Archive | December, 2004

Copying lots of stuff from there to here

On a weekly basis, I back up a bunch of stuff from the file server by burning CDs on one of the local workstations. Some of the stuff doesn’t change a lot. Copying gigabytes, even over a high-speed network, takes time. Since I’m copying files from a Linux server, I found a quick solution that works regardless of the destination: Linux, Mac or Windows. The Mac is busy making its own backups Sunday morning, so I thought I’d find a way to do it on Windows. Using CygWin, the UNIX simulator and bash shell, I could use the rsync command to copy only the files that had changed, reducing a long copy to a few minutes.


rsync -vr tedroche@the.server.ip.address:/the/source/directory /cygdrive/c/destination

With ‘v’ for verbose and ‘r’ for recursive, copying all the subdirectories. Piece of cake. Doesn’t interoperability rock? Working well with others is A Good Thing.

Schneier on safe computing

News.Com: Who says safe computing must…
News.Com: Who says safe computing must remain a pipe dream? Bruce Schneier: “Two years ago, I published a list of PC security recommendations. The idea was to give home users concrete actions they could take to improve security. This is an update of that list: a dozen things you can do to improve your security.” Link via Tomalak’s Realm

Jon Udell: CalDev, iCalendar over WebDAV?

In Jon Udell’s December 9th weblog entry, he points to several interesting Internet Calendar exchange projects going on. It’s surprising to realize that there is no single standard that lets us all exchange free/busy time, invite people to events, or synchronize meetings with clients/employees/vendors, etc. Such a standard is overdue.

Scott McNealy duped by a silly Internet hoax

CNET News.com reports This week in the wild, wild Web. “At Oracle OpenWorld, Sun CEO Scott McNealy inadvertently illustrates how easy it is to fall for a high-tech hoax.” McNealy shoud be ashamed. Any good engineer ought to know better.

I got a real kick out of the picture, as it illustrates, in the background, a control center nearly identical to the on the submarine I served on from 1981-1986. It was a chilling flashback for me. At one time or another, I worked at all three of the consoles pictured, and can rattle off what each component is to this day, twenty years later.

Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I worked on a DECWriter similar to the one in the foreground, in college in the 70’s.

And, no, we didn’t get to watch TV on the submarine.

It Just Works

OSNews notes Mossberg: OS X “Rock Solid”; G5 iMac “Best” PC “Ever Reviewed”. “Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg gave the highest praise possible to not one but two Apple Computer products in his Thursday Personal Technology column, calling Mac OS X “rock solid” and the G5 iMac “the single best desktop computer I have ever reviewed.” Mr. Mossberg used his weekly column to discuss the plague of viruses, spyware and other security problems that primarily affect the Windows platform.”

Mossberg is not the kind of zealot who trumpets every new machine as the greatest thing ever. Over the course of the last year, he has lost his affection for Microsoft, and begun recognizing the other alternatives out there. Having a voice as authoritative as that of the WSJ’s technologist can only help bring more reason to the discussion.

Mozilla Calendar: Sunbird

With the release of Thunderbird, some folks complain that it isn’t an Outlook-killer, as it doesn’t have built in calendaring and task lists (it does have an address book). The Mozilla Foundation is building separate components for most of those features, whereas the Mozilla (nee’ Netscape) browser had everything on one executable file. Jon Udell takes a look at the Sunbird calendar in Jon’s Radio today and reports: Mozilla Calendar. “It’s been a while since I looked at Mozilla Calendar, so this morning I installed the Firefox version and gave it another whirl. My first reaction was that this descendant of Netscape’s calendar program must share a lot of DNA with the original — it feels a tad clunky, UI-wise, in the same kinds of ways…”

IBM selling off PC business to China’s Lenovo

InfoWorld: Top News reports that China’s Lenovo to buy IBM’s PC business. “TOKYO – China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. signed a definitive agreement on Wednesday to acquire IBM Corp.’s personal computing division. Lenovo will pay US$1.25 billion in cash for the business, which is expected to transform it into the world’s number three PC maker, the companies announced.”

This is certainly a worry for those of us who depend on the reliability and ruggedness of our ThinkPads. While the manufacture of the machines has been outsourced for years, the responsibility has always fallen to the company with those three letters on the case: IBM. Expect a conservative IT market to shy away from the machines for a while. With luck, the spinoff can be as successful as the Lexmark deal.

Follow-up: A news.com editorial opines “Why Lenovo-IBM is a tough sell

IBM selling off PC business to China’s Lenovo

InfoWorld: Top News reports that China’s Lenovo to buy IBM’s PC business. “TOKYO – China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. signed a definitive agreement on Wednesday to acquire IBM Corp.’s personal computing division. Lenovo will pay US$1.25 billion in cash for the business, which is expected to transform it into the world’s number three PC maker, the companies announced.”

This is certainly a worry for those of us who depend on the reliability and ruggedness of our ThinkPads. While the manufacture of the machines has been outsourced for years, the responsibility has always fallen to the company with those three letters on the case: IB/font>. Expect a conservative IT market to shy away from the machines for a while. With luck, the spinoff can be as successful as the Lexmark deal.

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