Linker3000 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Aircon Control for a Small IT Suite

Submitted by Linker3000 on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @07:02AM

Linker3000 writes: My main IT office is also the server room for the building, with a small rack of servers and a few stand-alone systems. Most of the time we can keep the room cool enough with natural ventilation and we only switch on the aircon when we close up and leave at night — but sometimes we forget and arrive the next morning to about 26-28 degress of Celcius goodness (about 80F) — nothing too major, but a tad warm nonetheless. The aircon has a timer built into the remote control, but it's very directional and unless we remember to leave it on a desk pointed at the aircon unit it does not work. I was considering a small project involving an IP or USB-based temperature sensor and a learning/programmable IR transmitter that would allow us to switch the aircon on (or off) automatically, or manually if we so wished. There' s no hardwire option for the aircon unit — I've checked the schematics. Having done the required Google search, I have found what looks like suitable kit, ranging from bareboard hobbyist stuff to ridiculously-priced 'professional' server room HVAC controls, so I decided it might be a good idea to open this up to the Slashdot crowd for their real-world wisdom (apart from 'leave the aircon on all the time'). Anyone rigged up anything like this before?

Submission + - OpenDNS to block and monitor Conficker worm

Submitted by Linker3000 on Saturday February 07, 2009 @07:31PM

Linker3000 writes: According to El Reg, from Monday, OpenDNS plans to introduce an new service that will prevent PCs infected with the Conficker (aka Downadup) malware from contacting its control servers, and will also make it easy for admins to know if even a single machine under their control has been infected by Conficker: "Starting Monday, any networks with PCs that try to connect to the Conficker addresses will be flagged on an admin's private statistics page. The service is available for free to both businesses and home users." Maybe this is a good time to take a look at OpenDNS if you haven't done so already.

Submission + - Paper's legal threats shut down community forums

Submitted by

Linker3000

on Sunday June 01, 2008 @06:00AM

Linker3000 writes: "When the Irish local newspaper "Mayo Echo" published an article (readable online as a set of PDFs through the link) referring to gays as "perverts", it sparked lively debate in the forums at castlebar.ie , one of the region's most active online communities, but things took a turn for the worse when the paper's editor objected to some of the comments and contacted the site's editors. Under threat of legal action, the site's editors bowed to pressure and all material referring to the Mayo Echo was removed and an apology published, but then the newspaper's editor decided to not accept the apology and is maintaining his threat of legal action.

In light of this, the entire castlebar.ie site has been shut down and replaced with a one page commentary [Coral Cache] on the situation, stating: "...The view of the moderators was that it is no longer possible to have a reasonably robust discussion where opinions are expressed such as people stating that they do not like the slant of a particular article or newspaper as in this case without opening themselves up to legal action. The bulletin boards were effectively the heart of the site generating the bulk of over 3.8 million hits to Castlebar.ie last month for example.

Castlebar.ie has therefore ceased operating as a direct result of this ongoing threat of legal action and the possibility that under the current Irish legal system the same thing could happen at any stage. It is no longer possible to run a voluntary website such as Castlebar.ie on a server based in Ireland regardless of where the moderators actually live..."

Regrettably it's not possible to see any of the allegedly offending forum material (unless someone wants to unearth cached copies!?), but according to one moderator, although some of the reaction to the newspaper's article were 'passionate' — on both sides of the argument — all material specifically referred to in the newspaper's correspondence was removed upon request.

Is shutting down the entire site a wise precaution or totally unnecessary and extreme? And how does the editor of the Mayo Echo — a member of the estate that champions 'freedom of the press' — justify the threat of legal action against public commentary on one of their published articles, especially since the site's editors more than complied with the takedown request irrespective of whether they were obliged to or not?"

Submission + - Entire city of Vista users can't access Internet

Submitted by

Linker3000

on Sunday September 02, 2007 @01:21AM

Linker3000 writes: "The Inquirer links to this story (in Swedish) about the city of Lund in Sweden where Vista users cannot connect to the Internet because of a Linux server that doesn't like the OS. Now that's the kind of story that's fodder to the /. crowd!"

Submission + - Julian Field (MailScanner) critical in Hospital

Submitted by Linker3000 on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @11:37AM

Linker3000 writes: According to the MailScanner discussions list, Julian Field, the author and maintainer of the MailScanner open source e-mail spam / virus / trojan scanning system, was admitted to hospital on Friday having been found collapsed at home. At the time, his condition was described as "critical...but...stable.". Naturally, we all wish him a speedy recovery.

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