Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Split and Murse (Score 1) 763

I had this exact same problem, and I had the same worries about losing the keys if I kept them in a backpack or laptop bag. Eventually, the inconvenience overcame the fear. Office keys, house keys, server room keys, church keys... you name it. They add up quick! The keys were getting WAY out of control. Here's how I handled it.

1: Split the keys into two groups: ones you use constantly and ones you use occasionally. My first group is car keys, house key, library card, and shopping discount cards. My other key ring has everything else on it.

2: Toss the first group in your pocket.

3: Find an old laptop bag or buy a messenger bag (a.k.a. man-purse, a.k.a. murse), and make the extra key ring a permanent part of that bag.

4: Start carrying it with you everywhere.

Right now I'm just carrying an old laptop bag, but I like this one: http://amzn.to/bOBu5v (a la Jack Bauer) for several reasons. It comes in black and blends in like a laptop bag. Very rugged and versatile yet inexpensive. If you get a small, padded laptop case it can fit inside (depending on the size of your laptop).

Anyhow, I've used this setup for about two months now and I like it a TON better. The office is usually open by the time I get there, so I rarely even have to take my laptop bag out of the car unless I need something else in the bag. In fact, I only have to grab that extra key ring an average of once a week or so (YMMV). Very handy addition to my life with the exception of having to carry two bags around whenever I want to lug my laptop too (or consolidate). I like to draw and sketch, so I use the extra bag to hold my pencils, drawing pads, etc.

Comment Hit-by-bus Envelope (Score 1) 418

We keep a "hit by a bus" envelope sealed and secured in a safe just in case something happens and root access is needed to the servers. Curious as to why that wasn't SF's policy and how other municipalities handle these sort of security issues.

Comment Re:The "taxpayers' money"... isn't. (Score 1) 418

Actually, we, "the people" consent to be governed, and delegate our decision-making authority to our representatives. The money IS mine, as I am a citizen of this country, I own my 1/300 millionth or so share of the things it buys, and I can tell the government how to spend my taxes. No guarantee they'll listen, but they generally do if a big enough collective of the citizen-owners yell about it. Governments don't work without the consent of the governed, especially this one.

If my elected delegates don't do a good job of representing me, I (collectively) can fire them and elect someone else who will.

Need to re-organize HR though; it's sticking me with really crappy interview candidates for the job.

The Internet

Submission + - Pssst...Wanna buy a data center? (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: "So what do you do with 250 servers and thousands of terabytes of data storage when nobody else wants it? Auction it online what else? High-tech online asset liquidator Rasmus Auctioneers is prepping $15 million worth brand new — still in the box data center gear that was dumped in its lap from a Department of the Interior lease cancellation. The entire lot, which includes Egenera blade servers, EMC Centera Servers and ADIC Digital Tape Libraries is online today to be sold to the highest bidder regardless of price. The inventory will be sold by internet-only auction at 2 pm eastern time on Wednesday, September 12, 2007. "The liquidation will be like an e-bay sale on steroids," Rasmus said on a statement. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18901"
Data Storage

Submission + - 3rd Party Support for .gov Data Center Equipment?

Gunfighter writes: Based on input received from my previous Ask Slashdot question (thanks to all who chipped in their $0.02), my customer is looking to expand infrastructure and increase storage capacity on several fronts. We looked into some software solutions and settled on Starfish for static file storage, but we are finding more and more that the hardware solutions to support virtualized environments and massive RDBMS storage are cost prohibitive. The US Department of Interior recently pulled the plug on a lease with a vendor (seems like a waste of tax dollars, but that's a story for another submission), so we're looking to buy a significant amount of hardware below cost. Unfortunately, the article mentions that support and software licenses "have gone up in smoke" as they are apparently nontransferable. We've been bit by the "It's illegal to run an EMC system without a $250k EMC license" bug in the past and would like to avoid it this time. What are the legalities, pros, cons, etc. of running ex-GSA schedule hardware in a commercial environment; and are viable 3rd party support solutions the way to go?
Data Storage

Submission + - Open Source Highly Available Storage Solutions?

Gunfighter writes: I run a small datacenter for one of my customers, but they're constantly filling up different hard drives on different servers and then shuffling the data back and forth. At their current level of business, they can't afford to invest in a Storage Area Network of any sort, so they want to spread the load of their data storage needs across their existing servers like Google does. The only software packages I've found that do this seamlessly are Lustre and NFS. The problem with Lustre is that it has a single metadata server unless you configure failover, and NFS isn't redundant at all and can be a nightmare to manage. The only thing I've found that even comes close is Starfish. While it looks promising, I'm wondering if anyone else has found a reliable solution that is as easy to set up and manage? Eventually, they would like to be able to scale from their current storage usage levels (~2TB) to several hundred terabytes once the operation goes into full production.
Businesses

Submission + - It's official: AT&T and BellSouth merge

srizah writes: "AT&T and BellSouth are merging. A $86 billion merger Dec 29 was completed with approval from FCC. Excerpt from the news story: "AT&T and Bell South merged Dec. 29 shortly after the Federal Communications Commission gave its final approval to the $86 billion merger and a day after two Democratic commissioners wielding unusual clout extracted major concessions to win the deal's OK. The merger unifies Cingular Wireless L.L.C.'s two parent companies. Cingular is the nation's largest cell phone carrier. AT&T said it will begin to transition the Cingular brand to the AT&T brand starting in early 2007." Read on... http://www.rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/ 20070102/FREE/70102001/1013/FREE"
The Internet

Submission + - Verisgn Given Control of .com Domain Until 2012

eldavojohn writes: "A controversial deal has given Verisign control from the US Department of Commerce on the .com domain. From the article, "The .com domain is by far the most popular of the net's addresses and currently there are 59 million domains registered which use the suffix. Verisign maintains the address books of who owns which .com domain and runs the computers that direct web users' computers to the right place. The deal also signals the end of legal action taken by Verisign against ICANN and the dropping of a retaliatory suit by the net overseer." Sounds like a lucrative contract to win. I wonder how this is considered a free market with one company maintaining the commerce domain of the entire internet."

Slashdot Top Deals

"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde

Working...