It's whether 128k can be described as high speed broadband. It can't. 512k is normal broadband, 128k is their low cost, low speed broadband option and I welcome the fact that it exists but it certainly is not high speed broadband.
Macdonalds is being put through the wringer in the UK because small cafes are making and selling high quality food (no, not burgers), high quality teas and coffees that you actually want to eat and drink, all with quick and friendly service.
Result? Macdonalds is largely deserted and the cafes have real difficulty seating everyone. I'm sure they are still profitable with the slave wages they pay, but people are definitely choosing the alternatives in preference.
So, change the rules of the game. You can't play by the big guys rules, you just get squashed.
You have a good point, I just binned an old, dead laptop, the screen could have been pulled out and stuck in a picture frame. It'd just have needed a power supply and long vga cable.
See that big button on the bottom right hand corner of the monitor in front of you?
That's "The OFF button". It switches the monitor off and on. Revolutionary, I know, but it's been a standard feature of monitors for ooooh, a little while now.
"If you are running a server and do not want to waste money on buying a monitor that you will only use probably once a week then you will definitely see the value here."
Yeah, $60 for a 15" CRT vs $130 for 12" LCD screen.
Desktop PC with minimum RAM (128Mb these days), minimum spec mboard and CPU (1GHz AMD is about the minimum you can still buy), no floppy, no HD, no CD, keyboard and mouse, built in 10/100 ethernet, video and audio and PXE support in the BIOS: $160.
(Note, this includes a 17" monitor as well)
RH Linux dist: $0 PXES linux dist: $0
No discounts either, these are highstreet prices. So, there you go, a nice 5 user system for $1400. Course, you charge $2500 for it. If you're trade, you should be able to get it for a bit less.
For corporate IT systems. It's just taken said corporations rather a long time to realise that half a billion dollars a year on IT is a little over the top and might just be contributing to the slashing their profit margins. Well, nobody called management the sharpest tacks in the box.
Having half a dozen support people at every site along with file, mail, sms and application servers is hugely expensive. With thin clients, say Xterms. 1 guy can support a thousand desktops.
The problem has always been though, that it's an expensive solution to implement in capital terms. The Xterms themselves were hugely expensive, the big iron Sun and HP and IBM servers on the backend were cripplingly expensive and upgrading and replacing them simply didn't happen, the client access licenses for Windows terminal server are massively expensive, and, you have to do it all twice, for redundancy...
Not with Linux though. With Linux that all goes out of the window. The hardware's cheap, the software's cheap and it's a doddle to implement a doddle to make it scale.
Cost is a very compelling reason indeed. Of course, a lot of people are going to lose their support jobs when it happens.
You can build Intel based Linux Xterms for around $150 and the minimum spec you can buy these days is hugely overconfigured for what's required. The servers can be $500 desktop PCs.
I don't see a need for a new platform. Just make use of the PXE bios features and the PXES linux distribution[1].
It gives you a massively scalable architecture, for peanuts. This is what'll kill windows on the corporate desktop.
Pump a little water vapour into the cylinder with the air, you get a power boost[1]. But who's going to bother? It isn't worth the hassle, like these hydrogen bullshit things. You gonna carry a hydrogen cylinder along when you fill up your petrol tank?
[1] Note, this happens naturally on cold and misty mornings.
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It's whether 128k can be described as high speed broadband. It can't. 512k is normal broadband, 128k is their low cost, low speed broadband option and I welcome the fact that it exists but it certainly is not high speed broadband.
And therefore would fairly quickly not own such a company.
HTH.
So, excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed for you.
Macdonalds is being put through the wringer in the UK because small cafes are making and selling high quality food (no, not burgers), high quality teas and coffees that you actually want to eat and drink, all with quick and friendly service.
Result? Macdonalds is largely deserted and the cafes have real difficulty seating everyone. I'm sure they are still profitable with the slave wages they pay, but people are definitely choosing the alternatives in preference.
So, change the rules of the game. You can't play by the big guys rules, you just get squashed.
IEEE
BCS
EIC
etc etc depending on country and discipline.
If not, you aren't an engineer, you're a programmer/whatever.
It's that simple.
Suresh Ramasubramaniam must be a very comm... Right. As you were.
You have a good point, I just binned an old, dead laptop, the screen could have been pulled out and stuck in a picture frame. It'd just have needed a power supply and long vga cable.
I noticed that the Windows admins tended to wear jumpers and tanktops round the office. The Unix guys all just wear t-shirts.
The air conditioning in the machine rooms is brutal.
See that big button on the bottom right hand corner of the monitor in front of you?
That's "The OFF button". It switches the monitor off and on. Revolutionary, I know, but it's been a standard feature of monitors for ooooh, a little while now.
"If you are running a server and do not want to waste money on buying a monitor that you will only use probably once a week then you will definitely see the value here."
Yeah, $60 for a 15" CRT vs $130 for 12" LCD screen.
That statement certainly makes sense.
Tax on any space used for parking a car, so, no, it doesn't already have a tax on parking spaces...
Would have had a similar effect but without the need to spend £120 million initial investment and put the citizens under continial surveillance...
Other than he's a complete muppet with nuclear weapons...
He actually believes absolutely in the good guys vs the bad guys and that he's one of the good guys.
Using open protocols and software.
Server:
Desktop PC with maxed RAM: $600.
Client:
Desktop PC with minimum RAM (128Mb these days), minimum spec mboard and CPU (1GHz AMD is about the minimum you can still buy), no floppy, no HD, no CD, keyboard and mouse, built in 10/100 ethernet, video and audio and PXE support in the BIOS: $160.
(Note, this includes a 17" monitor as well)
RH Linux dist: $0
PXES linux dist: $0
No discounts either, these are highstreet prices. So, there you go, a nice 5 user system for $1400. Course, you charge $2500 for it. If you're trade, you should be able to get it for a bit less.
For corporate IT systems. It's just taken said corporations rather a long time to realise that half a billion dollars a year on IT is a little over the top and might just be contributing to the slashing their profit margins. Well, nobody called management the sharpest tacks in the box.
Having half a dozen support people at every site along with file, mail, sms and application servers is hugely expensive. With thin clients, say Xterms. 1 guy can support a thousand desktops.
The problem has always been though, that it's an expensive solution to implement in capital terms. The Xterms themselves were hugely expensive, the big iron Sun and HP and IBM servers on the backend were cripplingly expensive and upgrading and replacing them simply didn't happen, the client access licenses for Windows terminal server are massively expensive, and, you have to do it all twice, for redundancy...
Not with Linux though. With Linux that all goes out of the window. The hardware's cheap, the software's cheap and it's a doddle to implement a doddle to make it scale.
Cost is a very compelling reason indeed. Of course, a lot of people are going to lose their support jobs when it happens.
You can build Intel based Linux Xterms for around $150 and the minimum spec you can buy these days is hugely overconfigured for what's required. The servers can be $500 desktop PCs.
I don't see a need for a new platform. Just make use of the PXE bios features and the PXES linux distribution[1].
It gives you a massively scalable architecture, for peanuts. This is what'll kill windows on the corporate desktop.
[1] http://pxes.sourceforge.net/
http://pxes.sourceforge.mot.com/
1 server and N diskless PXE enabled machines. You can do it for about $150 per machine.
No, the tank can be inflatable. That isn't the complicated bit.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. You only get spam these days if you want it.
There are a lot of well documented, cross platform and highly effective techniques for avoiding spam.
I won't go into details, because, well, I can't be bothered any more. It's like talking to a brick wall sometimes.
Efficiency for the tiny devices we're talking about here is about as close to irrelevant as you get.
Efficiency for a 300kW car engine on the other hand...
Pump a little water vapour into the cylinder with the air, you get a power boost[1]. But who's going to bother? It isn't worth the hassle, like these hydrogen bullshit things. You gonna carry a hydrogen cylinder along when you fill up your petrol tank?
[1] Note, this happens naturally on cold and misty mornings.
So that you can vary the density of the helium and thereby the lift generated. Starts getting complicated though.
With an "empty" of equal weight.
Breaks down every 200 hours, unreliable electrics and ugly with it?
Unless you're a Dallas fan of course.