Comment Re:Not promised but the campaigned on FIXING thing (Score 1) 283
Perhaps they are thinking of "districts" like in The Hunger Games. So perhaps they can see the future for the UK.
Submission + - Book Review: "FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials", by Michael W. Lucas (amazon.com) 1
Saint Aardvark writes: (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book for review. Disclaimer to the disclaimer: I would gladly have paid for it anyway.)
If, like me, you administer FreeBSD systems, you know that (like Linux) there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to filesystems. GEOM, UFS, soft updates, encryption, disklabels — there is a *lot* going on here. And if, like me, you're coming from the Linux world your experience won't be directly applicable, and you'll be scaling Mount Learning Curve. Even if you *are* familiar with the BSDs, there is a lot to take in. Where do you start?
You start here, with Michael W. Lucas' latest book, "FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials". You've heard his name before; he's written "Sudo Mastery" (which I reviewed previously), along with books on PGP/GnuPGP, Cisco Routers and OpenBSD. This book clocks in at 204 pages of goodness, and it's an excellent introduction to managing storage on FreeBSD. From filesystem choice to partition layout to disk encryption, with sidelong glances at ZFS along the way, he does his usual excellent job of laying out the details you need to know without every veering into dry or boring.
Do you need to know about GEOM? It's in here: Lucas takes your from "What *is* GEOM, anyway?" (answer: FreeBSD's system of layers for filesytem management) through "How do I set up RAID 10?" through "Here's how to configure things to solve that weird edge-case." Still trying to figure out GUID partitions? I sure as hell was...and then I read Chapter Two. Do you remember disklabels fondly, and wonder whatever happened to them? They're still around, but mainly on embedded systems that still use MBR partitions — so grab this book if you need to deal with them.
The discussion of SMART disk monitoring is one of the best introductions to this subject I've ever read, and should serve *any* sysadmin well, no matter what OS they're dealing with; I plan on keeping it around for reference until we no longer use hard drives. RAID is covered, of course, but so are more complex setups — as well as UFS recovery and repair for when you run into trouble.
Disk encryption gets three chapters (!) full of details on the two methods in FreeBSD, GBDE and GELI. But just as important, Lucas outlines why disk encryption might *not* be the right choice: recovering data can be difficult or impossible, it might get you unwanted attention from adversaries, and it will *not* protect you against, say, an adversary who can put a keylogger on your laptop. If it still make sense to encrypt your hard drive, you'll have the knowledge you need to do the job right.
I said that this covers *almost* everything you need to know, and the big omission here is ZFS. It shows up, but only occasionally and mostly in contrast to other filesystem choices. For example, there's an excellent discussion of why you might want to use FreeBSD's plain UFS filesystem instead of all-singing, all-dancing ZFS. (Answer: modest CPU or RAM, or a need to do things in ways that don't fit in with ZFS, make UFS an excellent choice.) I would have loved to see ZFS covered here — but honestly, that would be a book of its own, and I look forward to seeing one from Lucas someday; when that day comes, it will be a great companion to this book, and I'll have Christmas gifts for all my fellow sysadmins.
One big part of the appeal of this book (and Lucas' writing in general) is that he is clear about the tradeoffs that come with picking one solution over another. He shows you where the sharp edges are, and leaves you well-placed to make the final decision yourself. Whether it's GBDE versus GELI for disk encryption, or what might bite you when enabling soft updates journaling, he makes sure you know what you're getting into. He makes recommendations, but always tells you their limits.
There's also Lucas' usual mastery of writing; well-written explanations with liberal dollops of geek humour that don't distract from the knowledge he's dropping. He's clear, he's thorough, and he's interesting — and that's an amazing thing to say about a book on filesystems.
Finally, technical review was done by Poul Henning-Kamp; he's a FreeBSD developer who wrote huge parts of the GEOM and GBDE systems mentioned above. That gives me a lot of warm fuzzies about the accuracy of this book.
If you're a FreeBSD (or Linux, or Unix) sysadmin, then you need this book; it has a *lot* of hard-won knowledge, and will save your butt more than you'll be comfortable admitting. If you've read anything else by Lucas, you also know we need him writing more books. Do the right thing and buy this now.
If, like me, you administer FreeBSD systems, you know that (like Linux) there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to filesystems. GEOM, UFS, soft updates, encryption, disklabels — there is a *lot* going on here. And if, like me, you're coming from the Linux world your experience won't be directly applicable, and you'll be scaling Mount Learning Curve. Even if you *are* familiar with the BSDs, there is a lot to take in. Where do you start?
You start here, with Michael W. Lucas' latest book, "FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials". You've heard his name before; he's written "Sudo Mastery" (which I reviewed previously), along with books on PGP/GnuPGP, Cisco Routers and OpenBSD. This book clocks in at 204 pages of goodness, and it's an excellent introduction to managing storage on FreeBSD. From filesystem choice to partition layout to disk encryption, with sidelong glances at ZFS along the way, he does his usual excellent job of laying out the details you need to know without every veering into dry or boring.
Do you need to know about GEOM? It's in here: Lucas takes your from "What *is* GEOM, anyway?" (answer: FreeBSD's system of layers for filesytem management) through "How do I set up RAID 10?" through "Here's how to configure things to solve that weird edge-case." Still trying to figure out GUID partitions? I sure as hell was...and then I read Chapter Two. Do you remember disklabels fondly, and wonder whatever happened to them? They're still around, but mainly on embedded systems that still use MBR partitions — so grab this book if you need to deal with them.
The discussion of SMART disk monitoring is one of the best introductions to this subject I've ever read, and should serve *any* sysadmin well, no matter what OS they're dealing with; I plan on keeping it around for reference until we no longer use hard drives. RAID is covered, of course, but so are more complex setups — as well as UFS recovery and repair for when you run into trouble.
Disk encryption gets three chapters (!) full of details on the two methods in FreeBSD, GBDE and GELI. But just as important, Lucas outlines why disk encryption might *not* be the right choice: recovering data can be difficult or impossible, it might get you unwanted attention from adversaries, and it will *not* protect you against, say, an adversary who can put a keylogger on your laptop. If it still make sense to encrypt your hard drive, you'll have the knowledge you need to do the job right.
I said that this covers *almost* everything you need to know, and the big omission here is ZFS. It shows up, but only occasionally and mostly in contrast to other filesystem choices. For example, there's an excellent discussion of why you might want to use FreeBSD's plain UFS filesystem instead of all-singing, all-dancing ZFS. (Answer: modest CPU or RAM, or a need to do things in ways that don't fit in with ZFS, make UFS an excellent choice.) I would have loved to see ZFS covered here — but honestly, that would be a book of its own, and I look forward to seeing one from Lucas someday; when that day comes, it will be a great companion to this book, and I'll have Christmas gifts for all my fellow sysadmins.
One big part of the appeal of this book (and Lucas' writing in general) is that he is clear about the tradeoffs that come with picking one solution over another. He shows you where the sharp edges are, and leaves you well-placed to make the final decision yourself. Whether it's GBDE versus GELI for disk encryption, or what might bite you when enabling soft updates journaling, he makes sure you know what you're getting into. He makes recommendations, but always tells you their limits.
There's also Lucas' usual mastery of writing; well-written explanations with liberal dollops of geek humour that don't distract from the knowledge he's dropping. He's clear, he's thorough, and he's interesting — and that's an amazing thing to say about a book on filesystems.
Finally, technical review was done by Poul Henning-Kamp; he's a FreeBSD developer who wrote huge parts of the GEOM and GBDE systems mentioned above. That gives me a lot of warm fuzzies about the accuracy of this book.
If you're a FreeBSD (or Linux, or Unix) sysadmin, then you need this book; it has a *lot* of hard-won knowledge, and will save your butt more than you'll be comfortable admitting. If you've read anything else by Lucas, you also know we need him writing more books. Do the right thing and buy this now.
Comment Re:Burma doesn't exist anymore. (Score 1) 142
The UK doesn't officially recognise Myanmar. To us it's still Burma.
Comment Re:too difficult (Score 1) 86
Perhaps the complexity and importance of the data has something to do with it.
Comment Re:Might be for the better (Score 1) 86
From the security point of view, the system was a potential disaster. The centralized system implemented no access control whatsoever - all of that was to be handled by the client applications!
Source? Have a look at this, under the Access Control Framework section.
Comment Re:Maybe I'm naive.. (Score 1) 86
They are pretty much trying to go from Doctors scribbled notes in a patients folder to a complete, online, centralized system.
Not really. notes still on paper are pretty rare now in the UK.
I would ask, why centralised?
The NHS does things like health promotions, and does reporting based on records. Had to report on records that you don't have because they're on a patient's USB key.
Hospital needs a copy?, Just use the same paperwork they do now to request patient records.
This is the sort of issue the system was supposed to address. Except without the need to wait for paperwork, which might be a pain in you're rushed to A&E (emergency room).
Comment Re:Maybe I'm naive.. (Score 1) 86
Instead of a central massive do-everything system all that should have happened / be happening is to specify a set of formats and protocols and then each provider from giant hospital campus to small outreach surgery can use whatever system suits their needs, so long as it talks the language.
The standardised format and protocol idea exists. It's used for the summary care record (the spine). GP software has been able to support it for quite some time now. Of course GPs want to carry on using the software they've been using for years, rather than ll move to a new software system, and all the data migration issues that entails.
Comment Tarsnap (Score 1) 251
Comment Re:PostgreKill (Score 1) 675
Buy it? Read the license, they can have it!
Comment Re:yes (Score 1) 483
..in the UK, I found it to be even more restrictive with binary speed limits...
You're telling me! Even on the open road with a 1000110 speed limt, people still drive at 1010000 or 1011010. Personally I'm fine dawdling along at 111100. Except for that time I did 10010110.
Comment Re:Welcome to Obama's America (Score 1) 637
The only thing that really stopped the IRA was the economy of Ireland improved, not the UK intelligence and police.
Nothing to do with the Good Friday Peace Agreement then?
Submission + - "Tactical Nuclear Penguin" launched today (bbc.co.uk)
cheros writes: No, it's not a new game, and it's not a new Linux distro either (although it would be quite a name), it's BEER.
What's more, it's not your average new taste either, it's incredibly strong stuff with 32% alcohol.
Please do not drink too much of this, or you'll become too risky to cremate..
What's more, it's not your average new taste either, it's incredibly strong stuff with 32% alcohol.
Please do not drink too much of this, or you'll become too risky to cremate..
Comment Re:Dock/Taskbar design (Score 1) 688
If I have a very recent computer: Leopard-->Snow Leopard: $10 Vista (any) --> Win7 (same): $0
Here in the UK, the Vista to Windows 7 upgrade is *free*, but you have to pay for postage and packing for the DVD. That costs £12.77 (about $US 20). All of a sudden Microsoft's free upgrade looks a lot more expensive than Apple's paid-for upgrade.
Comment Re:ULE by default (Score 1) 324
They would be wise to port WAPBL; it looks better than gjournal...
WAPBL and gjournal work at different levels. WAPBL works at the filesystem level, while gjournal works at the device (actually, the geom) level, so it should work just fine for things like raw devices, RAID, and non-FFS filesystems.
I'm curious to know in what ways you think WAPBL is better.
Submission + - FreeBSD 6.4 released (freebsd.org)
hmallett writes: "FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE, the fifth release from the 6-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, has been released. In addition to being available from many FTP sites, ISO images can be downloaded via the BitTorrent tracker, or for users of earlier FreeBSD releases, FreeBSD Update can be used to perform a binary upgrade."
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