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  1. Mercutio

    problem Computers blocked from Local Network.

    Do those machines not get addresses at all (i.e. APIPA 169.254.whatever addresses) or are they being given something incompatible with your network? They work elsewhere, but just for giggles you might also want to do a full reset of IE settings just in case somebody has configured a proxy server...
  2. Mercutio

    Windows SBS 2003 STD OEM disks

    Good to know I'm not the only one with customers who occasionally make compelling arguments for justifiable homicide.
  3. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I had a seagull commit suicide against the front of my car this morning. It flew straight in to my front end. On the plus side, I got to spend 45 minutes of my work day today hosing off my car.
  4. Mercutio

    Power weirdness

    I ordered a Kill-a-watt and a 1200W Seasonic PSU. I'm to see about borrowing an IR thermometer as well. This machine is in a 13U rack inside a walk-in closet (I slide over the top of the rack when I need to mess with it). It's oriented so that the front of the PC is toward the back of the...
  5. Mercutio

    Power weirdness

    I don't generally open up power supplies. They normally have five or seven year warranties and I don't mind swapping them given the unit cost, though the urgency of getting a new one installed means that whatever comes back will get used elsewhere rather than back in my torture chamber. I do buy...
  6. Mercutio

    Windows SBS 2003 STD OEM disks

    I can't even find a pirate with an ISO of it, but I did find Dell, HP and IBM OEM versions of 2003r2.
  7. Mercutio

    Power weirdness

    The UPS in question is a Tripplite SmartOnline 3000 and it is definitely an online UPS. I bought it new in early 2011 and I've replaced batteries in it twice since I got it. I do run the monitor application but I really only pay attention to alerts. As far as other appliances, the only one I...
  8. Mercutio

    Power weirdness

    I think I can discount static, particularly at this time of year. Summer heat is a real problem because of my HVAC situation, but my equipment rack has been in that room for years now prior to having these problems and it's not that warm yet.
  9. Mercutio

    Power weirdness

    The machine is off pending a replacement PSU and so is the UPS. It's a Tripp-Lite that I've had for five or six years and I don't think it's that smart. The electrical load in my apartment in general and in that room in particular is definitely lower now than it was a couple years ago, though.
  10. Mercutio

    Power weirdness

    It's sitting on a 3000VA UPS as it is. I replaced the batteries for it in March of 2014 and I do test it periodically.
  11. Mercutio

    Power weirdness

    When I do the math on my big file server, it should have a continuous draw of just under 600W. I've gone through three Gold-rated 850W PSUs (PCP&C, Corsair HX, Seasonic - all rated for 50C operation) in the last eight months, the latest just this morning. The PSUs all fail in the same way: some...
  12. Mercutio

    Windows SBS 2003 STD OEM disks

    FWIW, I have SBS 4.5, SBS2000, SBS2003r2, SBS 2008, SBS 2011 and Essentials 2012. I even have product keys for most of them, but guess which one I'm missing?
  13. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    Actually, Microsoft just recently started making Windows 7 ISOs publicly available. It's not ENTIRELY out of the question.
  14. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    Pirated keys, yes (e.g. the infamous TPCRY key that was used on the first pirated copies of 7). But a lot of machines that are just in "Windows failed genuine validation" state do still get updates. As far as I can tell, machines in that state can continue to operate normally. They just get an...
  15. Mercutio

    Is my drive toast?

    When I get a new drive, I run an extended diagnostic test before I put it in service. I'm mostly concerned about shipping damage or the possibility of preexisting bad sectors. The tests take maybe half a day and have saved me from putting DOA drives in arrays a few times.
  16. Mercutio

    RouterBoard (MikroTik) or Ubiquiti EdgeRouter - any good?

    Remember that 802.11 loses about half its bandwidth to protocol overhead. 300Mbit for a point to point link is probably just enough to ensure actual 100Mbit operation. With regard to running a router appliance as a VM, it actually works great if you have the resources to throw at it. It's one...
  17. Mercutio

    RouterBoard (MikroTik) or Ubiquiti EdgeRouter - any good?

    On one of my home machines, I have an Untangle VM with a couple dedicated NICs for traffic control. It's essentially line speed for my cable modem and it wasn't hard at all to set up.
  18. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    Apparently, Windows 10 will be made available through Windows Update for Windows 7 rather than the Windows Store. Testers are supposed to stream updates all the way into the release version.
  19. Mercutio

    Fixed: Hung on Windows Update

    I had a number of servers hang on a .NET update last night as well. They were all Server 2003 machines and they all required a hard reset. This crap never happens to my Centos machines. :evil::evil::evil::evil::evil:
  20. Mercutio

    Up to date Malware Removal

    As an interesting alternative to Adblock Plus, uBlock really does seem to be substantially more efficient for RAM utilization, sometimes by as much as 30%. Its installation procedure also includes the ability to select all of the additional lists I mentioned without any extra navigation. I'm...
  21. Mercutio

    Is my drive toast?

    DFT normally runs a single test and progresses sequentially through each drive that has been selected for testing. DFT actually works on all brands of spinning drives and definitely does see externally-attached disks. It also doesn't have a stupid "I can only show one screen full of drives at a...
  22. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Well, I know what I'm getting for my office full of Microsoft Office Master / 50 Shades of Grey fans.
  23. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    dd, what if anything are you using for an antenna/aerial for your installations? Do you just have clear line of sight in all cases?
  24. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    Clocker's problem is a poorly configured proxy server on his work machine. He doesn't have any way to control it, so there's no way for us to fix it. Your daughter's laptop on the other hand might be benefiting from the general graphics reprioritization in Windows 8, which is where that whole...
  25. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    That looks like a WISP-class device rather than a point to point bridge which I think is all I need. I suppose I'll have to email someone at Ubiquiti.
  26. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    One of my customers pays for me to have Uptimerobot. I frequently know about outages before they do but holy crap can it be annoying if someone is having a bad ISP day.
  27. Mercutio

    Is my drive toast?

    The NAS drives mostly seem to be fine in my experience. Your current drive will probably even survive well enough to do a normal disk imaging with TrueImage/ImageX/HDDclone as long as you tell them to ignore errors beforehand. Usually, a drive that's entered a failing state on reallocated...
  28. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    So I'd be looking at getting a dish, a PoE injector if I want to run it outdoors and probably a Rocket M5 AC Lite on each end? That seems completely reasonable.
  29. Mercutio

    Best free anti virus

    Well that makes rather more sense now, doesn't it? Though the article I read still makes me want to shank someone.
  30. Mercutio

    Best free anti virus

  31. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    I have a classroom site that is presently served by the world's slowest DSL. On a very good day (as in, I saw it one time while the telco people were on premises), it speedtests as high as 384kbps but is normally in the 128 - 192kbps range. I have two other sites within three and a half miles...
  32. Mercutio

    What happened to P5 ?

    Just to the general Storageforum.net site. I said that we as a community held him in highest regard, particularly for his contributions to support and technical topics and for his work with the Folding At Home project. I mostly thought it was important to say that we all lost something.
  33. Mercutio

    What happened to P5 ?

    I sent a letter to the address I was given for Mark's brother on Monday expressing our collective condolences.
  34. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    I'd like to say that there will be a disc-based upgrade but I suspect that it will be complicated. Microsoft will probably force upgrades through the Windows Store as it did from 8 to 8.1.
  35. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    I suspect the bigger problem for some people is having to wear another pair of glasses in the first place.
  36. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    I went to a real-deal IMAX at Chicago's Navy Pier for one of the screenings. For those there isn't a non-3D option. I'd very much like for 3D to die but I think theaters like the justification for increased ticket prices.
  37. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    Do you still have control of the old server? You could probably throw a host redirect (HTTP error 301) and force it to the new IP. Otherwise you don't have any control over what his client is doing.
  38. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    Even if he's running through a VPN, Windows (since Vista) has been smart enough to direct traffic not destined for the VPN end point through your normal internet connection. It's probably a poorly configured proxy server, though I have no idea what kind of blecherous configuration would have a...
  39. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    In a move that probably doesn't surprise anyone, the new build of Windows 10 says specifically says that Windows Media Center will no longer be supported. I can't think of a Windows-based DVR alternative off the top of my head. Both SageTV and BeyondTV have also dropped support.
  40. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    Update: Having seen it in every permutation of IMAX, 3D and not: Stick with not. The 3D actively makes the movie harder to follow.
  41. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    Today was Avengersmas and so I went and I saw it. And I'll see it again tomorrow and also Saturday because I can't ever get all my friends in the same place at the same time. A tiny, special classical music nerd moment: the Kyrie from Arvo Part's Berliner Messe is the plaintive, gorgeous choral...
  42. Mercutio

    Something Random

    There's probably still a lot of money to be made in commoditizing analytics (and then turning it in to something an MBA can use the pivot table function in Excel to manipulate so they can feel like they contributed to the process). Machine Learning is something that's been "Any Day Now" probably...
  43. Mercutio

    gateway NV570P touchscreen going crazy

    Windows 8 needs to be able to start normally to get to safe mode. Yes, you're right, that is retarded (in the actual dictionary definition sense). With regard to OEM media, if you need it just let me know and I'll make an ISO and put it someplace where you can download it. It would behoove you...
  44. Mercutio

    Something Random

    General IT is weird in that area since the skills that make a person useful aren't easily developed from an academic curriculum . Which is why someone like dd can be a great IT guy with no academic background but tons of people with Master's degrees in IT management can barely do anything but...
  45. Mercutio

    gateway NV570P touchscreen going crazy

    Sounds like a bad digitizer to me. I think that's normally something that has to be replaced with the screen, or you might be able to get a screen that just doesn't have the touch capability. On a laptop I'd guess it's probably not essential functionality. Good news about it being an Acer: The...
  46. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I was a CS major also, but it doesn't sound like sed would want to be one. I liked the classroom work a lot more than I liked the reality of being a working developer myself. I put myself through a lot of misery for a degree that, while I appreciate it, I also don't use to any appreciable...
  47. Mercutio

    Merc's Useful Tools of the day

    It's a bit of a wash, really. But ninite is definitely limited to the .exe files you might have for it. I happen to have some with the set of internet helpers, but I don't have the perfect combination for every environment I support. On the other hand, it was pretty trivial for me to whip up...
  48. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Truth.
  49. Mercutio

    Merc's Useful Tools of the day

    Have I mentioned Chocolatey.org here? I don't think I have. It's a *nix style package manager for anything that's new enough to have Powershell and .NET 4 on it. Run this from an Administrative Command Prompt: @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object...
  50. Mercutio

    Excruciatingly slow writing to external disks

    I should also say that file copies in Windows 8 are different beasts from Windows 7. They're prioritized differently and they seem to be sort of universally faster on new Windows than older ones. It's probably not a reason to upgrade for most people but I do know this is a problem that will fix...
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