Is the Snow Leopard Mac Mini Server the right solution for my office?

I'm the de facto "sysadmin" for my small office, which usually just means I set up the wireless, configure network printing, troubleshoot little issues with Mail and MS Office products.
Currently, we have 4 employees all on iMacs. We share files through a slapped-together setup, where there is a public folder on our owner's iMac and we all share files there. There are a few problems with this:
- If the owner's computer is off, no-one can get to the shared files.
- The owner's computer has had some strange "permissions" issues so sometimes files in the "Public" shared folder end up being read-only, or "read & write" for "nobody".
- A 5th employee telecommutes on an iMac, and can't access the shared folder or files.
So, we're considering getting a Mac Mini Server to do file storage and sharing, both locally and with telecommuting employees (of which there may be more in the future).
- Is this the best solution to our needs - really just file sharing, no web hosting or anything like that?
- What level of access control / authentication can we do on the Server? For example, could we have a password protected folder on the server to restrict access?
- Would we need to upgrade our standard DSL service if we want to share files on the server with folks not on the local network?
- Am I biting off more than I can chew here, given that my technical knowledge is slim but I am the most computer-literate of anyone in the office, so I will need to trouble-shoot any issues that come up with the server?

For your stated goal, network-attached storage (NAS) or an always-on Mac client would be a simpler solution. Either preferably with RAID, and with provisions and storage for periodic archives.
A Mac OS X Server box is overkill. The Mac client boxes have 10-client sharing.
If you want single-signon and shared directory services and mail and web and various of the other pieces and services that are available within, then you can grow into a Mac OS X Server box.
A server is rather more to manage, regardless of what you choose. You're getting DNS and networking and other core pieces, minimally, and you're also responsible for many of the configuration settings and services and details that a client box receives from a server box. And you're definitely dealing with protections and such across multiple boxes.
For some other perspectives, there are various previous discussions of this posted around the forums. A search that includes NAS should kick over a few of these; this is a typical low-end alternative to running a server.

Similar Messages

Is DPS the right solution for me?

I am currently working on a project that includes an iPad app that will direct users to one of 30 brochures. Other developers are working on the iPad app, I am creating the brochures.
If i use the DPS to publish the brochures, do I need to create 30 custom viewer apps (at $495 a month/$6,000 a year), or is there a more cost-effective way to deliver the brochures? The brochures will be created in Indesign, and I would like them to have some interactive features (image slide-shows, pinch & zoom, etc.) but they have to be viewable on an iPad.

Well, a DPS professional license would allow you to publish all 30 of those brochures in one app. But that would mean that all your brochures are available to anyone who downloads the app, so depending on your specific needs that could cause a problem.
I love doing brochures through DPS, but if you already have developers working on the front and back ends of an app, I don't know if you want to replace their work with DPS.
But long story short, with the limited info you have provided, it sounds like DPS could possibly be the right solution for you.

Using a Mac Mini Server quad Core i7 for FCPX ?

I am a student trying to
configure a final cut pro X edit system with a budget of around $4K.
I have over 400 hours of video (some Hi-8 but mostly mini-DV tapes).
For the Mini-DV tapes I plan on ingesting video into FCPX
directly from the camera via firewire DV. I will be using a Sony GV D800 to ingest
the Hi-8 tapes via firewire DV as well. I already have a 30" Apple Cinema Display.
H.264 will be used to deliver finished content to the web and/or Blu-ray.
I was leaning toward the macbook pro 17" but then I realised that a Mac Mini Server
could be configured with the same number of cores and RAM for less money.
Mac mini Server
2.0 GHz Quad Core Intel i7 -- same number of cores as macbook pro 17"
8 GB RAM
750 GB Serial ATA Drive 7200rpm + 256 GB Solid State Drive
Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter
Apple Magic Mouse + Magic Trackpad
Other Peripherals:
Promise Pegasus 8TB R4 Raid System in RAID 5 configuration or equivalent
Sonnet Echo Express PCIe 2.0 Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis with
Matrox Compress HD MAX encoding card
LaCie d2 Blu-ray 12x
Do the extra cores in the server make up for the difference in GPU?
(2.7 GHz Mini dual-core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR5 memory) VS (2.0 GHz Mini Server quad - core i7 with Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor and 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory)
Am I thinking about this configuration the right way? Is there
any overhead given that the mini will be a server? Anything missing?
thanks for your help,
Tom

Take it back for a replacement while you are within 14 days from purchase.

Is JavaFX the right solution for this scenario...

Hi,
Is JavaFX the right choice for the following implementation choice I have to make? (see below for the requirement)
Requirements:
1. Provide a way to visualise within a web application an entity relationship type diagram (i.e. nodes with relationships between them). The backend database will hold the topology relationship. So to visualise this on a web application will need the ability to draw rectangles/lines/text etc.
2. Provide a way to allow the use to trigger "add a new node", or "edit info in this node". For example a right hand context sensitive menu for example.
3. Ideally will scale as the user resizes the browser window
4. Would like the main functionality of the application to remain web based (is a Ruby on Rails application in fact), but have the visualization of the diagram render within the web application as transparently as possible.
Options / Issues:
* Issues I've struck with some investigation I've done is that whilst the <canvas> tag looks good for Mozilla/Firefox etc, it does not seem to have support on InternetExplorer. Hence cross-browser compatibility seems to be a real issue for the JavaScript type solutions from what I can see. This is why I thought JavaFX may be good?
* Options therefore seem to me to be:
- javascript (e.g. <canvas> tag) => cross-platform issue
- JavaFX / Applet => (this is what I'm asking about)
- Microsoft => costs $$ for development environment etc
- AIR / Flex / Flex => ??? costs $$ again I think
Regards
Greg

thanks - I'm still a little confused re their products and which would fit best so I've sent them some questions (below if you're interested)
Hello,
Could you please assist me in understanding which of your products would satisfy my needs. In fact (a) whether JGraph itself would and if not, or if it's not ideal, (b) which other product would.
REQUIREMENTS:
1. Provide a way to visualise within a web application a connectivity type diagram (i.e. nodes with relationships between them, a network connectively type of diagram).
2. The server side (i.e. web application with database) will hold the topology relationship. HTTP type interfaces off the web application can be developed to provide the client side visualizing component with the topology data in the required format (assume this is XML)
3. As well as just visualizing in the browser there would need to be a way for user to trigger a context sensitive "add a new node", or "edit info in this node". For example a right hand context sensitive menu for example.
4. Ideally the diagram will scale as the user resizes the browser window
5. Would like the main functionality of the application to remain web based , but have the visualization of the diagram render within the web application as transparently as possible. The the visualizing component would just take topology data and intelligently display this.
6. DESIRABLE: Basic automated layout would be nice, or as a desirable (depending on cost) more sophisticated auto-mated layout.
QUESTIONS:
As well as your recommendation re which product would suite I had some specific questions which I would appreciate clarification on:
Q1 - I assume if I have a web backend that can deliver topology inforrmation in an appropriate XML format via a HTTP REST type GET call that this could be used as a the source of data for a jGraph visualisation running within an Applet?
Q2 - If running within an Applet, can jGraph cater for a right hand menu option off the nodes/links on the graph, that I could use to trigger other calls back to the backend? (e.g. to trigger an Add New Node call)
Q3 - Following on from Q2 scenario, if I trigger an add new node scenario, if I wanted to visualise the form to type in the attributes for the new node, could this be handled within the applet by jGraph, or would this be a case of just adding your own Swing based dialogs to handle this?
Q4 - Do the basic JGraph do any basic layout without having to go up to the layout Pro package (which I think costs if using it commercially).
Q5 - If the answer to Q4 is No, how difficult would it be using the base JGraph library to do a basic layout? Is this doable/recommended? i.e. how would one "layout" the diagram if using only the base JGraph component? (noting from my requirements I'm really after a component I could send my topology information to in XML form and have it just visualise it for me)
Q6 - Running the visualiation in an Applet in a browser, is the typical usage one where all changes to topology are made as calls to backend? i.e. or is there an approach where one would allow users to make changes to the topology within the applet and build up all the changes here on the client, and then at some point synch these back to the backend? (I'm assuming the keep it simple approach would be not to do this)
Q7 - Is there a sample application/project with source code that implements a JGraph in applet/browser talking to web backend for data?
Q8 - How does JGraphPro & mXGraph fit into the picture re solving my requirements in the most cost effective manner

Is Workspace Manager the right solution for history data only

I've been experimenting some with WM to just enable history on all tables in a application we have with about 100 tables.
Everything works fine, except for the fact that we have lots of fk_constraints that require enabling of versioning in order.
We know that changes to the Db layout will occur as the app develops with business requirement's.
My questions is : Is WM the right solution here, as I don't see anyway to "transport" historical data in the event of a migration of old DB layout to a new layout?
(db refactoring).
/christian

Hi Christian,
When you execute enableversioning on the tables, you can specify the complete set of tables that you want to version, instead of having to maintain the correct table order.
There shouldn't be a need to transport the data between tables. We support DDL changes on versioned tables by using the beginDDL/commitDDL procedures. If you do require the transport of data between databases, then note that we only support a full database import/export. The user guide covers both of these topics in greater detail.
Regards,
Ben

Convert Snow Leopard server mac-mini to basic Snow Leopard Mac-Mini?

I have recently purchased a Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server installed. I have decided not to use it as a server and just maximise its capacity by using it just with Snow Leopard. How do I reformat to install basic Snow Leopard software? Thanks

Without an optical drive of its own, a Mini Server model would require the use of an external optical drive capable of supporting OS X installation and booting. This could include another Mac capable of supporting Target Disk Mode and the use of the second computer's optical drive. Or a supported external optical drive.
Another question may arise in the fact you would not be able to use an older OS X install disc older than the version shipped with the computer; the date of the Snow Leopard version's retail install disc would have to be newer than the SN OS X 10.6.x install DVD the machine shipped with in order to use it.
There may be a way to do a Custom installation from the Snow Leopard Server version DVD you have. This would likely be the best bet if possible. Given the higher level tools and processes available to the Server version of OS X Snow Leopard, being able to use that is a better preference overall than Client version.
You may be able to upgrade an internal hard disk drive to a larger capacity unit, or get and use a supported externally enclosed hard disk drive capable of supporting OS X booting and clones; these options could expand the basic use of the computer no matter what version of OS X you have running within it. Later on should you decide to experiment, a second drive for dual booting 10.6. & 10.7 could be a way to go forward.
The accessory use of a more dedicated external optical drive for the Mini Server edition is recommended; as well as the use of an external enclosure for an additional hard disk drive for backup purposes.
Depending on the version of standard retail Snow Leopard install DVD you may have, the ability to perform an Archive and Install should be available to you. Or perhaps a custom installation to nullify some of the more advanced parts of the Server version may be a possibility to investigate. I'd read up on what advantages a Server version of OS X can provide you, before leaving it.
When Lion 10.7 arrives, if your computer is supported, it should be relatively easy to upgrade & install the standard version (vs Server) via an upgrade where you keep user account settings etc from the previous OS.
Anyway hopefully this helps...
Good luck & happy computing!

An internet phone application for a Snow Leopard Mac Mini

The Mac Mini which I purchased , used , because it satisfied the Phone Valet software requirements , plus maintaining usability coordinating as much of the former G5's conformity as one might hope . The folks who provided the Phone Valet device stopped writing for it in the early summer of 2011 .
The Mac Mini is running well
Model Name:                Mac mini
Model Identifier:            Macmini2,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          4 MB
Memory:          2 GB
Bus Speed:          667 MHz
The telephone upgrade was up next , and for that we entertained a Gigaset SL78h as a beautiful and portable choice for keeping the computer to telephone compatabiility open via the Phone Valet software & hardware application .
The USB port on the Gigaset SL78h is advertised as a microsoft written port . This was unfortunately a swing and a miss in the guess work that assumed (guessed) a discoverable compatability of the Snow Leopard system with a usb ported , configured , handset .
I am presently interested in discovering how to bring the Gigaset SL78h handsets beyond the Mac OSX Preferences recognition in "Network" as a Modem . What can allow Snow Leopard to recognise the device into the informational cognisance , sharing of Address Book , and Phone Valet call monitoring activities enjoyed by the previous system which when hooked up directly with the Phone Valet to computer compiled all the activity nice and neatly .
I am paying "Vonage" for the access to my number and connections to other numbers via the internet in packets . The phone uses a Verizon FIOS connection through a combined Verizon modem and a Zytel Prestige 861 . With one other "Vonage" provided Motorola device , plus an Airport extremes ports for access which used to be read by the G5 via the Phone Valet hardware . Seems the data is either bypassed or unread by OSX's Snow Leopard , or I have hooked it up in new and unusual ways .
Having a similar successul setup would be inspirational over here . Moral is steady but could be improved with an application which could talk to both the Gigaset SL78h and the Address and Phone Valet applications , or a recognition of a correct sequence of hardware connections .
In all cases thank you for bearing with me this long , and if able to provide a hint to the correct direction to take for success , a thousand thanks .
Frederick R Perez

For your stated goal, network-attached storage (NAS) or an always-on Mac client would be a simpler solution. Either preferably with RAID, and with provisions and storage for periodic archives.
A Mac OS X Server box is overkill. The Mac client boxes have 10-client sharing.
If you want single-signon and shared directory services and mail and web and various of the other pieces and services that are available within, then you can grow into a Mac OS X Server box.
A server is rather more to manage, regardless of what you choose. You're getting DNS and networking and other core pieces, minimally, and you're also responsible for many of the configuration settings and services and details that a client box receives from a server box. And you're definitely dealing with protections and such across multiple boxes.
For some other perspectives, there are various previous discussions of this posted around the forums. A search that includes NAS should kick over a few of these; this is a typical low-end alternative to running a server.

External iSight mic not working with facetime. Snow Leopard, mac mini w/ firewire v1.0.2, 800/400 firewire adapter

External iSight camera connected via Firewire adapter 800/400 to a Mac Mini running Snow Leopard - a visual signal comes up for iChat and FaceTime, only sometimes does a video signal comes up for PhotoBooth, always no sound for any of the applications. System Preferences "Sound" shows "Input Level" set around 75%, however only periodically do I see blue bar move, almost like a short in the cable, but the adapter is new. Firewire firmware is v1.0.2. Tried to use firewire updater to get 1.0.3, but updater won't update for Snow Leopard. For being advertized as the world's most advanced OS, seems like Apple OS could at least work with Apple External iSight camera ! Any help much appreciated on fixing the missing sound.

This means that my Firewire 400 ports on the display are no longer supported by the computer?
They need a FireWire connection to the computer. With older computers, the FireWire cable from the display would plug in to a computer FW400 port to provide the connection. With FW800 only computers, you need the adapter.

Snow Leopard Mac Mini install

I have a 2006 intel Mac Mini 10.4 and I have the Snow Leopard Install dvd in it and it has been 3 hours installing. Is this normal?

No.
Does your Mac Mini meet the hardware specs for Snow Leopard?
Allan

Deciding whether TestStand is the right solution for my company

I'm working at a growing company and we recently started a push in our Test group to try and standardize our future development as much as possible to allow as much re-use of code as possible. I don't want to say exactly what it is we make for confidentiality reasons, but let's just say that 90% of what we make is the same basic type of product, but it comes in literally hundreds of models ranging in size from about the size of a dime to the size of a small washing machine. We're considering switching to TestStand on all new stations and on all updates of previous stations to assist in rapid development with increased efficiency.
Over the years we've made about 20 or so test stations as new versions of our product came out, each able to fit products of a different size and with different test requirements, but because our main products are all so similar to each other, there's only a pool of about 6 different types of tests we need to run, with some products needing only one of those tests and others needing all 6, and plenty in the 2-5 range. The size differences among different products also mean we have a large amount of different power supplies, and for various other reasons the measurement devices for the test stations aren't terribly standardized as well.
Step 1 was that we standardized the database we used to store all of the test data. We now have one database that can store data from all of our test stations in the same way. A few of the old stations had to have some creative workarounds done (i.e. instead of rewriting their current test program, write something that takes their old output format and converts it to the new database format, then upload it), but this step is 100% complete.
Step 2 was to abstract out the most common pieces of hardware, so we have started basically putting the IVI types in a LVOOP wrapper. Now instead of being limited to interchangability among IVI devices we can also swap in any of the other assorted devices we've accumulated over the years, many of which don't have IVI drivers and even a few that don't follow SCPI standards, as this is a great use of inheritance and overrides. We're also implementing a few device types that don't have IVI classes. This effort is already well underway and we're OK here.
Step 3 is where we're at now. As we standardized on hardware interfacing, we also figured it would be a good idea to attempt to effectively write each of the 6 or so tests one last time each with very flexible setup parameters as inputs, using the abstracted hardware classes so that it wouldn't matter which hardware we had, so that all the tests would run the same way. So we started looking at solutions to some form of sequence management, and we came up with a couple of possibilities for homegrown versions but after debating those for a while we started to ask ourselves, "Are we just re-inventing TestStand here?"
We use TestStand on a few stations here already so we had licences for development, but the stations we use it on at the moment fall into the 10% of outliers that we have and are somewhat non-standard. So none of the 6-ish usual tests were used on them and they're for a very different product type, so we never tried to use them with our standardized database. They also were all made before I came on board here, so I don't have much experience with TestStand myself, and I've run into some roadblocks when trying to come up with a framework for how to integrate our standard database and our standard instrument LVOOP classes into a TestStand environment that meets our current and future test requirements.
The first roadblock is that our database standardization and TestStand's built-in reporting don't mesh at all. Right now, all of our test stations use the same "mega-cluster" to store their data in, which is a type-def cluster of all the things our products could ever be tested for on any of our stations. We pass it to a common database write function that writes everything that has changed from the default values (NaN and blank strings\arrays) and ignores the rest, so we don't fill the database with zeroes for the tests we don't do. I do want to emphasize how big this cluster got in order to have all of the potential save values we might ever need in it. It is a cluster of 13 other clusters, the largest of which has 10 items in it, and one of those is a 1-D array of another cluster with 19 elements in it, and one of those elements is another 1-d array with a cluster of 24 units in it. If all of the controls in the mega-cluster are shown on the front panel at once, I can't fit them on 2 full-size 1080p screens at the same time. The context help for the main cluster is 5 screen heights tall just for the listing of all of the elements.
So I really can't see this being integrated with the built-in TestStand reporting system. Additionally, the "Type" system in TestStand appears to be unhelpful when attempting to pass this cluster between steps, and even worse when trying to pass it between sequences. When I add the mega-cluster to it, it also creates over 30 other types, one for each of the other clusters contained inside of it. Within LabVIEW alone this is pretty easy to manage, as we just have a centralized repository of typedefs in source control that gets checked out to a common directory on each computer, as we do minor changes to acommodate new products a few times a year. However, on TestStand, I can't find a method that's the equivalent for just storing a bunch of .ctl files in the same shared directory like we do with LabVIEW. I see that they can be stored in certain INI files or in sequence files. The INI files appear to all be station-specific, and since all of our 20ish test stations have different hardware and capabilities, we can't just synchronize those files. And if I want to pass the mega-cluster type between sequence files that call sub-sequence files, every one of those files will need to be manually updated to get their types to match... and we'lll be needing at least 200 sequence files when we're done, at a guess. Unless there's some method I'm missing here, I don't see how to use TestStand to move this data around. We could use something like just passing it by reference, but then if we do that I don't actually see much of a benefit here of using TestStand instead of just pure LabVIEW as two of the things that TestStand is supposed to handle (reporting steps as pass/fail against limits and reporting and logging the results afterwards). Plus then we have the additional burder of making sure the module holding the reference in LabVIEW doesn't unload before we're done using it.
Is there some better way of handling massively complex types in TestStand that I am not seeing?
There may be more that I'm not seeing yet, but if there isn't a way to handle these massively complex types in TestStand, all we'd be getting out of it is a slightly easier method of managing sequencing than we have now, which I don't see as being worth the investment in time and licenses it would take.
I'd be grateful for any feedback. Thanks!

Considering you already seem to be leveraging LabVIEW heavily and before jumping into TestStand I would look at the PTP Sequencer. This seems to be a cutdown version of TesStand but inside LabVIEW and is a simple install from the LabVIEW Tools network using VIPM.
If you are happy to look at alternative representations then maybe check out NI's StateChart Module or the Open StateChart by Vogel (available as an install from VIPM).
The advantages of any of the above is they will be alot cheaper than TestStand and the required run time licences if you don't require all the power of TestStand (extensible everything).

Is Oracle Text the right solution for this need of a specific search!

Hi ,
We are on Oracle 11.2.0.2 on Solaris 10. We have the need to be able to do search on data that are having diacritical marks and we should be able to do the serach ignoring this diacritical marks. That is the requirement. Now I got to hear that Oracle Text has a preference called BASIC_LEXER which can bypass the diacritical marks and so solely due to this feature I implemented Oracle Text and just for this diacritical search and no other need.
I mean I set up preference like this:
ctxsys.ctx_ddl.create_preference ('cust_lexer', 'BASIC_LEXER');
ctxsys.ctx_ddl.set_attribute ('cust_lexer', 'base_letter', 'YES'); -- removes diacritics
With this I set up like this:
CREATE TABLE TEXT_TEST
NAME VARCHAR2(255 BYTE)
--created Oracle Text index
CREATE INDEX TEXT_TEST_IDX1 ON TEXT_TEST
(NAME)
INDEXTYPE IS CTXSYS.CONTEXT
PARAMETERS('LEXER cust_lexer WORDLIST cust_wl SYNC (ON COMMIT)');
--sample data to illustrate the problem
Insert into TEXT_TEST
   (NAME)
Values
   ('muller');
Insert into TEXT_TEST
   (NAME)
Values
   ('müller');
Insert into TEXT_TEST
   (NAME)
Values
   ('MULLER');
Insert into TEXT_TEST
   (NAME)
Values
   ('MÜLLER');
Insert into TEXT_TEST
   (NAME)
Values
   ('PAUL HERNANDEZ');
Insert into TEXT_TEST
   (NAME)
Values
   ('CHRISTOPHER Phil');
COMMIT;
--Now there is an alternative solution that is there, instead of thee Oracle Text which is just a plain function given below (and it seems to work neat for my simple need of removing diacritical characters effect in search)
--I need to evaluate which is better given my specific needs -the function below or Oracle Text.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION remove_dia(p_value IN VARCHAR2, p_doUpper IN VARCHAR2 := 'Y')
RETURN VARCHAR2 DETERMINISTIC
IS
OUTPUT_STR VARCHAR2(4000);
begin
IF (p_doUpper = 'Y') THEN
   OUTPUT_STR := UPPER(p_value);
ELSE
   OUTPUT_STR := p_value;
END IF;
OUTPUT_STR := TRANSLATE(OUTPUT_STR,'ÀÁÂÃÄÅÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝàáâãäåçèéêëìíîïñòóôõöøùúûüýÿ', 'AAAAAACEEEEIIIINOOOOOOUUUUYaaaaaaceeeeiiiinoooooouuuuyy');
RETURN (OUTPUT_STR);
end;
--now I query for which name stats with a P%:
--Below query gets me unexpected result of one row as I am using Oracle Text where each word is parsed for search using CONTAINS...
SQL> select * from text_test where contains(name,'P%')>0;
NAME
PAUL HERNANDEZ
CHRISTOPHER Phil
--Below query gets me the right and expected result of one row...
SQL> select * from text_test where name like 'P%';
NAME
PAUL HERNANDEZ
--Below query gets me the right and expected result of one row...
SQL> select * from text_test where remove_dia(name) like remove_dia('P%');
NAME
PAUL HERNANDEZMy entire need was only to be able to do a search that bypasses diacritical characters. To implement Oracle Text for that reason, I am wondering if that was the right choice! More so when I am now finding that the functionality of LIKE is not available in Oracle Text - the Oracle text search are based on tokens or words and they are different from output of the LIKE operator. So may be should I have just used a simple function like below and used that for my purpose instead of using Oracle Text:
This function (remove_dia) just removes the diacritical characters and may be for my need this is all that is needed. Can someone help to review that given my need I am better of not using Oracle Text? I need to continue using the functionality of Like operator and also need to bypass diacritical characters so the simple function that I have meets my need whereas Oracle Text causes a change in behaviour of search queries.
Thanks,
OrauserN

If all you need is LIKE functionality and you do not need any of the complex search capabilities of Oracle Text, then I would not use Oracle Text. I would create a function-based index on your name column that uses your function that removes the diacritical marks, so that your searches will be faster. Please see the demonstration below.
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> CREATE TABLE TEXT_TEST
2    (NAME VARCHAR2(255 BYTE))
3 /
Table created.
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> Insert all
2 into TEXT_TEST (NAME) Values ('muller')
3 into TEXT_TEST (NAME) Values ('müller')
4 into TEXT_TEST (NAME) Values ('MULLER')
5 into TEXT_TEST (NAME) Values ('MÜLLER')
6 into TEXT_TEST (NAME) Values ('PAUL HERNANDEZ')
7 into TEXT_TEST (NAME) Values ('CHRISTOPHER Phil')
8 select * from dual
9 /
6 rows created.
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION remove_dia
2    (p_value   IN VARCHAR2,
3      p_doUpper IN VARCHAR2 := 'Y')
4    RETURN VARCHAR2 DETERMINISTIC
5 IS
6    OUTPUT_STR VARCHAR2(4000);
7 begin
8    IF (p_doUpper = 'Y') THEN
9       OUTPUT_STR := UPPER(p_value);
10    ELSE
11       OUTPUT_STR := p_value;
12    END IF;
13    RETURN
14       TRANSLATE
15         (OUTPUT_STR,
16          'ÀÁÂÃÄÅÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝàáâãäåçèéêëìíîïñòóôõöøùúûüýÿ',
17          'AAAAAACEEEEIIIINOOOOOOUUUUYaaaaaaceeeeiiiinoooooouuuuyy');
18 end;
19 /
Function created.
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> show errors
No errors.
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> CREATE INDEX text_test_remove_dia_name
2 ON text_test (remove_dia (name))
3 /
Index created.
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> set autotrace on explain
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> select * from text_test
2 where remove_dia (name) like remove_dia ('mü%')
3 /
NAME
muller
müller
MULLER
MÜLLER
4 rows selected.
Execution Plan
Plan hash value: 3139591283
| Id | Operation                   | Name                      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT            |                           |     1 | 2131 |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|   1 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TEXT_TEST                 |     1 | 2131 |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN          | TEXT_TEST_REMOVE_DIA_NAME |     1 |       |     1   (0)| 00:00:01 |
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
   2 - access("SCOTT"."REMOVE_DIA"("NAME") LIKE "REMOVE_DIA"('mü%'))
       filter("SCOTT"."REMOVE_DIA"("NAME") LIKE "REMOVE_DIA"('mü%'))
Note
   - dynamic sampling used for this statement (level=2)
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2> select * from text_test
2 where remove_dia (name) like remove_dia ('P%')
3 /
NAME
PAUL HERNANDEZ
1 row selected.
Execution Plan
Plan hash value: 3139591283
| Id | Operation                   | Name                      | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time     |
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT            |                           |     1 | 2131 |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|   1 | TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TEXT_TEST                 |     1 | 2131 |     2   (0)| 00:00:01 |
|* 2 |   INDEX RANGE SCAN          | TEXT_TEST_REMOVE_DIA_NAME |     1 |       |     1   (0)| 00:00:01 |
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
   2 - access("SCOTT"."REMOVE_DIA"("NAME") LIKE "REMOVE_DIA"('P%'))
       filter("SCOTT"."REMOVE_DIA"("NAME") LIKE "REMOVE_DIA"('P%'))
Note
   - dynamic sampling used for this statement (level=2)
SCOTT@orcl_11gR2>

Is Structured FM12 the right solution for this problem?

I've been tasked with solving a tricky problem at my office. Briefly: We've got a technical manual that needs to be printed each time we sell a piece of equipment. Currently, the manual is produced using a combination of MS Access DB and a convoluted Word doc that uses Mail Merge to pull data from the Access DB into the appropriate fields. The DB has a hundred tables or so, and some of the tables are "calculated" values - i.e. the value in the fields is calculated based on values entered in other tables within the DB. The Word doc uses some kind of "if-then-else" logic to determine which tables to use for which fields when building the doc. This whole setup is currently maintained by the engineering, sales, and marketing departments.
We currently use FM11 (unstructured) in the Technical Writing department, and my boss is asking me to figure out a way to migrate the Access/Word doc described above to a format we can use so we can take ownership of the documentation process for this particular line of equipment. I suspect the variables involved here go way beyond what we can do with conditional text and variables within FM, but I'm wondering if Structured FM (either 11 or 12) is more suited to this project, either by using some sort of conduit between FM and an SQL DB, or directly within FM using conditinal text, variables, or some other organizational function present in either FM11 or FM12.
Any guidance here would be appreciated. I'm not even sure what questions to ask at this point to get a proper shove in the right direction.

I love this line: Get that SQL queries into XML directly or into CSV and transform the CSV into XML via XSLT. Reminds me of that bit in "Good Morning, Vietnam" where Robin Williams goes through the routine about the Vice President: "Well, sir, since the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep his ETA on the QT? Otherwise, he might get KIA and then we'd all be on KP." And now, back to work...
I'm going to try to answer all of the questions above, in order, and add a little info where appropriate.
TW dept may or may not take over all maintenance of the doc. That's one of the recommendations I'm tasked with providing. My current thinking is, engineering should remain in charge of entering relevant tool data to the data repository, sales should provide TW with a "spec sheet" of what was sold, and TW should then use the specs to "build" the document for customer release.
Will a DB still be used? Unknown. That seems the best way to catalog and access the data, but I'm open to alternatives if there are any that make sense.
I am totally unfamiliar with structure, XML, DITA, HTML, etc. Literally 100% of my experience with FM has been in the unstructured workspace. This whole structured FM inquiry was inspired by a blurb in my "Unstructured FrameMaker 11" book (from p474: "If you need to use complex combinations of condition tags, consider setting up a workflow in the structured interface of FrameMaker. Structured documents allow you to create versions based on attributes, which are easier to use and more powerful than expressions.") A quick Google of this blurb didn't turn up much useful information, but this seems to jive with Lynne's input above re: attributes.
Data is not currently in SQL - it's in Access DB. We can migrate to SQL if necessary - that's one of the answers I'm supposed to be providing.
The reason this is all currently being done in Word is because that's what the Sales & Engineering departments understand, and currently they're responsible for these docs. I'm sure this started out as a simple, nerdy solution to a small problem - some engineer didn't want to maintain two separate Word docs when he could create a database and then use mail merge to automagically build the same thing. Since then, it's grown to hundreds of tables and thousands of possible permutations.
We already have FrameMaker installations in the department. If we can do this with FM11, great, but if not, no big deal - boss has already said he wants to move to FM12 as soon as possible. In other words, purchasing software - unless it's something additional needed to make all this work - isn't really a budgetary consideration.
As mentioned, I have no skills with using FM for any kind of structured project, but I'm willing to learn if it seems like a good solution. Just need to figure out how to proceed.
Thanks for your input - looking forward to hearing what else you folks have to say.

Is mpd the right solution for me?[more questions!]

My scenario is as follows:
I'm at work all day, but I want to listen to my music at home. I have complete access to SSH to my computer at home, I can open ports and all that from here.
When I was running windows, I could just TS into my box, and hit play on my media player and it would bring the audio to my work machine. It was a big laggy, but ok.
MPD seems like it could be a great solution.
Can I set up MPD to run on my machine at home, and then connect with a client on my windows machine at work to it? Is that how it works?
Or would I have to setup a shoutcast?
What do you guys do at for music at work? or are you more productive than that?
thanks!
Last edited by cschep (2007-04-04 21:46:23)

Thanks for following up guys. I ended up going with Icecast + MPD and it works a TREAT. It is exactly what I was looking for.
Is there anyway to configure it to be an .mp3 stream instead of .ogg? No real need, just wondered.
Also, is icecast setup to accept more than one user at a time by default? or does that take a lot of tweaking? I tried to have a friend connect real fast to mine while i was on and the "peak clients" went to 2, but he never got connected.
Maybe my upstream just wasn't fast enough..
oh! Also... maybe I should ask in another thread, but as long as we're talking about audio and .ogg and stuff..
Does anyone know of a good batch converter from .mp3 to .ogg? I think I'm going to make the switch to a fully open standard.
I have a few cd's that I purchased from the apple store as well, I don't want to break forum rules by talking about breaking drm, but I could just burn then and rip them to .ogg, or does anyone know of a way to convert those straight to .ogg?
Again, if that's not a question that should be discussed, feel free to ignore/chastise me.
thanks guys!
oh, TU: great burglar joke, i should keep a directory full of gunfire and other related movie sounds to scare the piss out of people at random.
Last edited by cschep (2007-04-04 21:47:23)

Mac mini Server as a gateway/router

I'd like to make my Mac mini server my main gateway for my office.
I'd like it to perform the following tasks:
- DHCP & NAT for sharing an Internet connection
- a wireless access point so that no AEBS or TC is necessary
- VPN for access to the Daylite server that will be running on it as well as file sharing for remote users
My goal here is to create a single Internet alliance that will prevent me from having to use a separate router and will provide secure remote access to the LAN.
I have a Mac mini server and a USB Ethernet adapter. I connected the USB Ethernet adapter to the WAN which has a static IP. And the built in Ethernet to the gigabit switch for the LAN.
So far, I have two problems:
1) I can't seem to VPN in from remote despite my best efforts of setting this up with the gateway assistant.
2) I have no idea on how I can use the built-in airport card to become a wireless access point for the wireless clients in the office. I chose the airport in the gateway assistant but wireless clients are on a different subnet and can't see the LAN resources.
I'm interested in hearing other ideas and strategies on how to use the mms in this way. Is anyone else doing this? Everyone seems to want to use an AEBS or TC in addition to the mms and maybe I'm missing something but why would you need one?

It wasn't so much the $50 that I was worried about... just the redundancy... having both an OS X Server AND an Airport Extreme (or third-party router) seemed like such a waste if the server could be made to do it all.
So, at this point, I see two options:
1) Put an AEBS on the gigabit switch (LAN) and turn off everything... essentially reducing it down to a wireless access point... and put it in Bridge mode so that wireless clients can see the wired LAN.
2) Use the AEBS as my gateway and DMZ the server... turning off the gateway features (DNS, DHCP, NAT, etc...) on the server. This would remove the need for the USB Ethernet adapter but would I still be able to configure it as a VPN?
Either one seems a shame. I was really hoping for a single-box solution to sell my clients.
The other problem is still happening... for some reason, I can't connect to the VPN... it doesn't even seem to be getting to the authentication part. It simply says, "The Server is not responding". This is strange since other services for which I've forwarded specific ports seem to respond without issue. I assumed that all the neccessary ports would be opened when I turned on the VPN feature... did I miss something?

Reboot mac mini server with ssh?

Hello,
After trying to update to latest update of Snow my mac mini server doesn't reboot again.
I assume that the update failed and crippled my system.
I only have remote access via ssh.
Is there any way to get the GUI up and running again using ssh?
Maybe a rollback?
thanks for any pointers.

However, strange thing now is when I want to select the HD as Destination, I get this message:
" Mac OS X server can't be installed on this disk. A version of Mac OS X was not found "
If this is an official Mac Mini Server and using the provided DVD distribution disk using the documented sequence, then it should load straight away. (If not, call Apple support.)
Using the provided DVD disk via an intermediate system is something I've seen discussed in the forums, (see [here|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12367643] for a discussion, possibly by [connecting into and starting the assistant Mac in Target Disk Mode|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661], and particularly also see [page 38 here|http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/Mac_mini_Late2009_SL_ServerUG.pdf] for one of the official Apple sequences) but not something where I usually immediately recall the sequence. (I usually use an external USB CD drive when I need to do this.)
If this was a Mac Mini box that was upgraded to a Mac OS X Server configuration, then you can need to load the client Mac OS X that arrived with the box, then the server Mac OS X.

Is the Snow Leopard Mac Mini Server the right solution for my office?

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