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If you want to make a good argument that apples are too expensive at least try to make a good comparison. For example, try finding the closest IBM in specs, then compare prices. Go ahead right here.

A few years ago when I was shopping for wedding rings, I came across a ring-selling website with instructions to wrap a string around your finger, then HOLD THE STRING UP TO THE SCREEN (!!) where there was a PICTURE OF A RULER, and that was supposed to tell you your ring size. (Classic. Wish I still had the link....)

Also, I have a Dell Inspiron laptop with a 15", 1920x1200 screen, which is unbelievably great for text. There's a global setting in Windows XP for a resolution multiplier (for web browsers, etc.) which I set to 125% so I could read web pages more comfortably. But Internet Explorer rendered web images using NEAREST-NEIGHBOR resampling, which made websites look utterly awful! You'd think with 256MB graphics cards they could at least do decent scaling, sheesh...

That said, a friend of mine has a PowerMac G5 hooked up to one of the 22" 3840x2400 monsters, and it is a thing of beauty (with the right software). I'm waiting til I can get a cell phone with WHUXGA resolution. (That's 7680 x 4800.) Only at that resolution can one truly appreciate the beauty of Tetris.

I think he's talking about the ViewSonic VP2290b or the IBM T221 , although both of those are only 22" (slightly more actually) panels.

[...]designer just don't have the information needed

Yes, they do, they are just ignoring it. Specifying font sizes in px isn't the only way, and anybody with half a clue who has not fallen for apple's propaganda (was: "screens have 75dpi", now: "100dpi is the ideal resolution", while some of their screens already have 110dpi and more) should have learned 10 years ago that screen resolutions are not fixed, and are actually increasing with time. In my opinion, anyone who forces 6 pixel high fonts on their users should be forced to buy an IBM T221 at full list price from their own savings and actually use it at full resolution.

And as far as doing memory management... YES. I have yet to see a compiler do a better job at managing memory than what I can do when I write my code - and the reason is quite simple: I'm the domain expert, not the compiler. Compilers generally do a good job, but it's those specific cases that bite you over and over again.

You might want to read this:

"Pop quiz: Which language boasts faster raw allocation performance, the Java language, or C/C++? The answer may surprise you -- allocation in modern JVMs is far faster than the best performing malloc implementations. The common code path for new Object() in HotSpot 1.4.2 and later is approximately 10 machine instructions (data provided by Sun; see Resources), whereas the best performing malloc implementations in C require on average between 60 and 100 instructions per call"

Java theory and practice: Urban performance legends, revisited

WHY NOT JUST WRITE A FRICKIN' RPM???? HUH?

I forgot to link to RDM:
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/xseries/syst ems_management/ibm_director/extensions/rdm.html

At the top there is links for other IBM Director extensions also.

http://www.vm.ibm.com/history/vm30bday.html

Officially, 30 in '02. Now 34.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=zfs+linux
I thought I had read dtrace was on linux too, but what I had really read was Inotify replacing Dnotify on Linux.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar y/l-inotify.html?ca=dgr-lnxw51Inotify

How hard would it be to port these things to Linux?

Solid state disks and other servers

How come you don't look for help on the other side?

I see your point, and I often search for help on both sides...

What would be, say, Microsoft's reaction if you asked them for help on plugging your Windows box in a mixed network using Samba?

To be fair, that would be like going directly to RedHat or SuSE for help, which I don't. We're talking about the community, so I end up going here and here and here.

Especially in the light of Microsoft's intentional changing (i.e. breaking) the SMB, so that it wouldn't work with Samba.

Do you have something to support this? I'm not being sarcastic... Is it generally accepted that MS broke SMB for this purpose?

Let's face it... more often than not, it's the clash of religions.

Agreed. =)

Whereas when you look to Microsoft for help integrating the two solutions, they're all flowers and roses?

I don't go directly to MS for help. Just like I don't go directly to RedHat or SuSE for help. I go here and here and here.

Here's a guide to porting to a 64 bit Java environment.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/64b itporting/

Many Java applications are not written 100% in the Java language. Those apps will need some porting effort. The document also mentions considerations such as the usage of JNI by the native libraries on a 64 bit system.

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/htp/tpf/

In the mid 60's IBM created CP-67 which virtualized the IBM S/360. In the following years the system became VM/370, and has evolved to z/VM today http://www.vm.ibm.com/. VM (the general term for z/VM) is made up of two primary components, VM/CP (control program) and VM/CMS (a mini single user operating system). VM/CMS provided the ground work for being able to administer the system, and provided a nice programming environment in that each VM/CMS user had their own "system" that one could edit, compile and run their programs in an interactive environment (think of a MS-DOS type of model -- then remember that this was in the late 60's).

CMS itself provided some limited simulation of IBM's two other mainframe operating systems OS/360 and DOS. Enough that one could write simple OS or DOS programs and do at least some unit testing. The simulation by CMS was by providing a limited set of the OS and DOS API.

Unlike MVS or DOS, (or even the CP/M, Windows, or *nix families) VM/CP itself does not provide many services directly. VM/CP does not provide any filesystems, any application APIs, etc. All VM/CP really did was to provide a barebone virtual machine and only provide those services one would find on the bare hardware. It was the responsibilty of the operating system running within the virtual machine to provide the application API, filesystems, application memory management, etc. Communication between vm's were originally only via the raw hardware model (channel-to-channel adapters, shared disk volumes, and a method of "punching" virtual cards and sending the virtual cards to another vm's virtual card reader.) As time progressed, VM/CP did provide some API's that allowed very simple messaging between two vm's (first VMCF - Virtual Machine Communication Facility, and then IUCV - Inter User Communication Vehicle).

Early on it was "discovered" that the virtual machine model made a lot of sense as a method to implement VM services. For example if one were to look at a modern VM system, you would see that the entire native VM TCP/IP stack is managed within a small collection of vm's. (Under VM/CP, a vm is called a "userid"). The native VM TCP/IP stack consists of a TCPIP userid that manages the network interface devices, and the TELNET server. The FTP userid implements the FTP protocol, etc. Each userid is totally seperate from the rest of the system and from each other (the tcp/ip socket facility "rides" on top of IUCV in a transparent fashion so that a tcp/ip server is coded the same as on *nix).

Because of the facilities provided by CMS, it is fairly easy to write little servers. For example the orginal LISTSERV server http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv-history.asp / was written as a CMS application. As well as several native VM webservers.

If one wants to see what is and has been possible in a virtual machine environment, one should at least look at the history of IBM's VM.

For an excellent history of VM http://www.princeton.edu/~melinda/
and the VMSHARE archive, an early BBS used by VM system adminshttp://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

>If IBM came out today with their own processor running their own OS they would be laughed at.

Like their Power architecture and Z/OS?

Duh.

>If IBM came out today with their own processor running their own OS they would be laughed at.

Like their Power architecture and Z/OS?

Duh.

The Legend Holdings Limited (which itself is owned by the Chinese Academy of Science and Employee's Shareholding Society of Legend Holdings Limited) owns about 42.5% of Lenovo.

The Chinese Academy of Science was setup and under control by the State Council, which basically means the Chinese government.

http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/lenovo/shares_info.html
http://www.legendholdings.com.cn/intro_en.asp
http://english.cas.cn/Eng2003/page/home.asp
http://english.gov.cn/

Currently I use an iMate K-JAM (and who the hell comes up with these shitty names?) which gets round the keyboard issue by using a keyboard that slides out from under the main phone display. So far it seems to work pretty well, and is a lot nicer to use than the standard mobile keypad.

You can use the stylus/PDA stuff too, with an on-screen keyboard, although personally I hate that. The only real problem with the slide-out keyboard so far is that it makes it obvious it's a fairly high-end (and thus stealable/valuable) device.

The really interesting stylus/onscreen-keyboard based input mechanism, though, is SHARK (Shorthand-Aided Rapid Keyboarding) - which uses pattern-recognition to form the words, as you slide the stylus between letters. I've used the demo version a few times now, and it's a superb (and easy to learn) method. I'd hope it'll get used by a lot of devices before long...

The reason for the defections has less to do with support and more to do with the direction the product line is going. Take a look at the new lenovo pc's feature list (towards the bottom of the page). They are 2x the size of the current think pads. They are not nearly as well constructed. Also, many of the "entry level" models don't support the same features that come standard with the existing think pad line. Have a look at the current think pad feature list (bottom) .

The difference between the old product (the real IBM product) and the new product is obvious. I think it will be some time before the lenovo product attains the level of workmaship that IBM was capabale of, and that I think is the reason for customer defection.

The real fear is really, how long before the old think pad models are

The reason for the defections has less to do with support and more to do with the direction the product line is going. Take a look at the new lenovo pc's feature list (towards the bottom of the page). They are 2x the size of the current think pads. They are not nearly as well constructed. Also, many of the "entry level" models don't support the same features that come standard with the existing think pad line. Have a look at the current think pad feature list (bottom) .

The difference between the old product (the real IBM product) and the new product is obvious. I think it will be some time before the lenovo product attains the level of workmaship that IBM was capabale of, and that I think is the reason for customer defection.

The real fear is really, how long before the old think pad models are

Yes it is. They don't have it all, but they have control over it.

http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/lenovo/shares_info.html

Legend Holdings Limited (in turn, government controlled): 42.5%
"Public" (The Communist Party): 33.9%
IBM : 13.4%
TPG, General Atlantic and Newbridge Capital: 10.2%

Get your fact straight.

"It used to be that I would have to fiddle with the plug a little until the
thinkpad went beep-bap acknowledging it had power, then later on it got worse and I had to put a book beneath the plug so it got proper contact now the jack has come completely lose and has no electrical contact whatsoever anymore."

Why didn't you just have them fix it under warranty? The T41 series is still under warranty, as far as I know. The base warranty is 3 years... we still have T40's that are under warranty.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/pageRed irect.do?lang=en_US&page=pewselect&brand=root&doct ype=&subtype=Cat&up=unknownuser

Will let you look up the warranty status.

However, having serviced hundreds of T-series ThinkPads, the only time I've seen a broken power jack was when the user abused it in some way, although I'm sure that a marginal/bad solder joint would cause the same problem, too.

If I had a T41 with the problem you describe, I'd simply have IBM fix the problem under warranty.

You must not have looked very hard; there are plenty of tiny tablets with keyboards. The tiny Thinkpad X41 tablet weighs less than 3 pounds. I didn't want a 1024x768 screen, so I went with the Toshiba Portege M200, which is 4 pounds and offers a 1400x1050 resolution. Both are convertible tablet PCs with keyboards. After a year of owning the Toshiba, I'm quite happy and have recommended Tablet PCs to many other people.

So you have people at your company who spend all their time gaming?

LOL, I know you're probably joking... But here it goes anyway. We currently implement Windows for the following:

- Lotus Notes Client
- Macola Progression
- ACT! Premium for Workgroups
- AutoCAD Mechanical
- Macromedia Studio

Those are just the apps off the top of my head. And I work in the manufacturing industry, so my scope is even limited in that respect. I'm sure there are other companies running Windows only apps.

Again, you're comment was probably in jest... At least I hope so! =)

but from what I've seen on Lenovo's website, they are already adding gimmicky things like white marks on the top to indicate where various ports are

"It's not about whether or not a company gets to use MySQL internally, it's about whether they can link their own products against it, which they cannot - unless they pay MySQL AB for a license, or GPL their own product."

Here's how to make a DLL in Linux:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar y/l-dll.html

You compile the MySQL client as a DLL and LATE link to it for free, or as you said, pay the license if you can't be bothered to do that. All of this is unnecessary if your software isn't for distribution, such as server side web projects, or is under other FLOSS licenses, which is also permitted (e.g. the Apache License).

Wow, thank you for your wondeful insight. Isn't it great that /. is filled with anonymous cowards such as yourself who are there to lend us their unique knowledge as to how the world works? Just one question, how do you then explain all the publications made by compaies like IBM, Bell Labs, and yes, even the mother of all that is evil, Microsoft? I'm sure you have a great explanation, after all you are obviously in academia and of course all the ignorant and arrogant jackasses of the world (which of course you would be amoung if corporations such as these are indeed publishing research) are all confined to the evil world of corporations. I'm just really eager to hear this magical explanation that will refute all this real world evidence to the contrary of your claim.

Trusted Linux? Anything is possible.

Q: The PowerPC specification is open? How long has it been open?

A: It has been open since its inception; the architecture specifies an instruction set architecture (ISA) that allows anyone to design and fabricate PowerPC-compatible processors, and source code for software modules developed in support of PowerPC is freely available.

Sun has contributed very little to the free software community. The only distros that do support Sun can only do so very weakly, due to lack of any material contributions from Sun. No hardware, no documentation, nothing. Aurora, CentOS, Debian, and so on can only half-ass support SPARC at this time.

IBM has a whole division just for working with the Linux community and making sure that Linux runs well on all of their hardware. Yes, including Power architecture.

So all of you folks running RHEL or SLES (IBM's partners), check out your source RPM's and look at all of the contributions released under the Gnu GPL to make sure that Linux runs like a top on Power architecture.

As AES is the most widely-implemented and most "standard" algorithm, that's probably what they'll use. Another possibility is MARShttp://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_p rojects.nsf/pages/security.mars.html IBM's AES candidate, but it was supposedly rejected due to difficulties implementing it in hardware.

Another poster, who doesn't apparently understand the concept, commented that the lack of "CPU overhead" or software implementation will "limit it's usefulness". This is nonsense. Modern (hell, just about ALL) encryption algorithms are designed with hardware implementations in mind, and can perform quite well. Hardware performance was in fact a key issue in the AES competition.

But I looked through the IBM Press Room and didn't see anything about this technology. Why post a story about "IBM planning to release on Monday..." when you can just wait for a real release from the company to happen. At the moment I'd like to share this info with colleagues who do research in hardware security but can't find a good source to send them to.

Wrong. DB2 is built from a single code base on every platform it runs on. Currently that includes Linux, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, and Windows.

That's because, mostly, it is. Trying to pretend that it's not isn't going to help things. Some kinds of jobs attract some kinds of people and we just have to accept that.

That's not true.

Everything I do in at work is a team effort. In fact, working as a loner is a very quick way to annoy many people crucial to your success, and kill your career. On top of that, I'd say that it's becoming increasingly hard to do anything significant as a loner, because new systems and applications are too massive to be developed by a single person.

I see a sort of natural selection at work, where those that have the "soft" skills and people skills tend to be more successful, and those that don't get stuck on a more "standard" career path. Maybe where you work it's that way, but at IBM (at least in Austin), things are different.

~ Mike

This is truly the stupidest post I've ever seen on Slashdot. Are you high? Almost every business, big or small, has a public fax line you retard. And they print that number on business cards, email signatures, the contact page of their website, and everywhere else they put their contact information.

Here are some fax numbers for you:

http://www.ibm.com/contact/us/
http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=mscom
http://www.intel.com/intel/location/USA.htm
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/AboutAMD/0,,51_ 52_3592_712,00.html

Obviously, the "Fortune 100" companies you've worked for were much bigger than these petty little corporations who have publicly available fax numbers. Since I work for a company that sells fax service among other things, I can tell you there are actually just a few (hundred thousand) more businesses out there who publicly publish a fax number.

Feel free to actually go to the websites of a few of the 99 or 100 Fortune 100 companies that you have never and will never work for and see if they have a fax number available online. Ass.

Meet the future: IBM Workplace

It allows you to collaborate via the web on both Office *and* OpenOffice documents, with full IM capabilities built-in. Integrate it with Lotus Sametime and you get a full web conferencing suite: voice (including SIP), video, whiteboarding, etc...

Really some very cool technology. And as you can see from my sig, I can even help you with implementing such a project! :)

Meet the future: IBM Workplace

It allows you to collaborate via the web on both Office *and* OpenOffice documents, with full IM capabilities built-in. Integrate it with Lotus Sametime and you get a full web conferencing suite: voice (including SIP), video, whiteboarding, etc...

Really some very cool technology. And as you can see from my sig, I can even help you with implementing such a project! :)

Plus, I wonder if multicore couldn't work in a multi-processor setup?

I suspect that the Government just outsources it to these guys, or somebody like them. The company I was referring to (eMag) was also the very last manufacturer of 9-track, open reel data tape systems. So they've got the gear there if you ever want to recover data from your old 3420 tapes, they're probably the go-to people.

I do think it would be a neat idea, though, if we had something like the Library of Congress for computing. Or at least data storage. Manufacturers, send in two units of your storage device, and one set of associated signal-processing equipment which produces a standard output. Keep them in some big warehouse somewhere. Maintainance would be a bit of a problem, I suppose (I'm thinking of some old open-reel decks I've seen where the rubber parts have slowly "melted" into puddles in the bottom of the cases). Oh, well -- you have to admit that would be a cool facility to visit, though.

Of course, Microsoft and IBM have had researchers and, indeed, research groups studying social computing since the mid-1990s.

• Microsoft Research Social Computing Group (formerly Virtual Worlds Group)
• Microsoft Research Collaborative and Multimedia Systems Group
• Microsoft Research Community Technologies Group (a more recent creation)
• IBM Research Social Computing Group

They've known for at least a decade that these were important areas to study. TFA should know better.

What you're missing is that Lotus Notes works with Outlook.

Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook.

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/ product1.nsf/wdocs/accessmsoutlookhome

Keep the Outlook client, but use Domino as the back end, and you can scale up to hundreds of thousands of users on a single server, rather than crapping out at 3000 or so.

(Disclaimer: I work for IBM. Opinions mine, not IBM's.)

Gotta chime in on this one. Lotus is by far the strongest collaborative platform available with products range from the Notes/Domino to Quickplace (hidden gem)and Sametime.

I work in a Domino shop (with good programmers) and its frankly amazing how far the platform can be pushed.
Think of it this way. Each Notes user is sitting there with a secure client for accessing any apps they need, whether they are native Domino, or plugged in to another system (SAP, Peoplesoft etc). The path forward will make this even easier.

The way ahead looks good with IBMs approach to making Notes a plug-in the their next-gen Eclipse-based platform. Existing Domino apps will run and the "client" will be fully extensible.
Sametime 7.5 looks killer.
I think one of IBMs major issues is marketing and personally am glad they are taking it seriously under Sarjit and Mike Rhodin's leadership. The "Gloves are off" campaign is a good start.

Product naming is another issue. Lotus's offering that competes with Sharepoint is called "Workplace Services Express". WTF does that mean? Who's ever heard of that product? (It's pretty neat by the way).
There's a good Ed Brill presentation that I'd suggest you see called "The Boss Loves Microsoft". Failing that you can at least download the slides (pdf 7.5mb). http://www.edbrill.com/storage.nsf/00d4669dcd9456a 386256f9a0056e956/42cf7602df53917586257108000261d8 !OpenDocument
You can watch the 2006 Lotusphere opening session webcast here in rm or wmv format http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/events/go vfor.nsf/wdocs/generalsessionwebcast/. The Sametime 7.5 and Hannover (Notes 8) parts are good.
My advice is to skip through the Jason Alexander into..it's pretty lame. Slides about Hannover and beyond are available here http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/sandbox.nsf/ByDateNJ/0 317040CF37680FD8525711F0061CB5F/$FILE/Lotusphere%2 0INV101%20January%202006.pdf?OpenElement Even if you hate Lotus, check some of the above out.
It pays to know your enemy ;-)

Sometimes I'm not sure what IBM is thinking. I don't "get" this campaign. IBM is spending $300M on a campaign to convince customers to switch from MS' propietary to their propietary message product?

Umm. What do you expect? They have a product. They're advertising it. This is shocking?

Yes. IBM has been extremely reluctant to market Domino. The last effort was in 1999 when Lotus Notes 6 was released. Lotus Notes 6.5 and 7 have since been released with almost no marketing.

Look at "IBM software by products by category":
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/sw-bycategory/

Lotus Notes is an Application Server, but it has no entries in the "Application Server" category, even though "Distributed Application & Web Server" is the definition of Domino. Notes is still the best software for distributing and maintaining code and content amongst thousands of servers and often disconnected clients.

Lotus Notes is great for "Business Integration", either with the standard DECS (Domino Enterprise Connectivity Service) or the optional LEI (Lotus Enterprise Integrator). None of this software is listed under "Business Integration". The Notes client integrates with MSOffice and DDE and most any software used in business.

Lotus Notes practically invented "Content Management" (information maintained by people outside the computer priesthood). The category mentions a Lotus product, but not Notes.

Databases are the basic units in Notes, but Lotus Notes is not mentioned under "Databases". IBM is scared because Notes databases can be created by normal people, and easy computing reduces the need for their consulting services.

Domino has central identity management, was the first public software product using public/private keys, and includes an LDAP server. There is no mention of Domino under "Identity Management".

IBM does not understand Lotus Notes. When it does remember Notes, it tries to chop it up to add to Websphere. Now they are marketing it for email. At least they are marketing it.

AFAIK, they did.

IBM's Workplace.

It's a (supposedly) light-weight, run-everywhere java client.

*shrug*. I dunno, haven't played with it myself, but the concept sound damn good.

Just found this article, it's an interesting read:
http://www.research.ibm.com/gsal/tcpa/tcpa_rebutta l.pdf

In short it says, chip does nothing more than encrypt/decrypt data. It can't execute any code and is not made to be resistant to owner attack (e.g. timing cryptanalysis will work on it!). The only key(s) it controls are generated on-chip and never leave the chip [unencrypted]; there's no external "trusted authority" which manages the keys - so remote revokation is out of the question.
Ergo, you have nothing to be afraid of if you're running current version of WindeXP or any version of *nix

They do afer all specialize in some pretty high end hardware such as tamperproof encryption modules. If it were any other manufacturer I'm not sure I'd "buy it".

Heh. I know the guys who do the IBM 4758 and PCIXCC cards and they aren't involved with the fingerprint scanner on the notebooks.
IBM is a big company.

Although not IBM specific, here's a few links about the falibility of fingerprint scanners, the last one is tragically funny.

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#5
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/22.37.html#subj4.1
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#5
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4396831.st m

Exactly. As another example, there is a little known computer based on a 700 MHz PowerPC chip, the PowerPC 440, which seems to perform quite well ...

For high output data rate, one must read holograms with many pixels per page in a reasonably short time. To read a megapixel hologram in about 1 ms with reasonable laser power and to have enough signal at the detector for low error rate, a diffraction efficiency around eta = 3 × 105 is required. To write such a hologram in 1 ms, to achieve input and output data rates of 1 Gb/s, the sensitivity for this example must be at least S'eta2 = 20 cm2/J.

...And earlier on:
Since this hologram was retrieved using a readout pulse of 1 ms, this experiment implements the optical signal (but not the subsequent fast electronic readout) of a system with a readout rate of 1 Gb/s.

A bazillion application specific cores isn't a new idea. Cisco's Silicon Packet Processor has 188 cores per chip to help the CRS-1 get to 92 Tbps.