The Perfect Storm How a Combination of Random Events can lead to Disaster
No, this post isnt about that Wolfgang Peterson & George Clooney movie but it does borrow from the concept in a business sense.
This week we skirted close to disaster but the rest of the business was completely oblivious to the danger.
I wasnt worried, it was all under control but my boss said to me later, "we nearly had the perfect storm today". I thought about his words and realised that he was right.
I was wondering just how many times we, and other businesses nearly have the perfect storm and dont even realise.
What is a Perfect Storm?
In the book and movie of "The Perfect Storm", the storm wasnt a cyclone or any kind of normal severe storm event. It was just a normal storm in which several other conditions were perfect. Its simply the combination of several unlikely events which results in disaster.
Our Experience
Factor 1: Backup
This week weve struggled a bit with backup. We had a faulty tape which meant that we missed out on our backup job for one night. I replaced the tape for the next night and tried to run the backup again. It failed again - this time because the previous nights tape had left a bit of gunk in the drive. I cleaned the drive but although the system was ready for backup, we now had two days worth of "unsaved work".
Factor 2: Backup ISP and Server
Like many critial businesses, we have offsite redundancy. In our case, we have an offsite domino server which is part of our cluster. Our offsite provider had told us a little while ago that they needed to switch ISPs and re-run our infrastructure. We were told a month ago that there was no pressing urgency. Of course last week, on the night of our last successful backup, we were told that it was starting to become urgent.
You can imagine our surprise when we came into work on Thursday to find ourselves disconnected. Our main systems worked, the internet worked, everything was Ok. Its just that our redundant server was no longer accessible.
Factor 3: Board Day
I work at one of those lucky companies who dont have board members in attendance every day. In fact theyre usually only around on monthly basis. Guess what.... the day of the storm was a board day.
A Lucky Escape
We were careful, we took precautions. Earlier in the week wed had some work done on our main production databases but on that day, they were out of bounds.
Like I mentioned earlier, nothing happened. The production servers all stayed up, we eventually got our offsite server back and we got a backup that night. All was well but you have to think...
If anything had gone wrong on the day, we had no backup and no offsite server. We were hosting one of the most critical meetings of the year and the most important people in our company were all onsite watching.
The question is; would you recognize the perfect storm if it started forming near your company?
This tutorial is the textversion of the original found here: link
This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!
1 Preliminary Note
To fully replace a Windows desktop, I want the Ubuntu desktop to have the following software installed:
Graphics:
The GIMP - free software replacement for Adobe Photoshop
F-Spot - full-featured personal photo management application for the GNOME desktop
Google Picasa - application for organizing and editing digital photos
Internet:
Firefox
Opera
Flash Player 10
FileZilla - multithreaded FTP client
Thunderbird - email and news client
Evolution - combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions
Empathy IM Client - multi-platform instant messaging client
Skype
Google Earth
Xchat IRC - IRC client
Office:
OpenOffice Writer - replacement for Microsoft Word
OpenOffice Calc - replacement for Microsoft Excel
Adobe Reader
GnuCash - double-entry book-keeping personal finance system, similar to Quicken
Scribus - open source desktop publishing (DTP) application
Sound & Video:
Amarok - audio player
Audacity - free, open source, cross platform digital audio editor
Banshee - audio player, can encode/decode various formats and synchronize music with Apple iPods
MPlayer - media player (video/audio), supports WMA
Rhythmbox Music Player - audio player, similar to Apples iTunes, with support for iPods
gtkPod - software similar to Apples iTunes, supports iPod, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iPod photo, and iPod mini
XMMS - audio player similar to Winamp
dvd::rip - full featured DVD copy program
Kino - free digital video editor
Sound Juicer CD Extractor - CD ripping tool, supports various audio codecs
VLC Media Player - media player (video/audio)
RealPlayer - media player (available for i386 systems only)
Totem - media player (video/audio)
Xine - media player, supports various formats; can play DVDs
Brasero - CD/DVD burning program
K3B - CD/DVD burning program
Multimedia Codecs
Programming:
KompoZer - WYSIWYG HTML editor, similar to Macromedia Dreamweaver, but not as feature-rich (yet)
Bluefish - text editor, suitable for many programming and markup languages
Quanta Plus - web development environment, including a WYSIWYG editor
Other:
VirtualBox OSE - lets you run your old Windows desktop as a virtual machine under your Linux desktop, so you dont have to entirely abandon Windows
TrueType fonts
Java
Read-/Write support for NTFS partitions
Lots of our desired applications are available in the Ubuntu repositories, and some of these applications have been contributed by the Ubuntu community.
As you might have noticed, a few applications are redundant, for example there are two CD/DVD burning applications in my list (Brasero, K3B). If you know which one you like best, you obviously dont need to install the other applications, however if you like choice, then of course you can install both. The same goes for music players like Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox, XMMS or browsers (Firefox, Opera). I will use the username falko in this tutorial. Please replace it with your own username.
2 Installing The Base System
The installation of the base system is easy as 1-2-3 because the Ubuntu installer doesnt offer a lot of options to choose from, so you cannot go wrong. Download the Ubuntu 10.10 desktop edition iso image from http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download, burn it onto a CD, and boot your computer from it:
Select your language and click on the Install Ubuntu button to start the installation:
On the next screen you see a few requirements for the Ubuntu 10.10 installation (the system should have at least 2.6GB available drive space, should be plugged into a power source (to make sure that the system doesnt shut down during installation because of an empty battery), and should be connected to the Internet). Please check the Download updates while installing and Install this third-party software (this will install the software necessary to process Flash, MP3, and other media files) checkboxes and click on Forward:
Now we come to the partitioning of our hard disk. Usually Erase and use the entire disk is a good choice, unless you need custom partitions and know what youre doing. Erase and use the entire disk will create one big / partition for us:
Select the hard drive that you want to use for the Ubuntu installation:
Then choose your time zone:
Change the keyboard layout, if necessary:
Type in your real name, your desired username along with a password, and click on Forward:
Afterwards, Ubuntu is being installed. This can take a few minutes, so be patient:
After the installation, you will be asked to reboot the system. Click on Restart Now:
Your new Ubuntu system starts. Log into the desktop with the username and password you provided during the installation:
This is how your new desktop looks:
Now the base system is ready to be used.
Now its time to check for updates and install them. You can start the Update Manager by going to System > Administration > Update Manager:
The Update Manager tells you which updates are available (you can click on the Check button to refresh the list). Click on Install Updates to install them:
Type in your password:
The updates are being downloaded and installed (this can take a few minutes):
When the update is complete, click on Close (if a new kernel was amongst the updates, a system restart is required to make the changes effective. If this is necessary, you will see a Restart Now button. Click on that button to restart the system.).
The system is now up-to-date.
4 Flash Player And Java
If you have checked the Install this third-party software checkbox during installation, the Flash Player and Java should already be installed on the system. To check this, open Firefox and type about:plugins in the address bar. Firefox will then list all installed plugins, and it should list the Flash Player (version 10.1 r85)...
... and the IcedTea (Java) plugins among them:
5 Inventory Of What We Have So Far
Now lets browse all menus to see which of our needed applications are already installed:
You should find the following situation ([x] marks an application that is already installed, whereas [ ] is an application that is missing): Graphics: [ ] The GIMP [ ] F-Spot [ ] Picasa Internet: [x] Firefox [ ] Opera [x] Flash Player [ ] FileZilla [ ] Thunderbird [x] Evolution [ ] aMule [x] Transmission BitTorrent Client [ ] Vuze [x] Empathy IM Client [ ] Skype [ ] Google Earth [ ] Xchat IRC Office: [x] OpenOffice Writer [x] OpenOffice Calc [ ] Adobe Reader [ ] GnuCash [ ] Scribus Sound & Video: [ ] Amarok [ ] Audacity [ ] Banshee [ ] MPlayer [x] Rhythmbox Music Player [ ] gtkPod [ ] XMMS [ ] dvd::rip [ ] Kino [ ] Sound Juicer CD Extractor [ ] VLC Media Player [ ] RealPlayer [x] Totem [ ] Xine [x] Brasero [ ] K3B [ ] Multimedia-Codecs Programming: [ ] KompoZer [ ] Bluefish [ ] Quanta Plus Other: [ ] VirtualBox [ ] TrueType fonts [x] Java [x] Read/Write support for NTFS partitions So some applications are already on the system. NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on Ubuntu 10.10.
6 Configure Additional Repositories
Some packages like the Adobe Reader are not available in the standard Ubuntu repositories. The easiest way to make such packages available to your system is to add the Medibuntu repository. First we open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal):
First off, we edit /etc/apt/sources.list...
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
... and enable the maverick partner and Ubuntu Extras repositories (if they are not already enabled):
[...] ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonicals ## partner repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the ## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users. deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party ## developers who want to ship their latest software. deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick main deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu maverick main [...]
Then save the file. To enable the Medibuntu repository, please do the following: Import the repository:
to make Synaptic display packages from third-party repositories.
7 Install Additional Software
To install additional applications, open the Synaptic Package Manager (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager):
Type in your password:
In the Synaptic Package Manager, we can install additional software. You can use the Quick search field to find packages. To select a package for installation, click on the checkbox in front of it and select Mark for Installation from the menu that comes up:
); //
If a package has a dependency that needs to be satisfied, a window will pop up. Accept the dependencies by clicking on Mark:
Select the following packages for installation (* is a wildcard; e.g. gstreamer* means all packages that start with gstreamer):
amarok
f-spot
gimp
flashplugin-installer (necessary only if you didnt check the Install this third-party software checkbox during installation)
amule
audacity
vuze
banshee
bluefish
dvdrip
filezilla
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
gnucash
gstreamer* (necessary only if you didnt check the Install this third-party software checkbox during installation)
gtkpod
k3b
kino
mplayer
smplayer
quanta
kompozer
scribus
vlc*
mozilla-plugin-vlc
xchat-gnome
xmms2*
sound-juicer
acroread
non-free-codecs
ubuntu-restricted-extras
libdvdcss2
xine-ui
xine-plugin
thunderbird
virtualbox-ose
skype
After youve selected the desired packages, click on the Apply button:
Confirm your selection by clicking on Apply:
The packages are now being downloaded from the repositories and installed. This can take a few minutes, so please be patient:
You might have to answer a few questions:
After all packages have been installed, click on Close:
8 TrueType Fonts
To check if the TrueType fonts have been installed correctly, open a word processor like OpenOffice. You should now find your new Windows fonts there:
9 Inventory (II)
Now lets check again what we have so far by browsing the menus again:
Our inventory should now look like this: Graphics: [x] The GIMP [x] F-Spot [ ] Picasa Internet: [x] Firefox [ ] Opera [x] Flash Player [x] FileZilla [x] Thunderbird [x] Evolution [x] aMule [x] Transmission BitTorrent Client [x] Vuze [x] Empathy IM Client [x] Skype [ ] Google Earth [x] Xchat IRC Office: [x] OpenOffice Writer [x] OpenOffice Calc [x] Adobe Reader [x] GnuCash [x] Scribus Sound & Video: [x] Amarok [x] Audacity [x] Banshee [x] MPlayer [x] Rhythmbox Music Player [x] gtkPod [x] XMMS [x] dvd::rip [x] Kino [x] Sound Juicer CD Extractor [x] VLC Media Player [ ] RealPlayer [x] Totem [x] Xine [x] Brasero [x] K3B [x] Multimedia-Codecs Programming: [x] KompoZer [x] Bluefish [x] Quanta Plus Other: [x] VirtualBox [x] TrueType fonts [x] Java [x] Read/Write support for NTFS partitions
Open a browser and go to http://www.opera.com/browser/download/; select Ubuntu as the distribution and then default package and click on the Download Opera button:
A download dialogue should come up. Select Open with Ubuntu Software Center (default):
A Ubuntu Software Center window comes up. Click on the Install button to install Opera:
Type in your password:
Opera is now being installed. Afterwards, you can close the Ubuntu Software Center window:
11 Google Picasa
Go to http://picasa.google.com/linux/download.html#picasa30 and select the right .deb package for your architecture (i386 or amd64):
A download dialogue should come up. Select Open with Ubuntu Software Center (default):
Then install the package exactly as shown for Opera.
12 RealPlayer (For i386 Systems Only)
(RealPlayer is available for i386 systems only. If you are on an x86_64 system, please skip this chapter.) Open Firefox and go to http://www.real.com/realplayer/linux. Click on the Download DEB Installer link:
A download dialogue should come up. Select Open with Ubuntu Software Center (default):
Then install the package exactly as shown for Opera.
13 Google Earth
At the time of this writing, the was no Google Earth .deb package available from the Ubuntu/Medibuntu repositories as it was the case for previous Ubuntu versions, but we can simply install the Google Earth package for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) from the Medibuntu repositories - it works on 10.10 as well. Go to http://packages.medibuntu.org/lucid/googleearth.html and select the right package for your architecture (i386 or amd64). A download dialogue should come up. Select Open with Ubuntu Software Center (default):
Then install the package exactly as shown for Opera.
14 Inventory (III)
We have now all wanted applications installed: Graphics: [x] The GIMP [x] F-Spot [x] Picasa Internet: [x] Firefox [x] Opera [x] Flash Player [x] FileZilla [x] Thunderbird [x] Evolution [x] aMule [x] Transmission BitTorrent Client [x] Vuze [x] Empathy IM Client [x] Skype [x] Google Earth [x] Xchat IRC Office: [x] OpenOffice Writer [x] OpenOffice Calc [x] Adobe Reader [x] GnuCash [x] Scribus Sound & Video: [x] Amarok [x] Audacity [x] Banshee [x] MPlayer [x] Rhythmbox Music Player [x] gtkPod [x] XMMS [x] dvd::rip [x] Kino [x] Sound Juicer CD Extractor [x] VLC Media Player [x] RealPlayer [x] Totem [x] Xine [x] Brasero [x] K3B [x] Multimedia-Codecs Programming: [x] KompoZer [x] Bluefish [x] Quanta Plus Other: [x] VirtualBox [x] TrueType fonts [x] Java [x] Read/Write support for NTFS partitions
Sinopse: �The Perfect Host� � um thriller escrito e realizado por Nick Tomnay, que nos conta a hist�ria de um bandido em fuga, John Taylor (Clayne Crawford), que decide abrigar-se na mans�o de um sujeito pacato. Ele s� n�o sabia que o anfitri�o � especialista em receber e entreter convidados � tem uma tend�ncia ao sadismo. O filme esteve no Festival de Sundance este ano e estreou no dia 1 de Julho nos EUA, pela Magnolia..
Informa��es: Titulo Original: The Perfect Host T�tulo Traduzido: The Perfect Host G�nero: Terror Dura��o: 99 Min. Tamanho: 700 MB Qualidade de Audio: 10 Qualidade de V�deo: 10 Formato: AVI Qualidade: BDRip Resolu��o: 640x360 Codec do V�deo: XviD Codec do �udio: MP3 Idioma: Ingl�s Legenda: BAIXAR Release by: aAF Encoder by: BrunoG Ano de Lan�amento: 2011
The Perfect Fighter � um jogo online feito em Flash no qual voc� pode participar de batalhas incr�veis. Ele possui 12 lutadores para voc� escolher, sendo dois deles secretos e liberados somente quando voc� termina sess�es espec�ficas do modo hist�ria. Outras alternativas de combate s�o os modos de sobreviv�ncia, versus online e treinamento.
Cada personagem apresenta uma lista com aproximadamente oito ataques especiais, sendo dois deles capazes de causar muito dano � os quais requerem o gasto da energia acumulada ao desferir golpes normais.
I just download a pdf ebook from Scribd named The perfect man of islam. If you like to know more about prophet mohammed then reading this book is must do for you. Read this book directly from here. The Perfect Man of Islam
