INFO-VAX Sat, 16 Feb 2008 Volume 2008 : Issue 94 Contents: Re: Does dism/unload spin down a disk? Re: Does dism/unload spin down a disk? Re: Does dism/unload spin down a disk? Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:40:48 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: Does dism/unload spin down a disk? Message-ID: On Feb 15, 8:53 am, etmsr...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: > On 15 Feb, 07:54, Jur van der Burg <"vdburg at hotmail dot com"> > wrote: > > > > > I usually take a screwdriver, place the tip on a device and put > > may ear on the handle. Works perfectly. > > > Jur. > > > Chris Scheers wrote: > > > John Santos wrote: > > >> In article , > > >> Kilgal...@SpamCop.net says... > > >>> In article > > >>> <2248d527-676b-4f72-96aa-dd797a45a...@h11g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, > > >>> tadamsmar writes: > > >>>> I have a noisy disk in a shadows set and I a trying to figure out > > >>>> which one. > > > >>>> Is there a vms command that will spin down a disk? > > >>> Yes for RA disks, but not for newer disks like SCSI. > > > >> I've always thought a stethoscope would be a useful diagnostic > > >> tool for computers, but have never actually tried it. > > > >> Know any doctors? I think they get them for free as > > >> perks from drug and medical equipment companies. > > > > Go to an auto parts store and get a mechanics stethoscope. It has a > > > long thin rod on the end. You touch the tip of the rod to various bits > > > of equipment to listen for bad bearings.- Hide quoted text - > > > - Show quoted text - > > That's a trick the technician in my A'Level metalwork class taught me > - Bob Burgess taught me that over 20 years ago and he'd been using it > in his career as a machine tool fitter for best part of 40 years. You're talking about the screwdriver trick, right? Google Groups swallowed that with "show quoted text". I think this is a new bug. AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:45:17 -0800 (PST) From: AEF Subject: Re: Does dism/unload spin down a disk? Message-ID: <1c859f8e-acaa-48ec-84d0-befdec9a1691@o10g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> On Feb 15, 6:58 pm, FrankS wrote: > On Feb 14, 9:45 pm, John Santos wrote: > > > Oh, and actually, old hardware tends to last longer than modern > > hardware. > > It's amazing that the RZ28 (2gb) and RZ29 (4gb) drives at my client's > sites have been spinning error-free for generations, yet I install new > 72gb and 146gb drives and some of them go within 6 months. There was > an article somewhere recently about the so-called MTBF of modern disks > and how misleading a metric it is, and I've certainly had enough bad > experiences with disk drives to back that up. Perhaps it was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTBF AEF ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:57:44 +0000 (UTC) From: helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) Subject: Re: Does dism/unload spin down a disk? Message-ID: In article <522b2a83-5335-453a-be63-5235a83835f4@e25g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, FrankS writes: > On Feb 14, 9:45=A0pm, John Santos wrote: > > Oh, and actually, old hardware tends to last longer than modern > > hardware. > > It's amazing that the RZ28 (2gb) and RZ29 (4gb) drives at my client's > sites have been spinning error-free for generations, yet I install new > 72gb and 146gb drives and some of them go within 6 months. Indeed. I have some disks which have been constantly spinning for a decade or more. However, this is probably better than spinning them down every day. > There was > an article somewhere recently about the so-called MTBF of modern disks > and how misleading a metric it is, and I've certainly had enough bad > experiences with disk drives to back that up. The median is not the message? What one needs is presumably the full distribution of failure times, but in practice that is probably difficult to obtain. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:50:32 -0500 From: bradhamilton Subject: Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Message-ID: <47B6EA28.4090508@comcast.net> JF Mezei wrote: > bradhamilton wrote: > >>>>> > >> My apologies for the previous post; you have provided this link back in >> January of 2008, in response to JF's question. Sorry I missed it. > > I just used google (deja news) on the above url and it only came out > into this thread, not the original one. Out of curiosity, how did you > find the original mention of the above url ? I subscribe to info-vax, and it is an easy trick to search my "COV" mail folder for the unusual word "sftware" in the body of any mail message in that folder, thanks to Thunderbird (perhaps someday, Thunderbird will be available on VMS :-)) You don't need to parse the whole URL, just the word "sftware" will do nicely. [...] > If HP were truly serious about security, they would publish a real email > address where we can send a real email with real information instead of > having to enter text in some dumb web text entry window of 6 lines * 38 > characters. You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. :-) Seriously though, polite inquiries at the proper venue mostly (but not always) work wonders. While you may be technically correct about the issue quoted above, it does seem to be the only avenue available to hobbyists like us. Please be as restrained as you can when making your inquiry; being a former (and current) hot-head, I know just how easy it is to lose sight of the goal when your passions are involved. :-) Also, I think the text entry box will "expand" vertically if you enter more than six lines of text; at least that's how the similar web widgets work at other sites (including ITRC). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:45:59 GMT From: Michael Austin Subject: Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Message-ID: bradhamilton wrote: > JF Mezei wrote: >> bradhamilton wrote: >> >>>>>> >> >>> My apologies for the previous post; you have provided this link back >>> in January of 2008, in response to JF's question. Sorry I missed it. >> >> I just used google (deja news) on the above url and it only came out >> into this thread, not the original one. Out of curiosity, how did you >> find the original mention of the above url ? > > I subscribe to info-vax, and it is an easy trick to search my "COV" mail > folder for the unusual word "sftware" in the body of any mail message in > that folder, thanks to Thunderbird (perhaps someday, Thunderbird will be > available on VMS :-)) > > You don't need to parse the whole URL, just the word "sftware" will do > nicely. > [...] >> If HP were truly serious about security, they would publish a real email >> address where we can send a real email with real information instead of >> having to enter text in some dumb web text entry window of 6 lines * 38 >> characters. > > You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. :-) > > Seriously though, polite inquiries at the proper venue mostly (but not > always) work wonders. While you may be technically correct about the > issue quoted above, it does seem to be the only avenue available to > hobbyists like us. Please be as restrained as you can when making your > inquiry; being a former (and current) hot-head, I know just how easy it > is to lose sight of the goal when your passions are involved. :-) > > Also, I think the text entry box will "expand" vertically if you enter > more than six lines of text; at least that's how the similar web widgets > work at other sites (including ITRC). JF - also to be truly "fair", depending on the level of information provided for security vulnerabilities, most companies do not respond to the information. Well, they do and they don't - you may see in the near future a new ECO/patch for the affected application :) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:14:06 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Message-ID: <47b71a16$0$25411$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> bradhamilton wrote: > I subscribe to info-vax, and it is an easy trick to search my "COV" mail > folder for the unusual word "sftware" in the body of any mail message in > that folder, thanks to Thunderbird (perhaps someday, Thunderbird will be > available on VMS :-)) "sftware" doesn't yield anything but your message in Deja/Google. Perhaps they don't search URLs ? or perhaps the original poster has an x-noarchive header line. > hobbyists like us. Please be as restrained as you can when making your > inquiry; being a former (and current) hot-head, I know just how easy it > is to lose sight of the goal when your passions are involved. :-) I was factual with my message to HP. After a few ex-DECies convinced me that VMS was too far behind to ever catch up, I have far less emotion with HP. My focus is on learning the unix side of OS-X and moving stuff from my VMS machines to the mac. In the end, it isn't worth fighting an unwinnable battle when you can have the tools your need on another platform without having to fight. Now, consider this: if someone had posted similar security problem on a os-X or windows newsgroup, Apple/Microsoft would have picked up on it right away and tried to issue a patch ASAP before the media started to blast the company to pieces. But for VMS, even the media doesn't care about a published security problem for VMS. > Also, I think the text entry box will "expand" vertically if you enter > more than six lines of text; at least that's how the similar web widgets > work at other sites (including ITRC). Text boxes don't change on a proper browser with javascript disbaled I only enable javascript when absolutely needed. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:24:06 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Message-ID: <47b71c6e$0$25398$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Michael Austin wrote: > JF - also to be truly "fair", depending on the level of information > provided for security vulnerabilities, most companies do not respond to > the information. Well, they do and they don't - you may see in the near > future a new ECO/patch for the affected application :) It would have been nice to just get an email stating that they had forwarded my message to the appropriate people. As I recall, that form that Mr SMS had provided was VMS specific. Perhaps there is nobody left in the VMS group to read those. Perhaps they go to the mailbox of an employee that no longer works there. I know I could have sent it to Sue directly and have high confidence that Sue would forward it to the appropriate person. However, what i could now do is hunt down the original URL I used, and write a message to Sue that perhaps messages posted using that form get lost and not read by any humans. If the form is broken behind the scenes, Sue could then not only make sure it is fixed and make sure it is read by a human at regular intervals, but also retrieve my original message and forward it to the appropriate people. The big difference between HP-VMS and Apple-OSX is Sue. With VMS, we have Sue to contact where we have problems. Apple is way too big to have people who are in direct contact with individual customers. But with Apple, while I don't expect a response from a bug report, I know their web form points to a group that actively monitor the bug reports. With VMS, I am not sure there is anyone left to monitor the various forms that people can fill. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:39:57 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Phillips Subject: Re: Semi OT: Feedback to HP Message-ID: On Feb 15, 10:48 pm, JF Mezei wrote: > bradhamilton wrote: > >>>> > > My apologies for the previous post; you have provided this link back in > > January of 2008, in response to JF's question. Sorry I missed it. > > I just used google (deja news) on the above url and it only came out > into this thread, not the original one. Out of curiosity, how did you > find the original mention of the above url ? > > It is possible that such a similar link was provided after I had already > submitted the report to the link Mr SMS had provided and I wasn't going > to rewrite it to the new one. > Here's my response to your original question. And here's your reply to my post: Click the "from discussion" link at the top of either to see the entire thread. My post was time-stamped a couple of hours before your reply to SMS saying you'd posted the issue on the page he gave, fwiw. > The reason I made *this* thread was simply to point out that some of > those web forms just don't do anything. It isn't a big deal, I didn't > expect a response. > > If HP were truly serious about security, they would publish a real email > address where we can send a real email with real information instead of > having to enter text in some dumb web text entry window of 6 lines * 38 > characters. I'd say on the security issues page, you just need to fill in your name and email address, pick your country and "HP OpenVMS" from the drop-downs, and in the box give the sub-product name/version, state the issue in a few words/sentences (like: IMAP vulnerable to whatever when such-and-such condition exists) and end with "you may contact me for further details." The SSRT *might* then start a dialog with you regarding the issue, because I doubt that they expect you to provide a complete technical analysis in that little box. But you won't know whether it works unless you try it. By posting to a general feedback page that's directed to a webmeister (and after reading the afore-referenced thread I see you put www.disney.com in the web-page box) you're chances of having your message taken seriously and getting forwarded to the right person were probably less than good. Maybe if you write a note on rice paper and burn it, one of your ancestors will intercede;-) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:59:33 GMT From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan-Erik_S=F6derholm?= Subject: Re: Xerox 7760 on DCPS? Message-ID: <9%Btj.3864$R_4.2693@newsb.telia.net> Paul Anderson wrote: > If you used DCPS, you could add the ANSI escape sequence to select the > Swedish character set and DCPS would translate it to the proper > PostScript to send to the printer. > > (7 > A follow-up... I got my HP LaserJet P2015n on Friday and could not stay away from office Saturday... :-) I first started DCSP and setup a raw_IP que against the P2015 using mostly default setting. Had some queue hangs that a ...NO_SYNC logical solved. (The P2015 doesn't seem to have a setting for select emulation, it's always auto-detecting). Then added the "(7" sequence to a test txt-file and got national swedish characters, fine so far ! Then, looking for a solution that doesn't need any changes to applications or files, I found out that one can create a module in the TLB only containing the "(7" sequense and reference it in a FORM. Then, by using that form instead of the DCPS$DEFAULT default form, I can now get Swedish chars on-the-fly without coding anything special in the files. Absolutly perfect !!! Also works with a dumy LTAxxxx queue (ASSIGN'ed to the DCPS queue) so that printouts can be "printed" using a COPY of the text file to the LTAxxxx: "device". On monday I'll test the same setup at the customer. Thanks everyone and in particular to Paul, of course ! Regards, Jan-Erik. > selects Swedish and > > (B > > sets it to ASCII. So send the first sequence before the ASCII 91, 92, > 93, 123, 124 or 135 and the characters will print properly. > >> There is also a problem with an extra blank page before each printout >> (which always are a single page...) and I'd thought that DCPS would >> cure that too. > > That depends on what is generating the extra page. If it's asked for > in the file itself, then you'd have to remove it there. DCPS doesn't > print blank pages unless asked. > > Paul > ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2008.094 ************************