Re: Ripping wav files from iso image
Good source of info re: CD stuff: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq.html ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Failure rates
Benjamin Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Apr 24 at 11:43pm, David Ecklein wrote: >> My bad impression had only been with Samsung hard drives, and that >> is dated and limited to my own small computer business activity, not >> "anecdotes". Failure rate was higher than any other brand I had >> used. > > An interesting phenomenon has been observed when it comes to the > public's perception of reliability of commodity brands: The more > units sold, the more units fail, in terms of absolute numbers. > Thus, a given brand of something will become popular to the point > where it becomes "first choice". Then, because there are so many > of them out there, people begin to see more failures in that > brand. People thus conclude there must be something wrong with > that brand. Opinion drops, and the product falls out of first > place, confirming to everyone that there was something wrong. This very much applies to hard drive manufacturers. Though, because there are really on 3 or 4 of them, this phenomenon presents itself in a round-robin fashion. Currently I'm seeing the most failures with Maxtor, on average, about 1 drive a week. I've RMA'ed well over 50 drives in the past 6 months or so. That figure may seem high, until you look at the numbers I'm dealing with: Over 300 systems, many of which 2 drives, 50 or more have 4 drives. I probably have over 1000 drives in this place, so in theory, 1 per week isn't unrealistic, and is probably well below the advertised MTBF as well. Ironically, my understanding is that WD and Seagate both have *higher* failure rates currently, though, since I have far fewer drives from them, I see significantly fewer failures. -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Ripping wav files from iso image
Michael ODonnell writes: > > > Good source of info re: CD stuff: > > http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq.html Yes, and much more accurate than Ben. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Ripping wav files from iso image
On Apr 25, 2005, at 21:36, Benjamin Scott wrote: On Apr 25 at 5:59pm, Bill McGonigle wrote: I've heard people say that dd won't work because dd defaults to 2k blocks and CD's have 2.3K audio blocks. I can't see how that's relevant if you're dumping to a flat file but I could be missing something. dd won't work because CDDA discs do not translate to a "flat file" in the first place. :) Right, at the CD (colored book) level, but if you had the right kind of driver, and maybe the right kind of drive firmware, surely you ought to be able to tell the laser "give me the first bit on this disc and don't stop until end of media". There should be a way to treat that bitstream as an image. I'm assuming there's no formatting hard-coded on the CD-R media when you get a "blank" which would physically impose a structure beyond the ability of a bitstream to represent. This may not be true. -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mobile: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Pager: 603.442.1833 AIM: wpmcgonigleSkype: bill_mcgonigle For fastest support contact, please follow: http://bfccomputing.com/support_contact.html ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Question about spamassassin using MySQL
On Mon, 2005-04-25 at 21:54 -0400, Benjamin Scott wrote:
> On Apr 25 at 3:13pm, Bruce Dawson wrote:
> > Steven: Thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that the
> > milter is called only after the message had been received.
> Obviously, in order to do content analysis or other magic on a message,
> you
> have to receive the content. As I understand it, what these tools do is
> allow
> the SMTP "DATA" verb to be sent, and to receive some or all of the data from
> the sender. Then, before the SMTP result code 250 ("Message accepted for
> delivery") code is sent, the filter runs and makes a decision. If the
> message
> fails, an SMTP error status code is sent instead.
Hmmm. So milters actually won't be much good for reducing the amount of
bandwidth occupied by spam - most of the message comes through before a
decision is made.
My observation has been that some spammers don't wait for the 250 reply,
and will just cut the connection after sending the "dot" command.
--Bruce
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
OS for older systems
Anyone have recent experience with linux/*BSD on older, smaller systems? I have an old 386 16MHz/8MB ram [maxed out!]/100MB disk system (toshiba 5200/100) that I'm trying to get going. I have DOS running just fine. I don't care about graphics. It's a luggable (no battery). Flip up plasma screen, 1 16bit ISA card (w/ Adaptec 1542 SCSI) and 1 8bit ISA (wd8003 NIC). I have a SCSI CD on it and could put a drive on it, but I want to fit everything into the 100MB drive. Toshiba once offered these to developers w/ Toshiba Unix (probably Interactive Unix) for a discounted price of $10,000 around '90. Back then, this was a pretty good deal. Commercial Unix w/ developer tools ran $1000-$2000 and linux wasn't written yet. Some people got minix modified to '386 enough to run emacs/gcc etc but it wasn't the same as real Unix. I'm not sure BSDi or the free BSDs existed yet either. I got mine out of the scrap heap for free. It's interesting to me as history and what drove Linus to create Linux. I imagine it's similar in power to the '386 he started with though it may have more RAM. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Computer fatalities (was: Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0)
Benjamin Scott writes: >The practical upshot is that >if you have to pay a professional to "fix your computer", the bill >can easily come to $300 or $400. When a brand new system costs not >much more then that, why bother? One good reason might be because you'd prefer not to see more perfectly good stuff end up in a landfill. You might come to the conclusion that a throwaway society isn't sustainable. >PCs are becoming disposable. Even if it's a software problem, if >it breaks, you throw it out and get a new one. I'm going to interpret this as a description of a mindset and not a serious recommendation. Others might have different interpretations. Regards, --kevin -- GnuPG ID: B280F24E And the madness of the crowd alumni.unh.edu!kdc Is an epileptic fit -- Tom Waits ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Question about spamassassin using MySQL
On Tuesday, Apr 26th 2005 at 10:19 -0400, quoth Bruce Dawson:
=>On Mon, 2005-04-25 at 21:54 -0400, Benjamin Scott wrote:
=>> On Apr 25 at 3:13pm, Bruce Dawson wrote:
=>> > Steven: Thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that the
=>> > milter is called only after the message had been received.
=>> Obviously, in order to do content analysis or other magic on a
message, you
=>> have to receive the content. As I understand it, what these tools do is
allow
=>> the SMTP "DATA" verb to be sent, and to receive some or all of the data
from
=>> the sender. Then, before the SMTP result code 250 ("Message accepted for
=>> delivery") code is sent, the filter runs and makes a decision. If the
message
=>> fails, an SMTP error status code is sent instead.
=>
=>Hmmm. So milters actually won't be much good for reducing the amount of
=>bandwidth occupied by spam - most of the message comes through before a
=>decision is made.
=>
=>My observation has been that some spammers don't wait for the 250 reply,
=>and will just cut the connection after sending the "dot" command.
=>
=>--Bruce
=>
One of the solutions to that problem is to use the new greet_pause
feature. It attacks the problem at the begging instead of at the end:
greet_pause Adds the greet_pause ruleset which enables open proxy
and SMTP slamming protection. The feature can take an
argument specifying the milliseconds to wait:
FEATURE(`greet_pause', `5000') dnl 5 seconds
If FEATURE(`access_db') is enabled, an access database
lookup with the GreetPause tag is done using client
hostname, domain, IP address, or subnet to determine the
pause time:
GreetPause:my.domain0
GreetPause:example.com 5000
GreetPause:10.1.2 2000
GreetPause:127.0.0.10
When using FEATURE(`access_db'), the optional
FEATURE(`greet_pause') argument becomes the default if
nothing is found in the access database. A ruleset called
Local_greet_pause can be used for local modifications,
e.g.,
LOCAL_RULESETS
SLocal_greet_pause
R$* $: $&{daemon_flags}
R$* a $*$# 0
--
Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana. Stranger things have .0.
happened but none stranger than this. Does your driver's license say Organ ..0
Donor?Black holes are where God divided by zero. Listen to me! We are all- 000
individuals! What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
steveo at syslang.net
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Re: Ripping wav files from iso image
Yes, and much more accurate than Ben. That's possible ;) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: The Averatec 6240 Laptop
On Apr 24, 2005, at 18:03, Fred wrote: The Averatec ships with XP home, but the CDs will only allow you to install XP to factory conditions without the ability to partition the drive -- must be standard to do it that way these days, and completely useless to me in any case. You can get a live CD called SystemRescueCD which includes qt_parted in framebuffer mode and the Captive NTFS driver. I've had pretty good luck resizing NTFS partitions using it. -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mobile: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Pager: 603.442.1833 AIM: wpmcgonigleSkype: bill_mcgonigle For fastest support contact, please follow: http://bfccomputing.com/support_contact.html ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Computer fatalities (was: Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0)
On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 10:48:48AM -0400, Kevin D. Clark wrote: > Benjamin Scott writes: > > >The practical upshot is that > >if you have to pay a professional to "fix your computer", the bill > >can easily come to $300 or $400. When a brand new system costs not > >much more then that, why bother? > > One good reason might be because you'd prefer not to see more > perfectly good stuff end up in a landfill. You might come to the > conclusion that a throwaway society isn't sustainable. I guess I'm a cynic, but I believe most people aren't that thoughtful or responsible. Most people only concern themselves with their own bottom line, in my experience... It isn't sustainable, and our collective grandchildren are screwed. But then they probably were anyway, for any number of other reasons. This kind of business is becoming pervasive. My dad fixes appliances, when he can get calls. These days the appliance vendors are charging so much for replacement parts that a single major repair frequently costs significantly MORE than replacing the thing outright. I personally don't understand the economics of it, but I guess maybe it helps the appliance vendors from having to manufacture and stock parts for a zillion lines of machines from now back to antiquity... That must be it. or maybe we as a society just enjoy being economically raped... -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank the spammers. pgpmkTerY64y2.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [OT] Computer fatalities (was: Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0)
On Apr 26, 2005, at 11:14, Derek Martin wrote: That must be it. or maybe we as a society just enjoy being economically raped... I'm guessing that new appliance is shipped in from overseas. There the "American" company who makes it doesn't have to pay significant taxes or follow labor regulations. Here if you don't pay minimum wage, provide benefits, pay payroll taxes and follow EPA and OSHA guidelines it's illegal and unethical. There it's "just good business". Yeah, the cost of the parts are outrageous, but your Dad is competing with the cost of new, and he's not allowed to compete by order of his government. Already companies are sending Indian jobs to China because Indians are too expensive - the good news is the equilibrium seems to be reached pretty quickly, the bad news is your Dad is likely to retire before we see any real balance. -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mobile: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Pager: 603.442.1833 AIM: wpmcgonigleSkype: bill_mcgonigle For fastest support contact, please follow: http://bfccomputing.com/support_contact.html ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
RE: Ripping wav files from iso image
Sorry, I need to clarify. Actually, this particular image wasn't generated by dd (I had mistaken it amidst all my other image files and what not). This particular one was an image generated by Nero (a .nrg) file. I had copied the image.nrg file over to my linux laptop thinking I could just use nrg2iso to convert it to iso, then set it up as a loop device and rip the tracks off it. Obviously, it didn't work for me. And based on the feed back I got here - it's not gonna happen that way. Thanks for all the input. PaulW -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 11:52 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Whelan, Paul; gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Subject: Re: Ripping wav files from iso image Cc: From: Bill McGonigle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Original-Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:59:35 -0400 Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:59:35 -0400 ... I've heard people say that dd won't work because dd defaults to 2k blocks and CD's have 2.3K audio blocks. I can't see how that's relevant if you're dumping to a flat file but I could be missing something. dd won't work because the IDE driver can't present the disk as a block device. ccda and cd-rom (data cds) use different arrangements of frames and subchannels to represent their data. While they both use the same underlying frame format, their frames are tied together differently. The ide driver is only designed to interperet the data in data tracks and present them to the kernel as block devices. To read audio data, you need either a SCSI cd drive or ide-scsi emulation turned on. Then, programs use SCSI commands to access /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/... or wherever your drive may be. And, when they do that, they're totally bypassing the cdrom device driver. I guess part of the question is if dd just pulled bits off of the disc/raw device that is /dev/cdrom or if the /dev/cdrom driver tried to do something smart, like presenting a session as a device (in which case it would probably ignore the CD Audio). Well, if someone volunteered to write a cddafs, this might be possible. Until then, I'll just have to keep using cdda2wav -D 0,0,0 -my-favorite-options. Dave ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Ripping wav files from iso image
Cc: From: Bill McGonigle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Original-Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:59:35 -0400 Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 17:59:35 -0400 ... I've heard people say that dd won't work because dd defaults to 2k blocks and CD's have 2.3K audio blocks. I can't see how that's relevant if you're dumping to a flat file but I could be missing something. dd won't work because the IDE driver can't present the disk as a block device. ccda and cd-rom (data cds) use different arrangements of frames and subchannels to represent their data. While they both use the same underlying frame format, their frames are tied together differently. The ide driver is only designed to interperet the data in data tracks and present them to the kernel as block devices. To read audio data, you need either a SCSI cd drive or ide-scsi emulation turned on. Then, programs use SCSI commands to access /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/... or wherever your drive may be. And, when they do that, they're totally bypassing the cdrom device driver. I guess part of the question is if dd just pulled bits off of the disc/raw device that is /dev/cdrom or if the /dev/cdrom driver tried to do something smart, like presenting a session as a device (in which case it would probably ignore the CD Audio). Well, if someone volunteered to write a cddafs, this might be possible. Until then, I'll just have to keep using cdda2wav -D 0,0,0 -my-favorite-options. Dave P.S. *Grunt* If any of you upgrade to Emacs 21, make sure you (setq mail-specify-envelope-from t), or emacs won't honor user-mail-address (i.e., you won't be able to post to gnhlug.org). ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [OT] Computer fatalities (was: Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0)
On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 11:47:35AM -0400, Bill McGonigle wrote: > On Apr 26, 2005, at 11:14, Derek Martin wrote: > > >That > >must be it. or maybe we as a society just enjoy being economically > >raped... > > I'm guessing that new appliance is shipped in from overseas. There the > "American" company who makes it doesn't have to pay significant taxes > or follow labor regulations. Often that's true, but it's largely irrelevant. My dad runs his own repair business, and he's his only employee. He doesn't have to follow labor regulations... He makes little enough that after expenses and retirement account deductions, he isn't paying any income tax either. Actually the point I should have made is that if you ordered all of the parts it requires to build a given appliance, and paid DEALER prices for them (not retail, and not wholesale), it would cost typically something like 5x the cost of the entire built appliance bought from a store. No labor, no taxes (he's reselling the parts, so he doesn't pay sales tax), just HIS cost of the parts. In fact I asked, and he said that 5x would be a very conservative estimate... It's probably more like 6-10x depending on how complicated the device is. A typical example: for him to order a replacement control board (i.e. the main circuit board) for a microwave oven typically costs about as much, or even more, than the entire microwave oven would cost at Best Buy. -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank the spammers. pgpFiK0NZFhcs.pgp Description: PGP signature
Why I hate MS
Mostly because the people who admin their systems are completely ignorant of *ANTHING* related to computers or networking. Take this exchange for example: MCSE> I need your SSL certificate me> okay, here 2 hours later MCSE> That certificate isn't any good. me> what do you mean? It's what GeoTrust sent me. MCSE> It doesn't have the key. me> That doesn't mean it's broken. It means you don't have the key. Here. 2 hours later... MCSE> I can't use that key. me> why not? MCSE> Because it wasn't generated on the Exchange Server. me> That's absurd. me> don't they use standard X.509 certificates? MCSE> I think so. me> Then what I gave you is fine. MCSE> But I can't combine them. me> why would you want to combine them? MCSE> so Exchange thinks it created the certificate. me> Are you sure you don't want the PKCS-12 file? MCSE> I don't know what that is, and I'm pretty sure MS doesn't use those. me> show me what you're doing. me> Right there, it says (i.e., .p12, ) MCSE> yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. It wants a request, a key, and certificate. Arrrgg!! -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
And people wonder why I don't trust certifications. (generally) they don't teach you anything, they just teach you how to pass a test and get a pretty cert on the wall. It's even more the case when it comes to MS certs. Hell, I'm a "certified solaris administrator" but because I never really worked on a solaris box, all the specific solaris stuff is lost on me.. Not that I couldn't find the info I needed in 5mins on the interweb. To me that's more important then a stupid piece of paper. Mostly because the people who admin their systems are completely ignorant of *ANTHING* related to computers or networking. Take this exchange for example: MCSE> I need your SSL certificate me> okay, here 2 hours later MCSE> That certificate isn't any good. me> what do you mean? It's what GeoTrust sent me. MCSE> It doesn't have the key. me> That doesn't mean it's broken. It means you don't have the key. Here. 2 hours later... MCSE> I can't use that key. me> why not? MCSE> Because it wasn't generated on the Exchange Server. me> That's absurd. me> don't they use standard X.509 certificates? MCSE> I think so. me> Then what I gave you is fine. MCSE> But I can't combine them. me> why would you want to combine them? MCSE> so Exchange thinks it created the certificate. me> Are you sure you don't want the PKCS-12 file? MCSE> I don't know what that is, and I'm pretty sure MS doesn't use those. me> show me what you're doing. me> Right there, it says (i.e., .p12, ) MCSE> yeah, but that doesn't mean anything. It wants a request, a key, and certificate. Arrrgg!! ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: The Averatec 6240 Laptop
Jon maddog Hall wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Once there, I tried out a number of laptops on display with Linux. Some worked, some didn't. Since you were by default using the 2.4 kernel, some of the laptops that "failed" may have worked with the 2.6 kernel. Did you try 2.6 on all of them, or only on the Averatec 6200? Great write-up, though. Thanks! md All the laptops I tried were 32-bit laptops, and most I only tried the 2.4 kernel. I didn't bother trying the 2.6 kernel on the laptops that failed, though, since I was pushing more for coverage than anything else. -Fred ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
Travis Roy wrote: And people wonder why I don't trust certifications. (generally) they don't teach you anything, they just teach you how to pass a test and get a pretty cert on the wall. It's even more the case when it comes to MS certs. Hell, I'm a "certified solaris administrator" but because I never really worked on a solaris box, all the specific solaris stuff is lost on me.. Not that I couldn't find the info I needed in 5mins on the interweb. To me that's more important then a stupid piece of paper. For that matter I was certified on Cisco routers back in the days of Cisco (1999), but haven't touched a Cisco router since. I could find the info if I needed to, but certifications, along with other forms of credentialsim, is largely a waste of time I think. You either know what you are doing or you haven't a clue, and a stupid piece of paper proves nothing one way or another. Alas, lesser minds do imagine there is something to the paper. ;-) -Fred Autodidact to the extreme. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Computer fatalities (was: Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0)
Kevin- I'm with you. Computers are hard to recycle properly and cheaply. Why dispose of something that almost works, if its repair or upgrade is a minor affair? If someone comes to me with a computer that looks like it may need a repair or upgrade more than $100, I am willing to give them a free assessment with a flat fee quoted before work starts. Sometimes it does make sense to sell them a new computer, but quite often not. Most problems (hardware at least!) are simple, fortunately. Dave E. - Original Message - From: "Kevin D. Clark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Greater NH Linux User Group" Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 10:48 AM Subject: Re: Computer fatalities (was: Linux Made Easy: Linspire 5.0) > > Benjamin Scott writes: > > >The practical upshot is that > >if you have to pay a professional to "fix your computer", the bill > >can easily come to $300 or $400. When a brand new system costs not > >much more then that, why bother? > > One good reason might be because you'd prefer not to see more > perfectly good stuff end up in a landfill. You might come to the > conclusion that a throwaway society isn't sustainable. > > >PCs are becoming disposable. Even if it's a software problem, if > >it breaks, you throw it out and get a new one. > > I'm going to interpret this as a description of a mindset and not a > serious recommendation. Others might have different > interpretations. > > Regards, > > --kevin > -- ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 04:34:56PM -0400, puissante wrote: > I could find the info if I needed to, but certifications, along with > other forms of credentialsim, is largely a waste of time I think. You > either know what you are doing or you haven't a clue, and a stupid piece > of paper proves nothing one way or another. I largely fall into this camp also, but I think they can be occasionally useful. An example is someone in my position... I've got a good amount of experience, and I'm a bright guy, but I've been away from IT for about 3 years. If I had the cash to get myself some certs before I re-entered the job market, I think I could have leveraged that to get back into a more senior position than the one I'm currently in... -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank the spammers. pgpo90L9rcu8a.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Computer fatalities
One good reason might be because you'd prefer not to see more perfectly good stuff end up in a landfill. You might come to the conclusion that a throwaway society isn't sustainable. While I agree that if it works for SOMETHING you shouldn't trow it away, but as far as recycling in general, you may want to watch this (if you have showtime, or you know where to find it if you don't) http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/topics.do?topic=r Opened my eyes on recycling. But to stay on topic, you can usually find SOMEBODY that will want your old P133 (or whatever it is).. But if you really want to get rid of it properly, don't donate it to a school. Chances are that they won't take it, and even if they do, as soon as you drive away it will end up in the dumpster. I know, I've seen it happen (I was actually the guy that threw said computer into the dumpster) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
I largely fall into this camp also, but I think they can be occasionally useful. An example is someone in my position... I've got a good amount of experience, and I'm a bright guy, but I've been away from IT for about 3 years. If I had the cash to get myself some certs before I re-entered the job market, I think I could have leveraged that to get back into a more senior position than the one I'm currently in... Oh, I agree, it's great for that, but for actual ability Do you think you really could have had more under your belt that you couldn't have found out on your own for a lot cheaper? I think the two greatest underutilized resources for IT people in the field are things like this mailing list (or newsgroup, or online forum) and IM.. IM has always been a HUGE help for me. It helps that one of my friends works as a senior routing support engineer at Nortel and I'm by no means a master of routing. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Failure rates
Yes, I have heard from others about Maxtors having high failure rates lately. They formerly were my favorite. I still use them, but have been trying Hitachis lately with good luck so far. As I wrote before, these various brands wax and wane in quality. I think one of the problems has been the industry upgrade from 5400 rpm to 7200 rpm on the mass market drives. The 72s draw more current, running hotter, in addition to the higher speed challenging the bearing system. The HD is obviously the part that moves most in any computer, unless you count the fans. Speaking of fans, you never outgrow your need for them. I now routinely stick one or two extra ones in new computers, and try to talk up their advantages to clients when I have their machines open. Heat might be the biggest killer of computer hardware next to obsolescence itself. Dave E. - Original Message - From: "Paul Lussier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Benjamin Scott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Greater NH Linux User Group" Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 8:28 AM Subject: Re: Failure rates > Benjamin Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > On Apr 24 at 11:43pm, David Ecklein wrote: > >> My bad impression had only been with Samsung hard drives, and that > >> is dated and limited to my own small computer business activity, not > >> "anecdotes". Failure rate was higher than any other brand I had > >> used. > > > > An interesting phenomenon has been observed when it comes to the > > public's perception of reliability of commodity brands: The more > > units sold, the more units fail, in terms of absolute numbers. > > Thus, a given brand of something will become popular to the point > > where it becomes "first choice". Then, because there are so many > > of them out there, people begin to see more failures in that > > brand. People thus conclude there must be something wrong with > > that brand. Opinion drops, and the product falls out of first > > place, confirming to everyone that there was something wrong. > > This very much applies to hard drive manufacturers. Though, because > there are really on 3 or 4 of them, this phenomenon presents itself in > a round-robin fashion. > > Currently I'm seeing the most failures with Maxtor, on average, about > 1 drive a week. I've RMA'ed well over 50 drives in the past 6 months > or so. That figure may seem high, until you look at the numbers I'm > dealing with: Over 300 systems, many of which 2 drives, 50 or more > have 4 drives. I probably have over 1000 drives in this place, so in > theory, 1 per week isn't unrealistic, and is probably well below the > advertised MTBF as well. > > Ironically, my understanding is that WD and Seagate both have *higher* > failure rates currently, though, since I have far fewer drives from > them, I see significantly fewer failures. > -- > > Seeya, > Paul > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
emacs21 [was Re: Ripping wav files from iso image]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > P.S. *Grunt* If any of you upgrade to Emacs 21, make sure you (setq > mail-specify-envelope-from t), or emacs won't honor user-mail-address > (i.e., you won't be able to post to gnhlug.org). Hmmm, I don't seem to have that set anywhere in my .gnus.el and I'm on: GNU Emacs 21.3.50.1 (i386-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll\ bars) of 2005-01-31 on taz, modified by Debian -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
Travis Roy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I think the two greatest underutilized resources for IT people in the > field are things like this mailing list (or newsgroup, or online > forum) and IM.. IM has always been a HUGE help for me. Hmmm, you ought come and hang out on #gnhlug with some of us ;) IRC is even better than IM, imo :) -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
I did when it first started.. but there's to much chatter for me and a lot of stuff I either don't care about, or is distracting. I might pop on later this week since you brought it up :) -- Original Message --- From: Paul Lussier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Travis Roy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Derek Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org Sent: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 20:11:07 -0400 Subject: Re: Why I hate MS > Travis Roy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > I think the two greatest underutilized resources for IT people in the > > field are things like this mailing list (or newsgroup, or online > > forum) and IM.. IM has always been a HUGE help for me. > > Hmmm, you ought come and hang out on #gnhlug with some of us ;) > IRC is even better than IM, imo :) > > -- > > Seeya, > Paul > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss --- End of Original Message --- ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 08:11:07PM -0400, Paul Lussier wrote: > Travis Roy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > I think the two greatest underutilized resources for IT people in the > > field are things like this mailing list (or newsgroup, or online > > forum) and IM.. IM has always been a HUGE help for me. > > Hmmm, you ought come and hang out on #gnhlug with some of us ;) > IRC is even better than IM, imo :) I mentioned my IRC resources as part of my profile when discussing my skills with my current employer: "I don't know everything, but I almost always know someone who knows what I need to know about." I've found it to be invaluable: whether it be #gnhlug, or other people in other channels helping me with HTML, or other things like that. I consider IRC my first place to ask questions, right alongside Google. Even if I don't know something, someone, somewhere does, on IRC. The trick is to find them and convince them to help you :) -- Christopher Schmidt signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [OT] Computer fatalities
Derek Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > In fact I asked, and he said that 5x would be a very conservative > estimate... It's probably more like 6-10x depending on how > complicated the device is. A typical example: for him to order a > replacement control board (i.e. the main circuit board) for a > microwave oven typically costs about as much, or even more, than the > entire microwave oven would cost at Best Buy. Err, so why not but the oven at Best Buy, and resell those parts to the customer. Stock the extras for later... I'm sure there's something which makes that impractical... -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
"Travis Roy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I did when it first started.. but there's to much chatter for me and a > lot of stuff I either don't care about, or is distracting. I might pop > on later this week since you brought it up :) I just leave IRC open in a window and jump on when I have time, and ignore it when I don't. It's come in handy a few times when I've had quick questions. And I've been there in the answering capacity as well plenty often. -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Schmidt) writes: > I've found it to be invaluable: whether it be #gnhlug, or other people > in other channels helping me with HTML, or other things like that. > > I consider IRC my first place to ask questions, right alongside Google. > Even if I don't know something, someone, somewhere does, on IRC. > > The trick is to find them and convince them to help you :) Agreed. IRC is like a mail list with (mostly) faster response times :) The advantage over a mail list is that there's no percieved commitment. IOW, you can /join, ask your questiosn, get an answer, and /leave. However, *just like* a mail list, you better ask intelligent questions which aren't FAQs ;) -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
CentraLUG Meeting Monday, 2 May: Ed Lawson presents Scribus
The monthly meeting of CentraLUG, the Concord/Central New Hampshire chapter of the Greater New Hampshire Linux Users Group, recurs the first Monday of each month on the New Hampshire Institute Campus starting at 7 PM. Directions and maps are available on the NHTI site at http://www.nhti.edu. This month, we'll be meeting in the Library/Learning Center/Bookstore, http://www.nhti.net/nhtimap.pdf , marked as "I" on that map. The main meeting starts at 7 PM, with Ed Lawson presenting Scribus, an open desktop publishing system. Open to the public. Free admission. Tell your friends. Scribus is available from http://www.scribus.org.uk and is not just another pretentious word processor, but an entire pre-press system for producing high-quality documents suitable for publication. It will generate PDF. It has a new "Scriptor" API for scripting in Python. Imports and exports SVG. Bells! Whistles! It runs natively under Linux and under X11 on Mac OS X and CygWin on Windows. Scribus is distributed under the GPL. More details at about this meeting and the group are available at http://www.centralug.org and http://www.gnhlug.org. Hope to see you there! ___ gnhlug-announce mailing list gnhlug-announce@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-announce ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [OT] Computer fatalities
On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 08:44:33PM -0400, Paul Lussier wrote: > Derek Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > In fact I asked, and he said that 5x would be a very conservative > > estimate... It's probably more like 6-10x depending on how > > complicated the device is. A typical example: for him to order a > > replacement control board (i.e. the main circuit board) for a > > microwave oven typically costs about as much, or even more, than the > > entire microwave oven would cost at Best Buy. > > Err, so why not but the oven at Best Buy, and resell those parts to > the customer. Stock the extras for later... > > I'm sure there's something which makes that impractical... Yup. How many different models of Microwaves are there? How many different COLORS of those models are there... You need to do a very high volume of business for this to be practical. -- Derek D. Martinhttp://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank the spammers. pgpWRpSRMt04b.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: Why I hate MS
> Hmmm, you ought come and hang out on #gnhlug with some of us > ;) IRC is even better than IM, imo :) Everytime I've gone onto #gnhlug someone named crschmidt harasses me. Plus, it seemed there were a lot of 'bots in there last time I checked in. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [OT] Computer fatalities
Derek Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 08:44:33PM -0400, Paul Lussier wrote: > > Yup. How many different models of Microwaves are there? How many > different COLORS of those models are there... You need to do a very > high volume of business for this to be practical. Well, I was kind of assuming that the client would call for a repair, and your father would get the make and model of the appliance in question. I doubt very much that color would come into play that often for a repair call, since it tends to be the chassis of the appliance which has any aesthetic difference, and those, I expect, tend not to be the subject of repair calls. So, if he has the make and model, and it's still being sold, he could, in theory, shoot up to BB or wherever, buy the appliance and remove the pieces needed to make the repair. He then has the option of stocking the rest of it for repairs of a similar make/model, or selling the rest of it on E-Bay for a profit (c'mon, if spare parts are so exhorbitant, there must be a market for them on E-Bay, there's a market there for *anything*! :) Disclaimer: all of this only applies in Theory. If you don't live there, then disregard all this :) -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
"Brian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Everytime I've gone onto #gnhlug someone named crschmidt harasses me. I've often said the same about gnhlug-discuss and someone named Ben ;) (wait, or is is that what he says about me?) > Plus, it seemed there were a lot of 'bots in there last time I > checked in. Ahh, but did the 'bots answer your questions? ;) Actually, I haven't seen a 'bot in there for months... -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why I hate MS
On Apr 26, 2005, at 17:45, Travis Roy wrote: Oh, I agree, it's great for that, but for actual ability Do you think you really could have had more under your belt that you couldn't have found out on your own for a lot cheaper? You're thinking about this the wrong way. Certifications are for middle managers. Last time I saw an article about it, almost all certifications are were paid for by the employer. I see three patterns: a) Bob is a techie. Bob gets certified on technology X. Bob screws up. Bob's manager, Marty, gets caught in the ensuing shitstorm and somebody is going to get blamed. They'd like to blame Marty for putting Bob on the project, but Bob was certified as being competent, so the fault lies with the certification body, not Marty. For $1500, not only is Marty clear, noone in the company (except maybe Bob, who doesn't really count in this calculus) has to take any blame. And since you have no recourse with e.g. Microsoft, everybody can go home happy that everything that could have been done was done. Time for golf. b) Marty wants to outsource some work. He knows nothing about the technology he's in charge of and isn't about to ask his leaf node employees for advice, so he hires a company with certified technicians. c) A contracting company wants Marty's contract from b) so they get their employees certified. Looking at it this way, clueless MCSE's are the system working as designed. If the MCSE exam were rigorous enough to identify highly competent MS sysadmins how many do you think there would be? The number doesn't matter - the answer is not enough. If there were only 25 MCSE's in NH people would stop looking to hire MCSE's - they would be statistically unavailable. The MCSE exam is just hard enough to keep the right number of certified people in the market and no harder. Follow me on this path to enlightenment and feel your frustrations slipping away. -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mobile: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Pager: 603.442.1833 AIM: wpmcgonigleSkype: bill_mcgonigle For fastest support contact, please follow: http://bfccomputing.com/support_contact.html ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Computer fatalities
Travis Roy writes: > While I agree that if it works for SOMETHING you shouldn't trow it > away, but as far as recycling in general, you may want to watch this > (if you have showtime, or you know where to find it if you don't) > > http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/topics.do?topic=r > > Opened my eyes on recycling. I don't get Showtime. I find Penn and Teller to be entertaining. I googled the show for kicks and read some interesting things, some of which I found to be flawed. I congratulate Penn and Teller for apparently putting together an episode of their show which garnered them decent ratings. Rememeber, on tee-vee, nothing is more important than ratings. Regards, --kevin -- GnuPG ID: B280F24E And the madness of the crowd alumni.unh.edu!kdc Is an epileptic fit -- Tom Waits ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
