[ILUG] how to monitor 25 different Unix machines

[Ronan Waide]

On December 30, bryan.hunt at ossidian.com said:
> Nah, not nagios ... It's just a bit of banter with ( I think it was Chris ) 
> about including a long message in a reply ....... it was irrelevant 
> anyhow :-)

Bryan,

the issue is not with bandwidth. There are very good reasons for
editing down what you quote, and where you put your replies - check
the ILUG archives for a recent discussion. For your benefit, since you
seem unaware of these things:

* It's polite to cut down what you quote. Some people are still on
  crap dialup connections, and would prefer to get the point of what
  you're saying rather than having to wade through a previous message
  over and over again. And "they can just hit delete" is not a valid
  argument.

* It's logical to quote and add your comments, rather than add your
  comments and quote. Unless, I guess, you read backwards.

* There are people reading this list who don't have the luxury of
  seeing the entire message and picking out your quotes. They're using
  devices that convert your message to some form they can cope with,
  such as braille or audio. These devices work in a sequential
  fashion, because they're not human and can't make contextual
  decisions about what's a quote and what's not. Because of your
  insistence on quoting an entire message in reverse order, they get
  your comment, then the ENTIRE message it applies to.

There's also the minor issue that it annoys the crap out of a lot of
people who will have little or no respect for your opinion if you
persist in doing it, even if you're the smartest guy on the planet or
actually have a valid point to make.

Perhaps you might consider these issues when you (inevitably) quote my
entire message and top-reply.

Regards,
Waider.
-- 
waider at waider.ie / Yes, it /is/ very personal of me.

"It doesn't corner well.  It doesn't have to.  It just warps space until the
 street is facing the right way."  - Blair P. Houghton