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Comment Re: This is number 3 (Score 1) 294

Our organization was only affected by outage #3. To my knowledge nobody was affected by all three outages; when Rackspace needed to choose which rows of servers to take offline to save the rest, they chose ones that hadn't gone down the day before. Tough choice, but they did the right thing, rather than waiting for everyone's servers to burn out.

Obviously this was a worst-case scenario, but they did handle it admirably. All hands were on deck all night, their chairman even posted a personal apology on our blog inside an hour of our post about the outage. It was good to know we weren't the only ones rushing to work in a panic late at night.

Still, it's an outright disaster when a data centre goes down. You would think a company that advises on redundant servers, redundant storage and redundant networking would recognize the importance of redundant cooling. They tell us this scenario was part of their disaster recovery plans; those plans simply didn't work as designed.

Let's just be grateful two hours of business was all that was lost.
Security

Dateline NBC Mole Outed At DefCon 573

An anonymous reader writes "Dateline NBC allegedly attempted to infiltrate the DefCon hackerfest with a producer using a hidden camera. The show hoped to tape hackers admitting to illegal activities, but DefCon got wind of the plot and displayed the would-be-mole's photo before every presentation. Dateline refused to deny the planned infiltration. 'All journalists covering DefCon sign an agreement upon registering for the conference that outlines the rules, but the DefCon organizers say the mole apparently registered as a regular attendee, thereby bypassing the legal agreement. Dateline NBC is best known for its controversial To Catch A Predator series, which uses hidden cameras to tape men who are allegedly seeking to have sex with minors they met online.'"
Software

First Third-party Native iPhone Application Released 192

An anonymous reader writes "A third-party native application for the iPhone is now available. Gizmodo discusses the real full-fledged iPhone application with a graphic user interface and its own icon in the iPhone home screen. It is not a Web 2.0 app but the real thing. What is it? Ironically enough, MobileTerminal, 'a terminal emulator application for the iPhone. MobileTerminal.app is NOT an SSH client, nor Telnet for that matter. It can however be used to execute a console ssh-client application.' The iPhone dev revolution has just started."
Networking

Submission + - Case of the great hot-site swap

BobB writes: Two universities — Bowdoin in Maine and Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles — have entered a unique arrangement under which they are backing up each other's web site, email and servers on different ends of the U.S. They say this could be a disaster recovery model all sorts of organizations could follow. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080307-bowdo in-lmu.html
The Internet

Submission + - New bill would reverse bans on municipal broadband (arstechnica.com)

Yuppie writes: A bill introduced to the House this week would overturn bans that currently exist in several states on cities and towns building and deploying their own broadband networks. The big telecoms may not be be too happy about the bill, however. 'The telecoms have historically argued that municipalities that own and operate — or even build and lease — broadband networks could give themselves preferential treatment. The Act anticipates that argument with a section on "competition neutrality." Public providers would be banned from giving themselves any "regulatory preference," which should create a level playing field for all broadband providers. Municipalities interested in getting into the broadband business would also have to solicit feedback from the private sector on planned deployments.' The full text of the bill is available from Rep. Boucher's website (PDF).

Microsoft Cuts Vista Price To $66 In China 260

narramissic writes "Microsoft this week cut the retail price of Windows Vista Home Basic in China by 67% — from 1,521 renminbi to 499 renminbi ($65.80). This is a steep discount compared to what users in the US and elsewhere are charged for the software. The reason for the price reduction? Battling piracy, of course. The new pricing 'narrows the price gap between original versions of Microsoft's software and pirated copies,' making it that much easier for consumers to 'do the right thing.'"

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