Verbosities

My discoveries and associated ramblings

Sunday, May 23, 2004

Unison File Synchronizer
This is the best free file synchronizer out there. "It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other."

Here's the coolest part: "Unison runs on both Windows (95, 98, NT, and 2k) and Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.) systems. Moreover, Unison works across platforms, allowing you to synchronize a Windows laptop with a Unix server, for example."

It's bandwidth friendly and the connections can be easily tunneled through ssh.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Internet Archive: Petabox
Now you can serve up a petabyte of data from a standard shipping container! The Internet Archive has some serious server needs and they're willing to put their expertise to work. The Petabox is now available for purchase. It has 800 computers, it consumes 60KW of electricity, one administrator can run it, and it can run inside a 20' x 8' x 8' shipping container. I guess that's just in case you don't have a server room in your basement. I would need to rewire my breaker panel before I buy one of these.

Monday, May 10, 2004

Popup Test
Test your favorite popup blocker. This site feeds different types of popups to your browser so you can see how effective your popup blocker is. The Google Toolbar is pretty effective. It scored 85/100 in the standard tests and 100/100 in the advanced tests.

Just for fun, I turned the Google bar's blocking off and tested again. Plain old IE scored 35/100 in the basic tests (because it allowed some windows to open that popup blockers shouldn't block) and 0/100 in the advanced test.