Computer Tips -Tech Info

Database replication is one of those useful things that can really make your life simpler. It’s not really a way of backing up the data in a MySQL database, because if you inadvertently issue a command to delete the entire database, it won’t save you from yourself…. it will faithfully replicate the change to the slave servers. However, in the event of hardware failure or other abrupt disruption of connectivity, the concept of replicating from a master to a slave server is ideal.

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How-to forge has what they describe as a copy and paste how-to up on the Perfect setup for Mandriva 2006 to meet the needs of ISP’s and hosters. It’s copy-paste because they suggest copying the commands and pasting them into the putty/xterm/console window on the machine that you’re setting up. It’s welcome to see this kind of “handholding” so people can see that it really is quite straightforward to get up and running with a linux server.

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I’m afraid it was something I expected would happen, *(although you always hope a company will look on such imitation as a form of flattery and be cooperative/excited about the new application of an old game idea…), but the implementation of the strategy game Risk using Google Maps has been shut down by a cease and desist letter from lawyers retained by Hasbro.

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One of the great things about computers is their potential to help teach/ help us learn. One of my favorite categories of software is that of educational. I remember spending long hours going through a states and capitals game back on the atari 400 years ago. I have also been fond of language vocabulary drilling games more recently. The nature of the web is that now many good tools like this are available online, finding them is the problem.

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PCMag has an article on a number of little puzzling “how do I”‘s in Microsoft Office. It looks like a great listing and worth adding to anyone’s battery of MS Office tips.

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Although some of the linked reviews are old, PCWorld has released their list of top 100 products of 2005. It’s nice to see a number of familiar products in the list, several Google offerings are listed (main search engine, desktop, and GMail at #2). Ubuntu makes #26 which is noteworthy. I notice Wikipedia is in there as well. Many of the items on the list of course, have been out a bit longer than a year so it’s not 100 top NEW products, just 100 top products. Mozilla Firefox tops the list at #1.

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I just read this guide to link building and he’s right on the mark…. 🙂 I don’t know how many times I’ve come to the same conclusion he did as the only way to have your site rank well. Read it and enjoy “the secret”.

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OS Dir has the story that Mozilla Firefox 1.5 has already been downloaded more than 2 million times. It was released publicly on the 29th of this month (Tuesday afternoon) and today is Friday… not bad for just a few days. I suspect that the rate will slow now that all the folks that were watching for the release have got the new version downloaded.

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I saw this earlier this afternoon at betanews.com there seems to be a flaw in the way Internet Explorer deals with css that could put your data at risk. According to this article it is a risk combined with Google Desktop. This can be “fixed” by disabling scripting or using Firefox as your primary browser. Currently Microsoft says it is “investigating the problem”…

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The Open Source blog at zdnet has an article today on the Wikipedia. “Is Wikipedia a threat or a menace?” is the title… (which doesn’t give leeway for it to be a good thing I guess…) Anyway it raises an interesting point. Over the last few days there was a lot of press about (from the article above) “John Siegenthaler, a former Kennedy aide who found that his own entry falsely called him a suspect in his boss’ murder.” Now the Wikipedia is an online collaborated encyclopedia. Anyone can sign up and start editing whether it’s fact or not. There is a great responsibility to this…

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