[aklug] Re: Speaking of GitHub and Google and Larry

From: Bruce Hill <bruce@happypenguincomputers.com>
Date: Mon Aug 19 2013 - 04:32:49 AKDT

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 02:55:14AM -0800, Christopher Howard wrote:
>
> Thoughts, anyone? I thought it was a good, educational article
> addressing an important issue. And I liked the Google Docs bashing.
> However, the article doesn't address some of the "details" of the issue
> that are pretty important. What about areas like HPC? (E.g.,
> supercomputers running scientific simulations.) What if you are a big
> company -- do you have to run your own servers, or is it okay to farm
> that out? If it is inefficient for everyone to have his own Web server,
> is it okay for some people to use hosting? Can you use a Cpanel, or must
> you run your own VM, in order to have freedom? Isn't SaaS one of the
> most fundamental sources of profit for free software advocates, next to
> tech support, custom software, and package maintenance?
>
> Again, I agree with the concerns, but I'm not clear on how these issues
> are supposed to be worked out in the real world.

It seems the answer to "how they're worked out" depend upon what service is
being used, and what you would use locally as a substitute. Here's my example:

We have a school of gymnastics. For class management, family/student data, and
billing we are using www.thestudiodirector.com today. We have tried two other
services before this one, each failing to meet a need or more expensive than
we desired.

Before signing up with this latest one I read their privacy policy:
https://www.thestudiodirector.com/privacypolicy.htm and there were points
which bothered me about it. However, we need this service working now. Not
having anything to handle this for July and August (when we started a new
schedule of classes and got a good number of new students) means (a) we have
students written into class rosters by hand on paper, and (b) we don't know
who owes us how much money, who is behind, etc. Therefore, we don't even know
our expected monthly income.

What we need, afaict, is a relational database management system (RDBMS).
There is MySQL, and as I'm learning more, that seems to be what we should use
long-term. But today, I need something in place, and how long would it take me
to learn how to configure MySQL, input all our data, and have it working on a
daily basis?

There is a server on the LAN for my computer shop that could run MySQL, if
that is indeed what we need to do that job. In the meantime, we need a working
solution, so I'm inputting data into Studio Director online...very
reluctantly.

-- 
Happy Penguin Computers               >')
126 Fenco Drive                       ( \
Tupelo, MS 38801                       ^^
support@happypenguincomputers.com
662-269-2706 662-205-6424
http://happypenguincomputers.com/
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.                                                                                                                                                          
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Don't top-post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_post#Top-posting
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Received on Mon Aug 19 04:33:15 2013

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