Proprietary software is not more difficult to fix than OSS. It's simply that in the case of open source there are more people working on it. The army is not better, just much bigger....
Mmm, I'm not wondering at all.:-) My home-brew firewall, gateway, etc. is a 12+ year old 486SX in a nice Industrial PC casing. So no, I'm not going to compile a Gentoo distro on it. But it runs fine its RedHat 6.2.
It is the kind of compromise between using distros matching the age of the hardware (which would be Slackware or RH 3.0.3) and distros that are more recent and 'cutting edge', with all the associated problems because they need matching up-to-date hardware.
And to the original poster: if you get running what you need in a weekend, or maybe a week, go for it. But otherwise, I would definitely spend 50 bucks on eBay and get some more recent hardware. Don't punish yourself....
You mean a Micky-Mouse:-) plug. Yep, I've got some of those too. Toshiba is using them as well for their (some?) netbooks.
Friend of mine came over from Europe with her netbook and I still could borrow her the right powercord. This time I didn't let her steal it, because I don't have that many.
Even better: don't buy the travel adapter for your laptop, but after arriving just ask your host if he has a local power cord lying around (and steal that from him for your next trip:-). Alternatively go to the local electronics store (or dollar store) and buy one, they're two to five bucks.
Which would be the same if you would travel from the UK to let's say Germany or France, all with different wall outlets.
I live in Canada and over the years I've built up a small collection of European power cords. My laptops upgrade, but the power cords (mostly) stay the same.
Good for speaking up!! I've never read on/. so much crap as tonight, by reading from people that are nicely "standing on the side" and are 100% convinced that it's OK if people are fired from their job if they don't give in to a media hype.
My wife is working in the largest hospital in town and is afraid of facing the same decision. She won't take the shots, no matter the consequences, just because she is too careful with her health. She didn't have the flu in the last 20 years, so she doesn't want to get it from some unproven shot.
If you compare the number of people dying from H1N1 (each and every one of them makes headlines in the papers) with the number dying per year from normal flu (just in the USA 36,000 per year, that's an avg. of 100 people per day), it is ridiculous that this gets such an attention.
This being/., maybe health care is served better when we start firing programmers that don't donate their liter of blood once a month. That would be the same kind of BS.
> > I sat in on another teacher's class, and remembered why history was so f*ing boring. Most teachers can't teach! >
And that's the biggest shame of all school education. OK, I love physics, and languages are very important, but the most essential class is still history. And it should also be the one the most easy to make into a fun class, either to kids or adults. But I agree, history too often was boring, and we all regret that for many years to come.... I'm still catching up!
Couple of holes, or even the bandsaw is not good enough. Yes, the harddisk doesn't work anymore after that, but it doesn't protect against someone disassembling the drive, putting the platters under an electron microscope or other type of scanner and analysing your ones-and-zeroes that way. It sounds far fetched, but that is the risk you want to protect against.
I'm still wondering if there isn't a chemical process that can dissolve the magnetic material on the discs. Otherwise, I agree with the person suggesting sanding the platters.
Hybrid systems are rare, and it doesn't look like they will become more common.
You're probably right when we talk about desktop PCs and laptops. I'm sure the latter will be SSD only in 5-10 years time, and desktops are also losing terrain quickly against laptops.
But when we look at datacenter grade enterprise storage, hybrid systems are currently picking up fast. The advantage is that because of the fast 'flash memory cache' you can use SATA disks instead of the FC/SCSI drives, where the former are both much bigger and much cheaper. Instead of 300 146GB 15K FC disks, you only need 30 1.5 TB 7200 RPM SATA disks. For the same capacity this results in much lower power bills, less DC floor-space costs and much better performance.
If you say "There are some hybrid SAN's, but they're damn expensive.", have a look at what [shameless plug-on] Sun is doing, and yes, I work for Sun [plug-off]. But other storage vendors (NetApps, EMC, IBM, etc.) are starting to do similar things.
So the whole "storage-stack" gets more and more hybrid and integrated. It consists of the full gamut of DRAM, flash memory, hard drives and finally tape. Each of these have their own strength and are used best in combination.
I have never heard anyone ask for '200 grammes of carrots'. People talk about their weight in stones and pounds
That sounds very "UK specific". In Holland asking for "200 grams of carrot" would be pretty normal. Although we have a special word for "100 grams", which is "ons". So someone would probably ask "twee ons worteltjes". But "ons" is not an old measurement semi-converted to SI, it is exactly 100 grams.
Forget about "could be". According to IDC (feb 2009):
"According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, [...] 2008 worldwide unit shipments grew 2.0% to 8.1 million units. [...]" [http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21703309]
With 8 million units cranked out in just a single year, there must be 30+ million servers "up and running" in current datacenters.
Which is in sync with my experience with our customers. Ten years ago (which was the time of the dot-com:-) the number of servers decreased heavily caused by consolidation to big servers, etc., resulting in half empty DC rooms. The last few years, because of the pervasiveness of IT in our lives, but likely also because of the adoption of Windows as a server platform, the number of servers has sky-rocketed and everybody is now struggling with space, power and cooling problems in their datacenters.
Plenty of years ago I was in a large datacenter, where Google had a cage full of their racks. These were the old DIY "4 MBs on a tray" systems.
> >it would be kind of cool to have a couple of bonafide google racks doing something cool at my house >
Let me tell you something, you don't want to have those servers in your basement, that setup definitely wasn't cool:) the amount of heat that came out of that row of racks was pretty enormous.
OK, this was long time ago, I expect that Google's setup has changed a lot since then. At least they aren't in shared facilities anymore, where normal IT guys like me can have a look at their servers.
In 1998 I bought my Libretto 50CT, running Windows 95. I used it as my "one and only" compute platform during a four month 7200 km bicycle journey to keep up a website. By now that would be called a blog, just as that my Libretto would now be called a Netbook. Who cares.... The funny thing is the remark that a netbook is only a netbook when it has SSD. I fully agree with that, therefore this years netbooks are in my book simply low powered, cheap laptops.
But my Libretto had a harddisk of just 780 MB, yep you read that right, not GB. And there are plenty of HOWTO's for how to install Linux on these VCR cassettes. So, I just got the parts together to convert my Libretto into a "real":-) netbook. Somewhere in a drawer, I still have a 2 GB Compact Flash card (hey, that's tripling the disk space) and for 10 bucks on eBay I got a CF -> IDE converter. Nice little project coming....
> If it's bigger than 10" tops, and it's more expensive than $300-$400, then it's not a netbook.
I would like to add one more element. For me a real netbook is only one that comes without spinning disk. It has to be SSD, therefore the OS with the least footprint (being it Linux, Windows or Android) has the advantage on a true netbook.
And if you want to store your honeymoon videos on your netbook, you should put it on a USB stick.:-)
But who needs a printer driver at all for a netbook. That's the whole point!! You want to be mobile, you want to be agile, so you don't want to have anything on paper. And the last thing you want to is print.
At first (year ago) netbooks made lots of sense to me. They were new in a sense that they were useful in places and times different from normal laptop use. Now, a year later, the SSDs have become 100+ GB hard disks, Linux has become Windows, 9" has grown to 11", etc. etc. For me these aren't netbooks anymore. They are just laptops, but then for half the price we paid two years ago. Which is a good thing!! But the "there is something different in the air" feeling has gone, unfortunately.
Maybe there is hope a year from now, when some vendor comes on the market with a super sized, touch screened Andriod phone/tablet/whatever-you-want-to-call-it....
A netbook should be a device, appliance, etc., not a dressed down computer. At least in my opinion. YMMV....
Number 1: I'm not living in the US and I never have. Number 2: I've lived for longer periods of time on three continents: Europe, Far-East Asia and Northern America, so I think I know a little bit about the environment in different places of the world. Number 3: Yes, I've been to Mexico City and I loved that city.:-)
OK, let's get real now. This wasn't a US bashing exercise. I simply used the US as a counter-example that "poverty countries" are not the biggest polluters.
China is indeed a big world-scale polluter, not because it is a poor county, but because it is coming "out of poverty".
It is my opinion, and you may disagree with that, that "developed nations" are still a bigger problem for the environment than the countries that live "under the poverty line".
Slashdot Mirror
Let's keep the definition simple: if it has an Atom CPU it is a netbook, when it has a standard Core CPU it is a laptop. So far, this holds....
My daughter has a HP Netbook, but it requires a PROPRIETARY cable, something I refuse to encourage with my dollars.
That's true for the older HP1000, but the HP110 that replaced it does have a VGA connector.
Wouldn't Google earth have the largest 'photo' ...
Google's satellite picture of the earth is one million giga-pixels large (if I didn't make some calculation error).
Yes, if it were open, it'd be easier to fix, ...
Proprietary software is not more difficult to fix than OSS. It's simply that in the case of open source there are more people working on it. The army is not better, just much bigger....
Mmm, I'm not wondering at all. :-) My home-brew firewall, gateway, etc. is a 12+ year old 486SX in a nice Industrial PC casing. So no, I'm not going to compile a Gentoo distro on it. But it runs fine its RedHat 6.2.
It is the kind of compromise between using distros matching the age of the hardware (which would be Slackware or RH 3.0.3) and distros that are more recent and 'cutting edge', with all the associated problems because they need matching up-to-date hardware.
And to the original poster: if you get running what you need in a weekend, or maybe a week, go for it. But otherwise, I would definitely spend 50 bucks on eBay and get some more recent hardware. Don't punish yourself....
I have a stinkpad that has three round connectors
You mean a Micky-Mouse :-) plug. Yep, I've got some of those too. Toshiba is using them as well for their (some?) netbooks.
Friend of mine came over from Europe with her netbook and I still could borrow her the right powercord. This time I didn't let her steal it, because I don't have that many.
Where the hose that goes to the toilet doesn't fit the hose that goes to the sink
Did you try USB .... Universal-Sink-Bath connectors. For the toilet, better don't use mini-USB. :-)
Ehhh, Motorola is also using them already for years. At least my KRZR (two years old) has mini-USB and I'm pretty sure the RAZR is the same.
Even better: don't buy the travel adapter for your laptop, but after arriving just ask your host if he has a local power cord lying around (and steal that from him for your next trip :-). Alternatively go to the local electronics store (or dollar store) and buy one, they're two to five bucks.
Which would be the same if you would travel from the UK to let's say Germany or France, all with different wall outlets.
I live in Canada and over the years I've built up a small collection of European power cords. My laptops upgrade, but the power cords (mostly) stay the same.
> I am a healthcare worker ....
Good for speaking up!! I've never read on /. so much crap as tonight, by reading from people that are nicely "standing on the side" and are 100% convinced that it's OK if people are fired from their job if they don't give in to a media hype.
My wife is working in the largest hospital in town and is afraid of facing the same decision. She won't take the shots, no matter the consequences, just because she is too careful with her health. She didn't have the flu in the last 20 years, so she doesn't want to get it from some unproven shot.
If you compare the number of people dying from H1N1 (each and every one of them makes headlines in the papers) with the number dying per year from normal flu (just in the USA 36,000 per year, that's an avg. of 100 people per day), it is ridiculous that this gets such an attention.
This being /., maybe health care is served better when we start firing programmers that don't donate their liter of blood once a month. That would be the same kind of BS.
>
> I just was thinking about the term papers I would have to do in
> university. I was preparing for a science or engineering career
>
Yeah, yeah .... term papers .... but how were the girls left, right and center of you?? :-)
>
> I sat in on another teacher's class, and remembered why history was so f*ing boring. Most teachers can't teach!
>
And that's the biggest shame of all school education. OK, I love physics, and languages are very important, but the most essential class is still history. And it should also be the one the most easy to make into a fun class, either to kids or adults. But I agree, history too often was boring, and we all regret that for many years to come.... I'm still catching up!
>
> Shhhhhh..............
>
So you think that people employed by Apple are reading Slashdot and can't afford more than living in their parent's basements playing video games?? :-)
Couple of holes, or even the bandsaw is not good enough. Yes, the harddisk doesn't work anymore after that, but it doesn't protect against someone disassembling the drive, putting the platters under an electron microscope or other type of scanner and analysing your ones-and-zeroes that way. It sounds far fetched, but that is the risk you want to protect against.
I'm still wondering if there isn't a chemical process that can dissolve the magnetic material on the discs. Otherwise, I agree with the person suggesting sanding the platters.
Hybrid systems are rare, and it doesn't look like they will become more common.
You're probably right when we talk about desktop PCs and laptops. I'm sure the latter will be SSD only in 5-10 years time, and desktops are also losing terrain quickly against laptops.
But when we look at datacenter grade enterprise storage, hybrid systems are currently picking up fast. The advantage is that because of the fast 'flash memory cache' you can use SATA disks instead of the FC/SCSI drives, where the former are both much bigger and much cheaper. Instead of 300 146GB 15K FC disks, you only need 30 1.5 TB 7200 RPM SATA disks. For the same capacity this results in much lower power bills, less DC floor-space costs and much better performance.
If you say "There are some hybrid SAN's, but they're damn expensive.", have a look at what [shameless plug-on] Sun is doing, and yes, I work for Sun [plug-off]. But other storage vendors (NetApps, EMC, IBM, etc.) are starting to do similar things.
So the whole "storage-stack" gets more and more hybrid and integrated. It consists of the full gamut of DRAM, flash memory, hard drives and finally tape. Each of these have their own strength and are used best in combination.
Uranus .... is that close to Venus??
I have never heard anyone ask for '200 grammes of carrots'. People talk about their weight in stones and pounds
That sounds very "UK specific". In Holland asking for "200 grams of carrot" would be pretty normal. Although we have a special word for "100 grams", which is "ons". So someone would probably ask "twee ons worteltjes". But "ons" is not an old measurement semi-converted to SI, it is exactly 100 grams.
If you do it right, there is nothing wrong with "some assembly required", even in current times .... Ikea made/makes a fortune out of it.
I guess that coming Monday morning the discussion at Amazon's boardroom table will be more along the lines of "Devil here....". :-)
> By now could be the order of millons.
Forget about "could be". According to IDC (feb 2009):
"According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, [...] 2008 worldwide unit shipments grew 2.0% to 8.1 million units. [...]" [http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21703309]
With 8 million units cranked out in just a single year, there must be 30+ million servers "up and running" in current datacenters.
Which is in sync with my experience with our customers. Ten years ago (which was the time of the dot-com :-) the number of servers decreased heavily caused by consolidation to big servers, etc., resulting in half empty DC rooms. The last few years, because of the pervasiveness of IT in our lives, but likely also because of the adoption of Windows as a server platform, the number of servers has sky-rocketed and everybody is now struggling with space, power and cooling problems in their datacenters.
Plenty of years ago I was in a large datacenter, where Google had a cage full of their racks. These were the old DIY "4 MBs on a tray" systems.
>
>it would be kind of cool to have a couple of bonafide google racks doing something cool at my house
>
Let me tell you something, you don't want to have those servers in your basement, that setup definitely wasn't cool :) the amount of heat that came out of that row of racks was pretty enormous.
OK, this was long time ago, I expect that Google's setup has changed a lot since then. At least they aren't in shared facilities anymore, where normal IT guys like me can have a look at their servers.
In 1998 I bought my Libretto 50CT, running Windows 95. I used it as my "one and only" compute platform during a four month 7200 km bicycle journey to keep up a website. By now that would be called a blog, just as that my Libretto would now be called a Netbook. Who cares.... The funny thing is the remark that a netbook is only a netbook when it has SSD. I fully agree with that, therefore this years netbooks are in my book simply low powered, cheap laptops.
But my Libretto had a harddisk of just 780 MB, yep you read that right, not GB. And there are plenty of HOWTO's for how to install Linux on these VCR cassettes. So, I just got the parts together to convert my Libretto into a "real" :-) netbook. Somewhere in a drawer, I still have a 2 GB Compact Flash card (hey, that's tripling the disk space) and for 10 bucks on eBay I got a CF -> IDE converter. Nice little project coming....
You're nailing it. My opinion as well.
> If it's bigger than 10" tops, and it's more expensive than $300-$400, then it's not a netbook.
I would like to add one more element. For me a real netbook is only one that comes without spinning disk. It has to be SSD, therefore the OS with the least footprint (being it Linux, Windows or Android) has the advantage on a true netbook.
And if you want to store your honeymoon videos on your netbook, you should put it on a USB stick. :-)
But who needs a printer driver at all for a netbook. That's the whole point!! You want to be mobile, you want to be agile, so you don't want to have anything on paper. And the last thing you want to is print.
At first (year ago) netbooks made lots of sense to me. They were new in a sense that they were useful in places and times different from normal laptop use. Now, a year later, the SSDs have become 100+ GB hard disks, Linux has become Windows, 9" has grown to 11", etc. etc. For me these aren't netbooks anymore. They are just laptops, but then for half the price we paid two years ago. Which is a good thing!! But the "there is something different in the air" feeling has gone, unfortunately.
Maybe there is hope a year from now, when some vendor comes on the market with a super sized, touch screened Andriod phone/tablet/whatever-you-want-to-call-it....
A netbook should be a device, appliance, etc., not a dressed down computer. At least in my opinion. YMMV....
Number 1: I'm not living in the US and I never have. Number 2: I've lived for longer periods of time on three continents: Europe, Far-East Asia and Northern America, so I think I know a little bit about the environment in different places of the world. Number 3: Yes, I've been to Mexico City and I loved that city. :-)
OK, let's get real now. This wasn't a US bashing exercise. I simply used the US as a counter-example that "poverty countries" are not the biggest polluters.
China is indeed a big world-scale polluter, not because it is a poor county, but because it is coming "out of poverty".
It is my opinion, and you may disagree with that, that "developed nations" are still a bigger problem for the environment than the countries that live "under the poverty line".