Comment Re:Is this a real question? (Score 1) 337
Mod parent up!
Comment Re:Happy Saturnalia or something (Score 1) 65
My child gets the actual Lego advent calendar, which is totally secular. So far she's gotten a snowman and a child minifig with sword (!).
Comment It's called a filter (Score 5, Informative) 109
No, each ISP chooses what routes to accept from what peers. It's called a filter. Smart ISP use routing databases like RIPE to verify what they'll accept and reject automatically. Others do it by hand. Dumb ones accept updates from peers without filtering. It's this last group that needs to update their practices.
Comment Re:rsnapshot is what you're looking for (Score 1) 300
Take rsnapshot one step further, and you have BackupPC. Which is what my company uses (mid-level enterprise), and it's awesome.
Comment A method for doing exactly that (Score 3, Informative) 300
Indeed. I've done so, and documented it:
http://www.tolaris.com/2010/05/06/moving-an-existing-backuppc-partition-to-lvm/
People smarter than me documented a way to move the data, live, even when the partition is nearly full. See the comments there.
Comment Re:Keys in pocket (Score 1) 763
When I was in University I got into the habit of always putting my backpack's shoulder strap over one knee or around an ankle when I sat down. That made it virtually impossible to walk away from it, to steal it, or even to unzip it without me feeling the movement.
Comment Gears for Firefox on Ubuntu 64-bit (Score 2, Informative) 35
Someone has helpfully compiled Gears for Firefox on Ubuntu 64-bit:
http://blog.celogeek.fr/linux/linux-trucs-et-astuces/google-gears-compilation/
I've been using it with Wordpress for 8 months now.
Comment Do the math, and then buy APC (Score 1) 260
First, do the math. Calculate the run-time power consumption of your servers. The easiest way is to use real numbers from the existing UPS units, or by using a kill-a-watt.
Second, buy APC UPS units to meet your need. UPSes are rated for the number of actual watt-hours they support. If your servers consume 1500 watts, and you need them to operate for 30 minutes on battery, you'll need at least 750 watt-hours. Considering adding 50% for battery deterioration, and future expansion.
No, I don't work for APC, but they have worked exceedingly well for me and they are supported on practically any operating system you run.
In my network, we have a Linux machine monitor the UPS via USB serial cable using apcupsd, which you can find in your distro's repository. Then all the other machines are linked to that machine also using apcupsd but with an ethernet target instead of USB. When the UPS fails, the others find out within 20 seconds (or whatever your poll time is), and take action. Any data the USB host has, the others have from the network. It is easy to fetch the data via SNMP, graph it in Cacti, etc.
Comment Re:Chicken Little (Score 1) 118
India already has nuclear weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Comment Your wireless and power supply will work (Score 1) 1095
You don't have to change your wireless region, it will likely just work (few use channels 12 and 13 here anyway).
Just get a plug adaptor for your laptop. The power supply for most laptops supports 100-240 VAC, 50-60 Hz. If unsure, read the label on it.
Comment Re:When crossing the road (Score 3, Informative) 1095
Most London streets have "look left" and "look right" painted on the road at the crossings.
EA Shuts Down Pandemic Studios, Cuts 200 Jobs 161
lbalbalba writes "Electronic Arts is shutting down its Westwood-based game developer Pandemic Studios just two years after acquiring it, putting nearly 200 people out of work. 'The struggling video game publisher informed employees Tuesday morning that it was closing the studio as part of a recently announced plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or 16% of its global workforce. Pandemic has about 220 employees, but an EA spokesman said that a core team, estimated by two people close to the studio to be about 25, will be integrated into the publisher's other Los Angeles studio, in Playa Vista.' An ex-developer for Pandemic attributed the studio's struggles to poor decisions from the management."
Comment one-letter domain? (Score 2, Interesting) 128
Since when are 1-letter second-level domains allowed? I thought it was limited to two letters and up.
Revisiting the Original Reviews of Windows Vista 414
harrymcc writes 'We now know that a remarkable percentage of consumers and businesses decided to spurn Windows Vista and stay with XP. But did the reviews of Vista serve as an early warning that it had major problems? I looked back at the evaluations in nine major publications and found that they expressed some caution--but on the whole, they were far from scathing. Some were downright enthusiastic.'
VLC 0.9.9, The Best Media Player Just Got Better 488
Matt Asay points out a recent update to VLC as they narrow in on a 1.0 release. Already a favorite of many, the open source project has made great strides in recent history towards really solidifying the position as best-in-class. This update, 0.9.9, fixes several display bugs and sees some definite performance improvements. "If you've yet to try VLC, do so. Whether you just want to play media files or also want to convert them, VLC can handle just about anything you throw at it. When all other media players fail, whether on Windows, Linux, or the Mac, VLC will almost always deliver. You can download VLC media player 0.9.9 here. It's open source, but that's not why you'll want to keep using it. You'll use it because it's better than its proprietary peers — by a long stretch.
