BigJoe

Off the shelf software Versus inhouse development

2008-12-05T15:57:00.002-05:00

Being in this very stormy market I have heard people talking about where to cut costs but keep things running. The two things I hear the most are cut jobs and purchase off the shelf software. Knowing that the business needs someone to contact for support even OpenSource products would be purchased in that they would buy support contracts for the applications.

This made me think. What is cheaper purchasing software/support from vendors or having your support as a warm body in a seat? Especially a warm body that can read/write many popular programming languages.

If you look at the cost of each product individually:
$4,000 - Enterprise Wiki / Sharepoint (per instance)
$2,000 - Enterprise CMS
$1,700 - Small Databases
$30,000 - Helpdesk software
$100,000 - Reporting software
$200,000 - Email software
$100,000 - Desktop Management software
$100,000 - Backup software

They don't look to astronomical. I am low balling many of these but they are pretty close. You could purchase all of this software and get the warm feelings of (at least the time of purchase) having support. Some like the Email software and Database software will still cost you extra for the support but people tend to forget that. Or you could bring in a couple of good programmer/troubleshooters that have used Open Source products for a while and roll out many of these things with only the cost of 2-3 developers. Granted to get really good, sharp people it is going to cost some money. Especially if you want them to stay around. You could easily get 2 for half the price of what you would have into the purchased software. Between the two keeping 8 applications alive and kicking would be no problem. They would even have time to implement features that you want/need. Imaging that having the ability to get a feature in a product like an Enterprise Email solution!!!

Which that leads me to the biggest thing with bringing on Open Source specialists. They will want to contribute back to the projects. Let them. Encourage them. Drive them.

Fighting battles in the Office

2008-08-21T10:40:00.002-04:00

Have you ever spent hours researching, on conference calls, testing and ultimately pulling your hair out just to look at the goal and not caring?

So I have spent the about 100 hours so far doing this. After becoming frustrated I asked a question that made me think to myself "why should I care and put forth so much effort?" I asked why do they want this setup this way? The answer I got was because a couple of users didn't like following the process they would use for any other application. It is mainly working around the security of the system. Which in my mind the CSO should step up and and say "No".

Some Ideas

2008-05-06T07:26:00.002-04:00

I have a few personal projects I need to wrap up here quickly so I can start working on my new pet projects. I am taking a look at Joomla for a website that I am setting up for an organization. I have tried many systems and each one seems to be overly complicated or not do what I need it to do. I quickly skimmed over Joomla a few months ago giving 1.5 a try but found that at the time there were no plugins for it. I looked again and it seems that there is more but I am also giving the 1.0.X branch a try. If I can get things going in Joomla it would be great. I really wish a CMS would create an easy to use and easy to manage CMS.

If you know of any good OpenSource CMS solutions please post them in the comments section.

Reoccuring

2008-04-21T21:04:00.002-04:00

Looking at the last time I posted it has been a while. I don't want to say that I am going to post again before next year but I would like to.

I have a few presentations to present at the GRLUG so I will probably post more information here about them before and after I post. I am trying to get my googlepages site going to post more static info but someone flagged it before I even put any info on it so I can't access it. I followed Google's procedure but I am still not getting anywhere. I have built some packages that I want to post up on there. The big one is cups for HPUX cups-1.3.2 but no one can get there anyway. :(

Haven't blogged in a while.

2007-05-21T20:41:00.000-04:00

I have found I have fallen off of the blogging band wagon. I am going to start again. It has been a while. But now that my google stuff is all synced together hopefully it will make it easier. It was a lot easier to updated my blog in Linux with the tools that they have for it like blogtk and such. I haven't found one yet for Mac but I really haven't looked.

I started posting some stuff at www.rowdy.com/bigjoe but I have been getting really bored with Nascar. Mainly because I don't like Hendick motorsports and they seem to catch all the breaks, if you know what I mean.

I wonder if mugshot.org will sync stuff like this around.

New Quote

2006-02-21T14:57:00.000-05:00

If a server reboots in the middle of the night and no one is there to notice, Did it actually fail?

EU Reps smarter than US Reps

2005-07-06T07:59:00.000-04:00

Not sure if anyone noticed but finally a governing body got it right http://lists.ffii.org/pipermail/news/2005-July/000302.html I truely hope that someday our reps will start working for the citizens rather than just big business and do the same thing that the EU has done.

OpenSolaris and the Linux

2005-06-21T17:42:00.000-04:00

I have been reading different things about what OpenSolaris is going to do to Linux. Is it going to replace Linux? Is OpenSolaris going to dissappear? I think that in the near future the lead people on kernel development for all of these OpenSource based operating systems need to come together and discuss advantages and disadvantages of each OS and possibly come up with a better way.

Someone needs to bring in the Smartest *BSD, Linux and OpenSolaris developers and try and build the next OS Kernel.

This will probably never happen but one can wish.

2005-06-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

This will have to do for now

It still doesn't post the title correctly. I have a bug ticket in with blogtk about this so hopefully if the guy gets some time to work it out I can get a fix for this. :)

2005-06-09T11:01:00.000-04:00

This is to test

I am running FC4-devel right now and I am trying the new desktop blogging tool.

The theory of BootScripting

2005-05-26T17:40:00.000-04:00

Now me describe the thought of BootScripting. BootScripting is the process of creating one small script in any scripting language. I am a big fan of Perl so I will do my example in that. The basic idea is the script is just big enough to connect to a database and take in parameters. Once it connects to the database it generates the rest of itself.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

use DBI;

my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=scripts;host=scriptmaster.local","scriptmaster","scriptmasterpassword") || die "Can't connect to the DB";

my $script_id_temp = $ARGV[0];

my $script_id = 0;

$script_id = $1 if((defined($script_id_temp)) && ($script_id_temp =~ m/(\d)/));

$sth = $dbh->prepare("select script_body from scripts where script_id=?") or die "Can't prepare Statement";

$sth->execute($script_id);

my ($script_data) = $sth->fetchrow_array;

eval $script_data;

$dbh->disconnect;

exit;

This script if worked on can probably be more streamlined and cleaned up. What this approach helps you do is to put focus on writing the scripts and focus on the functionality and not have to worry about if all the servers you have the script on are up-to-date.

ROAR

Microsoft Office Sucks

2005-05-13T08:56:00.000-04:00

I really hope OpenOffice polishes up its functionality. I really need to get rid of the crappy Microsoft Office 2003. Have you ever used it and realized all the crap in it. I am not talking bloated applications but I am talking how unintuitive it actually is.

For example:
If you have 6 spread sheets open and you are on the last one and want to close it you would normally click the X in the upper right hand corner. Or that is what you would do if it followed any other conventions set by Microsoft. People say it is because Microsoft is using a "window inside a window" approach. The problem with this is Microsoft Office is the only application that will not follow their own rules. They create task bar entries for each spread sheet you have open. This signifies that it is a separate application. When you as a user follow the directions set forth by Microsoft the "should" be followed for each application it attempts to close all your open spreadsheets. And on top of that it starts from the first one open. It doesn't care if you had 15 open and just wanted to close the last one. It starts from the beginning and asks you about each one.

Why doesn't Microsoft follow their own rules? Why do you have to pay $300 for applications that aren't intuitive?

2005-03-26T19:28:00.000-05:00

Gnome-blog

Well I found a desktop blogging tool that allows me to post titles to my posts in blogger. blogtk doesn't allow me to do this. Hopefully they will fix this in their next release but this seems to work just fine. Thanks to Matt over at www.nrpms.net for packaging this app and many others!!

SCSI Scan

2005-03-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

I am working on a new CX300 in a Linux environment. I went looking in this blog for a script that I once found to realize I never posted it so here it is:

http://sethbuckley.com/wiki/index.php/Rescan-scsi-bus.sh

Now back to work

Rusty Wallace for President

2004-10-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

We need someone to run for President that is not John Kerry and not George Bush. We need someone to run for President that has actaully felt the effects of the poor economy. I really don't think Bush and Kerry feel any effects of the economy. When I say economy I mean the economy in families homes not the economy that corporations live in.

We need someone with recognition that wasn't born into where they are. Rusty would be a great choice for 2008. He is retiring after 2005 so he will have some time.

Software Renaissance

2004-10-27T07:09:00.000-04:00

I keep reading these articles about software revolutions that are happening because of OpenSource and other things of that nature. After reading many of these articles I have determined that software isn't going through a revolution. It is going through a Renaissance. It is very similar the the Artistic Renaissance in that people were not learning how to paint a picture or make a sculpture instead they were redefining the way they did it and the what their final producted looked like.

This is really the same with software. Nothing new is actually happening in software. People are still writing code and it is still being run by the computer. What is changing is how a programmer looks at it, creates it, designs it and what the finished product looks like.

Renaissance is also defined by "revival of learning" which falls right into the lap of the OpenSource community. This is becuase the OpenSource community is about sharing knowledge and learning from others.

Voting for Hawaii and Alaska

2004-10-26T13:53:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking about the issues that Hawaii has with their votes not counting. If Florida can vote for 2 weeks I think Hawaii should vote the day before the actual election. Their votes would then be available for the rest of the US.

I also think that exit polls should be banned until a certain time of day. If they keep exit polls they should get rid of electoral votes. This way the elections would be a lot more fun.

Kasey Kahne

2004-10-19T16:10:00.000-04:00

Kasey has been running really good ever since he started in the Nextel Cup. He hasn't had any wins yet. He runs into different issues keeping him out of victory lane. I really think that once Kahne gets into victory lane it will be very very hard to keep him out.

Handle change

2004-10-01T09:21:00.000-04:00

I have been pondering changing my handle to ROAR. I used to have a weekly meeting in which at the end of the meeting I would present my ROAR for the week. This is pretty similar to what I do in my Blog. It is just my ramblings.

Selling Cars online

2004-10-01T09:03:00.000-04:00

I have been trying to sell my 1990 Dodge Shadow and 1985 Dodge Ram online for a little while now. I really haven't found a good free online "Classifieds" site to post these on. I have put them on some sites but those sites haven't been accessed in somecases months and others years. This is really frusterating. I will keep on trying to sell them. Maybe I will put them in the side links part of my blog to possible get a couple more people looking at them.

Does anyone know of any good places to do this?

Tivo and Old School Games

2004-09-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking about my "Old School Games" post for a while and I have a better idea than the "iTunes" style solution. What would be the coolest thing to happen is if Tivo would provide this solution. This way you can use your set top Tivo solution to play the games. You could buy a controller from http://www.sealiecomputing.com/ and plug it directly into your Tivo. You could then start playing some cool old school games. It wouldn't take to long to send down ROMs of the games either.

Gatorade Gestapo

2004-09-20T07:11:00.000-04:00

Has anyone else noticed the rapid decline of PowerAde and other sports drinks from you local gas stations? This is Gatorade's doing. They have sent their reps into each of these stores and demanded them to remove all other competing products from their shelves.

Isn't there laws against this? This sounds like a Gestapo if I have ever heard of one.

What do you think?

DVR "Tivo"

2004-09-17T10:12:00.000-04:00

I got a Tivo for my birthday and that thing rocks. It smokes the competition. I have some friends who have DishNetworks PVR and it doesn't even compare to my Tivo. I can do season pass and some other cool features that they wish they had.

Having a Tivo makes me want to setup a MythTV box. I want to set it up to do TV stuff and be able to burn shows to DVD. I also want to setup a NES Emulator so I can play the games I have through newer technology instead of hoping the cartridges still work.

No Blogs for a while

2004-09-17T08:39:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since I last blogged and I have good reason. Everytime I went to post a blog it failed. So now I have some backlogged blogs that I am going to post here shortly.

Update:

Well I guess my failed updates some actually made it so now I need to clean them up.

Old School Games (NES, Atari, Sega)

2004-09-08T14:54:00.000-04:00

I think that the game makers need to embrace the ROM market. I think that if a game company like Atari or Capcom came out with a solution similar to iTunes that a person can go out and purchase a ROM for an older game and then be able to play it. This would rock. I think this market would be pretty big. I think the retro controller market would enjoy this also.

I was having issues with my blog so I ended up posting three versions of the same post. I have consolidated them here but left them in their entirety for reference sake.

Post 2:
I think it would be really cool if old school game makers created a solution similar to iTunes to sell and run older games (ROMS). Games like Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, etc would actually be big. People could get to run the games that they used to play.

I thaught of this because of this site and this article.

Post 3:
I think that companies that made video games from 5+years ago should embrace ROM and Emulators. Instead of following the entire path that the music industry took with MP3s these companies should look at the end result. These companies like Atari, Capcom, and many others should try a service like iTunes to sell games and make money on games they created 10 years ago.

Here is a cool site with retro controllers.

Fiberglass work

2004-08-26T14:04:00.000-04:00

Recently I have been interested it doing fiberglass for different purposes. I have found a website that might be of interest so I am putting it up here on my blog. http://www.fibreglast.com another cool car site is: www.megasquirt.info This site shows how to make your own fuel injection system. I also want to try this out. Time to go to Radio Shack.

Adding a Hard Disk in Linux

2004-08-25T15:56:00.000-04:00

If you are trying to add a HD to Linux for additional storage here are some simple steps to get it going. This example will be for hdb (a second ide hard drive)

run:
>fdisk /dev/hdb
>p
Delete any existing partitiona if you so desire by using "d" and selecting the partition number.
Now to create a new primary partition. We will use number one for the partition number:
>n
>p
>1
Use the defaults to get the max size of the disk unless you want more partitions.
>w
Now your partition has been created. Now to format it:
>mkfs -v -t ext2 /dev/hdb1
Now turn on journalling:
>tune2fs -j -i 365 /dev/hdb1
Now create a directory where you want your new partition to be mounted like this:
>mkdir /MoreSpace
Then edit your /etc/fstab file and add the following (without the quotes):
"/dev/hdb1 /MoreSpace ext3 defaults 0 0"
Now reboot and you will have more space.

VMWare User Group in Grand Rapids

2004-08-24T13:08:00.000-04:00

I am thinking about starting a Grand Rapids area VMWare Users Group. I am going to try and go to the Kalamazoo LUG meeting soon and see if there is some interest there and possibly doing a "West Michigan VMware Users Group" that we could schedule one meeting in GR and the next in Kalamazoo, etc.

My Todo List

2004-08-24T11:22:00.000-04:00

I need to create a quick little todo manager for my different applications that I write and/or work on. Right now I have another todo that I need to add to an application called Vispan. So I am going to use this post as a temp todo list manager.

Vispan:
Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly break outs of information.
Whitelisted consolidation.

Sprint-PCS tool:
Bug fixes. I need to fix this one up.

MailScanner:
Antiphishing support. try and tie into http://www.antiphishing.org.

Fedora Games:
Work on an initial CD for Fedora Core 3. Hopefully I can put something out when FC3 comes out and possibly get some help from other developers.
I would also like to try and connect it with http://www.happypenguin.org and possibly get other distros supported.

Awesome Gnome Book

2004-08-20T09:38:00.000-04:00

I have been playing around with Gnome and writing some applications for it and I always found the documentation out there to be kind of hard to take in as a newbie to the Gnome ways of development. I have been on the lookout for a good introduction type book or document. And today one was published on the web. http://www.gnome.org/~newren/tutorials/developing-with-gnome/ This tutorial rocks!! It answers so many questions I had about different things that I feel I should pay for it. Maybe it is time I donate to the GnomeFriends foundation. This blogger gives this document two thumbs up...

Going to the races

2004-08-20T07:46:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow morning I will be on the road to Michigan International Speedway to watch the NASCAR race there. It should be pretty fun. I have been there to watch Indy racing which is pretty fun but this should top that. Hopefully Ryan Newman will pull out another win at Michigan.

A feature I want in Gnome

2004-08-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

There is a feature that I want to be in gnome. I think it needs to be at the GTK level but I have no clue. I started to look into it but I don't know what to call it. The feature I want is something you can do in MS Windows. If you have a window open that has a list you can select a file (or directory or any value in the list) and start typing the one you want. The list will then refocus to the location. Example: I have a list of 500 directories. I know there is a directory in there call "orange" so I click the first directory named "apple" and I start typing "ora" now the list has refocused on orange I hit enter and use this value.

usbautocam for Linux

2004-08-18T14:48:00.000-04:00

I found this link a while ago and I think other people might like it. http://warmcat.com/usbautocam/ It sets up Linux to accept all sorts of USB storage tools like cameras, MP3 players, etc.

This would be something that I would like to see in Fedora Core in one shape or another. Maybe setup a GUI tool that does this when a new USB device is added then configure it the first time. Then after that it would already know what to do with it.

FlightGear 0.9.5 for Fedora Core 2

2004-08-10T12:26:00.000-04:00

www.fedora.us has put up prebuild rpms for Fedora Core 2 of FlightGear. I am still trying to get all the things figured out with the addon CDs for Fedora Core. Once that gets done I can start building a CD. Otherwise I will be looking at playing with InstallBase to get that to install packages.

What do you think would be better. A GUI installer for each games or a CD that would install any/all the games via a check list.

Joe

Scalix 9.0, MS Exchange 2003, Novell Groupwise 6.5

2004-08-03T21:25:00.000-04:00

We have currently been testing 3 email solutions to replace our MS Exchange 5.5 solution. No new requirements have been added over what MS Exchange 5.5. We have setup each solution. Let me rephrase that we got Novell Groupwise 6.5 and Scalix 9.0 setup completely. MS Exchange is really kicking our butts. We have three 2003 servers installed. A PDC, main Exchange Server and an Outlook Web Access Server. After following the instructions to a "T" Outlook Web Access doesn't work. I have started search this issue but it seems no one else has had this issue. When we attempt to contact our MS reps they spend their time bashing the other solutions and trying to sell us Portal Server.

Scalix has shown to be awesome. It took less that 4 hours to install and configure it. It doesn't require anything really special for Antivirus and Backup software.

Groupwise is really good too. It wasn't as easy to install as Scalix but it has a lot of functionality that would be cool. It has messanging and document management. But these features aren't required for our solution.

Scalix is running

2004-08-03T08:20:00.000-04:00

I got Scalix running on a test system for our email evaluation. It looks pretty cool. I had one issue with Tomcat 5 and Xerces that was fixed by running Tomcat 4.

Looking at new email solutions.

2004-08-02T07:44:00.000-04:00

I am currently working on a project to evaluate replacing our old email solution. We are currently looking at 4 products. MS Exchange 2003, Novell GroupWise 6.5, Novell SuSE Linux OpenExchange 4.1, and Scalix OpenMail. Right now I am really liking Groupwise but from what I have seen with Scalix this might be the solution to get.

Ryan Newman pulls out a 13th finish

2004-08-02T07:42:00.000-04:00

After having a really bad day Ryan worked his way back from 2 laps down to post a 13th place finish. With this he was able to move into 8th place in the overall standings which keeps him away from being replaced by someone from 11-15 in points.

VMWare ESX 2.1 rocks

2004-07-28T10:37:00.000-04:00

I have been using VMWare products for a while. Starting with VMWare workstation then moving up to GSX server and now to ESX server. I have to say if you are looking at purchasing VMWare GSX go and get ESX. It is so much easier to manage. Everything is in one interface rather than setting some stuff up on the OS and some in the software. I need to talk management into Virtual Center now!!

The Software Industry should be like the Pharmaceutical Industry

2004-07-28T08:11:00.000-04:00

I think the Software industry should be run the same as the Pharmaceutical industry in that It can patent software and technologies but the patent is only good for 5 years. After that 5 years the software/technology should become public domain (preferable with the source). This would give the software developer time to sell their product but it help people who stay on older systems get fixes for software that they are using. After 5 years the technology has changed so much and most software vendors stop supporting the product at this time. This would force companies to innovate any chance they get to make a better product that will sell better and be better than the one before it.

Linux Adoption

2004-07-26T19:31:00.000-04:00

Linux is great I use it everyday for pretty much everything. The one issue that I can see that keeps it from taking over is people don't realize how it can be used. I priced out MS WindowsXP and MS Office. To get almost what you get with standard fedora and it costs nearly $800. I don't understand why people waste their money. If these people start using Linux that they can buy or download for a fraction of the price or most times free, then the applications they like to use will show up in full force. Just look at RealPlayer and other things like that. The applications that don't move over soon will be replaced by OSS versions of what they try to sell.

Does anyone read these?

2004-07-26T13:52:00.000-04:00

I am just curious if anyone actually reads these? Or is this just me talking into a black hole? If you come across this drop a comment.

Thanks

Dell SAN With RHAS

2004-07-26T09:23:00.000-04:00

I think I have found something to go with on the SAN issues I am having. After talking to Jeff from Dell tech support I found some information at: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kb/en/document?dn=1045368&c=us&l=en&s=slg&cs=RC957164 which talks about the LUNs being masked on the Raid controller on the SAN device. Now I need to find out how to turn it off.

Next Version of FlightGear

2004-07-26T07:47:00.000-04:00

I have been watching the FlightGear Mailling list lately and alot of new stuff has been tested and put into FlightGear. I am really excited. I am tossing around the idea in my head to create a website called "Fedora Games" This would be an addon for the standard Fedora Core. It would contain a large amount of games prebuilt and ready to install from the CD.

Dell's Linux Support

2004-07-26T07:43:00.000-04:00

I have gotten an official response to my request for help connecting a Dell 1750 with RedHat AS 3.0 (with support for the next three years) to a Dell 660 SAN. In which I was given this response:

Thank you for contacting Dell E-support Services. Currently we only support the Precision Workstation and PowerEdge Server systems. For questions pertaining to your San please contact Storage Support at 800-822-8965. They will be happy to assist you on your issue and are available to take your call 24 hours a day.

Now I am going to look at RedHat's support to see if they can help me.

Ryan in on the Pole in NH.

2004-07-25T11:34:00.000-04:00

Ryan Newman got the pole for this weekend. Hopefully he can turn this into a win. He needs to get some more points and move up in the top 10. Go Mopar!

UPDATE:
Ryan ended up in 3rd place. I was really hoping for the win but he is only a handful of points out of 9nth.

Mailling lists and Forum's

2004-07-21T12:05:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if the questions I post to forums and mailling lists are too hard. Or I am trying to do something no one else has ever done/tried. I have postings out on forums over 2 years old that don't even have a response. When I post out to mailling lists it seems every one on the list ignores it. I sent out 3 emails to Dell's Linux PowerEdge mailling list and I still have not gotten one response. I really hope Matt or someone else on the list has some sort of solution.

Setting Up Linux on a SAN

2004-07-21T07:27:00.000-04:00

I have now found that the SAN is being loaded but I am having issues addressing the LUNs that are available on it. I have started banging around with a command:

echo "scsi add-single-device 0 0 0 1" > /proc/scsi/scsi

Which doesn't seem to want to work. On a side note it seems that the dkms module aacraid doesn't upgrade when using the "dkms match -k 2.4.21-15.0.3.ELsmp --templatekernel=2.4.21-4.ELsmp" command. I am going to post that to the Dell Mailling list also see if there is anything that I can do about this.

RHAS 3.0 on a Dell SAN

2004-07-20T15:00:00.000-04:00

Setting up RedHat AS 3.0 on a Dell SAN. I am having troubles finding information on how to set this up. I have posted to the Dell Linux mailling list but I am now in limbo waiting on a reply.

I did find some cool stuff out about Dell's DKMS Linux Kernel module. It will update any drivers that you install using DKMS at once. Using the command:

dkms match -k 2.4.21-15.0.3.ELsmp --templatekernel=2.4.21-4.ELsmp

But I still can not see the LUNs on the SAN.

First One

2004-07-20T11:23:00.000-04:00

I new I should have created a blog a while ago but now I am doing it and hopefully getting things done.

Joe