Another Win For Linux

[yogi]

You ask a good question, and I believe there could be a very short term problem.

It may be helpful to keep in mind how data packets travel across the Internet. Basically everything has a destination "to" and source "from" IP address. The key to understanding where your email actually goes is found in the DNS servers. The DNS servers are pretty much like your local machine's hosts file. Each entry is a single line with two pieces of information. The first bit is a domain name and the second is the IP address associated with that domain name. Thus the sole purpose of DNS servers is to convert human readable addresses to IP addresses.

The hosting company will configure their DNS server to associate the RiversideFarms.com domain with a specific IP address that they own. Thus when you switch to a new e-mail provider, your existing domain name is assigned a different IP address, one that is owned by the new provider. A conflict will exist until the new IP address information propagates to all the DNS servers over the entire Internet.

While I can't say with certainty, I'm fairly confident that an error message would be generated telling the new provider that the domain they are trying to configure is already assigned an IP address. What happens at that point would be speculation on my part. The new people should not try to configure your old domain to their IP address without some action taking place by the old e-mail providers. That means the old e-mail providers must delete your domain from their DNS server first so that there are no network conflicts.

What about your actual mail? Your existing e-mail file content stays on the old server for a predetermined amount of time and/or until the disk space quota is filled. When you change service providers you most likely won't get a choice to move what is on the old server to the new server for reasons already explained. It's technically possible but not done in practice. Thus, whatever you do not download from the old server will be lost. The problem isn't going to be what you already have. There will be issues with incoming e-mail. When you make the transition to a new e-mail server, where will that new mail go? The answer is that it depends on what the network DNS servers have in their routing tables. The new provider will update the DNS information on their end, but it can take a week for that new information to propagate to the DNS servers all over the world. Anything sent to you during that week may or may not arrive. That would be the reason to use a different domain name, or to deal with the possibility of some mail not being delivered. Of course you could send e-mail immediately without conflict. The headers in anything you send will contain IP information of the server from which it was sent.

We are talking e-mail here, but the same rules apply to a website being hosted on somebody's server. In the case of a website you may not have access to it until all the appropriate DNS servers have updated. That exact scenario has happened to this website in the past. It only took overnight for the Internet to update, and I suspect it would be the same with e-mail. A lot depends on the phase of the moon.

[Kellemora]

So far, each time I've moved to a new company, I had a different domain name for my e-mail. @bbs.galilei.com, @inlink.com, @comcast.net, etc.

Perhaps it wouldn't be such a good idea to use my registered domain name as the suffix for my e-mail?

I know most businesses do use their domain name for e-mail.
I also know of one business who has moved their accounts to different hosts several times.
But before they did, they gave us a temporary e-mail address to use with a different domain name.
Come to think of it, the temporary one was under their original name, so perhaps they kept that account alive for e-mail purposes, sorta like I did with my BBS e-mail account. I only moved it to Comcast after the BBS finally shut down.

On a side note: When I first moved down south, I was still using 56k dial-up. My BBS service gave me an SMTP server to use at a local phone number down here. I discovered it belonged to US Bank. I asked our Sysop how he pulled that off, and he told me that most ISPs belong to a nationwide group to get local to the user dial-up phone numbers. I thought that was interesting.
Even after I got an account with Comcast by moving up to Cable Internet, I still had the phone modem in my computer, and every once in awhile would check to see that it still worked. It did for nearly five years after I got Comcast.
Plus I learned they did not get rid of their inbound 56k dial-up, it was now used for credit card transaction machines. Many still work on the phone lines today, however the majority are now DSL and always on.

[yogi]

In theory you can point your privately owned domain name to any server on the Internet. Since you do not own and operate an e-mail server of your own you must rely on somebody else to configure the DNS routing tables for you. The big companies who provide e-mail service are not generally set up to configure domains they do not own internally, but that does not mean they can't or won't do it for you. You would have to talk to the sales people to see if they have a plan that allows for your private domain to be used on their servers.

Why bother? Keeping the same domain name and corresponding e-mail address over time means that all your business customers will know how to contact you regardless of where your e-mail server is parked. Changing names and addresses will generate some confusion and some mail will be lost during the transition. If that confusion is minimal, then it may just be a non-issue to change domain names every time you go with a new ISP. But, if you want to keep the same e-mail identity forever, then you will need to negotiate with each ISP and get them to put your domain on their server. In some cases that's quite simple. The ISP for this site will do it, for example. Comcast may not.

My first ISP was Earthlink back in the days when dial-up was the only option. Earthlink gave me web space and several e-mail accounts, some of which were bogus to divert the spam. Over times I graduated up to DSL and kept Earthlink. I liked the fact that they were part of the Sprint network. Anyway, the deal was that I could use a 56k dial-up connection to contact them any time my DSL went down. That was the option for all the time I was with the company. I kept a dial-up modem in a file cabinet just for that possibility. LOL

[Kellemora]

Although I had a BBS established long before I had access to the Internet, I got suckered into getting AOheLl. They kept sending these floppies to us, so I finally broke down and tried them.
I didn't realize at the time that AOL was only an in-house service, and every time I turned around they kept downloading more and more updates. Finally we could use e-mail. But all those updates kept burning up my allocation.
When they finally did give us web access, we got hit with a bill for well over 300 bucks, so I cancelled them.
About this same time the BBS decided to become an ISP, but being a small local club more so than a true Internet provider, I ended up setting up my websites on Inlink, but kept my e-mail on the BBS until after I moved down here.

[yogi]

One of the first warnings I received when I was looking to join the Internet was to avoid AOL. LOL That was back in Windows 3.1 days and before I owned a modem. So, AOL has quite a reputation. I too remember those CD's they would mail out. I must have ended up with about twenty of them. They made great coasters for iced tea.

[Kellemora]

I got enough AOL CDs in Tin Boxes that I had half a rack of my good CDs in them and used all the AOL CDs to put a new neat looking roof on our doghouse. I used a bandsaw to cut the CDs in half, drilled a hole in the corners to tack them to the doghouse roof, and allowed them to overlap a little to hide the nails and let the final project look like a scalloped roof.
It shed water and reflected the sunlight off the doghouse keeping it cooler inside. Sometimes the dogs would prefer staying outside in the doghouse than coming inside through the always open doggie door. Except at dinner, then all the dogs were underfoot, hi hi.
I was amazed that the hot sun did not make the CDs warp or curl up like would happen with an old 45rpm record.

Seems like my first couple of AOL offers were on 5-1/4 floppies, then for a long time they were on 3-1/2 floppies.
I guess they could afford to mail out so many since they charged an arm and a leg for their lousy service.

[yogi]

I'm surprised that the CD's were suitable for shingling a dog house. The business part of the disk is a thin sheet of what could by mylar. That's the part that deteriorates with time and trashes any valuable data you might have burned to it. Any moisture in there would seem to cause major warping, but maybe the dogs didn't mind that. LOL

The discs AOL sent out were cheaper than the postage it cost to send them. It all got written off as advertising and a business expense. All they needed was one new subscriber and that would buy them a carload of new disks.

[Kellemora]

I have CDs in storage that went bad, they literally rot away. Actually the metal corrodes because it is not protected around the edges, and not much over the surface either.
The ones I put on the doghouse roof never did warp. A few got dull like plastic would normally do outside, but not all of them. Must have been the brands. They were placed with the thick plastic side up so you saw the rainbow effect.
This was back home in St. Loo, and we didn't get the direct 3pm heat like we do down here which melts anything, hi hi.

Remember when Legg's Panty Hose came in the cardboard tube with the half of a plastic egg as the lid?
I bought 1000 of these lids in gold chrome to use as a wall covering on a wall in one of our local restaurants where I was doing some remodeling work. I paid less than 100 bucks for a thousand of them, and around 25 bucks for a special adhesive I bought to make sure they wouldn't come off the wall from folks pulling on them.
I really thought with them cleaning some of the gold would be worn off, but I was back there about 3 years later and they still looked just like the day I put them up, except for one down at the floor level near the corner that got broken, so they sawed it off flat, flush with the wall.

I used to have a picture book of all the unusual things I did at various places I did work in. Unfortunately they were all lost in one of the two floods we had. It was amazing the things you can do with neat things that are normally discarded.
Or find things designed for one purpose and use them for another in a different way.

[yogi]

I love the stories you tell that involve re-purposing common items. I do recall the L'egg campaign and never would in a million years think to use the shells as a wall covering. LOL It's truly a shame that you lost all those photos. I have no doubt in my mind that you could have published a very successful book showing off your creativity.

For all the similar stories I've heard about how CD's deteriorate over time, I've never had that experience. I have some old music CD's which probably have been around for more than ten years and they play just fine. Some of the software I have archived are on CD's going back to 2009. I've not tried to read them lately, but they look good from the outside. Then again, we never used CD's as a backup or archive at Motorola. Too unreliable. Go figure.

[Kellemora]

You may find this hard to believe, but when I was working for Harlequin, we mailed a single 5-1/4 floppy back and forth numerous times, and they never once got an unreadable disk.
When they switched to 3-1/2 floppies, we had to send at least 3, preferably 5 all with the same thing on them, to ensure then ended up with a readable disk.
They never used CDs, but I don't think they were yet common before I quit working for them.

I've had quite a few CDs that always worked when I checked them, then when I really wanted to check for something on a few, they were no longer readable. Now if I messed around and tried the CD in several different readers, sometimes they would read, sometimes not.

With all the old IDE drives I had laying around here, I made an IDE to USB converter from an old external drive by taking the parts from the case. I also had one computer where I fed the power cord and IDE connector to outside the computer case so I could connect them there. Trouble with doing it that way, you have to shut down the computer first, then hook up the drive, and boot back up again. That's why I sacrificed an old external to get the adapter out of it. Worked for a long time, but then gave up the ghost. I thought about buying another one since they are available on-line for fairly cheap.
But instead I bought a couple of new external drives, a 2 terra and a 4 terra.
I used to buy externals in pairs, one for daily use, and the second to do a weekly backup and keep it off-site.
Now I use the 4 terra to hold everything, and what is on my computers while I'm working, then the final file gets moved to the 2 terra as a backup. Trouble is, I keep both of these in the same building right now, and connected.

[yogi]

Anything magnetic going through the postal system has got to be vulnerable. Those sorting and canceling machines are full of EM fields that would destroy any disk or tape that came near it. I can't think of a reason why the smaller floppies would be more at risk than the larger ones. It's an interesting observation nonetheless.

There are a lot of different strategies for risk management of data. I guess the best advice is the old advice, i.e., to have backups, backups, backups, and more backups all in different locations. Last time you explained what you're doing there, I believe that you followed that advice.

On a slightly different note, I've been looking into the possibility of replacing my laptop. There are an overwhelming number of choices and options and I don't see how the average person can make an informed decision regarding which one is best for them. After checking several places I think I found one from MSI that I would buy if I had to. The big question is will it do what I want it to do, play nice with Linux? Any off the shelf laptop comes with Windows pre-installed. I, of course, have no need for a paid version of Windows and even the cheapest Home version available is over $100. I found a place that will put any OS I want on the laptop as long as it's Windows. It seems that they would even configure XP if I had a need for it. I suppose I could do what I did with the current laptop and simply erase the HDD and put my own software on it. That would waste the cost of the license so I looked around to see if anybody would support Linux off the shelf. Nope. Nobody I could find would do it. The best tech support could say is that they only support Windows and all the functions of Linux may or many not work. I don't want to hear about Dell or Alienware that comes with Linux installed. I'd rather go to Google Chrome before I attempt to fix anything Dell touches. Of course many Linux tech forums say go ahead and install Linux; then they list seventy five things you have to do to the OS in order to get it to work. After that it's perfect. Then there is the company who will build me a custom laptop with any OS I want, including Linux. I'd have to come up with at least $1800 for that baby.

So, I'm just saying. I might have a very slightly used laptop for sale in the not too distant future.

[Kellemora]

Me and laptops never got along.
However, of those I know running Linux and using laptops, although there are over 15 brands that come with various versions of Linux pre-installed, it seems the popular choice is Lenovo, followed by System76. Asus offers a few also which are OK, and although Acer has a couple, they are not recommended.
Nearly everyone who is running Linux added their favorite OS to an older but fast laptop.
You are not alone, although Dell may offer the most options, apparently they are not too well liked, and often grossly overpriced for what you get.

I put Debian on my little Acer netbook, and it quadrupled the speed over Windows8 which came on it.
I had a little trouble getting WiFi to work at first, and the shop gave me a free WiFi card that he knew worked.
When I couldn't get his card to work, I put the original card back in, and figured out where I went wrong in set-up.
It now works like a charm, but never gets used, except on rare occasions. And when I do use it, I plug a real keyboard and mouse into it. I don't know how people get any work done on laptops. I guess they get used to the awkwardness of them.

[yogi]

People don't use laptops to get any serious work done. They have workstations for that kind of activity. Laptops and mobile devices are great at data entry and presentations, but that's about it. Constructing the database or assembling the presentations is best done on a real computer. That is why smartphones and tablets became popular. They cater to short term, but frequent, use. Their size adds to the convenience . Most people can now carry around the photographic history of their life and play solitaire ad infinitum from right in their shirt pockets. You and I can complain about the unfriendliness of flat non-tactile keyboards because we both have a long history of touch typing behind us. The laptop users all use one finger to enter data. The really talented ones use one finger from each hand.

There's no comparison between Windows 8 and any Linux distribution. Like Windows Vista Windows 8 was prematurely released to meet a marketing deadline. When WIndows 7 was first introduced it was not possible to boot very quickly from a cold start. Now with all the solid state memory and tons of RAM I can challenge you and your Linux boxes to a boot off. LOL I think Windows 10, however, is doomed to be bloated and lacking in sufficient hardware to run efficiently by most of it's users. To be fair I've not tried to optimize it because the version I have changes so often, but I don't see it using any fewer resources even if it had the worlds fastest CPU powering it. Intel is selling 16 or 24 core processors these days so that we might see a fast Windows 10 in a generation or two. I can say, however, for all it's weight, Windows can do some pretty cool things. But, it's obviously aimed at mobile devices.

[Kellemora]

On TV, especially the crime shows, it shows almost all departments using laptops, often Apple brand, hi hi.
But then they turn the camera and there is an array of monitors, mostly touch screen, which due to their speed and content, would have to be running on a mainframe system, if it were not all faked, with pre-programmed images.

I've been in a few records areas at police detective departments, and in various government agencies, and they all have standard size workstations. What they are connected to I don't know, could be a server array or a mainframe, besides being on-line with a mainframe and server farm elsewhere.

I don't know why all these kids working on laptops sitting at the wrong height for typing don't have carpal tunnel syndrome by the time they reach 18 to 20.
I type all day long, and if my keyboard is not exactly right, I suffer the consequences really fast.

[yogi]

I'm thinking the dangers of carpal tunnel are overstated. Not as many kids are using laptops today as they were ten years ago, but their usage is still significant. The hackers, bit heads, and gamers are all on desktops, but even so I doubt many of them are aware of the ergonomics involved. If they are, they don't care because there is no cause and effect relationship for them to identify with. It's only us well seasoned older gents who have problems with our joints.

[Kellemora]

When I first started in Grade School, the janitor came around on the first day of school to each of our desks and had us sit up straight and hold our elbows at our side, with our arms held out straight. He would then adjust the desktop so it 2 inches below the heel of our palm.
It wasn't until I got to High School that they had the awful useless desk chairs we had to sit at. All identical, no adjustments to any of them, etc.
But then when I got out into the workforce, the companies I first worked for were like Grade School as far as making sure our work station was set up perfect for us, as far as desktop heights and angles for our drafting tables, etc.

My late wife was a medical transcriptionist for most of her career, and they were real sticklers on having their keyboards at just the right height for working comfortably all day long. Even back when they used manual typewriters and adjustments got more accurate when they switched to keyboards.

I have arthritis, so no matter what position I keep my keyboard, my fingers still ache, hi hi.

[yogi]

I must have been half way through my tenure at Motorola before the word ergonomics was even spoken. Since I worked in a group that made equipment people would be using their entire work shift, I got to go to a class on design ergonomics. It was pretty interesting but not widely enforced. I guess all Motorola cared about was the fact that the right people got the right training. There were instructions everywhere telling people how to adjust their work environment, but being ergonomic didn't always turn out to be practical. For example the office desks were all the same and not adjustable. Our workstations sat onto of the desks. The chairs were adjustable in some cases. What I learned that helped me the most was the fact that most problems arise out of extended exposure to stress. Thus the secret to avoiding problems even when the ergonomics are wrong is to to take a break every twenty minutes or so and reposition yourself. You can withstand a lot of contortions for short periods of time.

[Kellemora]

Do you remember the Denska Chair?
They were actually popular for awhile. You basically knelt on a pad and rested your behind against an angled seat.
They honestly were comfortable. I used one for about 3 years, but only for about an hour at a time is all.
They could not be used by transcriptionists because you couldn't operate the foot pedals to the transcription equipment in those types of chairs. So ours got shoved aside as we got more transcription work to do.

Most of the years I was a draftsman, we had tall desks you either stood at, or sat on a tall stool.
I suppose this is they way drafting was done for centuries, hi hi.
When I changed jobs from S&P to MRTC, all of their drafting tables were normal desk height, and we had super comfortable office desk type cushioned leather or cloth chairs, your choice which you preferred, as they had both at each desk.
Working at desk height, in comfortable chairs, we got a whole lot more work done than we did down at S&P.

I bring that up because I see a new trend in stand up computer desks.
Some jobs can only be done standing up, like flower designing, which I did for most of my life, being in the family business and all. But it takes it's toll on your ankles and feet, standing all day, every day.
In some cases, it makes sense to have the computers at stand up desks, like in the shipping department, or at retail sales counters. But for day long data entry projects, a comfortable seat can't be beat.

Touch screens are nice for some activities, like waitress stations, but I've not seen them work out to well at grocery checkout counters. Seems it takes a lot longer to get checked out if you go through one of the lanes with touch screens, vs the regular check out lanes.
One of our gas stations replaced four of their islands with touch screen gas pumps. Left the other four on the other side of the building the way they were, with keypads. People will wait at the keypad pumps before using the touch screen pumps. I've tried them a couple of times, and it definitely takes longer to work your way through all the screens before you hit start pumping, hi hi.
At the old pumps you just hold your discount card under the scanner, then slip your credit card into a slot, type in your zip code when the screen says enter it, then hit the button for the grade of gas and you can start pumping. Hitting the fuel grade button cancels the questions about a car wash or whatever else they are trying to sell you.
On the touch screen you have to touch the screen to bring up the menu first, then touch the YES discount card button image, let it scan your discount card, then it asks for cash or credit, you hit the credit image button and wait for it to say to use your card, it will ask for your zip code and place a number pad image on the screen. Then it will show the zip code you entered and you have press correct or redo, then wait until it says approved. Then it will ask if you want a car wash, you have to say no or yes, if you say no, then it finally comes up with the button image to select which grade of gas, and when you do it comes and says remove nozzle and begin pumping gas. After you replace the nozzle it asks if you want a receipt, yes or no button, if you press yes, it says problem printing receipt see attendant, hi hi.
Oh, and if the sun is in the right place, you can't see what is on the screen, because it is already worn out to a dull gray finish, hi hi.

[yogi]

I feel your pain at the gas station lane. LOL

Touch screen checkouts are designed to be fool proof and eliminate the need for an attendant. Customer convenience is a secondary consideration as you already have figured out. Because those touch screen terminals aren't infested with AI yet, it takes a lot of manipulation from the user to get through the process. I avoid them like the plague at the grocery and other stores. The exception is when I have only one or two items that can be scanned quickly and paid off with a single $20 bill. The self check outs are quicker than the till tarts in those instances. Of course that all presumes you have been through the rigors at least once or twice and know what has to be done. The first few times I used them I had to call for assistance, which of course greatly increased the time it takes to get checked out. At the moment I have even a better solution to those self operated touch screens. I shop at home here from my computer at my convenience. The beauty of this solution is that I don't even have to go to the store, although sometimes they offer me incentives to do so, and get it all delivered to my front door. Clever, eh?

[Kellemora]

I get a lot of things delivered to my door as well.
But one thing I refuse to do is to use self-checkout at stores, without getting at least a 10% discount, well maybe 5%.
They are not paying Workman's Comp, for me to be working for them at their store.
They are not paying me a Salary for working at their store.
What do they call working for a company without pay, insurance or benefits? SLAVE LABOR!