Check out the community for a list of what's hot...
I have found that one of the best resources is GameFAQs
They carry "Top 10 FAQ Pages" and "Top 10 Message Boards" for the site, including individual "Top 10" pages for each platform. Not to mention FAQs that can give you an idea as to the story line (more FAQs generally means a larger fan base)...
The problem with the "Top Selling Games of the Month/Week" is that if everyone has already bought a game (i.e. everything they are releasing is crap), then the top selling game might be mediocre at best.
If you want to know what games ppl are playing, this is the source. There are also reviews from real ppl that actually played the games (not some "reviewer")... If you're interested in a title, check here first.
Don't remember where the AGA version first became available...It's always the cracking groups that release that kind of stuff...
As far as psygnosis, everyone knows they were bought by Sony...went on to do Wipeout and a few Lemmings sequels...Psygnosis Europe was bought by Eidos in 1998... in 2000, Sony dropped the Psygnosis brand and moved all of the former Psygnosis US developers over to 989 Studios.
Sony's purchase of Psygnosis was primarily an attempt to enter the PC market. The purchase of Psygnosis Europe and the switch in 2000 pretty much marked their exit from that market.
As far as making it Open Source, I'm not sure...someone must still have the rights to the Hired Guns franchise (Sony, Eidos or Jaleco)... my guess is that you would probably have to get permission first and then you would have to modify source and add disclaimers.
If Psygnosis is truly "dead" and will only be used as a brand from now on (i.e. Atari) then they shouldn't have any problems.
On a related note, I also thought that Shadow of the Beast and Walker would be 2 great games to do "modern" 3d versions...
As far as DMA Design...they went to Rockstar and created a quaint little series called "Grand Theft Auto":) Interestingly enough...if you haven't seen the Vice City intro for Rockstar North, it is a C= 64 demo style intro.
Kewl...Yes, I certainly enjoyed the origonal Hired Guns for the Amiga...Interestingly enough I thought that if this game were done right, it would be an extremely kewl concept for a realtime multi-player 3D game...As a small footnote, an incomplete and extremely buggy AGA version was actually available through "alternate channels"...
To add to what you mentioned about the "3D" (PC) version... as far as I can tell, the last company that had anything to do with the rights to Hired Guns (3D) was VR-1 (Jaleco)... now largely an X-Box developer (how ironic). In 2000, they released this 2:50 minute movie at E3 and even had a "sneak peak" page on their main site. There were a few stories in magazines and on websites that discussed the unique gameplay...but now, the only mention of it on the company's web site seems to be in an "about us" page...
Just out of curiosity, did you come from the Amiga before your work on Hired Guns (your nick would suggest so) or were you strictly PC???
What about games that underwent major overhauls before they were finished...like the origonal version of Syndicate for the Amiga?
Or even the unreleased adventure games for 8-bit machines...I seem to remember an unreleased "Battle Tech" game... (these tended to be "unfinished" as well)
What about the upgraded Hired Guns (3D) for the Amiga/PC?
Then we've got unfinished/unreleased games for various consoles like the CD32...
Come to think of it...this must be the short list(everything is from the 90's)...where can one find a more complete list of "unfinished adventures"???
Here's a thought...what about putting up a page with a list of E-Mail addresses stating that "By sending E-Mail to this address/addresses you are giving up any and all claims to copyright..."
Make it easy to add your E-Mail address to the database and soon the spammers will either have to remove all of those addresses from their spam lists...more cost to them, and ultimately accomplishes the desired effect (no more spam)...or they will have to give up on the whole copyright thing...
The reason I mention this is that magazines display this kind of notice for their mailing addresses ("send your pictures to us and we'll publish them"), and I'm sure they have alot of experience dealing with such issues.
Then again, I thought that copyright law required you to promemently display a copyright notice in the origonal document... </IANAL>
I think it's frame of reference. Everyone on here has likely seen a fire...most of us have networking/data center backgrounds (to some extent)...the issues are important for some of us...
But I'm actually surprised that you somehow think that sympathizing with one cause somehow means that we are unsympathetic with another...
Exactly...there are certainly truths in this film, but what makes it so funny is that they "cross the line"...There are alot of ppl in the situation they were...but there are reasons why ppl simply won't do that...first thing is most ppl don't want to go to federal "pound me in the A$$" prison!!! Then again, there's also something called morals...
But then again, when your top programmers are all conspiring to befraud the company, there's not much you can do in IT...the only way to deal with that kind of situation is to clean up the mess...
In reality, HR skrewed up by letting anyone outside of executive staff know before hand (Peter shouldn't have been told till it happened)...But then again, Milton burns down the building...now how could IT prevent that?
I was surprised to read that the pilot of this aircraft actually intends to fly it again. Regardless of whither it will happen or not, I think it's sad that we only care to investigate fatal crashes...
I would think that NASA/FAA/BRS would outright buy this aircraft from its previous owner...a thorough investigation is certainly called for...what did the pilot do right? What did the pilot do wrong? How could we have made this crash more "survivable"? At the very least, this plane belongs in an aviation museum...
And internal LAN is only useful if employees have a certain amount of freedom to do what they need...sure, most things should be password protected, remote access should have multiple "barriers to entry"...SecureID, Login, Pass, etc...
But...your argument could hold true for any amount of security. Certainly you must understand that at some time, you must trust your employees...
As for most exploits, they are simply too difficult to implement for your average user to "pull off"...for the rest of your users, they're probably too busy to bother...
Even then, there's going to be a small group of "troublemakers" that could cause problems, but they are probably going to be fired shortly anyhow...
So, in short...the only "secure" system is an unplugged system.
I have key data that I want to have backed up..."My Documents" on a W2k machine...various data files for "key apps" (buddy lists, messages, bookmarks, Palm Backup, etc)...I have automated this process by having my Linux box tar and (get this...) RAR the files from the network. I have found that the Linux version of RAR seems to compress these files much better than BZip/GZip...
I wrote a small script that compresses all of these files (~20M/day...compressed) every day (with the name of the day in the filename) and once a month (first of the month) it copies the newest file to a filename with the date in it...when my "LanBackup" directory has ~650M of data in it...it sends an instant message to me (ICQ) notifying me that it is time to do a complete backup.
For more frequent backups I use a CD-RW that I keep in my car (I don't have a garage).
I'm sure that this process could be changed to weekly if need be...but at any given time, I have 7 days of backups and another set of monthly "snapshot" backups.
When you think about it, there's alot of data that you don't NEED to save...I'm going to guess that 90% of your data is stuff that can be easily replaced (Binaries for games/apps, USENET/P2P downloads, etc)
I also backup specific directories on my Linux & BSD boxen.../home.../etc.../root Directories (excluding RPM files and anything in "archive" directories).
And as for daily off-site backups, it would be easy to add an FTP to this process...the script I wrote takes a simple config file with a list of directories to backup, which makes it easy to add new directories.
So, they took the inverse of the set of good TNG actors. Wonderful.
Well...kinda, I won't tell you why Data isn't gonna be in it...because that would give away a whole sub-plot of the film...
BTW, I'm sure that everyone knows that Spiner is really getting too old to play Data (we're talking like 15 years or so (1987) since the first episode of TNG)...and for those that follow even closer, they will know what Spiner's contract for Nemesis said...
Firewall ports 137-139(NetBIOS...according to ISS port 139 is the "most dangerous port on the internet")...
This should keep any machine from accessing internal Samba shares from an external connection and makes these kinds of vulnerabilities irrelevant. Unless you don't trust ppl on your own LAN...then you have other problems...
I can't think of any real reason to leave a NetBIOS port open to "the outside world"...so for those of us that actually firewall these ports, this is already taken care of...
For those that don't already know... this movie is rumored to be the starting point for a new series ("Fall of the Federation") to star Riker, Troi, etc (no Picard or Data)... Read about it here...which would explain the comment Picard makes in one of trailers...
Yes, I know about seek time. The RAID option only solves the transfer rate issue, and if you're doing all of this without a JFS, you diserve to have your system fail.
I'm not suggesting that this is all you do, only that it's a fairly good option if you want more speed from available IDE technologies...
It IS expense...so often we forget, but only recently were harddrive manufacturers having problems with their 7200RPM and in some cases even 5400RPM drives. The reason is heat. If you check around, you'll find that the largest 15000RPM drive is made by Seagate (it's ~80GB and it's ~$1000)...why???
When you raise the number of bits per inch of storage surface you create more stress and heat. When you raise the RPMs you create more heat (alot @15000RPM). The overall effect is that you can't use the cheap parts that are used in most IDE drives...every piece of the drive must be manufactured to the highest specifications. Motors have to be of the highest quality. Hydrodynamic bearings must be used instead of metal ball-bearings...this all increases the cost (as it pushes the technology).
The reason why these faster drives are not sold as IDE is simple. Anyone who is willing to pay $1000 for a ~80GB harddrive is also willing to pay $75 for a decent controller card (if it's not already built into their workstation).
How many ppl are going to be willing to pay $1000 for an 80GB IDE drive when they can buy a 300GB drive for 1/3 the cost? The end result is that most consumers simply don't care about the speed...the majority of IDE drives go into OEM systems and the consumer probably won't know if they put a 4500RPM drive in the system.
So, why not get the best of both worlds. Buy a 20GB 15000RPM SCSI and put your system files and most widely used apps on that (~$130 for a 18G Seagate). And then buy a larger IDE drive for archives.
When you think about it, you shouldn't need more than 20GB for your system, apps, and maybe a few games.
As far as the slower IDE drive, just spend your money on more RAM for the system and increase the cache. And don't rely on the CPU intensive built-in IDE controller on most Intel/AMD motherboards...buy a decent controller card instead.
And if you really want to get ~15000RPM with IDE technology, just get an IDE RAID controller and use striping...using this method you can actually get to much higher theoretical speeds than a single 15000RPM drive. with 4 7200RPM drives you could get up to a theoretical speed of 28800RPM!!!
Not really...from what I read, the choice was between a Fuel and a Lintel box...the origonal article didn't mention anything about a Mac...
And here's an interesting idea...the companies like Dreamworks and Pixar have their own setups for their Linux boxen...their vendors have all the specs for their systems...why couldn't he contact say Dreamworks and work with them to get a Linux box built to Dreamworks' specs...not only would that be kewl, but I somehow think that some studio is bound to be open to the idea...think about it...at the very least they have a bunch of students that think they're really kewl...at best, they get some good PR and are able to hire students that already have experience on one of their systems...so maybe they don't have the custom internal software, but they would have a system with the exact same specs, distro, etc as a major studio...
How so? Once the systems are set up, there should be little to no administration required for the render farm...but the point remains, even without the extra boxen, the single Dual 2Ghz system would likely beat the SGI in performance...
And the one person thing lends itself more to using a Lintel box...what happens if his monitor dies...well, he'd have to order one (couldn't go to the corner shop and pick one up)...
And how easily could he find Irix support...certainly not as easily as Linux support...
What happens when this guy's hardware decides to fail? He has to order new parts from SGI...
Now, I'm not arguing completely against servers, but in this case, it just makes sense...
The truth is, given the cost of the SGI and the cost of a high-end Lintel box, I'm sorry to say, the SGI just lost...
And since we're talking about a university, I'd guess that they don't have any SGIs on campus...who knows...they might not even have any Suns/HPs...but it's at least safe to bet that they are primarily a Windoze house...and they most likely have deals with vendors for hardware...
All told, it just seems to me that in this instance, it'ld be better to go with a good Intel/AMD box. The other thing is...my guess is (this being a university) that they probably want to give their students experience on the machines they will most likely be using in "the real whurled" (this would be for students, right?)...and if you were to budget properly, you could even buy multiple systems for the same cost as one SGI...
Oh, but you are assuming that this guy is only able to afford 1 Linux box...
For the price of 1 SGI box you could probably have at least 5 or 6 dual 2Ghz processor Intel/AMD boxes on a cluster...And I can guarantee you that small render farm is gonna beat out the SGI...
As far as graphics performance...I'm sure the Quadro 900 XGL would be enough power (if it's not beating the V12 in performance) for whatever is needed...the price is a little steep though (~$1000 for a PNY card)...
As far as raw CPU power goes...a dual 2GHz Lintel box just HAS to be beating a 600MHz MIPS...no matter how much better the MIPS processors are...
As far as that goes...I think all you have to read is this article...where Vice President of R&D for Pixar said...."This is the platform that will replace SGI in the CG industry. There's been a lot of progress made since last year. Nobody is wondering 'if' anymore."
Lets see...they aren't tied to any hardware manufacturer...they can use SGI/Sun/IBM/HP systems...they can even use commodity (Intel/AMD) hardware. They can upgrade hardware much more easily...for instance whenever the GeForce 5 comes out, they don't have to take anyone's system from them...it should be nothing more than a hardware switch. And if the unthinkable were to happen and say SGI/nVidia goes under, they don't have to redesign all of their custom software...If they need more power, they can easily upgrade systems without artists having to learn a new interface (artists aren't always the most tech savvy)...
Other advantages...laptops...not for artists, but for executives...how nice would it be to show someone a model of the main character for their new film with the same software your artists are using...
If they move to Linux for all of their *NIX apps, they can save costs on support staff...why keep ppl around that specialize in different *NIX flavors when you can have 1 team that focuses on 1 OS for all of your needs (Web Server, Workstations, Render Farm, etc)...
What if an artist wants to work from home...Linux would make it possible...furnishing an SGI workstation for anyone that wants to work from home would be expensive at best...
I'm sure there are a lot more advantages that I could list, but this should give you some ideas...
I agree, but as more studios start using Linux on commodity (Intel/AMD) hardware, component manufactures will need to put more effort into Linux device drivers...
I think you'll find that nVidia and ATI both will begin to have better Linux drivers as a result...
And of course, I don't how much more high end you can get than CGI work for a major animated film...
I hear from a source on "the inside" (don't ask me how) that they DO have problems with the setup, but that there is alot more support available, especially from major Linux vendors...and they still have higher production under Linux...
It doesn't look like you're running mod_gzip on that site...any reason why not? If you did, it has been known to decrease traffic load by 4x-8x in some cases...
I'm not sure if the Cobalt distro of Apache has mod_gzip by default, but I'm gonna guess not...if so, try this before you spend the extra change on a higher service tier.
Anything installed from the factory is bound to be the cheapest possible component. AudioVox makes alot of these factory units (the car companies don't actually make their own car alarms)...But it depends on what kind of alarm is being installed...if it's sold for under $40k, most likely it doesn't have code hopping...so do what I did and buy a vehicle without an alarm and simply have a good one installed by a local shop that warantees their service (no crap from Wal-Mart or Best Buy).
It's true that modern security system installation is nothing but a connection kit...some of em don't even have to drill holes...but they can still skrew it up if they don't know what they're doing...
In most cases you're talking about $99 for a factory installed alarm. And a good unit from Viper (500ESP+) that will have the code hopping feature is gonna cost you at least $300. The other advantages of a GOOD alarm system is that you can install modules like power window/sunroof and remote start (for automatics).
Anyhow, it's not really smart to rely on those factory alarms for security.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out the community for a list of what's hot...
I have found that one of the best resources is GameFAQs
They carry "Top 10 FAQ Pages" and "Top 10 Message Boards" for the site, including individual "Top 10" pages for each platform. Not to mention FAQs that can give you an idea as to the story line (more FAQs generally means a larger fan base)...
The problem with the "Top Selling Games of the Month/Week" is that if everyone has already bought a game (i.e. everything they are releasing is crap), then the top selling game might be mediocre at best.
If you want to know what games ppl are playing, this is the source. There are also reviews from real ppl that actually played the games (not some "reviewer")... If you're interested in a title, check here first.
Don't remember where the AGA version first became available...It's always the cracking groups that release that kind of stuff...
... in 2000, Sony dropped the Psygnosis brand and moved all of the former Psygnosis US developers over to 989 Studios.
:) Interestingly enough...if you haven't seen the Vice City intro for Rockstar North, it is a C= 64 demo style intro.
As far as psygnosis, everyone knows they were bought by Sony...went on to do Wipeout and a few Lemmings sequels...Psygnosis Europe was bought by Eidos in 1998
Sony's purchase of Psygnosis was primarily an attempt to enter the PC market. The purchase of Psygnosis Europe and the switch in 2000 pretty much marked their exit from that market.
As far as making it Open Source, I'm not sure...someone must still have the rights to the Hired Guns franchise (Sony, Eidos or Jaleco)... my guess is that you would probably have to get permission first and then you would have to modify source and add disclaimers.
If Psygnosis is truly "dead" and will only be used as a brand from now on (i.e. Atari) then they shouldn't have any problems.
On a related note, I also thought that Shadow of the Beast and Walker would be 2 great games to do "modern" 3d versions...
As far as DMA Design...they went to Rockstar and created a quaint little series called "Grand Theft Auto"
Kewl...Yes, I certainly enjoyed the origonal Hired Guns for the Amiga...Interestingly enough I thought that if this game were done right, it would be an extremely kewl concept for a realtime multi-player 3D game...As a small footnote, an incomplete and extremely buggy AGA version was actually available through "alternate channels"...
... as far as I can tell, the last company that had anything to do with the rights to Hired Guns (3D) was VR-1 (Jaleco) ... now largely an X-Box developer (how ironic). In 2000, they released this 2:50 minute movie at E3 and even had a "sneak peak" page on their main site. There were a few stories in magazines and on websites that discussed the unique gameplay...but now, the only mention of it on the company's web site seems to be in an "about us" page...
To add to what you mentioned about the "3D" (PC) version
Just out of curiosity, did you come from the Amiga before your work on Hired Guns (your nick would suggest so) or were you strictly PC???
What about games that underwent major overhauls before they were finished...like the origonal version of Syndicate for the Amiga?
Or even the unreleased adventure games for 8-bit machines...I seem to remember an unreleased "Battle Tech" game... (these tended to be "unfinished" as well)
What about the upgraded Hired Guns (3D) for the Amiga/PC?
Then we've got unfinished/unreleased games for various consoles like the CD32...
Come to think of it...this must be the short list(everything is from the 90's)...where can one find a more complete list of "unfinished adventures"???
Here's a thought...what about putting up a page with a list of E-Mail addresses stating that "By sending E-Mail to this address/addresses you are giving up any and all claims to copyright..."
Make it easy to add your E-Mail address to the database and soon the spammers will either have to remove all of those addresses from their spam lists...more cost to them, and ultimately accomplishes the desired effect (no more spam)...or they will have to give up on the whole copyright thing...
The reason I mention this is that magazines display this kind of notice for their mailing addresses ("send your pictures to us and we'll publish them"), and I'm sure they have alot of experience dealing with such issues.
Then again, I thought that copyright law required you to promemently display a copyright notice in the origonal document...
</IANAL>
Yes...here is a pretty good start for a list of mostly Linux clusters...
/. story is here.
:)
:)
You might have been thinking of #8...although #5 beats it...and it was done by Linux NetworX...The related
However, check out #80
Self-made
Pentium 4 Xeon Cluster
2.2/2.4/2.8 GHz - Giganet -
MSWindows/ 360
There doesn't seem to be any other Windoze boxen on the list...wonder what is the story of this cluster...I wonder if M$ bought themselves a cluster
I think it's frame of reference. Everyone on here has likely seen a fire...most of us have networking/data center backgrounds (to some extent)...the issues are important for some of us...
But I'm actually surprised that you somehow think that sympathizing with one cause somehow means that we are unsympathetic with another...
Exactly...there are certainly truths in this film, but what makes it so funny is that they "cross the line"...There are alot of ppl in the situation they were...but there are reasons why ppl simply won't do that...first thing is most ppl don't want to go to federal "pound me in the A$$" prison!!! Then again, there's also something called morals...
But then again, when your top programmers are all conspiring to befraud the company, there's not much you can do in IT...the only way to deal with that kind of situation is to clean up the mess...
In reality, HR skrewed up by letting anyone outside of executive staff know before hand (Peter shouldn't have been told till it happened)...But then again, Milton burns down the building...now how could IT prevent that?
I was surprised to read that the pilot of this aircraft actually intends to fly it again. Regardless of whither it will happen or not, I think it's sad that we only care to investigate fatal crashes...
I would think that NASA/FAA/BRS would outright buy this aircraft from its previous owner...a thorough investigation is certainly called for...what did the pilot do right? What did the pilot do wrong? How could we have made this crash more "survivable"? At the very least, this plane belongs in an aviation museum...
Then you have HR problems...
And internal LAN is only useful if employees have a certain amount of freedom to do what they need...sure, most things should be password protected, remote access should have multiple "barriers to entry"...SecureID, Login, Pass, etc...
But...your argument could hold true for any amount of security. Certainly you must understand that at some time, you must trust your employees...
As for most exploits, they are simply too difficult to implement for your average user to "pull off"...for the rest of your users, they're probably too busy to bother...
Even then, there's going to be a small group of "troublemakers" that could cause problems, but they are probably going to be fired shortly anyhow...
So, in short...the only "secure" system is an unplugged system.
I have key data that I want to have backed up..."My Documents" on a W2k machine...various data files for "key apps" (buddy lists, messages, bookmarks, Palm Backup, etc)...I have automated this process by having my Linux box tar and (get this...) RAR the files from the network. I have found that the Linux version of RAR seems to compress these files much better than BZip/GZip...
I wrote a small script that compresses all of these files (~20M/day...compressed) every day (with the name of the day in the filename) and once a month (first of the month) it copies the newest file to a filename with the date in it...when my "LanBackup" directory has ~650M of data in it...it sends an instant message to me (ICQ) notifying me that it is time to do a complete backup.
For more frequent backups I use a CD-RW that I keep in my car (I don't have a garage).
I'm sure that this process could be changed to weekly if need be...but at any given time, I have 7 days of backups and another set of monthly "snapshot" backups.
When you think about it, there's alot of data that you don't NEED to save...I'm going to guess that 90% of your data is stuff that can be easily replaced (Binaries for games/apps, USENET/P2P downloads, etc)
I also backup specific directories on my Linux & BSD boxen.../home.../etc.../root Directories (excluding RPM files and anything in "archive" directories).
And as for daily off-site backups, it would be easy to add an FTP to this process...the script I wrote takes a simple config file with a list of directories to backup, which makes it easy to add new directories.
So, they took the inverse of the set of good TNG actors. Wonderful.
Well...kinda, I won't tell you why Data isn't gonna be in it...because that would give away a whole sub-plot of the film...
BTW, I'm sure that everyone knows that Spiner is really getting too old to play Data (we're talking like 15 years or so (1987) since the first episode of TNG)...and for those that follow even closer, they will know what Spiner's contract for Nemesis said...
Firewall ports 137-139(NetBIOS...according to ISS port 139 is the "most dangerous port on the internet")...
This should keep any machine from accessing internal Samba shares from an external connection and makes these kinds of vulnerabilities irrelevant. Unless you don't trust ppl on your own LAN...then you have other problems...
I can't think of any real reason to leave a NetBIOS port open to "the outside world"...so for those of us that actually firewall these ports, this is already taken care of...
For those that don't already know... this movie is rumored to be the starting point for a new series ("Fall of the Federation") to star Riker, Troi, etc (no Picard or Data)... Read about it here...which would explain the comment Picard makes in one of trailers...
Yes, I know about seek time. The RAID option only solves the transfer rate issue, and if you're doing all of this without a JFS, you diserve to have your system fail.
I'm not suggesting that this is all you do, only that it's a fairly good option if you want more speed from available IDE technologies...
It IS expense...so often we forget, but only recently were harddrive manufacturers having problems with their 7200RPM and in some cases even 5400RPM drives. The reason is heat. If you check around, you'll find that the largest 15000RPM drive is made by Seagate (it's ~80GB and it's ~$1000)...why???
When you raise the number of bits per inch of storage surface you create more stress and heat. When you raise the RPMs you create more heat (alot @15000RPM). The overall effect is that you can't use the cheap parts that are used in most IDE drives...every piece of the drive must be manufactured to the highest specifications. Motors have to be of the highest quality. Hydrodynamic bearings must be used instead of metal ball-bearings...this all increases the cost (as it pushes the technology).
The reason why these faster drives are not sold as IDE is simple. Anyone who is willing to pay $1000 for a ~80GB harddrive is also willing to pay $75 for a decent controller card (if it's not already built into their workstation).
How many ppl are going to be willing to pay $1000 for an 80GB IDE drive when they can buy a 300GB drive for 1/3 the cost? The end result is that most consumers simply don't care about the speed...the majority of IDE drives go into OEM systems and the consumer probably won't know if they put a 4500RPM drive in the system.
So, why not get the best of both worlds. Buy a 20GB 15000RPM SCSI and put your system files and most widely used apps on that (~$130 for a 18G Seagate). And then buy a larger IDE drive for archives.
When you think about it, you shouldn't need more than 20GB for your system, apps, and maybe a few games.
As far as the slower IDE drive, just spend your money on more RAM for the system and increase the cache. And don't rely on the CPU intensive built-in IDE controller on most Intel/AMD motherboards...buy a decent controller card instead.
And if you really want to get ~15000RPM with IDE technology, just get an IDE RAID controller and use striping...using this method you can actually get to much higher theoretical speeds than a single 15000RPM drive. with 4 7200RPM drives you could get up to a theoretical speed of 28800RPM!!!
The choice is really between a Fuel and a Mac.
Not really...from what I read, the choice was between a Fuel and a Lintel box...the origonal article didn't mention anything about a Mac...
And here's an interesting idea...the companies like Dreamworks and Pixar have their own setups for their Linux boxen...their vendors have all the specs for their systems...why couldn't he contact say Dreamworks and work with them to get a Linux box built to Dreamworks' specs...not only would that be kewl, but I somehow think that some studio is bound to be open to the idea...think about it...at the very least they have a bunch of students that think they're really kewl...at best, they get some good PR and are able to hire students that already have experience on one of their systems...so maybe they don't have the custom internal software, but they would have a system with the exact same specs, distro, etc as a major studio...
How so? Once the systems are set up, there should be little to no administration required for the render farm...but the point remains, even without the extra boxen, the single Dual 2Ghz system would likely beat the SGI in performance...
And the one person thing lends itself more to using a Lintel box...what happens if his monitor dies...well, he'd have to order one (couldn't go to the corner shop and pick one up)...
And how easily could he find Irix support...certainly not as easily as Linux support...
What happens when this guy's hardware decides to fail? He has to order new parts from SGI...
Now, I'm not arguing completely against servers, but in this case, it just makes sense...
The truth is, given the cost of the SGI and the cost of a high-end Lintel box, I'm sorry to say, the SGI just lost...
And since we're talking about a university, I'd guess that they don't have any SGIs on campus...who knows...they might not even have any Suns/HPs...but it's at least safe to bet that they are primarily a Windoze house...and they most likely have deals with vendors for hardware...
All told, it just seems to me that in this instance, it'ld be better to go with a good Intel/AMD box. The other thing is...my guess is (this being a university) that they probably want to give their students experience on the machines they will most likely be using in "the real whurled" (this would be for students, right?)...and if you were to budget properly, you could even buy multiple systems for the same cost as one SGI...
Oh, but you are assuming that this guy is only able to afford 1 Linux box...
For the price of 1 SGI box you could probably have at least 5 or 6 dual 2Ghz processor Intel/AMD boxes on a cluster...And I can guarantee you that small render farm is gonna beat out the SGI...
As far as graphics performance...I'm sure the Quadro 900 XGL would be enough power (if it's not beating the V12 in performance) for whatever is needed...the price is a little steep though (~$1000 for a PNY card)...
As far as raw CPU power goes...a dual 2GHz Lintel box just HAS to be beating a 600MHz MIPS...no matter how much better the MIPS processors are...
As far as that goes...I think all you have to read is this article...where Vice President of R&D for Pixar said...."This is the platform that will replace SGI in the CG industry. There's been a lot of progress made since last year. Nobody is wondering 'if' anymore."
Lets see...they aren't tied to any hardware manufacturer...they can use SGI/Sun/IBM/HP systems...they can even use commodity (Intel/AMD) hardware. They can upgrade hardware much more easily...for instance whenever the GeForce 5 comes out, they don't have to take anyone's system from them...it should be nothing more than a hardware switch. And if the unthinkable were to happen and say SGI/nVidia goes under, they don't have to redesign all of their custom software...If they need more power, they can easily upgrade systems without artists having to learn a new interface (artists aren't always the most tech savvy)...
Other advantages...laptops...not for artists, but for executives...how nice would it be to show someone a model of the main character for their new film with the same software your artists are using...
If they move to Linux for all of their *NIX apps, they can save costs on support staff...why keep ppl around that specialize in different *NIX flavors when you can have 1 team that focuses on 1 OS for all of your needs (Web Server, Workstations, Render Farm, etc)...
What if an artist wants to work from home...Linux would make it possible...furnishing an SGI workstation for anyone that wants to work from home would be expensive at best...
I'm sure there are a lot more advantages that I could list, but this should give you some ideas...
I agree, but as more studios start using Linux on commodity (Intel/AMD) hardware, component manufactures will need to put more effort into Linux device drivers...
I think you'll find that nVidia and ATI both will begin to have better Linux drivers as a result...
And of course, I don't how much more high end you can get than CGI work for a major animated film...
I hear from a source on "the inside" (don't ask me how) that they DO have problems with the setup, but that there is alot more support available, especially from major Linux vendors...and they still have higher production under Linux...
Well, that's what makes the current shift towards Linux workstations so impressive...
Uses Maya on Intel boxes...they are currently one of the many graphics houses in Hollywood that are switching over to Linux...
...and all told, the advantages of using Linux just far outweighs the advantages of using SGI hardware.
They are using high-end nVidia cards
It doesn't look like you're running mod_gzip on that site...any reason why not? If you did, it has been known to decrease traffic load by 4x-8x in some cases...
I'm not sure if the Cobalt distro of Apache has mod_gzip by default, but I'm gonna guess not...if so, try this before you spend the extra change on a higher service tier.
Even Slashdot is using mod_gzip...
Anything installed from the factory is bound to be the cheapest possible component. AudioVox makes alot of these factory units (the car companies don't actually make their own car alarms)...But it depends on what kind of alarm is being installed...if it's sold for under $40k, most likely it doesn't have code hopping...so do what I did and buy a vehicle without an alarm and simply have a good one installed by a local shop that warantees their service (no crap from Wal-Mart or Best Buy).
It's true that modern security system installation is nothing but a connection kit...some of em don't even have to drill holes...but they can still skrew it up if they don't know what they're doing...
In most cases you're talking about $99 for a factory installed alarm. And a good unit from Viper (500ESP+) that will have the code hopping feature is gonna cost you at least $300. The other advantages of a GOOD alarm system is that you can install modules like power window/sunroof and remote start (for automatics).
Anyhow, it's not really smart to rely on those factory alarms for security.