h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nope not come across that one Lil.

I've had Firebug a firefox extension recomended to me by a chap in the office here. There are probably plugins for javascript for the likes of Eclipse or Netbeans IDEs but I've not checked those.

"The Soul of a New Machine" -- hard to find, but well worth the effort! It very accurately tells the story of the climate of the industry back then.

I'm all over the web learning about javascript, and suddenly I've driven my goKart straight into the DOM and a method called AddEventListener. Which would be the solution to a lot of my code's shortcomings if it weren't for the little rider that mentions how IE doesn't recognise it.

But these notes are about a year old. Does anybody know what the status is for cross-browser compatibility for the DOM?

Turns out the fastest way of transfering some big files around parts of the network here was to take a computer from my desk (an iMac) over to a lab over the other side of the building plug it in and move the files across the network from there. It only took twenty minutes rather than the couple of hours it would have from here.

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a tech with a laptop"

I never got the hang of Venkman, I just use Firefox's "Error Console" to see any javascript errors or warnings, and sprinkle my code with alert(); statements to see the value of variables, I later remove or comment those out.

And I've yet to tackle event listeners, but I do know there are ways to have them work in IE too - it's just a matter of a different syntax.

Don't fall into the javascript array trap I fell into - javascript does not have normal arrays, instead every object is already an array so what you really want (usually) is to use an Object() instead of an Array().

I have the chance to completely recreate a secure datacenter. Budget is not yet a concern. What should I do with it? Go whole hog and get all the fruit? Make it for today's capacity and hope it does not grow?

The gloves are off. I am going to be buildign this over the next couple of months. I'd love to hear suggestions from those who toil in the chilly loud spaces of data centers. What do you feel is missing from there?

Build it for tommorow. It always happens sooner than you think and if you have the capacity to expand already it makes it easier and cheaper.
In reality that means putting the infrastructure in place to tomorrows needs today, including space for more racks etc.

We are trying to sort out a new rack in our swerver room. Needs a new power line from the fuse box across the ceiling void of one room and into the swerver room.

And you can never have too many power points and network sockets

I don't toil in the frozen wastes but I have planned equipment rooms in the past.

I would go for making sure room layout, rack space, power, cable ducts and air con are suitable for envisaged future loads.

As Phil said money spent now can make big savings later, if it's done right.

Some other thoughts
Mostly based on bitter experience (Some mine, some luckily learnt from others mistakes)

Having enough space for renewals even after expansion.
So you can build and test the new systems before decommissioning the old.

Independently sourced power supplies
With no single point of failure (been bitten by that, the changeover cubicle burnt out)

Same goes for comms links
Don't let them all come into the building through the same cable route.

(Been bitten by that, all large yellow construction machines are inherently evil and so are their operators)

Same goes for all the other services too

Duplicated supplies for all the kit, but the builders fed all the air con off a single fuse...

Same goes for lighting supplies ... It's fun working in the dark.


Fire suppression
in case the worst happens

Delivery space it's no good if you can't get the kit in.


Don't let builders route water or sewerage through the equipment space, ...you can guess what will happen.

Decent accommodation for the staff working in and around the site.

Can anybody recommend a decent 256 MB AGP graphics adapter? The one in my older machine went kerblooey yesterday. If nobody has any other opinion, I may look for an older Radeon card, one of the 8000 series maybe.

I think my Radeon 9550 or 9600, don't recall what it is right off hand, has 256MB.

This question is addressed mostly to the UK-based Salonistas: do any on you have a Broadband provider with whom you're really happy? I ask because I've had all I can take of Orange's unreliable service.

Ormy, I am happy with my broadband provider. We use the Phone Coop as our provider. OK so we just get the basic pakage that BT wholesale sells on at the basic price but I like the company because it's a proper co-operative with some sort of ethical/environmental policies and things like a UK call centre. If I had some spare money, I'd join the coop they run. They also do phone packages as well.
http://www.phone.coop/

Belay the question about graphics adapters. I pulled the box out from under the table and discovered that the monitor cable was unplugged, which only a marauding cat could have brought about.

Anyhow, it was incentive to open the box and clean it.

Always a good thing to check for, reseat all cables and cards.

My core router here in my office went out today. We recovered, but have no idea what actually happened. To head this off from happening again, I am going to be setting up a pair of redundant routers to act as our core router using HSRP for fault tolerance.

The good news is that I had the hardware sitting around gathering dust. The bad news is that I will have to come in next weekend to put the routers in place. Then I have to log in to all layer 3 connected devices to clear ARP tables.


Oh, between now and then I will have to re-learn HSRP.

I guess if you don't use it, you lose it! (It's too bad I can't say the same thing about parts of my anatomy... )

And you will be plugging the routers into different circuits.
This week we've had a new server rack delivered and we've installed it. Before the install of the rack we had some electricians running us a new circuit from the distribution board. Everything was going well till 'is the internet gone?' was asked around the office. The sparks had managed to remove power from the two racks that were already in the server room. It ended up as something to do with when they pulled the cable for the new circuits through catching the cables that were already there and a bit of a dodgy connection and it pulls out or something like that.
Only two routers, four switches and five servers went down. Thankfully they all came back up ok when power was restored.

Here I won't be bothering with separate power sources. I only have one. We are going to build a new building in a couple of years and I will try to get that set up with redundant sources. For now I just want teh redundancy.

Anyone have any advice on how to slow down a PC game? It's an old game, but it ran too slowly on my old computer to be playable, and when I recently found it and installed it on my laptop, it runs way too fast - I can barely make out the graphics when they woosh by, and I constantly run off the map.

I tried calling their support, who said he had heard of a downloadable tool that will make my laptop run slower - but that doesn't sound like a good idea to me...

I've tried turning all the graphics settings up to max, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.