The Internet

IPv6 Tunnel Brokers? 18

Posted by Cliff from the exploring-the-new-technologies dept.
thedillybar asks: "I have noticed the appearance of many IPv6 Tunnel Brokers which allow anyone to sign-up and tunnel IPv6 over their current IPv4 connection. Hurricane Electric and BT Exact both offer tunnels here and here, respectively. For those of you using a tunnel like this, what do you think of their reliability and use as a development tool?"
The Internet

Maximum Latency for ISPs? 127

Posted by Cliff from the quality-of-service dept.
fluor2 asks: "My ISP is providing me 8mbit ADSL, and my speed is in fact 8mbit (downstream). However, we all know that there is no relation between transfer rate and latency, eg, a high transfer rate and high latency will kill your FPS games. A packet that travels through the sky and up to a satellite is bound to give high latency. Using pathping, I discovered that my ISP provides me with a latency of 22ms before my sent packets are sent out of my ISP's backbone (6 hops). I have a friend that also tried the same, and he got only 10ms before he was out of his ISP's network. I know 22ms is decent, but I still think that it's far too high if one uses IP-phones and similar. What kind of latency can we accept for a normal 8mbit ADSL connection, and isn't it about time that we get more focus on this subject?"
Data Storage

Best USB Flash Storage? 77

Posted by Cliff from the portable-bootable-and- >3-meg-capacity dept.
Jennifer asks: "I'm thinking of making the plunge and buying some sort of USB flashdisk. I just migrated to a laptop without a floppy, and want some sort of quick and easy medium, preferably bootable, for moving files around. My idea solution would be a SDcard reader that is small, bootable, Hi-Speed USB and sleek/sexy. SD based means I could have a number of cards ready to go, such as a linux card, a Win98 card, maybe even a Win2k card if I could pare the install down to 256MB, plus other stuff, including compatibility with my Palm. Is booting purely BIOS dependent? What have your experiences been with these things?"
Businesses

What Should a Community Computer Lab Offer? 383

Posted by Cliff from the improving-the-neighborhood-through-technology dept.
Ballresin asks: "A local computer company is expanding and including a computer lab in their setup, and they want me to come in as its Administrator. I am supposed to be giving them input on what to teach/host. What does Slashdot think a medium sized tourist town (Okoboji, Spirit Lake, Arnolds Park, Iowa) should have to offer to the locals? I was thinking something along the lines of 'How to Use Windows 101' and 'How to Use Office 101'. My compatriots want to offer some off-the-wall classes such as 'Hacker Ethics: Why and How' and a few other odd classes. I have polled people in the area, which resulted the discovery that 80% of them are from out of town, so don't really care. What you guys think; What kind of classes or what games/LAN party setups should a new, small business offer? Any ideas/input is greatly appreciated."
Microsoft

Is Wizard-Code a Derived Work? 75

Posted by Cliff from the careful-with-code-generators dept.
worldcitizen asks: "Now, with all the noise from the SCO case regarding copyrights, what constitutes a derivative work and who owns what, a question started creeping up: What would happen if Microsoft starts claiming copyright infringement or other Intellectual Property claims in the wizard-inserted code that Visual C++ generates? Would it be possible that even the simplest 'Hello, world' is tainted? Copyrights don't even require uniform enforcement. Could they selectively enforce it on Free Software projects for Windows that have used VC++ for development? Could they license it in such a way that makes it illegal to use Visual C++ for Free Software? Should this be a wake-up call to never use Visual C++ unless you have a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft (obviously not for Free Software projects)?"
Data Storage

Real Time Statistics Feeds for Fantasy Sports? 29

Posted by Cliff from the just-for-fun dept.
Anonymous Coward asks: "I want to develop an applet that will track/sort/rank NFL players using real-time statistical feeds from somewhere. Is there a subscription service or site that offers real time NFL statistical feeds (bonus points given if its a free service)?"
Microsoft

Blocking MSN Messenger? 236

Posted by Cliff from the making-IMs-not-so-instant dept.
Tekno2k3 asks: "As a sysadmin for a financial company, I have been tasked with removing Instant Messaging from our network. The only service that is being difficult is MSN Messenger. It uses many methods to get around being blocked. These include using port 80, using it's own DNS servers for lookup, using MANY logon servers, and using reverse DNS lookup. Has anyone had any success in blocking Messenger?"
The Almighty Buck

Placing a Dollar Value on System Usage? 26

Posted by Cliff from the estimating-costs-and-padding-fees dept.
Anonymous SysAdmin asks: "I wonder how do system admins put a dollar value on system resources? Nowadays we see many hosting providers calculating and summing system utilization like IO operations, processor usage, bandwidth, and RAM into the monthly charges (here's an example). How can they process this info and most importantly how can they put a dollar value on it? What are the common practices in the industry and what are the tools used?"
Patents

Could You Really Do Better than the USPTO? 98

Posted by Cliff from the put-your-money-where-your-comments-are dept.
lllama asks; "Is there such a thing as an obvious patent? Some ideas are so obvious that they needed to be stated before it's clear how obvious they are. Some are so blindingly simple that maybe a few dead monkeys might not have thought of them first. How would one go about deciding which ideas deserve a patent? Could/Should the patent office open itself up for public voting or moderation? Could a voting system affect how long a patent is grated for? Should the system be allowed to be swayed by public opinion? Should there be another tier of patents that protect IP but cannot be licensed out for money (BSD style patents?)? Given that simply hearing an idea affects how obvious it appears, could a system be devised that would allow an unbiased measure? An Obvious Quotient as such. Is there an obvious other word for 'obvious' that I could be using?"
Data Storage

Auditing Large Unix File Systems? 21

Posted by Cliff from the getting-the-whole-picture dept.
jstockdale asks: "The recent article on perpendicular recording hard drive technology brought me, as a unix(tm) admin, to reflect on the management of data systems and file servers of capacities >1TB (which exist today and tomorrow will become commonplace). Since Google for once seems useless, what suggestions does the Slashdot crowd have on methods and software to audit changes, visualize file system usage, and in general to determine the qualitative and quantitative nature of the content of large unix file systems?"
Hardware

Rechargeable Batteries - Yes or No? 896

Posted by Cliff from the they-keep-going-and-going-and-going dept.
TheFifthElephant asks: "I currently use quite a few devices that require various size batteries and I feel horrible just tossing them when they die. I saw a recharger at a retail store today and was thinking to myself how much waste it would reduce by using rechargeable ones. Which units have you used happily and/or which units have you heard of/read about satisfying someone else? Are the more expensive units better? What chemical rechargeable batteries last the longest/recharge the most?"
Security

A Central Repository for Virus Information? 26

Posted by Cliff from the forewarned-is-forearmed dept.
four12 asks: "I've been doing more work lately with network security and tightening things up. My new employer has been pretty lax over the years with such things and has come to the realization that their luck has to be wearing thin. I have noticed an dissonance of information between the various virus information sites. McAfee will have a 'prolific' worm listed, but Symantec and Trend say nothing about it and vice versa. It makes me wonder first of all, is my anti-virus system catching things as fast as the other systems? Is there a place that I can go that digests the latest threats and information down in to a nice, clean webpage? I already have too many listserv subscriptions and don't want to wade through a dozen webpages trying to correlate what is out there."
Software

Teleffect for Win2k and WinXP? 62

Posted by Cliff from the drawbacks-of-the-upgrade-treadmill dept.
TechnoMage asks: "Before Win2K and XP I used to use software(software only) called Teleffect which lets you use the input from one computer (mouse and keyboard) on any number of other machines on the same network. Instead of using a switch box to control the machines, you use your TCP/IP connection. You would move the mouse off the screen and it would appear on the next computers monitor(similar to how windows now handles multiple monitors). There was no unreasonable limit to how many machines you could control. Teleffect with an install and a little configuring can make any machine controllable not being tied to any hardware restrictions or installation. To make it a little clearer as far as what this thing does. One keyboard and mouse, 10 machine, 10 monitors, 1 out of the 10 machines can control the mouse and keyboard functions of the other 9 machines over the network. You can also cut and paste from the clipboard of one machine to another machine. Once XP and 2K came out, I could not get it to work with them. Not only that but the people responsible for the software are MIA. Does anyone have any updated info on this software and how we can make it work with 2K or XP, or if there is going to be any development for this software, or even if there is something else out there that does the same thing?"
Education

How Do You Get Work Done? 1153

Posted by Cliff from the motivational-pointers dept.
canuck asks: "I am currently a university student and have a major problem: being able to simply sit down and get work done. I can set aside a day to work, whether it is homework or contract work, and I will be lucky to have an hour done before dinner time. The only time I can actually get solid work done seems to be after midnight under a lot of pressure (ie. a deadline the next day). This has led to too many 5 a.m. nights and turning down too many invitations to go out only to stay in and accomplish nothing. I have stopped playing games, stopped watching TV, tried reading the Seven Habits book, and am currently seeing what classical music does for me. I don't think I have ADHD, and I am not sure what else to try. If it is computer work, the web is always a click away, and I can always escape to my imagination. I know many of you will have had the same problem. Can anyone please give advice on how to overcome this problem, be it a little trick, medication, or anything else?"
News

Reiser4 Benchmarks 414

Posted by michael from the little-things-mean-a-lot dept.
A user writes "Hans Reiser has benchmarked Reiser4 against ext3 and Reiserfs 3. Reiser4 turns out to be way faster than V3, and for ext3, why don't you check out the results yourself ? Hans Reiser states, "these benchmarks mean to me that our performance is now good enough to ship V4 to users", and he will be probably sending in a patch within the next couple of weeks to be included in the 2.6/2.5 kernel."

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