network narks

[WA1GFZ]

I move my desk to another building  and was informedI I move to to the netword in the new building. So no big deal all the same company.
I come in this morning and log on to the new arm of the borg and my machine looks like someone typed in format all drives..... idiots. Now I sit surfing waiting for the job to be finished. A large report is hiding in the ozone. along with about a gig of cool stuff I've collected. Backup is a couple days old. I sit and pray.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

That's been my greatest fear here, too. We've gotten new PCs to replace the aging models but fortunately the network guys moved everything to folders on the network, then loaded it all back on afterwards. Of course, they were talking about doing back ups a year or so back, but I doubt it ever came to pass.

Besides, it's your employer's PC - you're not supposed to have anything not related to work on it! *cough*cough* Which reminds me, I should burn a CD of some of the stuff on my machine, just in case.

[WA1GFZ]

recovered man that freaked me out. Past 3 months I had my machine die so went through a refresh now have a dual 2.8 gig machine. then the hard drive crashed at home now this.
My brother says he wants to be the last person on the planet who owns a computer....not a bad idea.

[w3jn]

My employer, being realistic, specifically allows limited personal use (within very reasonable guidelines).

I had someone on another forum threaten to contact my employer because he didn't feel I should be posting while at work... I encouraged him to call andI even gave him the phone # of the network administrator.

BTW they do backups every day and we're our own ISP so the connection is HIHI FINE BUSINESS OM indeed.

[K1JJ]

Yep, computers are such a pain. But without them we are at such a disadvantage info-wise.  I remember about ten years ago when I read that in five years, someone who could not program a computer will be considered iliterate. Well they were wrong. It turned out that someone who cannot "operate" a computer, navigate around the web and find info is considered, well, what would you say? Try to get an office job of any kind and tell them you never used a computer... 

BTW, I've been using a pair of 233 mhz computers here since '98. They are getting so I can't use new software and do the thangs I need to do.  I just couldn't get myself to blow new money on the latest. I paid close to $3K for these 7 years ago... [sigh]

BUT, I need to upgrade and gonna do it. Take a look at this deal at Tiger Direct. 3GHZ computer bare bones for $99 and $139. Think I may get a pair. The $139 one is a lease/used unit and has Windows 2000. I like buying used stuff....

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=110&

Check this one out for $329!  I'm tempted.  What do you guys think is the right choice? Do I need all these bells and whistles?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=1576690&sku=E400-T3985

T

[John Holotko]

Yep, computers are such a pain. But without them we are at such a disadvantage info-wise.  I remember about ten years ago when I read that in five years, someone who could not program a computer will be considered iliterate. Well they were wrong. It turned out that someone who cannot "operate" a computer, navigate around the web and find info is considered, well, what would you say? Try to get an office job of any kind and tell them you never used a computer... 

The problem is that a lot of todays programmers seem to know less about programming than the programmers of years ago. Few programmers these days understand the architechture of the machine they are programming. They have no idea of how many processor registers there  are, what they are called, how  they are accessed, and only a vague idea of  how  the memory stack works.  They also have no idea how floating point arithmetic is performed,   how floating point values are stored in the pricessor, how they are accesses, etc.  While understanding these low level ideas are not as nessesary today as they were in the old days still understanding them helps in writing better code as well as  understanding bugs and debugging the software.  In the old days we understood those kinds of things.

As far as buying a new machine yeah, I was up  until recently running a 166 mhz machine as a  dialup  gateway and  I recently retired it and replaced it with a 500. On the desktops I am currently  using  32 bit 2.8 - 3.0 Ghz  machines with hyperthreded processors. running Linux, Unix and Win Xp. and ersatz, a VMS and PDP  emulator.  I were buying a new machine nowadays I would  go for a 64 bit  machine with a  dual core processor. However, if you don;t want to spend all that much virtually any of those Tiger Direct machines you mentioned should be pretty good albeit minus the extra bells and whistles. These days most hardware is pretty  darned reliable. You might also check out Dell, sometimes they have pretty good package deals on machines complete with flad screen LCD monitor. I have a couple of Dell machines at home  and I'm pretty satisfied with them, Good Luck.

[w3jn]

Tom, DO NOT use Win2K.  Better than WinME, but XP is better/easier/more stable IMHO.

Mark, I hear ya about trusting the IT guys.  Who was the wise man that said "trust, but verify"...?

John, I wonder if they even teach machine language anymore... I had to learn 8080 and 6800 machine language plus CDC Cyber-series assembler (an abomination known as COMPAS) back in the day...

[WA1GFZ]

Well it only took a couple hours for them to recover me but that should have been done when I was moved to the new server. I collect a lot of technical data so hate to lose things. Also had a 300 page report going that was backed up a day or so earlier.
Tom, Check out Kaplan computers  in Vernon. I buy all my used machines there.
My daughters hard drive died and I came home with a better machine for $50.
I have XP Pro which is goog. W2K we had before at work. Tom I can give you W2K if you want it but XP big Bill needs you to register so hard to boot. fc

[John Holotko]

Tom, DO NOT use Win2K.  Better than WinME, but XP is better/easier/more stable IMHO.

Mark, I hear ya about trusting the IT guys.  Who was the wise man that said "trust, but verify"...?

John, I wonder if they even teach machine language anymore... I had to learn 8080 and 6800 machine language plus CDC Cyber-series assembler (an abomination known as COMPAS) back in the day...

Ah, sounds like you, like many of us, are from the old school. Guys who can program in machine langauge or assembly langauge are becoming a rarer and rarer breed these days.  There are valid reasons why it's not stressed so much these days. Most compelling the need for code that can be run across vast networks and in a manner that enables interoperability between various platforms. Todays high level langauges and techniques show the greatest promise in reaching those goals without the programmer pulling his hair out and chopping off his ear... Hi Hi.

But I feel there are still valid and equally compelling reasons for learning low level programming techniques, i.e machine langauge or assembly. Most important the programmer  becomes intimatly aware of the platform on which he/she  is writing and a thorough or even basic) understanding of these low level techniques makes the programmer more adept in writing good quality efficient code regardless of the langauge he/she is using.  And even a modest understanding of machine/assembly programming makes the programmer much more adept at debugging and trouble shooting existing code.  A programmer who understands what is in a given register at a given time and how/why is got there has a big jump on someone who doesn't.  A person who can understand how the memory stack works and what should be on the stack at any given moment in a programs execution has a much better chance of fixing broken code than someone who doesn't.

I was in college back in the days of PDP-11's and later VAX clusters yet  I largely taught myself  how  to program assembly and understanding machine code  within that framework. . More  recently I taught myself assembly on the Intel 8086  platform  and my programming and debugging skills improved dramatically. I am currently teaching 8086 asembly to some of our junior programmers at work and I am in the process  of writing an online tutorial about 8086 assembly (soon to be completed). I feel a compulsion to pass on some of this knowledge or else it may become a lost art.  Much like REAL radio has become lost to many of todays "appliance operators".

[Ian VK3KRI]

I was in college back in the days of PDP-11's and later VAX clusters yet  I largely taught myself  how  to program assembly and understanding machine code  within that framework. . More  recently I taught myself assembly on the Intel 8086  platform  and my programming and debugging skills improved dramatically. I am currently teaching 8086 asembly to some of our junior programmers at work and I am in the process  of writing an online tutorial about 8086 assembly (soon to be completed). I feel a compulsion to pass on some of this knowledge or else it may become a lost art.  Much like REAL radio has become lost to many of todays "appliance operators".

I'd have to agree. My pet hate is those that just buy faster hardware rather than optimising the code or thinking about what actually is being done. That and people who think plugging a hard disk into a mother board is 'Building' a computer.
                   
                                                            Ian [ I wire-wrapped by first computer before you were born sonny...] VK3KRI

[W1QWT]

John, I wonder if they even teach machine language anymore... I had to learn 8080 and 6800 machine language plus CDC Cyber-series assembler (an abomination known as COMPAS) back in the day...

Ah yes, In the good old days! I programmed the 8080 and the 6800. The 6802 had a "Halt and Catch Fire State" Wicked funny but had to avoid it. While I have worked in the design of both hardware and software I have spent most of my years doing embedded work.
I did a stint however designing VHF receivers (154 and 302 MHZ) and Part 15 xmtrs.
When I was just a JN I did not totally understand relative branches so I would make a landing zone of NO OPS. You could just land in the no op field and roll along till ya got to some meaningful instructions. Well that was early in my machine language days. CAW MAWN!
Since then I have been doing Visual Basic, Visual C, C, C++, Assembly in many machines, Pascal, Fortran, etc.
BUT that machine language taught me what was really going on inside. I had the benefit of a BSCE which was a cross between a BSEE and a BSCS.
Now I am dealing with implementing FIR filters in software! Good thing I am getting close to retirement

 

[W3SLK]

Machine language was all I ever knew. When I went in Unkle Sam's Canoe Club, the first thing they taught me, (after boot camp), was adding/subtracting base 2, then base 8. Then, in hexadecimal! That stuff became out right nerve racking. Our training computer was DEC's COMTRAN-10, all hex. Before I could move to the next stage of training, I had to compile a program that would check out all the registers function and branch to an error sub-routine when one was detected. I was told that I held the record for performing it in the fewest steps, 48. Later, I worked on a Sperry Univac AN/UYK-20, that was designed in 1972, but since they didn't have the metallurgy to make microprocessors then, they made a processor emulator that was comprised of 4 4-bit ROMS that ran all the micro-instructions. When I got to the fleet, I later worked on the mainframes and such. Originally my fortay was display so everything I did, I would troubleshoot to the component level. Finally when I worked at NASA Langley Research Center, I wound up working on the PDP-11's and MicroVAX's.

[KE1GF]

Tom I would be careful what you buy if you are in the market for a new PC. The 32 bit virtual address space machines are going to be obsolete in a year or so. Microsoft has already released XP x64 and also there is a new system called windows Vista for 64 bit? You're better off going with an x64 machine, they're backwards compatible with the x86 code but will run the new 64 bit stuff too. Blaine and I have already built our AMD64 machines, getting ready for the big changeover. Just wanted to bring it to your attention. 

x64 is an agreement between Intel and AMD it is not like IA64 (Itanium) it's the future of PC's.

[K1JJ]

Thanks for the heads up, Bill.

Well, I'm looking around for a 1.5 - 2.5 ghz  XP machine for about $150-$250. They are out there. Need something cuz Refco, [the big trading firm] got in trouble and I needed to move my account. Now the new firm's trading platform cannot interface to my older 233 mhz machine. So I gotta do something quickly and cheap.  It wasn't enuff of a kick in the ass to upgrade when Gary's video BB didn't work well...

But, this new 64 bit stuff - are these the machines going for $1200-$2500++ now?  I can't imagine the 32 bit stuff being unable to work within a year. Perhaps if I get a shitbox for now, in a year or two the new 64 bit stuff will be much better for an upgrade... ??

T

[Glenn NY4NC]

Dell is advertising a machine for $299. We've been using their machines here at work for the past 5 years 24/7 and they are extremely reliable. I bought a crap box ("E-machines") for home use a while back, had all kinds of problems, ended up returning it and getting a Dell.

The fact that I applied for a job with Dell down in NC has nothing to do with my recommendation! 

[KE1GF]

Tom for a x64 machine you can expect to pay in the ballpark what you paid initially for your machines that you're using now. $2500 -- $3500. The thing is that there isn't much software out there to take advantage of the x64 architecture, so you would be running XP 32 until the new stuff comes out. But you would have a machine that supports it!!! cause the x64 architecture runs older 32bit code!

I myself dual boot my AMD64 machine, I run XP 32 for watching DVD's and flashchat. And boot the machine into GNU/Linux x64 for my scientific work.

My basic point is don't go out and blow a ton of cash on a machine that's not x64, if you want to get an el cheapo just to get you by that's okay...

[Paul, K2ORC]

Electronic watermarks are added to each page some printers and copy machines produce.   
www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/

[Vortex Joe - N3IBX]

I had someone on another forum threaten to contact my employer because he didn't feel I should be posting while at work... I encouraged him to call andI even gave him the phone # of the network administrator.

Johnny,
         You have got to be kidding me. What a smegmated clapped up desextized excuse of a human being. He should get a life!!!

[IWI]

That's one reason that I told corporate America to stick it  where the sun don't shine and started my own business 15 years ago.
Now only my wife can fire me! WOOOOPS! I better be careful!
WA1IWI
Lance

[John Holotko]

Thanks for the heads up, Bill.

Well, I'm looking around for a 1.5 - 2.5 ghz  XP machine for about $150-$250. They are out there. Need something cuz Refco, [the big trading firm] got in trouble and I needed to move my account. Now the new firm's trading platform cannot interface to my older 233 mhz machine. So I gotta do something quickly and cheap.  It wasn't enuff of a kick in the ass to upgrade when Gary's video BB didn't work well...

But, this new 64 bit stuff - are these the machines going for $1200-$2500++ now?  I can't imagine the 32 bit stuff being unable to work within a year. Perhaps if I get a shitbox for now, in a year or two the new 64 bit stuff will be much better for an upgrade... ??

T

64 bit machines are coming down in price and prices will be dropping on them.. 32 bit machines will likely be obsolete in as far as sales go. However, you can get powerful 32 bit machines pretty cheap nowadays and they'll be usable for years to come.

[K1JJ]

64 bit machines are coming down in price and prices will be dropping on them.. 32 bit machines will likely be obsolete in as far as sales go. However, you can get powerful 32 bit machines pretty cheap nowadays and they'll be usable for years to come.

Hi John,

Well, I decided to buy a new computer after seeing the prices for used ones were only about $200 cheaper.  Total was $369.  This 2.40 ghz Dell machine is a basic model. It has XP Home, a CD burner, a 17" monitor and 256 RAM.  Just what I need for the job. Should arrive within a week or so.

Thanks all for the info, guys.
-----------------------------------------

Here's the sales pitch from Dell:

Dimension 3000 - Celeron  Qty     1   
 Intel® Celeron® D Processor 320 (2.40GHz, 533 FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition Unit Price    $419.00 
 Scary Deals - Dell Home Customers: 20 % Off Memory Upsells!
     
 Dell Home Customers: Save $50 instantly off the Dell Dimension 3000!
     - $50.00     Total : $369
 
Catalog Number:   29 
 Module   Description  Show Details
Dell Dimension 3000 Series Intel® Celeron® D Processor 320 (2.40GHz, 533 FSB)
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Memory 256MB DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
Keyboard and Mouse Bundles Dell USB Keyboard and Dell 2-button Scroll Mouse
Monitors 17 inch E773 (16 inch viewable) Conventional CRT
Video Card Integrated Intel® Extreme Graphics 2
Hard Drive 40GB Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive
Floppy Drives and Additional Storage Devices No Floppy Drive Included
Mouse Mouse included with Keyboard purchase
Network Interface Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
CD or DVD Drive Single Drive: 48x CD-RW Drive
Sound Card Integrated Audio
Speakers Dell A215 Speakers
Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No Productivity Suite - Corel WordPerfect® word processor only
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription
Digital Music Musicmatch by Yahoo!™ Music - Entry level music software
Digital Photography Corel Photo Album™ 6 Starter Edition - Organize and Edit your photos
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options I decline to purchase Extended Service, Support and Ltd Warranty
Internet Access Services 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Financial Software (Preinstalled) No QuickBooks package selected- Includes limited use trial
Dell Media Experience Dell Media Experience™
 
TOTAL:$369.00 

[k4kyv]

Well, I decided to buy a new computer after seeing the prices for used ones were only about $200 cheaper.  Total was $369.  This 2.40 ghz Dell machine is a basic model. It has XP Home, a CD burner, a 17" monitor and 256 RAM.  Just what I need for the job. Should arrive within a week or so.


Here's the sales pitch from Dell:

Dimension 3000 - Celeron  Qty     1   
 Intel® Celeron® D Processor 320 (2.40GHz, 533 FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition Unit Price    $419.00 
 Scary Deals - Dell Home Customers: 20 % Off Memory Upsells!
     
 Dell Home Customers: Save $50 instantly off the Dell Dimension 3000!
     - $50.00     Total : $369
 

If it is anything like when bought one for my daughter 1 1/2 years ago, you can custom upgrade any of those features.  Her package did not include M$ Word, so we added that.  The CPU was upgraded from Celeron to Pentium 4, and the 256MB SDRAM was upgraded to 512, all for under $200 extra.

[Glenn NY4NC]

Good deal Tom!. Same system I'll be buying for my wife in a few weeks.

Can't see spending giga-bux for a 64 bit machine right now unless you're writing your own 64 bit code.

Hi John,

Well, I decided to buy a new computer after seeing the prices for used ones were only about $200 cheaper.  Total was $369.  This 2.40 ghz Dell machine is a basic model. It has XP Home, a CD burner, a 17" monitor and 256 RAM.  Just what I need for the job. Should arrive within a week or so.

Thanks all for the info, guys.
-----------------------------------------
 
TOTAL:$369.00 

[John Holotko]

64 bit machines are coming down in price and prices will be dropping on them.. 32 bit machines will likely be obsolete in as far as sales go. However, you can get powerful 32 bit machines pretty cheap nowadays and they'll be usable for years to come.

Hi John,

Well, I decided to buy a new computer after seeing the prices for used ones were only about $200 cheaper.  Total was $369.  This 2.40 ghz Dell machine is a basic model. It has XP Home, a CD burner, a 17" monitor and 256 RAM.  Just what I need for the job. Should arrive within a week or so.

Not  a bad price. Sounds like a very good deal. You'll do fine with that machine, I have a couple Dell machines similar to that at home and many more on the job and they are very reliable.  I think you'll be quite satisfied with it.

[WA1GFZ]

Yup I like Dells too have a dual 2.8 G at work and the guy next to me just ordered one. 2 at home, older units.