In typesetting if you don't really want most people from reading a specific paragraph it is always best to put that paragraph at the bottom of the page and if possible put it in a sans-serif font while having all other fonts seriffed. Of course it also helps if you put said paragraph in a page with heavy coloured pictures which basically insures it won't be read by all but the most persistent reader. It must be noted in the UK Apple website all fonts are not seriffed however nearly all words are mainly for captions which is a very valid way of using sans-serif fonts (magazines do this all the time).
Don't believe me then go to here and scroll to the bottom, then try to read the paragraph without your eyes wanting to take a holiday.
Congratulations to Apple web designers for using a technique that typesetters knew over a hundred years ago and yes unless the judge is ignorant or does not care about typesetting (in this case web layout) tricks like this then I can see Apple being found in contempt.
While getting backdoors into linux would be considerably difficult, it wouldn't be impossible.
You are right, however once an exploit is found the Linux community is usually quite quick in coming up with a fix even if it means a fresh install of the OS, although this is not something I would do unless I was fully compromised. I would think and hope that anyone in the Linux community would immediately alert the appropriate people even if it is the police in their own country.
Say for instance, government agencies tell nVidia to include an exploit in their binary blob kernel space driver.
While it is possible for a government to force certain vendors (eg. nVidia or even Microsoft) to put spy-ware in their products it would not be in the particular companies interest to do this since if this is leaked and you can be 100% sure it will, those companies that bow to government pressure will loose enormous credibility and literally risk going out of business. I can just imagine the Dutch police/government asking/telling overseas companies to put in back-doors and/or spy-ware a polite two or single finger salute would be the norm:)
How will you spot it, without the source?
Even if you do have the source most people could not read it. However it only takes one person to discover an exploit and if that exploit is government sanctioned all hell breaks loose. No sane vendor would knowingly risk shipping a product with an exploit given the high possibility of exposure.
I hated the rumble pack addition to the controllers. I will hate this as well. If you want to do anything with the controllers, make them cool down a little bit so long gaming sessions don't give you hot sweaty hands anymore.
Evidently you have never played with the NES controller, no rumble but after a few how hours of gaming you end up with RSI although to be fair you still had cool hands.
Yet another useless stupid option to turn off before playing a game. I always have to hunt around and turn the stupid vibration options off because all it does is distract my aim or whatever. Rumble pack has been nothing but pure gimmick ever since Nintendo tried it. Wherever this technology goes it's almost certainly on the immediate disable list.
Your opinion not mine and many many millions of people out there who like tactile feedback if the game is programmed to use it properly. In fact there are many games out there that require tactile feedback to be on if you want to play the game properly. Of course if you really don't like options then stick to a mono sound system after all we can't have you using your hearing to determine where the next enemy is coming from. Oh yes turn off that pesky colour on your glass standard definition TV since black and white is good enough for everyone.:)
The latest update of F17 has firefox 16.0.1. (firefox-15.0.1-1.fc17_16.0-1.fc17.x86_64.drpm) With delta rpms it is only 8.7 MB, however I also noted a new Chrome update which like all Chrome updates has no deltas so I have to download another 43 MB which is a little annoying especially when my last update was only a few days ago.
To be fair I also got two kernel releases in the same time frame but I am talking about Fedora 17 here which for me is not an issue.
Please, someone, make a browser that doesnt suck.
"Suck" in what way? There are quite a few web browsers available now and because I only run Linux (Fedora 17) the only one I can't run is Microsoft IE although with a virtual machine I can even do this but even then I still prefer Chrome or Firefox. As far as versioning I have always preferred a major release number (ie "1" or for the purists "0" upwards) followed by a functional or minor release number and possibly followed by a cosmetic or bug fix number. As for "dashes" I suppose that is ok as well although I don't write enough code to justify them.
As for Mozilla having a major number for each update (they do actually use these but normally they are ".0.0") I personally find this silly but if that is how Mozilla wants to do it then fine by me.
Being too old is when you are dead. After-all it is natures way of telling you to slow down:)
Anyone at some stage in their life has to make a decision on what they really want to do, although it is usually best to try, if possible many different jobs prior to deciding . There is nothing wrong with being an excellent programmer however you have to be careful on what languages you want to be skilled in since it is very likely you will have to keep learning languages depending on their popularity. Personally speaking I find this silly since you are always in direct competition with younger people just out of collage or University who are normally up to date with the latest trendy language.
As far as i am concerned it is important in the IT industry to be aware of different languages and the basics of programming but not on specific popular languages since learning a new language is not really that difficult but IMHO boring. What I find the most challenging part of the IT industry is developing people skills such as having the ability to get up in front of CEO's as well as IT specialists and discuss company requirements keeping in mind that if you don't know something admit it but find out asap and get back to the appropriate people or better yet get some of the people in the meeting to assist. This may sound strange to some but a properly managed meeting gets everyone feeling good especially when all questions can be answered and a solution is arrived at and agreed on by everyone concerned.
What I have just described above is some basic consulting skills however as a consultant I don't need to know the latest trendy language or even the most up to date IT products although I do have to be aware however I only need to determine what is the best solution for a customer. It is not necessarily what I want and sometimes not the preconceived wants of the customer. Is this easy? No it is not but it is challenging and a good fit for a person who is in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even into their 60's and older. Of course the pay is so must better than a programmers and you have less chance of burnout, hence the reason why consultants can work until they die if they want too.
Personally speaking I love programming providing I don't get paid for it.
Show the US government that software patents hurt innovation so much that it causes migration of innovative firms.
The problem is how? Enough words have been spoken with regard abolishing software patents some hysterical and many others logical however software patents continue to be given out with the result of billions of dollars been given to the patent lawyers and patent trolls, One possible way is for other countries to abolish software patents and don't export possibly infringing software to the USA. Easily said but in a global economy it is a brave company that can afford to do that.
NVIDIA might have supported them as a matter of advertising, since it is a GPU related project.
> Come buy our stuff, it was used to render that movie you liked!
What does NVIDIA drivers have to do with the project? Basically the film uses the Google/ON2 VP8 Video codec in a WebM file format. For those that can't be bothered looking up the link:
WebM is an audio-video format designed to provide royalty-free, open video compression for use with HTML5 video. The project's development is sponsored by Google Inc.
A WebM file consists of VP8 video and Vorbis audio streams, in a container based on a profile of Matroska. The project releases WebM related software under a BSD license and all users are granted a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free patent license. Despite this, some in the industry have called upon Google to provide indemnification against patent suits.
Actually I can look at the video without issues via VLC 2 on my laptop which has an ATI card and runs Fedora 17. In addition I don't have special drivers installed.
Is the video any good? Well I am not a film critic however considering this film was made using free tools and a limited budget I would definitely say that warrants praise.
It's interesting how so many projects that were in beta for so long (though widely used and considered essentially stable) are finally getting the 1.0 treatment.
When I write code I initially set the version of my code to 1.0 which basically means it could crash or do horrible things to the environment. In other words not to be used by anyone not encased in flame and bullet proof armour. There are many who prefer using 0.0 to designate the first version of their software however to the average person who would use that software (ie. the majority) versions starting at 1.1 or preferably 1.2 and above is much more preferred than 0.1 or 0.2. Still it is not wrong to start your version at 0.0 but you should not be surprised if the majority of people think the software is either an "alpha" or "beta" version until the version number is above 1.
The problem of determining "alpha" or "beta" software unless explicitly mentioned is also problematic since a 0.2 or 1.2 version could be a relatively stable version or it may be really dangerous to use. For anyone using software it is best to have access to the source even though you may never actually need to look at it otherwise you really have to trust the person or the site you are getting the software from. Basically when downloading software "caveat emptor" applies. This is not to say that FFmpeg is bad or even risky since I use "ffmpeg-0.10.4-2.fc17.x86_64" with VLC from the Fedora repositories and I don't have any issues with it.
...perhaps it's time that people will respond by finally encrypting everything and telling the police state advocates to sod off and stop terrorizing the population.
Or, perhaps... they could vote for people that will put an end to this. I mean, if they really want to..
Unfortunately it is difficult to vote for a government representative who has the courage to be vocal enough to put forward a good reason why stupid proposals like this should not be made law. The problem seems to be that the majority of people in nearly all political parties are IMHO a "bunch of technological cretins". While I don't think I am wrong with Australian government I would not be surprised if most governments world wide actually fall into this category.
To be fair the average voter would not have a clue either but if government brings out "think of the children" then most people would not argue against that otherwise they would be thought of as a paedophile or child molester. Even if you could try to explain to the average person that trying to save all emails would require enormous storage the cost of which would definitely be passed down to the consumer, most people would not understand.
They didn't build this dam for microsoft.
It was build a long time ago and built at public expense.
A dam can be built at public, federal or even private expense however a dam is just a means of storing water or potential energy if you will. What is needed to convert that potential energy to usable electrical energy are hydro electric turbines and someone has to pay for that as well as the distribution means and all over maintenance.
In an Enterprise environment that is a sure way of loosing your job and credibility.
To quote a [in]famous person. "Paperwork, sign-off , Other Parties, sign-off, Install, sign-off, Q&A, sign-off and lastly sign-off". Repeat as many times as necessary and watch out for the flying chairs:)
Software installs need to be repeatable, and need to be something which can be done by someone other than the devs
Normally software installation is repeatable no matter what the environment unless you are trying to install software that is being hacked on a daily basis and if that is the case no self respecting System Administrator would allow that software to be installed on anything but what we would call a "Crash and Burn" machine.
As I have have said in a previous post if you are talking about an Enterprise environment then there are allot of things to consider before you as the System Administrator allow software to be installed. Things like network changes, storage and backups etc. Even then it is essential all interested parties are involved and appropriate documentation and sign-off are in place before you as the System Administrator would allow software to be installed or even updated.
Please cite the clause in the GPL that requires attribution.
If you find such a clause and it's not taken out of context I'll eat my words.
I won't deny that the word "attribution" is missing in the GPL2 however it is in GPL3 (See 7b Additional Terms). From here
"Attribution (copyright), concept in copyright law requiring an author to be credited". Now look at the GPL 2 or 3 they mention copyright and one of the requirements of the GPL is the requirement of the author of said software to be credited.
No, Obi Wan, Luke and Leia can as can all the Jedis and Siths, however Han Solo can cause a kerfuffle as demonstrated by his hasty departure from Tatooine:)
How did Libre/OpenOffice win? Microsoft Office is still the most widely used, and best, office suite. Hell, even Apple's office apps are better than Libre/OpenOffice.
Yes MS Office is the most widely used in first world business however LibreOffice (was OpenOffice) will do everything MS Office can do as well as read and write MS Office formats, in addition you can natively run LibreOffice on Microsoft Windows or any Linux distribution if you wish and it's legitimately free. As for saying which one is the best that is dependent on which suite you like and are familiar with. Basically if you can do something in MS Office i can do exactly the same thing in LibreOffice or any number of free Office tools I have access to and I don't run Microsoft Windows however I do work in environments that predominately run Microsoft Software and don't have any issues with compatibility.
Try this site and pass out different copies to all attending the meeting/lecture. Don't forget to give out a lacquered dog-turd or preferably a cow pat to the winner or should that be to the speaker:)
If you are going to use Natural Gas which is a non renewable resource to generate electricity then you need a Natural Gas power plant and when you are looking at MW outputs this is not that cheap. Cut a gas line and I think I would like to move well away from the area, since one spark and boom. Conversely cut a power line and you don't want to touch it until the line has been isolated which normally takes a few seconds.
What about power outages? Well this can happen if the electricity provider is slack or say a line is broken via the elements or human error. Exactly the same can be said for gas in that lines can also be cut although to be fair most gas lines are underground but if wok is required on a segment then all users on that segment will be cut off (similarly for electrical).
In my house we have gas storage hot water and gas range hob. If we lose gas then we can use electrical appliances for our needs and we can still have hot water for washing. If we loose electricity we can still get hot water and can cook on the gas stove but obviously most things that depend on electricity don't work and I have yet to see an gas operated TV:)
good luck using software to write data onto disks that have taken themselves offline
That is why data in Enterprise Storage Arrays is cached before sending to physical disk. Cache storage on Storage Arrays can be in the order of many GB as well as having redundant internal battery supplies so when the disks are finally brought back up data resident in the cache is then written out to disk.
So there are no backhoes in your extra modern 1st world?
Yes seen that and the diesel generators worked flawlessly however the power switching equipment failed and 30 minutes later we had a silent data centre. Of course we were thankful that we did not have a gas pipeline cut.
Actually I hope that more datacenters start using natural gas to power their backups. That means that the datacenter I work for will be able to run for months without being dependent on a public utility company
The actual costs of generating your own power rarely match the cost of receiving power from a reliable customer power grid. Of course if the customer power grid is unreliable then the data centre may have to generate it's own power. which is not going to be cheap. One point I should make about natural gas is that it is a non renewable energy resource and many places don't have the infrastructure to pipe the gas to a required location.
If you don't have an experienced diesel plant mechanic onsite there's not much point having diesel generators
Why would you need an experienced diesel plant mechanic on-site? That is like saying you need a experienced motor mechanic sitting in every car that is on the road. Yes if a generator fails you would have to get a mechanic out to the site to do minor repairs but you don't have to have a diesel plant mechanic always on-site. Normally a data centre has two or more generators and if a generator goes out it is possible to get support generators delivered on-site within a few hours and integrating them into the electrical infrastructure is normally done by the technical site staff who can normally do this within a few minutes.
Actually if a large diesel plant has a catastrophic failure you would most likely have to ship it back to a heavy machine factory that has the capability of repairing the plant. In truth the same could be said for all electrical generating plants although a diesel plant is by far one of the most transportable.
Most data centres normally get their primary power from the main electrical grid. Backup is normally via batteries for almost instantaneous but short term (15 minutes to an hour) electrical supply while longer term (greater than 24 hours) electrical supply is normally done via diesel generators. Of course you do have some sites that can generate power via some sort of solar energy (eg. wind, photovoltaic,..) or even natural gas. The problem you have from alternative resources is they have some drawbacks such as when the sun goes down photovoltaic cells are useless or when there is little or no wind then wind power is useless. Lets not go into other sorts of long term power generation since most are not viable 24x7.
I am quite sure that some readers will point out that xxxx is viable. My answer is "maybe" but what about running costs? Example. Say you decide to use natural gas (assuming deliverable, cheap and plentiful) . In principle great however why duplicate what is already provided via the customer electrical grid and even if you did you would have to maintain your power generating system which is not cheap.
Why diesel generators to say xxxx? Well a diesel generator is a single reliable self contained power plant which means you only have to provide diesel fuel which is relatively cheap, can be delivered fairly quickly and has a higher ignition temperature than other forms of liquid or gaseous fuels. Of course you still would not use diesel generators as your primary source of power if your data centre has access to a customer power grid.
Note. By saying "xxxx" I would assume the reader can come up with an alternative power generation method although saying "Nuclear" I think LOL is more appropriate:)
That said, in all seriousness. If they replace backup generators with some alternate technology. I hope that they actually make sure it is reliable first. And that it stays reliable over time. (eg, three years later, you suddenly need it, does it still work?)
You are correct. It really does not matter what method you use to provide a backup power source for your data centre providing it is reliable. The problem all data centres have is normally high end management in that it is very difficult to get them to agree to regular testing of the power backup system since there is always a small possibility of a failure. It is essential that regular testing is carried out (say 3 to 6 months) otherwise when the main power grid goes down you could have a catastrophe on your hands. I have actually seen this happen a few times once (actually it happened twice in 3 months) where a digger cut the main power lines and another time when a substation transformer expoloded (very spectacular bang) and on all occasions the data centre went down.
It must be noted that the two times the mains was cut the batteries did provide power for 30 minutes so we were able to shut-down all machines gracefully. Surprisingly the generators did start immediately however the main circuit breaker from the generators failed. The once were the transformer blew was almost instantaneous since the main circuit breakers from the battery inverters actually failed as well. What was even more surprising outage tests were only carried out two weeks prior the substation transformer exploding
I think the saying "The best laid plans of mice and men" is appropriate here.
Slashdot Mirror
In typesetting if you don't really want most people from reading a specific paragraph it is always best to put that paragraph at the bottom of the page and if possible put it in a sans-serif font while having all other fonts seriffed. Of course it also helps if you put said paragraph in a page with heavy coloured pictures which basically insures it won't be read by all but the most persistent reader. It must be noted in the UK Apple website all fonts are not seriffed however nearly all words are mainly for captions which is a very valid way of using sans-serif fonts (magazines do this all the time).
Don't believe me then go to here and scroll to the bottom, then try to read the paragraph without your eyes wanting to take a holiday.
Congratulations to Apple web designers for using a technique that typesetters knew over a hundred years ago and yes unless the judge is ignorant or does not care about typesetting (in this case web layout) tricks like this then I can see Apple being found in contempt.
While getting backdoors into linux would be considerably difficult, it wouldn't be impossible.
You are right, however once an exploit is found the Linux community is usually quite quick in coming up with a fix even if it means a fresh install of the OS, although this is not something I would do unless I was fully compromised. I would think and hope that anyone in the Linux community would immediately alert the appropriate people even if it is the police in their own country.
Say for instance, government agencies tell nVidia to include an exploit in their binary blob kernel space driver.
While it is possible for a government to force certain vendors (eg. nVidia or even Microsoft) to put spy-ware in their products it would not be in the particular companies interest to do this since if this is leaked and you can be 100% sure it will, those companies that bow to government pressure will loose enormous credibility and literally risk going out of business. I can just imagine the Dutch police/government asking/telling overseas companies to put in back-doors and/or spy-ware a polite two or single finger salute would be the norm :)
How will you spot it, without the source?
Even if you do have the source most people could not read it. However it only takes one person to discover an exploit and if that exploit is government sanctioned all hell breaks loose. No sane vendor would knowingly risk shipping a product with an exploit given the high possibility of exposure.
This already kind of happens. Certain games can cause the room to heat the room almost unbearably at times.
Not to mention controllers been thrown at the TV (Oh Wait!).
I hated the rumble pack addition to the controllers. I will hate this as well. If you want to do anything with the controllers, make them cool down a little bit so long gaming sessions don't give you hot sweaty hands anymore.
Evidently you have never played with the NES controller, no rumble but after a few how hours of gaming you end up with RSI although to be fair you still had cool hands.
Yet another useless stupid option to turn off before playing a game. I always have to hunt around and turn the stupid vibration options off because all it does is distract my aim or whatever. Rumble pack has been nothing but pure gimmick ever since Nintendo tried it. Wherever this technology goes it's almost certainly on the immediate disable list.
Your opinion not mine and many many millions of people out there who like tactile feedback if the game is programmed to use it properly. In fact there are many games out there that require tactile feedback to be on if you want to play the game properly. Of course if you really don't like options then stick to a mono sound system after all we can't have you using your hearing to determine where the next enemy is coming from. Oh yes turn off that pesky colour on your glass standard definition TV since black and white is good enough for everyone. :)
google-chrome-stable-22.0.1229.92-159988.x86_64.rpm (43 MB) - 8th Oct 2012
google-chrome-stable-22.0.1229.94-161065.x86_64.rpm (43MB) - Today
To be fair I also got two kernel releases in the same time frame but I am talking about Fedora 17 here which for me is not an issue.
Please, someone, make a browser that doesnt suck.
"Suck" in what way? There are quite a few web browsers available now and because I only run Linux (Fedora 17) the only one I can't run is Microsoft IE although with a virtual machine I can even do this but even then I still prefer Chrome or Firefox. As far as versioning I have always preferred a major release number (ie "1" or for the purists "0" upwards) followed by a functional or minor release number and possibly followed by a cosmetic or bug fix number. As for "dashes" I suppose that is ok as well although I don't write enough code to justify them.
As for Mozilla having a major number for each update (they do actually use these but normally they are ".0.0") I personally find this silly but if that is how Mozilla wants to do it then fine by me.
Being too old is when you are dead. After-all it is natures way of telling you to slow down :)
Anyone at some stage in their life has to make a decision on what they really want to do, although it is usually best to try, if possible many different jobs prior to deciding . There is nothing wrong with being an excellent programmer however you have to be careful on what languages you want to be skilled in since it is very likely you will have to keep learning languages depending on their popularity. Personally speaking I find this silly since you are always in direct competition with younger people just out of collage or University who are normally up to date with the latest trendy language.
As far as i am concerned it is important in the IT industry to be aware of different languages and the basics of programming but not on specific popular languages since learning a new language is not really that difficult but IMHO boring. What I find the most challenging part of the IT industry is developing people skills such as having the ability to get up in front of CEO's as well as IT specialists and discuss company requirements keeping in mind that if you don't know something admit it but find out asap and get back to the appropriate people or better yet get some of the people in the meeting to assist. This may sound strange to some but a properly managed meeting gets everyone feeling good especially when all questions can be answered and a solution is arrived at and agreed on by everyone concerned.
What I have just described above is some basic consulting skills however as a consultant I don't need to know the latest trendy language or even the most up to date IT products although I do have to be aware however I only need to determine what is the best solution for a customer. It is not necessarily what I want and sometimes not the preconceived wants of the customer. Is this easy? No it is not but it is challenging and a good fit for a person who is in their 30's, 40's, 50's and even into their 60's and older. Of course the pay is so must better than a programmers and you have less chance of burnout, hence the reason why consultants can work until they die if they want too.
Personally speaking I love programming providing I don't get paid for it.
Show the US government that software patents hurt innovation so much that it causes migration of innovative firms.
The problem is how? Enough words have been spoken with regard abolishing software patents some hysterical and many others logical however software patents continue to be given out with the result of billions of dollars been given to the patent lawyers and patent trolls, One possible way is for other countries to abolish software patents and don't export possibly infringing software to the USA. Easily said but in a global economy it is a brave company that can afford to do that.
NVIDIA might have supported them as a matter of advertising, since it is a GPU related project.
> Come buy our stuff, it was used to render that movie you liked!
What does NVIDIA drivers have to do with the project? Basically the film uses the Google/ON2 VP8 Video codec in a WebM file format. For those that can't be bothered looking up the link:
WebM is an audio-video format designed to provide royalty-free, open video compression for use with HTML5 video. The project's development is sponsored by Google Inc.
A WebM file consists of VP8 video and Vorbis audio streams, in a container based on a profile of Matroska. The project releases WebM related software under a BSD license and all users are granted a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free patent license. Despite this, some in the industry have called upon Google to provide indemnification against patent suits.
Actually I can look at the video without issues via VLC 2 on my laptop which has an ATI card and runs Fedora 17. In addition I don't have special drivers installed.
Is the video any good? Well I am not a film critic however considering this film was made using free tools and a limited budget I would definitely say that warrants praise.
It's interesting how so many projects that were in beta for so long (though widely used and considered essentially stable) are finally getting the 1.0 treatment.
When I write code I initially set the version of my code to 1.0 which basically means it could crash or do horrible things to the environment. In other words not to be used by anyone not encased in flame and bullet proof armour. There are many who prefer using 0.0 to designate the first version of their software however to the average person who would use that software (ie. the majority) versions starting at 1.1 or preferably 1.2 and above is much more preferred than 0.1 or 0.2. Still it is not wrong to start your version at 0.0 but you should not be surprised if the majority of people think the software is either an "alpha" or "beta" version until the version number is above 1.
The problem of determining "alpha" or "beta" software unless explicitly mentioned is also problematic since a 0.2 or 1.2 version could be a relatively stable version or it may be really dangerous to use. For anyone using software it is best to have access to the source even though you may never actually need to look at it otherwise you really have to trust the person or the site you are getting the software from. Basically when downloading software "caveat emptor" applies. This is not to say that FFmpeg is bad or even risky since I use "ffmpeg-0.10.4-2.fc17.x86_64" with VLC from the Fedora repositories and I don't have any issues with it.
Or, perhaps... they could vote for people that will put an end to this. I mean, if they really want to..
Unfortunately it is difficult to vote for a government representative who has the courage to be vocal enough to put forward a good reason why stupid proposals like this should not be made law. The problem seems to be that the majority of people in nearly all political parties are IMHO a "bunch of technological cretins". While I don't think I am wrong with Australian government I would not be surprised if most governments world wide actually fall into this category.
To be fair the average voter would not have a clue either but if government brings out "think of the children" then most people would not argue against that otherwise they would be thought of as a paedophile or child molester. Even if you could try to explain to the average person that trying to save all emails would require enormous storage the cost of which would definitely be passed down to the consumer, most people would not understand.
They didn't build this dam for microsoft. It was build a long time ago and built at public expense.
A dam can be built at public, federal or even private expense however a dam is just a means of storing water or potential energy if you will. What is needed to convert that potential energy to usable electrical energy are hydro electric turbines and someone has to pay for that as well as the distribution means and all over maintenance.
Or you can just Cowboy it and take your chances.
In an Enterprise environment that is a sure way of loosing your job and credibility.
:)
To quote a [in]famous person. "Paperwork, sign-off , Other Parties, sign-off, Install, sign-off, Q&A, sign-off and lastly sign-off". Repeat as many times as necessary and watch out for the flying chairs
Software installs need to be repeatable, and need to be something which can be done by someone other than the devs
Normally software installation is repeatable no matter what the environment unless you are trying to install software that is being hacked on a daily basis and if that is the case no self respecting System Administrator would allow that software to be installed on anything but what we would call a "Crash and Burn" machine.
As I have have said in a previous post if you are talking about an Enterprise environment then there are allot of things to consider before you as the System Administrator allow software to be installed. Things like network changes, storage and backups etc. Even then it is essential all interested parties are involved and appropriate documentation and sign-off are in place before you as the System Administrator would allow software to be installed or even updated.
Please cite the clause in the GPL that requires attribution.
If you find such a clause and it's not taken out of context I'll eat my words.
I won't deny that the word "attribution" is missing in the GPL2 however it is in GPL3 (See 7b Additional Terms). From here "Attribution (copyright), concept in copyright law requiring an author to be credited". Now look at the GPL 2 or 3 they mention copyright and one of the requirements of the GPL is the requirement of the author of said software to be credited.
So, Han Solo was feeling a kerfuffle?
No, Obi Wan, Luke and Leia can as can all the Jedis and Siths, however Han Solo can cause a kerfuffle as demonstrated by his hasty departure from Tatooine :)
How did Libre/OpenOffice win? Microsoft Office is still the most widely used, and best, office suite. Hell, even Apple's office apps are better than Libre/OpenOffice.
Yes MS Office is the most widely used in first world business however LibreOffice (was OpenOffice) will do everything MS Office can do as well as read and write MS Office formats, in addition you can natively run LibreOffice on Microsoft Windows or any Linux distribution if you wish and it's legitimately free. As for saying which one is the best that is dependent on which suite you like and are familiar with. Basically if you can do something in MS Office i can do exactly the same thing in LibreOffice or any number of free Office tools I have access to and I don't run Microsoft Windows however I do work in environments that predominately run Microsoft Software and don't have any issues with compatibility.
Try this site and pass out different copies to all attending the meeting/lecture. Don't forget to give out a lacquered dog-turd or preferably a cow pat to the winner or should that be to the speaker :)
Is Natural Gas more reliable than electricity?
I think the best answer is "it depends".
:)
If you are going to use Natural Gas which is a non renewable resource to generate electricity then you need a Natural Gas power plant and when you are looking at MW outputs this is not that cheap. Cut a gas line and I think I would like to move well away from the area, since one spark and boom. Conversely cut a power line and you don't want to touch it until the line has been isolated which normally takes a few seconds.
What about power outages? Well this can happen if the electricity provider is slack or say a line is broken via the elements or human error. Exactly the same can be said for gas in that lines can also be cut although to be fair most gas lines are underground but if wok is required on a segment then all users on that segment will be cut off (similarly for electrical).
In my house we have gas storage hot water and gas range hob. If we lose gas then we can use electrical appliances for our needs and we can still have hot water for washing. If we loose electricity we can still get hot water and can cook on the gas stove but obviously most things that depend on electricity don't work and I have yet to see an gas operated TV
good luck using software to write data onto disks that have taken themselves offline
That is why data in Enterprise Storage Arrays is cached before sending to physical disk. Cache storage on Storage Arrays can be in the order of many GB as well as having redundant internal battery supplies so when the disks are finally brought back up data resident in the cache is then written out to disk.
So there are no backhoes in your extra modern 1st world?
Yes seen that and the diesel generators worked flawlessly however the power switching equipment failed and 30 minutes later we had a silent data centre. Of course we were thankful that we did not have a gas pipeline cut.
Actually I hope that more datacenters start using natural gas to power their backups. That means that the datacenter I work for will be able to run for months without being dependent on a public utility company
The actual costs of generating your own power rarely match the cost of receiving power from a reliable customer power grid. Of course if the customer power grid is unreliable then the data centre may have to generate it's own power. which is not going to be cheap. One point I should make about natural gas is that it is a non renewable energy resource and many places don't have the infrastructure to pipe the gas to a required location.
If you don't have an experienced diesel plant mechanic onsite there's not much point having diesel generators
Why would you need an experienced diesel plant mechanic on-site? That is like saying you need a experienced motor mechanic sitting in every car that is on the road. Yes if a generator fails you would have to get a mechanic out to the site to do minor repairs but you don't have to have a diesel plant mechanic always on-site. Normally a data centre has two or more generators and if a generator goes out it is possible to get support generators delivered on-site within a few hours and integrating them into the electrical infrastructure is normally done by the technical site staff who can normally do this within a few minutes.
Actually if a large diesel plant has a catastrophic failure you would most likely have to ship it back to a heavy machine factory that has the capability of repairing the plant. In truth the same could be said for all electrical generating plants although a diesel plant is by far one of the most transportable.
Most data centres normally get their primary power from the main electrical grid. Backup is normally via batteries for almost instantaneous but short term (15 minutes to an hour) electrical supply while longer term (greater than 24 hours) electrical supply is normally done via diesel generators. Of course you do have some sites that can generate power via some sort of solar energy (eg. wind, photovoltaic, ..) or even natural gas. The problem you have from alternative resources is they have some drawbacks such as when the sun goes down photovoltaic cells are useless or when there is little or no wind then wind power is useless. Lets not go into other sorts of long term power generation since most are not viable 24x7.
:)
I am quite sure that some readers will point out that xxxx is viable. My answer is "maybe" but what about running costs? Example. Say you decide to use natural gas (assuming deliverable, cheap and plentiful) . In principle great however why duplicate what is already provided via the customer electrical grid and even if you did you would have to maintain your power generating system which is not cheap.
Why diesel generators to say xxxx? Well a diesel generator is a single reliable self contained power plant which means you only have to provide diesel fuel which is relatively cheap, can be delivered fairly quickly and has a higher ignition temperature than other forms of liquid or gaseous fuels. Of course you still would not use diesel generators as your primary source of power if your data centre has access to a customer power grid.
Note. By saying "xxxx" I would assume the reader can come up with an alternative power generation method although saying "Nuclear" I think LOL is more appropriate
That said, in all seriousness. If they replace backup generators with some alternate technology. I hope that they actually make sure it is reliable first. And that it stays reliable over time. (eg, three years later, you suddenly need it, does it still work?)
You are correct. It really does not matter what method you use to provide a backup power source for your data centre providing it is reliable. The problem all data centres have is normally high end management in that it is very difficult to get them to agree to regular testing of the power backup system since there is always a small possibility of a failure. It is essential that regular testing is carried out (say 3 to 6 months) otherwise when the main power grid goes down you could have a catastrophe on your hands. I have actually seen this happen a few times once (actually it happened twice in 3 months) where a digger cut the main power lines and another time when a substation transformer expoloded (very spectacular bang) and on all occasions the data centre went down.
It must be noted that the two times the mains was cut the batteries did provide power for 30 minutes so we were able to shut-down all machines gracefully. Surprisingly the generators did start immediately however the main circuit breaker from the generators failed. The once were the transformer blew was almost instantaneous since the main circuit breakers from the battery inverters actually failed as well. What was even more surprising outage tests were only carried out two weeks prior the substation transformer exploding
I think the saying "The best laid plans of mice and men" is appropriate here.