bjcopeland - Slashdot User

Comment Start with disaster scenarios (Score 5, Informative) 528

by bjcopeland on Tuesday May 26, 2009 @01:29AM (#28091517) Attached to: Documenting a Network?

For me, visio's are great and everything, passwords too, but really the most valuable thing you can do is document single points of failure, outdated software/hardware, etc., license keys/expiration dates, cert expiration dates, personal support contacts you have and all vendor relationship details as well are essential. Do you use change control? If you do, go back and comment your changes, if not, do the best you can at explaining why things are the way they are. Get some open source software that is good at indexing data and create a searchable knowledge base from the information above. Don't concentrate on docs that can be found on the web at first because any admin worth their salt will know where to look for how to's, etc. Focus on the why's, the where's and disaster recovery.

My two cents...

Comment Re:Summer block buster (Score 2, Informative) 145

by bjcopeland on Sunday May 24, 2009 @10:14PM (#28079481) Attached to: Microbes 100M Years Old Found In Termite Guts

One hundred million years ago a termite was wounded and its abdomen split open

That would make a better film than most of the crap out there at the moment.

Heh sounds like the beginning of an 'Alien' sequel.

Comment Re:Not my fault (Score 1) 517

by bjcopeland on Saturday May 09, 2009 @12:23PM (#27889021) Attached to: Should Developers Be Liable For Their Code?

As a developer, I say that surely it's the tester's fault if there's flaws!

Funny, and true. Its all about resources and piorities. Huge companies like Microsoft really have fewer excuses given the amount of resources they have to create and release good stable code. As far as priorities are concerned, if your huge budget is spent on marketing and new features but lacking in resources to make the existing product stable, then the threat of a lawsuit may just re-align those priorities.

As far as free software (GPL) is concerned it is your duty to report bugs back to the community and even fix them if you have the skills. Open source by nature is "QA'd" by the community which in turn can make a more stable (read: Linux, the Gimp, etc.) product in the long run. To put it bluntly, who are you going to sue, the whole open source community?

In conclusion, closed source should not be exempt from this, but open source is. Who's with me?

Predator C Avenger Makes First Flights 304

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday April 17, 2009 @06:14PM from the video-game-warfare dept.

stoolpigeon writes "General Atomics' new unmanned combat aerial vehicle, the Predator C Avenger, has been making test flights. This new Predator has a stealthy design, 20-hour endurance, is jet powered and has an internal weapons bay. A number of photos have just become available. 'The aircraft was designed so the wings can be folded for storage in hangars or aircraft carrier operations if a naval customer is found. Cassidy, a retired admiral, has talked about a possible Navy role for Predator C since 2002. The Navy was interested in the Predator B's capabilities, but didn't want to introduce any new propeller-driven aircraft onto carrier decks. The UAV also comes with a tailhook, suggesting that carrier-related trials are planned. The inner section of the cranked wing is deep, providing structural strength for carrier landings and generous fuel volume while maintaining a dry, folding outer wing. Right now, the US Air Force and Royal Air Force are considered the most likely users.'"

Cutting Steel With Flaming Bacon Weapons 73

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday April 16, 2009 @07:23PM from the Kingdom-of-Loathing-gets-a-little-more-real dept.

Ed Pegg writes "Theo Gray demonstrates the Bacon Lance, a flaming meatsword that can cut through steel. Yes, with some ordinary bacon, and some pure oxygen, it's possible to cut through security doors. Form the article, 'I recently committed myself to the goal, before the weekend was out, of creating a device entirely from bacon and using it to cut a steel pan in half. My initial attempts were failures, but I knew success was within reach when I was able to ignite and melt the pan using seven beef sticks and a cucumber.' This comes out right after his profusely illustrated book of science experiments, Mad Science."

Creating a Low-Power Cloud With Netbook Chips 93

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 16, 2009 @06:54PM from the but-what's-the-wattage-equivalent-cfl dept.

Al writes "Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have created a remarkably low-power server architecture using netbook processors and flash memory cards. The server design, dubbed a 'fast array of wimpy nodes,' or FAWN, is only designed to perform simple tasks, but the CMU team say it could be perfect for large Web companies that have to retrieve large amounts of data from RAM. A set-up including 21 individual nodes draws a maximum of just 85 watts under real-world conditions. The researchers say that a FAWN cluster could offer a low-power replacement for sites that currently rely on Memcached to access data from RAM."

The Long-Term Impact of Jacobsen v. Katzer 77

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 16, 2009 @06:00PM from the stabs-in-the-dark dept.

snydeq writes "Lawyer Jonathan Moskin has called into question the long-term impact last year's Java Model Railroad Interface court ruling will have on open source adoption among corporate entities. For many, the case in question, Jacobsen v. Katzer, has represented a boon for open source, laying down a legal foundation for the protection of open source developers. But as Moskin sees it, the ruling 'enables a set of potentially onerous monetary remedies for failures to comply with even modest license terms, and it subjects a potentially larger community of intellectual property users to liability.' In other words, in Moskin's eyes, Jacobsen v. Katzer could make firms wary of using open source software because they fear that someone in the food chain has violated a copyright, thus exposing them to lawsuit. It should be noted that Moskin's firm has represented Microsoft in anti-trust litigation before the European Union."

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