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The basic idea is that if someone patents software, he loses the right to use free software.

So long IBM, and thanks for all the fish!

Although it is not a perfect comparison, for server type tasks this machine will outperform any G5 Mac or Xserve.

IBM does sell a "deskside" form factored version (the 720) for about $5000. Still not twice as much as the top of the line G5 Mac.

Although it is not a perfect comparison, for server type tasks this machine will outperform any G5 Mac or Xserve.

IBM does sell a "deskside" form factored version (the 720) for about $5000. Still not twice as much as the top of the line G5 Mac.

I belive you are refering to page 5 of the PDF where the study compares the price for the hardware each OS requires.

In TFA on page 4 of 9 :

...
Hardware acquisition costs were calculated as follows:
1. The closest matching system was selected from the SPECjbb® database, yielding a
known test configuration and its expected performance.
...

http://www.spec.org/jbb2000/ is the report quoted. They are using SPECjbb2000 (Java Business Benchmark) to ensure that they compensate for inefficient OSes. Though this only test the performance of Java programs it can be a good indication.

And on the second page :

...
Linux is 40 percent less expensive than a comparable x86-based Windows solution and 54
percent less than a comparable SPARC-based Solaris solution, based on a 3-year period of
ownership for a system supporting 100,000 operations per second on the SPECjbb® benchmark.
...

BTW WRT ".. really there is not much difference in TCO"
Even with the same hardware it would be $50k vs. $67k with Linux @ 27% lower TCO.

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/xseries/wind ows/

Actual .pdf of the study here.

Opera Mini: HERE

You will need a Java Midlet Manager for PPC. I used the WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment, which worked very well for me. You can get it HERE. After going to that page, you will need to set up an account with IBM. On the download page, you will need to get "WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment 5.7.2 - MIDP 2.0 for Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition" (this works for Win Mobile 2003 1st edition as well, you should *NOT* grab the "Windows CE4.2/XScale" version as it does not include the .CABs you need, and does not run MIDlets properly).

Despite being Java-based, Opera Mini performs MUCH faster than Pocket IE and Minimo on my iPaq 5550 and also has a VERY cool method for scaling pages. Even Slashdot is usable at 240x320 using Opera Mini.

Open soure flash development: (I havn't tried, it but a quick googled turned this up)

http://www.actionscript.com/index.php/fw/1/towards -open-source-flash-development/

There's also Laszlo, which generates Flash documents. Oh yea. That's open source and runs on J2EE servers.

I almost forgot, IBM made an eclipse plugin for laszlo too! http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/ide4laszlo

Now, you truly can make flash content on you Ubuntu Hoary box.

Well, IBM is trying to get schools access to equipment and software. Many schools don't want to staff up to support the equipment, so they offer access. See the middle of this page
http://www.developer.ibm.com/university/scholars/p roducts/zseries/

which says:

"A significant benefit for members of the zSeries program of the IBM Academic Initiative is the free use of a z/OS mainframe system (Knowledge Center) for education and research. Professors and students get ID's on the system, allowing them to explore and learn on a real mainframe environment. A system programmer and an administrator are available to assist in the process's.

For more information, contact the zSeries program project manager at univprg@us.ibm.com."

Sure looks like they're trying.

(disclosure, I'm involved with this program)

check it: http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/C ategoryDisplay?storeId=1&catalogId=-840&langId=-1& categoryId=2589206&dualCurrId=73 $6k for the box but I'd hate to think what the software would cost...

What, documentation like this? IBM's documentation is available. It is not even that hard to find.

I'm not sure about the parent or grandparent, but its not the field that I am concerned about, but the Cosmic Rays that the Earth's magnetic field may sheild us from.

If you aren't familiar with Cosmic Rays:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_rays

And IBM even has done reasearch on what Cosmic Rays does to electronics:

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd40-1.html

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/421/ziegler .html

Think of it like an EMP bomb. The flip wouldn't give us enough radiation from cosmic rays to maybe kill us, but it's speculated that while its in limbo it would be enough to flip electrons in memory and kill sensitive electronic equipment.

I'm not sure about the parent or grandparent, but its not the field that I am concerned about, but the Cosmic Rays that the Earth's magnetic field may sheild us from.

If you aren't familiar with Cosmic Rays:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_rays

And IBM even has done reasearch on what Cosmic Rays does to electronics:

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd40-1.html

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/421/ziegler .html

Think of it like an EMP bomb. The flip wouldn't give us enough radiation from cosmic rays to maybe kill us, but it's speculated that while its in limbo it would be enough to flip electrons in memory and kill sensitive electronic equipment.

You mean like the several thousand manuals located here ?

You must have had a pretty crappy saleman. IBM has always been one of the largest publishers in the world. They publish everything you'ld ever need to know. Language specs, programming guides, even program logic manuals. Today it's all on the web. Take a look at the bookshelves page on their library server: http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS3 90/Shelves?FS=TRUE

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/newf aces/

"if IBM wants to make sure there are people to support/run/develop on their mainframes, then why don't they start providing more training?

... It seems completely in their best interest to provide the training at a reasonable cost to get those few thousand youngsters into the ranks."

"if IBM wants to make sure there are people to support/run/develop on their mainframes, then why don't they start providing more training?

... It seems completely in their best interest to provide the training at a reasonable cost to get those few thousand youngsters into the ranks."

They do. here

Yup they are. But the catch is it costs money and its the responsibility of the enterpises to pay for it. I doubt if a fresh graduate is going to pay thousands of dollars to learn IBM's technology just when (s)he has come out of college with huge debt.

The beer googles were on.. and drugs were being passed around the office for free that morning.. pity few actually read about the Cell which IBM has provided quite a bit of info for ages (over 6months old now):
http://www.research.ibm.com/cell/
Along with Sonys webby:
http://www.research.scea.com/research/html/CellGDC 05/index.html

I guess slashdot modders find it hard to google these days..

In Linux they setup another virtual file system with files that represent SPE resources.

Basicly to one file you pipe instructions into it, then in another file you pipe data into it. Then the spes proccess it and output the information on another file.

It follows the Unix philosophy of 'everything is a file'.

This is a interview of Arnd Bergmann. He is head of Cell development and part of the team that is paid by IBM to develope Cell support into the Linux kernel and the GCC compiler.

In short order Linux support for the Cell proccessor and the special virtual file system will be in the vanilla kernel and improvements in GCC are being worked into the 4.x release.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/librar y/pa-expert4/?ca=dgr-lnxwArndBerg

He goes into some detail with different approaches they tried and why they decided on a file system interface as the best bet. Also mentions a bit about Linux cell 'workstations' and such.

The actual SpuFS for interacting with the 'synergistic' proccessing units is described here:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/librar y/pa-cell/?ca=dgr-lnxwSpufsCell

There are a few files... /spu/mem --represents the contents of the memory of the spu units. /spu/run --used to activate the proccessing of the data and the instructions /spu/mbox /spu/ibox --these are used to read the data that is being outputed by spu units and are represented in a abstract form as mailbox format files. /spu/wbox --this is what you use to write data to the spu units.

Also there is some other ways to do it. IBM is developing software libraries that programmers can use to help them produce code that will automaticly use the spus when appropriate and vectorizing and parrellizing code when possible will be done by cell-specific GCC versions.

As a game maker they have a choice. They could use Linux if they wanted to, I guess, but they could use propriatory software libraries, or use custom assembly code. Whatever is most appropriate. There will be instructions in C/C++ code and then probably in wrappers like python or whatever besides that.

Most programs will have to be modified to get the most out of it.

And if you don't understand the advantages to having a file system based way to interact directly to proccessors then you need to get your head out of Microsoft's ass and learn to use a real operating system. (just kidding, but in reality no MS kiddies will ever be able to touch this technology unless they learn to use Linux or BSD)

In Linux they setup another virtual file system with files that represent SPE resources.

Basicly to one file you pipe instructions into it, then in another file you pipe data into it. Then the spes proccess it and output the information on another file.

It follows the Unix philosophy of 'everything is a file'.

This is a interview of Arnd Bergmann. He is head of Cell development and part of the team that is paid by IBM to develope Cell support into the Linux kernel and the GCC compiler.

In short order Linux support for the Cell proccessor and the special virtual file system will be in the vanilla kernel and improvements in GCC are being worked into the 4.x release.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/librar y/pa-expert4/?ca=dgr-lnxwArndBerg

He goes into some detail with different approaches they tried and why they decided on a file system interface as the best bet. Also mentions a bit about Linux cell 'workstations' and such.

The actual SpuFS for interacting with the 'synergistic' proccessing units is described here:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/librar y/pa-cell/?ca=dgr-lnxwSpufsCell

There are a few files... /spu/mem --represents the contents of the memory of the spu units. /spu/run --used to activate the proccessing of the data and the instructions /spu/mbox /spu/ibox --these are used to read the data that is being outputed by spu units and are represented in a abstract form as mailbox format files. /spu/wbox --this is what you use to write data to the spu units.

Also there is some other ways to do it. IBM is developing software libraries that programmers can use to help them produce code that will automaticly use the spus when appropriate and vectorizing and parrellizing code when possible will be done by cell-specific GCC versions.

As a game maker they have a choice. They could use Linux if they wanted to, I guess, but they could use propriatory software libraries, or use custom assembly code. Whatever is most appropriate. There will be instructions in C/C++ code and then probably in wrappers like python or whatever besides that.

Most programs will have to be modified to get the most out of it.

And if you don't understand the advantages to having a file system based way to interact directly to proccessors then you need to get your head out of Microsoft's ass and learn to use a real operating system. (just kidding, but in reality no MS kiddies will ever be able to touch this technology unless they learn to use Linux or BSD)

PowerPC (and presumably POWER) have had frsqrte and fres for ages: http://publibn.boulder.ibm.com/doc_link/en_US/a_do c_lib/aixassem/alangref/frsqrte.htm

Not sure of the accuracy of more recent chips, but the original gave 5 bits accuracy, which can be polished in 4 loops of netwon's method.

I'm not sure what uses there are for highspeed scalar sqrts these days, with graphics being handled by the GPU and audio being handled by altivec with its own sqrt estimate and similar performance to the cell:
http://developer.apple.com/hardware/ve/algorithms. html

I visited Norad when I was a kid, and was SO disappointed that there was no huge room like in War Games (at least not that I saw). And visiting various NOCs they were always a let down...

Then I saw this one in person. Straight out of the movies. You can't see it in the picture, but there's a briefing center behind it with glass that's normally opaque (translucent really) but turns transparent when current is applied (Exactly like the congressional hearing scene in Sum of All Fears). Fun to watch peoples' faces when they hit the button.

A Brazilian company that has been democratic for 20 years, and a book review (with excerpt).

How do you program those SPUs, besides hand-coded assembly ?

With the Cell compiler, of course!

You'd be hard-pressed to find an optical illusion that works on a computer screen and generates something human-readable, though I can think of one that might---the use of negative space. Alternate between positive and negative space to generate letters. Of course, this still can be figured out by more sophisticated use of statistics, and still falls into the category of color variation, albeit a more subtle variation of it....

Other optical illusions (dot patterns and "tell me what image pops out") fall into the same category as the homonyms---that the problem space is limited. Now if someone could come up with a mechanism to take arbitrary photos, determine the most critical lines, and convert those into dot-pattern illusions in an automated fashion without human intervention, then the entire world-wide web could be the problem space, using google's image search for random words out of a dictionary.

Of course, again, you'd sometimes have problems where the words wouldn't match what you were really seeing, and more importantly, if someone could figure out your source dictionary, one could still reverse-engineer the problem space... it would just take a lot longer and require a lot more storage and bandwidth. You -might- be able to make it impractical to do, although probably not impossible... and maybe that would be good enough. I'm not sure..

Of course, once we get holographic storage, even that approach is pretty much screwed. Once you superimpose two copies of the image with a relatively trivial 3d transform, you will make the image stand out. Then do some statistical analysis to separate the image from the noise and feed that to holographic storage, which will them essentially tell you the locations of the images most closely matching. Expect Google to do this sort of image matching by 2010 or so, as it is the obvious next step in search technology. At that point, you'd be able to fully reverse even something as extreme as the above....

I've been looking for a decent version of something like this for ages. I've previously investigated Agent Frank, WebMate, IProxy, and I've used WBI. All seem lacking in some way.
PPS looks promising. I'd like to see the search functionality of PPS integrated into the proxy so you can do a search right from the browser and it can show you live links......

>IBM is cool now because they're actively
>3) contributing to linux
Actually, I found a great tutorial for GNUplot on IBM's website: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar y/l-gnuplot/
Not to mention their contribution to the Eclipse project.
Anyway, I doubt Google is evil in Microsoft or the fallen IBM Empire style. They don't spread FUD, they don't close their specs (actually, they have for example a complete manual on how to use Gaim with Google Talk), they don't bribe/blackmail governments, they even funded the Summer Of Code project.
They are the most legal and fair way of getting mindshare: they make truly great products. If you hate Google, you don't have to use their stuff. A non-Gmail user doesn't need a Gmail account or some hacked mailbox to receive mail from a Gmail user etc.

I've worked with IBM, bought a bunch of JS20s (2.2GHz 970 PPC powers those things). But typically IBM pushes Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 for Power. Yes, that will run on a PowerPC chip. This is mostly because it is compatible (and certified to run) with IBMs cluster management software CSM and their Global file system GPFS, it's the natural choice when installing a set of these machines.

Yellow dog just isn't big enough to offer the kind of product certification and support that Novel can offer.

I've worked with IBM, bought a bunch of JS20s (2.2GHz 970 PPC powers those things). But typically IBM pushes Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 for Power. Yes, that will run on a PowerPC chip. This is mostly because it is compatible (and certified to run) with IBMs cluster management software CSM and their Global file system GPFS, it's the natural choice when installing a set of these machines.

Yellow dog just isn't big enough to offer the kind of product certification and support that Novel can offer.

I've worked with IBM, bought a bunch of JS20s (2.2GHz 970 PPC powers those things). But typically IBM pushes Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 for Power. Yes, that will run on a PowerPC chip. This is mostly because it is compatible (and certified to run) with IBMs cluster management software CSM and their Global file system GPFS, it's the natural choice when installing a set of these machines.

Yellow dog just isn't big enough to offer the kind of product certification and support that Novel can offer.

This is great news for customers like the US Navy who rely on Linux-on-PowerPC for important tasks like sonar imaging systems.

IBM just teamed up with a company called Mercury to build Cell-based computers for (military) applications:

As a result, demanding applications such as radar, sonar, MRI, digital X-Ray, and many others can be taken to new levels of sophistication and performance.

And as we all know, the Cell is basically a Power processor.

Is Intel Good(tm) now?

No.

The new line of chips are LaGrande Compliant. LaGrande is Intel's CPU embedded implementation of the Trusted Computing Group's Trusted Platform Module.

So what does that mean?

All of the new CPUs have ID numbers again. Remember the Pentium 3 ID numbers that created so much outrage and backlash? Whell they are back with a vengance.

The new CPUs will hold crypto keys, and they are specifically designed to keep the keys (and encrypted files) secure against the owner. They are specifically boobytrapped to self destruct if you try to read out your own keys. IBM is currently using a a seperate non-CPU Trusted Computing chip and they explicitly advertize the self destruct aspect in their Man in Black Thinkpad TV commercial.

It can also act as a little spy inside your computer - this is called Remote Attestation - a spy that watches all of the software you run and send a spy report to other people over the internet. You are denied any control over this spy report. The only control you have is to turn this system off completely, and if you turn it off then you get locked out of your own files and it is impossible to run or install Trust-using software. In a five to ten years, under Trusted Network Connect, you can even be denied an internet connection unless you activate the system and send this spy report and you have an approved unmodified operating system and approved unmodified software.

It is basically a DRM enforcer CPU, but far far worse.

-

We have 4 of 2kW PSUs in a blade server at work. Granted... they can run 14 maxed out servers, so I guess it's not that bad. Runs off 240V as well...

I posted a response to this "article" earlier today which I am just going to paste here:

Normally I try to avoid these articles, but Sharon Housley's RSS Won the Syndication Standards Battle is one I can't avoid. She claims that RSS has overtaken Atom because of support (or lack there of) for RSS by Microsoft and Google.

Sharon began by saying Microsoft had dumped Atom in favour for RSS. Is it just me or did Microsoft not say that they will support Atom almost 3 weeks ago? She says that Google News feeds having both RSS and Atom is a sign of weakness in the format, even though Google-owned Blogger (and Atom supporter) has always provided a link to FeedBurner for those who prefer RSS instead of Atom. Having both RSS and Atom on Google News isn't a sign that RSS is dominating so much as it is Google providing a choice of format to users. By the way, podcasting is not limited to RSS 2.0 as Atom supports Podcasting in a way that is arguably more powerful than RSS's. Microsoft's lists, another RSS innovation, are also easily done with Atom. Don't forget that the IETF approved the propsed Atom standard while RSS has been fragmented many times by different authors.

With Microsoft calling its support for syndication web feeds, Google refering to them as feeds on Google News and web clips on Google Desktop 2 (as Brad Hill mentions in Google Shuns the RSS Name) it seems likely that other sites will offer syndication through a generic name in more than one format. How all of this can be viewed as RSS winning any kind of standards battle is baffling.

Dana

Well lets be clear about this system that you are saying might be better/acceptable.

This software / there files only work if you have a Trusted Computing compliant computer. The Trusted Computing Group is the "root authority" for this hardware. It is impossible for ANYONE to create working interoperable hadrware without the Trusted Computing group's approval and getting their cryptographic signature to actvate your hardware. So this Trusted Computing Group has absolute power and control over the industry.

The Trusted Computing specification is that your computer must have an embedded "Public EK". That PubEK is the unique ID tag for your machine.

The Trusted Computing specification is that your computer must come with an embedded encryption key... the PrivEK.. and that you are forbidden to know your own key. When you first activate the chip it allso generates a Root Storage Key, and again you are forbidden to know your own key. In fact the hardware is boobytrapped to self destruct if you even TRY to read out your keys. Perhaps you've seen the IBM Thinkpad Man in Black TV commercial? The one where they actually advertize the fact that the enforcement chip self destructs if you attempt to extract the chip.

The Trusted Computing specification sets up the Trust chip as a "spy" inside your computer. It is called Remote Attestation. The chip spys on all of the software you run and can then send a spy report to other people over the internet. You are prohibited from controlling or altering the content of this spy report. Your only choice is whether you want to "opt-in" and activate the system or not... to choose whether spy reports are sent or not. Of course if you do not activate the system and do not send the spy reports then the new software doesn't work at all. Not only are DRM files are completely unreadable and unusable, but any new software applications that installs using a Trusted Activation process will be unusuable unless you activate the Trust system and activate the spy reports. Without activating the system and sending the spy report other computers on the internet will simply refuse to talk to you. You are going to see MANY websites demand a spy report before you can view the webpage at all. By checking the spy report the website can ensure that you aren't using any pop-up blocker or any ad-blocker and that you can't save a copy of any pictures and text from the site and they can prevent Deep Linking and they can enforce registration and enforce cookies and track your identity and enforce proper refferer headers and enforce javascript prevent you from using a false user agent string to mimic a different web browser and to enforce that the site is displayed exactly they way they would like it to appear on your screen (which happens to mean that blind and visually impaired people will be unable to use special accessibility software to read the site and it will be impossible to run the site through translation software / translation website to read a foriegn language site). Etc etc etc. There are a million reasons websites will want to use the Trust system... and if you don't send the spy report then you can't view the wesite at all, you'll just get a helpful error message explaining how to "fix" your computer, an explanation of turn on the Trust system. It will be much like many current websites that refuse to display at all without cookies, instead giving helpful error messages explaining how to turn cookies on.

The hardware is designed to keep secrets against the owner and to be secure against the owner. Designed to deny the owner control over his computer once he "opts-in" and turns the system on. And of course if you don't opt-in then nothing works at all. You get locked out of your own files.

If independant producers have the same access/right/privileges as the big players, it makes for a much better solution.

Well, yeah... e

Leonard Richardson, who wrote the article in question, also recently wrote articles on SQLObject and Cheetah.

Leonard Richardson, who wrote the article in question, also recently wrote articles on SQLObject and Cheetah.

People should have been using FBSD for wifi access points and aggregation long ago. Glad to see the corporate folks have finally figured out how linux errodes the bottom line.

The
stupider
ones
haven't
figured
it
out
yet.
You'd
better
go
tell
them!

PowerPC? Isn't that a dead architecture? I think that AMD should steal ideas regarding Cell chips.

...for IBM developerWorks recently; here's his two part series on objects in PHP (part 1 and part 2).

If you like to write tech articles, I recommend dW; they're a good crew. Some of their tutorials (like my GLib collections tutorial) require registration, but, hey.

...for IBM developerWorks recently; here's his two part series on objects in PHP (part 1 and part 2).

If you like to write tech articles, I recommend dW; they're a good crew. Some of their tutorials (like my GLib collections tutorial) require registration, but, hey.

...for IBM developerWorks recently; here's his two part series on objects in PHP (part 1 and part 2).

If you like to write tech articles, I recommend dW; they're a good crew. Some of their tutorials (like my GLib collections tutorial) require registration, but, hey.

The main interest of this article is the IBM SoulPad research project, here: http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/Soul Pad/soulpad.html.

There's a neat video of how it works too.

What is ironic is they are using Linux to boot Windows (or any x86 OS) You can use ANY adequetly configured pc to boot from. They chose Knoppix for it's excellent hardware detection. The data is encrypted and within 2 minutes you can have your entire desktop restored from a suspended state. If you actually go to the project web site http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/Soul Pad/soulpad.html there is some really cool potential to this. Booting from a USB device is a no brainer but the stuff they are doing will make taking it with you much easier and cost effective.

Since it is possible that the user may lose his SoulPad, we encrypt sensitive data on the SoulPad, namely the virtual machine state using the AES128 block cipher.

IBM has done some really nice things for the os community. Maybe this will turn out well. <hope fingers="crossed"/>

Although IBM http://www.research.ibm.com/ may be out of the disk drive business, they are still working on it. Take a look at the Almaden Research Center in San Jose http://www.almaden.ibm.com/ still going strong after all these years.