Search Results

Search found 5304 results on 213 pages for 'money saving'.

Page 187/213 | < Previous Page | 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194  | Next Page >

• How to change radius of rounded rectangle in Photoshop

  - by MattDiPasquale

  At this point, I'm thinking of just using CSS 3, esp. since I'm a programmer, but I'd like to do this with Photoshop because I think it's nicer since I'm working with images anyway, among other reasons... Before I move on, my first question is: Is there a place like SuperUser for designers (or for Photoshop-like or questions)? What I Want: I want the icons on http://www.mattdipasquale.com/ to look like those on http://about.me/mattdipasquale. About.me has an outdated Twitter icon and does not have icons for GitHub, StackOverflow, etc. So, although I like the look of their icons, I want to be able to create these icons myself instead of using their versions. What I Have: I have different iphone icons, like the Facebook iPhone icon, Twitter iPhone icon, etc., that I got from iTunes, using Firebug to find the URL of the background image. I opened them up in Photoshop and pressed option + command + i to reduce the image size to 32px x 32px with Bicubic Sharper (best for reduction). I now have a square icon layer. Closing the Gap: In addition to the icon layer, I want to have a clipping-mask layer that will apply the 5px rounded-corners, 1px stroke, and 1px bevel. (Note: I just want to apply effects to the edges of the icon because the gloss and other effects are already encoded in the iTunes image. Also, I'm just guessing about the pixel values, but I want it to look good, like the icons on about.me.) What settings should I use for the blend options to make the icons look good, like iphone icons or those used by about.me? Why a Clipping Mask? The reason I want to use a clipping mask is that I want ease of reproducibility. I want to be able to apply the same styling to other square icon layers by simply replacing the square icon layer and then saving for web. If there is a better way to achieve such ease of reproducibility, please suggest it. I've seen Photoshop iPhone icon templates, but I couldn't figure out how to use them with my own images. Thanks! Matt

  Read the article

• Business Owners - What Remote Desktop Solution Do You Use To Service Your Clients PCs?

  - by Sootah

  Howdy fellow computer geeks, I am the owner of a local computer repair business that primarily services its clients on-site. On the occasions that we do service the machines in the office we generally have one of our techs pick the computer up while they are out and about and bring it back with them. Only rarely will we require the customer to bring us the computer themselves. In order to reduce costs, be much more efficient, and potentially expand our market far beyond what would be feasible with travel required; I am looking at ways that we can service our clients remotely whenever possible. What we're in need of is a solid remote desktop application that will be incredibly easy for our customers to connect to, as well as be robust enough that we don't need the client babysitting the computer during the entire repair. Ideally I would like to use a web-based solution so that we don't have to walk the customers through installing, connecting, and configuring it over the phone. This would be unacceptable because of the level of service they are used to. Effectively we'd want them to be able to just go to a URL, enter a PIN or something, and then they are connected and ready to rumble. (Obviously the option to just email them a link that'd do all this for them would be what we'd be aiming for) Along with the ease of use factor, we would need the product to not require any further intervention on the part of the client after we have connected. Nobody is going to be happy if we have to call them every 15 minutes so they can reconnect to us every time we reboot - so auto-reconnect is an absolute must. The only product I know of right now that does any of this is LogMeIn Rescue. It allows unattended access, the applet is lightweight and installs quickly, and the customer can either enter a PIN on the site or just click a link emailed to them in order to connect. The only real downside I see to LogMeIn Rescue is that it's $120.00/month per technician. While we'd ultimately end up saving far more than that per month just in fuel costs alone, I'd like to explore any other options out there that I may not have come across. So - Are there any equally good products out there? If so what are they, why do you recommend them, how have you been utilizing them yourself, and what do they cost? Thanks in advance for your help! -Sootah

  Read the article

• Unclear pricing of Windows Azure

  - by Dirk

  How do you people think about the Windows Azure pricing model and the way it is presented to the user? I just found out that Azure keeps charging hours for STOPPED instances. I just received a bill from more than 100 euro for 3 STOPPED instances (not) running "HelloAzure". I the past I also played around with Amazon Web Services. Amazon doesn't charge for stopped instances. I was wondering: "Should I have known this before, or is Microsoft doing a bad job in clear communication in the pricing model?" Quote from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/ : Compute time, measured in service hours: Windows Azure compute hours are charged only for when your application is deployed. When developing and testing your application, developers will want to remove the compute instances that are not being used to minimize compute hour billing. Partial compute hours are billed as full hours. I read this, so I stopped all instances after a few hours playing around. Now it seems I should have deleted them, not just "stopped". Strictly speaking, all depends on the definition of the word "deployed". If you upload an application, but it is not running, can it still be regarded as being "deployed"? May be, but when you read this for the first time, with AWS experience in mind, I don't think it's 100% clear what this means. Technically speaking, an uploaded application only uses (read: should only use / needs only) a few MB harddrive space. It doesn't require any CPU time. If Azure wants to reserve CPU's for not running instances.. well, that's Azure's choice, not mine. I don't want to spread a hate campaign at all, but I do want to know how people think about this subject. Should Microsoft be more clear about their pricing model or do you think it's clear enough? Second question: did anyone got refunded for a similar case? Thanks in advance! UPDATE 27-01-2011 I sent an email to customer support a few days ago, but I guess that didn't reach anu human being because I didn't hear anything from it. So, I made a telephone call today with a Dutch customer support representative (I live in Holland). She totally understood the problem and she's trying to get a refund for me. However, she mentioned that "usually these refund requests are denied", but she's going to try. She also mentioned that I'm not the first one with this (or similar) problem. UPDATE 28-01-2011 I just received a phonecall from Microsoft support. The lady told me some good news: the money will refunded. However, the invoice has not been made yet, and my creditcard will first be chardged, after which it will be refunded, but hey, that's no problem for me! I'm glad the way it's solved! Thanks everybody!

  Read the article

• APC UPS replace battery light and apcupsd reporting "replace battery"

  - by mgjk

  We have an APC Smart UPS 1500. The "Replace Battery" light is on, and apcupsd reports: Emergency! Batteries have failed on UPS xxxx. Change them NOW However, from this article, http://sturgeon.apcc.com/kbasewb2.nsf/for+external/f39c4312fcaf7b948525679a005ebb78?OpenDocument it seems that it's not so clear that the UPS battery needs to be replaced. Stranger, according to the information on the UPS, an 11 minute runtime at 42.9% load running at 27.7V isn't so bad. Any thoughts about what to try next? We're a non-profit, money is an object. It would be a shame to replace a battery with a year or so left in it. # apcaccess status APC : 001,041,1017 DATE : Thu Mar 29 13:01:41 EDT 2012 HOSTNAME : oreilly2 VERSION : 3.14.6 (16 May 2009) debian UPSNAME : xxxx CABLE : Custom Cable Smart MODEL : Smart-UPS 1500 UPSMODE : Stand Alone STARTTIME: Thu Mar 29 12:57:30 EDT 2012 STATUS : ONLINE LINEV : 112.3 Volts LOADPCT : 42.9 Percent Load Capacity BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent TIMELEFT : 11.0 Minutes MBATTCHG : 5 Percent MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes MAXTIME : 0 Seconds OUTPUTV : 112.3 Volts SENSE : High DWAKE : -01 Seconds DSHUTD : 090 Seconds LOTRANS : 106.0 Volts HITRANS : 127.0 Volts RETPCT : 000.0 Percent ITEMP : 23.8 C Internal ALARMDEL : Always BATTV : 27.7 Volts LINEFREQ : 60.0 Hz LASTXFER : No transfers since turnon NUMXFERS : 0 TONBATT : 0 seconds CUMONBATT: 0 seconds XOFFBATT : N/A SELFTEST : NO STATFLAG : 0x07000008 Status Flag SERIALNO : AS0603298896 BATTDATE : 2006-01-14 NOMOUTV : 120 Volts NOMBATTV : 24.0 Volts FIRMWARE : 601.3.D USB FW:1.5 APCMODEL : Smart-UPS 1500 END APC : Thu Mar 29 13:02:12 EDT 2012 Error when running upstest You are using a SMART cable type, so I'm entering SMART test mode mode.type = USB_UPS Setting up the port ... Hello, this is the apcupsd Cable Test program. This part of apctest is for testing Smart UPSes. Please select the function you want to perform. 1) Query the UPS for all known values 2) Perform a Battery Runtime Calibration 3) Abort Battery Calibration 4) Monitor Battery Calibration progress 5) Program EEPROM 6) Enter TTY mode communicating with UPS 7) Quit Select function number: 2 First ensure that we have a good link and that the UPS is functionning normally. Simulating UPSlinkCheck ... YWrote: Y Got: getline failed. Apparently the link is not up. Giving up.

  Read the article

• What Remote Desktop Solution Do You Use To Service Your Clients' PCs? [closed]

  - by Sootah

  Possible Duplicate: What’s the best Remote Desktop Application? I am the owner of a local computer repair business that primarily services its clients on-site. On the occasions that we do service the machines in the office we generally have one of our techs pick the computer up while they are out and about and bring it back with them. Only rarely will we require the customer to bring us the computer themselves. In order to reduce costs, be much more efficient, and potentially expand our market far beyond what would be feasible with travel required; I am looking at ways that we can service our clients remotely whenever possible. What we're in need of is a solid remote desktop application that will be incredibly easy for our customers to connect to, as well as be robust enough that we don't need the client babysitting the computer during the entire repair. Ideally I would like to use a web-based solution so that we don't have to walk the customers through installing, connecting, and configuring it over the phone. This would be unacceptable because of the level of service they are used to. Effectively we'd want them to be able to just go to a URL, enter a PIN or something, and then they are connected and ready to rumble. (Obviously the option to just email them a link that'd do all this for them would be what we'd be aiming for) Along with the ease of use factor, we would need the product to not require any further intervention on the part of the client after we have connected. Nobody is going to be happy if we have to call them every 15 minutes so they can reconnect to us every time we reboot - so auto-reconnect is an absolute must. The only product I know of right now that does any of this is LogMeIn Rescue. It allows unattended access, the applet is lightweight and installs quickly, and the customer can either enter a PIN on the site or just click a link emailed to them in order to connect. The only real downside I see to LogMeIn Rescue is that it's $120.00/month per technician. While we'd ultimately end up saving far more than that per month just in fuel costs alone, I'd like to explore any other options out there that I may not have come across. Are there any equally good products out there? If so what are they, why do you recommend them, how have you been utilizing them yourself, and what do they cost?

  Read the article

• Outlook Anywhere inconsistencies with authentication methods

  - by gravyface

  So I've read this question and attempted just about every other workaround I've found online. Problem seems completely illogical to me, anyways: SBS 2011, vanilla install; haven't touched anything in IIS or Exchange outside of what's been done through the checklist (brand new domain, completely new customer) except to import an existing wildcard certificate for *.example.com (which is valid, Remote Web Workplace and Outlook Web Access work fine). On the two test machines and one production machine running a mixture of Windows XP Pro, Windows 7 and Outlook 2003 through to 2010, I've had no problem saving the password after configuring Outlook Anywhere using the wrong authentication method. I repeat, I have had no issues using the wrong authentication method on these test machines; password saves the first time, no problem, can verify it exists in the credentials manager (Start Run control userpasswords2), close Outlook, reboot, go make a sammie, come back, credentials are still saved. When I say wrong, it's because I was choosing NTLM and Exchange (under Exchange Console Server Configuration Client Access) was set by default to use Basic. On two completely different machines setup by a co-worker, they had (under my guidance) used NTLM as well... except that frustratingly, Outlook would always ask for a password. One machine was Windows XP with Outlook 2010, the other was Windows 7 with Outlook 2003. When these two machines were set to use Basic -- the correct settings -- the option to save was there and now works without issue. Puzzled by how my machines could possibly work with the wrong authentication, I then went into one of them and changed the authentication method to Basic. Now here's where it gets a little crazy: if I go under Outlook and change the authentication to use the correct setting (Basic) it fails to save the password and Outlook prompts every time (without a "remember me" checkbox). I have not had a chance to change it to Basic on the other two machines to see if this is just a fluke or not, but something just isn't right here. My two hunches are either a missing/installed KB Update or perhaps a local security policy. I should add that none of the 5 test machines in the equation here have ever been joined to the domain.

  Read the article

• In search of a network file system with extended caching to speed up file access

  - by Brecht Machiels

  I'm running a small home server that stores my documents. The disks in this server are in a RAID 1 configuration (using Linux md) and it's also periodically being backup up to an external hard drive to make sure I don't lose them. However, I'm always accessing the files from other computers on the home network using an SMB share, and this results in a considerable speed penalty (especially when connected over WLAN). This is quite annoying when editing large files, such as digital camera RAWs, for example. I've been looking for a solution to this problem. It would have to offer some kind of local caching to speed up the file access. The client would preferably not keep a copy of all data on the server, as it consists of a very large collection of photographs, most of which I will not access frequently. Instead, it should only cache the accessed files and sync the changes back in the background. Ideally, it would also do some smart read-ahead (cache the files that are in the same directory as the currently opened file, for examples), but I suppose that's asking a bit much. Synchronization should be automatic (on file change). Conflicting file changes (at the same time on different clients) are unlikely to happen in my use case, but I would prefer if they are handled properly (notification to the user). I've come across the following options, so far: something similar to Dropbox. iFolder seems to be the only thing that comes close, but its reputation (stability) and requirements put me off. A distributed file system such as OpenAFS. I'm not sure this will speed up file access. It is probably overkill for what I need. Maybe NFS or even Samba offer these possibilities. I read a bit about Windows' Offline Files, but its operation seems limited (at least on Windows XP). As this is just for personal use, I'm not willing to spend a lot of money. A free solution would be preferred. Also, the server needs to run on Linux, and I need a client for at least Windows.

  Read the article

• How do I protect a low budget network from rogue DHCP servers?

  - by Kenned

  I am helping a friend manage a shared internet connection in an apartment buildling with 80 apartments - 8 stairways with 10 apartments in each. The network is laid out with the internet router at one end of the building, connected to a cheap non-managed 16 port switch in the first stairway where the first 10 apartments are also connected. One port is connected to another 16 port cheapo switch in the next stairway, where those 10 apartments are connected, and so forth. Sort of a daisy chain of switches, with 10 apartments as spokes on each "daisy". The building is a U-shape, approximately 50 x 50 meters, 20 meters high - so from the router to the farthest apartment it’s probably around 200 meters including up-and-down stairways. We have a fair bit of problems with people hooking up wifi-routers the wrong way, creating rogue DHCP servers which interrupt large groups of the users and we wish to solve this problem by making the network smarter (instead of doing a physical unplugging binary search). With my limited networking skills, I see two ways - DHCP-snooping or splitting the entire network into separate VLANS for each apartment. Separate VLANS gives each apartment their own private connection to the router, while DHCP snooping will still allow LAN gaming and file sharing. Will DHCP snooping work with this kind of network topology, or does that rely on the network being in a proper hub-and-spoke-configuration? I am not sure if there are different levels of DHCP snooping - say like expensive Cisco switches will do anything, but inexpensive ones like TP-Link, D-Link or Netgear will only do it in certain topologies? And will basic VLAN support be good enough for this topology? I guess even cheap managed switches can tag traffic from each port with it’s own VLAN tag, but when the next switch in the daisy chain receives the packet on it’s “downlink” port, wouldn’t it strip or replace the VLAN tag with it’s own trunk-tag (or whatever the name is for the backbone traffic). Money is tight, and I don’t think we can afford professional grade Cisco (I have been campaigning for this for years), so I’d love some advice on which solution has the best support on low-end network equipment and if there are some specific models that are recommended? For instance low-end HP switches or even budget brands like TP-Link, D-Link etc. If I have overlooked another way to solve this problem it is due to my lack of knowledge. :)

  Read the article

• Deleting windows.edb and unchecking Indexing service lead to hard drive file records swapping

  - by linni

  I followed the instructions listed here:http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/18/turn-off-and-disable-search-indexing-service-in-windows-xp/ to free up space on hard drive by deleting the windows.edb indexing file... I also stopped windows search service as mentioned in the comments following the article. In addition to unchecking the "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching" check box on the properties dialog for the C:\ drive, I did the same for two usb connected hard drives (J:\ and I:\ ). I'm not sure why I did that, thought it might shrink the windows.edb file so I wouldn't have to delete it (which sounded a bit risky in my ears at the time). The file of course didn't shrink so I ended up deleting it and freeing up over 3 GB of space, yeehaw. However, as soon as I had done this I could not access the usb connected hard drives anymore. The error I got was "I:\photos is not accessible" "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" when I tried to open the photos directory on I:\ Here is where I enter the twilight zone... I try disconnecting I:\ usb hard drive. But XP shows me that instead J:\ drive has disconnected and I:\ is still there. So I disconnect both drives and restart the computer. I then connect one drive, but it lists up the contents of the other drive on root level. I tried connecting the drives vice versa and the same thing happens. I try taking one of the hard drives to another computer and when I connect it there it lists up not its own contents but the contents of the other hard drive and gives the same error as above when I try and access any of the folders (even folders on the root that have the same name as folders on the other drive (e.g. J:\photos and I:\photos)??? And no, this is not a me mixing up my drive letters. Computer Manager - Disk management shows the same result as explorer: The drive size is correct (one is 500GB, the other is 640GB) but the drive name is of the opposite drive, as long as the contents. Also, one drive was full of data and the other almost empty but they incorrectly show their free space status of the other drive. Somehow the usb drives seem to have switched file tables, file records, boot records or something, extremely weird! Even weirder, if I try and create a text file or folder on this drive, it works fine, accessing them, saving, whatever, all good, but accessing any other data on the drive gives me an error. Does anyone have a clue what is going on and more importantly, how I can restore the correct folder listings to access my family photos ??? cheers, linni

  Read the article

• How to add an iptables rule with source IP address

  - by ???

  I have a bash script that starts with this: if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then echo "Permission denied (are you root?)." exit 1 elif [ $# -ne 1 ] then echo "Usage: install-nfs-server <client network/CIDR>" echo "$ bash install-nfs-server 192.168.1.1/24" exit 2 fi; I then try to add the iptables rules for NFS as follows: iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp -s $1 --dport 111 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp --sport 111 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p udp -s $1 --dport 111 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p udp --sport 111 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT service iptables save service iptables restart I get the error: Try iptables -h' or 'iptables --help' for more information. Bad argument111' Try iptables -h' or 'iptables --help' for more information. Bad argument111' Saving firewall rules to /etc/sysconfig/iptables: ^[[60G[^[[0;32m OK ^[[0;39m]^M Flushing firewall rules: ^[[60G[^[[0;32m OK ^[[0;39m]^M Setting chains to policy ACCEPT: filter ^[[60G[^[[0;32m OK ^[[0;39m]^M Unloading iptables modules: ^[[60G[^[[0;32m OK ^[[0;39m]^M Applying iptables firewall rules: ^[[60G[^[[0;32m OK ^[[0;39m]^M Loading additional iptables modules: ip_conntrack_netbios_ns ^[[60G[^[[0;32m OK ^[[0;39m]^M When I open /etc/sysconfig/iptables these are the rules: # Generated by iptables-save v1.3.5 on Mon Mar 26 08:00:42 2012 *filter :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [466:54208] :RH-Firewall-1-INPUT - [0:0] -A INPUT -j RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -A FORWARD -j RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp -m tcp --sport 111 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p udp -m udp --sport 111 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p tcp -m tcp --sport 111 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p udp -m udp --sport 111 -m state --state ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m state --state NEW -m udp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 111 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type any -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p esp -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p ah -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -d 224.0.0.251 -p udp -m udp --dport 5353 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 631 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 631 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited COMMIT # Completed on Mon Mar 26 08:00:42 2012 ~ "/etc/sysconfig/iptables" 32L, 1872C I've also tried: iptables -I RH-Firewall-1-INPUT 1 -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --source $1 --dport 111 -j ACCEPT iptables -I RH-Firewall-1-INPUT 2 -m udp -p udp --source $1 --dport 111 -j ACCEPT

  Read the article

• How can I centralise MySQL data between 3 or more geographically separate servers?

  - by Andy Castles

  To explain the background to the question: We have a home-grown PHP application (for running online language-learning courses) running on a Linux server and using MySQL on localhost for saving user data (e.g. results of tests taken, marks of submitted work, time spent on different pages in the courses, etc). As we have students from different geographic locations we currently have 3 virtual servers hosted close to those locations (Spain, UK and Hong Kong) and users are added to the server closest to them (they access via different URLs, e.g. europe.domain.com, uk.domain.com and asia.domain.com). This works but is an administrative nightmare as we have to remember which server a particular user is on, and users can only connect to one server. We would like to somehow centralise the information so that all users are visible on any of the servers and users could connect to any of the 3 servers. The question is, what method should we use to implement this. It must be an issue that that lots of people have encountered but I haven't found anything conclusive after a fair bit of Googling around. The closest I have seen to solutions are: something like master-master replication, but I have read so many posts suggesting that this is not a good idea as things like auto_increment fields can break. circular replication, this sounded perfect but to quote from O'Reilly's High Performance MySQL, "In general, rings are brittle and best avoided" We're not against rewriting code in the application to make it work with whatever solution is required but I am not sure if replication is the correct thing to use. Thanks, Andy P.S. I should add that we experimented with writes to a central database and then using reads from a local database but the response time between the different servers for writing was pretty bad and it's also important that written data is available immediately for reading so if replication is too slow this could cause out-of-date data to be returned. Edit: I have been thinking about writing my own rudimentary replication script which would involve something like having each user given a server ID to say which is his "home server", e.g. users in asia would be marked as having the Hong Kong server as their own server. Then the replication scripts (which would be a PHP script set to run as a cron job reasonably frequently, e.g. every 15 minutes or so) would run independently on each of the servers in the system. They would go through the database and distribute any information about users with the "home server" set to the server that the script is running on to all of the other databases in the system. They would also need to suck new information which has been added to any of the other databases on the system where the "home server" flag is the server where the script is running. I would need to work out the details and build in the logic to deal with conflicts but I think it would be possible, however I wanted to make sure that there is not a correct solution for this already out there as it seems like it must be a problem that many people have already come across.

  Read the article

• Troubleshooting major performance issue: Is culprit Intel RST, Hard drive, or something else?

  - by Sean Killeen

  The Setup I have the following components that come into play in this situation: ASUS P8Z68 V/PRO motherboard a RAID1 configuration (1x 1TB drive, 1 x 2TB drive -- I explain below), accelerated with an SSD using Intel's RST software, and 1 TB drive standing by as a spare. Core i7 2600k 32 GB RAM Windows 8.1 This box was designed to be beast, and until just recently, was very good at being just that. What's Happening The system has slowed to a crawl whenever it touches the disk. Things appear to work at normal speed when dealing with memory. For example, typing this is fine, but saving it to disk from notepad gave me a 5-7 second pause when clicking save. The disks appear to be at 100% all the time (e.g. the light on the disk access on the PC is solidly on -- not even any flashing) In ProcExp it appears that the disk is barely being utilized at all: Intel RST reports that everything is fine: Other Details Prior to this happening, RST had reported that my drives were failing (one went bad, one was throwing SMART events). This made sense; they were at the tail end of their warranty and the PC is on almost all the time. I RMA'd the drives via Seagate. In the meantime, I'd purchased a 2TB drive because I didn't realize that the 1TB drives were under warranty. I figured I'd replace the other 1 TB drive with another 2 TB when it died but then discovered the warranty. AFAIK, I haven't done any major updates since 8.1 and it worked fine after those. Question(s) How can I troubleshoot this? What is the best way to try to figure out why disks are being maxed out despite the OS reporting barely any disk usage and that everything is OK? Given the failures, etc. that I describe above, is it possible that the problem could be the I/O on the motherboard itself? If so, how would I even be able to diagnose it? I'm betting the drives that Seagate gave me are refurbished (didn't think to look; that's dumb). Is it possible that the same model drive, refurbished, could somehow cause this? In terms of how RAID1 works, is it possible that one drive is "falling behind" somehow, and that the RAID1 is constantly trying to fix the mirroring? If so, this seems like Intel RST would report on it, but I wanted to consider it as an option.

  Read the article

• Deleting windows.edb and unchecking Indexing service lead to hard drive file records swapping

  - by linni

  I followed the instructions listed here:http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/18/turn-off-and-disable-search-indexing-service-in-windows-xp/ to free up space on hard drive by deleting the windows.edb indexing file... I also stopped windows search service as mentioned in the comments following the article. In addition to unchecking the "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching" check box on the properties dialog for the C:\ drive, I did the same for two usb connected hard drives (J:\ and I:\ ). I'm not sure why I did that, thought it might shrink the windows.edb file so I wouldn't have to delete it (which sounded a bit risky in my ears at the time). The file of course didn't shrink so I ended up deleting it and freeing up over 3 GB of space, yeehaw. However, as soon as I had done this I could not access the usb connected hard drives anymore. The error I got was "I:\photos is not accessible" "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" when I tried to open the photos directory on I:\ Here is where I enter the twilight zone... I try disconnecting I:\ usb hard drive. But XP shows me that instead J:\ drive has disconnected and I:\ is still there. So I disconnect both drives and restart the computer. I then connect one drive, but it lists up the contents of the other drive on root level. I tried connecting the drives vice versa and the same thing happens. I try taking one of the hard drives to another computer and when I connect it there it lists up not its own contents but the contents of the other hard drive and gives the same error as above when I try and access any of the folders (even folders on the root that have the same name as folders on the other drive (e.g. J:\photos and I:\photos)??? And no, this is not a me mixing up my drive letters. Computer Manager - Disk management shows the same result as explorer: The drive size is correct (one is 500GB, the other is 640GB) but the drive name is of the opposite drive, as long as the contents. Also, one drive was full of data and the other almost empty but they incorrectly show their free space status of the other drive. Somehow the usb drives seem to have switched file tables, file records, boot records or something, extremely weird! Even weirder, if I try and create a text file or folder on this drive, it works fine, accessing them, saving, whatever, all good, but accessing any other data on the drive gives me an error. Does anyone have a clue what is going on and more importantly, how I can restore the correct folder listings to access my family photos ??? cheers, linni

  Read the article

• Windows 7 laptop constantly dropping internet connection

  - by Corbin Holbert

  I have scoured the web for an answer and failed to find one. I am using a Toshiba Satellite laptop running Windows 7 64-Bit. I have the computer connected via Wifi. Now, I am no beginner with the Internet, or anything related to computers, as I have grown up teaching everyone around me how to use computers, and went to college for IT. Everything on my network works flawlessly at all times, except for this evil laptop. The worst part is that I fixed this once before a few years back and recently had to replace the hard drive and re-install the OS, but cannot for the life of me remember what I did to make this problem go away. I am in my browser, connected to the Internet. I click a link. Suddenly no internet access. All I do is click down on the WiFi connection in the task bar, disconnect and reconnect immediately. Internet is back the moment I hit "connect." I have read many people had the same issues as I am having, but they all had triggers or other network issues. I have no trigger (this happens literally five to six times per minute no matter what I am doing) and I have no problems with my router, modem, or any other devices or computers on said network. As I am a web designer, and like to test my work live at every turn- this is going to result in this laptop being in pieces if I can't get it fixed soon. If more info is needed, let me know and I will provide. Thanks for any help offered! EDIT: Network Card: Realtek RTL8188CE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC Network state reads as "No Internet Access" when the problem first occurs, then magically I have Internet access for about ten seconds once I disconnect and reconnect. I have turned off IPV6, I have turned off power saving options for the network adapter, no viruses. Any new ideas? Also, I had to disconnect and reconnect four times just to get to this edit screen- and will likely have to do the same just to post it- it's that bad.

  Read the article

• Skyrim: Heavy Performance Issues after a couple of location changes

  - by Derija

  Okay, I've tried different solutions: ENB Series, removing certain mods, checking my FPS Rate, monitoring my resources, .ini tweaks. It's all just fine, I don't see what I'm missing. A couple of days ago, I bought Skyrim. Before I bought the game, I admit I had a pirated copy because my girlfriend actually wanted to buy me the game as a present, then said she didn't have enough money. Sick of waiting, I decided to buy the game by myself. The ridiculous part is, it worked better cracked than it does now uncracked. As the title suggests, after entering and leaving houses a couple of times, my performance obviously drops extremely. My build is just fine, Intel i5 quad core processor, NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti from Gigabyte, actually stock-OC, but manually downclocked to usual settings using appropriate Gigabyte software. This fixed the CTD issues I had before with both Skyrim and BF3. I have 4GB RAM. A website about Game Tweaks suggested that my HDD may be too slow. A screenshot of a Windows Performance Index sample with the subscription "This is likely to cause issues" showed the HDD with a performance index of 5.9, the exact same mine has, so I was playing with the thought to purchase an SSD instead, load games onto it that really need it like Skyrim, and hope it'd do the trick. Unfortunately, SSDs are likewise expensive, compared to "normal" HDDs... I'm really getting desperate about it. My save is gone because the patches made it impossible to load saves of the unpatched version and I already saved more than 80 times despite being only level 8, just because every time I interact with a door leading me to another location I'm scared the game will drop again. I can't even play for 30 mins straight anymore, it's just no fun at all. I've researched for a couple of days before I decided to post my question here. Any help is appreciated, I don't want to regret having bought the game... Since it actually is the best game I've played possibly for ever. Sincerely. P.S.: I don't think it's necessary to say, but still, of course I'm playing on PC. P.P.S.: After monitoring both my PC resources including CPU usage and HDD usage as well as the GPU usage, I don't see any changes even after the said event. P.P.P.S.: Original question posted here where I've been advised to ask here.

  Read the article

• Blank displays after inactivity, mouse cursor not showing up

  - by Mike Christiansen

  I have a Windows 7 Enterprise x86 machine that is exhibiting some strange problems. After some inactivity (it varies how long it takes), when I come back to my computer, both of my monitors are black. The monitors are on, with a black display. Moving the mouse and pressing keys on the keyboard do not work. This happens at least once a day. When I first encountered the issue, I performed a hard shutdown and restarted the computer. About 10% of the time when I did this, the resolutions on my monitors were messed up. The native resolution on the primary monitor is 1600x900, and the native on my secondary is 1440x900. None of the widescreen resolutions would be present in the display properties. I had 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024. As a workaround to this issue, I've found that if I plug in my secondary monitor as the primary monitor, and leave the secondary unplugged, then Windows will start in 1024x768 on the secondary. Then, I can use Windows 7's "Detect" feature and it finds the 1440x900 resolution, and sets it. Then I have to connect the primary monitor to the secondary port and set it as the primary. Then I can switch the two cables, putting the primary into the primary, the secondary into the secondary. Then use the "Detect" feature again, and it finds the correct resolutions. Some time after performing the above, I discovered that when the screens were blanked, I could simply press "Control+Alt+Delete", type in my password, and everything comes up fine - except my mouse cursor. All applications and features work as intended, except there is no mouse cursor (the mouse actually works though...). I have the "Show location of pointer when I press CTRL key" option selected, so I can press CTRL and use my mouse as normal - but I have no actual cursor. When the computer is in this state, UAC is also not functional. Whenever a UAC prompt appears, the screens go black (the original symptoms) and I have to press Escape to exit UAC. Because of the above symptoms (the UAC black screen thing, etc) I beleive winlogon.exe may be the culprit. However, I have no idea how to fix it. I am unable to restart winlogon.exe due to the problems I am having with winlogon.exe (the UAC black screen) Looking for any ideas.... More information Windows 7 x86 Enterprise Domain environment (I have a secondary account with administrator rights) Dell Optiplex 960 Cannot perform "optional" windows updates due to an activation issue (I am testing a windows 7 image, and an activation infrastructure has not been created yet. However, this issue was happening before I was unable to perform windows update, and windows was up to date at the time Updated video card driver (as an attempt to fixing the resolution issue) Disabled all power saving options Please let me know what else you need to help me solve this issue! Thanks in advance, Mike

  Read the article

• How might I stop BACKSCATTER using Qmail?

  - by alecb

  New to ServerFault , please pardon if my details are too much Linux box acting as Virtual Host for domain hosting. Runs CentOs. Runs Parallels Plesk 9.x Regardless of the following, the SPAM keeps flowing in at 1-3 / second. An explanation of the problem... "xinetd service listens for SMTP connections and forwards to qmail-smtpd. The qmail service only process the queue, but does not control messages coming into the queue...that's why stopping it has no effect. If you stop xinetd AND qmail, then kill any open qmail-smtpd processes, all mail flow comes to a stop SOMETIMES Problem is, qmail-smtpd is not smart enough to check for valid mailboxes on the localhost before accepting the mail. So, it accepts bad mail with a forged replyto address which gets processed in the queue by qmail. Qmail cannot deliver locally and bounces to the forged replyto address." We believe the fix is to patch the qmail-smtpd process to give it the intelligence to check for the existence of local mailboxes BEFORE accepting the message. The problem is when we try to compile the chkuser patch we run into failures due to Plesk Control Panel." Is anyone aware of something we could do differently or better?" Other things that have NOT worked thus far: -Turning off any and all mail processes (to check as an indicator that an individual account has been compromised. This has been verified as NOT the case.) -Turning off mail AND http server processes (in the case of a compromised formmail) -Running EXIM in lieu of Qmail( easy/quick install but xinetd forces exim to close and restarts qmail on its own) -Turned on SPF protection via Plesk GUI. Does not help. -Turned on Greylisting via Plesk GUI. Does not help. -Disabled Bounce notifications via command line That which MIGHT work but have complications: -Use POSTFIX instead of QMAIL (No knowledge of POSTIFX and don't want to bother with it unless anyone knows it has potential to handle backscatter WELL before investing time) -As mentioned above, compiling a chkusr patch, we believe will STOP this problem, along with qmail (because of plesk in the mix, the comile fails every time and Parallels Plesk support is unresponsive unless I cough up MONEY) If I don't clear out the SPAM from the outgoing mail queue nightly, then it clogs up with millions of SPAMs and will bring down the OUTGOING email services. Any and all help welcome and appreciated!

  Read the article

• Amazon Elastic Terms and Conditions

  - by PP

  WARNING: Have you really read Amazon's Terms and Conditions? Would anybody seriously agree to this term on Amazon's Elastic services sign up page? 6.2. Restrictions with Respect to Use of Marks. Your use of any trademarks, service marks, service or trade names, logos, and other designations of AWS and its affiliates or licensors, hereinafter "Marks", shall strictly comply with the following provisions. You may use the Marks in conjunction with the display of the AWS Content and for the purpose of indicating that your Application was created using the Services. You may use the Marks only in the form in which we make them available to you and not in any manner that disparages Amazon, its affiliates or its licensors, or that otherwise dilutes any Mark. Other than your limited right to use the Marks as provided in this Agreement, we and our licensors retain all right, title, and interest in and to the Marks. You will not at any time now or in the future challenge or assist others to challenge the validity of the Marks, or attempt to register confusingly similar trademarks, trade names, service marks or logos. You agree to follow our the Trademark Use Guidelines posted on the Amazon Web Services™ Trademark Guidelines page (the "Trademark Guidelines") as those guidelines may change from time to time. The Trademark Guidelines are incorporated herein by reference. You must immediately discontinue use of any Mark as specified by us at any time in writing. We may modify any Marks provided to you at any time, and upon notice, you will use only the modified Marks and not the old Marks. Other than as specified in this Agreement, you may not use any trademark, service mark, trade name or other business identifier of Amazon or its affiliates unless you obtain Amazon's or its affiliates' prior written consent. The foregoing prohibition includes the use of "amazon," any other trademark of AWS, Amazon or its affiliates, or variations or misspellings of any of them, in the name of an Application or in a URL to the left of the top-level domain name (e.g., ".com", ".net", "co.uk", etc.)-for example, a URL such as "amazon.mydomain.com", "amaozn.com" or "amazonauctions.net" are expressly prohibited. Any use you make of the Marks shall inure to our benefit and you hereby irrevocably assign to us all right, title and interest in the same. In addition, you agree not to misrepresent or embellish the relationship between us and you, for example by implying that we support, sponsor, endorse, or contribute money to you or your business endeavors. If you are a large company and you want to use Amazon's services you must agree that: you may not use the word "amazon" in any domain name you control (even if you are a forestry company) you may not use any word Amazon choose to trademark in any domain you control (regardless of whether the name has a different meaning/purpose in your industry) from now until forever you will never dispute any claim Amazon makes on any word you or anybody else uses Seriously, who would sign such a thing?

  Read the article

• Sendmail Tuning For Batch Mail Jobs

  - by Kyle Brandt

  I have a webservers that send out emails to a sendmail relay server as a batch job. The emails need to be accepted by the relay sendmail server as fast as possible, however, they do not need to go out (be relayed) very quickly. I am seeing a couple timeouts once and a while from the webserver trying to connect to the relay server. The load currently is about 30 emails a second for a couple minutes. There are quite a few tuning options for sendmail in the sendmail tuning guide. What I am focusing on now is the Delivery Mode: Delivery Mode There are a number of delivery modes that sendmail can operate in, set by the DeliveryMode ( d) configuration option. These modes specify how quickly mail will be delivered. Legal modes are: i deliver interactively (synchronously) b deliver in background (asynchronously) q queue only (don't deliver) d defer delivery attempts (don't deliver) There are tradeoffs. Mode i gives the sender the quickest feedback, but may slow down some mailers and is hardly ever necessary. Mode b delivers promptly but can cause large numbers of processes if you have a mailer that takes a long time to deliver a message. Mode q minimizes the load on your machine, but means that delivery may be delayed for up to the queue interval. Mode d is identical to mode q except that it also prevents lookups in maps including the -D flag from working during the initial queue phase; it is intended for ``dial on demand'' sites where DNS lookups might cost real money. Some simple error messages (e.g., host unknown during the SMTP protocol) will be delayed using this mode. Mode b is the usual default. If you run in mode q (queue only), d (defer), or b (deliver in background) sendmail will not expand aliases and follow .forward files upon initial receipt of the mail. This speeds up the response to RCPT commands. Mode i should not be used by the SMTP server. I currently have the CentOS default modes: Sendmail.cf: DeliveryMode=background Submit.cf: DeliveryMode=i Is sendmail.cf/mc for outgoing email from relay (to the intertubes) and sumbit.cf/mc for incoming eamil (from my webservers). Would it make sense to change the outgoing delivery mode to queue? If I did, what would the outbound email flow behave like? If this is the right thing to do, can anyone show me example mc configurations for this change? If it isn't, what recommendations are there for these constraints?

  Read the article

• Why does unpartitioned Hitachi HDS5C3020 drive start consuming 50% more power 15 minutes after boot?

  - by Pro Backup

  In a Debian 6.0.6 system there are 74 pieces of 2TB Toshiba DT01ABA200 drives. These drives are identified as Hitachi HDS5C3020BLE630 drives running firmware revision MZ4OAAB0. 64 Drives attached via HP SAS expander cards to an LSI 2008 SAS controller, another 5 drives are connected directly to the mainboard, 4 drives are connected to a Sil based PCI controller and last 1 drive is only powered and has no data cable connected. The controller LSI and Sil card's their onboard BIOS are both disabled and the mpt2sas and sata_sil modules are removed from the Linux debian 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Sun Sep 23 10:07:46 UTC 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux kernel. The mpt2sas module is loaded after boot using a modprobe command in /etc/rc.local. These 74 drives are not partitioned, neither formatted and also not mounted. The system consumes: with 0 drives: 70.6 - 70.9 Watt (also 15 minutes after boot); with 74 drives: 330 - 360 Watt, just after boot (is equivalent to 3.5 - 3.9W per drive in idle state); with 74 drives: 420 - 466 Watt, each time in the 15th minute of uptime (is equivalent to 4.7 - 5.3W per drive in idle state). The drive specification lists 4.7W as read/write, and 3.3W as idle power consumption. The increased power consumption is most likely on the 5V line, because after roughly 1 minute an "over current protection" (OCP) of the power supply (PSU) shuts down the power. The used PSU is a single rail model with an OCP of 122A on the 12V line and 55A on the 5V line. Regression: It doesn't matter whether the drive its APM value is set to disabled or 1 (maximum power saving). The operating system records no read/write activity in /proc/diskstats. The values there are identical (28 read, 0 write operations) as immediately after the modprobe operation. Can't test what happens when booting into the mainboard it's BIOS - to exclude any OS intervention - because the Super Micro X8SI6-F mainboard running firmware 06/27/12 has a bug that incorrectly reads a +74.0 C CPU sensor temperature as "High" in BIOS mode, and shuts down the power after 1 minute. What might be causing the drive read/write activity on all drives in the 15th minute after boot and how to prevent it from happening?

  Read the article

• How to start nginx via different port(other than 80)

  - by Zhao Peng

  Hi I am a newbie on nginx, I tried to set it up on my server(running Ubuntu 4), which already has apache running. So after I apt-get install it, I tried to start nginx. Then I get the message like this: Starting nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful [emerg]: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address already in use) [emerg]: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address already in use) [emerg]: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address already in use) [emerg]: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address already in use) [emerg]: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address already in use) That makes sense as Apache is using port 80. Then I tried to modify nginx.conf, I reference some articles, so I changed it like so: server { listen 8080; location / { proxy_pass http://94.143.9.34:9500; proxy_set_header Host $host:8080; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Via "nginx"; } After saving this and try to start nginx again, I still get the same error as previously. I cannot really find a related post about this, could any good people shred some light? Thanks in advance :) ========================================================================= I should post all the content in conf here: user www-data; worker_processes 1; error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log; pid /var/run/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; # multi_accept on; } http { include /etc/nginx/mime.types; access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log; sendfile on; #tcp_nopush on; #keepalive_timeout 0; keepalive_timeout 65; tcp_nodelay on; gzip on; gzip_disable "MSIE [1-6]\.(?!.*SV1)"; include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf; include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*; server { listen 81; location / { proxy_pass http://94.143.9.34:9500; proxy_set_header Host $host:81; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; proxy_set_header Via "nginx"; } } } mail { See sample authentication script at: http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript auth_http localhost/auth.php; pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER"; imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS"; server { listen localhost:110; protocol pop3; proxy on; } server { listen localhost:143; protocol imap; proxy on; } } Basically, I changed nothing except adding the server part.

  Read the article

• Why many applications close after opening a document or doing a specific actions?

  - by Mohsen Farjami

  I have some encrypted pdf files that have no problem and in my last windows, I could open them easily with Adobe Reader 9.2 and other pdf readers. But now, I can only open non-encrypted pdf files and one encrypted file with Adobe Reader. every time I open almost any encrypted pdf, it closes itself. Also, when I try to search a folder for a keyword with Foxit Reader, once it closed. This is not related to Adobe Reader, because I have the same problem with Word 2007. When I open a document, sometimes it closes instantly and sometimes it closes after a few seconds and sometimes it is stable. My windows is Fresh. I have installed it a few days ago. I have ESET Smart Security 5.2 and I have updated it today. OS: XP Pro SP3, RAM: 3 GB, CPU: 2 GHZ, HDD: 320 GB My installed applications: Adobe AIR Adobe Flash Player 11 ActiveX Adobe Flash Player 11 Plugin Adobe Photoshop CS4 Adobe Reader 9.2 Atheros Wireless LAN Client Adapter Babylon Bluetooth Stack for Windows by Toshiba CCleaner Conexant HD Audio Dell Touchpad ESET Smart Security Farsi (101) Custom Foxit Reader Framing Studio 3.27 Google Chrome Hard Disk Sentinel PRO HDAUDIO Soft Data Fax Modem with SmartCP Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver IrfanView (remove only) Java(TM) 6 Update 18 K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 8.8.0 Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1 Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Microsoft Data Access Components KB870669 Microsoft Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 Microsoft User-Mode Driver Framework Feature Pack 1.0.0 (Pre-Release 5348) Mozilla Firefox 7.0.1 (x86 en-US) Notepad++ Office Tab FreeEdition 8.50 ParsQuran PerfectDisk 12 Professional Registry First Aid RICOH R5C83x/84x Flash Media Controller Driver Ver.3.54.06 Sahar Money Manager 2.5 Stickies 7.1d The KMPlayer (remove only) TurboLaunch 5.1.2 Unlocker 1.9.1 USB Safely Remove 4.2 Virastyar Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition Runtime Winamp Windows Internet Explorer 8 Windows Media Player 11.0.5358.4826 Windows XP Service Pack 3 WinRAR 4.11 (32-bit) WorkPause 1.2 Z Dictionary My startup applications: WorkPause USB Safely Remove TurboLaunch SunJavaUpdateSched Stickies rfagent Persistence ParsQuran Daily Verse ITSecMng IgfxTray HotKeysCmds Hard Disk Sentinel egui disable shift+delete CTFMON.EXE Bluetooth Manager Babylon Client Apoint AdobeCS4ServiceManager Adobe Reader Speed Launcher Adobe ARM What should I do to solve it? If you recommend installing Windows again, what guarantees that it won't happen again?

  Read the article

• Need advice on which PCI SATA Controller Card to Purchase

  - by Matt1776

  I have a major issue with the build of a machine I am trying to get up and running. My goal is to create a file server that will service the needs of my software development, personal media storage and streaming/media server needs, as well as provide a strong platform for backing up all this data in a routine, cron-job oriented German efficiency sort of way. The issue is a simple one - all my drives are SATA drives and my motherboard controller only contains 4 ports. Solving the issue has proven to be an unmitigated nightmare. I would like advice on the purchase of the following: 4 Port internal SATA / 2 Port external eSATA PCI SATA Controller Card that has the following features and/or advantages: It must function. If I plug it in and attach drives, I expect my system to still make it to the Operating System login screen. It must function on CentOS, and I mean it must function WELL and with MINIMAL hassle. If hassle is unavoidable, there shall be CLEAR CUT and EASY TO FOLLOW instructions on how to install drivers and other supporting software. I do not need nor want fakeRAID - I will be setting up any RAID configurations from within the operating system. Now, if I am able to find such a mythical device, I would be eternally grateful to whomever would be able to point me in the right direction, a direction which I assume will be paved with yellow bricks. I am prepared to pay a considerable sum of money (as SATA controller cards go) and so paying anywhere between 60 to 120 dollars will not be an issue whatsoever. Does such a magical device exist? The following link shows an "example" of the type of thing I am looking for, however, I have no way of verifying that once I plug this baby in that my system will still continue to function once I've attached the drives, or that once I've made it to the OS, I will be able to install whatever drivers or software programs I need to make it work with relative ease. It doesn't have to be dog-shit simple, but it cannot involve kernels or brain surgery. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00552PLN4/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B003GSGMPU&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1HJG60XTZFJ48Z173HKY So does anyone have a suggestion regarding the subject I am asking about? PCI SATA Controller Cards? It would help if you've had experience with the component before - that is after all why I am asking here - for those who have had experience that I do not have. Bear in mind that this is for a home setup and that I do not have a company credit card. I have a budget with a 'relative' upper limit of about $150.00.

  Read the article

• Monitoring tools that can take high rate and high volume?

  - by Jon Watte

  We're using Cacti with RRDTool to monitor and graph about 100,000 counters spread across about 1,000 Linux-based nodes. However, our current setup generally only gives us 5-minute graphs (with some data being minute-based); we often make changes where seeing feedback in "near real time" would be of value. I'd like approximately a week of 5- or 10-second data, a year of 1-minute data, and 5 years of 10-minute data. I have SSD disks and a dual-hexa-core server to spare. I tried setting up a Graphite/carbon/whisper server, and had about 15 nodes pipe to it, but it only has "average" for the retention function when promoting to older buckets. This is almost useless -- I'd like min, max, average, standard deviation, and perhaps "total sum" and "number of samples" or perhaps "95th percentile" available. The developer claims there's a new back-end "in beta" that allows you to write your own function, but this appears to still only do 1:1 retention (when saving older data, you really want the statistics calculated into many streams from a single input. Also, "in beta" seems a little risky for this installation. If I'm wrong about this assumption, I'd be happy to be shown my error! I've heard Zabbix recommended, but it puts data into MySQL or some other SQL database. 100,000 counters on a 5 second interval means 20,000 tps, and while I have an SSD, I don't have an 8-way RAID-6 with battery backup cache, which I think I'd need for that to work out :-) Again, if that's actually something that's not a problem, I'd be happy to be shown the error of my ways. Also, can Zabbix do the single data stream - promote with statistics thing? Finally, Munin claims to have a new 2.0 coming out "in beta" right now, and it boasts custom retention plans. However, again, it's that "in beta" part -- has anyone used that for real, and at scale? How did it perform, if so? I'm almost thinking about using a graphing front-end (such as Graphite) and rolling my own retention backend with a simple layer on top of mmap() and some stats. That wouldn't be particularly hard, and would probably perform very well, letting the kernel figure out the balance between frequency of flushing to disk and process operations. Any other suggestions I should look into? Note: it has to have shown itself able to sustain the kinds of data loads I'm suggesting above; if you can point at the specific implementation you're referencing, so much the better!

  Read the article

• What the best way to achieve RPO of zero and lowest possible RTO (less than 15 minutes) with SQL 2008 R2?

  - by Adrian Hope-Bailie

  We are running a payments (EFT transaction processing) application which is processing high volumes of transactions 24/7 and are currently investigating a better way of doing DB replication to our disaster recovery site. Our current and previous strategies have included using both DoubleTake and Redgate to replicate data to a warm stand-by. DoubleTake is the supported solution from the payments software vendor however their (DoubleTake's) support in South Africa is very poor. We had a few issues and simply couldn't ever resolve them so we had to give up on DoubleTake. We have been using Redgate to manually read the data from the primary site (via queries) and write to the DR site but this is: A bad solution Getting the software vendor hot and bothered whenever we have support issues as it has a tendency to interfere with the payment application which is very DB intensive. We recently upgraded the whole system to run on SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise which means we should probably be looking at using some of the built-in replication features. The server has 2 fairly large databases with a mixture of tables containing highly volatile transactional data and pretty static configuration data. Replication would be done over a WAN link to a separate physical site and needs to achieve the following objectives. RPO: Zero loss - This is transactional data with financial impact so we can't lose anything. RTO: Tending to zero - The business depends on our ability to process transactions every minute we are down we are losing money I have looked at a few of the other questions/answers but none meet our case exactly: SQL Server 2008 failover strategy - Log shipping or replication? How to achieve the following RTO & RPO with logshipping only using SQL Server? What is the best of two approaches to achieve DB Replication? My current thinking is that we should use mirroring but I am concerned that for RPO:0 we will need to do delayed commits and this could impact the performance of the primary DB which is not an option. Our current DR process is to: Stop incoming traffic to the primary site and allow all in-flight transaction to complete. Allow the replication to DR to complete. Change network routing to route to DR site. Start all applications and services on the secondary site (Ideally we can change this to a warmer stand-by whereby the applications are already running but not processing any transactions). In other words the DR database needs to, as quickly as possible, catch up with primary and be ready for processing as the new primary. We would then need to be able to reverse this when we are ready to switch back. Is there a better option than mirroring (should we be doing log-shipping too) and can anyone suggest other considerations that we should keep in mind?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194  | Next Page >