When we moved into this house we were given a list of covenants provided by the HOA. I read the first page and then tossed the other dozen or so into the file cabinet never to be seen again. There must be hundreds of covenants. A couple years ago my wife went to a meeting that was open to the residents for discussing a list changes to the existing covenants. There were over 130 amendments and the one she was interested in was up in the 90's. She walked out. LOL They send me a bill every year which I pay grudgingly, and this year we got a separate list of dictates regarding usage of the community pool during this pandemic. They hired a management company to tend to the pool, which I'm sure costs several thousands of dollars a year to maintain. Every time I pass the pool there is never more than two or three cars in the parking lot, and one of them belongs to the lifeguard. It's only slightly more busy when there isn't a pandemic going on. I think they should close the pool and install some picnic tables in it's place. That would be more useful and way less expensive. Actually, with all the dogs in the neighborhood, that pool area would make a great dog park. I'd bring it up at the next meeting, but I'm boycotting them.
Your conversation with your neighbor was pretty interesting if not actually informative. I knew of two computer stores in O'Fallon when we moved here; one on each end of town. The one furthest away was a Mac store. They sold and serviced everything Apple except the iPhone. Got a letter from him about six months ago saying the shop is closing down and they are moving to Chesterfield, or something. The other shop was near my house and located in something that could have been a two car garage that was converted into a store. There was a hand painted sign out front that said "Computers" and that's all I ever knew about that place. I often thought I'd go in to see what it's all about but never did. They are gone now. I don't know what they did or who they sold to, but they don't do it anymore. So, if you want any electronics from O'Fallon business folks, it's WalMart or the Staples Office Supplies store. Thank you, but no thank you.
Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
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Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I guess we were lucky, we only paid our HOA something like 19 bucks a year.
But that wasn't our whole bill. We had the pool and common grounds bill which was separate, something like 665 per year.
The bill came on one invoice with three line items. I forget what the third one was now, but it made the bill come out to like 692 bucks the last couple of years I was there. Oh now I remember, for the street maintenance. But then they turned the streets over to the city to maintain. We had beautiful white concrete streets, so there was not much maintenance to them. Perhaps a slab would get replace now and then. But after they gave our money to the county to maintain the streets, the first thing they did was blow all that money on spray on black tar with gravel mix which made the subdivision now super dark at night. We all banded together and made the city install street lighting on their own dime for making our subdivision so dark. We eventually won our case against them and a street lamp was installed at every intersection, and on their dime too.
The computer store I go to was here for 20 years before I moved here, and only a few years ago was taken over by the employees, who after another year moved into a larger building across the street.
We have several computer stores and shops here, most are near the college and feature Windows Laptop repairs.
There was a huge Dell store in east-towne mall, which is no longer there.
And the guy I mentioned with all the commercial computer equipment doesn't do much advertising. I just happened to drive by their place once and took note of where they were. Found them in the phone book and gave them a call once, then went in. I was interested in a new laser printer, but the only ones they carried were all super expensive commercial grade printers, and they prefer to lease rather than sell, but they do sell them. The price was way more than I could ever afford. Their showroom had several rack style set-ups and almost everything they stocked was only rack-mounted hardware.
I actually almost considered getting a small rack like they use for the small business servers. But was afraid running it would be over my head. Too far over in fact to risk buying one at 8 grand.
But that wasn't our whole bill. We had the pool and common grounds bill which was separate, something like 665 per year.
The bill came on one invoice with three line items. I forget what the third one was now, but it made the bill come out to like 692 bucks the last couple of years I was there. Oh now I remember, for the street maintenance. But then they turned the streets over to the city to maintain. We had beautiful white concrete streets, so there was not much maintenance to them. Perhaps a slab would get replace now and then. But after they gave our money to the county to maintain the streets, the first thing they did was blow all that money on spray on black tar with gravel mix which made the subdivision now super dark at night. We all banded together and made the city install street lighting on their own dime for making our subdivision so dark. We eventually won our case against them and a street lamp was installed at every intersection, and on their dime too.
The computer store I go to was here for 20 years before I moved here, and only a few years ago was taken over by the employees, who after another year moved into a larger building across the street.
We have several computer stores and shops here, most are near the college and feature Windows Laptop repairs.
There was a huge Dell store in east-towne mall, which is no longer there.
And the guy I mentioned with all the commercial computer equipment doesn't do much advertising. I just happened to drive by their place once and took note of where they were. Found them in the phone book and gave them a call once, then went in. I was interested in a new laser printer, but the only ones they carried were all super expensive commercial grade printers, and they prefer to lease rather than sell, but they do sell them. The price was way more than I could ever afford. Their showroom had several rack style set-ups and almost everything they stocked was only rack-mounted hardware.
I actually almost considered getting a small rack like they use for the small business servers. But was afraid running it would be over my head. Too far over in fact to risk buying one at 8 grand.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I guess I should consider myself fortunate for only paying $400 a year to the HOA. However, that is due to the fact that we don't get all the services taht those row houses in back of us get. Those people have tons of common ground to be maintained, for one thing, plus they get landscaping as part of the deal. Every so often they also get their siding washed. I saw this going on one year and was amazed, first of all just because I never heard of washing siding, and secondly because all those row houses were getting it done for them. I don't know any of those people so that I can't ask what they are paying for that lovely service. But I do know houses never stay on the market long when they re up for sale. People are dying to get into those places.
You might be surprised how UN-different a rack mounted system is from your mountain of desktop computers. LOL The racks would clean things up and put everything in one place. The software would be no different than what you currently are using, unless you change what it is you are doing there. $8k is a lot of money for a rack full of equipment, but what was the value of your current stock of computers? Probably not too far off from that figure. I realize coming up with that amount now would be impossible; all I'm saying here is that turning your office into a more or less organized server room would not be that much different than what you are currently doing. But then it would be a computer room and not your personal sanctuary.
You might be surprised how UN-different a rack mounted system is from your mountain of desktop computers. LOL The racks would clean things up and put everything in one place. The software would be no different than what you currently are using, unless you change what it is you are doing there. $8k is a lot of money for a rack full of equipment, but what was the value of your current stock of computers? Probably not too far off from that figure. I realize coming up with that amount now would be impossible; all I'm saying here is that turning your office into a more or less organized server room would not be that much different than what you are currently doing. But then it would be a computer room and not your personal sanctuary.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
We have to have our vinyl siding pressure washed because it gets stuff growing on it, even though we bought the kind that is not supposed to do that. Also, most of our vinyl sheet over aluminum trim, the vinyl has peeled off of a lot of places so now looks ratty. I can't afford to replace it, so I decided not to get frustrated over it any more.
Well, considering I only paid like 300 to 400 dollars for each of my computers, and only three of them are working right now. But I know nothing about servers, not really. I was thinking the cabinet could hold a computer board, and I could use the computer board as a computer via a KVM connected to each one. But in the long run, I probably couldn't use one of the computers as stand alone without some extra equipment. Perhaps two KVMs?
It would be nice just to have one rack in the corner of the room, instead of the desktops piled up with computers, hi hi.
I learned something new that I though worked entirely differently, based on those long IP addresses I saw and we talked about a while back. A Router doesn't do nearly as much as I thought it did. Yes it adds it's IP number to the string, but only has one IP number for each port. That's it!
My own computer, or namely the Browser I have open, is what keeps track of which Tab has which program running on it, and the Browser adds the IP address of the Tab and which element of the program the data is going from and to.
So basically, it is the computer doing all the work, not the Router as I thought.
Almost impossible to find this kind of stuff on-line if you don't know what to look for, or where.
Well, considering I only paid like 300 to 400 dollars for each of my computers, and only three of them are working right now. But I know nothing about servers, not really. I was thinking the cabinet could hold a computer board, and I could use the computer board as a computer via a KVM connected to each one. But in the long run, I probably couldn't use one of the computers as stand alone without some extra equipment. Perhaps two KVMs?
It would be nice just to have one rack in the corner of the room, instead of the desktops piled up with computers, hi hi.
I learned something new that I though worked entirely differently, based on those long IP addresses I saw and we talked about a while back. A Router doesn't do nearly as much as I thought it did. Yes it adds it's IP number to the string, but only has one IP number for each port. That's it!
My own computer, or namely the Browser I have open, is what keeps track of which Tab has which program running on it, and the Browser adds the IP address of the Tab and which element of the program the data is going from and to.
So basically, it is the computer doing all the work, not the Router as I thought.
Almost impossible to find this kind of stuff on-line if you don't know what to look for, or where.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
My first house was aluminum siding and I never did any maintenance to it for the twenty years we lived there. Aluminum gets some kind of patina on it even when it's painted. It doesn't look shiny and new after a while, but it does it's job. I guess that's like the steel on bridges or the frame of a skyscraper. It gets rusty, or what looks like rust, but maintains it's integrity forever. The next home we owned was all brick with aluminum clad wood trim and windows. Likewise, I never did any maintenance on it for more than twenty years. One exception was the siding on one end of the house that reached from the top of the brickwork to the peak of the roof. That had to be replaced after 15 years or so because we could not clean it. I'm thinking it was metal, but we replaced it with plastic. The house I'm in now is a plastic box. If I live here another ten years I expect to need to replace the entire outside. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.
There are dozens of How-Things-Work websites. I'm sure you can get the basic information you are looking for off of those places. The technical details of routing are the same everywhere. A router is a router is a router, after all. It's all the other crap they add onto the router function that makes things complicated. You can think of a router as an electronic version of a spreadsheet. It has a table in it with all the MAC addresses of all the devices connected to it. You would think that IP addresses could be eliminated given that the MAC address of every device in the world which has one is unique. That uniqueness would be a perfect way to identify where to send data packets. But, alas, all those MAC addressable devices are on a network that could take some extraordinary amount of time to navigate if you didn't have some hints about where to go looking for it. That's where domains come in handy. Those first three digits of an IPv4 address is the key to global network routing. The long IP addresses you see are most likely IPv6 which includes a lot more information than just the domain designation. The last set of numbers in that address is the equivalent to the MAC address, i.e., they're unique to every Internet connected device. All those identities and addresses are kept in a spreadsheet-like table by the router. Thus it knows what device on it's network is assigned a given address. It knows which leg of your network too, be it WiFi or hard wired. So, when a packet of data comes to the router it simply looks up the table and sends the packet to the given device. That's it. That's all a router does. Well, of course it's bidirectional. A router will also send data packets generated by your equipment to the Internet, but it doesn't have to do any lookup for that part of the operation.
I am having a hard time understanding what "string" of address data you are talking about. Each packet of data is constructed the same way. I don't have the IP Protocol down pat in memory but I did look it up for you:
Your router simply takes these 32 bit and sends them to the device labeled as the destination. I used to know what all those other things were used for, but being out of it for a few years I really can't say off the top of my head. My confusion with your explanation is that nothing gets added or subtracted from this basic structure. It's set in stone and never changes. I know you are looking at something, but it's not likely to be data packets as your router would see them.
And, FYI: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ex ... ta-packet/
This is the article from which I extracted the data packet image. There are other packets too and they are explained in simple (for a geek) language. I'm guessing you might enjoy reading the article.
There are dozens of How-Things-Work websites. I'm sure you can get the basic information you are looking for off of those places. The technical details of routing are the same everywhere. A router is a router is a router, after all. It's all the other crap they add onto the router function that makes things complicated. You can think of a router as an electronic version of a spreadsheet. It has a table in it with all the MAC addresses of all the devices connected to it. You would think that IP addresses could be eliminated given that the MAC address of every device in the world which has one is unique. That uniqueness would be a perfect way to identify where to send data packets. But, alas, all those MAC addressable devices are on a network that could take some extraordinary amount of time to navigate if you didn't have some hints about where to go looking for it. That's where domains come in handy. Those first three digits of an IPv4 address is the key to global network routing. The long IP addresses you see are most likely IPv6 which includes a lot more information than just the domain designation. The last set of numbers in that address is the equivalent to the MAC address, i.e., they're unique to every Internet connected device. All those identities and addresses are kept in a spreadsheet-like table by the router. Thus it knows what device on it's network is assigned a given address. It knows which leg of your network too, be it WiFi or hard wired. So, when a packet of data comes to the router it simply looks up the table and sends the packet to the given device. That's it. That's all a router does. Well, of course it's bidirectional. A router will also send data packets generated by your equipment to the Internet, but it doesn't have to do any lookup for that part of the operation.
I am having a hard time understanding what "string" of address data you are talking about. Each packet of data is constructed the same way. I don't have the IP Protocol down pat in memory but I did look it up for you:
Your router simply takes these 32 bit and sends them to the device labeled as the destination. I used to know what all those other things were used for, but being out of it for a few years I really can't say off the top of my head. My confusion with your explanation is that nothing gets added or subtracted from this basic structure. It's set in stone and never changes. I know you are looking at something, but it's not likely to be data packets as your router would see them.
And, FYI: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ex ... ta-packet/
This is the article from which I extracted the data packet image. There are other packets too and they are explained in simple (for a geek) language. I'm guessing you might enjoy reading the article.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Remember back when I said I was able to see the String for my e-mail at my ISP?
The darn thing was a mile long. Among other things is showed the entire path, and included the computer, the Lan switch, the Router, and the Modem. I guess all of this is so it knows how to send a reply back to the same e-mail program.
When I send out a message using my web browser to here for example:
You probably only see the IP address of my ISP, perhaps followed by that of my Modem. Unless you can see the entire string back to my web browser.
When a message comes in from my ISP, it probably only sends it to my Modem, then the only thing the modem does is pass it through to the Router. Then the router looks at the next number on the list which is my LAN switch and sends it to that. The Lan switch then looks at the number and sends it to whichever computer I was on. And the computer then sends it to the program expecting the reply, either a web browser or an e-mail client.
OR, does the Router keep track of the entire path internally, and the switch is nothing more than a switch based on what port I went through?
It's way over my head Yogi, but I will go take a look at that link you provided.
If I'm off-line and connect to lets say a POP server, I can do so from any computer and tell it to download my e-mail and it will. So I guess all those numbers don't mean anything unless you are live to a website?
Or is it Big Brother is tracking us right down to the program we used, hi hi.
The darn thing was a mile long. Among other things is showed the entire path, and included the computer, the Lan switch, the Router, and the Modem. I guess all of this is so it knows how to send a reply back to the same e-mail program.
When I send out a message using my web browser to here for example:
You probably only see the IP address of my ISP, perhaps followed by that of my Modem. Unless you can see the entire string back to my web browser.
When a message comes in from my ISP, it probably only sends it to my Modem, then the only thing the modem does is pass it through to the Router. Then the router looks at the next number on the list which is my LAN switch and sends it to that. The Lan switch then looks at the number and sends it to whichever computer I was on. And the computer then sends it to the program expecting the reply, either a web browser or an e-mail client.
OR, does the Router keep track of the entire path internally, and the switch is nothing more than a switch based on what port I went through?
It's way over my head Yogi, but I will go take a look at that link you provided.
If I'm off-line and connect to lets say a POP server, I can do so from any computer and tell it to download my e-mail and it will. So I guess all those numbers don't mean anything unless you are live to a website?
Or is it Big Brother is tracking us right down to the program we used, hi hi.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I'm STILL not clear about the "string" of device addresses you see that happen to describe the path your incoming network data travels. I can't recall seeing any such string, but you and I are sniffing something different is my guess.
When you send an e-mail to me Thunderbird constructs the data packets as you see them in the above image. In other words in sets up the source IP address and the destination IP address in a way that TCP/IP knows what to do with it. Your computer knows the IP address of the gateway, which is your router, and sends these packets there. The router sees that it's outgoing data and shoos it over to the modem. The modem is stupid and just passes it on to your ISP. At that point your LAN is done with the data packet. I know you have switches and access points and the Lords of Networking only know what all. The router knows about these devices and has a table with all their MAC addresses and IP addresses. As far as I know, once the router passes the data onto the next device on your network, it's done. It does not need to know the entire path traversed by the data packet.
There is network software that can do that kind of tracing, e.g., ping and traceroute. The transmission paths are indeed documented therein because, well, that's why those programs were invented; to keep track of the path. Your access points, switches, hubs, and routers don't care about such things. They only want to know where to send the data next. Your network would slow down to a crawl if it had to pass along all those connection and switch points with each packet of data. So, I think you are getting the idea about data packets, but I'm lost when it comes to those strings you are reading. LOL
When you send an e-mail to me Thunderbird constructs the data packets as you see them in the above image. In other words in sets up the source IP address and the destination IP address in a way that TCP/IP knows what to do with it. Your computer knows the IP address of the gateway, which is your router, and sends these packets there. The router sees that it's outgoing data and shoos it over to the modem. The modem is stupid and just passes it on to your ISP. At that point your LAN is done with the data packet. I know you have switches and access points and the Lords of Networking only know what all. The router knows about these devices and has a table with all their MAC addresses and IP addresses. As far as I know, once the router passes the data onto the next device on your network, it's done. It does not need to know the entire path traversed by the data packet.
There is network software that can do that kind of tracing, e.g., ping and traceroute. The transmission paths are indeed documented therein because, well, that's why those programs were invented; to keep track of the path. Your access points, switches, hubs, and routers don't care about such things. They only want to know where to send the data next. Your network would slow down to a crawl if it had to pass along all those connection and switch points with each packet of data. So, I think you are getting the idea about data packets, but I'm lost when it comes to those strings you are reading. LOL
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
The only place I ever saw them was when I went to my ISP and could see my entire e-mail header.
Which was much more than what it shows as Header if I display the Header on my actual e-mail.
Now on an inbound e-mail the header only shows what nodes it passed through.
But on my outbound header it showed, my computer IP, the LAN Switch, the Router, the Modem, and my ISP connection.
The fact it showed my LAN Switch is what really surprised me.
I used to play with TraceRoute and Ping a few years ago out of curiosity.
It was interesting to see the path some things took. But then I was over it.
I've tried to get back to my ISP page that showed that, but I've not found it again to make a copy for you.
All I get now is the same Header info my e-mail program shows.
I did figure there was a lot of data other than our IP to get those packets from place to place.
I learned that way back when I was doing Ham Radio Packet forwarding.
Plus in that case, it had to have the Ham Radio Callsign as well.
Unfortunately, I still don't see a Server as anything more than a big hard drive, hi hi.
Except it is organized differently. But you can still have many databases.
It's been years since I messed with Edubuntu which was a server and used your computer and others like workstations.
It wasn't what I needed for what I did, so I quit messing with it.
And you may recall my doing lessons on line but they never worked on my own computer.
Then you told me I needed to install LAMP, and after I did that my programs then worked on my own computer.
That too fell by the wayside rather rapidly. No time to play much anymore.
Which was much more than what it shows as Header if I display the Header on my actual e-mail.
Now on an inbound e-mail the header only shows what nodes it passed through.
But on my outbound header it showed, my computer IP, the LAN Switch, the Router, the Modem, and my ISP connection.
The fact it showed my LAN Switch is what really surprised me.
I used to play with TraceRoute and Ping a few years ago out of curiosity.
It was interesting to see the path some things took. But then I was over it.
I've tried to get back to my ISP page that showed that, but I've not found it again to make a copy for you.
All I get now is the same Header info my e-mail program shows.
I did figure there was a lot of data other than our IP to get those packets from place to place.
I learned that way back when I was doing Ham Radio Packet forwarding.
Plus in that case, it had to have the Ham Radio Callsign as well.
Unfortunately, I still don't see a Server as anything more than a big hard drive, hi hi.
Except it is organized differently. But you can still have many databases.
It's been years since I messed with Edubuntu which was a server and used your computer and others like workstations.
It wasn't what I needed for what I did, so I quit messing with it.
And you may recall my doing lessons on line but they never worked on my own computer.
Then you told me I needed to install LAMP, and after I did that my programs then worked on my own computer.
That too fell by the wayside rather rapidly. No time to play much anymore.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
For security reasons nobody should be able to see what is connected to your side of the modem. That doesn't mean it's not possible to determine your exact LAN topology. Kali Linux, for example, is an entire operating system focused on characterizing networks. There are tools up the yin yang to test the integrity and hardness of your fortress. But that kind of penetration testing is not common. I can't see why an ISP e-mail service would need to know about your hardware, but then I don't know exactly what they do need. I do know, however, that on rare occasions somebody will give me feedback that includes the local IP address of my computer. It's got to be easy to obtain, but I have yet to find the tool to do it. LOL
You are pretty close to the truth when you say a server is just another hard drive. That is exactly what your NAS is all about. It's a server but your interest is in the storage space and not how the OS does whatever it does. Servers are generally dedicated to be a repository for certain kinds of data. Because they also manage that data the tools (programs) they use are a bit different than what you do on your workstation. You can look at it as being merely a different distro of some common Linux OS. All you need to know to be a system administrator is how to use the different tools. The computer operation of a server is the same as your PC's and workstations.
You are pretty close to the truth when you say a server is just another hard drive. That is exactly what your NAS is all about. It's a server but your interest is in the storage space and not how the OS does whatever it does. Servers are generally dedicated to be a repository for certain kinds of data. Because they also manage that data the tools (programs) they use are a bit different than what you do on your workstation. You can look at it as being merely a different distro of some common Linux OS. All you need to know to be a system administrator is how to use the different tools. The computer operation of a server is the same as your PC's and workstations.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Well, the way I see it, a database is nothing more than a file, our group of files, designed to hold specific things.
With the exception that it is accessible line by line, or cell by cell like a spreadsheet in a way.
I could have one database of all the canned goods,sizes available, and bar codes for each one.
This would be searchable by name, product type, sizes, bar codes, etc.
Nevertheless, it is still nothing more than a file on a hard drive.
We have all kinds of file types based on what they are, different type of text files, image files, sound files, video files, etc.
A normal computer does not usually have server type programs in it, and can't usually run server handling files.
But you can install LAMP and all the tools and have access to everything and the tools to do it all too.
However, the boat I'm in, and at my age and health conditions. I still think it is best to keep all the data I want to be made available to my heirs saved in simple formats on NTFS drives they can plug into their Windows computers and be able to get to it all.
Over the weekend, using the frau's computer before bedtime, I was looking at searchable database arrays.
Not big ones like Google hi hi, but smaller business oriented arrays where you could search for what you wanted without knowing the name of the file. It was sorta like doing a search for a string of text in folder full of document files, but because of the way it was set up, it was almost instant.
But this is where they started to lose me. Many database files are created from each document. One database held the page title if applicable. Another held the creation dates, and another larger file, basically keywords and phrases found in the documents. In this way the search did not have to go through each file one by one, it simply looked at the database for a keyword and then a phrase containing that keyword. Once found then it would link to the actual document wherever it may be stored.
I did think that was interesting, but much more complex than I could understand how it was all set up.
Also, that was enough reading time for me before going to bed, hi hi.
With the exception that it is accessible line by line, or cell by cell like a spreadsheet in a way.
I could have one database of all the canned goods,sizes available, and bar codes for each one.
This would be searchable by name, product type, sizes, bar codes, etc.
Nevertheless, it is still nothing more than a file on a hard drive.
We have all kinds of file types based on what they are, different type of text files, image files, sound files, video files, etc.
A normal computer does not usually have server type programs in it, and can't usually run server handling files.
But you can install LAMP and all the tools and have access to everything and the tools to do it all too.
However, the boat I'm in, and at my age and health conditions. I still think it is best to keep all the data I want to be made available to my heirs saved in simple formats on NTFS drives they can plug into their Windows computers and be able to get to it all.
Over the weekend, using the frau's computer before bedtime, I was looking at searchable database arrays.
Not big ones like Google hi hi, but smaller business oriented arrays where you could search for what you wanted without knowing the name of the file. It was sorta like doing a search for a string of text in folder full of document files, but because of the way it was set up, it was almost instant.
But this is where they started to lose me. Many database files are created from each document. One database held the page title if applicable. Another held the creation dates, and another larger file, basically keywords and phrases found in the documents. In this way the search did not have to go through each file one by one, it simply looked at the database for a keyword and then a phrase containing that keyword. Once found then it would link to the actual document wherever it may be stored.
I did think that was interesting, but much more complex than I could understand how it was all set up.
Also, that was enough reading time for me before going to bed, hi hi.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
We all have our own way of understanding complex entities. To say a computer has nothing but "files" on it regardless of what the function is basically is true. In fact I can't think of anything other than files that I have on any of my computers. LOL The differentiation is made by the way those files are structured. Some are simply serial text while other involve ... databases or executable programs. It's all very simple when you look at it as just a bunch of files working together, or not working in some cases. 
The description of your reading material pretty much is how databases are constructed. There are tables that contain specific pieces of data, and these tables do resemble spreadsheets. The difference is that database tables are relational. That means there are tables that are related to one another in some way; pick out any part and you get the whole in return. Windows has a search capability that will find files that contain text strings of keywords that you input as a criteria. A database you have on your computer would be limited in that regard because there is a finite number of characters you can put into each "cell" of the tables. Actually there is no limit in theory other than the amount of memory you have. You can indeed put the entire content of the Encyclopedia Britannica on your computer and search for quotes of text in the articles. However, you will need a bit more than your desktop computers have in them at the moment. The actual search would go quicker than you can imagine because all those tables are indexed and related to one another. When you type in a single word that eliminates much of the data that is not related. Two keywords will narrow it down even further. It's a bit like what you would do in the real world. You would not start at volume "A" and start looking for zoology. The point here is that relational databases are marvelous search engines. Better than Google in some ways because you can also format the output of your search to suit your needs. It takes quite an effort to understand it all and to be comfortable with it, but it is worth it. I don't think it's the kind of thing you want to pass on to your heirs, however. Not unless those heirs are amenable to using databases.
The description of your reading material pretty much is how databases are constructed. There are tables that contain specific pieces of data, and these tables do resemble spreadsheets. The difference is that database tables are relational. That means there are tables that are related to one another in some way; pick out any part and you get the whole in return. Windows has a search capability that will find files that contain text strings of keywords that you input as a criteria. A database you have on your computer would be limited in that regard because there is a finite number of characters you can put into each "cell" of the tables. Actually there is no limit in theory other than the amount of memory you have. You can indeed put the entire content of the Encyclopedia Britannica on your computer and search for quotes of text in the articles. However, you will need a bit more than your desktop computers have in them at the moment. The actual search would go quicker than you can imagine because all those tables are indexed and related to one another. When you type in a single word that eliminates much of the data that is not related. Two keywords will narrow it down even further. It's a bit like what you would do in the real world. You would not start at volume "A" and start looking for zoology. The point here is that relational databases are marvelous search engines. Better than Google in some ways because you can also format the output of your search to suit your needs. It takes quite an effort to understand it all and to be comfortable with it, but it is worth it. I don't think it's the kind of thing you want to pass on to your heirs, however. Not unless those heirs are amenable to using databases.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
When I couldn't remember the name of a document I saved, or where I might have saved it, I would use the Windows Search feature, and after about a half-hour I would get a list of every document that phrase or few words were in.
Sometimes, if I was watching the display window, it would be one of those that pop up early and I could jump to it.
But now with over 2 gigs of data, not counting programs and image files, it takes forever to find something, although I have almost everything as far as documents go, fairly well organized now. I can usually find something faster than the global search for a phrase, hi hi.
I saw a Windows program by Oracle I believe, that would search your hard drive and generate different searchable databases for you. But it seems you had to pay big bucks for the program, and subscribe to their Cloud Service too.
But once everything was added to your cloud, searching for something was fast and easy. Or so the ad said, hi hi.
In Windows, all files need some type of file extension.
Most of us who use Linux still use file extensions so we know what the files are, but they are not necessary in Linux.
I assume it goes by the file header to know what type of file it is and what program is needed to open or run it.
I do have some image files with extensions that sometimes Linux says it can't open the file, as no program is associated with that file type. This always surprises me, because I can open it without a problem from several different programs, if I open the program first, and/or tell it to open that file with such n such a program. If I click always open this file type with this program it will do it. But sometimes that can be annoying too, if you have a certain group of files you want to open with a specific program, like open it with GIMP and not the Image Viewer.
Lately, as I was going through some older tiff or jpg files, I would get an error message asking if I wanted to convert the file from like CMK to RGB. Not that but something similar. Has to do with the color palette I guess. If I say yes, and it looks right to me, I can save it back under the same name using the new color format.
In some cases, I think it is the old 16 bit color images being converted to 32 bit, maybe.
But often when I hit this, I will close the image and open it with GIMP so I can check things closer. GIMP never complains about a file type header being strange. And when you save it back, it saves it with a new header so then it opens in the Viewer without complaint.
Sometimes, if I was watching the display window, it would be one of those that pop up early and I could jump to it.
But now with over 2 gigs of data, not counting programs and image files, it takes forever to find something, although I have almost everything as far as documents go, fairly well organized now. I can usually find something faster than the global search for a phrase, hi hi.
I saw a Windows program by Oracle I believe, that would search your hard drive and generate different searchable databases for you. But it seems you had to pay big bucks for the program, and subscribe to their Cloud Service too.
But once everything was added to your cloud, searching for something was fast and easy. Or so the ad said, hi hi.
In Windows, all files need some type of file extension.
Most of us who use Linux still use file extensions so we know what the files are, but they are not necessary in Linux.
I assume it goes by the file header to know what type of file it is and what program is needed to open or run it.
I do have some image files with extensions that sometimes Linux says it can't open the file, as no program is associated with that file type. This always surprises me, because I can open it without a problem from several different programs, if I open the program first, and/or tell it to open that file with such n such a program. If I click always open this file type with this program it will do it. But sometimes that can be annoying too, if you have a certain group of files you want to open with a specific program, like open it with GIMP and not the Image Viewer.
Lately, as I was going through some older tiff or jpg files, I would get an error message asking if I wanted to convert the file from like CMK to RGB. Not that but something similar. Has to do with the color palette I guess. If I say yes, and it looks right to me, I can save it back under the same name using the new color format.
In some cases, I think it is the old 16 bit color images being converted to 32 bit, maybe.
But often when I hit this, I will close the image and open it with GIMP so I can check things closer. GIMP never complains about a file type header being strange. And when you save it back, it saves it with a new header so then it opens in the Viewer without complaint.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
At one time the Silver Yogi was a 32 bit machine. I looked around for quite a while to find somebody who would be willing to convert it to 64 bits without losing any of my programs or data. Plus, I was dual booting into Ubuntu back then. Most people I talked to say it wasn't worth converting and that I should just buy a new machine, which by some odd coincident they happen to sell. Eventually I found a guy who was doing business out of his living room, literally. He was very confident that it could be done. He is the one who installed that motherboard you have which turned out to be an easy task. Getting all the software to work wasn't too difficult until he tried to get Ubuntu working. That was the first time I learned about the problems Linux has with nVidia drivers. He kept the machine for about a week longer than anticipated because his son was the Linux expert and he was out of town for a few days. This guy was a Mac man but also had a huge interest in Linux and really wanted to get my system going. So I let him do it and was pleased as punch when I brought the machine home. However, being a Mac man he added a lot of software that you don't normally find on a Windows machine. One such program was something called "Search Everything." Cute, but I hardly needed to search anything and much less everything. LOL Well, that program has demonstrated it's usefulness many times over. It can indeed find "anything" regardless of what physical disk it is on. That disk must be part of the Windows configuration, which makes sense given that Microsoft had no interest in looking up files in anybody else's OS. This program is fantastic, but it has limitations. It only will pick out characters from a file name. It cannot search content. Plus it's super fast. Type in the letter "a" for example and about ten thousand program titles containing the letter "a" suddenly appear complete with directory path info. The list updates nearly as quickly as I type in the keywords. I love it. It probably won't work for what you need to do, and I don't know if it even has a Linux version. I do know it's about as quick as any database I ever worked with, yet it is not a database.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
All I can say is the Silver Yogi is a great machine, no complaints with it of any kind.
We have several search tools in Linux, but if you like GUI then Catfish is a great tool.
It can also search any mounted drive too.
You can search just file names, starting with a single letter, then adding more letters to weed down the hit list.
Or you can do an in depth search for a phrase as well, which of course takes longer. But you can make it faster by naming a file type along with it too. If you knew it was an odt file then you can eliminate txt or doc files from the search or say search only odt files.
Simple but great little tool that is built on the command line tools but with a GUI to make it user friendly.
Sorta like RSync has a GRSync GUI which is what I use.
Catfish should be in both the Ubuntu and Linux Mint repositories.
We have several search tools in Linux, but if you like GUI then Catfish is a great tool.
It can also search any mounted drive too.
You can search just file names, starting with a single letter, then adding more letters to weed down the hit list.
Or you can do an in depth search for a phrase as well, which of course takes longer. But you can make it faster by naming a file type along with it too. If you knew it was an odt file then you can eliminate txt or doc files from the search or say search only odt files.
Simple but great little tool that is built on the command line tools but with a GUI to make it user friendly.
Sorta like RSync has a GRSync GUI which is what I use.
Catfish should be in both the Ubuntu and Linux Mint repositories.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Catfish sounds like something I've seen before but have not tried to use. I don't have a need to do a lot of searching to begin with, and that need is next to zero when I'm on a Linux machine. There are a few command line utilities that search in ways a GUI has never thought of. I used to use "grep" a lot at Motorola, but even with that I had some guidance from the department guru. Windows has some pretty cool command line utilities as well but you need to use PowerShell to get at them. Then, as Microsoft is wont to do, none of it works like Bash. I'd probably do more CLI stuff here in Windows if I didn't have to go through the trouble and learn their unique way of doing things. Windows is made for, well, Windows. It's best to stick to the design plan. Linux was made for system admin and that's where the CLI stuff really shines.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Yes CLI works the best, but unless you use it all the time, you forget the commands. And if you forget something like the trailing / on the search, and make sure you don't have one on the results, you can blow the whole thing.
At least using a GUI version, you can see what will happen before you actually run it.
FWIW: Windows 10 has added a way to use BASH now, along with a few other things. They did this in hopes of their programmers not using Linux to write the Windows software, hi hi.
I always thought it funny that Mickey$ofts own employees preferred Linux to do their work, hi hi.
There are several BASH commands I keep handy for when I need them, since there is no GUI counterpart for them.
One fellow I talk with about once a month, if he contacts me first, says his brother works for the Google OS development team. Seems they keep hitting all kinds of Patent and Copyright restrictions which prevent them from doing what they intended on doing when the project started. Apparently Apple/MAC and Windows hold Copyrights on numerous was of doing something in code, even if they are not doing it themselves. This is one reason 3rd party drivers for hardware is often limited to what they address the device to do. Many of the features are either under Patent or Copyright, but other laws allow anyone to be able to gain access to the device to make it perform its basic tasks, just not the extra add-on things it may do that are proprietary to the device.
At least using a GUI version, you can see what will happen before you actually run it.
FWIW: Windows 10 has added a way to use BASH now, along with a few other things. They did this in hopes of their programmers not using Linux to write the Windows software, hi hi.
I always thought it funny that Mickey$ofts own employees preferred Linux to do their work, hi hi.
There are several BASH commands I keep handy for when I need them, since there is no GUI counterpart for them.
One fellow I talk with about once a month, if he contacts me first, says his brother works for the Google OS development team. Seems they keep hitting all kinds of Patent and Copyright restrictions which prevent them from doing what they intended on doing when the project started. Apparently Apple/MAC and Windows hold Copyrights on numerous was of doing something in code, even if they are not doing it themselves. This is one reason 3rd party drivers for hardware is often limited to what they address the device to do. Many of the features are either under Patent or Copyright, but other laws allow anyone to be able to gain access to the device to make it perform its basic tasks, just not the extra add-on things it may do that are proprietary to the device.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Windows 10 is perfectly capable of running Linux, bash et. al.. It's been around for several years in fact, and it so happens that you can also run Linux programs in Windows 7. The requirement to do it in Windows 7 is that you install the compiler and know how to use it. Windows 10 has WSL, a Windows Subsystem for Linux, that runs Linux natively. It's a lot like Debian in that you get nothing with it, but you can install anything Linux is capable of running. I think you are a bit confused about how Windows is developed. Linux is not a development environment. You can't create anything in Linux unless you also install an appropriate development environment, such as C++. Does C run better in Linux? Of course. It runs ever better in Unix. Be that all as it may, Microsoft has it's own development environment you must use to create apps for Windows. I don't know what OS it can run on, but my guess is it was designed for Windows.
I have no objections to using a GUI. It is indeed a lot easier to do so, well in some cases. The problem is that functionality is often limited when you put a Bash command in a graphic environment. And, as you point out, not all the useful CLI utilities have a GUI to go with it.
I have no objections to using a GUI. It is indeed a lot easier to do so, well in some cases. The problem is that functionality is often limited when you put a Bash command in a graphic environment. And, as you point out, not all the useful CLI utilities have a GUI to go with it.
Last edited by yogi on 04 Sep 2020, 17:19, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Well, what I know from my own early experience with programming, using BASIC.
What you could do on a 6502, could not be ported over to run on an 8080a because some of the available commands for a 6502 were not on the 8080a microprocessor.
Things have changed a lot since then, and for almost all microprocessors, programs can be ported over to the OS's used on the computers. Just as computers have become more powerful, so have the programming programs used on them.
I think I mentioned I bought MASM, Micro$oft Macro Assembler, hoping to create EXE files from some of my programs.
I never was able to get any of them to work as EXE files, even though they ran fine natively.
Some of the GUI programs I've used did have areas where you could add some command line arguments not directly available from the checkboxes in the GUI. Heck GRSync is an example of that. But not all GUI programs give you those options.
What you could do on a 6502, could not be ported over to run on an 8080a because some of the available commands for a 6502 were not on the 8080a microprocessor.
Things have changed a lot since then, and for almost all microprocessors, programs can be ported over to the OS's used on the computers. Just as computers have become more powerful, so have the programming programs used on them.
I think I mentioned I bought MASM, Micro$oft Macro Assembler, hoping to create EXE files from some of my programs.
I never was able to get any of them to work as EXE files, even though they ran fine natively.
Some of the GUI programs I've used did have areas where you could add some command line arguments not directly available from the checkboxes in the GUI. Heck GRSync is an example of that. But not all GUI programs give you those options.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Program development is accomplished in many ways. It boils down to machine language but few developers work on that level. BASIC is an interpreted language which merely means it does not have to be compiled to run. All that is done in advance. When you are creating an operating system or the programs that might run on it, it's done in binary. The binary is compiled to run on specific machines. Thus you can use one binary file to play nice with many CPU's. Not so with BASIC. It's already compiled and you are stuck with what it is. Microsoft and every other major software vendor offers SDK's (Software Development Kits) to it's developers. This kit is actually several programs put together in one environment so that the programmer doesn't need to have six different things going all at once. App developers for mobile devices have some pretty sophisticated tools available to them. They no longer need to know about binary. There are API's (application programming interface) that you send parameters to and get back results. How it's done is transparent. That transparency is what I hear a lot of people bitching about being a mystery with Windows. Well, I'm here to tell you Google, Apple, and Linux use them too as do many of the programs you are accustomed to using. Programmers don't need to know much about kernel instructions anymore. It helps if they do have that knowledge, but you can make a perfectly great app without it.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I've hear about programming packages where you don't actually do any programming, per se.
You tell it what you want it to do in plain English, and it builds the code to make it do that for you.
Well, it turns out plain English isn't exactly what they meant, you learn English commands.
I assume it is sorta like using a Text Editor to get HTML. You had better know HTML to get it working the way you intended, hi hi.
I will admit, the first few web pages I wrote I did using a word processor than saved as HTML.S
From that I could study what it did and how it worked, only to learn building a page that way adds lots of garbage and tons of redundancy that could have been avoided. That was way back in the early HTML days though too.
Back when computers still had stand-alone math co-processors, hi hi.
I had one friend years ago who said he was a programmer, when all he was was a guy who went around and installed programs in mainframe computers for companies. The only thing he had to know was how to find the code area the real programmers said he needed to install this new code between.
Years later I actually learned a little bit about what he actually did when we had the Wang mainframe.
I didn't understand the code naturally, but did know of the module placement areas in their programs because they were all well documented.
Many years after that, when I was using Cougar Mountain Accounting Software, they sold each of their packages in Modules. So, if you bought a new module, you had to install it or pay them to send someone out to do it.
Sorta like the Wang, it was just a matter of opening the main program file and looking where the module belonged, then copying and pasting the code into that spot, and removing the ; or # sign before and after it. Then when you ran the program you went into set-up and checked the module you just installed so it would know it was there now.
But I'm sure there was a lot of programming in the main program that allowed for that simplicity.
You tell it what you want it to do in plain English, and it builds the code to make it do that for you.
Well, it turns out plain English isn't exactly what they meant, you learn English commands.
I assume it is sorta like using a Text Editor to get HTML. You had better know HTML to get it working the way you intended, hi hi.
I will admit, the first few web pages I wrote I did using a word processor than saved as HTML.S
From that I could study what it did and how it worked, only to learn building a page that way adds lots of garbage and tons of redundancy that could have been avoided. That was way back in the early HTML days though too.
Back when computers still had stand-alone math co-processors, hi hi.
I had one friend years ago who said he was a programmer, when all he was was a guy who went around and installed programs in mainframe computers for companies. The only thing he had to know was how to find the code area the real programmers said he needed to install this new code between.
Years later I actually learned a little bit about what he actually did when we had the Wang mainframe.
I didn't understand the code naturally, but did know of the module placement areas in their programs because they were all well documented.
Many years after that, when I was using Cougar Mountain Accounting Software, they sold each of their packages in Modules. So, if you bought a new module, you had to install it or pay them to send someone out to do it.
Sorta like the Wang, it was just a matter of opening the main program file and looking where the module belonged, then copying and pasting the code into that spot, and removing the ; or # sign before and after it. Then when you ran the program you went into set-up and checked the module you just installed so it would know it was there now.
But I'm sure there was a lot of programming in the main program that allowed for that simplicity.