The biggest drawbacks of the dinosaur AVI container format include: it doesn't support chapters (ah, the hacks in Encarta to work around that); it doesn't support included subtitle streams; it doesn't support alternative video tracks; it doesn't support alternative audio tracks.
I have no problem using multiple audio tracks in my AVI files.
I rip my DVDs by converting the video to DivX and keep the original audio (AC3 or DTS). If there are multiple audio tracks (like commentary), they all get added to the AVI file, and although mplayer can't seem to switch audio tracks without a stop and restart, my networked DVD player and PMP don't seem to have any problems.
For non-HD sources, the only problem I have with AVI containing DivX+AC3/DTS is the 2GB file size limit. I have a few DTS DVDs with 1.5Mbps DTS, and those absolutely have to be split into multiple files to keep the video bitrate around 2Mbps.
Consolas at that size has both vertical and horizontal spacing that just doesn't look right to me. At larger sizes (11-point or more), the smaller x-height of Consolas gives it a better look. The "x-height war" that Microsoft started where all of their standard fonts have a large x-height for more readability but far less style is reversed a bit in Consolas.
Both Consolas and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono are great programming fonts because the easily confused characters are all obviously different. I like the comma in Consolas better, though, because it's even more obviously not a period.
I don't think that asking "how english [sic] works" of someone who does not understand correct capitalization and punctuation is a productive use of time.
It's not as if you can't use upper case letters (since you sometimes do)...it's just that you don't know when to use them.
You can get a decent machine (~2GHz, dual-core, 4GB memory) for less than $1000, today. I'd be surprised if that couldn't handle at least 3-4 gigabits, total throughput.
Agreed. I tested a 2GHz single core and reached over 1000Mbps when using pfSense, and that's without optimization.
Unfortunately, with the traffic shaper enabled, pfSense gets only about half the throughput on the same hardware.
Hanging my post randomly: I think we now need a "Twitter feed blocker" extension. It's all text, so I can't block it with AdBlock Plus.
NoScript seems to work, although I guess if you have to allow the site to use scripts, it might not. It also might not if you allow Twitter (which I don't, since I don't use it).
If the site is designed modularly, and the "Twitter feed" script is a separate file, AdBlock Plus can block just that file.
If so, why is Sun struggling bad enough to be bought out by Oracle?
Because their hardware business is tanking.
Seriously, although Sparc does have CoolThreads, Intel wins by a long way on price/performance, and you can run Solaris on either platform. So, even if you pay Sun for support, they get a lot less money per Solaris install than they did five years ago.
In order to make this work, wouldn't you have to disallow the HTTP proxy from accepting connections to somewhere like http://192.0.2.1/ or else have a massive "approved IPs" database?
Also, I'm on the server end, and I can tell you that there are very few "HTTP proxy aware" applications...at least not ones that work with every proxy server out there. And I'm not talking about some shareware program with 20 users...IE, Firefox, Java, etc., all crap out when using a proxy with far too much regularity, at least when SSL or any destination port other than 80 or 443 is involved.
Now sure, a number of those devices shouldn't have internet access, and I can run NAT like a normal person with a consumer router, but I would love to not have to.
You'd still have to configure an IPv6 firewall in pretty much exactly the same way as you would your NAT device (if you want to let connections through to these devices).
For well-known, inbound-only ports (HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc.), IPv6 offers essentially nothing over NAT as long as you have enough public IPs for each duplicated port (i.e., if you want eight different physical servers to be contacted on port 80, you need 8 public IPs). Since every IPv6 address is public, this isn't an issue.
IPv6 will help for things like P2P that can dynamically allocate a server port, but these sorts of protocols need some sort of "control server" that is listening on a well-known port (like torrent trackers). But, you can usually just configure the software for a fixed port (not "well-known") and then add a rule to the NAT device. UPnP can help with this in most current cases where you just can't pre-allocate the port number.
I do have some older software that stupidly sent the local IP address as part of its connection setup, and there was no way to configure it to not automatically discover the IP, so it sent the private address. IPv6 would also solve this, but most modern software understands that both ends may be behind a NAT device.
One real problem with NAT is that for very large private networks, the NAT device may run out of ports for outbound connections (depending on the implementation). Although it's possible to use the same outgoing port for connections to two different IP addresses, this does have some security issues.
What difference, exactly, is it if the proxy resolves the DNS instead of having a local caching DNS server inside the company?
In either case, the IP address has to be sent back to the client so that a connection can be opened, and unless you are willing to re-write the TCP/IP stack of the OS, whatever is doing the resolving will have to pass back a standard DNS reply to the client.
Then, the client can use the technique outlined here to tunnel SSH through the DNS requests.
False. It makes it illegal to make public statements about either that may offend the other.
Who defines just what is a "public statement", and whether it "may offend"?
Obviously the courts, in the end, but that means that anything that "may offend" will likely end up in court at some point.
So, are women who show any skin in public a "public statement" against the belief of certain religions? I don't think so, but you can bet somebody will claim it.
What about public religious displays like nativity scenes, or even crosses? They don't offend me, but I'm sure they offend somebody.
How about a Muslim who stops in a public park to pray because it is the time to do so? It doesn't bother me, but I bet there will be a lot of "offended" people.
Any abridgement of freedom of speech and religion is a slippery slope. And, there are some groups (like the Scientologists) who will use this law to silence any statement against their "religion".
What's that you say? You can't purchase OSX with guaranteed support for this compilation of random parts you described? Then STFU, it's not the same.
True, it's not the same because I don't have Mac Pro in front of me and thus can't exactly duplicate it. If I did have one, though, I guarantee you I could purchase the exact same hardware (except for the case), and do it for no more than $2000.
You can buy a Dell server with at least the same specs (CPU, RAM, etc.) for less than $2200, and with that you get a 3-year, 5x10 on-site warranty, while the 3-year AppleCare plan that requires you to lug your machine into the store costs an additional $250.
So, you really don't wan't to compare the cost of Apple's support to any other large company, because it looks even worse then. Without AppleCare, you get a one-year lug it in warranty on hardware, and 90 days of software support, all for $1100 more than Dell can supply three years of on-site hardware service. Granted, there's no software support from Dell because the $2200 system doesn't have an OS, but for less than $350 you can get a Linux OS installed with three-year software support.
I think the best way to get this overturned is to have people who aren't atheists to bring suit over every possible "blasphemy", because they realize that this law infringes on everyone's freedom of speech and religion. This law basically makes it criminal to have two religions that have opposing beliefs.
For example, any religion that believes that Jesus Christ was the son of God and speaks about it will be "blasphemous" to any religion that does not believe the same thing.
Or, if your religion doesn't believe Mohammed was a prophet of God, it can't say that any more. Likewise, one that does believe it can't say it.
It also would appear to outlaw any printing of the Bible, Koran, or any other religious publication.
The question is, how "grossly abusive" does the "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion" have to be? Are restaurants that serve pork/beef/whatever guilty? How about stores that are open on Saturday/Sunday/etc.? What about people who work on Saturday/Sunday/etc.?
My provider runs spamassassin, and given their track record in updating their other software, I rather doubt that they'll update spamassassin anytime soon. Is there any way around this that doesn't involve root access?
If you have shell access, it should be trivial, although you do have to edit a file.
Not even close, at least not for the Mac Pro (which I considered for a while until the price realization came).
The 8-core Mac Pro base sells for $3299. I tried to duplicate the hardware, but unfortunately you can't buy some of it at most stores any more as it's older (i.e., nobody sells it anymore because it's junk compared to current hardware).
$420 motherboard that is considerably better than that on the Mac Pro, as it includes SAS 2.0 RAID and IPMI (similar to HP's ILO). There are many other similar motherboards in the same price range with slightly different feature sets (SLI support, etc.), so you can pick and choose to get exactly what you might need.
$770 for 2x Xeon 5520, the same CPU as on the base Mac Pro
$30 24x DVD writer, faster and more fully featured than the Apple "SuperDrive"
$70 GT 220 video card, which is better than the GT 120 included with the Mac Pro (the GT 120 is basically not available for sale any more because it's about 3 generations behind current tech)
$300 for case and power supply (a generous allowance, for sure)
So, for less than $2100, you can far exceed the specs on the $3300 Mac Pro, and these are nowhere near the lowest prices on this hardware...it's just that Newegg carries everything and their search is very good.
It might be obvious to add into a messaging device, but the USPTO would need to find a couple of prior art references that contain all the features and then show a reason to combine them. The PTO doesn't get to just say, "it would be obvious to do that, kneener kneener kneeeener"
Actually, the Patent Office can do that, but they don't. This is what leads to incredibly broad patents.
Originally, a patent was designed to cover a specific method for achieving a result. Today, we have IBM essentially patenting "using a database to automatically look up words in messages received on a computer". Don't think so? The text speaks for itself:
receiving, on a recipient messaging device, a text communication sent from a sender messaging device
My e-mail client is a "recipient messaging device", and your e-mail client is a "sender messaging device". The text of the patent specifically mentions e-mail. So, pretty much any system that defines "shorthand terms" in an e-mail, text message, HTML page, or any other form of electronic communcation would likely infringe on this patent.
For example, Google or wiktionary.org probably infringe, as you can enter a "text message" like "IMHO" into their search box and have the same result as the IBM patent. And, since neither Google nor anyone else was doing this before 2006 (when the patent was filed), <sarcasm>IBM obviously thought of it first</sarcasm>.
I think IBM should use their tool to look up "BS".
Oh how the times have changed... now we run entire VMs just to run single applications...
And yet, there is still similar sharing going on.
Almost every VM hypervisor (and definitely every good one) uses a shared code page system so that there aren't duplicate copies in RAM. Recently, I was running 4 Fedora VMs set to 512MB of RAM each, and the total memory the host used was about 600MB.
You do realise that Linux boxes regularly, fairly easily clock hundreds of days, right?
As do XP boxes.
My everyday desktop XP system was just rebooted to apply patches, but I had missed a few patch cycles, so it had been running for 98 days without a reboot.
The only time I reboot XP is to apply patches. The only difference between XP and my Fedora machines is that most XP patches require a reboot, while only kernel updates cause me to reboot the Fedora machines. As others have noted, this means that both types of systems get rebooted at about the same rate.
Although I don't have any experience with Vista or Windows 7, at this point the myth that XP is unstable really does need to be put to rest. From what I have seen, faulty hardware is generally the cause for unexpected reboots, and Linux is just as affected by that as Windows.
You didn't tell if he actually is interested in programming at all. Because if he isn't, he will never be. I tried to show programming for my little brother too, but he just couldn't be interested. It's something you need to be interested at, and if you are, you've probably picked it up yourself at that age. But maybe it's worth giving it a try at least, but don't feel bad if he doesn't get interested in it.
I started programming with Quick Basic. I don't remember exactly how I got there
For most of us older people, it was much easier to "get interested" in programming, since many games/utilities/whatever came in the form of source code in a magazine that you had to type into the machine.
After that, it was a small step to change the existing code (to add features, fix a bug, or whatever), and then on to creating your own programs from scratch. Today, when programs generally only arrive in executable format, it's tougher to make the transition.
So, maybe the best place to start is with a game that can be modded easily, but isn't just a point-and-click to make the change.
And, in more of a direct terrorist act (particularly against a US goverment building), Tom Clancy used it in Debt of Honor.
I've always been under the assumption that terrorists are quite stupid overall, as the blueprints for chaos in bestsellers (e.g., The Enemy Within by Larry Bond) have generally been ignored by them, despite being well thought out and likely to work (at least the first time).
It is however very nice that we now can use the space that was take up by the standard size pc for additional storage space in the information points on the sales floor where we deploy them. They are also much easier to move around when we re-decorate since they are fixed to the back of the monitor.
Dell has "standard" PCs with that exact same form factor, as well as ones that are more like an iMac (i.e., all you see is a keyboard and display, but it's an entire computer).
This link should get you there. If not, go to the Dell business site, and under desktop PCs, click "All-In-Ones".
It's too bad that no VM tool seems to support OS X as a guest. I'm sure it must be possible.
I have successfully installed OS X on a VMware Workstation 7 VM, but I can't boot from the virtual hard drive...I have to boot from the CD, then tell it to use the HD as root.
I suspect this is from my lack of experience in building a Hackintosh, and the bootloader/kernel on the hard disk is not correct for non-Mac hardware.
In my testing, I have also found that nothing could get the OS X installer to boot on a Core i7 (either through a VM or raw hardware).
This has been a feature of every VMware desktop release I've used, since before VirtualBox was around
It's not as obvious how to do it on VMware Workstation, though.
You need to change one of the "virtual networks" to bridge to a specific adapter. In addition, on a Windows host you should disable all protocols but the "VMware Bridge protocol" from binding to that adapter. Then, you set the VM to use that virtual network.
I have my vCenter server running this way, because version 2.5 could run on a domain controller, and version 4 cannot. An install of workstation later, and vCenter is running with its own dedicated NIC.
I havent tried it since 3. I will be looking at it when I build a new server here in a couple weeks. Thanks
ESX (either the "i" variant or not) version 3 was fairly pickly about hardware. Much hardware that was directly supported by the VM kernel still would not be recognized without some tweaks.
With version 4, the philosophy seems to have changed so that although they still have a semi-limited set of drivers, almost all hardware supported by those drivers is automatically recognized. By also adding support for plain SATA drives on SATA controllers, the base of possible hardware has increased a lot.
The difference now is that if you want support, you need to have hardware on the HCL (e.g., not just an SAS card with an LSI chip, but instead a Dell-branded version of that card), but you can run on anything the drivers work with. This means I don't have to edit the initrd on the install media so that my LSI SATA 300-8X is recognized.
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The biggest drawbacks of the dinosaur AVI container format include: it doesn't support chapters (ah, the hacks in Encarta to work around that); it doesn't support included subtitle streams; it doesn't support alternative video tracks; it doesn't support alternative audio tracks.
I have no problem using multiple audio tracks in my AVI files.
I rip my DVDs by converting the video to DivX and keep the original audio (AC3 or DTS). If there are multiple audio tracks (like commentary), they all get added to the AVI file, and although mplayer can't seem to switch audio tracks without a stop and restart, my networked DVD player and PMP don't seem to have any problems.
For non-HD sources, the only problem I have with AVI containing DivX+AC3/DTS is the 2GB file size limit. I have a few DTS DVDs with 1.5Mbps DTS, and those absolutely have to be split into multiple files to keep the video bitrate around 2Mbps.
Anyway, Consolas rules my world.
I tend to use 9-point Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
Consolas at that size has both vertical and horizontal spacing that just doesn't look right to me. At larger sizes (11-point or more), the smaller x-height of Consolas gives it a better look. The "x-height war" that Microsoft started where all of their standard fonts have a large x-height for more readability but far less style is reversed a bit in Consolas.
Both Consolas and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono are great programming fonts because the easily confused characters are all obviously different. I like the comma in Consolas better, though, because it's even more obviously not a period.
I don't think that asking "how english [sic] works" of someone who does not understand correct capitalization and punctuation is a productive use of time.
It's not as if you can't use upper case letters (since you sometimes do)...it's just that you don't know when to use them.
You can get a decent machine (~2GHz, dual-core, 4GB memory) for less than $1000, today. I'd be surprised if that couldn't handle at least 3-4 gigabits, total throughput.
Agreed. I tested a 2GHz single core and reached over 1000Mbps when using pfSense, and that's without optimization.
Unfortunately, with the traffic shaper enabled, pfSense gets only about half the throughput on the same hardware.
Audible.com has been running since 1997, and I think the DRM is relatively unchanged since 2000.
Hanging my post randomly: I think we now need a "Twitter feed blocker" extension. It's all text, so I can't block it with AdBlock Plus.
NoScript seems to work, although I guess if you have to allow the site to use scripts, it might not. It also might not if you allow Twitter (which I don't, since I don't use it).
If the site is designed modularly, and the "Twitter feed" script is a separate file, AdBlock Plus can block just that file.
If so, why is Sun struggling bad enough to be bought out by Oracle?
Because their hardware business is tanking.
Seriously, although Sparc does have CoolThreads, Intel wins by a long way on price/performance, and you can run Solaris on either platform. So, even if you pay Sun for support, they get a lot less money per Solaris install than they did five years ago.
So who was the first to fly from mainland America to mainland Europe? Lindbergh took off from the island of Manhattan... :)
Although still on an island, Roosevelt Field was on Long Island, not Manhattan.
In order to make this work, wouldn't you have to disallow the HTTP proxy from accepting connections to somewhere like http://192.0.2.1/ or else have a massive "approved IPs" database?
Also, I'm on the server end, and I can tell you that there are very few "HTTP proxy aware" applications...at least not ones that work with every proxy server out there. And I'm not talking about some shareware program with 20 users...IE, Firefox, Java, etc., all crap out when using a proxy with far too much regularity, at least when SSL or any destination port other than 80 or 443 is involved.
Now sure, a number of those devices shouldn't have internet access, and I can run NAT like a normal person with a consumer router, but I would love to not have to.
You'd still have to configure an IPv6 firewall in pretty much exactly the same way as you would your NAT device (if you want to let connections through to these devices).
For well-known, inbound-only ports (HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc.), IPv6 offers essentially nothing over NAT as long as you have enough public IPs for each duplicated port (i.e., if you want eight different physical servers to be contacted on port 80, you need 8 public IPs). Since every IPv6 address is public, this isn't an issue.
IPv6 will help for things like P2P that can dynamically allocate a server port, but these sorts of protocols need some sort of "control server" that is listening on a well-known port (like torrent trackers). But, you can usually just configure the software for a fixed port (not "well-known") and then add a rule to the NAT device. UPnP can help with this in most current cases where you just can't pre-allocate the port number.
I do have some older software that stupidly sent the local IP address as part of its connection setup, and there was no way to configure it to not automatically discover the IP, so it sent the private address. IPv6 would also solve this, but most modern software understands that both ends may be behind a NAT device.
One real problem with NAT is that for very large private networks, the NAT device may run out of ports for outbound connections (depending on the implementation). Although it's possible to use the same outgoing port for connections to two different IP addresses, this does have some security issues.
What difference, exactly, is it if the proxy resolves the DNS instead of having a local caching DNS server inside the company?
In either case, the IP address has to be sent back to the client so that a connection can be opened, and unless you are willing to re-write the TCP/IP stack of the OS, whatever is doing the resolving will have to pass back a standard DNS reply to the client.
Then, the client can use the technique outlined here to tunnel SSH through the DNS requests.
False. It makes it illegal to make public statements about either that may offend the other.
Who defines just what is a "public statement", and whether it "may offend"?
Obviously the courts, in the end, but that means that anything that "may offend" will likely end up in court at some point.
So, are women who show any skin in public a "public statement" against the belief of certain religions? I don't think so, but you can bet somebody will claim it.
What about public religious displays like nativity scenes, or even crosses? They don't offend me, but I'm sure they offend somebody.
How about a Muslim who stops in a public park to pray because it is the time to do so? It doesn't bother me, but I bet there will be a lot of "offended" people.
Any abridgement of freedom of speech and religion is a slippery slope. And, there are some groups (like the Scientologists) who will use this law to silence any statement against their "religion".
What's that you say? You can't purchase OSX with guaranteed support for this compilation of random parts you described? Then STFU, it's not the same.
True, it's not the same because I don't have Mac Pro in front of me and thus can't exactly duplicate it. If I did have one, though, I guarantee you I could purchase the exact same hardware (except for the case), and do it for no more than $2000.
You can buy a Dell server with at least the same specs (CPU, RAM, etc.) for less than $2200, and with that you get a 3-year, 5x10 on-site warranty, while the 3-year AppleCare plan that requires you to lug your machine into the store costs an additional $250.
So, you really don't wan't to compare the cost of Apple's support to any other large company, because it looks even worse then. Without AppleCare, you get a one-year lug it in warranty on hardware, and 90 days of software support, all for $1100 more than Dell can supply three years of on-site hardware service. Granted, there's no software support from Dell because the $2200 system doesn't have an OS, but for less than $350 you can get a Linux OS installed with three-year software support.
I think the best way to get this overturned is to have people who aren't atheists to bring suit over every possible "blasphemy", because they realize that this law infringes on everyone's freedom of speech and religion. This law basically makes it criminal to have two religions that have opposing beliefs.
For example, any religion that believes that Jesus Christ was the son of God and speaks about it will be "blasphemous" to any religion that does not believe the same thing.
Or, if your religion doesn't believe Mohammed was a prophet of God, it can't say that any more. Likewise, one that does believe it can't say it.
Or, if your religion doesn't believe that 75 million years ago, Xenu brought billions of his people to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs, you can't say that, either.
It also would appear to outlaw any printing of the Bible, Koran, or any other religious publication.
The question is, how "grossly abusive" does the "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion" have to be? Are restaurants that serve pork/beef/whatever guilty? How about stores that are open on Saturday/Sunday/etc.? What about people who work on Saturday/Sunday/etc.?
My provider runs spamassassin, and given their track record in updating their other software, I rather doubt that they'll update spamassassin anytime soon. Is there any way around this that doesn't involve root access?
If you have shell access, it should be trivial, although you do have to edit a file.
Add the following to ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs:
score FH_DATE_PAST_20XX 0.0
Not even close, at least not for the Mac Pro (which I considered for a while until the price realization came).
The 8-core Mac Pro base sells for $3299. I tried to duplicate the hardware, but unfortunately you can't buy some of it at most stores any more as it's older (i.e., nobody sells it anymore because it's junk compared to current hardware).
So, for less than $2100, you can far exceed the specs on the $3300 Mac Pro, and these are nowhere near the lowest prices on this hardware...it's just that Newegg carries everything and their search is very good.
It might be obvious to add into a messaging device, but the USPTO would need to find a couple of prior art references that contain all the features and then show a reason to combine them. The PTO doesn't get to just say, "it would be obvious to do that, kneener kneener kneeeener"
Actually, the Patent Office can do that, but they don't. This is what leads to incredibly broad patents.
Originally, a patent was designed to cover a specific method for achieving a result. Today, we have IBM essentially patenting "using a database to automatically look up words in messages received on a computer". Don't think so? The text speaks for itself:
My e-mail client is a "recipient messaging device", and your e-mail client is a "sender messaging device". The text of the patent specifically mentions e-mail. So, pretty much any system that defines "shorthand terms" in an e-mail, text message, HTML page, or any other form of electronic communcation would likely infringe on this patent.
For example, Google or wiktionary.org probably infringe, as you can enter a "text message" like "IMHO" into their search box and have the same result as the IBM patent. And, since neither Google nor anyone else was doing this before 2006 (when the patent was filed), <sarcasm>IBM obviously thought of it first</sarcasm>.
I think IBM should use their tool to look up "BS".
Oh how the times have changed... now we run entire VMs just to run single applications...
And yet, there is still similar sharing going on.
Almost every VM hypervisor (and definitely every good one) uses a shared code page system so that there aren't duplicate copies in RAM. Recently, I was running 4 Fedora VMs set to 512MB of RAM each, and the total memory the host used was about 600MB.
You do realise that Linux boxes regularly, fairly easily clock hundreds of days, right?
As do XP boxes.
My everyday desktop XP system was just rebooted to apply patches, but I had missed a few patch cycles, so it had been running for 98 days without a reboot.
The only time I reboot XP is to apply patches. The only difference between XP and my Fedora machines is that most XP patches require a reboot, while only kernel updates cause me to reboot the Fedora machines. As others have noted, this means that both types of systems get rebooted at about the same rate.
Although I don't have any experience with Vista or Windows 7, at this point the myth that XP is unstable really does need to be put to rest. From what I have seen, faulty hardware is generally the cause for unexpected reboots, and Linux is just as affected by that as Windows.
You didn't tell if he actually is interested in programming at all. Because if he isn't, he will never be. I tried to show programming for my little brother too, but he just couldn't be interested. It's something you need to be interested at, and if you are, you've probably picked it up yourself at that age. But maybe it's worth giving it a try at least, but don't feel bad if he doesn't get interested in it.
I started programming with Quick Basic. I don't remember exactly how I got there
For most of us older people, it was much easier to "get interested" in programming, since many games/utilities/whatever came in the form of source code in a magazine that you had to type into the machine.
After that, it was a small step to change the existing code (to add features, fix a bug, or whatever), and then on to creating your own programs from scratch. Today, when programs generally only arrive in executable format, it's tougher to make the transition.
So, maybe the best place to start is with a game that can be modded easily, but isn't just a point-and-click to make the change.
And, in more of a direct terrorist act (particularly against a US goverment building), Tom Clancy used it in Debt of Honor.
I've always been under the assumption that terrorists are quite stupid overall, as the blueprints for chaos in bestsellers (e.g., The Enemy Within by Larry Bond) have generally been ignored by them, despite being well thought out and likely to work (at least the first time).
It is however very nice that we now can use the space that was take up by the standard size pc for additional storage space in the information points on the sales floor where we deploy them. They are also much easier to move around when we re-decorate since they are fixed to the back of the monitor.
Dell has "standard" PCs with that exact same form factor, as well as ones that are more like an iMac (i.e., all you see is a keyboard and display, but it's an entire computer).
This link should get you there. If not, go to the Dell business site, and under desktop PCs, click "All-In-Ones".
It's too bad that no VM tool seems to support OS X as a guest. I'm sure it must be possible.
I have successfully installed OS X on a VMware Workstation 7 VM, but I can't boot from the virtual hard drive...I have to boot from the CD, then tell it to use the HD as root.
I suspect this is from my lack of experience in building a Hackintosh, and the bootloader/kernel on the hard disk is not correct for non-Mac hardware.
In my testing, I have also found that nothing could get the OS X installer to boot on a Core i7 (either through a VM or raw hardware).
This has been a feature of every VMware desktop release I've used, since before VirtualBox was around
It's not as obvious how to do it on VMware Workstation, though.
You need to change one of the "virtual networks" to bridge to a specific adapter. In addition, on a Windows host you should disable all protocols but the "VMware Bridge protocol" from binding to that adapter. Then, you set the VM to use that virtual network.
I have my vCenter server running this way, because version 2.5 could run on a domain controller, and version 4 cannot. An install of workstation later, and vCenter is running with its own dedicated NIC.
I havent tried it since 3. I will be looking at it when I build a new server here in a couple weeks. Thanks
ESX (either the "i" variant or not) version 3 was fairly pickly about hardware. Much hardware that was directly supported by the VM kernel still would not be recognized without some tweaks.
With version 4, the philosophy seems to have changed so that although they still have a semi-limited set of drivers, almost all hardware supported by those drivers is automatically recognized. By also adding support for plain SATA drives on SATA controllers, the base of possible hardware has increased a lot.
The difference now is that if you want support, you need to have hardware on the HCL (e.g., not just an SAS card with an LSI chip, but instead a Dell-branded version of that card), but you can run on anything the drivers work with. This means I don't have to edit the initrd on the install media so that my LSI SATA 300-8X is recognized.