Don't usually agree with some of the tags put on articles lately, but this one I do. "Canthackthebrain" and "useyourmemory" pretty much sum up my reaction to this post and the whole password thing in general. Your brain is the best place to store passwords, especially those that are used regularly. I have four or five strong passwords that I use on a regular basis, for different purposes. I used to use a password manager in the browser to keep track of them, but that quickly became a flawed strategy. Remembering four or five password and username combinations is not that difficult if you use them on at least a monthly basis. I have long known the cognitive principles behind memory with a primary being, in essence: Use it or lose it! The best way to remember something is to apply that stored information regularly.
I use phrases with numbers and special characters in them to replace certain letters. These are either phrases from literature, songs or movie lines that I liked. I use four or five of them and rotate between them for a couple years, then up and change them all with a new set and use those for a couple years. I just found myself more comfortable typing in my passwords (once anyway, multiple times in a session gets rough...patch day!), than relying on a single master password that was often longer than the one needed for the particular login.
Use your brain! It's the safest place to keep a password, and it helps keep your memory abilities sharp. Now, where did I put my effing car keys?!?!
Answer this question: How important is your data? If it's really important, like it is to a Fortune 500 company, the Federal Government or other important data creator then a tape backup system is worth the investment. I don't get your assertion that they (tape drives) have "low storage capacity". LTO and DLT drives have native capacities of 200GB or more these days. Yes, the drive will cost $1000+ and the tapes are about $50 each, but if your data is really that important that you have to hang on to it for decades, then that's your best solution.
As someone that has lost some "precious" data over the years I will also say this: If it's more than five years old, chances are you don't need it anymore and you're just being a paranoid pack rat. But, if you are dead serious about long-term data storage, then tapes are the way to go.
I will add to this as I have "been there, done that." As a manager of a group of programmers it's your job to be the bridge between them and their ideas, thoughts, feelings about the project they are working on and the company they work for, and the management that you report to, get budget from, sets goals and, ultimately, pays your paycheck. As the middle man in this scenario you have to take the arrows from both sides and figure out how to keep the team together and motivated, as well as meet you budget and deliver a product on time. These are not easy things to do with youngsters that don't know any better, but even harder to do with more mature, "seasoned" programmers.
What you need to understand is that as a new manager your role is to learn. The company hopes you learn from the mature programmers how best to get a project out the door. The programmers hope you learn how to balance your humanity with the needs of the company so their world doesn't get turned upside-down. My suggestion: Be as hands-on as possible with the project. This means that the unit you are in charge of becomes flat from an organizational perspective; only communication in and out of the group to and from upper management is filtered through you, and being the team leader when key decisions need to be made, differentiate you from the rest of the team. I have found that my teams respect me and my skills (both inside and outside the team's competency) better and I get to build a more human rapport with those on the team. You'll be surprised at how the mocking behavior will turn into good natured ribbing that you would expect in a tightly knit team. It won't completely eliminate malicious behavior because there's always someone in every group that will disagree with something you do, but it sure does let folks know you're not an armchair quarterback blindly following directives from upstairs. You will probably hone your programming chops in the process.
Bottom line, create an environment of mutual respect and allow the social interactions to progress at their own rate. Keep the team focused and motivated by being in the thick of things with them. Remember, it's your team and if you don't take ownership/stewardship/responsibility for them then why should they or management care what happens? They won't, because you won't be a manager for long.
Why on God's green Earth would you want to be complicit with this nonsense that's going to create more work for you with no additional pay? Why on Earth would any university condone the use of university personnel, facilities, etc. to do the work of someone else for free? This is extortion and racketeering, almost by definition folks. The RIAA can blow it out their ear. I'd rather they tried to sue and then get hit for malicious and wrongful prosecution than deal with this utterly ridiculous racket.
I'm sorry, I'm someone who loves music, makes music, and last year recorded an independent album that the RIAA can suck on for all I care. We don't need them nor the crappy music they push at us on a daily basis, nor the ridiculous racket of enforcement they are trying to dupe us into believing is their right. It's not and if you believe it is you better educate yourself before you get on the wrong side of a very messy battle that's just beginning to start. I believe in the rights of artists as individuals, not in the rights of unions, guilds, corporations or other corrupt bureaucracies that have only their own self interests in mind.
Don't be that guy/girl! Tell them to shove it and see them in court! The whole point of being "independent" is you are not at the mercy of the RIAA nor any label. You don't need them! WAKE UP!
Ok, I am sure the rest of this largely uninformed thread will be the same, so I'll insert my comments here where someone went off the deep end, IMHO.
[FACT]
Although there are Federal standards and Labor Laws, complete labor laws vary from state-to-state; consult with a local labor attorney to get a real answer, NOT SLASHDOT!
[/FACT]
[OPINION]
If you put a lot of effort into it, pay for a lawyer, get what you deserved in the first place plus the cost of filing a lawsuit plus getting fired for any reason they can think of, you might be able to get a "fair" deal. For yourself.
This is what unions are for. Don't let Slashdot's libertarianism lead you to oppose your own interests, or the interests of your felling employees.
Union?!?! I hope you were joking. So, you propose to replace a single corrupt manager-whose public flogging through the courts will very quickly change internal practices once brought to light-with an undeniably corruptible bureaucracy that feigns support for "the common man" to line its own pockets while providing meager concessions to its constituency? Yeah, that's a good idea! I don't subscribe to any single ideology, but if by me wanting to negotiate my own deals (thank you very much) makes me a libertarian (in your mind) then so be it.
These problems aren't going to go away until individuals start blowing the whistle and stop standing around and waiting for someone else (a union, a govt, whatever) to do something. Come one people! We're all reasonably intelligent here and we all certainly have access to the Internet and the wealth of information therein. If something doesn't "seem" right to you, educate yourself and talk to people more knowledgeable than yourself about (in this case) labor law. That would NOT be the/. community, that would be a labor attorney. The first consultation is usually free! Don't wait for someone else to do it! Stand up! Be a man, or a woman if you are one! Sic semper tyrannis!
Ok, sure I'm one person, I'm going to be labeled a whistle blower, etc. Would you rather be a whistle blower or a slave? I don't think unions are a good idea, but certainly an ad hoc group of maligned employees does carry more weight than an individual. You don't need to start an organization (union), in the modern world, to be heard. The Internet and the ridiculous, sensationalist attitudes of the media will carry the message around and entice others to stand up as well. It does have to start somewhere with one person saying, "No." Don't fear the consequences of doing the right thing. Doing nothing is far worse. Write that down!
Please, I implore you. Do not allow another great mind to be lost to social stigma. Do not allow the next Einstein, Curie, or Salk to throw away a natural talent because she would not be accepted within her chosen peer group.
I am not saying that anyone should be forced to take a certain path, but to not encourage her to at least pursue math and science a bit more-setting aside the fact that she is a rarity and an inspiration to other young women-would be equally as criminal. Your daughter has no idea what potential fields are open to her, what exciting things can be achieved with the application of mathematics, and she won't know until she gets to the collegiate level. There are dozens of challenging engineering and science careers that are "cool" in and of themselves while requiring a great deal of mathematical aptitude. She should explore as many of them as she can.
Again, I am all for individuals choosing their own path, but they should make educated decisions based on their individual strengths as well as desires. The pursuit of social acceptance should never be considered foremost in the search for a path for your life. Social acceptance will come when you apply your skills for greater good. Why do you think we know the names of the folks I mentioned above?
Don't ignore natural talent. Find a way to use it not only for your own enjoyment, but to benefit others. Also, don't put too much weight on a single instrument's evaluation of skill. Not to diminish what a perfect math score on the ACT means for you now and in the near future, but in the long run it means very little. The opportunities achieving that score will present to you should not be ignored or devalued. Explore them and good luck!
...but write it down! A daily progress report of what you did, who you helped, background tasks that people didn't see, etc. Takes about 15 minutes or so at the end of the day and it will make management happy and give you a written record to refer to later, or for any successor/helper to use as well. I instituted this in my last position for *all* my staff because we were perceived as "not managing our time properly." It helps everyone know what's going on and will give those with a poor perception a rather eye opening dose of what you're really doing.
Pressure from whom?!?! Big business? Yeah, that's a good reason to pick that type of person... NOT! I would rather they had a broader focus and much less of a direct connection to the business of computing. Again, it's my opinion. This is an advisory position that will assist in making policy and I feel there would be a conflict of interest if this person came from a Fortune 500/1000 technology company. For the same reason we should not have oil barons in advisory positions with regard to national energy policy. *cough* *cough* Entrepreneurial in nature may be ok, but I don't think they should be from a publicly traded company for sure. Again, IMHO.
But, be careful about putting Sun, the company that barely survived the dot-com collapse too high on your list. Some bad technology decisions with regard to business were made there and they are still struggling to recover their once prominent position in the industry.
Ok, I did find some older (10 years) Kodak discs that the dye seems to have faded on that would not mount in my drive. I can still see the data portion on the disc so I'm wondering if it's just the drive. It would be interesting to see if a different drive or Blu-ray Disc reader would do better with older media. Anyone have a BD drive that could test that theory? I don't at present.
I had an original Sony 2x burner in 1992/1993 when the drive cost $2500, the software cost $2500 (QuickTopix) and blanks were $40 each (Tayo Yuden), so I've been using the technology for a while now. Just for the sake of argument I popped a 12 year old CD (Tayo Yuden mfg.) in my drive and did some read tests on it. Sure enough, still kicking. This disc has been in a jewel case inside a desk drawer for 9 years, and prior to that was on a bookshelf in my old apartment. I typically buy name brand media from TDK, Sony, Verbatim and Maxell these days. Some of the older discs I have are Tayo Yuden, back in the days when they were one of the only manufacturers. I have yet to have a problem with non-scratched media. I follow the storage instructions and almost always store them in jewel cases or on old spindles.
My guess is that this person bought some el-cheapo generic brand discs. I made that mistake once and after the first two failed to write I threw out that whole spindle of 25 and went back to a name brand. In my observations of CD and DVD media you do get what you pay for, and not following storage recommendations will *cough* burn you.
I'd feel more comfortable with someone from the research or academic circles than I would with someone from industry for a position like that. Might just be my bias, but I feel that someone from industry might be a little more biased toward a particular set of interests. Although marginalized to some degree, I think someone like current science advisor John Marburger would be a much better choice. Just my $0.02.
Some denatured alcohol and a toothbrush (or other nylon bristled brush with soft bristles) should do the trick. I saw bleach as a tag, but I wouldn't do that. Bleach is corrosive and may eat away at circuit packaging and stiffen/make brittle cable wrapping.
You are going to need a good sized tub and a lot of whatever liquid cleaner you use. You'll probably want a "wash" tub and a "rinse" tub to make sure you get any mold residue off the components. My sincere condolences on the flood, btw.
Try not breaking the law. You have already posted in a public forum that you plan on doing copyright violation. How smart was that? You also said what you were doing and where you were going. Why do I get the feeling that you really aren't that concerned about privacy, or you're doing something illegal that is going to draw attention anyway?
My suggestion to you at this point is to not bring your laptop at all. If you do, try bringing the actual DVDs with you and while you're at it burn your images to DVD too. They can't search those without a separate warrant.
CutePDF(free) to create, and PDF Annotator(shareware), well, to do everything else. We (Virginia Tech) actually got a site license for Annotator and it was $4 a copy.
I think you're assuming that everyone applying for a programming job is a CS major. Not the case, and this is why you might not understand. IT is a profession where people come from varying backgrounds and have learned the skills they posses through necessity or just desire. I myself hold a B.Arch, but I have been around computers since 1975 and been programming since about 1980.
There are plenty of us that aren't CS majors that also pick up things quickly, have the math chops and the experience of coding multiple projects across varying languages and vertical markets. You never know where the good people are going to come from, so, you test.
We only have ourselves to blame. Why do you think the interviewers want a test? Because somewhere along the line, in some capacity, they were burned by an unscrupulous IT person who lied about their level of competency.
Lawyers and doctors (and most other tradespersons) have professional societies (and actual civil and criminal laws) that police ethics and malpractice, IT does not
Businesses have been plagued by inflated IT resumes and are tired of getting burned
Even when the paper is correct there are at least two major types of IT persons that one can end up with. One type I call the "enablers" and the other is the "dependents". Enablers build systems and solutions that allow the users to take ownership and responsibility for their own IT needs. Dependents create an environment where they are the center of the IT universe and think that being such gives them job security (it doesn't!). It's not black and white either. There is a myriad of gray between the two extremes.
Just because someone has spent a long time doing something in IT doesn't mean they are good at it or are doing it in an efficient, optimal way.
When it comes to certifications, well, sometimes Mr. Miyagi is right, "[B]elt means no need rope hold up pants." Just because you passed a test and got a piece of paper doesn't mean you're gonna know the best thing to do in a crisis situation. That takes experience, not certification.
Well, if it's on a managed network then the IP needs to be mapped to a MAC address (and port on a switch) and the port turned off. Once that's done, tracing the cable to a physical port should take no more than a day.
If it's on an unmanaged switch things get a little more annoying, but you should still be able to track an IP and MAC address to the switch using any open source network tool like WireShark. Find the switch. Pull the cable out of the port, or if you're feeling really adventurous you could bring a replacement switch in and start playing "Is that it?" until you find the bugger.
Must be a slow day for something this ho-hum to make it on/.
You have a system now. It works. So why are you worried about parts arriving at different times? This makes sense in a business sense, but doesn't make sense from a personal/gaming machine sense. If you're worried about parts not working before you have all of them, heaven forbid you test them in the machine you do have before their 30-day return date passes. I also don't understand that logic. The parts are all warranted through their respective manufacturers. If something doesn't work, get it replaced. If you are returning things for other reasons, then you really need to do more homework before you buy.
Getting back to the topic, if you want parts to arrive in a certain amount of time then you're going to have to hunt for the resellers that have them in-stock and ready to ship. It's called due diligence. You will probably not find a single vendor to get all the parts from. Yes, some have more influence over distributors and can get parts sooner, but if the manufacturer is having supply problems, then so will the rest of the chain all the way down to the consumer. No way around that unless you go straight to the manufacturer. For a single, personal gaming system I think you'd be out of luck trying to get preferential treatment on supply direct from a vendor, but you might have the pull, don't know you.
(1) multi-platform (Windows and Linux), stand-alone client (can be run from a portable drive). (2) Secure backup (encrypted and signed) to non-trusted FTP site. (3) Sync individual files without saving to a giant tar file. (4) Securely store timestamps and file names on the FTP server.
TrueCrypt (answers items 1 and 2, other posts talk about why signing is or is not needed) plus rsync (answers items 3 and 4; read the man pages on how to preserve time/date stamps and use an encrypted transfer protocol) and you're done. You don't seem to care about transferring whole files, as long as they aren't tomes of files and you don't seem to care if the transmission of said files is secure (nor its storage location for that matter).
I think the issue here for you and others is mostly psychological. I don't think you (the OP) is comfortable with your level of security and I think a lot of folks in this thread that are posting are uncomfortable with your level of security because their either a). exceptionally paranoid (acceptable, but sometimes silly) or b). don't know enough about what you're really doing to be able to answer you effectively. It sounds like you're relatively new to this whole "encrypted-backup-offsite-storage" thing and you need to do some more homework. Google is your friend. Asking/. is not usually a good idea unless you have a clearly defined question in mind and a lot of details to share, or you want a lot of useful but somewhat overkill answers along with the occasional troll and mocking answers.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't usually agree with some of the tags put on articles lately, but this one I do. "Canthackthebrain" and "useyourmemory" pretty much sum up my reaction to this post and the whole password thing in general. Your brain is the best place to store passwords, especially those that are used regularly. I have four or five strong passwords that I use on a regular basis, for different purposes. I used to use a password manager in the browser to keep track of them, but that quickly became a flawed strategy. Remembering four or five password and username combinations is not that difficult if you use them on at least a monthly basis. I have long known the cognitive principles behind memory with a primary being, in essence: Use it or lose it! The best way to remember something is to apply that stored information regularly.
I use phrases with numbers and special characters in them to replace certain letters. These are either phrases from literature, songs or movie lines that I liked. I use four or five of them and rotate between them for a couple years, then up and change them all with a new set and use those for a couple years. I just found myself more comfortable typing in my passwords (once anyway, multiple times in a session gets rough...patch day!), than relying on a single master password that was often longer than the one needed for the particular login.
Use your brain! It's the safest place to keep a password, and it helps keep your memory abilities sharp. Now, where did I put my effing car keys?!?!
To the OP:
Answer this question: How important is your data? If it's really important, like it is to a Fortune 500 company, the Federal Government or other important data creator then a tape backup system is worth the investment. I don't get your assertion that they (tape drives) have "low storage capacity". LTO and DLT drives have native capacities of 200GB or more these days. Yes, the drive will cost $1000+ and the tapes are about $50 each, but if your data is really that important that you have to hang on to it for decades, then that's your best solution.
As someone that has lost some "precious" data over the years I will also say this: If it's more than five years old, chances are you don't need it anymore and you're just being a paranoid pack rat. But, if you are dead serious about long-term data storage, then tapes are the way to go.
I will add to this as I have "been there, done that." As a manager of a group of programmers it's your job to be the bridge between them and their ideas, thoughts, feelings about the project they are working on and the company they work for, and the management that you report to, get budget from, sets goals and, ultimately, pays your paycheck. As the middle man in this scenario you have to take the arrows from both sides and figure out how to keep the team together and motivated, as well as meet you budget and deliver a product on time. These are not easy things to do with youngsters that don't know any better, but even harder to do with more mature, "seasoned" programmers.
What you need to understand is that as a new manager your role is to learn. The company hopes you learn from the mature programmers how best to get a project out the door. The programmers hope you learn how to balance your humanity with the needs of the company so their world doesn't get turned upside-down. My suggestion: Be as hands-on as possible with the project. This means that the unit you are in charge of becomes flat from an organizational perspective; only communication in and out of the group to and from upper management is filtered through you, and being the team leader when key decisions need to be made, differentiate you from the rest of the team. I have found that my teams respect me and my skills (both inside and outside the team's competency) better and I get to build a more human rapport with those on the team. You'll be surprised at how the mocking behavior will turn into good natured ribbing that you would expect in a tightly knit team. It won't completely eliminate malicious behavior because there's always someone in every group that will disagree with something you do, but it sure does let folks know you're not an armchair quarterback blindly following directives from upstairs. You will probably hone your programming chops in the process.
Bottom line, create an environment of mutual respect and allow the social interactions to progress at their own rate. Keep the team focused and motivated by being in the thick of things with them. Remember, it's your team and if you don't take ownership/stewardship/responsibility for them then why should they or management care what happens? They won't, because you won't be a manager for long.
Why on God's green Earth would you want to be complicit with this nonsense that's going to create more work for you with no additional pay? Why on Earth would any university condone the use of university personnel, facilities, etc. to do the work of someone else for free? This is extortion and racketeering, almost by definition folks. The RIAA can blow it out their ear. I'd rather they tried to sue and then get hit for malicious and wrongful prosecution than deal with this utterly ridiculous racket.
I'm sorry, I'm someone who loves music, makes music, and last year recorded an independent album that the RIAA can suck on for all I care. We don't need them nor the crappy music they push at us on a daily basis, nor the ridiculous racket of enforcement they are trying to dupe us into believing is their right. It's not and if you believe it is you better educate yourself before you get on the wrong side of a very messy battle that's just beginning to start. I believe in the rights of artists as individuals, not in the rights of unions, guilds, corporations or other corrupt bureaucracies that have only their own self interests in mind.
Don't be that guy/girl! Tell them to shove it and see them in court! The whole point of being "independent" is you are not at the mercy of the RIAA nor any label. You don't need them! WAKE UP!
Ok, I am sure the rest of this largely uninformed thread will be the same, so I'll insert my comments here where someone went off the deep end, IMHO.
[FACT]
Although there are Federal standards and Labor Laws, complete labor laws vary from state-to-state; consult with a local labor attorney to get a real answer, NOT SLASHDOT!
[/FACT]
[OPINION]
If you put a lot of effort into it, pay for a lawyer, get what you deserved in the first place plus the cost of filing a lawsuit plus getting fired for any reason they can think of, you might be able to get a "fair" deal. For yourself.
This is what unions are for. Don't let Slashdot's libertarianism lead you to oppose your own interests, or the interests of your felling employees.
Union?!?! I hope you were joking. So, you propose to replace a single corrupt manager-whose public flogging through the courts will very quickly change internal practices once brought to light-with an undeniably corruptible bureaucracy that feigns support for "the common man" to line its own pockets while providing meager concessions to its constituency? Yeah, that's a good idea! I don't subscribe to any single ideology, but if by me wanting to negotiate my own deals (thank you very much) makes me a libertarian (in your mind) then so be it.
These problems aren't going to go away until individuals start blowing the whistle and stop standing around and waiting for someone else (a union, a govt, whatever) to do something. Come one people! We're all reasonably intelligent here and we all certainly have access to the Internet and the wealth of information therein. If something doesn't "seem" right to you, educate yourself and talk to people more knowledgeable than yourself about (in this case) labor law. That would NOT be the /. community, that would be a labor attorney. The first consultation is usually free! Don't wait for someone else to do it! Stand up! Be a man, or a woman if you are one! Sic semper tyrannis!
Ok, sure I'm one person, I'm going to be labeled a whistle blower, etc. Would you rather be a whistle blower or a slave? I don't think unions are a good idea, but certainly an ad hoc group of maligned employees does carry more weight than an individual. You don't need to start an organization (union), in the modern world, to be heard. The Internet and the ridiculous, sensationalist attitudes of the media will carry the message around and entice others to stand up as well. It does have to start somewhere with one person saying, "No." Don't fear the consequences of doing the right thing. Doing nothing is far worse. Write that down!
[/OPINION]
Dear Original Poster:
Please, I implore you. Do not allow another great mind to be lost to social stigma. Do not allow the next Einstein, Curie, or Salk to throw away a natural talent because she would not be accepted within her chosen peer group.
I am not saying that anyone should be forced to take a certain path, but to not encourage her to at least pursue math and science a bit more-setting aside the fact that she is a rarity and an inspiration to other young women-would be equally as criminal. Your daughter has no idea what potential fields are open to her, what exciting things can be achieved with the application of mathematics, and she won't know until she gets to the collegiate level. There are dozens of challenging engineering and science careers that are "cool" in and of themselves while requiring a great deal of mathematical aptitude. She should explore as many of them as she can.
Again, I am all for individuals choosing their own path, but they should make educated decisions based on their individual strengths as well as desires. The pursuit of social acceptance should never be considered foremost in the search for a path for your life. Social acceptance will come when you apply your skills for greater good. Why do you think we know the names of the folks I mentioned above?
Don't ignore natural talent. Find a way to use it not only for your own enjoyment, but to benefit others. Also, don't put too much weight on a single instrument's evaluation of skill. Not to diminish what a perfect math score on the ACT means for you now and in the near future, but in the long run it means very little. The opportunities achieving that score will present to you should not be ignored or devalued. Explore them and good luck!
Sincerely,
- Jason
...but write it down! A daily progress report of what you did, who you helped, background tasks that people didn't see, etc. Takes about 15 minutes or so at the end of the day and it will make management happy and give you a written record to refer to later, or for any successor/helper to use as well. I instituted this in my last position for *all* my staff because we were perceived as "not managing our time properly." It helps everyone know what's going on and will give those with a poor perception a rather eye opening dose of what you're really doing.
Pressure from whom?!?! Big business? Yeah, that's a good reason to pick that type of person ... NOT! I would rather they had a broader focus and much less of a direct connection to the business of computing. Again, it's my opinion. This is an advisory position that will assist in making policy and I feel there would be a conflict of interest if this person came from a Fortune 500/1000 technology company. For the same reason we should not have oil barons in advisory positions with regard to national energy policy. *cough* *cough* Entrepreneurial in nature may be ok, but I don't think they should be from a publicly traded company for sure. Again, IMHO.
But, be careful about putting Sun, the company that barely survived the dot-com collapse too high on your list. Some bad technology decisions with regard to business were made there and they are still struggling to recover their once prominent position in the industry.
"You do know that SUN originally stood for Stanford University Networks? Bill Joy IS from academia initially."
Yeah, that is true. May be a good choice, but don't know enough about Mr. Joy to say for sure. I'll do some more research and get back to ya. ;-)
Ok, I did find some older (10 years) Kodak discs that the dye seems to have faded on that would not mount in my drive. I can still see the data portion on the disc so I'm wondering if it's just the drive. It would be interesting to see if a different drive or Blu-ray Disc reader would do better with older media. Anyone have a BD drive that could test that theory? I don't at present.
I had an original Sony 2x burner in 1992/1993 when the drive cost $2500, the software cost $2500 (QuickTopix) and blanks were $40 each (Tayo Yuden), so I've been using the technology for a while now. Just for the sake of argument I popped a 12 year old CD (Tayo Yuden mfg.) in my drive and did some read tests on it. Sure enough, still kicking. This disc has been in a jewel case inside a desk drawer for 9 years, and prior to that was on a bookshelf in my old apartment. I typically buy name brand media from TDK, Sony, Verbatim and Maxell these days. Some of the older discs I have are Tayo Yuden, back in the days when they were one of the only manufacturers. I have yet to have a problem with non-scratched media. I follow the storage instructions and almost always store them in jewel cases or on old spindles.
My guess is that this person bought some el-cheapo generic brand discs. I made that mistake once and after the first two failed to write I threw out that whole spindle of 25 and went back to a name brand. In my observations of CD and DVD media you do get what you pay for, and not following storage recommendations will *cough* burn you.
I'd feel more comfortable with someone from the research or academic circles than I would with someone from industry for a position like that. Might just be my bias, but I feel that someone from industry might be a little more biased toward a particular set of interests. Although marginalized to some degree, I think someone like current science advisor John Marburger would be a much better choice. Just my $0.02.
Some denatured alcohol and a toothbrush (or other nylon bristled brush with soft bristles) should do the trick. I saw bleach as a tag, but I wouldn't do that. Bleach is corrosive and may eat away at circuit packaging and stiffen/make brittle cable wrapping.
You are going to need a good sized tub and a lot of whatever liquid cleaner you use. You'll probably want a "wash" tub and a "rinse" tub to make sure you get any mold residue off the components. My sincere condolences on the flood, btw.
Yeah, they're called iMacs.
Try not breaking the law. You have already posted in a public forum that you plan on doing copyright violation. How smart was that? You also said what you were doing and where you were going. Why do I get the feeling that you really aren't that concerned about privacy, or you're doing something illegal that is going to draw attention anyway?
My suggestion to you at this point is to not bring your laptop at all. If you do, try bringing the actual DVDs with you and while you're at it burn your images to DVD too. They can't search those without a separate warrant.
CutePDF(free) to create, and PDF Annotator(shareware), well, to do everything else. We (Virginia Tech) actually got a site license for Annotator and it was $4 a copy.
Whoa! Read this post. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=963711&cid=25007885 Not what I'm saying at all...and Google tests. So by your logic they are also an incompetently managed IT company? Don't think so...
I think you're assuming that everyone applying for a programming job is a CS major. Not the case, and this is why you might not understand. IT is a profession where people come from varying backgrounds and have learned the skills they posses through necessity or just desire. I myself hold a B.Arch, but I have been around computers since 1975 and been programming since about 1980.
There are plenty of us that aren't CS majors that also pick up things quickly, have the math chops and the experience of coding multiple projects across varying languages and vertical markets. You never know where the good people are going to come from, so, you test.
We only have ourselves to blame. Why do you think the interviewers want a test? Because somewhere along the line, in some capacity, they were burned by an unscrupulous IT person who lied about their level of competency.
Well, if it's on a managed network then the IP needs to be mapped to a MAC address (and port on a switch) and the port turned off. Once that's done, tracing the cable to a physical port should take no more than a day.
If it's on an unmanaged switch things get a little more annoying, but you should still be able to track an IP and MAC address to the switch using any open source network tool like WireShark. Find the switch. Pull the cable out of the port, or if you're feeling really adventurous you could bring a replacement switch in and start playing "Is that it?" until you find the bugger.
Must be a slow day for something this ho-hum to make it on /.
You have a system now. It works. So why are you worried about parts arriving at different times? This makes sense in a business sense, but doesn't make sense from a personal/gaming machine sense. If you're worried about parts not working before you have all of them, heaven forbid you test them in the machine you do have before their 30-day return date passes. I also don't understand that logic. The parts are all warranted through their respective manufacturers. If something doesn't work, get it replaced. If you are returning things for other reasons, then you really need to do more homework before you buy.
Getting back to the topic, if you want parts to arrive in a certain amount of time then you're going to have to hunt for the resellers that have them in-stock and ready to ship. It's called due diligence. You will probably not find a single vendor to get all the parts from. Yes, some have more influence over distributors and can get parts sooner, but if the manufacturer is having supply problems, then so will the rest of the chain all the way down to the consumer. No way around that unless you go straight to the manufacturer. For a single, personal gaming system I think you'd be out of luck trying to get preferential treatment on supply direct from a vendor, but you might have the pull, don't know you.
(1) multi-platform (Windows and Linux), stand-alone client (can be run from a portable drive). (2) Secure backup (encrypted and signed) to non-trusted FTP site. (3) Sync individual files without saving to a giant tar file. (4) Securely store timestamps and file names on the FTP server.
TrueCrypt (answers items 1 and 2, other posts talk about why signing is or is not needed) plus rsync (answers items 3 and 4; read the man pages on how to preserve time/date stamps and use an encrypted transfer protocol) and you're done. You don't seem to care about transferring whole files, as long as they aren't tomes of files and you don't seem to care if the transmission of said files is secure (nor its storage location for that matter).
I think the issue here for you and others is mostly psychological. I don't think you (the OP) is comfortable with your level of security and I think a lot of folks in this thread that are posting are uncomfortable with your level of security because their either a). exceptionally paranoid (acceptable, but sometimes silly) or b). don't know enough about what you're really doing to be able to answer you effectively. It sounds like you're relatively new to this whole "encrypted-backup-offsite-storage" thing and you need to do some more homework. Google is your friend. Asking /. is not usually a good idea unless you have a clearly defined question in mind and a lot of details to share, or you want a lot of useful but somewhat overkill answers along with the occasional troll and mocking answers.
Subscriber IDs are overrated.
So are most /. responses in forums.
BTW, he's already copying whole files if he's FTPing them, so that's not really an issue for this guy.