An OS you like to use is influnced by many demensions beyond simple power. There are many liveCDs out there, pick up a few distros of Linux and try them out. That said xp is not too bad either. Just now I am using Ubuntu on my notebook. Prior to that I had Xubuntu and Wolvix installed. Have some fun and play around with it a bit. In the end you have to make up your own mind.
Check out Wikipedia Linux overview.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
Baring the use of Santa's Sled, I usually pack as light as possible.
For leisure this is a Nokia N910 and a Panasonic DMC-TZ1. This is tethered to a SE M600. To this I might add a Bluetooth Keyboard if I think I might need to write something. All of this almost fits in my pockets.
If I know I am going to be taking serious photos I take a Digital SLR and battery powered hard disk / card reader.
For Business it is an older thin 14 inch notebook with clean drive and Ubuntu. That is fairly fast and secure, and no loss if lost. All my important docs are on an usb key in anycase.
The joy of travel is not what you bring, but what you leave behind. Have fun and discover how little you really need in this life.
1 DSLR 1 PDA - keyboard with 802.11 for email - I got a clie UX50 a couple years ago used on ebay - now there are a lot of other choices. 1 2.5" portible drive with master functionality 1 Quad-band GMS phone. email/voice
If I were to buy something I might go for a Treo with a 802.11 card or an HPC. That would kill one more item of kit.
It all fits neatly in to a hand bag or a compartment in my backpack. Extra sets of batteries for all of the above is always nice.
As an American living in Europe for the last 12 years, it seems to me that the US has become more European than ever.
A corrupt elitist government.
Lack of class mobility.
State controlled Media.
Sliding incomes.
The list goes on and on....
I live in Norway and I have to say that N. Europe is not all it is cracked up to be: It is not all bad, but there are some things to consider: you have that 50% tax rate, and some of the highest suicide rates in the world ( we don't talk about that ). One in three people are involved in a dispute with their neighbors. Dont even think about starting a tech company - It is like beating a dead horse. New ideas, are not good ideas.
However let us not dwell: There is a list to be had here somewhere.
Sweden - where good Germans go when they die.
Denmark - somehow they are some of the happiest people on the earth but even more taxes and serious racial problem.
Finland - I have not been there too much but it seem all potatoes all the time, liquid and solid. Then there is Nokia too. Not to mention Snow.
Netherlands - well enough has been said about NL already. A bit dull outside Amsterdam.
German - you know about that already - Berlin is pretty normal.
France - Massive disregard for the State and an enviable ability to make the best of it.
Italy - I heard it said once, "That the genius of the states is the separation of Church and State. The genius of Italy is the Separation of the State and the people."
England - Cool, kind of stiff, but cool: As long as you don't mind the paper work and décor.
Spain - is cool just don't try to work too hard.
Don't get me wrong. I like all these countries - I like Europe and the States. I have a great time in both places. Europe is just different from the States: Europeans are romantic about their homes and countries. Americans are romantic about possibility. Europe invented America to give vent to those that seek possibility amd freedoms. That is what you are doing in this thread, seeking new horizons.
If I were going to move again I would look at the regions in the EU: Amsterdam, Catalonia (Barcelona), Lombardy (Milan), and London. This is where W. Europe is on the go - or look east to the "New Europe" that might be more like the States. Might...
As someone else noted you are, whoever you are, where ever you go. To this I would add that there is no where that is problem free. Get involved and change the thing you don't like.
In Norway I could catch 200 someodd kb on my Moto L7 with Edge and can find an EDGE connection in most of Europe and the States. I just got a Sony M600, data with UMTS is greater than 300kb - that is cool here the cities of Scandiland but I am kicked down to GPRS in most of the States and Europe. I am sure EVDO is quite cool but what your local provider has online counts (EVDO is limited in Europe) - not to mention the places you might happen to find yourself. I would take EDGE to 3G in a heart beat just for the broad deployment. Email at a 100kb is quite ok.
I have to say you must have a great unlimited data plan. I would not want to try to stream media all day on roaming. Sounds like a fun connection.
This card is for Design Content Creation (DCC) and very large Mechanical model assemblies.
The last textures DVD I bought had textures on average around 50Mb per map (png - ca 5400p square) which then should be multiplied by 2.5 -3 for bump maps and other modifier maps. That brings us to around 125Mb to 150Mb per mapped surface. A typical scene might have 12 to 20 textures (not all of that density). This brings us to 1Gb quite quickly without the models geometry which is likely to be more than 50Mb. The128 floating point gives more accurate and less muddy colors/edges/depth when blending bitmaps.
I have been reducing these maps to 1200p 2400p wide in Photoshop to run them on my hardware. (X2 4200, 3Gb RAM, 256Mb FireGL.) I can see a time in the near future where my clients will be quite pleased with even juicier images that high resolution texturing permits. This card will no doubt pay for itself in just a few jobs, in both faster renders and higher quality product.
Mechanical design often has model sets that easily range into the 100s of Megabytes. This card will allow one to work on more complex assemblies and models. This is not the field that is at the center of my interest but even the simple I have worked on in Rhino easily hit 100Mb. Details dont come for free.
Lastly the Quattro and FireGL lines provide what gaming cards never will that is accurate display of demanding workloads. Consumer level cards provide fast display of DirectX graphics and can work well for some content creation applications (such as Photoshop), but the custom drivers (read increased speed / increased stability) and increased Floating point accuracy that workstation cards provide make them indispensable for those that make the content.
The real difficulty here is power consumption. Most 3G radios use 2Wh where as a GMS/GPRS can use less than 1Wh. Combine this with a high power XScale processor and you going to have a short battery life.
Perhaps, next generation of 3G radios will provide longer battery life. After all there is only so much one can do with a 3Wh battery.
Workstation cards have three major differences from Gaming cards.
First and most important is accuracy of display. If you are trying to snap to a point on a 12mb model, it can be SOMEWHAT annoying if it is not displayed correctly on the screen. Some gaming cards do not even come close to displaying 3d wireframes correctly. In one machine (briefly) worked on this was almost a half-inch on the display. Not being able to see the line you want to pick can be a problem.
Secondly OpenGL (i.e. hardware acceleration). OpenGL is most often use in the work process. It can be used to view / rotate / zoom complex models in real time. Again here accuracy of display is important. Otherwise funky/out of order surfaces can appear.
Thirdly: Software render engines where one gets the really nice images in 3d work. Often these are custom drivers for individual applications. 3D MAX ; Lightwave ; Solidworks. These drivers have been really solid in Nvidia's line of Quattro cards. Good drives are really worth their weight in Go
I just bought a V5100, sweet price point; it should arrive next week. Plus the hardware was just a lot faster than the Nvidia cards of which PCIe has not arrived at local venders as yet.
PS. If you want Linux support Nvidia is the place to stay. Their Linux programming staff is significantly larger than ATIs. However, I guess that ATI is working on this.
I am an Architect and Have heard of a few cases like this. From what I understand in cases like this it is decaying fats/organic material that cause much of the annoyance. I am familiar with one case in which a chicken feed factory was converted to office uses I believe that they used a mild acid solution to etch the concrete (majority of surfaces). This helped but did not solve the problem. Three years later the smell had largely dissipated thanks to bacteria and house keeping.
In another case a house was filled top to bottom with trash. All interior surfaces and insulation were replaced. The place still smelled. It should have just been burnt. Perhaps time will solve that problem too.
Not a lot of hope but smells are a tough problem to solve. You could try turning up the HVAC to light wind just keep the air moving to remove the worst. In the end time is your friend you just have to wait for the decay cycle to run its course.
Good Luck,
I picked up a Yashica FX-3 and a Carl Zeiss Planar T 1,7/50 last year for about $225 used. This is a great general use combo. The Planar T is fast and gives silky images. Most of the time one can do with out a flash. I usually shoot slide film and have them scanned to CD. This results in much better quality images that I could afford in a Digital Camera. Plus the color is spot on and lush.
I have been working at home for about a year. As an Architect, I am addicted to a desktop (x2 monitors, x2 processors) so the laptop route is not an option. I deal with working at home by having a routine. I try to do two of the following three things everyday: Take a morning walk, meet someone at a cafe, train at the gym. I try to place one activity in the morning and one in the afternoon. I also stop working two hours before I want to sleep. This gives me enough flexibility to and some resemblance of structure. An apartment with a relatively central location in the city is also important. If I were in the suburbs it would kill. One, last thing a cell phone with SMS makes keeping up in touch cheap and easy.
While Sweden may make it illegal to copy media on P2P networks it would seem that the tax on CDâ(TM)s would be unworkable due: 1; to CDâ(TM)s many legal uses: and 2; to the very porous nature of European National boundaries. I am sure the Swedish Police relish the thought of random searches for CDâ(TM)s in motorist cars.
âoeAre you just commuting to work in Denmark or are a Smuggler.â
I could do with a bit more speed. I just spent the better part of a day moving a 250mb DXF to a 80mb DWG: Last week I had a rendering (raytrace, 8 lights) running for 30 hours. My machine (2xP3 800mhz) is a bit slow these days. In my world speed is time, time is money. I was hoping AMD was going to kick something 64bit out on the wokstation end ot things. So far it looks like xeons again.
So speed is important to some of us. However, if you are just using a word processor and surfing the net get a Via C3 and save some juice and some money.
The Linux community can debate software drivers and validity of this articles usefulness, but I would beg that it paid attention to her interface comments. I run Win 2000 on my workstations, XP pro on a Gamming Box and SuSE 8 on a Server. Linux interfaces can be lacking at best. As a graphics professional it is annoying to see poorly designed interfaces and as a self taught admin. the lack of help files is a bother. When I speak of GUI, I do not meant the pretty OS X or XP eye candy, but rather a clean effective GUI that gets thing done. (Granted this is developing quickly in Linux.) Maybe it helps no one but the best interface I have seen is Lightwave 7.5. It is clean and it does a lot in not too much real-estate.
I have been working a patent of late, and this is how it has been laid out for me.
Initial Patent Search $700
International Patent Search $4250
Patent filing $5000
International Patent filings +/-$7000
In my case I am really only interested in the R&D and product development portion of the project. This takes place during the patent pending phase of the project. That is after one has received a positive response from the patent office and before the patent is actually issued. Once one has the legal status of patent pending then one might try to find investors based upon the status of your patent.
My own plan is this: I am financing the initial searches and patent filing by doing some night work. I have queered some investors as to their interest in the project, based on a one page (non technical) written description. Those that have shown interest I will contact for development funds once the patent pending is issued. Not to mention the multiple international filings that one is obliged to make.
Marketing and distribution I will leave to the professionals, if the project ever gets that far. I have a day job I enjoy, so why not just pull in some royalties. I have no desire to start my own multinational.
You have to ask your self some tough questions: if you do not have money for a patent, do you have money for ramping up production, merchandising and distribution? Are you interested in this? If not what are the goals of your project.
Patents aside: the postal service once had a poor mans patent, which was sort of a letter that one mails to ones self. Might be worth a try.
Good Luck.
As an Architect, creating model walk-throughs and sun-studies are part of my daily routine. The difficulty of architectural modeling is the extremely high polygon counts. What interests me about these new cards besides the greater accuracy is their ability to function in "parallel configurations using as many as 256 chips".
Precisely how much gain one would get is beyond my depth of knowledge, but it would seem that this would allow my render farm to render DVD quality without breaking a sweat.
Slashdot Mirror
An OS you like to use is influnced by many demensions beyond simple power. There are many liveCDs out there, pick up a few distros of Linux and try them out. That said xp is not too bad either. Just now I am using Ubuntu on my notebook. Prior to that I had Xubuntu and Wolvix installed. Have some fun and play around with it a bit. In the end you have to make up your own mind. Check out Wikipedia Linux overview. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
Baring the use of Santa's Sled, I usually pack as light as possible.
For leisure this is a Nokia N910 and a Panasonic DMC-TZ1. This is tethered to a SE M600.
To this I might add a Bluetooth Keyboard if I think I might need to write something.
All of this almost fits in my pockets.
If I know I am going to be taking serious photos I take a Digital SLR and battery powered hard disk / card reader.
For Business it is an older thin 14 inch notebook with clean drive and Ubuntu.
That is fairly fast and secure, and no loss if lost.
All my important docs are on an usb key in anycase.
The joy of travel is not what you bring, but what you leave behind.
Have fun and discover how little you really need in this life.
This is what I will take this summer:
1 DSLR
1 PDA - keyboard with 802.11 for email - I got a clie UX50 a couple years ago used on ebay - now there are a lot of other choices.
1 2.5" portible drive with master functionality
1 Quad-band GMS phone. email/voice
If I were to buy something I might go for a Treo with a 802.11 card or an HPC. That would kill one more item of kit.
It all fits neatly in to a hand bag or a compartment in my backpack. Extra sets of batteries for all of the above is always nice.
Cheers -
As an American living in Europe for the last 12 years, it seems to me that the US has become more European than ever.
A corrupt elitist government.
Lack of class mobility.
State controlled Media.
Sliding incomes.
The list goes on and on....
I live in Norway and I have to say that N. Europe is not all it is cracked up to be: It is not all bad, but there are some things to consider: you have that 50% tax rate, and some of the highest suicide rates in the world ( we don't talk about that ). One in three people are involved in a dispute with their neighbors. Dont even think about starting a tech company - It is like beating a dead horse. New ideas, are not good ideas.
However let us not dwell: There is a list to be had here somewhere.
Sweden - where good Germans go when they die.
Denmark - somehow they are some of the happiest people on the earth but even more taxes and serious racial problem.
Finland - I have not been there too much but it seem all potatoes all the time, liquid and solid. Then there is Nokia too. Not to mention Snow.
Netherlands - well enough has been said about NL already. A bit dull outside Amsterdam.
German - you know about that already - Berlin is pretty normal.
France - Massive disregard for the State and an enviable ability to make the best of it.
Italy - I heard it said once, "That the genius of the states is the separation of Church and State. The genius of Italy is the Separation of the State and the people."
England - Cool, kind of stiff, but cool: As long as you don't mind the paper work and décor.
Spain - is cool just don't try to work too hard.
Don't get me wrong. I like all these countries - I like Europe and the States. I have a great time in both places. Europe is just different from the States: Europeans are romantic about their homes and countries. Americans are romantic about possibility. Europe invented America to give vent to those that seek possibility amd freedoms. That is what you are doing in this thread, seeking new horizons.
If I were going to move again I would look at the regions in the EU: Amsterdam, Catalonia (Barcelona), Lombardy (Milan), and London. This is where W. Europe is on the go - or look east to the "New Europe" that might be more like the States. Might...
As someone else noted you are, whoever you are, where ever you go. To this I would add that there is no where that is problem free. Get involved and change the thing you don't like.
Cheers -
In Norway I could catch 200 someodd kb on my Moto L7 with Edge and can find an EDGE connection in most of Europe and the States. I just got a Sony M600, data with UMTS is greater than 300kb - that is cool here the cities of Scandiland but I am kicked down to GPRS in most of the States and Europe. I am sure EVDO is quite cool but what your local provider has online counts (EVDO is limited in Europe) - not to mention the places you might happen to find yourself. I would take EDGE to 3G in a heart beat just for the broad deployment. Email at a 100kb is quite ok.
I have to say you must have a great unlimited data plan. I would not want to try to stream media all day on roaming. Sounds like a fun connection.
Cheers.
This card is for Design Content Creation (DCC) and very large Mechanical model assemblies.
The last textures DVD I bought had textures on average around 50Mb per map (png - ca 5400p square) which then should be multiplied by 2.5 -3 for bump maps and other modifier maps. That brings us to around 125Mb to 150Mb per mapped surface. A typical scene might have 12 to 20 textures (not all of that density). This brings us to 1Gb quite quickly without the models geometry which is likely to be more than 50Mb. The128 floating point gives more accurate and less muddy colors/edges/depth when blending bitmaps.
I have been reducing these maps to 1200p 2400p wide in Photoshop to run them on my hardware. (X2 4200, 3Gb RAM, 256Mb FireGL.) I can see a time in the near future where my clients will be quite pleased with even juicier images that high resolution texturing permits. This card will no doubt pay for itself in just a few jobs, in both faster renders and higher quality product.
Mechanical design often has model sets that easily range into the 100s of Megabytes. This card will allow one to work on more complex assemblies and models. This is not the field that is at the center of my interest but even the simple I have worked on in Rhino easily hit 100Mb. Details dont come for free.
Lastly the Quattro and FireGL lines provide what gaming cards never will that is accurate display of demanding workloads. Consumer level cards provide fast display of DirectX graphics and can work well for some content creation applications (such as Photoshop), but the custom drivers (read increased speed / increased stability) and increased Floating point accuracy that workstation cards provide make them indispensable for those that make the content.
The real difficulty here is power consumption. Most 3G radios use 2Wh where as a GMS/GPRS can use less than 1Wh. Combine this with a high power XScale processor and you going to have a short battery life.
Perhaps, next generation of 3G radios will provide longer battery life. After all there is only so much one can do with a 3Wh battery.
Mod parent up - please
Workstation cards have three major differences from Gaming cards.
First and most important is accuracy of display. If you are trying to snap to a point on a 12mb model, it can be SOMEWHAT annoying if it is not displayed correctly on the screen. Some gaming cards do not even come close to displaying 3d wireframes correctly. In one machine (briefly) worked on this was almost a half-inch on the display. Not being able to see the line you want to pick can be a problem.
Secondly OpenGL (i.e. hardware acceleration). OpenGL is most often use in the work process. It can be used to view / rotate / zoom complex models in real time. Again here accuracy of display is important. Otherwise funky/out of order surfaces can appear.
Thirdly: Software render engines where one gets the really nice images in 3d work. Often these are custom drivers for individual applications. 3D MAX ; Lightwave ; Solidworks. These drivers have been really solid in Nvidia's line of Quattro cards. Good drives are really worth their weight in Go
I just bought a V5100, sweet price point; it should arrive next week. Plus the hardware was just a lot faster than the Nvidia cards of which PCIe has not arrived at local venders as yet.
PS. If you want Linux support Nvidia is the place to stay. Their Linux programming staff is significantly larger than ATIs. However, I guess that ATI is working on this.
I am an Architect and Have heard of a few cases like this. From what I understand in cases like this it is decaying fats/organic material that cause much of the annoyance. I am familiar with one case in which a chicken feed factory was converted to office uses I believe that they used a mild acid solution to etch the concrete (majority of surfaces). This helped but did not solve the problem. Three years later the smell had largely dissipated thanks to bacteria and house keeping. In another case a house was filled top to bottom with trash. All interior surfaces and insulation were replaced. The place still smelled. It should have just been burnt. Perhaps time will solve that problem too. Not a lot of hope but smells are a tough problem to solve. You could try turning up the HVAC to light wind just keep the air moving to remove the worst. In the end time is your friend you just have to wait for the decay cycle to run its course. Good Luck,
Yashica and Zeiss
I picked up a Yashica FX-3 and a Carl Zeiss Planar T 1,7/50 last year for about $225 used. This is a great general use combo. The Planar T is fast and gives silky images. Most of the time one can do with out a flash. I usually shoot slide film and have them scanned to CD. This results in much better quality images that I could afford in a Digital Camera. Plus the color is spot on and lush.
Good Luck.
I have been working at home for about a year. As an Architect, I am addicted to a desktop (x2 monitors, x2 processors) so the laptop route is not an option. I deal with working at home by having a routine. I try to do two of the following three things everyday: Take a morning walk, meet someone at a cafe, train at the gym. I try to place one activity in the morning and one in the afternoon. I also stop working two hours before I want to sleep. This gives me enough flexibility to and some resemblance of structure. An apartment with a relatively central location in the city is also important. If I were in the suburbs it would kill. One, last thing a cell phone with SMS makes keeping up in touch cheap and easy.
ArchiDork
You could try design workshop - free, functional demo. Simple fast to learn and is cheap.
While Sweden may make it illegal to copy media on P2P networks it would seem that the tax on CDâ(TM)s would be unworkable due: 1; to CDâ(TM)s many legal uses: and 2; to the very porous nature of European National boundaries. I am sure the Swedish Police relish the thought of random searches for CDâ(TM)s in motorist cars.
âoeAre you just commuting to work in Denmark or are a Smuggler.â
I could do with a bit more speed. I just spent the better part of a day moving a 250mb DXF to a 80mb DWG: Last week I had a rendering (raytrace, 8 lights) running for 30 hours. My machine (2xP3 800mhz) is a bit slow these days. In my world speed is time, time is money. I was hoping AMD was going to kick something 64bit out on the wokstation end ot things. So far it looks like xeons again.
So speed is important to some of us. However, if you are just using a word processor and surfing the net get a Via C3 and save some juice and some money.
The Linux community can debate software drivers and validity of this articles usefulness, but I would beg that it paid attention to her interface comments. I run Win 2000 on my workstations, XP pro on a Gamming Box and SuSE 8 on a Server. Linux interfaces can be lacking at best. As a graphics professional it is annoying to see poorly designed interfaces and as a self taught admin. the lack of help files is a bother. When I speak of GUI, I do not meant the pretty OS X or XP eye candy, but rather a clean effective GUI that gets thing done. (Granted this is developing quickly in Linux.) Maybe it helps no one but the best interface I have seen is Lightwave 7.5. It is clean and it does a lot in not too much real-estate.
Cheers,
Archidork
Are you trying to imply the Bill Gates is the "Dork Emperor".
Sounds like a Transmeta device would be right on target. You can then avoid both windows and intel.
http://www.antelopetech.com
http://www.transmeta.com
I have been working a patent of late, and this is how it has been laid out for me. Initial Patent Search $700 International Patent Search $4250 Patent filing $5000 International Patent filings +/-$7000 In my case I am really only interested in the R&D and product development portion of the project. This takes place during the patent pending phase of the project. That is after one has received a positive response from the patent office and before the patent is actually issued. Once one has the legal status of patent pending then one might try to find investors based upon the status of your patent. My own plan is this: I am financing the initial searches and patent filing by doing some night work. I have queered some investors as to their interest in the project, based on a one page (non technical) written description. Those that have shown interest I will contact for development funds once the patent pending is issued. Not to mention the multiple international filings that one is obliged to make. Marketing and distribution I will leave to the professionals, if the project ever gets that far. I have a day job I enjoy, so why not just pull in some royalties. I have no desire to start my own multinational. You have to ask your self some tough questions: if you do not have money for a patent, do you have money for ramping up production, merchandising and distribution? Are you interested in this? If not what are the goals of your project. Patents aside: the postal service once had a poor mans patent, which was sort of a letter that one mails to ones self. Might be worth a try. Good Luck.
As an Architect, creating model walk-throughs and sun-studies are part of my daily routine. The difficulty of architectural modeling is the extremely high polygon counts. What interests me about these new cards besides the greater accuracy is their ability to function in "parallel configurations using as many as 256 chips". Precisely how much gain one would get is beyond my depth of knowledge, but it would seem that this would allow my render farm to render DVD quality without breaking a sweat.