6/2     Are you having trouble with Comcast?  Some sites connect fine but
        others show 50% packet loss, but the iPs keep changing and are weird
        (eg, OK to berkeley machine 1, but not to machine 2), please
        contact me, -nweaver
        \_ I'm in San Mateo, and I have been seeing dailing outage during the
        \_ I'm in San Mateo, and I have been seeing daily outage during the
           peak hours of later afternoon to evening.  Total outage for me
           though, not limited to hopping addresses as you.  Your behavior
           is *bizarre*.
        \_ you deserve what you get paying for a service from a bloated,
           corrupt assmaster company like comcast.
           \_ Yeah and there's better huh?  Like AT&T or Pacbell or yeah.
              \_ Don't be mocking our free market!  If people wanted
                 reliable internet service, the free market says that
                 someone will step in to fulfill that demand.  Obviously
                 people only want crappy service.
            \_ i've only noticed my dsl connection with speakeasy
                being down once in about a year, and they warned me
                about that one in advance. -crebbs
                 \_ do you understand the huge barrier to entry ?  The telcos
                    and cable co's have pretty much shut everyone else out.
                    \_ This is sort of the person's point.  The free market
                       proselytizors (on the supply side, mostly) rarely will
                       mention barrier to entry.  Yet somehow, even in these
                       difficult to enter markets, we still get massive pushes
                       for deregulation.  It's the big lie of the free market.
                       See any clear discussion on campaign finance reform
                       for more.
                       \_ it isn't a free market.  it's massively regulated.
                          competitors *aren't allowed* to enter the markets
                          by law.  thank you for playing.
            \_ i've only noticed my dsl connection with speakeasy being
               down once in about a year, and they warned me about that one
               in advance. (though i have a business idsl line, maybe those
               are better)  -crebbs

6/1     Is Mozilla 1.4 same thing as the Mozilla Firebird?  I read somewhere
        said it is, yet i see 2 listings on the site.  Thanks
        \_ no, firebird is pheonix, sort of the next generation mozilla (which
           I don't like as much even though it does render a LOT faster.
           \_ Additionally, Mozilla 1.4+ will migrate to a separate app model
              (with firebird as browers, and thunderbird as mail program).
           \_ thanks.   I'll stick with Firebird.      --OP

6/1     This SCO law suit is more serious than the AT&T's case against
        the UCs.  http://csua.org/u/334
        Is there anything we the geeks can do, legally, to make a difference?
                \_ No. You geeks can't stop M$:
                http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/2208691
        \_ SCO is running Linux (pretty funny really):
           http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.sco.com
        \_ I suppose you could read ESR:
           http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html
        \_ Serious in what sense?  SCO is not allowing anyone to examine the
           merits of the case.  They've only just started suggesting it, though
           they're requiring onerous NDAs.  Really, SCO should be nicer--as the
           next subdivision of IBM they might not get treated as well.
           \_ Onerous NDAs?  How would you know other than Linus said "nyah!"?
           \_ How strong is SCO's legal stance is not the issue.  I am just
              afraid of what business world is going to react to what
              Gartner is already doing, thus, send a chill message to the
              business world and thus abandon Linux as an OS.   -OP
              \_ And go to BSD, as they should have before...
              \_ Oh yes, and the business world has a history of distrusting
                 IBM, right?  Seriously, SCO will be a subdivision shortly.
                 \_ Agreed.
                 \_ IBM is in trouble: link:csua.org/u/33d  (reuters.com)
        \_ Boo hoo hoo, the world will be forced to use a real unix that's
                       alledging panent infringement ... IBM has this amazing
           stable, capable, and *truly* free like the *bsd systems and unlike
           any "distro" of linux.
                    \- what you want to see is a "counter suit" from IBM
                       alledging patent infringement ... IBM has this amazing
                       arsenal of patents which i assume they hold on to
                       for stuff like this. if memory serves, ibm has
                       patents on stuff like "having graphics and text on
                       the screen at the same time". at one point 50% of
                       US r&d was public, 50% private ... 10% of private
                       r&d was ibm, with a legal budget and staff to match.
                                                --psb, ex-IBM Research
                       \_ no, what I want to see if the death of the bastard
                          thing that is unix and everyone switch to a real
                          unix that is stable, fast, and *truly* free.
                          \_ And Moses said, "Let my people go."  And Charlton
                             Heston went on to a new career as a gun nut, and
                             all the new unixes descended from the heavens, and
                             they were BSD, and the people saw that they were
                             BSD.  And they knew that yea, Moses had set them
                             free.  And everyone gave thanks, and lamented that
                             they could no longer play NwN.  And Moses smote the
                             nonbelievers, and all was well.
                                \_ You can play NwN on *BSD (MacOS X)
                          \_ Like it or not, Linux is the closest thing that
                             has a remote chance to take a huge bite out of
                             Microsoft Empire, not any of your REAL unix.
                             BSD had a shot, it was a licensing experiment
                             which failed.  Yes, I am using the word "failed."
                             Because if BSD succed in the 1980s , there
                             wouldnt' be Linux at all.  Stop talking about
                             technical superiorities, as the most mediocre
                             Operating System happend to have the bulk of
                             of the market shares.

6/1     How much do the airport security guys make? -displaced IT worker
        \_ The baggage checkers start at 30k/yr, the air marshalls at 43k/yr
           I think they both get a bonus if they live in an expensive area.
           Air Marshalls are supposed to work 10 hr/day.

6/3     I should have thought of this....
        "Man late for flight tries bomb threat"
        http://www.msnbc.com/news/921337.asp?0cv=CB20
        \_ Please.  If you want a close relationship with men like Bubba,
           you could always just go to a gay bar.  Having a prison sentence
           and a criminal record is just going too far.
        \_ Actually, this has happened a number of times...

6/2     Anyone using gdm2?  I'd appreciate clues on how to create a transparent
        login window, and how to avoid starting all the gnome crap within
        my windowmanager upon login.  -John
        \_ to start your wm, make an ~/.Xsession file instead of ~/.xinitrc
           If you are running Debian, select "Debian" from "session
           type?" If you're running something else, I don't know.

6/3     DIY Cruise Missile:
        http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile
        \_ This looks like something nweaver would do.
                \_ obIPartiedW/Nweaver
                \_ nweaver has the motive (being disgruntled), the means,
                   and the opportunity to do so. It's just a matter of time.

6/3     Today's SF Comical has a chart showing exactly which media companies
        own which radio, tv, and newspapers in the greater SF Bay Area.
        \_ http://www.csua.org/u/33i
           Useful, but not as important as the audience percentages.

6/3     The motd has gone downhill since the urinal thread.  Can we all try
        harder to make it fun again?  Thanks.
        \_ Who said the motd is about fun?     -SAMC
           \_ Why do you think I kept this account 10 years after I graduated?
              motd is funny.  Used to be funnier.
              \_ I kept mine for the free disk space.
        \_ the motd was more fun when kchang and lila participated.
           Let's start a drive to reinstate kchang and lila
           \_ Uhm, lila isn't sorried.
           \_ What's a "kchang"? It sounds like the noise a slamming metal
              gate would make.

6/3     To the person who asked about laptops on wall, go to http://cnet.com and
        click on Notebooks.  I like my Fujitsu S series with 13.3" screen.
        If you don't mind Dell, the D600/D500 don't look bad.  Toshiba and
        Compaq(HP) are also fine, but I would read user reviews on the
        particular models you're interested in.
        \_ why didn't you jsut wall this? or email it to the person since you
           know who it is.
           \_ With all the "personalities" in my work, social, and net
              lives, it's nice to be able to keep a low profile where one can.

6/3     I want to have apache run fault-tolerantly across two web servers.
        I've found http://eddie.sourceforge.net but nothing else that seems to
        be appropriate and free. I don't run Linux (Solaris 9, actually). Any
        suggestions? ok tnx
        \_ store the content on a central system and serve it out using
           nfs to the to systems. Then use dns round-robin or an l4 switch
           (load-balancer) so that if either one of the systems goes down
           you auto fall over to the other one. If nfs is two slow, ssh-rsync
           the content to the two systems periodically.
           \_ isn't the NFS server the weakest link here? also, i'm not
              currently running NFS and would rather avoid it for
              security and complexity reasons. but if this is the easiest/
              most stable way, then i'll look into it.
              \_ NFS is the weak link. Do an ssh-rsync from a third machine
                 or barring that, have one rsync to the other.
              \_ roundrobinDNS is only an answer if the goal is load-balancing
                 if the goal is 100% uptime, round-robin DNS is an anti-answer
                 \_ what is the answer for 100% uptime?
                 \_ dns round robin with small ttls will work pretty well
                    for a small-ish site.
        \_ Did you want just the webserver fault-tolerant or the whole system?
           What are your resources like and what factors are most important
           to you?
        \_ NFS isn't a weak link if it is a NetApp. The real question here
           is what the budget is. There are even appliances to do this. As
           the above poster says, what are the factors here? Does
           performance matter and so on.
           \_ Budgets are largely frozen. The alternative is downtime (which
              is what has been going on the past 10 years). Performance isn't
              an issue, I'd just rather not get calls if a machine dies.
              I have 3 E250's to work with. They also do mail and DNS... I
              figured I'd start w/ balancing http and move on from there.
              \_ Look into load balancing with Apache mod_proxy.  Simple
                 to set up, and you can do more interesting things for
                 heartbeat.
        \_ Take a look at putting a web-cache in front of your http servers.
           With squid you can set it up so that it fetches pages from your
           http server when it doesn't have them and then serve them out to
           clients.

6/3     If I get a Windows XP and Office XP installation CD from
        someone else, will I be able to install it on my computer?  Will
        it absolutely not work due to licensing issues, or will it
        work in some cases (maybe depending on the type of license)?
        Or is the only way to get Windows XP to buy it?
        \_ All that matters is the serial number. There's a number of them
           that are google'able, but most of them won't allow you to install
           the SP1 patch bundle since the bundle checks for these common #'s
                \_ What's the SP1 patch bundle?
                   \_ Basically a 130MB bundle of all their patches
             \_ I have some big long number, along with the copy of the
                installation CD.  So if I have this number, I can install it
                and it won't stop working after 30 days or something?  Some
                people I've talked to are certain that I would have to
                contact Microsoft via internet to active XP and that
                Microsoft will know that the particular license was
                already installed on another computer, and so that it
                won't let me install/activate.  Is this not true?
                \_ Maybe it's just the CD I had, but I never had to activate
                   it via Microsoft. And I've set Windows Update to
                   auto-download the latest patches without issues. This was
                   when I used the stock serial number everyone else in the
                   world was using, and when I generated one via a keygen.
                   And you can use XP w/o serial number for 30 days, but
                   after, you neither need to call M$ or activate via website
                   or insert your serial number when prompted.
                        \_ So what happens after 30 days?
                           \_ Not sure. Never tried. I assume it just won't
                              let you log in.
                \_ There are two versions.  One is retail and another is
                   OEM-like.  With retail, you will need to activate it
                   either thru internet or phone.  With the OEM-like one,
                   you'll just need the serial number.  If you use the
                   googled serial, MS will refuse to install SP1 on it.
                        \_ How important is SP1?
                           \_ Not very except for Java Runtime. Used to be
                              XP automatically d/l's it for you, but M$ removed
                              that feature, only to put it into SP1. However,
                              they removed it from there too (currently you
                              can only get SP1a (identical to SP1 minus Java)).
                              I'm sure you can find the original SP1 somewhere,
                              or you can use Sun's Java runtime, which runs
                              dog slow on XP.
                        \_ What's OEM stand for?
                           \_ Original Equipment Manufacturer. Think software
                              that comes with computers... the CD plus some
                              flimpsy manual. No fancy box.

6/3     Hello.  Is it more efficient to dispatch the heat by turning
        the fan towards the door/window or towards the room?
        \_ "Dispatch" heat?
           \_ All right, I couldn't think of a better word.  What do
              you recommend?  "Get the hot air out of the room"?
              \_ Dissipate. Yeah, I was just being an ass.
                 \_ I like dispatch better. !op
                        \_ I would have said "remove", but "dispatch"
                           certainly also seems correct to me.  Behold this
                           definition of dispatch:
                        3 : to dispose of (as a task) rapidly or efficiently
        \_ Do you have two windows?
           \_ No, just one.  So it doesn't make a difference?
              \_ He's suggesting cross-ventalation.  The best way to lose
                 heat if it's hotter inside than out is to move the air
                 in one opening (e.g. a window) and out another (e.g. a
                 second window or a door).  If you don't have the second
                 opening, outside-in is usually marginally better,
                 depending on the exact shape of your space.
                 \_ how would one formally proof that outside-in is
                    marginally more efficient?
                    \_ good luck with that. it's a nice, messy
                       fluid-mixing problem best addressed with
                       computational fluid dynamics. in practice,
                       you want to push cool air in at the bottom of
                       the opening and warm air out at the top to
                       reinforce normal convection.
                        \_ Yes, that is what I concluded by considering
                           normal convection, but it is nice to know this
                           has been proven.
                           \_ not really proven.  demonstrable for many
                              parameters of room shape, etc. as suggested
                              by a different poster above.

6/3     What are the advantages/disadvantages of XP vs. Windows 2000?
        \_ xp is purtier.
           \_ but spies on you and your hardware config.
              \_ ooh. so they know out about my Geforce 9800 with special
                 porn subprocessor.
                 \_ and when you swap out a CDROM drive the night before
                    your paper's due it refuses to boot.