From trm at eskimo.com  Mon Jul 10 13:02:00 2006
From: trm at eskimo.com (trm at eskimo.com)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:02:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software,
      request tracking - public domain or low cost
Message-ID: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>


  I am seeking suggestions of Low cost or public domain Helpdesk software
which is web based and also sends out email messages was needed.

  Examples would be:
  - troubleticketexpress.com
  - perldesk.com


  Please provide suggestions, and some features you like about the
Helpdesk software. Please do not provide critics of other persons
suggestions.

  Thanks!

   Tim Mitchell
   Unix System Administrator
   trm at eskimo.com



From sigje at sigje.org  Mon Jul 10 13:35:01 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:35:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: ACCU meeting on Wednesday (fwd)
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607101334010.7548@slick.sigje.org>

Peter Theoeny to talk at the ACCU meeting on Wednesday.  Please do RSVP 
with Walter if you plan on going.  If he has a large crowd I may be able 
to help him find an alternate location!

Jennifer

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:14:32 -0700
From: Walter Vannini <walterv at gbbservices.com>
To: SVLUG <svlug at lists.svlug.org>
Subject: [svlug] ACCU meeting on Wednesday

When:      Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Topic:     Wiki Collaboration and
                 Wiki Applications in the Workplace
Speaker:   Peter Thoeny
Time:      7:00pm
Where:     eBay Town Hall (next to PayPal/eBay)
                 2161 North First St
                 San Jose, CA 95131
Map:       <http://tinyurl.com/cdg5u/>
Cost:      Free
More Info: <http://www.accu-usa.org>

A wiki is a website where anyone with a browser can create and
maintain web pages. It enables teams to organize and share
content and knowledge in an organic and free manner, and to
schedule, manage and document their daily activities. A wiki can
also be used as an intranet where employees contribute content
collaboratively, replacing a webmaster maintained intranet.

This talk explains what wikis are and how they are used, covers
social aspects and security concerns, and teaches how to roll
out a wiki. It also explains how teams can use TWiki, an
open-source wiki for the enterprise, to build tailored wiki
applications supporting their workflow and processes.

Attendees will learn what wikis are and how they can be applied
to the enterprise; the wiki culture and ways of collaboration it
offers; how to successfully roll out a wiki; and how wiki
applications can support business processes.

Peter Thoeny is the founder of TWiki <http://twiki.org/>, the
leading Wiki for corporate collaboration and knowledge
management. Managing the open-sourced project for the last seven
years, Peter invented the concept of structured wikis - where
free form wiki content can be structured with tailored wiki
applications.

He is a recognized thought-leader in Wikis and social software,
featured in numerous articles and technology conferences
including LinuxWorld, Business Week, Wall Street Journal and
more. A software developer with over 15 years experience, Peter
specializes in software architecture, user interface design and
web technology.

He graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
Zurich, lived in Japan for 8 years working as an engineering
manager for Denso building CASE tools, and managed the Knowledge
Engineering group at Wind River for several years. He is
currently working on a book on wikis for the workplace.

Peter recently co-founded StructuredWikis LLC
<http://www.structuredwikis.com/>, a company offering services
that allows teams to use wikis to improve productivity and
communication through basic and advanced application of wikis.

Upcoming ACCU talks

August 9, 2006
Elisabeth Hendrickson
"Testing Web 2.0"

September 13, 2006
Matt Doar
"Common Problems with Bug Trackers"

October 11, 2006
Joe Darcy
"What Every Computer Programmer Should Know About Floating-Point
Arithmetic"

The ACCU meets monthly. To suggest topics and speakers please
email Walter Vannini via walterv at gbbservices.com


Walter Vannini
President, Silicon Valley ACCU
<http://www.accu-usa.org/>
<http://www.gbbservices.com/>









_______________________________________________
svlug mailing list
svlug at lists.svlug.org
http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/svlug


!DSPAM:44b28b1c29121038666802!



From iennae at gmail.com  Mon Jul 10 13:38:38 2006
From: iennae at gmail.com (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:38:38 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain or low cost
In-Reply-To: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
Message-ID: <e3bf36f10607101338u349feecbha9825b4bfbaf0efb@mail.gmail.com>

Hey Tim,

I use RT at work.  You can get some custom help from the developers at
a cost, or roll it out on your own.  It requires some fun with
installation, but in general once you have it running it's lovely.  It
has a lot of capabilities, and I'm still swimming around in the
options figuring out what works best for us.  I think having a good
understanding of your process flow, and defining it to the end user as
well as expectations of what they will see are a must before deploying
any solution.

Is it just for you, or for a number of users? (to work on tickets)
What kind of interfaces are you looking for?

RT has scrips which you can automate tasks happening upon events.

I too would love to hear what people have to say about ticketing, and
the processes they have gone to implement a good informative flow.

Jennifer

On 7/10/06, trm at eskimo.com <trm at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
>   I am seeking suggestions of Low cost or public domain Helpdesk software
> which is web based and also sends out email messages was needed.
>
>   Examples would be:
>   - troubleticketexpress.com
>   - perldesk.com
>
>
>   Please provide suggestions, and some features you like about the
> Helpdesk software. Please do not provide critics of other persons
> suggestions.
>
>   Thanks!
>
>    Tim Mitchell
>    Unix System Administrator
>    trm at eskimo.com
>
>


-- 
Jennifer Davis


From ramin-list at badapple.net  Mon Jul 10 13:39:23 2006
From: ramin-list at badapple.net (Ramin K)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:39:23 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain
 or low cost
In-Reply-To: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
Message-ID: <44B2BAFB.8050904@badapple.net>

trm at eskimo.com wrote:
>   I am seeking suggestions of Low cost or public domain Helpdesk software
> which is web based and also sends out email messages was needed.
> 
>   Examples would be:
>   - troubleticketexpress.com
>   - perldesk.com
> 
> 
>   Please provide suggestions, and some features you like about the
> Helpdesk software. Please do not provide critics of other persons
> suggestions.

Request Tracker, aka RT3
http://bestpractical.com/

Pros: Actually works in the manner you might expect out of the box so to 
speak. Configurable with multiple queues, access level, privileges. 
System can accept email tickets, email responses update ticket, sends 
reminders, etc. Apache1/2, mod_perl1/2, Mysql/Postgres/Oracle supported 
as well. Also supports fastcgi so you use other web servers if you're 
inclined. Under active development, 3.6 was releases last month, and has 
been around for ten years. Pay for support available and there is an 
O'Rielly book.

Cons: concurrency sucks, wouldn't use with more than 15-20 users. Needs 
80+ perl modules so plan on cpan-ing your server. Perl dependencies can 
be brittle as I've broken parts of it a time or two when updating 
modules for something else. DBAs have bitched about RT's schema and 
indexes which is probably why concurrency sucks. HTML/CSS has to be 
edited manually. Access control is powerful and makes no sense the first 
five times.

I only have experience with 3.4 (Linux, Apache2, mod_perl2, mysql5) and 
haven't tried the new 3.6 which is supposed to address a number of the 
shortcomings I mentioned. Overall RT works better than most of the 
alternatives IMHO though it is not without its warts.

Ramin


From extasia at extasia.org  Mon Jul 10 13:57:52 2006
From: extasia at extasia.org (David Alban)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:57:52 -0700
Subject: [baylisa] ACCU meeting on Wednesday (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607101334010.7548@slick.sigje.org>
References: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607101334010.7548@slick.sigje.org>
Message-ID: <4c714a9c0607101357g6b350e7by991b758ee1a22036@mail.gmail.com>

FYI, after about fifteen minutes of surfing, beginning at
<http://www.accu-usa.org/>, I finally found a web page indicating for
what ACCU stands, which is:

  Association of C and C++ Users

On 7/10/06, Jennifer Davis <sigje at sigje.org> wrote:
> Peter Theoeny to talk at the ACCU meeting on Wednesday.  Please do RSVP
> with Walter if you plan on going.  If he has a large crowd I may be able
> to help him find an alternate location!

-- 
Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.


From sigje at sigje.org  Mon Jul 10 13:58:07 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:58:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Networking Event - July 13, 2006
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607101351340.7548@slick.sigje.org>


When:      Thursday, July 13, 2006
Time:      7:00pm - 10:00pm
Where:     Yahoo Inc! room C5
            701 First Avenue
            Sunnyvale, CA
Directions: http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/address.cfm
RSVP: http://www.mollyguard.com/event/30432023 or rsvp at baylisa.org
COST: FREE

Are you looking for a job? Interested in finding someone for a job? 
Curious about what other sys admins are currently working on?

Come out to the first BayLISA networking event!  There will be networking, 
and sharing of ideas, and a quiz show for those interested in proving 
their Sys Admin smarts!  Kudos and prizes to be announced.  BayLISA will 
be sponsoring the food and drinks.. you just bring your business cards, 
and if applicable your resume  (Please bring a few copies.)

Don't forget to RSVP!


From iennae at gmail.com  Mon Jul 10 14:05:39 2006
From: iennae at gmail.com (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:05:39 -0700
Subject: upcoming job fair
Message-ID: <e3bf36f10607101405s700c58eev41ddefd197287c39@mail.gmail.com>

Upcoming Job Fair if you are interested:

> WHAT:            Bay Area Technical Job Fair and San Francisco Diversity Job
> Fair
>
> WHERE:         Hyatt Regency San Francisco, 5 Embarcadero Center
>
> WHEN:           Wednesday, July 19, 2006, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
>
>
>
> Looking for a new job?  Stop by the Hyatt Regency San Francisco at 5
> Embarcadero Center on Wednesday, July 19 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Top
> employers will be recruiting for hundreds of positions at both the Bay Area
> Technical Job Fair and the San Francisco Diversity Job Fair.  Bring plenty
> of resumes, dress in business attire and be prepared to interview
> on-the-spot.  For more information, call 1-888-THE-JOBS or visit
> jobjournal.com today.
>
>
>
>


-- 
Jennifer Davis


From marie at mmwi.com  Mon Jul 10 14:37:24 2006
From: marie at mmwi.com (Marie E. Minder)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:37:24 -0700
Subject: Job - Linux Admin in Sunnyvale
Message-ID: <00c901c6a469$08c2e6f0$6b64a8c0@corp.mmwi.com>

Are you seeking a high level position where you are responsible for the
lifeblood of an organization?  If so then we want to talk to you.

We are a mobile technology company based in the south bay area (Sunnyvale)
seeking a Linux Administrator to keep all of our servers up and running.
This is a critical position for us because it directly affects our products
and services to the customer.

Ideally a candidate will have...

- a broad range of technologies, but a focus on Linux
- many years experience as a Linux Administrator
- Bachelor's degree
- excellent communication skills


Marie E. Minder
President
MMW International
Marie at mmwi.com
925-838-9163
925-215-2429 (f)




From hmbjuggler at yahoo.com  Mon Jul 10 20:28:52 2006
From: hmbjuggler at yahoo.com (greg edwards)
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:28:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: meeting of possible interest-datamining the net for threats
In-Reply-To: <e3bf36f10607101405s700c58eev41ddefd197287c39@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20060711032852.26905.qmail@web34715.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

SF Bay ACM Data Mining SIG


Business Environment Monitoring: Exploiting the Net to
Help Management Systematically Identify External
Threats and Opportunities


Presented by Alex Kass, Senior Research Manager,
Accenture Labs

 
Date:                Wednesday, 12 July 2006, 6:30 PM

Location:          SAP LABS, Building D, 3410 Hillview
Avenue, Palo
Alto, CA

Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend, but
membership is only
$10/year.
 

Topic

 
Enterprise business intelligence systems are providing
decision-makers
with increasingly rich dashboards to help them
understand what is going
on inside their organization, but many executives wish
that they had a
more systematic means of using technology to help them
identify, as
early as possible, the external events that represent
potential threats
or opportunities to their companies. The vast streams
of data 
constantly
being broadcast in various forms on the Internet
contain many weak
signals that could provide this type of insight.
However, the potential
of the Internet as a source for outward-looking BI, or
corporate radar,
is still largely untapped, because executives do not
yet have the kinds
of tools they need to systematically exploit it.

 

In this presentation I'll present a prototype we've
developed to fill
this need. The system is called the Business Event
Advisor. It includes
tools to allow business analysts to create models of
the entities,
relationships and event types comprising a particular
organization's
competitive ecosystem, and a run-time processing
engine that uses those
models to drive the automatic detection and
interpretation of events
relevant to that organization's business. By combining
various
text-processing technologies with model-driven
inference, the system
mines the Net to detect business-relevant events and
provide the early
warning that can help act quickly to seize an
opportunity or defend
against an emerging threat.

 

About the Speaker

 

Alex Kass, is a Senior Research Manager at Accenture
Technology Labs in
Palo Alto, where he works to help the company
anticipate technologies
that will be important to the future of Accenture and
its clients, and
to invent prototypes that integrate these emerging
technologies in new
ways. Dr. Kass received his Ph.D. in computer science,
with an emphasis
on artificial intelligence, in 1990. Before joining
Accenture in 2004 
he
held a number of positions in both academia and
industry: Research
Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for
the Learning
Sciences at Northwestern University; Executive Vice
President of
Cognitive Arts Corporation; and Senior Systems
Scientist at Carnegie
Mellon University. At Accenture Technology Labs, his
work has included 
a
project aimed at extending business intelligence
capabilities; a 
project
that explores new applications for PDA's as mobile
sensor platforms; 
and
new approaches to simulation-based training of
business skills.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From guy at extragalactic.net  Tue Jul 11 09:42:14 2006
From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:42:14 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain or low cost
In-Reply-To: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
Message-ID: <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net>


On Jul 10, 2006, at 1:02 PM, trm at eskimo.com wrote:

>
>   I am seeking suggestions of Low cost or public domain Helpdesk  
> software
> which is web based and also sends out email messages was needed.
>
>   Examples would be:
>   - troubleticketexpress.com
>   - perldesk.com

I've used a few:

* RT--not much to add beyond what Jennifer & Ramin have said; I  
really like it, but I think it has outgrown Perl

* Remedy's ARS--this is the engine beneath Remedy's own helpdesk app;  
it's not cheap, but it has several nice features (my favorite was the  
ability to put tickets "on the back burner" for a time & have 'em  
automatically "reactivate" when that time had lapsed--really nice for  
when, say, a customer says they'll get back to you within X days);  
and their actual helpdesk app is very expensive

* Double-choco-latte--dumb name; easy to install (it's PHP); a bit  
more than simple helpdesk, but it works fine for just that; I didn't  
use this much, so don't have a strong opinion

* My previous employer purchased Remedy Magic Service Desk (different  
product entirely than their ARS/HelpDesk), but it never got installed  
before I left (from talking with the guy doing the install, it seemed  
way too integrated with Windows/AD for my comfort)

-Guy





From pcubbage at opencountry.com  Tue Jul 11 10:12:39 2006
From: pcubbage at opencountry.com (Paul Cubbage)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:12:39 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain
 or low cost
In-Reply-To: <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39> <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net>
Message-ID: <44B3DC07.6070202@opencountry.com>

Take a look at sugarcrm.com & .org  It's open and has a company behind it if you 
want to buy training, support or customization.  It's a lot and may be more than 
you want but if you have plans to do more down the road, it could be a good bet. 
  Works with windoze.

I haven't used it so this is just an opinion and your mileage may vary.

Guy B. Purcell wrote:
> 
> On Jul 10, 2006, at 1:02 PM, trm at eskimo.com wrote:
> 
>>
>>   I am seeking suggestions of Low cost or public domain Helpdesk  
>> software
>> which is web based and also sends out email messages was needed.
>>
>>   Examples would be:
>>   - troubleticketexpress.com
>>   - perldesk.com
> 
> 
> I've used a few:
> 
> * RT--not much to add beyond what Jennifer & Ramin have said; I  really 
> like it, but I think it has outgrown Perl
> 
> * Remedy's ARS--this is the engine beneath Remedy's own helpdesk app;  
> it's not cheap, but it has several nice features (my favorite was the  
> ability to put tickets "on the back burner" for a time & have 'em  
> automatically "reactivate" when that time had lapsed--really nice for  
> when, say, a customer says they'll get back to you within X days);  and 
> their actual helpdesk app is very expensive
> 
> * Double-choco-latte--dumb name; easy to install (it's PHP); a bit  more 
> than simple helpdesk, but it works fine for just that; I didn't  use 
> this much, so don't have a strong opinion
> 
> * My previous employer purchased Remedy Magic Service Desk (different  
> product entirely than their ARS/HelpDesk), but it never got installed  
> before I left (from talking with the guy doing the install, it seemed  
> way too integrated with Windows/AD for my comfort)
> 
> -Guy
> 
> 
> 
> 


From jxh at jxh.com  Tue Jul 11 11:35:17 2006
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:35:17 -0500
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain
 or low cost
In-Reply-To: <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39> <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net>
Message-ID: <44B3EF65.4070602@jxh.com>

Guy B. Purcell wrote:
> * Remedy's ARS--this is the engine beneath Remedy's own helpdesk app; 
> it's not cheap, but it has several nice features (my favorite was the 
> ability to put tickets "on the back burner" for a time & have 'em 
> automatically "reactivate" when that time had lapsed--really nice for 
> when, say, a customer says they'll get back to you within X days); and 
> their actual helpdesk app is very expensive

Actually, _I_ added that, and called it "freeze until" -- very useful 
for things like "expect a package on $date" or "call this guy back if he 
doesn't call by $date".  For such tickets there is nothing more to do 
but wait (just not forever), so it might as well vanish from the "to do" 
list for a while.  I miss this feature a lot.

It did use an underlying Remedy ARS feature that could notice the 
passage of time and do things.  ARS was a serious chunk of change, and 
it's still only a substrate: You will still spend several months 
customizing it.  But you end up much further along than if you wrote 
something from scratch for those same months.  I was a fairly happy 
customer.  This was in about 1995-97.

Since then my money doesn't run to ARS and I'm using RT.  Sadly, it 
lacks reporting[1], its "Scrips" engine is not _quite_ easy enough to 
figure out (I tried, and timed out), and the basic priority scheme needs 
far too much work to be realistic.  (If the top-priority thing in your 
queue is not what you end up working on, ask yourself, Why not?)  Not 
only do I not have the money this time, I don't have three months to 
give to the customization of things like that.

[1] RT, like many of these things, suffers from possibly the worst idea 
the 20th century gave us, namely Self-service, or, make the customer do 
all the work.  If it's mathematically possible for the customer to 
extend the product, no matter the effort required, then the engineers 
don't feel the need to build in even sensible starting points. 
Reporting?  Why, it's all sitting there in MySQL!


From rflii at speakeasy.net  Tue Jul 11 14:19:42 2006
From: rflii at speakeasy.net (Ron Leedy)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:19:42 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain or low cost
In-Reply-To: <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net>
Message-ID: <003d01c6a52f$ba7d2f10$cf0ba8c0@rflii.net>

Another inexpensive HelpDesk is from www.innovate.com.   They also have a
defect tracking, and change management software that integrates.  They have
both a subscription and premise pricing structure.

-Ron Leedy

 

-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.10/385 - Release Date: 7/11/2006
 



From ahorn at deorth.org  Tue Jul 11 14:26:55 2006
From: ahorn at deorth.org (Alan Horn)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:26:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public
 domain or low cost
In-Reply-To: <44B3EF65.4070602@jxh.com>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
 <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net> <44B3EF65.4070602@jxh.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607111425350.11092@slick.sigje.org>


> Since then my money doesn't run to ARS and I'm using RT.  Sadly, it lacks 
> reporting[1], its "Scrips" engine is not _quite_ easy enough to figure out (I 
> tried, and timed out), and the basic priority scheme needs far too much work 
> to be realistic.  (If the top-priority thing in your queue is not what you end 
> up working on, ask yourself, Why not?)  Not only do I not have the money this 
> time, I don't have three months to give to the customization of things like 
> that.

Maybe this has been mentioned, but engaging bestpractical to do 
customizations for you is probabaly fairly reasonable in terms of cost.

Cheers,

Al



From ramin-list at badapple.net  Tue Jul 11 14:44:34 2006
From: ramin-list at badapple.net (Ramin K)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:44:34 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain
 or low cost
In-Reply-To: <44B3DC07.6070202@opencountry.com>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39> <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net> <44B3DC07.6070202@opencountry.com>
Message-ID: <44B41BC2.8010901@badapple.net>

Paul Cubbage wrote:
> Take a look at sugarcrm.com & .org  It's open and has a company behind 
> it if you want to buy training, support or customization.  It's a lot 
> and may be more than you want but if you have plans to do more down the 
> road, it could be a good bet.  Works with windoze.
> 
> I haven't used it so this is just an opinion and your mileage may vary.

	The bizdev guys swear by SugarCRM and convinced me to get the Sugar 
Outlook plugin for them so things can move easily from Exchange to Sugar 
and vice versa. I'm not sure how well Sugar would work as a general 
purpose help desk depending on how anyone actually defines what a help 
desk is. It has some ticket and bug tracking features, but nothing on 
the scale of RT or Bugzilla from my quick run through it a few months 
ago. If your requirements are very light on the help desk functions and 
you need more of the portal/contact stuff, Sugar might not be a bad way 
to go.

	Installed on Apache2, Mysql5, and PHP4 on Linux in our case. SugarCRM 
4.2 was not happy with PHP 5.1 which broke it in odd and confounding 
ways, but I expect the next minor version or 4.5 to fix that. Otherwise 
it's been easy to support, backup, and move between machines while we 
did hardware updates.

Ramin, starting to think that he supports entirely too many web apps.


From pcubbage at opencountry.com  Tue Jul 11 15:17:42 2006
From: pcubbage at opencountry.com (Paul Cubbage)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:17:42 -0700
Subject: Reports for Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain or
 low cost
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607111425350.11092@slick.sigje.org>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39> <962CE24E-5638-4840-9DCC-1F836B383D04@extragalactic.net> <44B3EF65.4070602@jxh.com> <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607111425350.11092@slick.sigje.org>
Message-ID: <44B42386.50003@opencountry.com>

iReports, a nice GUI front end to JasperReports makes report writing a lot 
simpler.  It's a lot like an old 4GL report writer (that's a good thing).

Alan Horn wrote:
> 
>> Since then my money doesn't run to ARS and I'm using RT.  Sadly, it 
>> lacks reporting[1], its "Scrips" engine is not _quite_ easy enough to 
>> figure out (I tried, and timed out), and the basic priority scheme 
>> needs far too much work to be realistic.  (If the top-priority thing 
>> in your queue is not what you end up working on, ask yourself, Why 
>> not?)  Not only do I not have the money this time, I don't have three 
>> months to give to the customization of things like that.
> 
> 
> Maybe this has been mentioned, but engaging bestpractical to do 
> customizations for you is probabaly fairly reasonable in terms of cost.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Al
> 
> 


From rob.markovic at gmail.com  Tue Jul 11 15:52:00 2006
From: rob.markovic at gmail.com (Robi)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:52:00 -0700
Subject: 4D devs?
Message-ID: <97a9d8c80607111552x7b62a127i226f41af632e6177@mail.gmail.com>

Does anyone know of a source of 4th develeopers? 4D aka 4th Dimension
is the platform.
It's a rapid app/db IDE environment. Runs on Mac/PC/Linux..

-- Rob


From deirdre at deirdre.net  Tue Jul 11 16:16:53 2006
From: deirdre at deirdre.net (Deirdre Saoirse Moen)
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:16:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 4D devs?
In-Reply-To: <97a9d8c80607111552x7b62a127i226f41af632e6177@mail.gmail.com>
References: <97a9d8c80607111552x7b62a127i226f41af632e6177@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0607111616280.18295@freesia.deirdre.org>

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006, Robi wrote:

> Does anyone know of a source of 4th develeopers? 4D aka 4th Dimension
> is the platform.
> It's a rapid app/db IDE environment. Runs on Mac/PC/Linux..

Only if you time travel 20 years (that's what I was doing 20 years ago).

-- 
_Deirdre  web / blog: http://deirdre.net/
"Memes are a hoax! Pass it on!"


From iennae at gmail.com  Wed Jul 12 11:27:05 2006
From: iennae at gmail.com (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:27:05 -0700
Subject: Fwd: 40% Off Select Apress and friends of ED Titles at B&N--Through August 9, 2006
In-Reply-To: <OWA1WFswl3tTUqp2T0a000002ca@mail.apress.com>
References: <OWA1WFswl3tTUqp2T0a000002ca@mail.apress.com>
Message-ID: <e3bf36f10607121127m5e5c3e5s3aae35a83f6f24@mail.gmail.com>

Discounts on Apress and Friends of ED titles

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Apress Newsletter <newsletters at apress.com>
Date: 12 Jul 2006 11:20:43 -0700
Subject: 40% Off Select Apress and friends of ED Titles at
B&N--Through August 9, 2006
To: iennae at gmail.com


Your time and money are valuable so we'll keep this short: Through
August 9, 2006, you can buy select Apress and friends of ED titles at
40% off the list price at your local Barnes & Noble store. (Additional
Apress and friends of ED titles at 40% off are available online only
from www.bn.com/apress.)

To find the closest Barnes & Noble store, and to read about featured
titles, visit http://www.apress.com/promo/bnj/.

Check out the promotional book display at your local Barnes & Noble
and take a quick picture of yourself there. Then head over to
http://www.apress.com/promo/bn/index.html and upload your image for a
chance to win **an iPod nano.** Shopping has never been so rewarding!

Already a fan of Apress and friends of ED books? Then you can help us
spread the word about the Barnes & Noble 40% off promotion to your
colleagues, peers, and friends. You can download a medallion as well
as link to us here: http://www.apress.com/promo/bnj/.

Thank you in advance!

Apress and friends of ED



-- 
Jennifer Davis


From sigje at sigje.org  Wed Jul 12 12:10:05 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:10:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Quiz Show Details - July 13 - Tomorrow!
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607121209330.20642@slick.sigje.org>

Quiz Show Details

Part of the BayLISA network social is a sysadmin/geek quiz. There's a mix
of questions about sysadmin, geek culture, and one or two real life things
thrown in for good measure.

The quiz will start at 8pm, giving one hour beforehand to socialize and
generally relax and also to form teams and enter. You do NOT
need to participate in the quiz to come to the social evening. We'll try
and keep the event on one side of the room so as not to disturb others in
the party.

TEAMS
Up to 4 people per team

ROUNDS
~10 rounds
10 questions per round
Questions will be read out, any supporting materials played/shown.
Teams/Individuals will respond on paper. After each round, papers will be
collected and scored. (Hint. There is a BayLISA History Round..)

PRE-REGISTER
Team Name
Team Members
rsvp at baylisa.org
(pre registering helps us plan prizes better.)

PRIZES
(1) BayLISA conference ticket
Gift certificates to various geek friendly vendors
Top scoring individual/team will be posted up to the BayLISA website.



From k6dlc at arrl.net  Sun Jul 16 14:17:56 2006
From: k6dlc at arrl.net (Daniel)
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:17:56 -0700
Subject: ibm thinkpad mousetab
Message-ID: <44BAAD04.4000601@arrl.net>

Hello,
 I know many of you have IBM thinkpads that are running Linux. My 
question to those is how do I stop the erratic applications launches 
with the mousetab, touchtap? I have checked on the Internet and I have 
found that this is a known issue , but had not found the corrective 
solution.

 When I connect a USB mouse all is ok. And my system happens is dual 
bootable with XP and there is no problem with the touchmouse.

Thank you for reading this.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------
Daniel

PGP: AD5A 96DC 7556 A020 B8E7 0E4D 5D5E 9BA5 C83E 8C92




From david at catwhisker.org  Sun Jul 16 19:41:02 2006
From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill)
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:41:02 -0700
Subject: "ssh | dd" pipeline breaks for cron-initiated job (Solaris 2.6)
Message-ID: <20060717024102.GX41150@bunrab.catwhisker.org>

[Caveat: long message: about 16 kB -- dhw]

OK; this is a little off-the-wall, and I realize that Solaris 2.6 is not
exactly cutting-edge technology.  Trust me:  the SS5/170 on which it
runs is also not cutting-edge technology.  :-)  And this is at home,
rather than ${paying_job}; I'm sure we're all familiar with adages about
"shoemaker's children" and all that, so there's little to be gained by
rehashing that sort of thing (IMO).

In the process of chasing this problem down, I have discovered a thing
or two I found not-so-intuitive, and sharing them here is about the
only way I have to thank those with the patience to wade through
the below prose.  :-}

Summary:  local "dd" process in an "ssh ${host} ... | dd ... >/dev/rmt/0n"
pipeline:

* (rarely, but) sometimes works
* sometimes hangs (and may thus be killed)
* often locks up, using >99% CPU so effectively that it is unkillable
  and "reboot" doesn't; I need to resort to forcibly power-cycling the
  machine to stop it and allow normal work to take place

on my SPARCstation 5/170 running Solaris 2.6 -- but *only* when the
process is invoked via "cron."

Whenever I invoke it "by hand," it works flawlessly.

I'd appreciate some help fixing the problem.


Yes, I am aware that "cron" runs things with a rather restricted (and
often different) environment; also, different shells tend to behave
differently.  More on this below.

Further, this was never a problem until I migrated the OpenSSH running
on the SS5 from 2.5.1p2 to 4.3p2.  Yes, I've checked for reported
problems with pipelines hanging under OpneSSH-4.3p2, and I've tried
applying a couple of the patches I found for the PR that I found;
neither appears to have had the slightest effect on the observed
symptoms.


Historical background: The subject process is a Perl script (that
originally dates from late 1994) that runs in the wee small hours of the
morning to create and store backup images and log what happens.  Its
design (such as it is) involves 3 categories of machine:

* 1 "controller" -- this is the machine where the Perl script runs,
  kicked off by cron, and where logs are written.

* 1 "tape host" -- this is the machine where the tape drive is.  In the
  current scenario, the above are the same machine -- the SS5 running
  Solaris 2.6.

* >0 "client hosts" -- the machines that house the file systems to be
  backed up.  In the current scenario, the SS5 is one of these, as are a
  couple of x86-arch boxen running FreeBSD (4.11 & 6.1).

The original version of the script used "rsh" for accessing the "remote"
hosts; I didn't migrate to using OpenSSH until early 2002.  At that
time, the version of OpenSSH I installed on the SS5 was 2.5.1p2.  I
didn't know a huge amount about SSH at the time, and allowed nearly
everything to use default values -- so protocol 1 was the protocol used.
I did set things up to use PK ("public key") authentication (without
a passphrase), since the exercise was intended for unattended
operation.

It has always used a non-root user for its execution; the name of that
user in this environment is "backup."

The normal mode of operation is to create level 0 "{,ufs}dump" images
earlyt Monday morning; the other days of the week, it creates level
5 "{,ufs}dump" images (based on the level 0 images).

In operation, the script takes a list of hosts; for each host, in the
specified order, it:

* Queries the host (via "uname -s -r") as to what it's running.

* Based on the results of the above, determines:
  * A program to use to display the current capacity of each mounted
    file system, selecting only those file systems that are backed
    by disk partitions (vs. swap space, for example).
  * A program to use to create a backup image at the desired level,
    as well as any flags to use when invoking it.  (FreeBSD 5.x and
    above, for UFS2 file systems, support "snapshots," and the -L
    flag for dump in such systems causes a snapshot to be created and
    the dump to be run from the snapshot.  This is useful for file
    systems that are currently mounted as writable.)
  * For full backups, determines some commands to run (e.g. "sysinfo
    -level all") to run to document the hardware configuration, to
    the extent that that is feasible.

  Note that the script is generally written to use complete pathnames for
  the above commands, as well as most others (possibly all; I haven't
  checked thoroughly recently).

* Queries the host to find the currently-mounted, disk-partition-backed
  file systems.

* For each such file system found:
  * Create a backup image (using SSH to access the host unless the
    current host happens to be the "controller" host), directing the
    resulting stream of bytes to standard output (thus, incidentally,
    avoiding a lot of problems with {,ufs}dump guessing the capacity of
    the tape).
  * pipe the standard output of the above to a "dd" process on the tape
    host, the output of the dd process being directed to the (no rewind
    on close) tape device), specifying a blocksize of 32 kB.  (More on
    this below).

There are the usual reality checks on the results, with provisions for
re-doing things, possibly after switching tapes.

One of the "client hosts" was the box to which SSH connection requests
from the Internet were being forwarded; since (at the time) I was still
allowing password authentication, I restricted the allowed sources of
SSH connection requests to "believed to be friendly" IP ranges on the
packet filter.

A few months ago, my wife drove up into Oregon & Idaho; I used this as a
catalyst to suggest to her that she might be able to check her email
from where she was if she were to migrate from using password
authentication to using PK authentication.  (Each of us reads mail by
logging in to one of the boxen either directly or via SSH.)  After
some discussion, she agreed to do that.

Once that appeared to work, I set about:

* disallowiong password authentication (finally!), permitting only PK
  authentication;

* removing the packet filter restriction on SSH requests;

* upgrading the OpenSSH-2.5.1p2 on the SS5 to 4.3p2;

* ensuring that the OpenSSH configuration on each machine used SSH
  protocol 2 (as a server, and preferred protocol 2 as a client).

My (interactive) tests all appeared to work as expected; I was
reasonably pleased with the outcome at this point.

The following morning, I found that the backup of the first file system
on the first-specified remote host had failed with a

	write: Invalid argument

and

	select: Bad file number

Huh??!?  This script, has -- modulo a few minor tweaks here & there --
been running Just Fine for over a flaming DECADE!  What could cause such
breakage?

I spent a couple of weeks "banging my head against" that wall, trying
all kinds of evasive maneuvers -- to no avail (of course).

I couldn't even determine with any semblence of assurance which program
was issuing those messages, or on which machine.

I finally(!) re-re-reviewed the Solaris 2.6 man page for "dd," and found
something rather counter-intuitive:

     When dd reads  from  a  pipe,  using  the  ibs=X  and  obs=Y
     operands,  the  output  will  always be blocked in chunks of
     size Y.  When bs=Z is used, the output blocks will be  what-
     ever was available to be read from the pipe at the time.

Now, the reason I noticed this is that up to the change I made after
reading that passage, the "dd" invocation had used "bs=32k" with the
intent to specify that both input and output block sizes were to be 32
kB.

And I now realized that the whines about "write: Invalid argument" were
from dd on the SS5, complaining (bitterly) when told to write to the
tape device with an oddball number of bytes.

Accordingly, I changed the "dd" invocation to specify "ibs=32k obs=32k,"
and ensured that "{,ufs}dump invocations wrote 32 kB "records."

As a result, those errors stopped occurring.


The problems that then surfaced, however, gave me reason to wax
nostalgic for the above-described problem.  Here's a cut/paste of an RCS
log entry for the next salient change I made to the script; I think it
expresses things fairly well:

----------------------------
revision 1.29
date: 2006/06/02 11:40:37;  author: david;  state: Exp;  lines: +1 -1
Change the PATH to be exactly the same directories, in exactly the same
order, as we get via "sudo - backup; exec tcsh; echo $path" -- because
once I do that, runing the script from the command line always works,
while the script (as run from cron) always fails on the first or second
"remote" file system.  Usually, the mode of failure involves a "dd"
process on the tape host consuming CPU like there's no tomorrow, and
being unkillable -- to the point that while I can issue commands (VERY
slowly), a "reboot" has no effect after waiting 15 minutes.

I have been resorting to physically powering off the machine, then
relying on the fsck to clean things up -- and there's no polite way
to express just how undesirable that is.

I think I'm getting desperate.
----------------------------

That didn't help.  Neither did tweaking the input block size for dd.

Nor did "conv=sync."

I recently augmented the "debugging" flag's output to include a dump
of the %ENV hash; here's what it reports when the script is invoked
via cron:

Environment:
HOME=/usr/local/etc/backup
LOGNAME=backup
PATH= /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ucb:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr
/local/etc/backup
SHELL=/usr/bin/sh
TZ=US/Pacific

Here's what it reports when I invoke the script interactively from the
Bourne shell (which is the login shell for the user in question), via
"sudo su - backup":

Environment:
HOME=/usr/local/etc/backup
LOGNAME=backup
PATH= /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ucb:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr
/local/etc/backup
SHELL=/bin/sh
TERM=xterm
USER=backup

Finally, here's what it reports when I invoke the script interactively
from tcsh, which is the way I normally invoke it for a restart (via
"sudo su - backup" followed by "exec tcsh"):

Environment:
GROUP=nogroup
HOME=/usr/local/etc/backup
HOST=pogo
HOSTTYPE=sun4
LOGNAME=backup
MACHTYPE=sparc
OSTYPE=solaris
PATH= /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ucb:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr
/local/etc/backup
PWD=/usr/local/etc/backup
REMOTEHOST=bunrab.catwhisker.org
SHELL=/bin/sh
SHLVL=1
TERM=screen
USER=backup
VENDOR=sun


At this stage, I have been unable to re-create the failure symptoms if I
invoke the script interactively.  I always get a failure -- though not
always on the first remote file system; sometimes it's the 2nd -- when
the script is invoked via cron.  There does not appear to be an issue of
interactive use allowing reporting & recovery from an error condition;
it Just Works.

Here's a sample script output from a failing attempt:


===========================================================

 #####   #    #  #    #  #####     ##    #####
 #    #  #    #  ##   #  #    #   #  #   #    #
 #####   #    #  # #  #  #    #  #    #  #####
 #    #  #    #  #  # #  #####   ######  #    #
 #    #  #    #  #   ##  #   #   #    #  #    #
 #####    ####   #    #  #    #  #    #  #####

bunrab runs "FreeBSD 4.11-STABLE"
Using "/bin/df -kt ufs" for filesystem query on bunrab
Using "/sbin/dump -" to perform the dump(s) for bunrab
Backups for bunrab on Sun Jul 16 03:08:21 PDT 2006

Filesystem  1K-blocks    Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/ad0s2a    161262   43006   105356    29%    /
/dev/ad0s2e   1903014  747254  1003520    43%    /usr
/dev/ad0s3e   2064302  292154  1607004    15%    /var
/dev/ad0s3f  25286020 2633974 20629166    11%    /common

Dump level for bunrab: 5

/dev/ad0s2a    161262   43006   105356    29%    / ...
 dev=/dev/ad0s2a; kb=161262; used=43006; avail=105356; cap=29%; mount=/; fudged=
51607.2

Starting dump of /dev/ad0s2a at Sun Jul 16 03:08:33 PDT 2006
Vendor 'ARCHIVE ' Product '4586XX 28887-XX' tape drive:
   sense key(0x0)= No Additional Sense   residual= 0   retries= 0
   file no= 95   block no= 0

Dumping /dev/ad0s2a on tape 1, file 95 (bunrab:/)
Trying to issue "ssh bunrab /bin/df -kt ufs /"
Filesystem  1K-blocks  Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/ad0s2a    161262 43006 105356    29%    /
Issuing command "ssh bunrab /sbin/dump -5uf - -b32 /dev/ad0s2a | /bin/dd of=/dev
/rmt/0n conv=sync ibs=32k obs=32k"
  DUMP: Date of this level 5 dump: Sun Jul 16 03:08:46 2006
  DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: Mon Jul 10 04:31:12 2006
  DUMP: Dumping /dev/ad0s2a (/) to standard output
  DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
  DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
  DUMP: estimated 162 tape blocks.
  DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
  DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
  DUMP: DUMP: 190 tape blocks
  DUMP: finished in less than a second
  DUMP: level 5 dump on Sun Jul 16 03:08:46 2006
  DUMP: DUMP IS DONE
0+18 records in
18+0 records out

[And at this point, the "dd" process on the control/tape host hung, but
was killable.]

I then interactively re-started the backup:

Backup script restarted as
        /usr/local/etc/backup/script -h /usr/local/etc/backup/hostslist -vxjl /v
ar/log/dumplog.incremental -r bunrab:/

on Sun Jul 16 04:27:54 PDT 2006
Capacity=7500000; density=54000; length=36000; add_fudge=0; mult_fudge=1.2
Current tape position is now 96
Saved file number is 95; current tape position is 96
Issuing /bin/mt -f /dev/rmt/0n bsf 2
Current tape position is now 95
^L===========================================================

 #####   #    #  #    #  #####     ##    #####
 #    #  #    #  ##   #  #    #   #  #   #    #
 #####   #    #  # #  #  #    #  #    #  #####
 #    #  #    #  #  # #  #####   ######  #    #
 #    #  #    #  #   ##  #   #   #    #  #    #
 #####    ####   #    #  #    #  #    #  #####

bunrab runs "FreeBSD 4.11-STABLE"
Using "/bin/df -kt ufs" for filesystem query on bunrab
Using "/sbin/dump -" to perform the dump(s) for bunrab
Dump level for bunrab: 5

/dev/ad0s2a    161262   43006   105356    29%    / ...
 dev=/dev/ad0s2a; kb=161262; used=43006; avail=105356; cap=29%; mount=/; fudged=
51607.2

Starting dump of /dev/ad0s2a at Sun Jul 16 04:28:27 PDT 2006
Vendor 'ARCHIVE ' Product '4586XX 28887-XX' tape drive:
   sense key(0x0)= No Additional Sense   residual= 0   retries= 0
   file no= 95   block no= 0

Dumping /dev/ad0s2a on tape 1, file 95 (bunrab:/)
Trying to issue "ssh bunrab /bin/df -kt ufs /"
Filesystem  1K-blocks  Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/ad0s2a    161262 43006 105356    29%    /
Issuing command "ssh bunrab /sbin/dump -5uf - -b32 /dev/ad0s2a | /bin/dd of=/dev
/rmt/0n conv=sync ibs=32k obs=32k"
  DUMP: Date of this level 5 dump: Sun Jul 16 04:28:37 2006
  DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: Mon Jul 10 04:31:12 2006
  DUMP: Dumping /dev/ad0s2a (/) to standard output
  DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
  DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
  DUMP: estimated 162 tape blocks.
  DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
  DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
  DUMP: DUMP: 190 tape blocks
  DUMP: finished in 1 seconds, throughput 190 KBytes/sec
  DUMP: level 5 dump on Sun Jul 16 04:28:37 2006
  DUMP: DUMP IS DONE
0+17 records in
17+0 records out
Finished dump of bunrab:/dev/ad0s2a at Sun Jul 16 04:28:41 PDT 2006 (bunrab:/) [
tape 1, file 95]
Current tape position is now 96
Vendor 'ARCHIVE ' Product '4586XX 28887-XX' tape drive:
   sense key(0x0)= No Additional Sense   residual= 0   retries= 0
   file no= 96   block no= 0
...

[and so the re-started backup completed normally....]

Insights for diagnosing -- or even better, resolving -- this problem
would be most welcome.  Requests for additional information should
probably be directed to me, rather than the list; I've set Reply-To
accordingly, and promise to follow up with anything useful or
interesting that's relevant.

Thanks!

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
Doing business with spammers only encourages them.  Please boycott spammers.

See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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From ahorn at deorth.org  Wed Jul 19 16:11:28 2006
From: ahorn at deorth.org (Alan Horn)
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:11:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: BayLISA General Meeting - Thurs 20th July at Yahoo.
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607191602580.11092@slick.sigje.org>



PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE LOCATION (NOT APPLE)

If you know folks who attend who aren't on this list and don't look at the 
BayLISA website, please let them know.

Statistically, despite our best efforts, a change of venue results in 
some folks always going to the wrong place :/ oh well.


The July General BayLISA meeting will be taking place at the Yahoo Campus.
Address: 701 First Avenue Sunnyvale, CA

----

Shell Best Practices

Jim Dennis will be packing in his 3 day class into 3 hours of indepth 
shell programming. This is NOT an intro to shell.

----

How to get to Yahoo :

Directions are available online at 
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/address.cfm

Instead of turning right into the Yahoo parking lot as stated last in the 
directions, you should trn *LEFT* and park in the Bldg E. parking lot. 
This presentation will be happened in Classroom 9 of Bldg. E. Security 
will direct you to the right location.

Thanks,

Alan



From asheesh at asheesh.org  Thu Jul 20 20:20:13 2006
From: asheesh at asheesh.org (Asheesh Laroia)
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:20:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: In Yahoo! lobby
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0607202318380.29620@supercore.laroia.net>

I'm in the Yahoo! lobby, but I don't know where the meeting is.  I know 
I'm late; sorry about that.  How would I find you guys?

Thanks! :-)

-- Asheesh.

-- 
Yow!  Did something bad happen or am I in a drive-in movie??


From bill at wards.net  Tue Jul 25 15:35:29 2006
From: bill at wards.net (Bill Ward)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:35:29 -0700
Subject: Peninsula Linux Users' Group this week - MythTV (Build your own TiVO-like box with Open Source tools)
Message-ID: <3d2fe1780607251535scea76f2te25b4d42d4076fa2@mail.gmail.com>

PenLUG (Peninsula Linux Users' Group) is having a meeting the day
after tomorrow!  You are invited.  RSVP is not required, but so we can
get an idea of how many people to expect please send mail to
rsvp at penlug.org to let us know if you are planning to attend.  For
full details about the group, as well as directions to the meeting,
visit www.penlug.org.

Free pizza, hors d'ouvres and soft drinks, courtesy of Open Country,
will be provided.  Free review copies of books from O'Reilly,
Prentice-Hall, and other publishers, will be given out as door prizes.
 Be on time for the eary bird drawing.

Date: Thursday, July 27th, 2006
Time: meeting 7:00 - 9:00 PM, social/networking until 10 PM
Location: Twin Pines Park, 1225 Ralston Ave, Belmont, CA 94002
Speaker: Scott Boyd
Topic: MythTV

MythTV is a GPL'd application that allows you to create a super
digital video recorder (DVR) on top of Linux that requires no monthly
subscription fees. For a reasonably complete description see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythTV

The MythTV project page is located at: http://www.mythtv.org/

A 2 tuner standard definition analog system will be demonstrated.
Topics include:

    * How it works
    * Basic use demonstration
    * How and where to get free TV show listings
    * Video resolution, bit rates, file sizes and video quality
    * Burning DVDs of your recordings
    * Transcoding video files
    * Storing, indexing and playing your Music CD collection in the system
    * Controlling the system via the web
    * Q and A.

A shopping list of components that are known to work will be provided.

Scott Boyd is an freelance consultant and an owner of A-Street
Internet a 10 year old store front Internet Service Provider located
in San Carlos, California. Scott has consulted with many valley
companies such as Sun, Oracle, Cisco, HP, and others including the
infamous Kibu. Scott has worked with Unix since Unisoft Version 7 and
Linux since November 1991.


From dannyman at toldme.com  Wed Jul 26 16:58:42 2006
From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:58:42 -0700
Subject: Spot Cooling
Message-ID: <2a5241e00607261658u45dfa134wb8d7b0b56f6fc2b@mail.gmail.com>

Hello,

Let's say you just started at a small company with a smallish server closet
that had no climate control and was running really hot.  (We'll probably max
out towards 12 servers.)

Let's say you wanted to get a little portable A/C unit in there to help
alleviate this problem.

Let's say you weren't sure how much power you could run in, and ventilation
might be difficult ...

And let's say you knew absolutely nothing about A/C technology.

What sort of things would I be looking for in a unit, and what do I need to
watch out for?

It sounds like I may need to drain water, and/or ventilate the unit, and
I'll have to be areful where I plug it in.

Does anyone have a paticular favorite unit?

Thanks,
-danny

-- 
http://dannyman.toldme.com
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From rsr at inorganic.org  Wed Jul 26 17:16:48 2006
From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 17:16:48 -0700
Subject: Spot Cooling
In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00607261658u45dfa134wb8d7b0b56f6fc2b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <2a5241e00607261658u45dfa134wb8d7b0b56f6fc2b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20060727001648.GA28846@puppy.inorganic.org>

On Wed, Jul 26, 2006 at 04:58:42PM -0700, Danny Howard wrote:
> Let's say you weren't sure how much power you could run in, and ventilation
> might be difficult ...
> 
> And let's say you knew absolutely nothing about A/C technology.
> 
> What sort of things would I be looking for in a unit, and what do I need to
> watch out for?
> 
> It sounds like I may need to drain water, and/or ventilate the unit, and
> I'll have to be areful where I plug it in.
> 
> Does anyone have a paticular favorite unit?

$500 Costco special.  Sorry, did I say $500? I meant $400.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11126033&whse=&topnav=&browse=&s=1

No drain issues.


From michael at halligan.org  Wed Jul 26 20:56:55 2006
From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:56:55 -0700
Subject: Spot Cooling
In-Reply-To: <20060727001648.GA28846@puppy.inorganic.org>
References: <2a5241e00607261658u45dfa134wb8d7b0b56f6fc2b@mail.gmail.com> <20060727001648.GA28846@puppy.inorganic.org>
Message-ID: <44C83987.8060002@halligan.org>

Roy S. Rapoport wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 26, 2006 at 04:58:42PM -0700, Danny Howard wrote:
>   
>> Let's say you weren't sure how much power you could run in, and ventilation
>> might be difficult ...
>>
>> And let's say you knew absolutely nothing about A/C technology.
>>
>> What sort of things would I be looking for in a unit, and what do I need to
>> watch out for?
>>
>> It sounds like I may need to drain water, and/or ventilate the unit, and
>> I'll have to be areful where I plug it in.
>>
>> Does anyone have a paticular favorite unit?
>>     
>
> $500 Costco special.  Sorry, did I say $500? I meant $400.
>
> http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11126033&whse=&topnav=&browse=&s=1
>
> No drain issues.
>   

And of course, you're going to buy two of them, aren't you? You're also 
going to hook up your servers to a UPS, when the rolling blackouts hit
this summer.. And you're also going to configure your servers to 
shutdown immediately if power fails, because the UPS won't be able to 
run the inductive
load of the AC, and all of a sudden 12 servers in a tiny room turns into 
a hardware melting oven.

Or perhaps it just might make more sense to put them into a colo facility?


From eric at explosive.net  Wed Jul 26 23:40:55 2006
From: eric at explosive.net (Eric Sorenson)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:40:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Spot Cooling
In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00607261658u45dfa134wb8d7b0b56f6fc2b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <2a5241e00607261658u45dfa134wb8d7b0b56f6fc2b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0607262303160.20394@hexogen.explosive.net>

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006, Danny Howard wrote:

> Let's say you just started at a small company with a smallish server closet
> that had no climate control and was running really hot.  (We'll probably max
> out towards 12 servers.)
> 
> Let's say you wanted to get a little portable A/C unit in there to help
> alleviate this problem.
> 
> Let's say you weren't sure how much power you could run in, and ventilation
> might be difficult ...
> 
> And let's say you knew absolutely nothing about A/C technology.
> 
> What sort of things would I be looking for in a unit, and what do I need to
> watch out for?
> 
> It sounds like I may need to drain water, and/or ventilate the unit, and
> I'll have to be areful where I plug it in.
> 
> Does anyone have a paticular favorite unit?

Hi Danny.

We occasionally have to augment our flaky air conditioner with these 
robby-the-robot units from MovinCool, which we rent by the week in 
times of need : 
http://www.movincool.com/product_cp26.shtml 

All we have to do to set them up is run a duct for the hot air rejection 
up above the room's drop ceiling.  Yes, this just dislocates the problem 
but it is somewhat better than having the netapps crash due to overheating.

If I were looking for something slightly more permanent but still on 
the cheap side, I would head towards what are called "package" units, 
the most common of which is the canonical hang-it-out-the-window box. 
If you don't have a window handy, a ceiling mount package unit like 
this guy would be a nice fit:
http://www.movincool.com/product_cm12.shtml

The next step up is a split system, where the 'split' is between the 
evaporator (room return->fan->cold refrigerant->output ducts) and 
condenser (hot refrigerant->fan->heat rejection exhaust) coils. 
The brand name with cachet here is Liebert but I have heard good 
things about the APC infrastruXure systems. 

Based on your description, this kind of system is probably more than 
you're after, but I mention it because there is something incomparably 
sweet about the sharp tang of really god-damn powerful air 
conditioning keeping your machines nice and comfortable, and that's 
something you're only going to get with an appropriately sized and 
datacenter-specific A/C system. 

In any case - for getting up to speed on datacenter power and cooling 
I recommend checking out APC's white paper collection. There's some 
very useful information in there (check out the BTU->Tons->Watts table 
at the end of WP-11) and you're exactly the audience for which they're 
intended. 

Hope this helps.

-- 
 - Eric Sorenson - N37 17.255 W121 55.738 - http://eric.explosive.net -
 - Personal colo with a professional touch - http://www.explosive.net -


From ahorn at deorth.org  Thu Jul 27 02:04:47 2006
From: ahorn at deorth.org (Alan Horn)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 02:04:47 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Spot Cooling
In-Reply-To: <44C83987.8060002@halligan.org>
References: <2a5241e00607261658u45dfa134wb8d7b0b56f6fc2b@mail.gmail.com>
 <20060727001648.GA28846@puppy.inorganic.org> <44C83987.8060002@halligan.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0607270203180.6880@slick.sigje.org>


> Or perhaps it just might make more sense to put them into a colo facility?

I can personally attest that while putting stuff into a colo is 
undoubtedly the smarter choice once it makes sense to your pocketbook, 
I've seen enough tier-1 data center cooling and power failures recently to 
doubt whether the risk is lower in this current heatwave.

Cheers,

Al



From guy at extragalactic.net  Fri Jul 28 09:00:27 2006
From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:00:27 -0700
Subject: Happy Sysadmin Appreciation Day!
Message-ID: <6BBBA2DD-7249-4DE5-971F-FD2C13CF9C7A@extragalactic.net>

http://www.sysadminday.com/



-Guy




From guy at extragalactic.net  Mon Jul 31 11:06:29 2006
From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:06:29 -0700
Subject: History of UNIX
Message-ID: <2453B3E4-C0EB-4BD2-8847-3276EA637B96@extragalactic.net>

I just came across this page & thought others also might find it  
pretty neat:  <http://www.levenez.com/unix/>.

-Guy