riffer - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Summary not quite right... (Score 1) 477

by riffer on Thursday July 16, 2009 @09:16PM (#28725239) Attached to: US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux

HP has an exclusive hardware contract with USPS for Intel-based servers, workstations and such. And for monitors. So all the Wintel servers are HP.
Still outnumbered by huge farm sof Solaris servers.
As for IFL, here's IBM's description of it.

And yeah, the GCN article sucks ass, but then journalists are pretty much computer illiterate and it doesn't help that they talk to managers and not the actual engineers.

Comment Article is inaccurate (Score 1) 477

by riffer on Thursday July 16, 2009 @08:53PM (#28725093) Attached to: US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux

The GCN article this is based on has many significant factual errors. HP is not really involved. The migration is to IBM's ZLinux, which is SuSE Linux running on the Z-Os platform, as virtual servers. Hewlett-Packard has nothing to do with it other than managing hardware. It certainly isn't "HP Linux". The number of servers quoted is not how many are used for tracking. More like the total number being migrated. Sadly, the part about the COBOL stuff is true, though only chunks of the app were written in COBOL (i.e. those that ran on the mainframes). Mostly it's the stuff that relates to finances, not surprisingly.

US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux 477

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 14, 2009 @07:44PM from the cobol-package-management dept.

twitter writes "The US Postal Service has moved its Cobol package tracking software to HP machines running GNU/Linux. 1,300 servers handle 40 million transactions a day and cost less than the last system, which was based on a Sun Solaris environment." The migration took a year. The USPS isn't spelling how big the savings are, except that they are "significant."

Submission + - Open Source solutions for Situation Rooms?

Submitted by

riffer

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @11:07AM

riffer writes: "In my team at work we're looking to put together a Situation Room for dealing with IT security. We want something that allows multiple video inputs from different computers to go to one or two large screen displays (probably plasmas), with the ability to resize, zoom and move the sub-displays around. There are various commercial solutions but I'm hoping an open source application could be used. I've looked at MythTV and it seems to offer much of what we'd need, but it's oriented towards TV watching and recording, and our video inputs would not be from cable TV or video cameras. We want this to look and feel professional, for acceptance by fairly conservative (and not very geeky) upper-management. Any suggestions?"

Seagate Plans 37.5TB HDD Within Matter of Years 395

Posted by Zonk on Friday January 05, 2007 @10:29AM from the lot-of-pr0n dept.

Ralph_19 writes "Wired visited Seagate's R&D labs and learned we can expect 3.5-inch 300-terabit hard drives within a matter of years. Currently Seagate is using perpendicular recording but in the next decade we can expect heat-assisted magnetic recording (HARM), which will boost storage densities to as much as 50 terabits per square inch. The technology allows a smaller number of grains to be used for each bit of data, taking advantage of high-stability magnetic compounds such as iron platinum." In the meantime, Hitachi is shipping a 1 TB HDD sometime this year. It is expected to retail for $399.

Submission + - What do politicians know about videogames?

Submitted by

steven williamson

on Friday January 05, 2007 @09:55AM

steven williamson writes: "Bumbling Conservative MP Boris Johnson has used his personal website to attack the state of education in the UK, citing videogames as being the reason why many children will grow up to be illiterate. HEXUS.gaming have detailed the story.

Bumbling Boris concludes his rant by calling for parents to "Summon up all your strength, all your courage. Steel yourself for the screams and yank out that plug. And if they still kick up a fuss, then get out the sledgehammer and strike a blow for literacy."
"

Submission + - Portable Solar Power for $180

Submitted by

KarMax

on Friday January 05, 2007 @09:26AM

KarMax writes: "This portable solar power can be done (and improved) by everyone, is really easy and you can buy all you need from eBay.
From the article:

For about $180, I brought together all the components needed to power a typical laptop for a couple hours solely on solar power. It's great for emergencies, or just knowing you are powering something real with a completely renewable resource.
This kit weighs about 2 lbs, costs $180, and will power my Macbook for 1.75 hours (1.83ghz, browsing the web and checking email via Airport Extreme, bluetooth off, screen brightness about 70%) with a little more than 5 hours of good sun.
"

Submission + - The DIY Star Trek Home Theater

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:59AM

An anonymous reader writes: Gary Reighn has boldly gone where no one has gone before — or perhaps where only a few have gone. This Philadelphia-area homeowner not only built a home theater based on the command bridge from Star Trek — others have done that — but he also did it all himself. He's responsible for everything from framing the walls to installing the equipment to crafting space view ports and simulated computer screens.

Submission + - U.S. Warrantless Wiretap Extends Into Mail

Submitted by

s31523

on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:38AM

s31523 writes: "Several slashdot articles on the United States rulings on warrantless wiretaps have been the subject of much debate. Many people feel that if you aren't doing something wrong, then you should have nothing to worry about. Others feel the privacy violation is unacceptable and paves the path for other rights being "waived". The others might be right. Yahoo is reporting yet another presidential signing that has wording that can be construed as giving the government the right to open US mail without a warrant. FTA, "The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.""

Submission + - Another Indian state shutting doors for Microsoft

Submitted by ssmaurya on Friday January 05, 2007 @08:14AM

ssmaurya writes: Another indian state is about shut the doors for Microsoft products. http://egovernance.wordpress.com/2007/01/04/tn-may -shut-door-on-microsoft/ Previously Kerala Government had decided to move out Microsoft from schools. http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/ 30/0156206

Submission + - Microsoft admits open source patent pledge misses

Submitted by Robert on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @09:01AM

Robert writes: Microsoft Corp has admitted execution flaws with its promise not to sue open source software developers and invited the wider community to tell the software firm how it can get it right. In a blog posting inviting feedback on its plan to offer non-commercial developers a covenant not to sue for patent infringement, Microsoft's director of standards, Jason Matusow, admitted that there had been mistakes.

Submission + - World of Warcraft Kick Linux Users

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @08:51AM

An anonymous reader writes: Looks like World of Warcraft have just kicked hundreds (if not thousands) of players for using Linux. The actual reasons can not be confirmed, but there is a definite pattern. I'm victim of this and have not broken their EULA. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=46948857&sid=1

Submission + - SANS/FBI Updates Top 20 Vulnerabilities

Submitted by

UnderAttack

on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @08:47AM

UnderAttack writes: "The SANS Institue and the FBI published a new version of their "Top 20 Vulnerability" list. This is the 7th version of the list which was published first in 2000.
With this version, the list has been re-organized quite a bit. No longer does it focus on OS specific issues. There are now sections for cross-platform problems (like web applications), network devices and policy.
Kind of interesting that Mac OS X got mentioned as well. But on the other hand, Windows Internet Exploder made the top of the list all on its own."

Submission + - Wireless Power Possible?

Submitted by Lunar_Lamp on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @08:42AM

Lunar_Lamp writes: The BBC are reporting that American scientists have modelled a method of delivering power to electronic devices without wires. "US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires. The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said. Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it will work." Despite the article saying that the technique has only been computer modelled, the scientists have already set up a company to sell their idea, with plans apparently further along than the BBC article suggests.

Submission + - FCC Meets to Investigate Cookie Abuse

Submitted by PreacherTom on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @08:31AM

PreacherTom writes: Online advertisers have a sweet tooth for cookies. Not the kind you bake, but the digital kind — those tiny files that embed themselves on a PC and keep tabs on what Web sites are visited on which machines. But cookies could have a bad aftertaste for consumers. Privacy advocates say the files are being force fed in large quantities to computer users, and they're demanding that the government put some advertisers on a diet. On Nov. 17, representatives from the Center for Digital Democracy plan to meet with the Federal Trade Commission to discuss what they believe is the abuse of what are known as behaviorally targeted advertising techniques, since certain cookies collect enough information that over time users' identities can become evident.

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