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Rack Mount Solution for Desktop PCs
kilroy666 writes "ComputerWorld has an executive technology brief on a company called ClearCUBE. This company created a system to rack mount the guts of a PC and allow the monitor/keyboard to be up to 200m away. With add-ons and network storage, the PC's are swappable in case of a failure." Having spent several years as a tech fixing PCs, I have to say that this concept seems like it could be really awesome. Of course, I say awesome for every except me. I want my PC on my desk dammit.
Plus I hate getting off my ass. Hey, I get paid for fixin', not for walkin'.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Boss: Hey, Dave just called, his PC is dead. Can you pop in a replacement?
Me: Sure, no problem. What's his machine?
Boss: uh, rack 2, #5. I think.
(walk over, yank out that Blade card)
Someone: AAGGHH!
Me: what you say?
Boss: OOps, rack 5, number 2. That was the President's machine.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Perfect for the lazy IT folks, except none of them will use it. And why should they? They need their boxes to do anything they need them too, and they shouldn't have to jump through the same hoops as the rest of us shmoes who just want to install Napster and Warez at work...
Bullshit. Nobody needs this. The reason you have a desktop rather than a thin client is that you need the ability to improvise in the course of your day. We have finance folks that use SQL scripts to generate usage reports, developers who use MS Word and Excel quite a bit, and management folks who use a wide array of tools, each in their own distinct manner. Corporate IT was shocked to discover that people had not only installed software on their machines that they (IT) hadn't anticipated them needing, but that they had done so flawlessly and used the software in the course of their day -- software like multiple browsers, spam silencers, adbusters and scripts. These are NORMAL people, mind you, not technuts -- secretaries and production folks who wouldn't know a hard disk from a hard disk-shaped rock -- who had tricked out both their hardware and their software to make their days run smoother and their user interface more intuitive.
Of course, occasionally one of them screws up -- we're all human -- and something goes wrong. Next comes the IT lecture, as they shlep themselves the three hundred feet from their technology arena to the floor of the poor saps forced to live under their auspice. With screwdriver in hand they poke about trying to fix the problem, blaming the user the whole time, and justifying solutions like thin clients and so forth by saying these interface enhancements only "create more work." More bullshit -- it's obvious they save a lot of work by using the PC's ability to multitask to make up for a lack of human space. We don't have the manpower we need, so we're all a little bit tech support, a little bit developer, a little bit graphic designer. A thin client in most offices where people actively USE computers is like cutting hands off at the wrist, and making people rely more heavily on the most unreliable element of any company -- other employees. All for the sake of making the job of the IT folks a bit easier. Call me jaded, but I've worked for IT departments and seen firsthand the type of laziness the industry enjoys. We had a director at my last job who knew he had a bank of machines that were prone to overheating and bluescreens, and yet he did nothing to fix it because he wanted Dell to admit they sold us lemons and give us better boxes. A quick jab at the OS showed the simply running CPUIdle on these boxes stopped the problems, but that solution died in its infancy. IT folks, who didn't want to increase the size of the GHOST image by even 300k to save the heartache of machines that were known to die in the middle of peoples' work, axed it. Screw the rackmount idea...screw networked computing. Give everybody their own box, let them do what they will, and when they break it, do your job and fix the fricking thing. My plumber doesn't bitch when I clog pipes, and my V-dub mechanic doesn't complain about my rusty muffler.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
"Cool, I'll just pop in the CD."
CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop click whirrrr clack whirrrr kachunk clop clop clop clop clop clop clop Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP
"OK, let's go."
"Wait a minute... aw crap."
"What is it?"
"The right CD's in my drive, but your drive has the SimCity 3000 disk in it."
"Aw crap. Well hang on."
CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP Clop Clop Clop Clop (...the rest of this message is deleted to preserve your sanity)
Call be a cynical old fossil if you like but I seem to remember this is how WE used to do things before some 'technology executive' decided to put them on the desk instead and give use all tinitus, from the noise all those fans make.
Indeed I rather enjoyed sharing a single VDU in the only air conditioned room in the building; all trying to be the first to spot the problem;
What's that from the back ?
What People are doing that again too ? you don't say! And calling it extreme programming you say ?
Well I would never have guessed it. It seems there is nothing new, even in high technology. Well I've got an New[s] idea to share with you all. Have you noticed how you can never fit the full width of a program listing on standard paper, well imagine if we made it twice as wide, we could also include feignt rulings to make it easier to scan the page.
Yeh ? What's that paperless office, let me tell you about.....
Just because something is New[s] does not make it better or actually new!
sigh...
Woah there. Some LCD monitors use standard analog VGA inputs, but not all. Please research this particular article for a listing of the more popular ones. There really is a difference.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I've always considered our family Linux machine as being our "information furnace" - the same way the house furnace provides heating services, the computer is the "information furnace"
The problem is the terminals. What I want is:
- a decent sized screen (1024X768 in 17") that doesn't take up much space (so prolly LCD)
- a built-in USB hub, with jacks for keyboard, trackball, and joystick, plus one more for local devices (camera, scanner, printer, or whatever)
- a built-in CDRW drive
- built-in speakers, with audio in and out jacks
- ONE, count 'em, ONE power cord
- ONE, count 'em, ONE wire that routes to the main server
- CHEAP - like about $300 for the whole shebang.
The terminal would be a X real terminal, with no computing power to speak of locally, aside from whatever hardware is needed to make X work. No local hard drive. Just plug it in, and I have access to my main server (I suppose the CDRW would be NFS mounted)
Build this puppy, and the world will beat a path to your door.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book