From gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca Tue Mar 2 11:34:56 2010 From: gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca (Gilbert E. Detillieux) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 11:34:56 -0600 (CST) Subject: [RndTbl] MUUG Meeting, March 9, 7:30pm -- Marvell SheevaPlug Message-ID: <201003021734.o22HYuQ02500@iron.cs.umanitoba.ca> The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 9. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Marvell SheevaPlug This month, Kevin McGregor will be presenting a "show and tell" of the Marvell SheevaPlug, a Linux-based computer which fits in a power adapter. With a 1.2 GHz ARM CPU, RAM, flash memory, gigabit Ethernet, USB and more, all at under 7 watts, this small device has enormous possibilities! Kevin will talk about his particular experience with the SheevaPlug and his planned use for it. Before the break, as this month's RTFM topic, Samuel Pauls will be covering the vim(1) command. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $5.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609 From high.res.mike at gmail.com Tue Mar 2 22:12:50 2010 From: high.res.mike at gmail.com (Mike Pfaiffer) Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:12:50 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] Anybody try out PC BSD 8.0? Message-ID: <4B8DE1C2.5000405@gmail.com> I downloaded it and tried it in a VM. I've got to the point where (after installation) it boots. At that point it comes back and presents a boot menu. FreeBSD and PXE are the only options. Neither produce anything meaningful. FreeBSD just says it can't find something and PXE won't find something from the net (obviously). I could try installing FreeBSD from the same CD but if I wanted to run FreeBSD (which I do - but not right now) I'd grab a copy of that... Later Mike From kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com Sat Mar 6 13:51:02 2010 From: kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com (Kevin McGregor) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 13:51:02 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] OT: Soldering help Message-ID: <6756caf11003061151j5f624dchd3c3932246a1f5aa@mail.gmail.com> Sorry for the off-topic post, but I hope someone on this list can help me. I have a PCIe card which has a capacitor on it which I'd like to remove and re-install, but on the other side of the board -- it's in the way of something, and if the cap isn't moved, I can't use the board. It's not surface-mount, and the leads go right through the board so it should be possible. I tried unsoldering it myself, but my soldering iron wasn't hot enough... or something. I'm not experienced with soldering. I may have even damaged the cap, for all I know, so I may have to get a new one. It's cylindrical and appears to be 330pF, 16V. I have pictures, but I'm not sure if the Roundtable list allows attachments (I expect not). I can email them directly to any interested party. If any of you can help, please let me know! Thanks, Kevin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100306/5d1d8915/attachment.html From wyatt at prairieturtle.ca Sat Mar 6 15:28:46 2010 From: wyatt at prairieturtle.ca (Daryl F) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 15:28:46 -0600 (CST) Subject: [RndTbl] OT: Soldering help In-Reply-To: <6756caf11003061151j5f624dchd3c3932246a1f5aa@mail.gmail.com> References: <6756caf11003061151j5f624dchd3c3932246a1f5aa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The iron isn't hot enough. The pad is probably conducting the heat away too quickly. A hotter iron is in order. Desoldering usually takes a hotter iron and some solder wicking material to prevent component damage. Depending on the board you will require long leads on the part when moved the other side of the board because you will likely have to solder underneath the part, ie; between it and the board. There may not be sufficient pad, on the side the part was originally on, to solder to even though the leads will come through there. If you must solder underneath the part try to put a clip lead on the component lead, or something similiar, between the component and the tip of your iron. -Daryl On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Kevin McGregor wrote: > Sorry for the off-topic post, but I hope someone on this list can help me. > > I have a PCIe card which has a capacitor on it which I'd like to remove and > re-install, but on the other side of the board -- it's in the way of > something, and if the cap isn't moved, I can't use the board. It's not > surface-mount, and the leads go right through the board so it should be > possible. I tried unsoldering it myself, but my soldering iron wasn't hot > enough... or something. I'm not experienced with soldering. I may have even > damaged the cap, for all I know, so I may have to get a new one. It's > cylindrical and appears to be 330pF, 16V. I have pictures, but I'm not sure > if the Roundtable list allows attachments (I expect not). I can email them > directly to any interested party. > > If any of you can help, please let me know! > > Thanks, > Kevin > From rayhenry at autoclubs.ca Thu Mar 11 17:50:18 2010 From: rayhenry at autoclubs.ca (Raymond J. Henry) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:50:18 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] CentOS guru needed Message-ID: <001a01cac175$9aa9e3c0$cffdab40$@ca> Looking for someone comfortable with CentOS to assist in building (software) a server and migrating data from existing server (also CentOS). It's not going to be a high-paying position, but there will be a few dollars to be had. If anyone is interested, please email me directly. Thanks, Ray rayhenry at autoclubs.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100311/15c6f11e/attachment.html From athompso at muug.mb.ca Thu Mar 11 18:31:59 2010 From: athompso at muug.mb.ca (Adam Thompson) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:31:59 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] Reminder - use "jobs@muug.mb.ca" for job-related postings Message-ID: <4B998B7F.9000509@muug.mb.ca> This is just a reminder to please use the "jobs at muug.mb.ca" address for posting job announcements or similar messages. Some MUUG members have indicated in the past that they do NOT wish to see commercial traffic on the main roundtable at muug.mb.ca list. We set up the jobs at muug.mb.ca list to accommodate those who DO wish to see commercial traffic like that. We should perhaps do a better job of reminding people about this, since obviously not everyone knows about it (or remembers, anyway). Nonetheless, please use the jobs at muug.mb.ca list for job postings and similar messages. On the flip side, if you aren't subscribed to the jobs at muug.mb.ca mailing list yet and you don't mind seeing job postings, please do sign up. Details can be found, as always, at http://www.muug.mb.ca/maillists.html. Thank you, -Adam Thompson From gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca Fri Mar 12 13:13:11 2010 From: gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca (Gilbert E. Detillieux) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:13:11 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] Fwd: SSV '10 Call for Papers Now Available Message-ID: <4B9A9247.2070901@cs.umanitoba.ca> FYI... -------- Original Message -------- Subject: SSV '10 Call for Papers Now Available Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:28:19 -0800 From: Lionel Garth Jones To: info at muug.mb.ca, gedetil at muug.mb.ca On behalf of the 5th International Workshop on Systems Software Verification (SSV '10) program committee, we'd like to invite you to contribute papers that focus on finding real, applicable solutions to systems software verification problems. Paper registration and abstracts are due Friday, May 28, 2010, 11:59 p.m. Samoan time (UTC-11). Industrial-strength software analysis and verification has advanced in recent years through the introduction of model checking, automated and interactive theorem proving, and static analysis techniques, as well as correctness by design, correctness by contract, and model-driven development. However, many techniques are working under restrictive assumptions that are invalidated by complex embedded systems software such as operating system kernels, low-level device drivers, or microcontroller code. The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers and developers from both academia and industry who are facing real software and real problems with the goal of finding real, applicable solutions. By "real" we mean problems such as time-to-market or reliability that the industry is facing. A real solution is one that is applicable to the problem in industry and not one that only applies to an abstract, academic, toy version of it. In this workshop we will discuss software analysis and development techniques and tools; this forum will serve as a platform to discuss open problems and future challenges in dealing with existing and upcoming systems-level code. Topics include but are not limited to: * Model checking * Automated and interactive theorem proving * Static analysis * Automated testing * Model-driven development * Embedded systems development * Programming languages * Verifying compilers * Software certification * Software tools * Experience reports Paper registration and abstracts are due Friday, May 28, 2010, 11:59 p.m. Samoan time (UTC-11). For more details on the submission process, please see the complete Call for Papers at: http://www.usenix.org/ssv10/cfpa/ SSV '10 will be held immediately following the 9th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI '10), which will take place October 4-6, 2010. We look forward to receiving your submissions! Ralf Huuck, NICTA and University of New South Wales, Australia Gerwin Klein, NICTA and University of New South Wales, Australia Bastian Schlich, RWTH Aachen University, Germany SSV '10 Program Co-Chairs ssv10chairs at usenix.org P.S. We'd like to thank our sponsors NICTA and Microsoft Research for their support. --------------------------------- Call for Papers 5th International Workshop on Systems Software Verification October 6-7, 2010 Vancouver, BC, Canada http://www.usenix.org/ssv10/cfpa/ Paper registration and abstracts due: Friday, May 28, 2010, 11:59 p.m. Samoan time (UTC-11) From rbdyck2 at shaw.ca Sun Mar 14 04:39:40 2010 From: rbdyck2 at shaw.ca (Robert Dyck) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:39:40 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] RAID controller trouble Message-ID: <000001cac35a$45035640$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> I have a client having trouble with her RAID controller. She reports that she keeps getting an error on boot that her raid set is out of synchronization. It takes close to an hour just to boot when this happens. When I've looked at it the problem did not occur, but this can happen with intermittent problems. I ran hard drive diagnostics, CPU, motherboard, RAM, and everything works fine. I have a hard drive controller diagnostic from Seagate, but it isn't designed for RAID. Her motherboard is an Asus K8V, I think it's K8V-MX, she has 2 SATA hard drives mirrored, and she runs Windows XP. I have mentioned that she may have to replace her motherboard, but I don't want to tell her she has to do this unless I can confirm it is necessary. If she replaced the motherboard and the problem continues, I would hear about it! Thanks, Rob Dyck From trevor at tecnopolis.ca Sun Mar 14 04:51:45 2010 From: trevor at tecnopolis.ca (Trevor Cordes) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:51:45 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] RAID controller trouble In-Reply-To: <000001cac35a$45035640$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> References: <000001cac35a$45035640$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> Message-ID: <20100314045145.12605175@pog.tecnopolis.ca> On 2010-03-14 Robert Dyck wrote: > I have a client having trouble with her RAID controller. She reports You didn't mention what RAID controller. I assume some sort of onboard, like Intel MATRIX? > that she keeps getting an error on boot that her raid set is out of > synchronization. This can happen if her comp resets/crashes or shuts off abnormally. The real issue may be diagnosing that, not the after-effect of the raid rebuild. > It takes close to an hour just to boot when this > happens. Hmm, in XP with Matrix RAID (I don't use any other ob ones) I see reasonable boot times (maybe 40% slowdown max) even when in rebuild mode. Only in Vista do I see horrendous boot times during rebuild. > she may have to replace her motherboard, but I don't want to tell her > she has to do this unless I can confirm it is necessary. If she > replaced the motherboard and the problem continues, I would hear First thing to do when having weird mobo issues is look for bad caps (even slightly puffy with no goo == bad caps). See my site: http://www.tecnopolis.ca/tecnopolis/leakycaps.html I fix bad cap mobos. From rbdyck2 at shaw.ca Sun Mar 14 07:29:38 2010 From: rbdyck2 at shaw.ca (Robert Dyck) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:29:38 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] RAID controller trouble In-Reply-To: <20100314045145.12605175@pog.tecnopolis.ca> Message-ID: <000001cac372$03802be0$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> According to the ASUS website that motherboard has VIA VT8237R southbridge. I did visually examine the caps the last two times she called me about this. I didn't see any bulging caps. I worked as PC technician at a retail store from October 2008 through November 2009. We all have to do grunt jobs sometimes. I was a computer programmer or systems admin since February 1981, but when you're unemployed you take what you can get. I saw more damaged computers each week at that job than I had previously seen in my life. The manager didn't like us to replace bad caps, because that might not fix it and customers at a retail store got pissed off at even slightly high bills. The point is I have seen enough bulging capacitors now to recognise them. I have so many diagnostic programs now that I can pin-point just about anything. But nothing for RAID. Is there any RAID diagnostic out there? Thanks for the tip about RAID rebuild times. I haven't used RAID myself on a PC. Slowly puttering away with a server at home, but that's a new install and I'm trying to make it minimal. I have no way of knowing how long a RAID resync is supposed to take. She has 2 drives shadowed. I did ask her about shutdown procedures, and she did claim she always shuts down properly. She's been using computers long enough that she should know that. But then again I'm reminded of a customer I wrote a system for in the mid 1980s. She complained about database damage. She also claimed she always shutdown the application properly. Back then Windows didn't buffer writes, so all she had to do was exit the application then shut off the power. After repairing the database by hand 3 times, I "updated" her application to flush all write buffers after each transaction. I did warn both her and the manager who hired me that this would slow the application somewhat, but after having to repair the database 3 times it was necessary. The database damage mysteriously went away after that change. Before I start making nasty accusations, is it possible her mobo RAID controller isn't flushing during the Windows shutdown procedure? Rob Dyck From high.res.mike at gmail.com Sun Mar 14 12:30:18 2010 From: high.res.mike at gmail.com (Mike Pfaiffer) Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:30:18 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] RAID controller trouble In-Reply-To: <000001cac35a$45035640$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> References: <000001cac35a$45035640$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> Message-ID: <4B9D1D2A.1040507@gmail.com> Robert Dyck wrote: > I have a client having trouble with her RAID controller. She reports that > she keeps getting an error on boot that her raid set is out of > synchronization. It takes close to an hour just to boot when this happens. > When I've looked at it the problem did not occur, but this can happen with > intermittent problems. I ran hard drive diagnostics, CPU, motherboard, RAM, > and everything works fine. I have a hard drive controller diagnostic from > Seagate, but it isn't designed for RAID. Her motherboard is an Asus K8V, I > think it's K8V-MX, she has 2 SATA hard drives mirrored, and she runs Windows > XP. I have mentioned that she may have to replace her motherboard, but I > don't want to tell her she has to do this unless I can confirm it is > necessary. If she replaced the motherboard and the problem continues, I > would hear about it! > > Thanks, > Rob Dyck Dumb thought... If the problem is the onboard RAID controller... Wouldn't it be cheaper for your client to get a RAID card instead of replacing the motherboard? There were a number of suggestions last year and the year before detailing which ones would be best. Of course there are implications I haven't even thought of since I've never been able to get a RAID system working let alone administered one. Later Mike From trevor at tecnopolis.ca Mon Mar 15 07:04:59 2010 From: trevor at tecnopolis.ca (Trevor Cordes) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:04:59 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] RAID controller trouble In-Reply-To: <000001cac372$03802be0$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> References: <20100314045145.12605175@pog.tecnopolis.ca> <000001cac372$03802be0$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> Message-ID: <20100315070459.14096778@pog.tecnopolis.ca> On 2010-03-14 Robert Dyck wrote: > According to the ASUS website that motherboard has VIA VT8237R > southbridge. (My personal opinions about VIA southbridges omitted...) :-) > take what you can get. I saw more damaged computers each week at that > job than I had previously seen in my life. The manager didn't like us > to replace bad caps, because that might not fix it and customers at a > retail store got pissed off at even slightly high bills. The point is > I have seen enough bulging capacitors now to recognise them. I'm curious, was the bad caps issue widespread when you were in that job? Any trends you noticed in brand, year, etc? I certainly am noticing trends (like the badcaps issue did not stop in 2003) and would love to hear someone else's experiences in the field. > I have so many diagnostic programs now that I can pin-point just about > anything. But nothing for RAID. Is there any RAID diagnostic out > there? If you're using the ob VIA raid then there really is no "raid controller" as we know it. As with (mostly) all ob raid, it's just some firmware bits and bios tweaks to make the system raid capable. There really is no "raid controller" to test. The "controller" is really the main CPU. So, no, you won't find any diag tools. Now, there will be HD diag tools you can use to test just the HD's, but generally you have to somehow disable the RAID first (risky as when you re-enable, there's a question of it knowing the array is still there!), or take the drives out onto another system (1 at a time) to test. If she isn't reporting any crashing/rebooting, and the RAID is always degrading, then the problem is almost invariably hard drives dying. Run full scan diags on them. Even with zero errors, drives can kick from arrays. I see a lot of this lately, esp with Seagate drives (what I sell most of). Perhaps the HD vendors are making their non-raid drives more raid-unfriendly to push the raid-version drives, which are now relatively exorbitantly priced? :-) > that's a new install and I'm trying to make it minimal. I have no way > of knowing how long a RAID resync is supposed to take. She has 2 > drives shadowed. Good raid systems (like linux md raid) will take a LONG time to rebuild when the system is busy (so it won't bog down your system). Windows fake raid drivers sometimes make the mistake of rebuilding too fast and result in horrible interactive performance for the duration. > Before I start making nasty accusations, is it possible her mobo RAID > controller isn't flushing during the Windows shutdown procedure? Nearly impossible, though in the past I have seen some incredibly braindead VIA southbridge behavior. From trevor at tecnopolis.ca Mon Mar 15 10:01:32 2010 From: trevor at tecnopolis.ca (Trevor Cordes) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:01:32 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] firewall/router in a VM In-Reply-To: References: <1105778248-1266466846-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-2034846348-@bda464.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> Message-ID: <20100315100132.2a88660b@pog.tecnopolis.ca> I'm really late to this discussion. Some quick 2c's: On 2010-02-18 Daryl F wrote: > I think non-ECC memory should be illegal. Somebody's gonna lose an > eye and it won't be funny any more. Hear hear! Considering ECC RAM sticks cost just a small fraction more to make than non-ECC, and same with mobos(/cpus) that support ECC, why everything isn't ECC is beyond me. If everything was ECC, economies of scale would kick in and the additional cost would be negligible. Consider back in the 440BX days every board supported ECC, it boggles the mind as to why today you must buy server/workstation (and I mean $300 a mobo workstation) class equipment to get ECC. The 975 was the last "mainstream" (albeit "extreme enthusiast mainstream") Intel chipset with ECC. AMD fares no better. WTF?? 2 of my 3 systems are ECC, and the 3rd is mostly just used for games. On 2010-02-19 Kevin McGregor wrote: > While we're on the topic, what sort of desktop-PC motherboards are > available that support ECC memory? I've never really paid attention, > so for all I know, ECC support is common. Ha! As per above, no Intel/AMD desktop boards have ECC. It's sad. On 2010-02-19 Kevin McGregor wrote: > Kingston ValueRAM 4GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM ECC Kit (2 x 2GB)...or > $40/GB at Memory Express (special order, though). Is that reasonable? > Do people generally trust Kingston for RAM? It's not the RAM that's the issue, it's finding a mobo to run it. And I trust Kingston implicitly. I have sold nothing but Kingston RAM since 2001. We're talking thousands of sticks here. I've had only about 5 RMA's in that time, and those probably due to static discharge. I would never sell no-name sticks again. Beware the peddlers of "name brand" RAM where they are claiming the name of the DRAM manufacturer is the name brand of the stick. Those are crap no-name sticks. "Name brand" means Kingston, or OCZ, or Corsair, or similar actual branded stick (not back-of-truck leftovers from China). On 2010-02-19 Sean Walberg wrote: > An interesting article about Kingston flash memory and quality, or > lack thereof. Don't attribute flash quality to DRAM quality. Most flash, including Kingston's carries only a short (1 year) warranty and is a completely different beast than DRAM. That said, I've sold (and used) a number of Kingston flash without issues. YMMV. On 2010-02-19 Sean Cody wrote: > Picked up a pile of drives from CBIT last year and 25% of them were > from Thailand and their warranty's were not honoured outside of > Asia/Pacific. Now we do warranty lookups on every drive we order. Ah, the Primex curse strikes again. I have yet to receive any counterfeit parts through my distro channels. Since I service all I sell, I would know if drives were gray-market/non-RMAable. If you want guaranteed product at in general better prices than Primex^H^H^H^H^H^H CBIT, let me know. Ah, that reminds me of the bad ol' days when the guys at Primex were in the back room putting NEC stickers on no-name TW crap CRT's... From obwolfe at shaw.ca Mon Mar 15 10:25:06 2010 From: obwolfe at shaw.ca (Brock Wolfe) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:25:06 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] SheevaPlug Message-ID: <4B9E5152.4000801@shaw.ca> Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend this meeting. Were there any web links or on-line presentations made available? March 9, 2010: Marvell SheevaPlug This month, Kevin McGregor presented a "show and tell" of the Marvell SheevaPlug, a Linux-based computer which fits in a power adapter. With a 1.2 GHz ARM CPU, RAM, flash memory, gigabit Ethernet, USB and more, all at under 7 watts, this small device has enormous possibilities! Kevin talked about his particular experience with the SheevaPlug and his planned use for it. Thanks Brock From rbdyck2 at shaw.ca Mon Mar 15 11:25:38 2010 From: rbdyck2 at shaw.ca (Robert Dyck) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:25:38 -0600 Subject: [RndTbl] Bad caps In-Reply-To: <20100315070459.14096778@pog.tecnopolis.ca> Message-ID: <000101cac45c$25ce68c0$02344c18@wp.shawcable.net> Trevor Cordes wrote: > I'm curious, was the bad caps issue widespread when you were in that job? Any trends you noticed in brand, year, etc? I certainly am > noticing trends (like the badcaps issue did not stop in 2003) and would love to hear someone else's experiences in the field. I didn't notice a trend in brand, they all appeared to have issues. I did notice that leaking caps caused the motherboard to completely fail; bulging caps caused strange behaviour rather than complete failure, but it was in the processing of dying quickly. Motherboards older than 2003 did have more problems than newer ones, but the new ones also had bad caps. There was a strong trend with LCD monitors. We got a number of monitors in for repair, but were not able to repair most of them. The usual problem was blown caps on the power supply. This occurred with Dell, Gateway, and NEC monitors. Most of the monitors brought in were Dell. An occasional monitor had a cracked display; you can't fault the manufacturer if someone sits on a monitor. We couldn't swap parts because they all had the same problem: blown caps in the power supply. I noticed all monitors with this problem had an LCD display manufactured by HannStar. The monitors have 3 parts: LCD display, power supply, and signal processing board. The two boards are not made by HannStar, so you can't fault HannStar, but the power supplies are crap. I had a bit of a problem there. The owner wanted a technician who was able to repair LCD monitors, but the service department foreman did not want anyone to do so. So I was stuck between the owner and department foreman. I did replace power supply capacitors for one monitor, but as soon as power was applied the replacement caps blew as well. I had checked voltages, and they were correct briefly but kept dropping out. Voltage would be Ok for a fraction of a second, then drop, then come back. I thought replacing the caps would fix it, but whatever blew the caps in the first place burnt out the used replacements as well. Possibly a bad voltage regulator. One customer had blown capacitors for his onboard motherboard audio. He wanted to connect sound from his computer to his stereo. Unfortunately he connected line out from his computer to line out for his stereo. He said as soon as he connected it, he heard a pop. Sound on his computer hadn't worked since. I opened the case while he was still at the counter; yup, 2 blown caps. I told him we could replace the caps but the surge may have damaged circuitry on his motherboard, and the service department foreman doesn't like us to replace caps, so recommended a new motherboard. Besides, that store charges $30/hour for normal desktop service work, but $60/hour for soldering work. It would cost him less to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately the foreman convinced him to buy a used computer. If he just replaced his motherboard he would have had a brand new motherboard and all the stuff he had before. The used computer cost more than a new motherboard, and was older than his computer. The customer's father said he knows how to solder so may replace the caps himself. I cautioned him that he has to replace the caps with an exact match for capacitance and voltage, as well as dielectric vs. ceramic, and has to be careful when soldering a multi-layer board. Don't overheat the board, you can burn it easily. The guys talked about bad power supplies in Antec cases, but I thought Antec were premium cases. The computer I have at home has an Antec case, and I've never had problems with it. The Antec cases we got through recycling while I was there worked fine, their power supplies could be used as replacements for customer power supplies. Some technicians also talked about AMD processors not lasting, but again I didn't see that. Again, my computer at home uses an AMD K7 Athalon Thunderbird processor. I've never had problems; but then I was cautioned when I got it that AMD processors require good cooling. I got a very good CPU heat sink. The only problem I've had with my home computer was the video card. I got an G-Force3 v8200 when it was brand new, top-of-the-line. The board died, but the retail store I worked for had an exact match as a used card. I bought the used one at employee discount. When I got home I found the used card had a seized GPU fan, but my old card had a working fan. So I "Frankensteined" it together: took the working fan from the dead card. I now have a program to monitor sensors, the GPU is running hottest of all. I guess that's why that's the component that failed. As for computers through the store: most computers had Intel CPU chips, but that was due to volume of sales. I didn't see any trend with repairs: Intel vs AMD. That store sells 2 brand of hard drives: Western Digital and Seagate. The Western Digital drives last perfectly for 3 years, but can fail after that. Seagate drives are 50% more expensive, but more reliable. Maxtor had manufactured hard drives, but were bought out by Seagate. In their last days they replaced the metal top of their hard drives with a heavy foil. The foil top drives failed a lot. IBM Deskstar hard drives also had a reputation for failing, and I did see a number of them come in. Some technicians called them "IBM Deathstar". Rob Dyck From kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 11:23:17 2010 From: kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com (Kevin McGregor) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:23:17 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] firewall/router in a VM In-Reply-To: <20100315100132.2a88660b@pog.tecnopolis.ca> References: <1105778248-1266466846-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-2034846348-@bda464.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> <20100315100132.2a88660b@pog.tecnopolis.ca> Message-ID: <6756caf11003150923n3bc2fa4bpf71e1edfab01531c@mail.gmail.com> This ASUS board seems to support ECC: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX23640(ME).aspx I think all AMD CPUs, even low-end ones, support it via the on-chip memory controller (unlike Intel); I don't know what it takes, if anything, to support ECC on the motherboard if the CPU/memory-controller does. Anyway, they don't seem to be hard to find in the AMD arena. On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Trevor Cordes wrote: > I'm really late to this discussion. Some quick 2c's: > > On 2010-02-18 Daryl F wrote: > > I think non-ECC memory should be illegal. Somebody's gonna lose an > > eye and it won't be funny any more. > > Hear hear! Considering ECC RAM sticks cost just a small fraction more > to make than non-ECC, and same with mobos(/cpus) that support ECC, why > everything isn't ECC is beyond me. If everything was ECC, economies of > scale would kick in and the additional cost would be negligible. > Consider back in the 440BX days every board supported ECC, it boggles > the mind as to why today you must buy server/workstation (and I mean > $300 a mobo workstation) class equipment to get ECC. The 975 was the > last "mainstream" (albeit "extreme enthusiast mainstream") Intel chipset > with ECC. AMD fares no better. WTF?? > > 2 of my 3 systems are ECC, and the 3rd is mostly just used for games. > > On 2010-02-19 Kevin McGregor wrote: > > While we're on the topic, what sort of desktop-PC motherboards are > > available that support ECC memory? I've never really paid attention, > > so for all I know, ECC support is common. > > Ha! As per above, no Intel/AMD desktop boards have ECC. It's sad. > > On 2010-02-19 Kevin McGregor wrote: > > Kingston ValueRAM 4GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM ECC Kit (2 x 2GB)...or > > $40/GB at Memory Express (special order, though). Is that reasonable? > > Do people generally trust Kingston for RAM? > > It's not the RAM that's the issue, it's finding a mobo to run it. And > I trust Kingston implicitly. I have sold nothing but Kingston RAM > since 2001. We're talking thousands of sticks here. I've had only > about 5 RMA's in that time, and those probably due to static > discharge. > > I would never sell no-name sticks again. Beware the peddlers of "name > brand" RAM where they are claiming the name of the DRAM manufacturer is > the name brand of the stick. Those are crap no-name sticks. "Name > brand" means Kingston, or OCZ, or Corsair, or similar actual branded > stick (not back-of-truck leftovers from China). > > On 2010-02-19 Sean Walberg wrote: > > An interesting article about Kingston flash memory and quality, or > > lack thereof. > > Don't attribute flash quality to DRAM quality. Most flash, including > Kingston's carries only a short (1 year) warranty and is a completely > different beast than DRAM. That said, I've sold (and used) a number of > Kingston flash without issues. YMMV. > > On 2010-02-19 Sean Cody wrote: > > Picked up a pile of drives from CBIT last year and 25% of them were > > from Thailand and their warranty's were not honoured outside of > > Asia/Pacific. Now we do warranty lookups on every drive we order. > > Ah, the Primex curse strikes again. I have yet to receive any > counterfeit parts through my distro channels. Since I service all I > sell, I would know if drives were gray-market/non-RMAable. If you want > guaranteed product at in general better prices than Primex^H^H^H^H^H^H > CBIT, let me know. > > Ah, that reminds me of the bad ol' days when the guys at Primex were in > the back room putting NEC stickers on no-name TW crap CRT's... > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable at muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100315/5555efb0/attachment-0001.html From trevor at tecnopolis.ca Mon Mar 15 12:34:57 2010 From: trevor at tecnopolis.ca (Trevor Cordes) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:34:57 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] firewall/router in a VM In-Reply-To: <6756caf11003150923n3bc2fa4bpf71e1edfab01531c@mail.gmail.com> References: <1105778248-1266466846-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-2034846348-@bda464.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> <20100315100132.2a88660b@pog.tecnopolis.ca> <6756caf11003150923n3bc2fa4bpf71e1edfab01531c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20100315123457.53d9f4c1@pog.tecnopolis.ca> On 2010-03-15 Kevin McGregor wrote: > This ASUS board seems to support ECC: > http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX23640(ME).aspx > > I think > all AMD CPUs, even low-end ones, support it via the on-chip memory > controller (unlike Intel); I don't know what it takes, if anything, > to support ECC on the motherboard if the CPU/memory-controller does. > Anyway, they don't seem to be hard to find in the AMD arena. Hmm, the sites do seem to suggest it does ECC. Though I've learned in the past that sometimes even sites/manuals/bios's that say ECC, do not do ECC! If it does do ECC, perhaps it is because these are AMD chipsets, and not NV or ATI. That would make sense as the real AMD ones are usually better. Most of the AMD-compatible mobos you see these days are NV or ATI. So perhaps there is a cheap(er) way to get ECC than Intel-based workstation boards. However, based on past experience I'd be loathe to switch to AMD from Intel. No flame war here, just cold hard experience selling these things for 11 years. If AMD is still giving cheap ECC, seems to me that Intel is royally screwing up by not providing something that can compete. Adam? From kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 11:11:03 2010 From: kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com (Kevin McGregor) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:11:03 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] SheevaPlug In-Reply-To: <4B9E5152.4000801@shaw.ca> References: <4B9E5152.4000801@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <6756caf11003150911i5e0a1bb2xd06b34e9bbb8f59c@mail.gmail.com> Okay, okay, I'll send Gilbert the slides! :-) I've been meaning to, but procrastinating. There's not a whole lot of content in them, but Gilbert also has a (probably unedited) audio recording of it as well. Kevin On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Brock Wolfe wrote: > Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend this meeting. Were there any web > links or on-line presentations made available? > > March 9, 2010: Marvell SheevaPlug > This month, Kevin McGregor presented a "show and tell" of the Marvell > SheevaPlug, a Linux-based computer which fits in a power adapter. With a > 1.2 GHz ARM CPU, RAM, flash memory, gigabit Ethernet, USB and more, all > at under 7 watts, this small device has enormous possibilities! Kevin > talked about his particular experience with the SheevaPlug and his > planned use for it. > > Thanks > > Brock > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable at muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100315/3edb65f1/attachment.html From gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca Mon Mar 15 13:53:14 2010 From: gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca (Gilbert E. Detillieux) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:53:14 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] SheevaPlug In-Reply-To: <6756caf11003150911i5e0a1bb2xd06b34e9bbb8f59c@mail.gmail.com> References: <4B9E5152.4000801@shaw.ca> <6756caf11003150911i5e0a1bb2xd06b34e9bbb8f59c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4B9E821A.50202@cs.umanitoba.ca> I've now put up Kevin's slides, in both PPT and PDF format, as well as an MP3 of the (mostly unedited) audio recording. You can find the links to those here... http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/09-10.html#mar Gilbert On 2010-03-15 11:11, Kevin McGregor wrote: > Okay, okay, I'll send Gilbert the slides! :-) I've been meaning to, but > procrastinating. There's not a whole lot of content in them, but Gilbert > also has a (probably unedited) audio recording of it as well. > > Kevin > > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 10:25 AM, Brock Wolfe > wrote: > > Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend this meeting. Were there any web > links or on-line presentations made available? > > March 9, 2010: Marvell SheevaPlug > This month, Kevin McGregor presented a "show and tell" of the Marvell > SheevaPlug, a Linux-based computer which fits in a power adapter. With a > 1.2 GHz ARM CPU, RAM, flash memory, gigabit Ethernet, USB and more, all > at under 7 watts, this small device has enormous possibilities! Kevin > talked about his particular experience with the SheevaPlug and his > planned use for it. > > Thanks > > Brock -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609 From montanaq at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 21:38:29 2010 From: montanaq at gmail.com (Montana Quiring) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:38:29 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] NAS box Message-ID: Hello, Looking for a recommendation of a NAS box that I can install my own Linux distro on. (i.e. not a proprietary firmware based NAS). I'll probably install either CentOS or UbuntuServer on it. I would like it to have two or three hot swap bays. It doesn't have to be an all-in-one solution, even just a decent case/MoBo combo you have used would be fine. Does that make sense? -Montana Blog and Aggregation Site: http://montanaquiring.info iPhone/Touch Apps I have bought: http://appshopper.com/feed/user/antikx/myapps -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100315/3a31c53d/attachment.html From montanaq at gmail.com Mon Mar 15 22:29:05 2010 From: montanaq at gmail.com (Montana Quiring) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:29:05 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] NAS box In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: of course, as soon as I ask for help, I find what I'm looking for: http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=81 Anyone one worked with these cases, or can recommend something cheaper/better? -Montana Blog and Aggregation Site: http://montanaquiring.info iPhone/Touch Apps I have bought: http://appshopper.com/feed/user/antikx/myapps On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Montana Quiring wrote: > Hello, > > Looking for a recommendation of a NAS box that I can install my own Linux > distro on. (i.e. not a proprietary firmware based NAS). I'll probably > install either CentOS or UbuntuServer on it. > I would like it to have two or three hot swap bays. > > It doesn't have to be an all-in-one solution, even just a decent case/MoBo > combo you have used would be fine. > Does that make sense? > > -Montana > Blog and Aggregation Site: > http://montanaquiring.info > iPhone/Touch Apps I have bought: > http://appshopper.com/feed/user/antikx/myapps > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100315/6bc9961d/attachment.html From athompso at athompso.net Mon Mar 15 22:47:58 2010 From: athompso at athompso.net (Adam Thompson) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:47:58 +0000 Subject: [RndTbl] NAS box Message-ID: <717800663-1268711277-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1272302364-@bda2949.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> LJ has ads from Polywell every month, I'm pretty sure they have something up your alley. (www.polywell.com/us/lx) You could also use the BeagleBoard, buy a 2-disk SATA hotswap tray, and a chassis, but you can't use a standard distro. You could always rig up to eSATA enclosures to pretty much anything that supports eSATA... Or USB, albeit at lower performance. The two-hotswap-bay requirement will likely have you either using external equipment, or an ordinary ATX mid-tower case... Regular 5.25" bays also get you reasonably cheap hotswap trays. Size-wise, almost no-one bothers making OEM product at the 2-disk level; there's tons of options in 19" units or 8-bay towers. How much are you willing to spend? -Adam From rayhenry at autoclubs.ca Tue Mar 16 00:04:07 2010 From: rayhenry at autoclubs.ca (Raymond J. Henry) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:04:07 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] RAID controller opinions? Message-ID: <001101cac4c6$1b163790$5142a6b0$@ca> Anyone have experience with the 3Ware 9650SE? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Thanks.. - Ray -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100316/865f7c51/attachment.html From rayhenry at autoclubs.ca Tue Mar 16 12:56:49 2010 From: rayhenry at autoclubs.ca (Raymond J. Henry) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:56:49 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] My MySQL battle Message-ID: <002e01cac532$0d6e0070$284a0150$@ca> OK, I've come to the conclusion that I'm doing something wrong, but can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Going over and over and over documentation, I must be interpreting something wrong, because I think I'm doing what it says. I'm setting up a new box with CentOS. Installed MySQL, and it's running. Now I get to setting the password. Here's the issue. I start with: mysqladmin -u root password SQLROOTPASSWD. No problem Then I try: mysqladmin -h myserver.mydomain.com -u root password SQLROOTPASSWD. This is where things go South. I get the response mysqladmin: connect to server at '(my server)' failed "Access denied for user 'root'@'192.168.1.160' (using password: NO)' I'm at a loss. Hours of fighting with this, and I'm nowhere... Help? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100316/7ef609b5/attachment.html From peter at pogma.com Tue Mar 16 13:11:54 2010 From: peter at pogma.com (Peter O'Gorman) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:11:54 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] My MySQL battle In-Reply-To: <002e01cac532$0d6e0070$284a0150$@ca> References: <002e01cac532$0d6e0070$284a0150$@ca> Message-ID: <4B9FC9EA.8010802@pogma.com> On 03/16/2010 12:56 PM, Raymond J. Henry wrote: > Then I try: > > mysqladmin -h myserver.mydomain.com -u root password SQLROOTPASSWD. use -p or --password "mysqladmin ... password foo" sets the password, to give a previously set password, just do "mysqladmin -h myserver.mydomain.com -u root -p" to be prompted for it. Or to give it on the command line --password=SQLROOTPASSWD/-pSQLROOTPASSWD. Peter From robert at cluenet.org Tue Mar 16 13:40:45 2010 From: robert at cluenet.org (Robert Keizer) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:40:45 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] My MySQL battle In-Reply-To: <002e01cac532$0d6e0070$284a0150$@ca> References: <002e01cac532$0d6e0070$284a0150$@ca> Message-ID: <4B9FD0AD.8010007@cluenet.org> Raymond J. Henry wrote: > > OK, I?ve come to the conclusion that I?m doing something wrong, but > can?t for the life of me figure out what it is. Going over and over > and over documentation, I must be interpreting something wrong, > because I think I?m doing what it says. > > I?m setting up a new box with CentOS. Installed MySQL, and it?s > running. Now I get to setting the password. Here?s the issue. > > I start with: > > mysqladmin -u root password SQLROOTPASSWD. > > No problem > > Then I try: > > mysqladmin -h myserver.mydomain.com -u root password SQLROOTPASSWD. > > This is where things go South. I get the response > > mysqladmin: connect to server at ?(my server)? failed > > ?Access denied for user ?root?@?192.168.1.160? (using password: NO)? > > I?m at a loss. Hours of fighting with this, and I?m nowhere?.. Help? > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable at muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > Your problem is that MySQL stores permissions based not only on users, but also where they're coming from. Try in the mysql console "grant all privileges on *.* to 'root'@'192.168.1.160' IDENTIFIED BY ' References: <002e01cac532$0d6e0070$284a0150$@ca> Message-ID: The default for mysql clients is to connect with no password. Your first command connects with no password, and sends commands to change the password. Don't confuse the parameters you're sending with the ones you're supposed to send to connect with a password. To connect with a password, pass "-p" on the command line to have the client prompt for the password, or do the longopt "--password=MYPASSWORD" eg $ mysqladmin -u root -p somecommand somearg Enter password: or $ mysqladmin -u root --password='abc123' somecommand somearg Sean On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Raymond J. Henry wrote: > OK, I?ve come to the conclusion that I?m doing something wrong, but can?t > for the life of me figure out what it is. Going over and over and over > documentation, I must be interpreting something wrong, because I think I?m > doing what it says. > > > > I?m setting up a new box with CentOS. Installed MySQL, and it?s running. Now > I get to setting the password. Here?s the issue. > > > > I start with: > > mysqladmin -u root password SQLROOTPASSWD. > > ?No problem > > > > Then I try: > > mysqladmin -h myserver.mydomain.com -u root password SQLROOTPASSWD. > > > > This is where things go South. I get the response > > mysqladmin: connect to server at ?(my server)?? failed > > ?Access denied for user ?root?@?192.168.1.160? (using password: NO)? > > > > I?m at a loss. Hours of fighting with this, and I?m nowhere?.. Help? > > > > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable at muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > > -- Sean Walberg http://ertw.com/ From gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca Thu Mar 18 11:37:45 2010 From: gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca (Gilbert E. Detillieux) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:37:45 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] Fwd: HotCloud '10 Submission Deadline Approaching Message-ID: <4BA256D9.8050305@cs.umanitoba.ca> FYI... -------- Original Message -------- Subject: HotCloud '10 Submission Deadline Approaching Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:16:00 -0700 From: Lionel Garth Jones We're writing to remind you that submission deadline for the 2nd USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing (HotCloud '10) program committee is approaching. Please submit your work by Tuesday, March 23, 2010. http://www.usenix.org/hotcloud10/cfpb Cloud computing has attracted a great deal of attention both from the research community and from industry. The cloud computing paradigm has evolved over the years from a basic IT infrastructure (data centers) to platform as a service (PaaS), and then from software as a service (SaaS) to complete service enablement on a hosted infrastructure (IaaS). At the same time, virtualization has emerged as a key enabler for the cloud computing paradigm. Several challenges arise in the design, implementation, and deployment of virtualized clouds. HotCloud will provide a forum for academics as well as practitioners in the field to share their experience, leverage each other's perspectives, and identifynew/emerging "hot" trends in this area. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following: * Platform as a service * Software as a service * Infrastructure as a service * Elasticity and availability in a cloud * Multi-tenancy * Storage cloud * Charging models and economics * Power-efficient ("green") computing for clouds * Virtual appliance management and composition * Monitoring, troubleshooting, and failure recovery * Cloud management and configuration * Programming models * Security and privacy in clouds * New applications for clouds * Mobile clouds * Cloud usage scenarios For more details on the submission process, please see the complete Call for Papers at: http://www.usenix.org/hotcloud10/cfpb We look forward to receiving your submissions! Erich Nahum, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Dongyan Xu, Purdue University HotCloud '10 Program Co-Chairs hotcloud10chairs at usenix.org --------------------------------- Call for Papers 2nd USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing (HotCloud '10) June 22, 2010 Boston, MA, USA http://www.usenix.org/hotcloud10/cfpb Submissions Deadline: March 23, 2010 --------------------------------- From jma at phason.ca Fri Mar 19 16:25:35 2010 From: jma at phason.ca (Jun Ma) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:25:35 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] OT: Soldering help Message-ID: <204BF685836249A7A45DA28377BE6BB9@WSN60> Hi Kevin, I just saw your post, if still need, let me know. I can do it. Jun jma at phason.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.muug.mb.ca/pipermail/roundtable/attachments/20100319/90d9584a/attachment.html From swalberg at gmail.com Mon Mar 22 13:56:49 2010 From: swalberg at gmail.com (Sean Walberg) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:56:49 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] Any R users out there? Message-ID: Anyone out there in MUUG-land use R at all (http://www.r-project.org/) or do any sort of data mining? Wouldn't mind talking to you sometime if so. Thanks, Sean -- Sean Walberg http://ertw.com/ From john at johnlange.ca Tue Mar 23 00:33:03 2010 From: john at johnlange.ca (John Lange) Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:33:03 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] NAS box In-Reply-To: <717800663-1268711277-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1272302364-@bda2949.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> References: <717800663-1268711277-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1272302364-@bda2949.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> Message-ID: I'm late to this thread but what you really want to build is this: http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/ Oh baby! John On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 10:47 PM, Adam Thompson wrote: > LJ has ads from Polywell every month, I'm pretty sure they have something up your alley. ?(www.polywell.com/us/lx) > You could also use the BeagleBoard, buy a 2-disk SATA hotswap tray, and a chassis, but you can't use a standard distro. > You could always rig up to eSATA enclosures to pretty much anything that supports eSATA... Or USB, albeit at lower performance. > The two-hotswap-bay requirement will likely have you either using external equipment, or an ordinary ATX mid-tower case... Regular 5.25" bays also get you reasonably cheap hotswap trays. > Size-wise, almost no-one bothers making OEM product at the 2-disk level; there's tons of options in 19" units or 8-bay towers. > How much are you willing to spend? > -Adam > > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable at muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable > -- John Lange www.johnlange.ca From athompso at athompso.net Sat Mar 27 20:44:51 2010 From: athompso at athompso.net (Adam Thompson) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:44:51 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] Virtual server security risks - another article Message-ID: <006d01cace18$41bcf540$c536dfc0$@net> Since this has been discussed before: http://www.networkcomputing.com/virtualization/virtual-servers-introduce-real-risk.php -Adam Thompson (204) 291-7950 From athompso at athompso.net Mon Mar 29 19:44:14 2010 From: athompso at athompso.net (Adam Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:44:14 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] software-based firewall appliance - opinions? Message-ID: <007b01cacfa2$1f4c34e0$5de49ea0$@net> I'm looking for an "appliance-style" software firewall distribution. Appliance as in I don't want to just do a general OS install, because non-technical users will have to do some administration of it at a later date. Short list so far: BSDRP m0n0wall pfSense SmoothWallVyatta Core One key problem is that I expect to need 802.1Q VLAN tagging support, which is why I'm not installing a Linksys WRT54G as the "firewall". I also want at least a rudimentary GUI, as it won't always be technical people who need to make changes to the firewall configuration. I'd love to hear from you if you've used any of the above. -Adam Thompson (204) 291-7950 From high.res.mike at gmail.com Mon Mar 29 22:58:19 2010 From: high.res.mike at gmail.com (Mike Pfaiffer) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:58:19 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] MP3 player update and request for info Message-ID: <4BB176DB.8060902@gmail.com> I still haven't been able to get the video to work since the meeting. I tried all the recommendations. I just don't seem to find anything to convert to the .AMV format. Like I said at the meeting the single M$ application they include doesn't work either. I read somewhere I could patch ffmpeg but I'd rather not risk messing it up. It would be nice if I could install RockBox on it but unfortunately... The other update is I tried the e-book reader. The manual says all it does is .TXT files. This is reasonable. It's an open format and you can't get much simpler than a bunch of ASCII/UTF-8 formatted bytes strung together. The screen is a little small but that's OK too if I take off my glasses and read it in a lit room. The request relates to the e-book reader. Someone gave me a whole bunch of books they were finished with. Unfortunately the majority are in .PDF and .LIT format. Is there a conversion utility in Linux or OS X to convert them to a .TXT file? I suppose I could read them on the computer but that would defeat the purpose of the e-book reader. Considering I bought the device just for the voice recorder, I think it worked out reasonably well finding all these additional capabilities. Now if they'd only work properly... ;-) Later Mike From athompso at athompso.net Mon Mar 29 23:13:02 2010 From: athompso at athompso.net (Adam Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:13:02 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] short-term email-only hosting? Message-ID: <008a01cacfbf$4a385770$dea90650$@net> I'm looking for [probably] short-term hosting of email *only*. Already have DNS & web hosting, just want email that doesn't lock me in for a year at a time. Would prefer a Canadian firm, will accept European, but I do not want this email stored in the USA. Any recommendations? -Adam Thompson (204) 291-7950 From sean at tinfoilhat.ca Tue Mar 30 11:34:06 2010 From: sean at tinfoilhat.ca (Sean Cody) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:34:06 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] software-based firewall appliance - opinions? In-Reply-To: <007b01cacfa2$1f4c34e0$5de49ea0$@net> References: <007b01cacfa2$1f4c34e0$5de49ea0$@net> Message-ID: My vote is on pfSense. Extremely slick and makes configuring even complicated stuff like CARP reasonably straight forward. I find the logo itself ugly but the web UI is very slick. Big thumbs up and my best suggestion for those less inclined to dive into OpenBSD head first (yes I'm aware pfSense is FreeBSD based). :P On 2010-03-29, at 7:44 PM, Adam Thompson wrote: > I'm looking for an "appliance-style" software firewall distribution. > Appliance as in I don't want to just do a general OS install, because > non-technical users will have to do some administration of it at a later > date. > > Short list so far: > BSDRP > m0n0wall > pfSense > SmoothWallVyatta > Core > > One key problem is that I expect to need 802.1Q VLAN tagging support, > which is why I'm not installing a Linksys WRT54G as the "firewall". I > also want at least a rudimentary GUI, as it won't always be technical > people who need to make changes to the firewall configuration. > > I'd love to hear from you if you've used any of the above. > > -Adam Thompson > > (204) 291-7950 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable at muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable -- Sean From gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca Wed Mar 31 17:14:56 2010 From: gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca (Gilbert E. Detillieux) Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:14:56 -0500 Subject: [RndTbl] Decision in SCO-Novell case ripples beyond Utah - Salt Lake Tribune Message-ID: <4BB3C960.7030509@cs.umanitoba.ca> I was made aware of this news item only after finishing up the April MUUG newsletter (actually about an hour after printing it off for mailing)... http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14786202 -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609