My case is the other way around. Being in Malaysia everything is cheap. Where in the US can you get a full lunch for RM 4.00 (About $1). I agree that the best part is the experience. Again do not forget to learn the language. That is a way to honor your host country. Even if you utterly butcher the language because you speak slowly and you just can not pronounce the words properly. The people you meet will be delighted you learned it and are trying to speak it. They might even turn around and speak in english to you in the beginning.
Workigng abroad can be neat but it is very difficult to get a chance to make it into the country. Europe has strict immigration rules. For someone to get a permit to stay over 6 months its a mess. You have a lot of work to perswade the European companies they should go through the hassle and risk to get a foreigner a visa. On contracts though there is a loophole. For stays under 6months its easy for the company's side. Because of that there are several americans that get 6 month contracts in Europe. The problem is that to get one ofthese contracts you usually need a couple years of experience. It can be very neat though. For countries outside Europe, it is much easier, but you have to be careful you pick a place that not only is safe but also has the industry you want. I am a Brasilian that worked in the US for 7 years. Now my company got me a job in Malaysia. It's been a great experience so far. Malaysia put in a lot of effor to atract American companies. That some times is the best way to get a foreign job. Get a job in a local company that also has centers abroad and ask to work in another country. South America and South East Asia have many companies that are needing people because not too many americans think about spending one or two years on assignment down there. If you get the oppertunity, go for it. If you like travel or adventure, you will never regret it.
Please someone correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that the difference is in the complexity of the hardware. X terminals run a full X server locally in their firmware. This device is just a frame buffer with a monitor, so it needs an X server running on the machine it is connected to. What then are the advantages/disadvantages: - this device has simpler hardware and therefore it can be much cheaper than an X terminal. It works like if the server had several sets of monitor/keyboard/mouse instead of just one. - It is simpler to set up at first than an X terminal, but on the other hand it after it is set up, XDMCP or some similar protocol can make either easy to configure - it takes more CPU time of the server, so you need more server power to move these devices than a stack of X terminals.
Well as for prices of X terminals, it depends on who makes it. The HP envizex II terminals, for example can in some cases update their screen faster than the system they are connected to. Of course you have to pay for this performance gain. Other terminals are not as fast nor expensive.
I am not sure who will buy it but I am guesing it will be a company that needs a lot of simple systems. You afterall do not need a 300/400/500MHz computer to type a letter or check e-mail. I remember hearing around once that some airlines for example were thinking of using Java stations or similar ideas in the hangars. This would give the mechanics access to a terminal. The system would then be connected to some server with a nice CDROM collection. This makes it easy and cheap to mantain. This would be a good use for the Sun Ray. A device that is easy to set up and if it brakes it can be replaced in less than 5 minutes. The user's setup on the new device will be identical to on the old one. That also is very nice.
I do not think it will be much worse than the Palm III, unless they put a faster processor and kill that batery. Afterall on the WinCE devices, what probably kills the batery (this is from my limited and almost zit Palm Hardware knowledge), is the procesor. 100MHz for a palm device is just absurd. The speaker/microphone/headphone definitely does not help either. I realluy hope they keep the colored ones and the B&W ones being developed to give people a choice, mainly if this color stuff does come out to be a battery problem.
I agree. I guess though 3Com is having a tough time convincing people that efficiency, batery life and usable features are more important than color. Well, the VII is not colored. Hopefully they will have B&W versions of every color one. That will give people a choice between a fancy colored Pilot and a real usable PalmPilot.:)
One person told me that it is not enough for a company to have a product that is better than what their competitors have, but have also one that is just like the competition. Then they would have a colored one to make the color lovers happy and push the B&W ones for every one else.:)
That is why the Pilot is so good and its batery lasts so long. Afteral, they could put a more powerful processor in the Pilot, but that would suck up your battery and kill the device in under 24hrs. I guess we have to keep in mind that this device was never intended to be a replacement for the desktop. That combination of low processor power with a grafitti, that works well on low speed CPU's, allow the Pilot to do well what it was designed for and still last over a month on a batery.:)
Agreed. Working on Memory chips, I know the feeling. Not as complex per part, but we still get our share of pain. If its an old process, no problem. If you are dealing with something new, like Merced is, ouch! Its complexity is probably far grater than anything they worked on, so that adds to the problem. With the size of this thing they still can have several yield issues, and who knows what else. And then the final problem. Speed. With all of the delays, the chip performance can no longer be what it was originaly planned for when they started the design. At the end, the chip might require some design changes just so it is marketable at resnable speeds and yields.
Sun went from 68000 to SPARC andf now UltraSPARC DEC went from some old MIPS (I think) to ALPHA IBM went from who knows what to PowerPC Apple went from 68000 to PowerPC
All companies got to a point they dropped everything and moved on. UltraSPARC is still very similar with old SPARC V.8, but all companies got to a point that they said this old 70's and 80's CPU design methods just don't apply anymore. Will Intel ever do that and get rid of the Legacy patchwork?:)
I first wantr to state that I like this logo. Now, as for why, a logo in my oppinion must look good in color or B&W. It must look good at any size. It also must provide a good first impression. This logo looks great small, large, B&W and color. It also has a professional look like the logos from Lucent, SGI and SUN. This logo to me speaks that this is a serious company that is here for buisness so people can rely on Debian. The two logos are also important as you can have an official logo that you can control where it is used without keeping people from using the logo freely. You can see it as a Debian certified logo and a Debian compatible or Should-work-on-debian logo.
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My case is the other way around. Being in Malaysia everything is cheap. Where in the US can you get a full lunch for RM 4.00 (About $1). I agree that the best part is the experience. Again do not forget to learn the language. That is a way to honor your host country. Even if you utterly butcher the language because you speak slowly and you just can not pronounce the words properly. The people you meet will be delighted you learned it and are trying to speak it. They might even turn around and speak in english to you in the beginning.
Workigng abroad can be neat but it is very difficult to get a chance to make it into the country. Europe has strict immigration rules. For someone to get a permit to stay over 6 months its a mess.
You have a lot of work to perswade the European companies they should go through the hassle and risk to get a foreigner a visa.
On contracts though there is a loophole. For stays under 6months its easy for the company's side. Because of that there
are several americans that get 6 month contracts in Europe. The problem is that to get one ofthese
contracts you usually need a couple years of experience. It can be very neat though.
For countries outside Europe, it is much easier, but you have to be careful
you pick a place that not only is safe but also has the industry
you want. I am a Brasilian that worked in the US for 7 years. Now
my company got me a job in Malaysia. It's been a great experience so far. Malaysia put in a lot of effor to atract American companies. That some times
is the best way to get a foreign job. Get a job in a local company that also has centers abroad and ask to work in another country. South America and South East Asia have many companies that are needing people because not too many americans think about spending one or two years on assignment down there. If you get the oppertunity, go for it. If you like travel or adventure, you will never regret it.
Please someone correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that the difference is in the complexity of the hardware. X terminals run a full X server locally in their firmware. This device is just a frame buffer with a monitor, so it needs an X server running on the machine it is connected to.
What then are the advantages/disadvantages:
- this device has simpler hardware and therefore it can be much cheaper than an X terminal. It works like if the server had several sets of monitor/keyboard/mouse instead of just one.
- It is simpler to set up at first than an X terminal, but on the other hand it after it is set up, XDMCP or some similar protocol can make either easy to configure
- it takes more CPU time of the server, so you need more server power to move these devices than a stack of X terminals.
Well as for prices of X terminals, it depends on who makes it. The HP envizex II terminals, for example can in some cases update their screen faster than the system they are connected to. Of course you have to pay for this performance gain. Other terminals are not as fast nor expensive.
I am not sure who will buy it but I am guesing it will be a company that needs a lot of simple systems. You afterall do not need a 300/400/500MHz computer to type a letter or check e-mail. I remember hearing around once that some airlines for example were thinking of using Java stations or similar ideas in the hangars. This would give the mechanics access to a terminal. The system would then be connected to some server with a nice CDROM collection. This makes it easy and cheap to mantain. This would be a good use for the Sun Ray.
A device that is easy to set up and if it brakes it can be replaced in less than 5 minutes. The user's setup on the new device will be identical to on the old one. That also is very nice.
I do not think it will be much worse than the Palm III, unless they put a faster processor and kill that batery. Afterall on the WinCE devices, what probably kills the batery (this is from my limited and almost zit Palm Hardware knowledge), is the procesor. 100MHz for a palm device is just absurd. The speaker/microphone/headphone definitely does not help either. I realluy hope they keep the colored ones and the B&W ones being developed to give people a choice, mainly if this color stuff does come out to be a battery problem.
I agree. I guess though 3Com is having a tough time convincing people that efficiency, batery life and usable features are more important than color. Well, the VII is not colored. Hopefully :)
:)
they will have B&W versions of every color one.
That will give people a choice between a fancy colored Pilot and a real usable PalmPilot.
One person told me that it is not enough for a company to have a product that is better than what their competitors have, but have also one that is just like the competition. Then they would have a colored one to make the color lovers happy and push the B&W ones for every one else.
That is why the Pilot is so good and its batery lasts so long. Afteral, they could put a more powerful processor in the Pilot, but that would suck up your battery and kill the device in under 24hrs. I guess we have to keep in mind that this device was never intended to be a replacement for the desktop. That combination of low processor power with a grafitti, that works well on low speed CPU's, allow the Pilot to do well what it was designed for and still last over a month on a batery. :)
:)
Maybe some years from now.
Agreed. Working on Memory chips, I know the feeling. Not as complex per part, but we still get our share of pain. If its an old process, no problem. If you are dealing with something new, like Merced is, ouch! Its complexity is probably far grater than anything they worked on, so that adds to the problem. With the size of this thing they still can have several yield issues, and who knows what else. And then the final problem. Speed. With all of the delays, the chip performance can no longer be what it was originaly planned for when they started the design. At the end, the chip might require some design changes just so it is marketable at resnable speeds and yields.
Sun went from 68000 to SPARC andf now UltraSPARC
:)
DEC went from some old MIPS (I think) to ALPHA
IBM went from who knows what to PowerPC
Apple went from 68000 to PowerPC
All companies got to a point they dropped everything and moved on. UltraSPARC is still very similar with old SPARC V.8, but all companies got to a point that they said this old 70's and 80's CPU design methods just don't apply anymore. Will Intel ever do that and get rid of the Legacy patchwork?
I first wantr to state that I like this logo. Now, as for why, a logo in my oppinion must look good in color or B&W. It must look good at any size. It also must provide a good first impression.
This logo looks great small, large, B&W and color. It also has a professional look like the logos from Lucent, SGI and SUN. This logo to me speaks that this is a serious company that is here for buisness so people can rely on Debian.
The two logos are also important as you can have an official logo that you can control where it is used without keeping people from using the logo freely. You can see it as a Debian certified logo and a Debian compatible or Should-work-on-debian logo.