Off the Shelf

Among systems analysts it's commonly understood that if an off-the-shelf product meets the business need, it's faster to develop around that. Start-ups and small operations, in desperate need of revenue in this economy, hazard the failure of their operations if they don't consider development (or deployment) time when deciding technical strategy.

Being very technically minded, a student of both Computer Science and Management Information Systems (a business degree), I see and experience both sides of this problem. The systems analyst and systems administrator in me wants it fast, easy, reliable, and well-supported. The programmer and entrepreneur in me want the pride of having developed something on my own, intellectual property.

Open-source products have become particularly interesting to many firms in the last year, as they've had to seek cost savings in IT. (As any of my readers - if I have any - would know, I like that. FOSS is good.) This brings to mind two very important aspects:

1. They're seeking "off-the-shelf" products that work, not writing their own
2. They're trying to save money

Writing their own tools usually doesn't save money, since they have to pay the wages of whoever is developing them, and it usually takes longer. (The only exception here is when the off-the-shelf product is a bad fit and requires excessive integration effort.)

That's a problem for the little guy (start-up), because he (a) doesn't have time, and (b) doesn't have money. He needs to take advantage of available systems where it's fast and cheap/free.


"A 50%-good solution that people actually have solves more problems and survives longer than a 99% solution that nobody has because it’s in your lab where you’re endlessly polishing the damn thing." [Joel on Software]



(This relates to a situation I'm currently in, where I've repeatedly recommended this off-the-shelf attitude, but it's fallen on deaf ears. I'm quite frustrated by it, but hesitant to say anything directly since it's very slowly turning around.)

Google Apps FTW

So I'm too busy to set up my own mail server on my home network. Not that it's particularly arduous, just that I have way too much to do anyway.

A good friend introduced me to Google Apps some time ago. At that time I was too busy to look into it, but recently I got tired of not seeing the output of my cronjobs at home. Thanks to Google, I now get a much better view of my home network's routine operations, with very little work, and no significant maintenance burden.

(You'll notice a theme there - I'm busy. That's why I rarely post here, I guess.)

So I've long maintained a dyndns.org account so that I can refer to my home server(s) by name. I looked into the configuration requirements of Google Apps the other day, and discovered that it's really quite simple:

1. Register with Google Apps
   
2. Add Google's mail exchangers as the MX record on my dyndns account(s)
3. Post a very small file at the root of my public-facing web server so Google knows its me.

et voila! My system logs, cronjobs, and other administrative info are reported via email in a much friendlier fashion.

Mind you, I've had my servers configured for quite some time to route mail through Google's SMTP system, since I was originally just passing it to my regular email account. I was missing a lot that way, but not anymore! I've now got accounts (and nicknames) for every system account I use (postmaster, cron, etc), and all collecting in one sensible location.

I look forward to using Google App's per-domain Docs, as well as Google Sites for this domain, to take notes on what I do for my home network.

This feels like a major improvement, and pretty light on the work-load.

ATI hardware support

So recently we got some new hardware at the office. Some Dell workstations with dual dual-head video cards. Each workstation was to have 4 monitors.

The video cards had ATI RV630 [FireGL V3600] processors/etc.

The workstations were to run Ubuntu 9.04.

Using the proprietary driver, we had no trouble setting them up for single-monitor usage. We even managed to get 4 separate desktops running on each display, but there was absolutely no way to run them in a single-desktop arrangement across all displays. The open-source driver wouldn't generate a real image.

So that really sucked. I spent a couple days fiddling with them, trying all possible combinations I could think of or could find online. Nothing worked.

We then pulled the quad-head Nvidia Quadro 440 from my boss's workstation, plugged it in, and in less than 20 minutes had exactly the configuration I was hoping for.

That was the deciding point right there. I will never buy ATI for my Linux systems again.

What cannot be accomplished on ATI in days of investigation and trial/error, can be done simply in 20 minutes on Nvidia.

Upon further investigation, it turns out the ATI drivers for Windows aren't that much better. They just barely work, from what I hear (and have experienced, though some time ago). I can't help but wonder what prevents ATI from producing quality drivers - lack of funding? lack of talent? I can only speculate.


I guess ATI/AMD doesn't want my money (or that of anyone I advise). Oh well.

Thanks Nvidia for making my life easier!