this card is a "software raid" card as you mentioned but it _smokes_ during normal operations. Unfortunately, RAID rebuilds can be quite lengthy, can involve downtime, and the card sometimes causes a kernel panic when a failure is simulated. Still, even in this case a simple reboot solves the problem and the card operates fine with the degraded array after restart.
If you are looking for ultra-cheap solution, or have one of these promise cards built into a mobo (as in my case), and you are more concerned with data integrity/redundancy than with 100% uptime, this card is definitely servicable.
For what it's worth, here is the reply I sent to this organization:
To whom it may concern:
As a systems administrator and a citizen of Massachusetts, I was delighted to read the news in the article on your website titled "Mass Taxpayers Hurt by Proposed Software Monopoly". I think that it is wonderful that my state is moving into the 21st century and making such well-informed procurement decisions. If this plan is implemented, the state could save millions on their IT procurement budget, freeing up these funds for development, maintenance, training, and support that will increase the security and reliablity of our IT infrastructure.
I don't understand your insistance that this creates a monopoly or hurts the position of technology vendors in our great state. Having a standardized platform for all state computers is an obvious decision that many large organizations make. Interoperability and standardization are important goals for the IT managers of such organizations. The idea that "Proprietary vendors will be effectively barred from competing for state contracts, limiting competition and raising costs." is ludicrous. Any vendor who wishes to provide software that runs on the chosen platform is welcome to compete for the states business, and most vendors of enterprise level software solutions do provide software that runs on open-source UNIX derivitives.
Perhaps your understanding of systems administration and IT procurment issues is not as rigorous as other areas of expertise in your organization. Please do not lobby your position to Governor Romney on my behalf.
- Mark Scarbrough
Slashdot Mirror
Lead solder paste does rub off on your skin, and even lead-containing jewelry that was intended to be jewlery can be hazardous, especially to children who may handle it excesively or place it in their mouth. Coated electronic cabling that is meant to be handled by consumers (such as Christmas Lights) usually comes with a California Prop 65 warning that you should wash your hands after handling it! I would treat computer equipment, especially printed circuit boards and coated cables the same.
Ok, apparently slash adds the space by itself (maybe the software needs to be patched), just delete the space between the d and the efault if you paste the link into your url bar.
Sorry for that extra whitespace, here's the corrected Link:
s /d efault.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/su
Microsoft makes a product that does just this. You essentially run your own "windows update" server, which your hundreds of clients can update against once you have reviewed and approved the patches. Never bothered with it though as I only manage 20 computers and I have to say that this has yet to be a serious problem. More of a problem making sure that all those critical updates get installed in a timely manner and the users don't find some way to bypass the automatic update. More info here if you care: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/sus/d efault.mspx
One thing I will say though is that the linux desktops seem to have developed a "clipboard history" which I can't seem to find on mac or windows desktops. I wish I could because I find that thing tremendously useful.
I've heard nothing but great things about the 3ware cards, also, though I have no personal experience. I am running a FBSD 4.9 SOHO server using a promise fastrak ata raid controller with a raid 0+1 array and I've had absolutely no problems. The driver is included in the standard FBSD ata driver and the raid array can be probed using the 'atacontrol' command. I beleive that this card is a "software raid" card as you mentioned but it _smokes_ during normal operations. Unfortunately, RAID rebuilds can be quite lengthy, can involve downtime, and the card sometimes causes a kernel panic when a failure is simulated. Still, even in this case a simple reboot solves the problem and the card operates fine with the degraded array after restart.
If you are looking for ultra-cheap solution, or have one of these promise cards built into a mobo (as in my case), and you are more concerned with data integrity/redundancy than with 100% uptime, this card is definitely servicable.
Good luck...
For what it's worth, here is the reply I sent to this organization: To whom it may concern: As a systems administrator and a citizen of Massachusetts, I was delighted to read the news in the article on your website titled "Mass Taxpayers Hurt by Proposed Software Monopoly". I think that it is wonderful that my state is moving into the 21st century and making such well-informed procurement decisions. If this plan is implemented, the state could save millions on their IT procurement budget, freeing up these funds for development, maintenance, training, and support that will increase the security and reliablity of our IT infrastructure. I don't understand your insistance that this creates a monopoly or hurts the position of technology vendors in our great state. Having a standardized platform for all state computers is an obvious decision that many large organizations make. Interoperability and standardization are important goals for the IT managers of such organizations. The idea that "Proprietary vendors will be effectively barred from competing for state contracts, limiting competition and raising costs." is ludicrous. Any vendor who wishes to provide software that runs on the chosen platform is welcome to compete for the states business, and most vendors of enterprise level software solutions do provide software that runs on open-source UNIX derivitives. Perhaps your understanding of systems administration and IT procurment issues is not as rigorous as other areas of expertise in your organization. Please do not lobby your position to Governor Romney on my behalf. - Mark Scarbrough