Even in Canada some corporations are trying to make profit off of scaring people. I see this kind of corporate behaviour even more damaging for society than copyright infringement!
Please lease explain again why we need to go through Microsoft to run the software we want on the hardware we bought?
I can understand why so many hardware vendors jumped into Microsoft's ploy. To be able to sell hardware certified for Windows 8, they need to implement Secure Boot and be able to put a little sicker on their product. However, I don't trust all hardware vendors to also implement the means for users to add their own keys or to disable Secure Boot altogether.
Regardless, if Microsoft goal is truly to prevent malware from contaminating the system's boot process, why do they care about the license of the bootloader? For me, this clearly demonstrates that Microsoft isn't just doing this to thwart some malware, but that they have ulterior motives. Making it more difficult for users to run anything other than the software they sell looks like a pretty good thing from their business point of view.
Isn't this going against the whole distro idea? Instead of having tree different versions of the same lib, the distro's package manager can actually figure out the components missing for the package you are trying to install. If it the package doesn't exist for your distro, just make one.
The only case where I can see this as useful is to install packages across different distros, but even then, if we adapt this model, we will have incredible bloat in permanent storage *AND* in memory if you run programs that all depend on different version of the same lib.
And I though this new design was all about being able to compute CRCs faster!
On a more serious note :
- It's cool that they recycle the heat and use outside air for cooling during winter (Our winters are way cool enough for that!)
- When the university (also in Québec) where I did my bachelor build a new HPC datacenter in 2005, some students of the engineering faculty actually drafted a project to recycle the heat produced by the datacenter, but they were turned down with the excuse that their project was "too complex". I hope the University enjoys paying for cooling the datacenter and heating the classrooms when it's -20C outside!
I buy all of my games (Which are all PC games). I use the original media to install them, then I store the disks in a safe place where they will not get dirty or scratched.
I fire up a game and get a message : "Please insert disk one of <Insert game name here> into your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive." People around me can hear my teeth grinding every single time!
Let's see... If I want to play many different games, I have to keep all the disks handy. Every single time I switch from a game to another, I have to switch disk. Furthermore, I have a lot of data stored on DVD, so every time I want to access it I find some game DVD in my drive.
Do you even wonder why I use No-CD/No-DVD patches? I see it like patching a problem or bug with the game.
Storage Review has had a Hard Drive Reliability Database for quite some time now. I've listed all my drives there (Not only the ones that fail). I recommend you check it out :
Don't these guys watch Anime ?
on
Space Burial
·
· Score: 1
All the viewers of PlanetES know how burdensome and dangerous objects floating in space can be.
What do you think will happen if a spacecraft were to collide with a cadaver floating in space? How much time and effort, not to mention millions of dollars, would that waste? The best part of it all is that each collision has the potential to create even more debris.
For those who haven't seen PlanetES yet, here is the URI for the torrents : Anime Empire
I am still stunned that some people fail to make the difference between reality and games.
I happen to enjoy playing GTA3 and violent games in general. Fourtunatly, I have been able to make the crucial difference between games and realty since the age 6 ( Hey! I can't remember exactly when but I'm sure that I understood that Mario wasn't real the first time I played Nintendo;). However, what scares me is that adults ( theoredicaly mature humans ) fail to see the difference or are too lazy to properly supervise their children, and find nothing better than to blame games and tv.
To me, they are the ones making the damage to society since they do not even care or take the time to raise their kids. What kind of society do you build with kids that didn't have adequate parenting?
Open your eyes. Take your responsabilities, but please don't blame it on everything else.
I have written this message as a reply to all the people blaming video games and tv. I think it would be a good idea to forward it to the author of the article.
Is it just me or are companies suing everybody for anything?
If you paid for a valid AIX license to IBM, how can SCO make your licsense invalid. Can they just do that? The bottom line is that, once again, the end users gets screwed.
Com on people! Get serious. I know there is a slowdown in the IT world, but stop trying to make money by suing people for stupid claims!
Obviously, your story has reached many people, including me. I.e.: There were 753 comments when I read the story.
To start off, maybe I should relate my story.
Once upon a time I was this happy, knowledge hungry computer geek. I went to the equivalent of technical college in computer science. About half way throughout I realised that I wasn't happy. The students weren't thought how to think and analyse, they were being brainwashed with a recipe to make a computer program to suit the needs of a client.
I wanted more. I didn't need to have the technical know how chewed-up for me (Mind you, I can chew my own grub!). There was something missing? I finished my degree with the best grades of all the students. I graduated last year. I got a well paying job at an engineering company. I worked as software developer. My biggest project was on M$ Access. After my probation period, they offered me a full time, permanent job with a reasonable salary.
I didn't like what I did, and it wasn't because of Access and the "M$ Lovers" that surrounded me. There was something missing. I decided to go back to college to get the courses I need to get an engineering degree in computer science.
So here I am now, dragging myself out of bed every morning trying to convince myself that I should at lease try not to flunk all my courses.
There is something missing in my life and it's not technical knowledge. Maybe it's spiritual, maybe it's just an after teen crisis;) I don't know what I should be looking for, but as usual it's going to seem so obvious once I found it.
End of story. I don't know if you are feeling the same thing that I am. I'm now pretty sure that, for me, it's something really profound, that kind of thing that completely changes your life. The only advice I can give you is the one that I should put in practice:
Live! Be free and young! Screw consequences and enjoy being what you are.
BTW: It's so much easier to give advice then to receive it.
One last thought : Maybe getting a degree MUST NOT be a goal but a tool to reach YOUR goal.
Well, it seem these days, most of the power user just care to get something like 200fps in Quake III. Why ? Beat's me ! I'm not on a quest to get the ultimate frame rate, I just want my box to be quiet as possibly can be.
To help you understand my take on the subject, here is the background:
My PC has the following components :
A OEM case
A 235W OEM power supply
ASUS P3B-F
Intel Pentium II rated 400Mhz @ 400Mhz
A cheap OEM SECC2 Heat-Sink made of aluminum
A 128MB CAS2 no-name DIMM
Two 32MB CAS3 Samsung DIMM slowing down my memory timing, but preventing the appearance of the all mighty evil SwaP
A ATI All-In-Wonder Rage128 16MB
A Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
A Realtek 8139 Ethernet NIC
My beloved USR 56Kbps ISA Real Modem. Sorry but to me a component that uses CPU power to do it's processing instead of taking the load off is not worthy of being in my computer. Not to mention the M$ Win part...
A Creative 48x CD-ROM drive. It's the loudest damned thing in my computer when it's spinning
A Quantum Fireball AS PLUS 40GB (7200RPM) in a removable tray
A Quantum Fireball CX1 10GB (5400RPM) mounted inside the case
Of course the stupid old 1.44 MB floppy drive only used for booting Tomsbrt in case of emergency
Soon to be:
A Adaptec 2940UW
A Diamond Monster 3D II for Glide games
It turn out that the Quantum Fireball AS makes less noise than the Quantum Fireball CX1. I still have to figure it out...
I use my PC for:
Running Linux and learning as much as time allows me (Jez I had so much time when I was a student... Think of all the time I wasted in High-School running the evil W monster)
Doing some gaming i.e. : Diablo II, Unreal, UT, Undying (Although that thing is going to cost me a new box)
Spending numerous nights filling my brain @ Slashdot, Tomshardware, Anandtech, Arstechnica, StorageReview, Developper.Intel.com, and most importantly, hounding the web for all the case manufacturers and their take at a quiet box.
As I'm writing this post, that is probably going to be the base documentation for my Silent Case Project, you're guessing that my sleepless night of browsing have not yielded the desired result.
I've check out many options such as water cooling, moving the PC to the closet, returning to the forest where a PC is pretty far from your everyday quest for survival. None of them suits me.
The objective of my project is to build a case that meets the following criteria:
A silent as possible
Accessible
Provides sufficient ventilation to maintain all the components running within thermal specs
Be light enough to be easily transportable (Let's not forget the Lan parties;-)
To attain those goals I have to:
Read all I can about noise, sound, aerodynamics, PC specs
Find suitable materials : A case is not just a protection against unwanted fingers and dust ; it must provide EMI shielding, proper grounding, resist to impacts, and fit into my conception of the king of object you want in your bedroom (If you were thinking about plywood and a box of rusted leftover nails, forget it)
Find the tools or the companies or individuals with the means to work the materials I choose to build the casing
For the sound isolation I was thinking about some kind of foam. Mineral lint would be affective but that takes too much space and it's not the kind of thing I want beside my bed. Form the casing itself, metal is almost inevitable if you want EMI shielding and grounding. And as for you who wonder why I have not mentioned water cooling yet, the greatest source of noise is not my CPU cooler and your just moving the problem out of the case (Nice ; you have water heating up but unless your reservoir is like a bathtub or something you will have to transfer the heat for the water to the air).
That about as far as I am. If you have any idea that might help me, please fell free to send me some bits forming ASCII characters at Prozzaks@operamail.com
To finish up, here is a list of thing that might help people wanting to achieve similar goals:
http://www.formfactors.org/ You should be able to find all the documents regarding the ATX form factor and thermal design guides. A must if you want to build a quiet PC.
http://developer.intel.com/ Intel has contributed a great deal to the ATX definition ; here you will find many relevant documents including thermal design guides for all Intel processors.
RAM is definitely the way to go to eliminate swapping. I know this place that sells 256MB PC133 CAS2 for only 90 CDN$. Of course it's no-name but if it's works for the first week it will most likely last until you decide to buy another box.
There is two way to use your RAM : Use it as usual or waste it to make a RAMDISK and mount your swap on it. It's your choice. Although, if I were you I would...
One of my friends is a tow (Tech On Wheels). He went on an assignment in a town called Boucherville (BTW it's a French name). His mission was to upgrade the hard disk of the only file server of the company. He was quite surprised when no employee could tell him where the server was. After a lot of inquiry, the janitor remembered seeing a beige box, a couple of years back, in his storage room. There my friend saw the classic blue cable running into a condemned cupboard. After tearing off the plywood that was nailed on the door he found a computer without mouse, keyboard, or monitor, but it's own UPS. After looking for an AT keyboard and a spare monitor, he was able to admire a Novell 3 server that had been running since 1995. That's makes 6 years without interruption or loss of service. The most incredible part is that in 1998 we had an ice storm here that knocked out the power lines. It took at least a week for the repair crews to restore the power. Dahm good UPS and server.
I was kind of surprised when I read the story on Slashdot because of how much it resemble my friend's story. And I am also quite impressed by Novell servers.
I got a internship at a company that used to have a Compaq file server running Novell. I had never witness a failure in it's service since I was there. Two weeks ago, they changed the reliable NW server for two brad new Compaq files severs running M$ W2K. Despite there redundancy, there has been so many crashes and Blue-Screens that I already lost count.
Three cheers to true Operating systems !
Could we call M$ products NOS ? Non-Operational Systems.
Well I ran into the solid dust volume inside a PC. It was near the place where the phone lines entered the building. Of course that happed to be beside an industrial saw bench. Just keep the server off the floor an put it on a shelf, please don't mind the dust!//EnErGiZeR mAkEs PiNk BuNnIeS
Among my team, I am the only one who has not yet used CVS. The other members of the team showed me the capabilities of CVS, and I snapped at them for they should have forced me to use it earlier. Note : it's our first project together although I knew them before.
Well in the case taht led me to post on/. the interface doesn't even reflect what the program realy does! It consisted of 28 PHP files that accessed data stored in text files. Among those 28 files, not one, NOT ONE function was to be found! Well I had the chance to be able to talk with the user for witch the program had been designed so I was able to get a general idea of what it was suposed to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Even in Canada some corporations are trying to make profit off of scaring people. I see this kind of corporate behaviour even more damaging for society than copyright infringement!
Please lease explain again why we need to go through Microsoft to run the software
we want on the hardware we bought?
I can understand why so many hardware vendors jumped into Microsoft's ploy.
To be able to sell hardware certified for Windows 8, they need to implement
Secure Boot and be able to put a little sicker on their product. However, I
don't trust all hardware vendors to also implement the means for users to add
their own keys or to disable Secure Boot altogether.
Regardless, if Microsoft goal is truly to prevent malware from contaminating
the system's boot process, why do they care about the license of the
bootloader? For me, this clearly demonstrates that Microsoft isn't just doing
this to thwart some malware, but that they have ulterior motives. Making it
more difficult for users to run anything other than the software they sell looks
like a pretty good thing from their business point of view.
Isn't this going against the whole distro idea? Instead of having tree different versions of the same lib, the distro's package manager can actually figure out the components missing for the package you are trying to install. If it the package doesn't exist for your distro, just make one.
The only case where I can see this as useful is to install packages across different distros, but even then, if we adapt this model, we will have incredible bloat in permanent storage *AND* in memory if you run programs that all depend on different version of the same lib.
And I though this new design was all about being able to compute CRCs faster!
On a more serious note :
- It's cool that they recycle the heat and use outside air for cooling during winter (Our winters are way cool enough for that!)
- When the university (also in Québec) where I did my bachelor build a new HPC datacenter in 2005, some students of the engineering faculty actually drafted a project to recycle the heat produced by the datacenter, but they were turned down with the excuse that their project was "too complex". I hope the University enjoys paying for cooling the datacenter and heating the classrooms when it's -20C outside!
I buy all of my games (Which are all PC games). I use the original media to install them, then I store the disks in a safe place where they will not get dirty or scratched.
I fire up a game and get a message : "Please insert disk one of <Insert game name here> into your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive." People around me can hear my teeth grinding every single time!
Let's see... If I want to play many different games, I have to keep all the disks handy. Every single time I switch from a game to another, I have to switch disk. Furthermore, I have a lot of data stored on DVD, so every time I want to access it I find some game DVD in my drive.
Do you even wonder why I use No-CD/No-DVD patches? I see it like patching a problem or bug with the game.
Dance Dance Revolution anyone?
Storage Review has had a Hard Drive Reliability Database for quite some time now. I've listed all my drives there (Not only the ones that fail). I recommend you check it out :
g in
http://www.storagereview.com/map/lm.cgi/survey_lo
All the viewers of PlanetES know how burdensome and dangerous objects floating in space can be.
What do you think will happen if a spacecraft were to collide with a cadaver floating in space? How much time and effort, not to mention millions of dollars, would that waste? The best part of it all is that each collision has the potential to create even more debris.
For those who haven't seen PlanetES yet, here is the URI for the torrents : Anime Empire
I am still stunned that some people fail to make the difference between reality and games.
I happen to enjoy playing GTA3 and violent games in general. Fourtunatly, I have been able to make the crucial difference between games and realty since the age 6 ( Hey! I can't remember exactly when but I'm sure that I understood that Mario wasn't real the first time I played Nintendo ;). However, what scares me is that adults ( theoredicaly mature humans ) fail to see the difference or are too lazy to properly supervise their children, and find nothing better than to blame games and tv.
To me, they are the ones making the damage to society since they do not even care or take the time to raise their kids.
What kind of society do you build with kids that didn't have adequate parenting?
Open your eyes. Take your responsabilities, but please don't blame it on everything else.
I have written this message as a reply to all the people blaming video games and tv. I think it would be a good idea to forward it to the author of the article.
Is it just me or are companies suing everybody for anything?
If you paid for a valid AIX license to IBM, how can SCO make your licsense invalid. Can they just do that? The bottom line is that, once again, the end users gets screwed.
Com on people! Get serious. I know there is a slowdown in the IT world, but stop trying to make money by suing people for stupid claims!
Obviously, your story has reached many people, including me. I.e.: There were 753 comments when I read the story.
;) I don't know what I should be looking for, but as usual it's going to seem so obvious once I found it.
To start off, maybe I should relate my story.
Once upon a time I was this happy, knowledge hungry computer geek. I went to the equivalent of technical college in computer science. About half way throughout I realised that I wasn't happy. The students weren't thought how to think and analyse, they were being brainwashed with a recipe to make a computer program to suit the needs of a client.
I wanted more. I didn't need to have the technical know how chewed-up for me (Mind you, I can chew my own grub!). There was something missing? I finished my degree with the best grades of all the students. I graduated last year. I got a well paying job at an engineering company. I worked as software developer. My biggest project was on M$ Access. After my probation period, they offered me a full time, permanent job with a reasonable salary.
I didn't like what I did, and it wasn't because of Access and the "M$ Lovers" that surrounded me. There was something missing. I decided to go back to college to get the courses I need to get an engineering degree in computer science.
So here I am now, dragging myself out of bed every morning trying to convince myself that I should at lease try not to flunk all my courses.
There is something missing in my life and it's not technical knowledge. Maybe it's spiritual, maybe it's just an after teen crisis
End of story. I don't know if you are feeling the same thing that I am. I'm now pretty sure that, for me, it's something really profound, that kind of thing that completely changes your life. The only advice I can give you is the one that I should put in practice:
Live! Be free and young! Screw consequences and enjoy being what you are.
BTW: It's so much easier to give advice then to receive it.
One last thought : Maybe getting a degree MUST NOT be a goal but a tool to reach YOUR goal.
Well, it seem these days, most of the power user just care to get something like 200fps in Quake III. Why ? Beat's me ! I'm not on a quest to get the ultimate frame rate, I just want my box to be quiet as possibly can be.
To help you understand my take on the subject, here is the background :
My PC has the following components :
Soon to be :
It turn out that the Quantum Fireball AS makes less noise than the Quantum Fireball CX1. I still have to figure it out ...
I use my PC for :
As I'm writing this post, that is probably going to be the base documentation for my Silent Case Project, you're guessing that my sleepless night of browsing have not yielded the desired result.
I've check out many options such as water cooling, moving the PC to the closet, returning to the forest where a PC is pretty far from your everyday quest for survival. None of them suits me.
The objective of my project is to build a case that meets the following criteria :
To attain those goals I have to :
For the sound isolation I was thinking about some kind of foam. Mineral lint would be affective but that takes too much space and it's not the kind of thing I want beside my bed. Form the casing itself, metal is almost inevitable if you want EMI shielding and grounding. And as for you who wonder why I have not mentioned water cooling yet, the greatest source of noise is not my CPU cooler and your just moving the problem out of the case (Nice ; you have water heating up but unless your reservoir is like a bathtub or something you will have to transfer the heat for the water to the air).
That about as far as I am. If you have any idea that might help me, please fell free to send me some bits forming ASCII characters at Prozzaks@operamail.com
To finish up, here is a list of thing that might help people wanting to achieve similar goals :
Hardware\cases PC CASE
Fong Kai
PowerOn
Enlight Corporation
dir.yahoo Enclosures Manufacturers
procase
YY Computer
Psi
IN WIN
Amtrade
American Suntek
Addtronics
A-Top Technology, Inc
Nikao
Palo Alto Products
Antec
Lian-Li
amaquest
Koolance
Quietpc
PC Power & Cooling
Hardware\Heat Sinks ALPHA
Cooler Master
AVC
ekl
GlobalWIN
globefan
RDJD
Foxconn
Spring Spread
Sanyo Denki
TITAN
TaiSol
ChipCoolers
Orb a
ElanVital
Hardware\Info\Form Factor Platform Development Support
SSI
WTX
Hardware\Info\Standards Fibre Channel Industry Association
PCI SIG
RAB
serialata
SPEC
Hardware\Info\Storage RAID.edu
Hardware\Info\Cours CS 252 - Graduate Computer Architecture
Hardware\Info The PC Guide!
Hardware Bible
FullOn3D
developer.intel.com
HwB The Hardware Book
United Overclockers
Ars Technica
Tech-Junkie
HardwarePub
Webopedia
Illustrated Guide to the PC Hardware
SysOpt
2CPU
Ace's Hardware
Technical Support - RaidHelp v1.0 - Free RAID Technology Guide
Computer Architecture
OPENCORES.ORG
TechFest
MidWest Micro Support
Hardware\Resalers GeekTek!
Micro-Bytes
ALCO
ABC Micro
2CoolTek
Plycon Computers
TCWO
ABC Micro - Lprix
Case Outlet
The Chip Merchant, Inc
Cimsys
OrdiGros
ALIENWARE
SHENTECH
FireStorm
Hyper Microsystems
TWEAKBOX
Hardware\Reviews Tom's Hardware Guide
Sharky Extreme
StorageReview
HardOCP
AnandTech
SystemLogic
x-bit labs
Active-Hardware
FiringSquad
SocketA
Overclockers Australia
HEXUS
dansdata
SysReview
Hardware\Manufacturers AMD
ASUS
Belkin
MassMultiples
Promise
StarTech
VIA Technologies, Inc
ABIT Computer Corp
Comcase
Micron Semiconductor
ECS
Hardware Freeboxen
RAM is definitely the way to go to eliminate swapping. I know this place that sells 256MB PC133 CAS2 for only 90 CDN$. Of course it's no-name but if it's works for the first week it will most likely last until you decide to buy another box.
There is two way to use your RAM : Use it as usual or waste it to make a RAMDISK and mount your swap on it. It's your choice. Although, if I were you I would ...
One of my friends is a tow (Tech On Wheels). He went on an assignment in a town called Boucherville (BTW it's a French name). His mission was to upgrade the hard disk of the only file server of the company. He was quite surprised when no employee could tell him where the server was. After a lot of inquiry, the janitor remembered seeing a beige box, a couple of years back, in his storage room. There my friend saw the classic blue cable running into a condemned cupboard. After tearing off the plywood that was nailed on the door he found a computer without mouse, keyboard, or monitor, but it's own UPS. After looking for an AT keyboard and a spare monitor, he was able to admire a Novell 3 server that had been running since 1995. That's makes 6 years without interruption or loss of service. The most incredible part is that in 1998 we had an ice storm here that knocked out the power lines. It took at least a week for the repair crews to restore the power. Dahm good UPS and server.
I was kind of surprised when I read the story on Slashdot because of how much it resemble my friend's story. And I am also quite impressed by Novell servers.
I got a internship at a company that used to have a Compaq file server running Novell. I had never witness a failure in it's service since I was there. Two weeks ago, they changed the reliable NW server for two brad new Compaq files severs running M$ W2K. Despite there redundancy, there has been so many crashes and Blue-Screens that I already lost count.
Three cheers to true Operating systems ! Could we call M$ products NOS ? Non-Operational Systems.
Well I ran into the solid dust volume inside a PC. It was near the place where the phone lines entered the building. Of course that happed to be beside an industrial saw bench. Just keep the server off the floor an put it on a shelf, please don't mind the dust! //EnErGiZeR mAkEs PiNk BuNnIeS
Among my team, I am the only one who has not yet used CVS. The other members of the team showed me the capabilities of CVS, and I snapped at them for they should have forced me to use it earlier. Note : it's our first project together although I knew them before.
Well in the case taht led me to post on /. the interface doesn't even reflect what the program realy does! It consisted of 28 PHP files that accessed data stored in text files. Among those 28 files, not one, NOT ONE function was to be found! Well I had the chance to be able to talk with the user for witch the program had been designed so I was able to get a general idea of what it was suposed to do.