Novell NetWare

Novell is a company operating all around the world that has its corporate office in Massachusetts. The company specializes in business solutions in the data center, security and identity, resource management, workgroup, and desktop spaces. Their high profile customers include, Wal-mart, Audi, the New York City Transit, and the State of California.

NetWare is an NOS (network operating system) that runs on level 2 of the open systems interconnection. This system runs on anything from a personal computer to a mainframe computer. There have been several versions of NetWare and the current version is six, which utilizes enhanced printing, file, and directory services. The printing services are unique, providing access through a browser, through a downloaded plug in, to view and print network files from any device securely. Also any printer can be used as a network printer to anyone with authorized access. In addition to that, Netware will also list printer physical location and printer properties and features.

As far as file access goes, you can basicly take a computer out of the box with Windows, Macintosh, Solaris, or Linux... plug it into the network and immediately start accessing the files off the Netware server. All this is done without any client software. Netware is proud of its use of capitalizing on the best use of each OS platform.

Netware also uses simple user management that control configurations from one single point changing configurations on each server under it. This enables a one time update without going to each server and updating settings separately. Another tool of Netware is built in utilities that offer a decent range of services. One of these tools is Remote Manager to allow administrators access to change configurations from any connected computer with an internet browser. These options are vast and are only limited to the server based applications. Servers may also be restarted, shut down, or reset through the same remote tool.

File management with the Netware system has an outstanding list of features, without even listing half of them. One of my favorites is the ability to compress storage volumes after a set time without use. Meaning your storage would increase with after a longer period of use. It also features the standards of US Green Book File Security standard, which I guess means you can delete a file and someone can never find it, no matter what file recovery system is used. The last file management feature I'll mention is the ability to use the same file space as another network user, instead of having separate volumes set aside.

One more feature is the open ended use of the network. Meaning Novell has open, free use for developers to create their own custom programs maximizing tool and features most used on their network.

Not a Police RAID

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Which is basically using multiple hard drives for fast storage and transfer of data.This often improves data reliability, volume size, and maybe some performance improvements as well.

There are many types of RAID configurations. Which is how it is setup to work, meaning one RAID is not necessarily the same as another RAID setup. The first one is called RAID 0 (sometimes referred to as Striped) which splits the data into fragments on different disks to give more performance boost to the user. Although, this is faster, but it doesn't use error checking. So if that particular drive fails... all data on that drive is lost.

RAID 1 is different. The information that is written on disk 1 is the same information that is automatically written to disk two, assuming you only have two disks. This can be done with more than two disk drives. This is often referred to as mirroring. As the exact same data is mirrored on the second drive. This provides a strong backup if one drive fails.

RAID 2 is like the Holy Grail of RAID is uses a controller in charge of two disks to write data in exactly the same rate as the other disk. This is not really in use today.

Next, RAID 3 uses a combination of mirroring and striping, per say. It isn't an exact combination of the two, but more like a mesh. RAID 3 utilizes four hard drives which three of them are used in a striping fashion then the forth drive is a combination of the three combined. This setup uses byte level striping which spreads that data across the drives like in RAID 0. That fourth disk is the parity disk which is a collaboration of the other disks data and checks for errors using parity, even and odd based.

RAID 4 also uses a parity disk (the collaboration disk from above), but it is different in that it uses block level striping. This is much like RAID 3 minus the type of striping. The striping is just done on a higher level. RAID 5 uses a parity disk that is split between the drives. Meaning there is no single dedicated parity disk. The "parity disk" is actually spread out with in the disk drives. But works the same way. The disk works in a block level parity and if one block fails then the combination of the data is formed back together with the remaining blocks.

RAID 6 is overall the same as RAID 5 but utilizes two "parity drives", although, still split up between the multiple drives. Note this setup will require one more disk drive than assumed needed for the same data volume as if needed for RAID 5.

There are also several other types of RAID which all need to use a controller to manage the transfer and reformation of data. Those other examples are not standard and I will not mention them in this text. Two types are software and hardware. The software RAID will use your operating system to coordinate the transfer and allocation of data. The hardware type will use the software inside the hardware to do the same thing. Overall, hardware RAID is more beneficial because of free usage that isn't boggled down.

One thing to keep in mind is that the smallest drive you use that is all you can use for mirroring, and for striping it is two times your smallest drive. So for example you have a one GB drive and an 8 GB drive you want to set up in RAID 1 all the data you can put on is one GB.

Pandora Radio

Well, I'm back, from a slight hiatus, refreshed and ready to write.

Pandora Radio is by no means new, and although the newest feature came out last year (iPhone App) it's still worthly of mentioning. This software is simply great and often overlooked. Yes, there's no music video's but still come on; thats hardly an argument.

There are some alternatives too if you have something against Pandora. Such as Slacker, Seeqpod, Last.fm, Musicovery, and Blogmusik.net. These all have their respective features and you should check them out.

Oh, and the two artists I type in and listen to most are TooL and Incubus.

Presidential Disconnect

Tonight I read an interesting article the New York Times published on the 15th. It was about President elect Obama having to give up use of his blackberry. Which is viewed as a prized possession for him, and I have no doubt that is, in fact, true reliable information. I realized tonight I have never really thought about the presidential duties from that aspect... Having to give up your simplest personal freedoms and choices to protect the security on one's home country. It wasn't to hard at all to understand. Having freely given up a great deal of my rights to serve in the Marine Corps. It is interesting though, how most of the world might not see minor things like this that make a great impact on those affected. The article mentions how his emails would be printed out and read without using a computer himself to check his own email.

The article also points out current President Bush's response to his semi-forced abandonment of personal email, requesting to cease all personal correspondence via email.

Source: NYTimes

5MP Cell Camera for T-Mobile

Motorola and Kodak teamed together to come up with the Motozine ZN5 which is build by Motorola, but uses Kodak's Perfect Touch technology to produce 5 MegaPixels with clearer, brighter colors. The phone is 99 US dollars with a 2 year service agreement. Features:

• Display: 2.4" 240x320 262k TFT
• 5-megapixel camera, autofocus, Xenon flash
• 350 MB onboard memory; up to 4 GB optional expandable memory holds up to 3,000 images
• Capture and edit modes: panorama, grayscale, sepia, negative, reddish, greenish, blueish
• Digital viewfinder
• 3.5 mm headset jack
• WiFi enabled/WLAN: 802.11 b/g/i
• FM Radio
• Kodak Easyshare Software included

The best feature is the 5MP camera with the convenience of WiFi, although that's my opinion. Do you know of any cell phones with those features... for 99 bucks?

Pictures and information: motorola.com

U.S. Gov Drops Advanced DOD Satellite Imagery Plans

The Department of Defense had planned to launch a program to produce advanced detailed satellite images for an estimated 1.8 billion. Private consumer companies GeoEye and DigitalGlobe have already commidted to produciting the same results for a much cheaper price. The DOD has arranged an agreement with these companies. The images will support the DOD for an undetermined amount of time, the US might advance it's capabilities in the near future. Making it more self sufficient.

Police use GPS as a Crime Tool

I'm a law abiding citizen 99 percent of the time... with a few "Shouldn't have gone through that yellow light" thrown in there. So why wouldn't I want police officers and detectives to use what's available to make this world we live in any safer? That's right I don't care, I want them to use the technology.

Recently in Pittsburgh, there's been controversy over use of GPS technology to track locations of criminals, suspects, or Megan Law violators. This technology has been of great use to law enforcement officers in the area. It is often much more effect and more efficient than sending out an officer to pursue the suspect. As in big cities and facing a large variety of underturmined escape routes if the suspect recognizes a tail behind him.

The case is being brought up to the supreme court for undermined specifics explained in Pennsylvania Law.