The General Technology Thread

[Cameramonkey]

Because it's an ancient piece of HW, that I needed for a FD, I have an XP license... call it nostaglia if you want.


I don't give two hoots that MS dropped support - I don't need it.

I call it being a cheap-a** . LOL

 

[JettaKnight]

I call it being a cheap-a** . LOL

Hey! I resemble that remark!

 

[fullmetaljesus]

Seconded. Ive run ubuntu on older systems just to net the data off them via network connection to my main Ubuntu MATE system. Simple to either install or just run it live via a usb thumb drive.
I can do everything that can be done on windows so far except for Xfinity's damn streaming, their system refuses to serve me any shows on demand and that aggravates me to no end since their commercials say "watch on any device" which is code for any "approved" device (i.e. locked down device like ipad or android).

It's gotten better now that Flash is finally End Of Life and most sites have moved to html 5. However, for work I still need flash for the damn older versions of Vmware vsphere client.

P.S. If you need to run an old copy of windows for something a virtualbox VM under linux runs windows better than it runs on the bare metal. I have a Windows10 VM just for itunes syncing and iphone backups.

Use a web browser profile switcher to make your browser register as an Android device to get passed it.

 

[WebSnyper]

I don't know about bringing them down, but it's certain to make Google less usable. I can see a day when Google searches won't work if you don't have your pronouns set up in your profile. Oh, yeah. There will be a mandatory profile. That's my prediction. And maybe searches will work slower and provide less relevant results depending on how many intersections of oppression the identity group you're in has.

There are other choices of search engines now. Most people are too lazy to change the default by making a couple of clicks.

 

[qwerty]

Google workers announce plans to unionize

The Alphabet Workers Union will be open to all employees and contractors at Google’s parent company.

www.theverge.com

Not surprising at all. Like Antifa, BLM, and most liberals, you give them the world and they will want more; it is never enough.

A few of the kids I went to school with ended up working for Google either directly or through acquisition. They seemed to have mixed feelings (most would be considered conservative) but said the perks were awesome and they allowed the employees a lot of freedoms to work on personal projects.

Biting the hand that feeds you...literally:

Career Advice

On your path to find your calling, you face questions. What software skills do you need? How do I ace an interview? Do I need an advanced degree? Browse Invesotpedia's expert-written library to learn more.

www.investopedia.com

 

[jamil]

There are other choices of search engines now. Most people are too lazy to change the default by making a couple of clicks.

Well, yeah, but they mostly suck. The ones that aggregate aren’t too bad. Duck duck go is getting better. But they’re just not there yet.

 

[indyblue]

Use a web browser profile switcher to make your browser register as an Android device to get passed it.

Just tried that, it asks me to watch in the app. Won't let me use the browser

 

[fullmetaljesus]

Just tried that, it asks me to watch in the app. Won't let me use the browser

Hmm,
I'm not familiar with mate. I know the other gui for Ubuntu natively works with a lot of streaming stuffs. It's name escapes me.


At home I run a headless debian box and at work all our redhat are headless so I don't spend much time in Linux gui's any more

 

[bwframe]

Now that I think about it, former INGOer eatsmearcats works for Google, last I heard.

Google employees kick off union membership drive for 120,000 workers

The new union is open to all types of Google employees, including contractors.

arstechnica.com

 

[BugI02]

Not surprising at all. Like Antifa, BLM, and most liberals, you give them the world and they will want more; it is never enough.

A few of the kids I went to school with ended up working for Google either directly or through acquisition. They seemed to have mixed feelings (most would be considered conservative) but said the perks were awesome and they allowed the employees a lot of freedoms to work on personal projects.

Biting the hand that feeds you...literally:

Career Advice

On your path to find your calling, you face questions. What software skills do you need? How do I ace an interview? Do I need an advanced degree? Browse Invesotpedia's expert-written library to learn more.

www.investopedia.com

I read some about the demands of the organizers and I was Shocked! Shocked, I say! to find that Google doesn't take complaints about trans, fem, gay, racial, differently-abled etc diversity seriously (or at least no more serious than they can get away with) nor would Alphabet abandon AI contracts with the military or search contracts with the CCP just because their woke children demanded it

Welcome to the real world

 

[jkaetz]

Are you saying XP is the last Windows version that supports a floppy disk drive?
Now you have me curious...
YES, it appears to be true with a quick check.
Lucky for me I still have a running XP computer on my network and should get the data off of my 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies while I can.

USB Floppy drives still work. I have a couple of old Apple drives for the odd occasion where I need to see what's on a floppy.

 

[JettaKnight]

Are you saying XP is the last Windows version that supports a floppy disk drive?
Now you have me curious...
YES, it appears to be true with a quick check.
Lucky for me I still have a running XP computer on my network and should get the data off of my 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppies while I can.

No, I'm not saying that at all.

 

[danimal]

Seconded. Ive run ubuntu on older systems just to net the data off them via network connection to my main Ubuntu MATE system. Simple to either install or just run it live via a usb thumb drive.
I can do everything that can be done on windows so far except for Xfinity's damn streaming, their system refuses to serve me any shows on demand and that aggravates me to no end since their commercials say "watch on any device" which is code for any "approved" device (i.e. locked down device like ipad or android).

It's gotten better now that Flash is finally End Of Life and most sites have moved to html 5. However, for work I still need flash for the damn older versions of Vmware vsphere client.

P.S. If you need to run an old copy of windows for something a virtualbox VM under linux runs windows better than it runs on the bare metal. I have a Windows10 VM just for itunes syncing and iphone backups.

You on release 6.x or still on an older 5.x? I upgraded our systems last year to 6.7 (we only use ESXi + vSphere) and the HTML5 is complete, the flash version is depreciated. I've been on 6.5 for a couple years and never went into the flash version, the '5 has been fine for our needs. I still have 1 chassis on 6.5 which is running a couple things we haven't been able to schedule a downtime window to vMotion off for a rebuild, but I gotta be honest, at 1039 days of uptime, I almost want to see how long I can make it go.

 

[indyblue]

Most of our esx's are on 6.5,6.7 and we're in process of upgrading to 7.0. Yes the html version works but still the message (partial functionality) for all the 6.x's and there's a few things that don't work in html. I am liking html much better in 7, much faster than the flash version.

Our company platform runs on 100% centos6/7 and jdk 1_8. Very stable, we don't reboot often. The past year has been spent relocating our 3 DC's so most have been restarted within the last year, but had many systems up in excess of 1000 days.

Avg uptime is currently about 600 days for the VMs and longer for the hosts 1306 days on one. But due to PCI audits and patches they can't stay up that long anymore as we must remediate at least twice per year.
Some badly coded apps occasionally cause OOMs, requiring reboots or our /var/log fills to 100% and the processes need restarts.

Currently we have around 1600 systems across 3 DCs

 

[danimal]

... PCI audits ...

My condolences

Maybe I'm on a different build of 6.7, but mine has this at the UI selection screen

The vSphere Flash-based Web Client is deprecated in vSphere 6.7. We recommend switching to the all-new modern HTML5-based vSphere client as the primary client and only reverting to the Flash-based Web Client when necessary.

I don't have quite that much to manage, and don't have any of the fancy stuff like vSAN, but 6.5/6.7 HTML5 UI has been good for us and we've been flashless for quite some time. So hopefully they got everything taken care of in the 7 train for you guys. We probably won't upgrade our licenses and migrate until next year.

Is your log folder on a separate mount point that you can monitor with a cron job and see if df or stat crosses some usage threshold to bounce the task and archive/clean the logs? Been a while since I've messed with real Java apps, but is there a way to query the jvm heap usage like you can with a nodejs app and do the same thing, bounce and rotate?

 

[BigErnNP]

I believe that in 6.7 VMware had pretty much all configurable items available in HTML5 whereas in 6.5 there was still some things that just wouldn't work appropriately in HTML5.

We run all 6.7 ESXi currently on all systems out of 2 DCs plus platforms in Azure and AWS.

PCI/SOC/SOC II compliance is great fun...

 

[indyblue]

My condolences

Maybe I'm on a different build of 6.7, but mine has this at the UI selection screen



I don't have quite that much to manage, and don't have any of the fancy stuff like vSAN, but 6.5/6.7 HTML5 UI has been good for us and we've been flashless for quite some time. So hopefully they got everything taken care of in the 7 train for you guys. We probably won't upgrade our licenses and migrate until next year.

Is your log folder on a separate mount point that you can monitor with a cron job and see if df or stat crosses some usage threshold to bounce the task and archive/clean the logs? Been a while since I've messed with real Java apps, but is there a way to query the jvm heap usage like you can with a nodejs app and do the same thing, bounce and rotate?

yeah, /var/log is a separate fs and all volumes are monitored by check_mk (a nagios variant). It uses jolkia to monitor all the JVMs, the more critical systems have cron jobs that will restart stuck processes and logrotate does the rest, but when we build new systems to handle a new client it's always an educated guess how fast the logs will grow depending on data retention req's.

Check_mk alerts us before anything bad happens.

 

[bwframe]

Samsung will update older Galaxy phones to convert them into baby monitors, security devices

Samsung will provide software updates to older phones as part of the "Galaxy Upcycling" program to breathe new life into those devices.

9to5google.com

 

[IndyBeerman]

Samsung will update older Galaxy phones to convert them into baby monitors, security devices

Samsung will provide software updates to older phones as part of the "Galaxy Upcycling" program to breathe new life into those devices.

9to5google.com

WOW

ASTOUNDING

UNBELIEVABLE

How about if they didn't prematurely end the software update cycle to a perfectly good operating phone that's still capable of
running newer Android updates.

OH that's right, Samsung and GOOGLE would lose all that extra money thy make.

 

[bwframe]

WOW

ASTOUNDING

UNBELIEVABLE

How about if they didn't prematurely end the software update cycle to a perfectly good operating phone that's still capable of
running newer Android updates.

OH that's right, Samsung and GOOGLE would lose all that extra money thy make.

I don't have a reference link close, but supposedly going forward Samsung will plan for their new phones to "last" longer than in the past.

Then again, maybe this move is part or all of that?