Hole in ozone layer was a good thing after all.

Oh my, did I get a laugh out of this.  I’ve been quietly steaming over the whole “Man-Causing-Global-Warming” thing for a while now anyway, and the released emails and documents from East Anglia have just added fuel to the fire.  But this…it takes the cake, eats all of it in front of you, and burps in your face.

I hope I can find some more articles written by this Andrew Thomas.  Very funny read…unless you’re French.

I was cleaning out a closet tonight, and I found a couple of copies of Novell Netware 5.  It got me thinking about Novell, and how great a server it was at the time.

Now, I was never a Novell engineer or anything, but we had several clients that had Novell servers, so I got to mess with them on a regular basis.  For those who don’t know or remember Novell, it was an awesome file and print server back when Microsoft was still struggling with the whole “network” thing.  There were a few file and print sharing systems at the time, including Novell, Banyan Vines, and Windows NT.  The difference between them was that NT was a bootable OS, while Novell and Banyan ran on top of DOS.  This had the advantage that if something happened to the network server’s partition, you could still boot into DOS and run recovery tools.

Of the three systems, I liked Novell the best.  Granted, I came into it late (‘98), but I still was working on Novell 3.12, 4.11, NT 3.51, and NT 4 systems.  We did have one customer that had a Banyan system, but I only worked on it a couple of times…and that was more than enough for me!  NT systems usually couldn’t stay up for more than a week or two before it needed to be rebooted.  In fact, at the time, Microsoft recommended a reboot at least once a week.  Not to mention it would freeze a lot.  Granted, quite a bit of that instability was from the poor quality windows software, but a lot of it was still due to the OS.

On the other hand, it was nothing for me to go to a Novell server, and see an uptime of months.  I believe the longest uptime I saw on a Novell server was 1.5 years.  Compare THAT to a Windows system!  Now, you can get IBM mini systems like the System36, or AS400 systems with uptime in the years easily, but Novell was a system that was being deployed on commodity hardware, was relatively inexpensive, and in some not-necessarily prime locations (like a hot garage).  For the price, you couldn’t beat the stability, and security of a Novell system.  And not once did I hear of a Novell virus.  Not once.  You could drop a virus onto a Novell volume from another station, but it wouldn’t affect the Novell system itself.

Unfortunately, Novell fell to the M$ juggernaut.  It didn’t seem that way at first.  In the early-to-mid 90’s, it was a tie between Novell and Unix systems on servers.  NT came a distant third.  Novell did everything NT did…but better.  File and printer sharing and file security was much more robust on a Novell system.  Novell even had a comprehensive network directory system (called Netware Directory Services) when Active Directory was flailing.  But as Windows 2000 started gaining ground, it was obvious that Novell wasn’t innovating fast enough.  Small businesses were quickly moving beyond needing just file and print sharing.  They needed internet connection sharing, email services, and firewalls.  At the same time, software designers were moving away from the client running all software, and only data on the server, to the server running some kind of service that the client connects to.   Novell either couldn’t or wouldn’t keep pace.  Novell attempted to add these services, but couldn’t do it for the same price as competing Windows products could do it.

After the release of Windows 2000, Novell’s fall went fairly quickly.  Novell tried to rally by buying Suse Linux back in 2003, but it was too little, too late.  By that time, Windows had pretty much trounced them.  Despite a clear (and by all accounts smooth) upgrade path from Netware to Suse Linux, customers continued to migrate to Windows.  Now, very few installations of Novell remain.  It’s a little sad, but the current market simply outgrew what Novell could provide.

I still have a copy of Novell Netware 5, though.  You never know when you’ll need it.

Well, as a few people who actually come here may know, I’ve started using Twitter and Facebook.  I held off for a long time, but I got curious, so I set up accounts.

Twitter…not much happening there.  I have a few followers, most of them spammers.  I only have two legit followers.  Facebook, however, has exploded.  No more than an hour passed before I had friends on FB…family I haven’t seen in years.  Now, most of my high school classmates, and many friends, co-workers, and acquaintances are now on my FB friend list.  It’s amazing.

But I started having issues when I went to post links.  A lot of links (especially blog and article posts) have extremely long URLs (web addresses).  Since Twitter can only have 140 characters per post, I started looking at URL shorteners.  The problem was one of stability and longevity.  The shortener services out there are having scaling problems.  Too many people shortening too many URLs.  So I rolled out my own.  I picked up a short domain name, and downloaded a shortener script called Lessn.  The domain “smlnk.us” (short for Small Link Us) was available AND on sale!  So now, I can simply create a short link for some of those ginormous links out there.  An example is http://3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592.com/.  I used this as a test.  It’s very large.  Now, the short link:  http://smlnk.us/1.  Not bad, eh?  If you already have a nice webhosting package, it really makes sense to roll out your own URL shortener service.  It removes the problem of a third party site going down unexpectedly, or removing your links.

If anyone actually knows me IRL, I’m a definite bookaholic.  I love reading.  Always have.  From the first time I read “Seven Chinese Brothers” in my Granny’s biiig storybook when I was six or seven, to the horror and sci-fi books of adolescence, I’ve always read.  I haven’t completely catalogued my current collection, but I am up to 603 books.  That’s only the ones in print.  I have hundreds more in ebook format.  Heck, I even have a few comics stashed somewhere.

Thing is, I don’t stay with one genre.  I’ll go from high fantasy, to horror, to military sci-fi.  Currently, I’m on an Urban Fantasy kick.  Urban Fantasy, if you’re not aware, is a fairly recent genre that puts supernatural, magical, or mythical characters, powers, or situations into modern (not necessarily “urban”) settings.  A good example are the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.  Wizard in Chicago?

I’ve recently started reading several new (to me) authors.  Among them Kim Harrison, author of the “The Hollows” series.  I’ve also started reading Rachel Caine, author of the “Weather Wardens” and the new “Outcast” series.  Also Patricia Briggs, Devon Monk, and Stephenie Meyer.  Now, all of these authors have something in common that I’m curious about.  No, it’s not that they’re all women.  I have many authors of both the male and female persuasion that I love.  It’s close to that, though.  All of these authors have their main protagonist as women.  Usually strong, kick-ass women.  All of these series are worth reading.  They’re all well written stories, with excellent character development.  Looking on the bookshelves right now is almost like going to a Buffy the Vampire Slayer convention.

I’m just a little curious why the genre seems to be skewing that way.  Just a kind of offhand observation.  I really am into the “Alpha and Omega” series by Patricia Briggs, and I’m going to get her “Mercy Thompson” series as well, since the two are set in the same world.  Also, the new “Outcast” series by Rachel Caine is turning out to be pretty interesting.  I haven’t even finished the first book yet, and I’m already feeling good about the series.  Very emotionally charged so far.

Ok, I suppose I didn’t really have a point to this post, except for this:  Don’t read the Gormenghast trilogy unless you WANT to gouge your eyes out with a grimy spoon.

One of the new features of the Nokia N810 is it’s micro-USB OTG A/B connector.  If you’re not familiar with USB OTG, it stands for “On The Go”.  It’s a new USB standard which is supposed to do away with all of the proprietary mini-USB connectors out there.  Essentially, it’s a way for USB connectors to determine whether they are in host or slave mode by the type of connector that’s plugged in.  However, as with all new tech, there’s not a lot of penetration as of yet.  That means there are a few OTG B connectors (slave connectors), but very few A’s, which allow the n810 to function as a host.  So I built this little dongle myself.

I bought a USB OTG cable from Amazon.  This one right here, in fact:  USB micro-A cable.  However, as you can see, it has one problem…a male A connector.  Now, I’m not sure why this cable is being produced.  According to the OTG specs, the micro-A connector is for host-mode operation.  Since usually the male A connector is ALSO used for host-mode operation, the effort really seems futile.

Anyway, so I took a USB extension (a Male-A to Female-A cable), and cut the female end off, then spliced it onto the micro-A end of the OTG cable.  Voila!  Instant OTG host-mode goodness.  In fact, I’m writing this using a standard USB keyboard, with my n810.  Works awesomely…if I could stop misspelling things.