ryv's blog

Recently I've had the chance to view VMWare ( www.vmware.com ) and HP's ( www.hp.com.au ) entries in the virtualisation market - through VMWare's ESXi server and HP's Blade servers and SAN systems. Prior to this presentation I'd only looked into virtualisation a little bit, concerns for server redundancy and the like preventing me from spending a lot of time looking into it, and also, the size and scope of the organisation I work for is insufficient for such things - or so I had thought. I have about 10 servers under my direct control and of these, 6 could be virtualised . Thinking about it going forward, in 3 to 5 years when these servers are due for replacement, buying 2 servers and a small SAN will cost less than the 6 new servers and provide the same services. At the end of the day, I think that's what it is all about - same services (or better), with uptime being up in the 5 nines range and cost-effective hardware/software. I've been a fan of VMW

OK, so we're starting to see some peeks at Windows 7. Check this out at ars technica: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-first-look-at-windows-7.html The first screen shots of Windows 7. I'm not particularly interested in it at the moment, I'm more interested in the whole "What do I do with my 8 year old Windows XP now?" There are several options and as a Sys Admin I get more than a few questions about what to do as Windows XP ages gracefully into oblivion. Obviously the wonderful Windows Vista is an option, as is the various distributions provided by the gifted GNU/Linux community. With Windows 7 slated for a late 2009 (probably 2010) release should users be holding out for it as their hardware ages and their PC's become due for renewal? And for businesses that have laboriously got themselves into a nice 3 year PC replacement cycle, what do they go for? Honestly at this point I'd point them at Novell's Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 . There

An odd thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was out and about when I found myself with 10 minutes to spare. Why not pop in the bookshop and see what they had to offer. I found the final two books of the Soldier's Son trilogy - the first book had languished on my bookshelf under a self-imposed ban until I got the final two. With a widening grin I grabbed both of them and started the trilogy that night. It should be said I've been a huge fan of Robin Hobb, I love her other trilogies and have waited for the final books to come out. It was worth it. The writing style is immersive as always, and builds a believable world for the main protagonist, Nevare Burvelle, to run around in. The rich details of his life and the amazing twists and turns it takes are vividly rendered by Hobb's superb narrative. Writing from the first person perspective must be challenging at times, without the ability to jump to another place or time and fill in the back story, but Hobb does it well

Readers will remember that some time ago I purchased a Dell L400 Latitude second hand for about $200 bucks. Great little machine, runs a cut down version of XP happily and is all good. For some time now I've been struggling to find a distribution of Linux that I'm happy with to run on this little machine. Orginally I had SuSE running on it, then I tried Puppy Linux, DSL, Vector Linux 5.9 Lite and the lighter version of Ubuntu 8.04. I just wasn't quite happy with any of them. Following a comment made on my blog yesterday I thought I'd give Fluxbuntu a try and see how it goes. As you can tell from it's name, Fluxbuntu is an Ubuntu derivative, running the Fluxbox window manager. The installation was quite easy (as it usually is with Ubuntu), although it was the more command line version of the install than the flashy graphical installation. This is no problem to me, because unlike many out there, I don't mind a bit of hacking with the command line and I can handle

Well, I've just resigned from my existing place of employment. Ironically I've done myself out of a job. When I started there was a *lot* to do - the network was a very organic thing, without meaningful or comprehensive backups, there were servers that were rebooting without warning or explanation and the desktops, don't let me start on the desktops! So I built a new AD domain, put in new servers, replaced all the desktops, got LCDs on all the desktops and implemented fairly comprehensive backup/recovery solutions across the servers. All in all, fair better than when I arrived. Problem is, apart from some desktop support type stuff and the normal server maintenance I don't have a lot to do. The Debian GNU/ Linux servers I've installed require minimal attention, while the Windows server (and usually they require a lot more time) are running very happily. I have used defence in depth to protect the network, rather than a hard outer shell and a soft middle as so many

What was McCain thinking with Palin? And what the hell are Americans thinking with Palin? I know that here in the US we have idiots like Julia Gillard, but at least she has spent time in the political system at the top end, not just in state politics or even worse, as a mayor of a city and claiming that to be a justified credential for the top job. This Palin person seems to be uneducated and completely unaware of any broader issues. I mean honestly, if you can *see* a place you are not an expert on it. I can *see* the airport - does this mean I'm qualified to be an air traffic controller? But enough of such easy attacking. I read a fair bit of stuff on the net and I see other women reacting to Palin very positively. Have they taken leave of their senses? They do not seem to be questioning her credentials for the position she hopes to assume, i.e. Vice President of the US. Sure Dick Cheney is a meglomaniac and all, but he at least has the ability to make his crazy ideas work. Palin

For anyone in the money markets the last month or so has been a devastating one. I've been reading a bit about the way this whole thing started, with the bad debts in the USA and how this is now flowing on to the rest of the world. The biggest thing that irks me is the lack of responsibility being taken by people. Take the people at the bottom line of things - those people who took out mortgages for homes that they could never effectively repay. Yes, during the first 6 or 12 months when they were paying 1% interest back they could afford it. When the honeymoon was over and their mortgage repayments became what they should be - well then they were screwed and many choose to walk away on their bad debts. Accordingly, the over-priced homes they had bought were then sold for less than the purchase price, so the debt wasn't covered by it and the lenders had to take a write off. Consider the massive inflation in home prices that was caused by all these cheap mortgages and people payi