Matt Croydon::Postneo

Author: Matt Croydon

  • DH Brown Associates [pdf]: A whitepaper entitled, “Migrating Mail and Web Services to Linux.” Here are few advantages Linux has, quoted from the whitepaper:

    • License Costs– Depending on what third-party software is required in addition to a Linux distribution, license costs for a Linux web or mail server may be 25 Œ 50% of a Windows-based server for similar workloads. The Windows-based server may provide greater functionality, but system administrators and deployment specialists report ieLinux is good enoughli and provides more flexibility for most deployments.
    • Remote Management– Linux offers the ability to perform most system administration tasks remotely using standard UNIX/Linux remote login and other remote features. This may save considerable travel time in a campus or metropolitan area and save payroll or service contract dollars in more remote locations.
    • Better Uptime– Some users surveyed have experienced higher availability for a single Linux system than Windows NT Server. A typical system administrator or deployment consultant will say that Linux stays up for months whereas Windows NT may need two or three reboots per month. This matches the common wisdom and was borne out by our research.
    • Lighter Hardware Requirements– Many of these Linux servers run without the X-Windows system and desktop GUI, which frees up system resources for mail or web serving. Windows cannot be configured similarly.
    • Freedom of Choice– Some users do not like being locked into proprietary formats such as Microsoft Active Server Pages for web serving or Exchange. Linux-based solutions offer a choice of mail solution providers and technical support offerings. [via Linux Today]

  • Canon Replaces G2 digital camera with G3, but it remains a 4 megapixel camera.  Why would anyone do that? (links to dpreview)

  • Polybot: Vladislav Shkapenyuk at Polytechnic University has written a crawler that has recently started crawling my blog.  Here’s a snippet from the project goals:

    We use the data to experiment with search technology, and to build search engines and other tools in collaboration with colleagues and graduate and undergraduate students.

    This is great.  I’m glad someone out there is researching things like this at an academic level.  Keep up the work!

  • Gentoo: A live-boot CD with everything you need to run the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo in Linux.  Here’s the iso file.

  • Derik’s Boot and Nuke: For the truly paranoid:

    Darik’s Boot and Nuke (“DBAN”) is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

    At least it’ll make the computer forensics guys at the FBI earn their pay…

  • OpenBSD Journal: They point to symon, a minimalistic system monitor.  It’s currently written for OpenBSD.  The site has some pretty pictures that remind me of mrtg and other system status graphs.

  • Jeremy Allaire: He has an audioblog entry at this link and is also announcing Audio Blogger Alpha 0.5.  Push the play button!

  • Dekstop Fishbowl: An idea is born:

    Then, I suddenly realised. Wow, I’ve finally found an interesting application for Javaspaces. Create a Tuple Space. Every time you post a blog entry, you put it into the space, along with a bunch of linking objects that point to any other URL you referenced in your post. Clients could traverse the conversations in the space, ask for event notifications if a new reference is made to a post, et. al. Leasing would ensure the space culled conversations that nobody was referring to any more.

    A very cool idea indeed.  The rest of the post is also worth reading.

  • Jesse Ezell at Sellsbrothers.com:

    Project Mono has decided that implementing WinForms natively on platforms is just too hard. They are instead going to implement a Win32 version and use WINE Lib for the linux / mac implementation. We’ll see if they stay this way. IMO, if things don’t change, WinForms on Project Mono has now become about as important as Microsoft ‘Bob’.

    I don’t think this is a good thing.  The link provided by this story is here.  I’m not quite sure if this is being blown out of proportion or if this really matters or not.

  • Curious Spam

    I recieved the following email this evening:

    From: “Chris Rogert” <chrisr@cheap-domainregistration.com>
    To: <matt@postneo.com>
    Subject: postneo.com
    Sender: “Chris Rogert”     chrisr@cheap-domainregistration.com
    Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:35:44 -0700

    I just saw your link to 000domains.com on your webpage
    http://postneo.com/2002/07/25.html .  Our site,
    Cheap-DomainRegistration.com, sells domain names for much cheaper (only
    $8.75 with no hidden fees).  We would like to place your site in our
    directory of Domain Names and Internet Resources if you are interested in
    exchanging links.  (We understand that we may have to make a new category
    for your site.)  Even if you are not interested in exchanging links would
    you place a link to our site on yours?  In either case, the HTML for our
    link can be found at http://www.cheap-domainregistration.com/domain_names/
    ..

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    Thank you,
    Chris Rogert
    Cheap Domain Registration

    I must say that this is probably one of the more interesting spam emails I have recieved.  Here are some reasons why:

    • It is not about penis enlargement.
    • It is plain text
    • It is extremely targeted.
    • The email cites a url that links to 000domains.com (they’re great btw)
    • I was able to find one instance of a similar email by querying google with “Chris Rogert”
    • The owner of the domains “accelocom.com” and “cheap-domainregistration.com” is <Name deleted by request>

      • time finding out about the spam in my mailbox?  I don’t know.

  • Kottke: Font gem of the day: Silkscreen. Intended to tiny use, it’s 100% free. I might just add it to my font arsenal.

  • CRN: Red Hat is readying version 8.0 of its Linux distro.

    Red Hat 8.0, which is code-named Limbo, will offer a spruced-up graphical user interface based on GNOME 2.0 with themes, improved buttons, scroll bars and menus, and updated applications including enhanced versions of the Mozilla 1.1 browser, Nautilus file manager, Open Office office suite and a new Evolution e-mail client, Red Hat said. The company expects to ship the package later this month.

    “You will see a corporate desktop and a single-person desktop,” said Erik Troan, senior director of product marketing for Red Hat Linux. “We cleaned up the look and feel with themes, and Red Hat developed a clean look and that is unified across KDE or GNOME applications. It will be announced reasonably soon.”

    I’ll definately upgrade my 7.2 box when this comes out. [via Newsforge]

  • Mark Pilgrim: The art of the B-Link.

  • Radio Free Blogistan points out Nucleus content management system. This is worth a closer look later.

  • NetBSD.org:

    The HP Test Drive Program has announced that they have upgraded an AlphaServer DS10 and a ProLiant 5500 to NetBSD 1.6. For more information, see http://www.testdrive.compaq.com/.

  • The Washington Post: A really interesting article about keeping birds away from the runways at Pax River.  One guy’s job is as a BASH: “Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard coordinator.”

    Even from a distance, Jim Swift could hear them honking. Two flocks of Canada geese were loitering near the runway at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, a bad place for a bird to be.

  • Bill Carlson: 12 reasons good programmers shouldn’t worry.

    2. Not that many years ago, systems level knowledge was needed to do much of anything. Now, one can make a good living as a developer without knowing what a pointer is. I firmly believe this to be a good thing, but wonder if it means that there will be fewer systems guys “in the pipeline”; just because they don’t have to learn that stuff. I still feel these are valuable skills needed for development that don’t involve dropping DB fields on a web form. [via Krzysztof Kowalczyk]
     

  • Philly.com: There’s a three minute discrepancy between when the cockpit voice recorder ends and when seismologists have pinpointed the crash.  What’s your conspiracy theory? [via Metafilter]

  • PC Linux Online: Truth and Myth about [SuSe’s] YAST License.

  • pyblosxom: An interpretation of Rael‘s blosxom written in python.  It looks like it is 100% blosxom compatible, and the author, Wari Wahab,  even implemented the humorous RSS 3.0 spec.