It's usually obvious...

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 00:26 The Natural Philosopher wrote in uk.d-i- y:

They nicked that from Windows!

+10000

I have 156 linux servers (mostly VMs) and 17 Windows servers at work.

8 of the Windows servers are to service VMWare itself (managment, backup subsystems and monitoring). They are each special purpose and hand installed and set to auto update, except for the master VMWare management system (bit important, that one). The others are "hosted services" so apart from enabling auto-updates, not really my problem.

The 156 linux machines are easy to bulk manage even without having time yet to make or comission a management system[1] and yet I can still manage them with a combination of pdsh and NFS very easily.

[1] Not impressed with puppet. Might look at the other(s) offerings if I get time.

Gawd knows how one person would manage that many Windows boxes - I expect there's a commercial solution for it, but I expect it would take a lot of time to learn, set up and run.

The linux side almost never goes wrong. It's usually application code eating the memory.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 07:14 Andy Burns wrote in uk.d-i-y:

OK - that explains why it's such a PITA.

My view is - seperate clouds for seperate jobs - pick and mix for the best features.

I love Google Calendar, but "Drive" has shortcomings[1]

[1] I tried the delete/undelete thing. The web shows my file back from Trash, but the phone will not see it after a sync - perhaps because it still thinks it deleted it???

Evernote seems the best for random document storage - easy to tag and organise. But insecure like most cloud offerings.

Spideroak has zero knowledge encryption (ie they never see the keys). Great for sensitive documents. But not terribly easy to use. Is multi platform though.

Photos and videos are better done with services specialising in those.

Mail - Gmail is still probably the best IME.

"Owncloud" is worth a look too - you host the whole lot on your own server.

Even Google cannot offer a complete solutuion that *I* like - so I doubt Apple could get it right either.

[Jim K]

After years of titting about fixing fecking Windoze I sought advice from this very newsgroup, tried linux (ubuntu) once & have never looked back.

Jim K

[Huge]

[13 lines snipped]

I used to be in charge of supporting the IT on a small trading floor in the City (~100 traders). The market data system (the thing that puts prices up in front of the traders) ran under AIX using ~20 RS/6000s (now called p-series, I think) and X-Terminals. The whole thing was supported by half a person.

The traders insisted they wanted PCs, so we "upgraded" to a newer version of the same market data system, using PCs instead of X-terminals as the front end and ~10 RS/6000s as the back end.

The support requirements rose from half a person to 4.5 people.

[John Williamson]

Whereas I keep trying Linux, keep failing to get it working satisactorily, and using Windows, which, by and large "just works".

Apparently, one of my problems with Linux is having to use the "wrong hardware" to do the jobs I want to do. I should apparently choose the hardware for its Linux compatibility as against its quality.

[Capitol]

My solution is never to upgrade Windows, iOS or Ubuntu 10.4. Yes I lose some security/functionality, but the backup cloned drives ensure that if disaster strikes it's only a minor loss. iOS IMO is a pain, as some things work only when they feel like it and the wifi is always a bit iffy. Also, on the "email a picture" function, Apple decided to be the only people to use EXIF info in the browser, so as a result I've had pictures, sideways, upside down and mirror imaged when I've received them. That peculiarity is still there if the picture is taken in portrait mode I believe. The Android email app appears to see EXIF information, anyway, the pictures come out the right way up and I haven't seen any mirror imaged yet.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 10:40 John Williamson wrote in uk.d-i-y:

There is an element of that - but it's not that much of a problem - compared to how it used to be.

Lenovo laptops are pretty well behaved IME.

Proper printers (not "winprinters"), especially Canon, HP, Epson all work really well.

The only problem is very specialist software (eg CAD, Adobe Lightroom), and utility software (iTunes). I keep a very basic windows VM for that.

Xubuntu and Mint are generally reliable "just works" versions of linux.

Every time I install Windows, (about once a year) I am reminded of how many reboots and how much data is downloaded just to get the base OS up. That's with no apps. In a *lot* less time I can have linux up, full of apps and ready to go.

The "unix way" of keeping user settings in files in your home dir ensures a lot of stuff (apps) is the way I like it immediately - no titting about with profiles and regsitry stuff.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 10:35 Huge wrote in uk.d-i-y:

That surprises me not...

I almost worked in a bank (the one known for being uber technical). Nice bunch, very technical - but once I saw the IT section (ex trading floor with endless rows of desks) I knew in my guts it was not for me :) I would have had to wear a suit too(!).

My only personal "failure" (as in dream not achieved nor likely to be) is not working for Google. My personal best is geeting as far as an on site interview - which was fun, and very demanding. Those guys live in another universe (moslty Star Trek if the decor at their London office is anything to go by!).

[The Natural Philosopher]

I can recount many similar experiences.

Going from wyse terminals to PCS support from one man 3 hours a week to

2 full time 'windows support' engineers.

The pair of lunatics who reckoned (probably correctly) that a PC cost £3500 a year to keep running in a London bank, therefore a company that charged domestic users only £1500 a year would fly...

The old IBM mainframe, 22 years old, that ran a bookbinding company with no onsite support at all.

Apart from a secretary who had learnt how to put a tape in and type one command in the thing to back it up..

PCS gave users too much administrative power and that meant they were forever accidentally changing things they should not have touched. Ok you could in those days spend several days (and I did, once) removing all the functionality so they could NOT do that but that was several days of skilled work..

For most companies moving from terminals to PCS on the desk was an unmitigated financial disaster.

Until they had hired enough in house skills to keep the bloody things running anyway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

odd. I havent had that issue for a couple of years now.

Ok laptops are still a bit iffy as they all have custom drivers for their gadgetry, but for a desktop it all just 'works'

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Every single Windows app can be run on Linux - without using an emulator?

[John Williamson]

There you are, then. I can't use a desktop or tower computer for the way I work with computers, so I'm stuck with using laptops. I've even had problems connecting to wifi with this one, which uses an allegedly industry standard wifi chipset. I've heard they don't like the mifi dongle I use. About the only hardware I've got that works seamlessly with both systems are the USB hard drives and (most) memory sticks.

It also won't talk to any of my phones, which I chose to do the job rather than to connect to a computer, although they all connect perectly with Windows.

Now, if you can suggest an easy way to connect an HTC Windows based phone to Linux and synchronise a calendar and phonebook with it, I'll give it a try. A lot of the programs I use are already available or Linux.

[Jim K]

for a calendar use Google's? assuming your HTC windoze phone allows you to sync to it like my android does? updated in real time (auto sync), cloud based, editable anywhere there's a web browser etc etc etc

Jim K

[Huge]

Our office wasn't like that. A techie shambles elsewhere in the building, and smart casual. Even the two people we kept on the trading floor(*) didn't have to wear a suit. (* The traders bitched about how long it took someone to come down 2 floors when they had a PC issue. Sigh. I am so glad to be out of all that now.)

I have a friend who works for them in California. They are indeed, very bright, if a little odd. I no longer care to work that hard or those hours.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 19 January 2014 14:38 Huge wrote in uk.d-i-y:

One of my ex students is there too. Hugely bright chap.

I think Google is best for those coming out of uni with a 1st in CompSci

- that's the time to enjoy it and get the best out of it - no kids, long hours with geeks = fun and not forgetting free lunch *and* supper if you do a bit of evening work (which I'm told includes just hanging around batting ideas about).

5 years later with them on your CV you can pretty much work anywhere :)

[Bob Eager]

Exactly. That's what I like about my job! I wear a suit at work about twice a year (next Friday afternoon being one of those occasions).

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is 'have to use it' not 'want to use it'

Windows is three things: a desktop and file management environment, at which its pretty bad, over an operating system that interfaces to the hardware that is bloody awful, and a launcher for applications programns that unfortunately will only run on it.

Only the third reason is a reason to use windows.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or you are completely unemployable ..whichever ;-)

[tony sayer]

What is the current best version of Linux around these days?..

[John Williamson]

I prefer to keep my personal data private, thank you very much. As in local on my own server.

Google already know too much about me.