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since this journal is friends only now, I guess I need somewhere for people to comment if they want me to friend them so they can read my stuff.

I picked up a Drobo recently, and while it might do some awesome, impressive things, it also has it's drawbacks. I've played with it a bit and have some

Features & Cool Shit

(almost) Infinitely expandable redundant drive space. I think they say it can be expanded up to 16TB. That's really really big.
By "redundant" I mean that you can lose any one drive and not lose data.
The ability to add a new drive or replace the smallest drive in your drobo at (almost) any time. (if it's in the middle of data reorganization because you just replaced a drive, wait to replace another drive. The lights will tell you when it's OK)
The drives don't need to match. Redundancy with Just A Bunch of Disks.
It's simple, RAID-like functionality without needing to know a shitload of shit.

Drawbacks

It connects via USB2 or firewire. I don't have firewire, so it's connected via USB2. Except that ties it to a single computer which (obviously) needs to be on if you want to share your data. So you buy a DroboShare that is a smart ethernet <-&ht; USB adapter thingie (it's much more than an adapter, but that's the simplest explanation). I picked up a DroboShare.
Connections to the DroboShare have almost no security.
- full r/w access via one username/password
- full r/w access to everybody on your network (which might be a wireless network)
I tried to mount the drive to my linux server via NFS, but I couldn't get that to work properly. Anyways, it would have added another level of possible failure.
I think that the best feedback about drive status is via the lights on the front. This means that you can't really throw it in the basement with the rest of your servers. There are supposed to be email alert settings, but I'm not seeing them. (oh, wait, I just RTFM'd and the settings are on my desktop - I wonder if I'll get emailed if the desktop is off - that's useless)
For a while I had it formatted via HFS+ and connected as a USB drive to my Apple Airport Extreme. I went away from this setup (to using the DroboShare) for two reasons
1. I was worried about being tied to a file format that I couldn't natively read from my windows machines. (I don't own any apple computers [other than the iphone])
2. I had problems renaming a directory back to a previous name. I was being told the name was already in use. This was weird and I didn't want to fuck around solving it, especially given the above problem.
For a while I had it formatted via EXT3 and tried to connect it NFS to my linux box. I thought this would give me some multi-user security. The NFS is via a DroboApp. DroboApps are unsupported and based on free software. You're getting what you pay for - maybe less. I couldn't get the NFS to connect, so I went back to NTFS.
Formatted old style (XP Compatible - I didn't realize there was a new style) NTFS (because I'm not running Vista or Windows 7, I can't use the new style NTFS) your drives are limited to 2TB each. That removes one of the advantages of the drobo - never having to reorganize your data because the drive can always just get bigger. Mind you - 2TB is still really really big.

It felt slow. Brief testing showed this not to be true. Of course it was slower than my local hard drive, but it was faster than my Linux RAID mounted via SAMBA. I created a spreadsheet showing my test results. Interestingly, formatted NTFS, the drive is slower than formatted EXT3. This encouraged me to run some more half assed tests.

Summary

This seems like a good device for a standard user that wants some data redundancy. For a more advanced user, the limitations become glaring. I'm still going to use it, but I'm less sure about how it's going to fit into my arsenal than when I first bought it.

cout << "Hello World\n";

Do you agree with this article?

http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/05/26/fast-food-apple-pies-and-why-netbooks-suck/

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

I added a new select at the bottom that deals with decimal numbers


create table sort_test
(string	varchar2(10));
insert into sort_test values (1);
insert into sort_test values ('a');
insert into sort_test values (11);
insert into sort_test values ('123B');
insert into sort_test values ('A2');
insert into sort_test values ('2A');
insert into sort_test values ('b');
insert into sort_test values ('A');
insert into sort_test values (2);
commit;
select * from sort_test
order by regexp_replace( string
		, '[[:digit:]]+'
		, lpad(regexp_substr(string,'[[:digit:]]+'),10,'0') 
		)
;
STRING
1
2
2A
11
123B
A
A2
a
B

 select *
 from sort_test
 order by regexp_replace( string, '[[:digit:].]+',
ltrim( to_char(regexp_substr(string,'[[:digit:].]+'),'0000000009.90000') )), string
 ; 
STRING
0
0.12A
1
2
2A
2.23A
11
123B
A
A0
A.123
A0.123
A2
A2.0
A2.34
a
b

Note: this only works up to 10 digits, but that can be changed by
increasing the 10 parameter in the regexp_substr

I've had my ipod touch for almost a week now. That's enough for me to give a review of it, and to taint all of you with my opinion. Everybody has seen either one of these or an iPhone by now, so I don't need to tell you how generally fucking cool this thing is. The screen is gorgeous, the graphics processor makes everything so smooth, but that doesn't stop me from making an ( unnecessarily long review )( Wishlist )

Current Music: Zombie Girl&The Isley Brothers&Billie Holiday&Richard O'Brien&Tin Machine

function fn_boolean_to_varchar2(i_bool	boolean)
return varchar2
is
begin
	if i_bool is null then
		return 'null';
	elsif i_bool then
		return 'true';
	else
		return 'false';		
	end if;
	
	return 'salmon';
end fn_boolean_to_varchar2;

through experimentation, I have determined that -whatif can be passed to
a cmdlet as follows
Copy-Item -path $File1 -dest $File2 -force -whatif:$whatif

the following syntax also works

Copy-Item -path $File1 -dest $File2 -force -whatif $whatif

but I don't like to read that as much.

Using this technique removes the need for if ($whatif) blocks.

Mini (useless) Example:


Function MyCopy
{
	param([string]$source, [string]$target, [switch]$whatif)

	copy-item $source $target -whatif:$whatif
}

Much cleaner than


Function MyCopy
{
	param([string]$source, [string]$target, [switch]$whatif)
	
	if ($whatif) {
		copy-item $source $target -whatif
	} else {
		copy-item $source $target
	}
}

And multiple switches can be used at the same time too.


Function MyCopy
{
	param([string]$source, [string]$target, [switch]$whatif,
[switch]$verbose)

	copy-item $source $target -whatif:$whatif -verbose:$verbose
}

PS D:\scripts> get-help write-verbose

NAME
Write-Verbose

SYNOPSIS
Writes a string to the verbose display of the host.

SYNTAX
Write-Verbose [-message] []

( DETAILED DESCRIPTION )

I couldn't find a good demo or reference for param - so I wrote one that wasn't overly complex.

( code in here )

Any parameters after the named parameters end up in the $args array.
This means that if the length of args is > 0 then the user supplied
extra parameters.
I think that the test for null and the test for zero length is
overkill.
I would like to test type checking on the parameters
Parameters can be defaulted
param([string]$source="foo", [string]$target="bar")
- throwing errors
  or
- prompting

Prompting for missing parameters:
param (
[string]$xsltpath =$(read-host "Please specify the path to an XSLT")
)
I think that this is a boolean value or something, used for switch
only parameters (like /y on xcopy)
param([switch]verbose)

Get-help set-psdebug
http://bsonposh.com/modules/wordpress/?p=55

[Error: unknown template video]
allegedly this video is of surfing in montreal.

surfing in montreal.

surfing in montreal.

nope, it doesn't matter how often I say it, it sounds strange.

surfing in montreal.

http://weblogs.asp.net/adweigert/archive/2007/10/10/powershell-try-catch-finally-comes-to-life.aspx

This fucker neeeds some commenting!!

(and no, I don't have any)

( code in here, incase URL stops working )

Shit! As soon as I followed my own instructions I noticed a flaw in
them. Here's the updated instructions.

NOTE: I have not seen instructions online of how to do this. It
makes me wonder if it's a bad bad bad idea. I did it anyways.

run windows explorer (win-e)
Choose Tools | Folder Options
Select the File Types tab
Scroll down to find PS1
Click Advanced
Click New...
Click Browse...
Navigate to c:\windows\system32\powershell\v1.0 ,select
powershell.exe, and click OK
Fill "Run" in the Action field
Click OK
Click Edit...
- from: C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe "%1"
- to: C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe &
  '%1'
  
  (note the single quotes instead of the double quotes)
Click OK
Click Change Icon...
Click Browse...
Select powershell.exe, and click Open
Click OK
Click OK
Click Close

Tip! Right clicking in the powershell console seems to paste

(this is the first in many parts of me documenting powershell to make it
more usable. Some of it will be my work specific, some of it won't)

After installation, run powershell from the start menu, and then enter
the following

set-executionpolicy RemoteSigned

Without this, powershell won't run scripts.

NOTE: I have not seen instructions online of how to do this. It
makes me wonder if it's a bad bad bad idea. I did it anyways.

run windows explorer (win-e)
Choose Tools | Folder Options
Select the File Types tab
Scroll down to find PS1
Click Advanced
Click New...
Click Browse...
Navigate to c:\windows\system32\powershell\v1.0 ,select
powershell.exe, and click OK
Fill "Run" in the Action field
Click OK
Click Change Icon...
Click Browse...
Select powershell.exe, and click Open
Click OK
Click OK
Click Close

Emulating the dos pause command in powershell

function Pause ($Message="Press any key to
continue...") { Write-Host -NoNewLine $Message $null =
$Host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
Write-Host ""
}

Conceptually, I like the idea of proportional representation.

I think that it will lead to more minority governments, than with first past the post. In an ideal world, minority governments mean that representatives have to compromise, deal, and compromise. Unfortunately, what I've seen of our current generation of politicians is that they are petty, self serving, and by the time they make it to that level of government, they aren't serving the public any more, they're serving the people or businesses that got them where they are today. I pay less attention to provincial politics than I do federal politics, but it seems to me that there are no leaders in politics anymore. Everybody is just trying to not get caught doing something dirty, and the easiest way to do that is to point the finger at the people across the floor from you. (that ended up more bitter than I meant it to)

The other issue I have is how THIS proportional representation was defined. If there are two checklists, then people don't need to vote for the same party in both lists. I think it will go something like this: People will vote for the biggest/best primary party (PC/LIB) for their local representative, but will vote for the smaller parties (NDP/GREEN) for the proportional ballot because that's what their conscience says they should do. I don't know what that will do.

I also worry about how long it will take for the people (voters and parties) to adjust to the new system. It won't be quite the same, and it will take a few tries before the kinks get worked out. That means a decade.

I don't understand why the parties in power put this system into place - it doesn't benefit them, it benefits the little guys.

http://yourbigdecision.ca

This website is produced by Elections Ontario to inform people about the
first past the post vs mixed member proportional systems.

Enjoy.

Some people comment that they trim their friendslist because they can't read all that. Now, I'm going to tell you a little secret: I can't keep up on all my friends either, but I let technology help me.

( The secret is in here )

Collected Works
1242 Wellington Street @ Holland
613-722-1265

Nicolas Hoare Bookstore
419 Sussex Drive
613-562-2665

Books on Beechwood
35 Beechwood Ave.
Ottawa K1M 1M1
613..742.5030

Leishman Books Ltd.
Westgate Mall, 1309 Carling Ave
Ottawa K1N 9M6
613.722.8313

Octopus Books
116 Third Ave.
Ottawa K1S 2K1
613.233.2589

Mother Tongue Books/Femmes De Parole
1067 Bank
613..730-2346

( Pure yoinkage from Ottawa Start )
This post is mostly here for future reference
Edit Made Public, Made all comments screened.

Current Mood: booky

Where Bad Ideas Flourish

Refrigerator

ubiquitous

Drobo

Features & Cool Shit

Drawbacks

Summary

(no subject)

Hey netbook owners!

Oracle: How to sort mixed alphanumeric in a logical numeric order (while avoiding the ORA-01722 erro

touched by his appley appendage

salmon

Whatif switch

Powershell verbose

Parameter usage in powershell

Debugging Powershell

surfing montreal

Powershell try/catch/finally

Making powershell scripts run from explorer & pasting

Making powershell run scripts, etc

Electoral Reform

You have a big decision Ontario!!!

So, you have too many people on your friends list?

Ottawa Indy Bookstores

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January 2025

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