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  1. Mercutio

    Difficulties with Adaptec 3805 !

    I've personally experienced, and I've read a number of accounts from others, issues with Seagate "green" drives in RAID arrays. Seagate certainly does not certify them for use in that role. There are some theories that suggest that modern 5400rpm drives drives have some aspect of their firmware...
  2. Mercutio

    Eggxpert Tiered Power Supply List

    In contrast, I haven't had to toss one in a few weeks so I'm feeling more inclined to be charitable.
  3. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    As a rule of thumb, an investment in an NYSE index fund returns around 7% annually (yes, yes, plus minus and it's by no means guaranteed). At that rate you can figure that your investment will double in value in approximately ten years' time, though its real value after inflation is another story.
  4. Mercutio

    Android Tablets

    On second thought I might be doing that with Astro. It starts with "A", dammit.
  5. Mercutio

    Android Tablets

    AndSMB
  6. Mercutio

    Android Tablets

    Why can't you just browse to a folder and play whatever music you want? I can't say I've bothered to play video on my phone but I know I can play music that way.
  7. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    It was 83F in my apartment when I woke up at 5:00. Air temperature outside is 81F. We're going to hit 100 today, I think. :P
  8. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    I have three cats. There's only one management company locally that will allow me to keep all of them. No apartments in my area that offer central air allow any pets at all, and all of those are luxury places with much higher rent anyway. My father's hobby is home improvement. There wasn't a...
  9. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    My last place was a duplex managed by a condominium association. I don't want to maintain a home at all, especially not if there exists even the remotest possibility that I could be on the hook for "Whoops, this was built improperly and it's going to fall down around you no matter what you do"...
  10. Mercutio

    Optical drive stuff

    I typically buy Optiarc drives because they're quiet and don't do stupid things when you try to rip DVDs in the way that Sony and Toshiba branded drives do. I've had very few issues with Optiarc drives over time. Other than a couple people I know who steal movies (and kill drives) like fiends, I...
  11. Mercutio

    Help with safe, secure storage of video footage

    I still have at least one Travan drive that I got in 1994 and a DC2120 that is even older than that. Now I'm kind of curious to see if I can recover any of my old homework from those tapes.
  12. Mercutio

    Optical drive stuff

    Of course, that's 100 years for archival media. I suspect that the sort of discs most people buy for data storage (as opposed to audio or video, which have different error correcting schemes) probably exhibit bit rot after just a couple years.
  13. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Yes I am.
  14. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    All my windows face southeast. My AC is a window unit. I have two portable AC units but I'm not allowed to vent them out of my apartment (it would be "unsightly"). I'm also not allowed to replace the AC I've been given by the landlord with a larger one and for some reason my particular apartment...
  15. Mercutio

    Help with safe, secure storage of video footage

    He does say the data set will grow with time, something that legitimately favors tape as the capacity increases. Most vendors claim stable data storage for 25 or 30 years.
  16. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I'm currently arguing with Fedex over the definition of a "reasonable" delivery attempt to my workplace. They said they made their first delivery attempt at 8:16PM on Thursday. At my office, mind you. That's eight at night. They said they made their second attempt at 3:28PM on Friday. The...
  17. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    Airflow in my apartment is such that whether I ran the AC or not, I would effectively only cool five square feet around the air conditioner. My apartment faces southeast. Air simply does not move within it. I've tried doing complex arrangements of fans but that really doesn't help either since...
  18. Mercutio

    Help with safe, secure storage of video footage

    Tape is indeed the best option for your circumstance. Since you'll need the data potentially for decades, you'll probably want to purchase at least two devices that are capable of reading your tape format, or perhaps you might need to avail the services of a company that can transfer to new...
  19. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    My apartment will be 90F+ until probably late September.
  20. Mercutio

    Android Tablets

    The problem with that, or with any modded firmware on that tabliet, is that you lose hardware support for Flash and Divx. Viewsonic only wants to support their build of Android 2.2 and according to them anything else voids the warranty.
  21. Mercutio

    This is a surprise

    The Usonian and Mission cases in the first link are definitely on the right track. I like oak and cherry wood with lots of geometric stylings, especially vertical lines.
  22. Mercutio

    This is a surprise

    Ew.
  23. Mercutio

    This is a surprise

    Mine would be a lot more tasteful than any of those.
  24. Mercutio

    Android Tablets

    Viewsonic's notoriously bad 10" tablet is today's woot deal. Apparently the thing was so bad that Staples yanked them from stores and sent back its entire order, which is why they're easy to find at fairly low prices ($270). They're good hardware, but they have to have a third party Android...
  25. Mercutio

    This is a surprise

    If I designed a case it would look like mission-style oak on the outside and be full of 3.5" hot swap trays.
  26. Mercutio

    question HDD thermal management (keeping your cool)

    I basically don't have open 3.5" drive bays anywhere. If there is a bay, it has a drive in it, whether or not that drive is actively cooled and regardless of how close it is to other drives or components. Despite the fact that I own many dozens of hard disks, actually losing one is vanishingly...
  27. Mercutio

    Case

    Yes. I have a customer looking for a pink case. Is that one purchasable?
  28. Mercutio

    Failure rate statistics

    Google knows full well what it is then!
  29. Mercutio

    Failure rate statistics

    My theory holds that Seagate drives are also born wrong. Which is why I've suddenly become very interested in MRAOPCR technology.
  30. Mercutio

    Low power file server platform?

    The point in any case is the replicate data across more than one set of drives in more than one physical set of hardware. I'm not sure I care how I do it as long as it gets done.
  31. Mercutio

    Failure rate statistics

    I prefer the "born wrong" theory.
  32. Mercutio

    Canada

    Boobs are still awesome and exist to make us happy. This fact is inarguable.
  33. Mercutio

    Low power file server platform?

    MooseFS looks potentially interesting. I had not heard of it until just last night.
  34. Mercutio

    question Mobile Phones

    I am? The only broken smartphones I hear about with anything like regularity are Blackberries. My working theory about that is that people are breaking them in order to get sexier phones.
  35. Mercutio

    Canada

    Lunar, if you have objections to seeing large Canadian racks, I think you might need to get your testosterone levels checked.
  36. Mercutio

    question Mobile Phones

    I'm quite certain that every mobile phone I've ever owned will still turn on. Some of them don't work any more because the networks they used are no longer in use, but I've never broken a phone. I'd say mobile phones are generally quite durable and reliable, now that I think about it.
  37. Mercutio

    Something Random

    A thousand posts is a very respectable number of posts to have.
  38. Mercutio

    I need a bed

    It's a nice bed. It is very large and up very high. I had to make some stairs so my oldest cat can get up on it. I have no complaints directly related to the bed, only to the length of time needed for delivery.
  39. Mercutio

    Hacked Wordpress site

    Also, do you control the whole machine or are you just dealing with an account on a hosting provider's server?
  40. Mercutio

    Hacked Wordpress site

    Are they attacking Wordpress or php or MySQL?
  41. Mercutio

    FF4 and IE9

    I should have amended my statement to software-only options. Given that VirtualPC is essentially free (and has dreadful support for anything that isn't Windows), I'm kind of surprised that there isn't a new VMware Server on the horizon. Maybe supporting it is too much of a pain? And yes I am...
  42. Mercutio

    FF4 and IE9

    It appears that VMware Server is really, really broken with Firefox 4 and as far as I know it never worked with Chrome. And that support for VMware Server 2 ended in January. So I guess the best free option from VMware is now to make the VMs with Server and then run them through VMware Player?
  43. Mercutio

    USB 3.0 Cases

    That is shockingly not-hideous.
  44. Mercutio

    Strange

    Also, I just found this nifty Google tool for syncing MS Office documents with Google docs.
  45. Mercutio

    Strange

    It would not be entirely unreasonable to just have something on-site downloading everyone's E-mail via POP, but that doesn't help for contacts and calendar stuff. One nice thing about Thunderbird is that it's not terribly difficult to make it sync all that stuff so that local copies exist...
  46. Mercutio

    iPhone syndrome

    Today's free thingy on Amazon's App store is Plants vs. Zombies.
  47. Mercutio

    System Recommendation

    Response to the Japanese quake and component shortages perhaps? Usually the "-UD" designation from Gigabyte refers to the use of all Japanese-made solid caps instead of electrolytic ones.
  48. Mercutio

    Canada

    Yup, but it comes up first.
  49. Mercutio

    Canada

    I'd just like to say that a Google Image Search for Canadian huge rack shows just how correct I am about the horny Canadian babes even when safesearch is turned off. Not that checking anything on Google Image search with safesearch off is a good idea while one is at work.
  50. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I am not touching that one. Someone else can do it.
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