Today I gave TeraCopy from Code Sector Inc. a try.
I found this utility while looking for a solution to an issue with reliably copying large files over my local area network from a Vista SP1 PC to a Windows 2008 server. In short Vista would hang when copying files over a few Gigs in size.
TeraCopy did the trick! TeraCopy is a drop in replacement for the copy functionality provided by Vista. Not only does this utility perform well its progress indicators are also superior to those provided in Vista.
If you need to move a lot large files this utility is a 'must consider' product.
2009-05-14
2009-04-20
World Record Cullen Mega Prime
This item is off topic but WAY too cool not to post...
I just received notice from John Michael Blazek of the PrimeGrid project that one of my systems -- running BOINC software and participating in the PrimeGrid project -- has discovered a Cullen Mega Prime Number!
Specifically the number found was: 6328548*2^6328548+1
The number is 1905090 digits long and is recorded on Chris Caldwell's The Largest Known Primes Database website as: 1582173 * 2^632858+1.
As of the date of this posting [2009-Apr-20] this finding is the largest Cullen Prime Number and ranks at number 15 on the Top 20 prime numbers list. The number is 1905090 digits long.
Congratulations to the PrimeGrid team on this success! And, thank you for allowing me to participate in your innovative project.
Preliminary information from the PrimeGrid website is as follows...
World Record Cullen Mega Prime found
2009-04-20 19:00 UTC
A PrimeGrid participant has discovered a World Record Cullen Mega Prime in the Cullen Prime Search. This is a very special and rare find. It is only the 15th Cullen prime known. It is also a top 15 prime and the largest found by LLR. Additionally, it is PrimeGrid's largest prime to date. Stay tuned for more details.
I just received notice from John Michael Blazek of the PrimeGrid project that one of my systems -- running BOINC software and participating in the PrimeGrid project -- has discovered a Cullen Mega Prime Number!
Specifically the number found was: 6328548*2^6328548+1
The number is 1905090 digits long and is recorded on Chris Caldwell's The Largest Known Primes Database website as: 1582173 * 2^632858+1.
As of the date of this posting [2009-Apr-20] this finding is the largest Cullen Prime Number and ranks at number 15 on the Top 20 prime numbers list. The number is 1905090 digits long.
Congratulations to the PrimeGrid team on this success! And, thank you for allowing me to participate in your innovative project.
Preliminary information from the PrimeGrid website is as follows...
World Record Cullen Mega Prime found
2009-04-20 19:00 UTC
A PrimeGrid participant has discovered a World Record Cullen Mega Prime in the Cullen Prime Search. This is a very special and rare find. It is only the 15th Cullen prime known. It is also a top 15 prime and the largest found by LLR. Additionally, it is PrimeGrid's largest prime to date. Stay tuned for more details.
2008-03-17
The 7 Year (and counting) Bug
Mozilla is the organization that is responsible for the Firefox browser. It is also responsible for a product called Thunderbird, which is a very good email client which support both POP and IMAP.
One draw back of Thunderbird is that it does not support the opening of TNEF formatted mail. TNEF is the format generated by MS-Outlook when the user composes a message in Rich Text Format (RTF) -- which is a common occurrence.
It seems that the Mozilla Thunderbird developers have know about this deficiency for quite a long time but have decided ignore the issue because TNEF, despite being a defacto standard due to the large number of outlook users, is a proprietary format.
This is clearly a situation where the Mozilla organization has chosen to curse the darkness rather than light a candle.
Fortunately, Aron Rubin has developed an add-on that will address this issue. It works well and it appears that Aron will continue to maintain it. So if you use Thunderbird and are tired of receiving windmail.dat files please give his add-on a try.
Hopefully, the capabilities of Aron's plugin will become part of the core Thunderbird product, soon. But, since its been almost 7 years since this bug was reported, completely hassle free interchange of messages between Thunderbird and Outlook users may still be a way off.
One draw back of Thunderbird is that it does not support the opening of TNEF formatted mail. TNEF is the format generated by MS-Outlook when the user composes a message in Rich Text Format (RTF) -- which is a common occurrence.
It seems that the Mozilla Thunderbird developers have know about this deficiency for quite a long time but have decided ignore the issue because TNEF, despite being a defacto standard due to the large number of outlook users, is a proprietary format.
This is clearly a situation where the Mozilla organization has chosen to curse the darkness rather than light a candle.
Fortunately, Aron Rubin has developed an add-on that will address this issue. It works well and it appears that Aron will continue to maintain it. So if you use Thunderbird and are tired of receiving windmail.dat files please give his add-on a try.
Hopefully, the capabilities of Aron's plugin will become part of the core Thunderbird product, soon. But, since its been almost 7 years since this bug was reported, completely hassle free interchange of messages between Thunderbird and Outlook users may still be a way off.
2008-02-15
Digtital TV Coupon
Broadcast stations will begin transmitting digital only signals in 2009. If you are still using an antenna to receive an analog signal you will need new equipment to in order to receive the new digital signal.
There is a federal program in place to help with the cost of this new equipment. Coupons to defray the cost of upgrading can be obtained from https://www.dtv2009.gov/
There is a federal program in place to help with the cost of this new equipment. Coupons to defray the cost of upgrading can be obtained from https://www.dtv2009.gov/
2007-10-03
Speed up Vista
Warning: Use these directions are at you own risk and your mileage may vary.
Below is a list of Vista services (programs that run in the background) that when stopped seem to make Vista more responsive. There is a services icon in the control panel that will let you view, start, stop and change the default run behaviors for these and other services to manual or disabled. I recommend changing the load/run status of these services from automatic to manual instead of disabled.
DFS Replication
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules
IP Helper
IPSec Policy Agent
KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Offline Files
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
SSDP Discovery
Tablet PC Input Services
Terminal Services
Windows Error Reporting Service
Below is a list of Vista services (programs that run in the background) that when stopped seem to make Vista more responsive. There is a services icon in the control panel that will let you view, start, stop and change the default run behaviors for these and other services to manual or disabled. I recommend changing the load/run status of these services from automatic to manual instead of disabled.
DFS Replication
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules
IP Helper
IPSec Policy Agent
KtmRm for Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Offline Files
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
SSDP Discovery
Tablet PC Input Services
Terminal Services
Windows Error Reporting Service
2007-09-27
Ubuntu - No X required
Ubuntu Linux is a fine Linux distribution. Its pretty user friendly and is geared toward the desktop user.
However, you may find that you are really using your Ubuntu Linux box as a server (web server, file server, etc) and that the services you are providing to your users does not require the general graphical user interface software installed. Turning off X and all the GUI goodies in Ubuntu might be a good choice for you.
Turning off all the graphical tools and interfaces can free up resources so that these services you are providing can have more elbow room (RAM and Processor availability)
You can prevent Ubuntu's GUI from starting when the server starts by issuing the following commands:
# sudo -s {Enter password if prompted}
# cd /etc/init.d
# update-rc.d -f gdm remove
When the machine is rebooted the X.org system and all things graphical will not load. You will still be able to access and administer the machine from the command line.
If you need to get X running just for a bit you can still launch X from the command line with the command:
# startx
Now, If you change your mind you can always configure the machine to go back to its previous behavior of starting X and Ubuntu's related GUI by issuing the following commands and rebooting the machine:
# sudo -s {Enter password if prompted}
# cd /etc/init.d
# sudo update-rc.d -f gdm defaults
However, you may find that you are really using your Ubuntu Linux box as a server (web server, file server, etc) and that the services you are providing to your users does not require the general graphical user interface software installed. Turning off X and all the GUI goodies in Ubuntu might be a good choice for you.
Turning off all the graphical tools and interfaces can free up resources so that these services you are providing can have more elbow room (RAM and Processor availability)
You can prevent Ubuntu's GUI from starting when the server starts by issuing the following commands:
# sudo -s {Enter password if prompted}
# cd /etc/init.d
# update-rc.d -f gdm remove
When the machine is rebooted the X.org system and all things graphical will not load. You will still be able to access and administer the machine from the command line.
If you need to get X running just for a bit you can still launch X from the command line with the command:
# startx
Now, If you change your mind you can always configure the machine to go back to its previous behavior of starting X and Ubuntu's related GUI by issuing the following commands and rebooting the machine:
# sudo -s {Enter password if prompted}
# cd /etc/init.d
# sudo update-rc.d -f gdm defaults
2007-09-17
Really Good Cheap Storage Enclosure
Over a month ago I had a file server go down. This file server provided backup space for my primary file servers and there was some urgency to restore the lost storage capacity provided by the damaged server.
The crash was pretty ugly. The processor no longer functioned and the motherboard had a large scorch burn. It was an older server and I had certainly gotten my money's worth out of it. However, the capacity it provided for my disk-to-disk backup solution (while not sophisticated) was still important for the reliable operation of my small network. There was a bright spot with regard to this outage; none of he large capacity IDE drives installed in the server were damaged. There were 6 drives in total.
Now, the storage capacity offered by this server was important but since my back-ups run over night speed was not a significant issue. Replacing the server could have been expensive but I found a cheaper solution for restoring the capacity offered by the salvaged the drives from the burnt out server...
I placed the salvaged drives into two AMS Venus T4U hard drive enclosures that I purchased from an on-line parts dealer. Each unit cost about $115 plus shipping.
These T4U hard drive enclosures will hold up to 4 IDE drives. (I understand that there is also an eSATA model.) After placing the drives into the enclosures I plugged the enclosures into another server on my network using the provided USB 2.0 connector and the USB 2.0 ports on the server. Tada, (and with a few mapping changes), the lost capacity was back on line.
In short these AMS Venus T4U units are very handy and after about 45 days they have performed well. The AMS Venus T4U is a nice unit and a nice solution if you need to quickly add drive capacity to your network or perhaps you just happen to have a few older drives sitting around that could be put to better use.
Additionally, the unit runs quietly and coolly, with the internal fan turned on, and offers many dip-switch options for configuring how the drives it contains appear to the host operating system. For instance, even though you may install 4 separate drives in the unit you can configure the unit so that all 4 separate drives appear as one drive (or some other combinations of drives) to the host operating system. The until also seems to work well with both Linux and Windows as I've had the unit attached to servers of each type with with no issues.
The crash was pretty ugly. The processor no longer functioned and the motherboard had a large scorch burn. It was an older server and I had certainly gotten my money's worth out of it. However, the capacity it provided for my disk-to-disk backup solution (while not sophisticated) was still important for the reliable operation of my small network. There was a bright spot with regard to this outage; none of he large capacity IDE drives installed in the server were damaged. There were 6 drives in total.
Now, the storage capacity offered by this server was important but since my back-ups run over night speed was not a significant issue. Replacing the server could have been expensive but I found a cheaper solution for restoring the capacity offered by the salvaged the drives from the burnt out server...
I placed the salvaged drives into two AMS Venus T4U hard drive enclosures that I purchased from an on-line parts dealer. Each unit cost about $115 plus shipping.
These T4U hard drive enclosures will hold up to 4 IDE drives. (I understand that there is also an eSATA model.) After placing the drives into the enclosures I plugged the enclosures into another server on my network using the provided USB 2.0 connector and the USB 2.0 ports on the server. Tada, (and with a few mapping changes), the lost capacity was back on line.
In short these AMS Venus T4U units are very handy and after about 45 days they have performed well. The AMS Venus T4U is a nice unit and a nice solution if you need to quickly add drive capacity to your network or perhaps you just happen to have a few older drives sitting around that could be put to better use.
Additionally, the unit runs quietly and coolly, with the internal fan turned on, and offers many dip-switch options for configuring how the drives it contains appear to the host operating system. For instance, even though you may install 4 separate drives in the unit you can configure the unit so that all 4 separate drives appear as one drive (or some other combinations of drives) to the host operating system. The until also seems to work well with both Linux and Windows as I've had the unit attached to servers of each type with with no issues.
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