Slashdot Mirror

Here are some other interesting stories

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01fkjfdsa
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01dhifads
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jj5324543
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01hdshdgh
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jesusheadfuck

Here are some other interesting stories

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01fkjfdsa
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01dhifads
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jj5324543
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01hdshdgh
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jesusheadfuck

Here are some other interesting stories

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01fkjfdsa
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01dhifads
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jj5324543
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01hdshdgh
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jesusheadfuck

Here are some other interesting stories

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01fkjfdsa
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01dhifads
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jj5324543
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01hdshdgh
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-m icrodesign/?ca=dgr-lnxw01jesusheadfuck

Introduction to 64-bit computing

There's an informative link at the bottom of the article for those requiring a bit more insight into the effect of 64-bit computing. /wishes he had exa-bytes of memory right now... VS.NET on WinXP is a PIG!

UNIX® 03 is POSIX. It is a "common update to IEEE Std 1003.1,1996 Edition, IEEE Std 1003.2, 1992 Edition, their ISO/IEC counterparts and the previous version of the Single UNIX Specification".

In the case of uname, compare the UNIX and the IBM definitions. They look the same. In practise, the two ways it conforms to POSIX.1 yet differs from Solaris are the -m flag and the -r flag. With -m, AIX prints a hexadecimal number indicating the precise machine model rather than just the architecture (however this has become less useful on new IBM pSeries systems as "many new machines share a common machine ID of 4C"). This information can be augmented with the output of uname -M. With -r, I think only the major and minor version numbers are printed (it doesn't mention the point release since any point release should be compatible with other releases in that series). More precise information can be determined by running oslevel.

I agree it would be nicer if uname -m gave a human-readable architecture description as many other UNIX systems do, but POSIX doesn't require it be human readable or have a 1:1 mapping to CPU architecture.

They do.

When will this buffer enforcement be available for gcc!?!?

As soon as you do a search for StackGuard http://www.cse.ogi.edu/DISC/projects/immunix/Stack Guard/ or ProPolice http://www.trl.ibm.com/projects/security/ssp/.

That's why the best approach from a business perspective seems to be bundling or packaging fancy software with hardware, services or both. The software may be the hook to get people in, and you might even give it away (and while you're at it, make it Open Source, it makes your customers happy). But tie it to your expensive hardware. Or just convince companies that it works best with your expensive hardware. Or that your expensive services personnel are best equipped to customize or build value-added functions on top of it.

This is the whole reason that quite a few tech businesses have embraced Open Source. It's not a function of their love of the community.

That doesn't make a very convincing argument, then, in favor of an OSS voting system that many Slashdotters advocate.

If the argument is, "Local elections boards can download the software and hardware plans from SourceForge and hire a 16 year old kit to put it all together," yes, that's a stupid argument.

If the plan is, "Local elections boards will hire IBM to provide a voting system, support for that system, and make guarantees about uptimes and accuracy. IBM will take software and hardware plans from SourceForge, hire staff to review them, possibly modify them, and assemble best practices," that's a pretty good argument.

By way of example, if you want an open source web server, think Apache looks good, but you want IBM to stand behind it, go get the rather uncreatively named IBM HTTP Server.

Many Slashdotters tend to hold OSS to a much lower quality standard than commercial software (as you apparently do) while insisting that OSS is fundamentally superior. I'm simply taking yet another opportunity to point that little inconsistency out.

Expecting a lower quality of customer support doesn't necessarily mean I expect a lower level of quality for the software itself. Furthermore, my experience has been that customer support for commercial software is pretty uniformly crap. You can get good support, but you're generally paying through the nose for it, typically on top of the cost you paid for the software itself. You can do that open source software as well.

With Intel having recently backed off on the effort to push clock rates ever higher, is there a plateau in sight for AMD?

There's some information to be realized:

AMD uses IBM's Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology. This reduces power consumption by a very large degree. It is rumored that Intel tried to license the technology but, IBM and their fondness for cross-licensing, wanted too much (probably an x86 license). So Intel has been pushing out chips with standard silicon fabrication techniques at the expense of tremendous power consumption.

My guess is that Intel is coming up with a "massively parallel" architecture that can be applied to mainframes all the way down to handhelds simply by reducing the number of cores on a chip. The cores, will probably be very small and flexible. A mainframe might have a few thousand while a handheld might have a few dozen. They've certainly been hinting at a change in architecture for some time.

And then there was the "Windows Elements" that was supposed to come out with the P5. I'm not sure why that didn't get more press. I'm guessing that it is a version of Windows that will run in local storage on these processors (i.e. - the processor will have enough on-chip storage to hold "Windows Elements").

Valves? I didn't know IBM had been in the plumbing business?

You've never seen an IBM 3081. Dual CPUs and water cooled and the one I used in '93 had an uptime of 13 years.

IBM still makes "IBM Compatables".

The term "nanotechnology" is becoming a bit inflated. Companies know that merely mentioning the word nanotechnology in a press-release ensures a lot of extra attention. It is kind of sad that good ol' Slashdot seems to fall for this cheap trick as well.

Not too long ago, nanotechnology was about wonderful fantasies of small machines at nano-level assembling molecules or even medicines. Too bad that simple physics prevent this from becoming a reality (the resistance of air at nano-level is too large, for example). Now, nanotechnology is about punching very small holes in metal.

Maybe it is about time that everyone realizes that nanotechnology is not as exiting as it used to be.

frankly, I'm suprised that all the comments so far underestimate the company that supplies laptops to the australian army, and laptops with fingerprint identification, or the company that makes computers that can be dropped/kicked/blown up and still work.

from what I saw in the video, these things were removable from the cart, and wirelessly connected to the in-house IBM server for their intellegence. if they were taken away from the store, they stopped working and were relatively useless as computers.

so basically, they could go to a better cart if the cart broke, and they wouldn't really be very fun if someone stole them

And from the video I watched, the best part was not that they remembered your list, or that they let you place deli orders, or that they showed you coupons, but that you could scan items as you buy them and then walk straight through the checkout by just swiping your credit card! For the love of god, could you imagine how much money that could save in cashiers, and how much time that could save for those poor souls for whom the line is the longest part of their shopping trip?!

I don't know about you, but this just seems like the next step from those self-checkout things they have today. and these are a lot more helpful along the way as you shop.

if it makes my shopping experience at Stop&Shop in NY quicker and more pleasant, then I'll be happy to give up my tin-foil, cynical, slashdotter hat for some quick and easy zit-cream, beer, and potato chips.

I'm surprised that they're not using Ruby, Java, or Python for this... seems like those languages might lend themselves a bit more easily to something like this.

In fact, the first thing I thought about when I saw this was IBM's Robocode framework - which is in Java.

I'm not sure if you are right. This page quotes an IBM exec as saying (from what I can tell) that they are planning to open hardware development tools as well. I think the key point is what they will open, and under what license. This REXX release is under the CPL which I'm not deeply familiar with -- but which seems at first glance to be pretty liberal, and would allow competitors (or any one else) to benefit from the source code, should they wish to do so?

4758 Secure Coprocessor Driver for Linux
This project is a Linux device driver for the IBM 4758 PCI Cryptographic Coprocessor, which is a tamper-sensing and responding, programmable PCI card. It provides a highly secure subsystem in which data processing and cryptography can be performed.

ATM on Linux
ATM support for Linux is currently in pre-alpha stage. There is an experimental release, which supports raw ATM connections (PVCs and SVCs), IP over ATM, LAN emulation, MPOA, Arequipa, and some other goodies.

Abstract Machine Test Utility (AMTU) for Linux
Abstract Machine Test Utility (AMTU) is an administrative utility that checks whether the underlying protection mechanism of the hardware is being enforced. This is a requirement of the Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP) FTP_AMT.1.

Ananas Project: Summary
This is the source for Working XML, a column on developerWorks with companion project code that demonstrates the evolution of full-fledged XML applications. This is distributed under the artistic license.

Apache HTTP Server
The Apache project develops and maintains an open-source HTTP server for various modern desktop and server operating systems.

BlueHoc simulator
BlueHoc is a tool that predicts the performance of Bluetooth wireless hardware technologies. BlueHoc simulates the baseband and link layers of the Bluetooth specification.

COIN (Common Optimization INterface)
Developers can use Common Optimization INterface (COIN) to build optimization solutions. IBM mathematical optimization researchers opened the code they use in finding the optimal allocation of limited resources. The code has many applications in a variety of industries.

Channel Bonding
The Channel Bonding project works on methods to join multiple networks on Linux into a single logical network with higher bandwidth. The project team works with the Beowulf Ethernet Channel Bonding project, where bonding work began.

Consensus prototype
Consensus is a joint European project carried out by six companies. The project is partially funded by the European Commission. The project goal is to provide technology to support single-authoring for mobile devices. developerWorks hosts the open source implementation developed by the Consortium. Detailed information about the project is at the Consensus Project home page (http://www.consensus-online.org).

Content Query System (CQS) Project: Summary
Content Query System (CQS). CQS is a distributed peer-to-peer query system for the purpose of discovering content or data. XML messages are passed between systems and query "engines" are used to access the data that is being made available on the system.

Crypto Accelerator Driver
Device Driver Support for the IBM eServer Cryptographic Accelerator.

Crypto Interface Library
Generalized Interface library for the IBM eServer Cryptographic Accelerator Device Driver. Note, this is a low level api for the Specified adapter, it is not intended to be an interface which is written to by applications. Applications should use the openCryptoki PKCS#11 api for interfacing to the token.

Dynamic Probe Class Library (DPCL)
DPCL is an object-based C++ class library that allows tool developers and sophisticated tool users to build parallel and serial tools using a technology called dynamic instrumentation.

Embedded IBM PowerPC 4xx Linux Support
This project contains packages which enable adding support for IBM PowerPC 4xx Embedded Processors to

Here's one site: Clicky Search on google and it'll come up with a good deal of sites. ""object rexx" "interpreter""

A lot more information on Rexx can be found here on IBM's website. This is the main page and has links to courses, function libraries, etc.

Per Wigren wrote:

Hopefully it will make it into the ANSI standard sometime because it's really useful!

The SQL standard (since SQL:1999) already specifies recursive SQL, through its WITH RECURSIVE construct (optional feature ID T131, "Recursive query"). You will sometimes see people referring to it using the name "common table expressions".

DB2 implements it, and it seems that SQL Server 2005 will also feature it.

Here's an article describing differences between WITH RECURSIVE and CONNECT BY.

Why not? GCC has had it since 2001.

On a serious note, this is awesome. With a 5 qubit entanglement and this, we might be able to build a primitive functional Quantum Computer, for the first time.

I'm pretty sure that a "primitive functional Quantum Computer" has already been built. I recall IBM announcing that they had factored a seven bit number using QC techniques.

This seems promising because it's more likely to be scalable to higher numbers of bits than IBMs approach, from what I can tell.

The Perl equivalent is Class::DBI. This is quite a good module for working with databases, as it can save you from writing a lot of code. This article discusses the power of Class::DBI combined with the Template Toolkit, the best pure-MVC templating system there is. Maypole is a system built around these two modules that lets you create a complete Web-based database interface in as little as ten lines of code! Another Maypole article is here.

Neither are open source.

Don't want to get into a religious argument here. Being 100% open source is not always a benefit.

Both require virtual machines.

Really?

Despite being marketed as portable, but have portability issues.

"They're not perfect, so toss 'em out!" Great argument...

We don't really need them.

Yeah, we don't really need Perl of PHP either. I do all of my web pages in assembler.

They're closely tied to their respective companies.

Really?

No, KDE is using a beautiful technological novelty called 'consistent API exposed through a shared library.' :p

Note that both parts of the proposition are important.

Also, you seem somewhat confused about what KParts are and aren't, and what they can do, and in what context they're used. You might be interested in this DeveloperWorks primer on KParts.

Lastly, if you need to ask why Nautilus' current behavior is bad design, you may *definitely* want to look into software engineering primers. There are excellent sites out there; I'll let you look into whichever you'll like.

...such as this one for my T20:

62p9631.pdf

Other laptop makers make them available too.

Posted anonymously--I have to deal with these people!

in high-performance processor market is, IBM. Currently its PowerPC chips power Macintosh PC and Nintendo console. In Xbox 2 console, IBM succeeded Intel's deal with Microsoft for Xbox. IBM's Power architecture is going to be embedded in massive volume for both Nintendo and Microsoft consoles. Then, another architecture developed with Sony and Toshiba, STI's Cell will power PS3 console and other servers/workstations. IBM fabs will help production of AMD processors in forthcoming generations, too.

I think Kodak needs to play tic-tac-toe for a bit before going with that strategy. I doubt there is any sizable company in the world not in violation of one of IBM's patents:

http://www.ibm.com/news/us/2004/01/21_01.html

As some of the other posters have alluded to or pointed out Drexlers vision of nanotechnology (now recoined by Drexler as zettatechnology) already exist in nature (cells, bacteria, etc.). What is missing is Drexlers fundamental point about why one would be trying to duplicate such atom-manipulating capabilities by synthetic (as in non-biological) means. The answer is unlimited control, and is misconstrued into an argument against Drexlers vision by Smalley.

Lets try a comparison to explain the difference between Smalley and Drexler in a way which should be easy for all here: "math formulas vs. computers".

Math formulas comparative to the Smalley approach (nanotechnology):
One formula does only one or perhaps a few things maximum if constrained in different ways. If you want to do something else you need to make a new formula or combination of formulas to reach your goal. This approach degrades "nanotechnology" into just another buzzword for advanced chemistry as it uses exactly the same old methology and is limited to the natural properties of atoms and molecules in groups.

Computers comparative to the Drexler approach (zettatechnology):
A computer is a tool not only for solving one or a few goals, but a tool that can be used to solve everything that can be represented digitally. This is all done from a few fairly simple tools that form the core of a computer: logic gates. This is analogous to the basis of Drexlers idea which is to find ways to manipulate individual atoms (such as IBM did when they crafted their logo out of xenon atoms). The more ways you can find to manipulate individual atoms and combinations of such tools the stronger and more powerful zettatechnology becomes.

Just as with math formulas and computers the approaches share other characteristics:
Computers took far more technology to create than math formulas, but when it was achieved computers showed themselves to be immensly more powerful - also for computing math formulas. This will not seem strange at all to the average /.'er as computers was made to be a tool presisely for computing any mathematical forumla one could wish for. In the same way zettatechnology will take far more technology to create than chemistry, but when achieved will show itself to be far more powerful - also for chemistry. When this happens it will not seem strange to the average /.'er ;) as zettatechnology was made to be a tool precisely for applying any kind of chemistry one could wish for.
The big deal with both computers and zettatechnology is their general nature. Zettatechnology doesn't defy the laws of chemistry or physics, it's a general tool which enriches the way one can use said laws.

Other likely similarities is that the first computer was enormous: the first "zettamachine" is likely to be enormous (compared to later generations) as well. In computers anything represented digitally is feasible, there are no borders for what is possible except for lack of time: in zettamachines anything possible within the laws of nature will be possible except for lack of time. And just like computers advanced the science of mathematics, zettamachines will advance the science of chemistry through the nature of being a generalized, multi-function tool.

In XX years time Drexler (and Feynman) will be as historical becaue of their ideas on nano/zettatechnology as Turing and Babbage are for modern computers. His direction of attacking the overall problem is (as I hope I've made abundantly clear) basically the same as theirs. No amount of attack on the specifics of one proposed method of atom manipulation from Smalley will change that (it will only ensure that USA loses to China or possibly Europe in this technology as Smalley only influences the US nanotechnology aims).

There is one other big difference between the two:
Drexler advocates a high le

Clearly it's Web2 for OS/2 Warp.

I hear it's what Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee made the Internet on before they made AOL[1]

[1] Joke, there.

I actually had a breif e-mail exchange with David Safford, the very author of Why_TCPA.

There is not a single example in there that justifies denying the owner his key. Not a single one. He did not dispute this. When I asked for such a justification the only thing he came up with was keeping data secure if the machine is stolen. (My original mail had suggested releasing the key based on simple physical access, thus being available to a theif.) I then suggested the key could be provided printed on a sheet of paper, resolving this issue. He never answered.

He is also the author of TCPA_rebuttle.pdf. As far as I am aware, everything in there is accurate. However rebutting the invalid attacks against TCPA in no way invalidates the valid attacks.

The fact that there are so many myths and invalid attacks against the system probably hurts as much as it helps. Part of the problem is that it is a very complex and technical system, and part of the blame goes to Trusted Computing people themselves for being so secretive and spreading missleading information.

-

Actually:

Blue Gene

Let's see what happens come Supercomputing '04... good things can come in small sizes. ;)

From the linked site ...

with a sustained speed of 11.68 teraflops and a peak speed of 16 teraflops, uses more than 8,000 PowerPC processors packed into just four refrigerator-sized racks.

So lets say their "refridgerator sized racks" are about the size of 1.5 standard racks, and you'd need about 3x the amount of flops they're getting currently, so that's 36 racks? Not too shabby. Almost half the space of the Cray AMD setup. I guess I didn't realize it was so nicely packaged (:

I guess there's no getting around it. For the time being our really fast computers will just be fucking huge. Oh, and call NEC if you want a big computer. (:

Actually:

Blue Gene

Let's see what happens come Supercomputing '04... good things can come in small sizes. ;)

The power saving methods are designed to cut the ACTIVE power use of the chip - the power that is dissipated by the transistors flipping from 0 to 1 (and 1 to 0). The challenge, as we shrink geometries (I work next to a semi fab) is that the LEAKAGE power (the power being dissipated to heat just from putting power on the chip) is growing relatively fast (in % of total power).

This is one reason why IBM and others have moved to a Silicon-on-Insulator process - it reduces the amount of leakage power. Other methods for doing this include actually powering down certain portions of the chip so that they aren't drawing power even if they aren't switching. IBM calls them voltage islands. The challenge is the tradeoff to time in powering those sections of the chip back up again.

These developments are part of a natural evolution in the semiconductor industry to deal with the heat creation of semiconductors. I'm not saying we're winning, but it's getting some focus and there are methods of keeping it from getting totally out of control (at least in the near future)

IBM laptops do not have "DRM". They have a security chip. Quite a different thing -- though the conspiracy theory being painted here is "DRM is the next step". When you get the laptop, the security chip is not enabled by default. The customer chooses to enable it (or not). So you're safe from whatever harm you think it might cause! See here for more detail.

Check out this. Apparently I was mistaken in that the IBM chipset doesn't have tamper resistent features. This was specifically to allow a user to get at his own key (given the proper technology).

I got through the YDL website and just found out that : Yellow Dog Linux v4.0 offers 32-bit support for USB-G3s, G4s, G5 Power Macs. If I decided to buy a G5, I would expect it to work in 64-bit mode, not just in 32-bit mode. Some kind of strange since the G5 64-bit instruction set seems to be working with Linux. I found at IBM DevelopperWorks how to set up a 64-bit mode (Y-HPC Kernel), but it still seems to be beta...

YDL 3 and 4 didn't ship with a usable Java distribution, but IBM offers a great 1.4.2 version one here: https://www6.software.ibm.com/dl/lxdk/lxdk-p.

It aims to describe the difference between TCPA, MS Palladium and DRM, and explains what TCPA is usable for (crypt personnal data, store passwords,etc.), and what TCP is unusable for (restrain software execution).

IBM has had these Security chips available in their machines since 1999. I remember PII's with them built in.

All these are designed to do is interface with an IBM software product to encrypt files using a Hardware chip, do on the fly disk and network encryption and other security related protections that you couldn't do practically with just a CPU software solution.

Specificially, If you have a Thinkpad there's a good chance it has one of these right now. This was one of their selling points that if the System was ever stolen they couldn't get access to any of the data because it's all encrypted to the physicial hardware itself and only the original laptop could access it.

Their site for the current data on their security chip is here

This new chip definetly looks more advanced, and could possibly be used for DRM purposes, but in the end its going to do the same things as the older hardware and the older hardware could be used for the same thing.

Check out Dave Safford's rebuttal to some of the TCPA-related FUD. Keep in mind though, you were the one throwing FUD, it's your responsibility to provide evidence since you were the one making accusations. I'd say you should take some of your own advice.

TCPA (the chip that's in these PCs) is simply a Crypto co-processor. It provides acceleration for common crypto algorithms and it also provides a tamper-resistant storage location for keys. IBM maintains an Open Source implementation for the processor.

There's already been really neat things done with the chip like a truely secure version of Linux that's entirely tamper proof (this is doing by signing the kernel and boot loader with the TCPA.

Put away the foil hats people, this is actually really cool innovative technology that so far has given Linux an edge in the security world over Windows.

I don't know anything about your particular laptop, but IBM has very thorough disassembly instructions for their ThinkPad models available. These can be found in the "Hardware Maintenance Manual" for the particular series of laptops. Here's the HMM for the T40, T41 and T42 for example. (Found via a google search for ThinkPad Hardware Maintenance Manual.)

I needed instructions for taking apart an older model (unknown issue, which turned out to be a CPU problem), and found IBM's instructions immensely helpful. Why other manufacturers don't do this for their products, I don't know.

This discussion has [..] not at all commented on whether there is business need for a utility/on-demand/adaptive architecture

That's because most /.ers would have no idea what we would be talking about if we had that discussion here. I've said for years that if there's a place on the web that's like /. but attracts more (employed) IT consultants and folks in the trenches than high school and college kids, I'd like to know where it is.

Yes, while we have forged a great relationship with Cisco (I consult at one of the first sites to deploy Cisco directors, and we're about to deploy IBM's SVC - the Cisco blade version), this is a "pipes vs water" discussion. Cisco doesn't make servers. They route data. Do one thing and do it well. Unless they suddenly decide to package some kind of whittled-down servlet engine to enable ebiz environments for the SMB market, I think they'll leave that game to those who have been doing it for nearly a decade. Its not like its a concept that's still in its infancy and the direction is still being decided. Blade servers are full Intel or RISC servers in a micro-pizza box configuration with custom connectors and not much more. And who knows, maybe one day a vendor will release blade servers designed to plug into a Cisco chassis with 10Gbit networking. Hard to do failover across core routers that way, but hey, its a thought.

Finally, yes, there is a huge business need for On Demand. Of course, its difficult to get into preaching about On Demand without being labeled a "marketdroid", "shill", or "parrot". On Demand is much more about business consulting that IT consulting. Its about rediscovering what your business was born to do. Its about collecting and organizing all of your corporate data and using open architectures to invent new ways of looking at that data, and selling views of that data back to your business units -- the consumers of that data. Its about stripping IT out of the ivory towers (leaving just the business functions behind) and using open methods for selling it back to the towers in useful new ways they've never dreamed of before - gaining new insight into and linkages with other related divisions, their customers, suppliers, and business partners. When my family asks what kind of work I do, I usually explain that for the last 20 years, computers have been used to take jobs away from people. Well, for the next 20, I am helping to develop new business processes that were never previously possible due to the "processing limitations" of human beings.

Check out what I've been getting trained on this summer: Virtualization Engine Its a manager for your ebiz environment that tells you whether or not your stated business goals are being met, and uses ARM instrumentation to tell you where your sequence is underperforming. Its really quite amazing all the technologies that have been brought under the VE umbrella. And unlike HP, our product manages ebiz apps running on RISC (pSeries and iSeries) and Intel, across AIX, i5/OS, Windows, and Linux on all those platforms. The mainframe has had incredible levels of workload management for years and is being incorporated into this strategy. I hope this answers some of your questions or clarifies some things for you.

Apple and IBM have been growing closer together, as a result of a) Apple using IBM's processors in their workstations, and b) IBM and Apple both rediscovering UNIX, esp the OSS kind.

Although IBM and Apple are just dating, I think that there are plans to have each other meet their parents. Doesn't it strike you as curious that IBM branded workstations a) ship with Windows, when IBM is pushing Linux and b) ship with a competitors CPU? Is it so curious that IBM might blush a little that OS X is non-windows and uses their own CPU?

Read through the Developer Site for Linux on POWER processors, and you'll find more than a few references to Yellow Dog Linux, which is Linux for PPC (particularly Macs) and even includes as a prize in a developer competition a new Apple G5 (with YDL pre-installed). Interesting that IBM doesn't see fit to award their own brand of personal computer, which I think underscores my point. Do they think that a G5 is somehow more desireable than a ThinkCentre?

And it's working on me: as a long time Apple tech supporter, I'm now in the position to recommend Windows PCs; and when I do, I rec IBMs. And not Dells.

JDK 5 generics are definitely not the generic-programming cornucopia that C++ templates are.

They do provide other nice functionality, though. Suppose we want to feed a list of any pets, but only pets?

Being familiar with generics, we know List is not a subclass of List. In C++ there is no neat way to allow this: our function must accept a list of pets (List), and anyone using List is must convert it.

However, in JDK 5 generics:

class Cat extends Pet { .. }
class Dog extends Pet { .. }
List<Cat> cats = ..;
List<Dog> dogs = ..;
List<Pet> menagerie = ..;
List<Alien> aliens = ..;

void feed(List<? extends Pet> pets) { .. }

// these work
feed(cats); feed(dogs); feed(menagerie);

// this will not compile
feed(aliens);

Links:

• http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5/pdf/generics-tutorial .pdf
• http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library /j-djc02113.html

Now if we could just get them to port ClearCase to OS X. It's already available for AIX, so the instruction set can't be a problem.

What I intended to convey in this statement was the difference between "page-based" and "non-page-based" frameworks. For a better explanation that isn't cut down to a soundbyte, take a look at this developerWorks article:

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library /j-echo1/

Another item worth checking out to better explain how Echo actually works from a technical perspective is to take a look at the "high-level technical overview" on the nextapp.com site:

http://www.nextapp.com/products/echo/doc/hltov/

Best regards
--Tod Liebeck
NextApp, Inc.