Just another entry for the todo list

Posted by coldtobi | 13 Dec, 2007, 17:27

Stumbled upon another interseting link, so there is another "Draft-Post" in the queue. Doing that, I just looked at the "(Manage) Posts" tab on my lifetype installation.  *Bff*. Currently, the posts marked "draft" are realy piling up, and on the other side the posts-per-week-counter is going down.

Mmmh, at the moment, there is just too less time for all the stuff: The day job, my master thesis, my hobbies, the holidays are not far away (and still presensts to get) etc, etc...

But there is some really interesting stuff. I really have to find an quiet hour to dig into it.

This is usually the way I write my articles. I find something that is (at least) interesting to me. And if I am on the way digging into it, I usually think: That would be some material I'd like to blog about. Of course, with the hope, that some wanderes will land on my blog and find it also interesting.

So maybe, I gonna make a list of the -- say -- top five topics I'd like to post about, and let you decide, which one I should cope?

I'll think about that. 



<—&mdash Showing ERROR? Click here!


Blog and Website | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

What NAS?

Posted by coldtobi | 10 Dec, 2007, 10:43

I am still looking after an not-too-expensive but "good" NAS for my home network. There are quite a lot of differnet models out there, that will meet my expectations. Unfortuantly, I could not find a comperasion that shows all the features I want.

In this article, I try to assemble such a comperasion. But be warned: Its matched to the needs and features I want, sorted to the importance:

  1. Supports at least Samba. FTP, rsync and other non-proprietary protocols a plus
  2. MUST NOT use NDAS
  3. Unit must use a "common" file system (I case of hardware-failure, I want my data back)
  4. Enclosure must have place for all hardrives
  5. RAID support. That is you need at least two physical hardrives.
  6. Power efficient (otherwise I could recycle an old computer)
  7. Silent
  8. Should be able to run custom software. So this usually narrows down to a linux driven box with any access to it (to enable ssh for example)
  9. Max. 350 € for 1 Terra Byte of gross storage.
  10. Not-too short on RAM

Models over 350 are not reviewed at all. This is simply over my budget I planing to spend. (Of course, if the manufacturer would send me a unit for review... ;-) )

I took a closer look at these candidates: Maxtor Shared Storage II,  Western Digital My Book World Edition II, and finally the Thecus N2100. 

[Updated Dec 10 2007] 

 (More)



<—&mdash Showing ERROR? Click here!


Linux / Debian, Electronics and Atmel AVR | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Apples and Oranges, Firefox and Internet-Explorer

Posted by coldtobi | 6 Dec, 2007, 00:01

There is a saying: Never thrust statistics, that you didn't manipulate yourself. Basically, if read some report comparing something, you better make sure to analyize the funding of these reports.

Especially if the results are clearly favouring a specific product, and you find out, that the manufactor of this product sponsored the research report, than a red flag should rise. Well, this is common sense, and there is another thing people say in such situation: Whose bread I eat, whose song I sing.

This behavoiur is seen in every industrial sector. But there is definitly a master out there, especially in the IT sector, and very especially it comes to Open Source. Other tell, that probably, they patented this scheme. If you search for MS vs Linux or MS vs FLOSS in generall, you will find many reports telling that the commerical product is much better, cheaper, safer, more reliable, and probably also makes better coffee.

But this time, IMHO, they gone further if not too far: This time, they did not really try to outsource the opinion making, this time the report in question actually made by Jeff Jones, Security Strategy Director, Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group.

Okay, it is actually not "this time", as Jeff already showed his unbiased view this summer, when he compared Vista with Linux and MacOS. This articles are interesting, as they give a glimpse on the sophisticated science of adding and omitting information to biasing the outcome. But please read one example-reaction on this by yourself, as I wanted to focus on the Firefox-IE-rant.

 (More)



<—&mdash Showing ERROR? Click here!


Blog and Website | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)