Have you all backed up your stuff for the coming storm??

[pop_54]

According to the news bulletin this evening, recent Sun spot activity has resulted in violent Solar storms coming our way.

Billions of tons of magnetically charged particles 'may' bombard the Earth within the next few days, and it may go on for weeks.

As a result, electrical grids, satellite communications, and Computer systems 'may' overload and crash out without prior notice.

So have you backed up your valuables to removable media lately, sorry techie talk, copied all your important stuff, like 49,998 words of your NaMo entry to discs away from pute. Just in case your ultra stable copy of XP suddenly decides to go wipe out to 'blue screen of death' when the storm hits. Re-formatting and re-loading operating systems wipes everything off your HD.

I've just done mine, but my wifey said she hates backing up onto a three and a half inch floppy so she declined my other offer

I mean don't come shouting at me if it don't happen, just thought I'd warn anyone who wasn't aware of the remote risk from this Solar shit.

pops...........

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Are we talking Sunet spots and Solaris storms?

 

[Quasimodem]

NO!

I shall leave Providence to decide whether any of my stories should survive.

Besides I already do regular backups, because my XP is anything but Ultra Stable.

 

[pop_54]

Ummmmm

NO!

I shall leave Providence to decide whether any of my stories should survive.

Besides I already do regular backups, because my XP is anything but Ultra Stable.

It was a sick joke about XP, just as XP is a sick joke, I still use 98se alongside Linux. I too regularly back up.

 

[ffreak]

Of course, there's the ultimate backup - paper (and a good scanner).

Survival of the fittest is the law of the universe. I would expect that you all have plenty to keep you fit during the storm. If we can't write on our electronic devices reliably at this time, then we will have no choice but to engage in research for our next story - if we're not too worn-out to write that is.

-FF

 

[Icingsugar]

The way I hear, those storms have already been here and passed, and that was what messed up my satellite reception of MTV.

Or maybe it was just Britney Weekend again...

Always got my stuff on CD anyway.

But I'll wear my tinfiol hat, just in case.

/Ice

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

But I'll wear my tinfiol hat, just in case.

/Ice

I think I may have just let out a little trickle of pee from laughing so hard.

~WOK

 

[Jenny _S]

Personally, I see this as an opportunity for some "electronic house cleaning"

Hi ya pops

 

[pop_54]

Hello love

Personally, I see this as an opportunity for some "electronic house cleaning"

Hi ya pops

Hello sweetheart, how's yu Don't suppose you fancy backing up onto a big hard driver

 

[oggbashan]

I'm obsessive about backing up since I lost a complete day's work for a large company on a mainframe. We had a catastrophic power failure half an hour before the daily back up.

The UPS failed and caught fire, blasted by the power surge just before the outage; the standby generator wouldn't start; the bank of batteries worked but microseconds too late.

It took a month to restore that day.

The UPS and the generator weren't my responsibility. Sorting out the mess was.

Now I keep three computers in different buildings, have backups on floppies and CD-Roms, and hard copy.

I don't bother to back up the operating systems or other software. I can always re-load them from the original media. All I back up is my original work which reduces the workload.

Og

 

[Svenskaflicka]

M is trying to persuade me into skipping XP for Win98, since it has less bugs in its system. I'm in love with the GUI of the XP, but, if it keeps bugging me, I just might...

 

[ffreak]

I'm just the opposite. When I used 98, I had to reboot several times each day (of course, being a developer, I kind-of push the envelope on the system, and 98 does not take care of memory leaks). Since I've been using XP, I have to reboot once every 3-4 days doing the same work as before. I keep up-to-date on patches and use the matching Office XP. Maybe it's because I just run 14 apps on the machine (don't know why I'm underusing it so much) and I have 512Mb of memory. That's part of it - put as much memory on the machine as you can - memory makes a big difference in performance.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

When I was in hournalist school, and we were all connected to a network, our computers hung themselves so often (several times a day) that we invente a whole new sporting category - "iMac-throwing".

 

[Guest]

I have had Win98, 98se, and now have XP and to be honest, XP (for me) runs better than the other two did. It took a little getting used to since the set-up is a little different, but I like it much better and rarely have to reboot.

 

[pop_54]

Ha

I'm just the opposite. When I used 98, I had to reboot several times each day (of course, being a developer, I kind-of push the envelope on the system, and 98 does not take care of memory leaks). Since I've been using XP, I have to reboot once every 3-4 days doing the same work as before. I keep up-to-date on patches and use the matching Office XP. Maybe it's because I just run 14 apps on the machine (don't know why I'm underusing it so much) and I have 512Mb of memory. That's part of it - put as much memory on the machine as you can - memory makes a big difference in performance.

Worthy advice ffreak, with a nice shiny new machine pile on the DIMM's until the slots are full, and use the fastest new O/S, but if you have an older slower machine, 98 seems more stable, and for heavens sake don't pile your old 450/500Mhz PII/III machine with more memory than the BIOS can handle, it will actually slow it down or cause it to crash.

Being a PC man ffreak, have you noticed how crappy the memory modules are these days for dumping chips and poor performance, even the big brand names seem to be getting it made by 8 yr old's in China now and sticking their name on it. Cheap isn't always best.

One of our other PC's is running with Madrake 9 (Linux) and it's yet to crash or need a forced re-boot, 'boy 1' uses that one a lot as well and it get's major abuse with his gaming, graphic designing and playing at programming.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I'm gonna try Red Hat. What graphic programs can I use with that?

 

[pop_54]

Ah!!

I'm obsessive about backing up since I lost a complete day's work for a large company on a mainframe. We had a catastrophic power failure half an hour before the daily back up.

The UPS failed and caught fire, blasted by the power surge just before the outage; the standby generator wouldn't start; the bank of batteries worked but microseconds too late.

It took a month to restore that day.

The UPS and the generator weren't my responsibility. Sorting out the mess was.

Now I keep three computers in different buildings, have backups on floppies and CD-Roms, and hard copy.

I don't bother to back up the operating systems or other software. I can always re-load them from the original media. All I back up is my original work which reduces the workload.

Og

Ah!! Dr Watson, the case of the exploding UPS, they do it a lot oggie, power failure and sudden resumption with the UPS/computers still connected and effectively on line often = UPS burn out. Or worse still with big servers and mainframes, PSU burn out.

We had a Motorola Mainframe in a factory I run the routine maintenance contract for blow the PSU module on power up. Some techie erk forgot to switch to off line before we powered back up, result, months of design/manufacturing files scrambled and £32,000 for a new PSU module.

 

[pop_54]

Not too sure

I'm gonna try Red Hat. What graphic programs can I use with that?

If you get the right package it comes with the Gimp and a couple more graphics and picture editing packages included.

How many of the big names have gone to the trouble of making their packages Linux friendly I'm not too sure about love.

The beauty of the Mandrake 9 package we purchased for the grand total of £10 post and packing is that it included a Windows conversion programme, and we can actually read certain Windows written files with it, and vice-versa.

'Boy 1' knows more about it than me, I'm just a simple country boy

 

[Icingsugar]

I'm gonna try Red Hat. What graphic programs can I use with that?

GIMP is good. Pretty different interface than Shotoshop or PSP, but you can basically do the same things with it.

/Ice - probably the only person on the planet who runs Win ME without any problem...

 

[Svenskaflicka]

It's gonna be fun to see if I can get the internet working through Linux. It's "Apache", right?

Svenskaflicka
Termiknowledged

 

[Icingsugar]

It's gonna be fun to see if I can get the internet working through Linux. It's "Apache", right?

Gonna start a web server? What'll we see there?

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Ah!!

Ah!! Dr Watson, the case of the exploding UPS, they do it a lot oggie, power failure and sudden resumption with the UPS/computers still connected and effectively on line often = UPS burn out. Or worse still with big servers and mainframes, PSU burn out.

In 196something I was in charge of an IBM 1401 mainframe. It had a interesting red handle on the side. In case of fire or major catastrophe the system manager (me) had to pull the handle hard before running like ****.

There was a fire in the next room. I told my staff to evacuate and stood my ground, holding the red handle and prepared to sing "The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled..."

If I pulled the handle I would rip out all the connections to the busbar and wreck the CPU. Repairs would take months, not weeks, and all processing would have to be transferred to our next mainframe 100 miles away. I and my 25 staff would be without work.

The smoke penetrated despite the so-called air-tight doors. I held my ground even when visibility was down to 2 yards.

The door opened.

"The fire's out." My colleague announced. I took my hand off the red lever.

Someone had dropped a lighted cigarette in a basketware waste paper basket full of paper. That had caught fire, ignited the cardboard draught excluder and the carpet. One fire extinguisher had put it out.

My line manager's comment on my actions? "What a stupid bugger! Why didn't he turn the power off at the mains? That could have been sorted out in a couple of hours."

Og

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Apache's a server? I thought it was just a browser?

Why, oh, why, did they shorten the Hardware Course to two weeks?

 

[Icingsugar]

Apache's a server? I thought it was just a browser?

Yup, Apache's a web server. Get Firebird and yer all set. I'm even using it in windows as default browser these days.

/Ice - dissapointed, wanted to see www.pollyjuice.se

and why did the system automatically make a link out of that? dang.

 

[smartnsassy]

By the coming storm, I thought you meant John Ashcroft!

You know he's on a major rampage against obsentity (which I think is anything that offends him personally)

http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=2199

Forgot all about the sunspots. Did a number on our cell phone.

According to the news bulletin this evening, recent Sun spot activity has resulted in violent Solar storms coming our way.

Billions of tons of magnetically charged particles 'may' bombard the Earth within the next few days, and it may go on for weeks.

As a result, electrical grids, satellite communications, and Computer systems 'may' overload and crash out without prior notice.

So have you backed up your valuables to removable media lately, sorry techie talk, copied all your important stuff, like 49,998 words of your NaMo entry to discs away from pute. Just in case your ultra stable copy of XP suddenly decides to go wipe out to 'blue screen of death' when the storm hits. Re-formatting and re-loading operating systems wipes everything off your HD.

I've just done mine, but my wifey said she hates backing up onto a three and a half inch floppy so she declined my other offer

I mean don't come shouting at me if it don't happen, just thought I'd warn anyone who wasn't aware of the remote risk from this Solar shit.

pops...........