Something Random

[Handruin]

Except I would replace Apache by G.WAN. I'd like to know if it lives up to the hype. I'd install Lubuntu for the Linux distro, because it's light and easy to configure and maintain. Also, MariaDB instead of MySQL, if a database is needed.

But if you can get 250$ for it, that's the best option IMO. One of your four summer tires would be paid.

I'm not familiar with G.WAN, I'll have to look into it more. I'd also like to try Nginx as I've heard good things about its scalability and performance above Apache. I've also not heard of MariaDB. Do you have a short pro/con comparison between that and MySQL? I would also consider switching to PostgreSQL.

Thanks for the suggestion on funding my summer tires. As of right now they're already fully funded and I don't need to sell these servers to fund the tires. Now that I have two sets, they will give me more miles before having to replace either. You can never have enough stickiness to the road for increased safety.

 

[CougTek]

From what I read, MariaDB is based on MySQL, but adds several functionalities and judging on the few benchmarks I've seen from a quick Google search, it scales a bit better. It might or might not be worth it, depending on your usage.

I'm no DB guru. I just read a lot and I try to stay in the loop.

I've read about Nginx being better than Apache, but not enough to be interesting for me. We currently run our websites on IIS7, partly because it's faster than either Nginx or Apache. The only one that can surpass IIS7, according to what I read, is G.WAN, hence my interest for it. I hate dealing with IIS and I'd love to replace it. I've never worked with G.WAN, but I can't imagine it being worse to setup. IIS isn't compatible with the way my brain works.

 

[Handruin]

From what I read, MariaDB is based on MySQL, but adds several functionalities and judging on the few benchmarks I've seen from a quick Google search, it scales a bit better. It might or might not be worth it, depending on your usage.

I'm no DB guru. I just read a lot and I try to stay in the loop.

I've read about Nginx being better than Apache, but not enough to be interesting for me. We currently run our websites on IIS7, partly because it's faster than either Nginx or Apache. The only one that can surpass IIS7, according to what I read, is G.WAN, hence my interest for it. I hate dealing with IIS and I'd love to replace it. I've never worked with G.WAN, but I can't imagine it being worse to setup. IIS isn't compatible with the way my brain works.

It's great to research all the tools that are the most performing but I would also hesitate and ask, is your website under-performing to the point where you need to make these kinds of changes? I get the change from IIS 7 to a Unix/Linux solution. Beyond that it is also important to find tools that are proven to do the job they are built for and to do so reliably and securely. If your website is under performing it could also be worth looking at tuning what you have or tuning a well-known tool such as Apache. It's clear you want away from IIS7, so before throwing out Apache just because it's not the top-most in performance, at least consider it as a proven reliable option. I'm not suggesting Apache is perfect but I hope the problem you are trying to solve is being address with the proper tools. The same is true for your database engine.

None the less, it's still great to research other pieces of technology and learn from their offerings. I am not suggesting you stop researching or trying new tools and components. I would just error on the side of caution when implementing in a production environment until you're comfortable that they are secure and reliable.

 

[Howell]

It's great to research all the tools that are the most performing but I would also hesitate and ask, is your website under-performing to the point where you need to make these kinds of changes? I get the change from IIS 7 to a Unix/Linux solution. Beyond that it is also important to find tools that are proven to do the job they are built for and to do so reliably and securely. If your website is under performing it could also be worth looking at tuning what you have or tuning a well-known tool such as Apache. It's clear you want away from IIS7, so before throwing out Apache just because it's not the top-most in performance, at least consider it as a proven reliable option. I'm not suggesting Apache is perfect but I hope the problem you are trying to solve is being address with the proper tools. The same is true for your database engine.

None the less, it's still great to research other pieces of technology and learn from their offerings. I am not suggesting you stop researching or trying new tools and components. I would just error on the side of caution when implementing in a production environment until you're comfortable that they are secure and reliable.

+1

 

[CougTek]

I'm looking for your opinions on a completely fictional situation :

Would it make sense, for a company with a 2 million dollars annual revenue and books severely in the red, to plan to reserve a last minute booth at the NAB Show at Las Vegas in order to display and try to sell a product that's obviously unfinished, unpolished and that crashes more often than it works? The product has, of course, no relation whatsoever with the main field of the company. The fact that the reservations occurs less than a month before the beginning of the event while most other companies reserve their spot months, if not a year in advance, ensures that the booth will have the worst possible location. Also, add to this that the entire adventure will cost around 30,000$ (remember that the company is already losing money).

So, if you were a shareholder or an employee of that given company, would you approve and support such a move?

- All resemblance between this story and real events, past or present, is purely coincidental.

 

[ddrueding]

That would depend on how desperate the situation is. If things are truly going down the toilet than anything "now" might be the best bet. Then again, while $30k isn't chump change for a company of that size, it isn't that big a deal, either.

Also keep in mind that companies these days are really good at insisting they are broke. They have realized that, so long as they keep the impression that they are barely hanging on, no one will ask for a raise or do any unnecessary spending. This is how you get the GDP up without effecting the unemployment rate.

 

[jtr1962]

Also keep in mind that companies these days are really good at insisting they are broke. They have realized that, so long as they keep the impression that they are barely hanging on, no one will ask for a raise or do any unnecessary spending. This is how you get the GDP up without effecting the unemployment rate.

Yep, and not just nowadays. I remember back in 1989 in the same year my company claimed they couldn't afford $1 an hour raises for me and another guy they spent $40,000 on travel. I was so pissed off when I heard that. Ostensibly the salesmen traveled to bring in business, except they mostly went to companies who were ordering taxi meters from us anyway. Even if I played devil's advocate here and assumed the sales trips were the sole reason for the orders, things didn't add up. The revenue on the orders didn't even cover the travel expenses. When you factor in how much the taxi meters cost us, it was a major losing proposition. For some reason many businesses never think this way. They'll spend $10 fighting for another $1 of revenue, but get all worked up if a loyal, productive employee asks for another $1 or $2 an hour. And then of course the same company spent $5 for parts I could get for $1 at Mouser or Digikey. They had money to waste on all this, but not for raises. I was glad to get laid off from them a year later. I'm the only one of the six employees at the NYC location they asked to stay on. Since it would have entailed a relocation to Winchester, VA (not my kind of place at all), and no raise, I told them forget it. Best decision I ever made. The entire company went under a few years later (no surprise there).

Corporations in general are excellent money pits. They're also excellent ulcer generators (for the employees). If only corporate America would wake and and start treating employees like valuable assets instead. Employees who are miserable just don't produce and don't care. This attitude is obvious whenever you deal with big corporations, and it makes me take my business elsewhere.

 

[ddrueding]

I don't think the size of the company matters, just where you are in it. I've been in various companies at various levels, and once you are high enough up the ladder to have regular dialogs with the boss and be part of the decision making process things seem to make a lot more sense. Or they don't but at least you know why. I don't care what size company I work for, so long as I'm far enough up to be able to make autonomous decisions about my area of expertise and be connected to the rest of leadership enough to understand what is going on.

 

[LunarMist]

I'm looking for your opinions on a completely fictional situation :

Would it make sense, for a company with a 2 million dollars annual revenue and books severely in the red, to plan to reserve a last minute booth at the NAB Show at Las Vegas in order to display and try to sell a product that's obviously unfinished, unpolished and that crashes more often than it works? The product has, of course, no relation whatsoever with the main field of the company. The fact that the reservations occurs less than a month before the beginning of the event while most other companies reserve their spot months, if not a year in advance, ensures that the booth will have the worst possible location. Also, add to this that the entire adventure will cost around 30,000$ (remember that the company is already losing money).

So, if you were a shareholder or an employee of that given company, would you approve and support such a move?

- All resemblance between this story and real events, past or present, is purely coincidental.

So that is where you work.

It might not be a bad idea to get exposure at the show if they are trying to sell the company or the IP, which may have some value. Does the company have any assets?

 

[Mercutio]

I found a this thing today while stuck at a Walmart waiting for someone to put tires on my car. It seems like a great idea to me.

 

[ddrueding]

My wife is now a US Citizen. That was a massively boring ceremony.

 

[Handruin]

My wife is now a US Citizen. That was a massively boring ceremony.

Congrats to your wife. From what I've discussed with my foreign coworkers it can be a daunting and long process for citizenship. Doing the Canada route seems to be the trend for reducing the time it takes to become a citizen.

 

[ddrueding]

Not daunting, just long. We followed the process and it took about a year. If you were trying to rush things along, or didn't have all your ducks in a row first, I could see how some stress might enter into it.

 

[CougTek]

It might not be a bad idea to get exposure at the show if they are trying to sell the company or the IP, which may have some value. Does the company have any assets?

The core-business of the fictional company described in the fictional situation above has absolutely nothing to do with the technology that would be fictionaly advertised in the very real NAB Show. So displaying the fictional technology wouldn't help to sell the fictional company, only the fictional technology.

To answer your second question, the fictional company's only assets are the servers and hardware networking and video equipment used to developped said fictional technology and to run its core-business, which is, again, totally unrelated to the fictional technology its trying to fictionaly sell. There are no buildings, fictious or real, owned by the fictional company.

- All resemblance between this story and real events, past or present, is purely coincidental.

 

[CougTek]

My wife is now a US Citizen.

So your wife is a religious zealot?

 

[ddrueding]

So your wife is a religious zealot?

I don't understand the framing of the question? She has some superstitions brought over from the old country, but we are part of the fastest-growing religious movement out there (atheism).

 

[Chewy509]

So your wife is a religious zealot?

I was going to ask how does being a US citizen equate to be a religious zealot?

 

[Handruin]

Not daunting, just long. We followed the process and it took about a year. If you were trying to rush things along, or didn't have all your ducks in a row first, I could see how some stress might enter into it.

Wow, only a year? Was that because you two were married or had she been going through the process for years before she met you? The daunting process I'm speaking of is H1-B visa sponsored coworkers spending 7+ years working towards citizenship.

 

[Handruin]

I was going to ask how does being a US citizen equate to be a religious zealot?

I'm sure we'll find out what fucked up logical-correlation CougTek was thinking soon enough. lol I can't figure it out either. I'm a US citizen and I don't believe I'm any kind of religious person at all; never mind a zealot.

 

[Mercutio]

The US is overwhelmingly Christian, and to a degree that's unthinkable in the rest of the northern hemisphere. Moreover, we're still extremely puritan in our values. It doesn't surprise me at all that someone outside this country would be willing to assume an Americans are bible thumpers because as a nation, WE ARE.

 

[timwhit]

Not to mention all the talk of American exceptionalism.

 

[ddrueding]

Wow, only a year? Was that because you two were married or had she been going through the process for years before she met you? The daunting process I'm speaking of is H1-B visa sponsored coworkers spending 7+ years working towards citizenship.

Nope. She had had a green card for 5+ years when she started the process. Before that she was on a work visa. From what I understand the biggest question they ask is "In the last 5 years, have you been out of the country for more than 6 months at a time?". Apparently if the answer is yes another can of worms is opened. Oh, and make sure your taxes are iron-clad. And having a full-time, permanant job helps. H1-B might just be a crappy place to start from.

 

[Stereodude]

My wife got her citizenship quite fast (in gov't terms). From when we mailed in the application / paperwork to her getting the notice telling her when the ceremony would be was under 4 months.

 

[CougTek]

I was going to ask how does being a US citizen equate to be a religious zealot?

The oath :

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

An atheist cannot become a U.S. citizen, or if he does, he has to lie. The only other way to be an American atheist is to be born American. Same goes for people believing in a religion with more than one god into it.

The oath was just fine before they bastardized it in the fifties.

 

[jtr1962]

The oath is actually contradictory when you look at the part about bearing arms. Many religions have strict tenets against killing, even for self-defense. So you swear to God that you'll bear arms (presumably for the purpose of taking lives) on behalf on the United States? That wouldn't even pass a test of logic, much less a constitutional one.

Coug, the fifties are unfortunately still with us in many respects. So long as you still have a generation alive who thinks the fifties were the greatest time in history, the USA will be seen as backwards by much of the world. Thankfully, most of this generation are at least in their mid 60s and starting to lose their hold on power. I think we'll see more changes in the US in the next decade than we saw in the previous 50 years. Look at the huge difference in philosophy between Romney (a product of the 50s if there ever was one), and Obama (more or less my generation).

 

[Bozo]

"that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law;" I think this sentence is for those who's religion have strict rules about killing. Like work in a veterans hospital.

 

[mubs]

My wife got her citizenship quite fast (in gov't terms). From when we mailed in the application / paperwork to her getting the notice telling her when the ceremony would be was under 4 months.

In parts of the US where acquiring citizenship is not much in demand, it happens very quickly, like in your wife's case. Some states like CA, NY, AZ, TX, NM are notoriously backlogged and it can take 15+ months.

I am a naturalized citizen; acquired it in CA in 1994. I had to wait about 17 months.

In my wife's case, we applied when she became eligible. Between the time I obtained the application form and applied (about 2 weeks to get everything ready), they had hiked the fee, but I was not aware of it. Instead of asking for the additional fee, they stamped "Rejected for insuffieient fee" on every page and sent the whole thing back to me. This meant I had to get a new application form and fill it out etc. I shoved this in a drawer and completely forgot. Then we spent a year outside the US, and the rule DD mentioned kicked in, and we had to wait another 3 years before she became eligible again. By then we'd left the US. So she's not a US citizen.

And so it goes.

 

[Striker]

"so help me God", I don't think those words mean anything to an agnostic or atheist so uttering them as part of an oath is likely meaningless.

 

[LunarMist]

"so help me God", I don't think those words mean anything to an agnostic or atheist so uttering them as part of an oath is likely meaningless.

There are optional alternatives for some oaths such as the swearing for the bible in court. One would think that there are similar alternative texts for a citizenship oath.
Anyway, oaths don't mean much to criminals.

 

[P5-133XL]

My father, was in the army during the Korean War and dealt with security clearances. He had a story about one individual that objected to the oath required, so he crossed out the oath on the form and replaced it with the oath that the president of the US takes and signed that. Not only did he not get his security clearance, he was placed on their watch-list for potential spy's.

 

[ddrueding]

Anyway, oaths don't mean much to criminals.

This. The oath only means something to the people that would behave even if they didn't take it. Therefore the whole thing is useless.

 

[mubs]

Scary stuff: How stray voltage almost ruined a family

 

[Mercutio]

Most of my students are electricians. They'll be happy to tell all manner of horrifying stories about bad installations and what electricity does to things.

I lost a bet and now I have a blue streak in my hair. So far, no one I work with has even noticed.

 

[ddrueding]

Scary stuff: How stray voltage almost ruined a family

Or, "how a family took a bad situation and did everything in their power to make it worse".

 

[LunarMist]

Most of my students are electricians. They'll be happy to tell all manner of horrifying stories about bad installations and what electricity does to things.

I lost a bet and now I have a blue streak in my hair. So far, no one I work with has even noticed.

That is odd. I've been electrocuted a few times, but my hair did not turn blue.

 

[Mercutio]

My hair is blue because ladies are better at Xbox than I am.

 

[jtr1962]

Scary stuff: How stray voltage almost ruined a family

In the article: "500 ohms of current"

Amazing how technically illiterate the American populace is.

 

[LunarMist]

Wow. I've seen volts confused with amps, but never ohms.

 

[Mercutio]

In the article: "500 ohms of current"

Amazing how technically illiterate the American populace is.

Really not that many people have to think about electricity on a way that requires knowledge of its units of measure on any kind of regular basis. Most likely, it's something people learn in a two week span during their seventh grade science class and never need again. Which also describes the way most people understand the metric system in the USA.

 

[jtr1962]

Really not that many people have to think about electricity on a way that requires knowledge of its units of measure on any kind of regular basis. Most likely, it's something people learn in a two week span during their seventh grade science class and never need again. Which also describes the way most people understand the metric system in the USA.

Except the person who said that worked for the electric company. I might excuse misuse of units by somebody's grandmother, but here's a person who does this stuff every day who can't get the units right. No wonder the problem went on for over 20 years. Probably nobody there knew what they were doing.