My guess would be because they are very sensitive to overheating. I've got a few 'servers' here at work that some nut built using 5 Maxtor PATA drives in each enclosure, packed right next to each other. Each and every single one of the 6 servers built that way has had a catastrophic drive failure since they were installed about a year ago.
You can't really blame Maxtor, though their drives do tend to produce quite a bit of heat. Most manufacturers state very clearly on their websites that you should not allow your drive to run above 55 degrees celcius, a very reasonable number.
I can agree that the old Dell queitkey boards are decent, though the new black ones are terrible and they gum up all the time.
As for my favourite keyboard, it would be my old KeyTronic 101-key with a coiled cord and a switch on the back to flip between 'XT' and 'AT Enhanced' modes. I found it in the trash! Excellent keyboard, just amazing. I can't stand the stupid 104 key Windows boards.
What sort of troubles have you been having? I've been running the nVidia drivers for over a year now with my lowly FX 5700 without any troubles. There have been a few bad driver releases, but they have mostly been regressions in performance.
What configuration are you running? Are you overclocking?
I hear a bunch of people talking about Itanium being hard to code for. What makes this problem even more difficult to deal with is that without dynamic execution hardware, any code that was optimized for Itanium 1 runs piss-poorly on Itanium 2. Likewise for code written and optimized for Itanium 2, it will run terrible on the Itanium 3.
I'm sure that neither the server admin nor the software vendor wants to deal with the headache of finding the right versions of ever piece of software. Does Windows come with Itanium 1 optimizations, or Itanium 2 optimizations? How about HP-UX?
I realize that all procrssors suffer the same optimization problems across generations, but the dynamic execution capabilities of most chips go a long way towards minimizing this effect.
The article seems to assume that the only type of computer is a _binary_ computer. This is simply not true! There are all sorts of models for computing based on quantum states, fluid-controlled logic systems and who knows what else. To confine computing to binary systems is like confining mathematics to the set of real integers!
I believe that the mind is (simply?) a quantum computer, and the article seems to support that idea. The human brain utilizes a sort of general interconnectedness of things to process thoughts as dynamic probabilities of state, with conclusions only being properly arrived at after a certain ammount of calculation has occured, but with all probabilities esiting well before the completion of the thought.
Anyhow, I should probably stop rambling and go outside or something.
I've got a few Debian servers here at work, and a few at home. I read the release notes and warnings, updated my apt and proceeded into a dist-upgrade. All of my boxes upgraded without trouble. The only strange dependancy that I have noticed, is that Sarge is trying to replace Postfix with Exim!
HT is marketed as something that gives the P4 an advantage over competing chips, and as such it is indeed a joke. Sure, it saves the P4 from it's own performance woes (remember the Willamette? I'm stuck with one on my desk at work), but it's usefulness ends there.
I encode movies, run GIMPS and offer remote (FreeNX) access to friends nearly 24/7 on my Athlon 3200+ and I have no problems with responsiveness. I think perhapse that the impression that HT is useful comes from the fact the the P4 is so terrible at dealing with pipline stalls.
At work I operate a Windows 2003 terminal server on a P4-2.8 machine with 2GB of memory. At home I operate Debian on a K7-2.2 with 1GB of memory. Both provide remote desktop access, usually 3 or 4 concurrent connections. With HT enabled on the Intel machine, the performance is reasonable. With HT disabled, the Intel machine is strangely lagged, to the point that I get support calls about it from folks trying to work from home. The AMD machine, of course, isn't equipped with HT at all and it runs just fine.
If HT was simply a trick to squeeze 20% more work out of a processor, then the difference would not be so pronounced. Truth is the P4 is terrible with branchy code, and the problem is exacerbated when running many simultaneous threads of branchy code. HT is an excellent way to minimize the damage done by pipeline stalls, though I think it's given much more attention than it deserves. The problem that it was inteded to solve can be avoided entirely (and more gracefuly) by building a shorter pipeline!
It should work on any version of NT that includes the task manager and task scheduler, which I believe is all of them. I've personally tested it on everything from NT4 to Server 2003.
There's another way to kill processes that say 'access denied' without having to download additional software. Using the commandline 'at' command, schedule taskmgr.exe to run in interactive mode. If the clock on my system tells me that it's 2:30:56pm, I'll run the following command: at 14:32/interactive taskmgr.exe
That will produce (at 2:32pm) an instance of the Task Manager running as 'Local System', which has even higher privileges than Administrator. From there you can kill nearly everything!
If the point releases from Redmond were free upgrades, then it might not matter so much. Last I checked, upgrading from Windows NT 5.0 to 5.1 costed several hundred dollars.
You might want to try putting your more valuable equipment on some small UPS units. It sounds to me like you might have poor electricity in your house. One of the houses I lived in had bad power, and I lost all sorts of electronics equipment there (I miss my Atari ST the most!) but once I moved, things pretty much stopped breaking. I've got computers and CD drives that have been working flawlessly for well over 10 years.
Have you tried some sort of traffic shaping for your upstream traffic? Even something simple like WonderShaper will do wonders for your bandwidth.
I have a similar DSL connection where I work (merchants bank) and I have users that send out upwards of 400 emails per day, each one ~350KB!!! Before I got there, they actually used a second DSL line for outgoing mail so that they wouldn't saturate the main line! I implemented traffic shaping on the DSL and put SMTP back on the main connection, and now everything is smoooooooth.
Give WonderShaper a chance. It takes a bit of tuning, but within two weeks or so you won't know how you got by without it.
I read somewhere that early Google datacentres were built by filling their racks with plywood shelves, then filling each shelf with one power supply running four motherboards each with one HDD. They didn't even use cases. This allowed them to build massively dense datacentres very cheaply. At one point they decided it wasn't worth it to replace dead hardware, so they started placing the racks too close together to be accessible. Why dig through and replace things when you can just keep adding more?
Anyhow, the article mentioned that in these early datacentres they experienced something like a 25% hardware failure rate, but that it didn't matter because the software worked around it and the hardware was cheap.
Here's a link to the page where I read all this neat stuff. It's probably mostly about the same stuff as the article we've all just slashdotted, but I won't be albe to tell for a while....
I went from 2.6.6 to 2.6.11-rc2 to get my new Audigy Value working. I've been going from rc-to-rc, and so far I've been very happy with 2.6.11. My only real problems have been with my GeForce drivers, but the problems have been fairly minor, and I'm sure nVidia will catch up soon.
I'm not very pleased with the new kernel development model, but 2.6.11 seems to be a very solid release. I'll likely be running it until my next hardware upgrade.
After dark is the best time to demonstrate fast vegetables, because sometimes you can see the purple streak of flaming butane chase the spud across the sky.
In servers and such. I'm working at a place right now that likes to build their own servers for whatever reason, and right now they're all equipped with Radeon 9200 cards (I don't know why). If this card were open, they wouldn't need to worry about writing the driver, so they should be able to make a decent, stable card for _cheap_! Sounds about right for server use.
This might also be handy for MythTV users.
I spent nearly 2 years as one of only two techies for a small consulting company just West of Toronto. We installed and supported computer networks and telephone systems. We worked with everything short of datacenters, from 20 computer law firms with Norstar key systems, to mutli-site VPN and VoIP linked convergant networks with over 2000 nodes. The other technician was married with 2 kids, and was also my boss, so he was only really a technician part-time. He was also had very little knowledge of the telephone systems, so they were my responsability. I spent my time working 16-18 hour days (I even endured a few 36-hour shifts), on call 24-7 with a mandate for 4-hour on-site response time.
After we installed a couple of large telephone systems, including one multi-site hospital, I decided that I was sick of being the only tech on call. I asked my boss to hire another tech, but he refused and instead tried to negotiate my salary down, so I quit. Months later, unable to find another technician with the training needed to support the unusual French telephone systems we had installed, the company went bankrupt.
While I was working there, I got a raise from $12.50 to $16 per hour. I was payed for 35 hours of work per week, no overtime.
I have since found much better work. Don't think that all jobs in Toronto are quite so terrible, but you asked for examples, and this seemed appropriate.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't really blame Maxtor, though their drives do tend to produce quite a bit of heat. Most manufacturers state very clearly on their websites that you should not allow your drive to run above 55 degrees celcius, a very reasonable number.
As for my favourite keyboard, it would be my old KeyTronic 101-key with a coiled cord and a switch on the back to flip between 'XT' and 'AT Enhanced' modes. I found it in the trash! Excellent keyboard, just amazing. I can't stand the stupid 104 key Windows boards.
The original Blackberries werre 386 based as well. I'm not sure what the newer ones run, but the original 386 solution was excellent.
What configuration are you running? Are you overclocking?
I'm sure that neither the server admin nor the software vendor wants to deal with the headache of finding the right versions of ever piece of software. Does Windows come with Itanium 1 optimizations, or Itanium 2 optimizations? How about HP-UX?
I realize that all procrssors suffer the same optimization problems across generations, but the dynamic execution capabilities of most chips go a long way towards minimizing this effect.
How about "Public Software?"
You should be able to get $50 just for the serial number on eBay or craigslist.
Thanks for the insight, I knew I should have stayed in school!
How about 3i? Have you never heard of imaginary numbers?
I believe that the mind is (simply?) a quantum computer, and the article seems to support that idea. The human brain utilizes a sort of general interconnectedness of things to process thoughts as dynamic probabilities of state, with conclusions only being properly arrived at after a certain ammount of calculation has occured, but with all probabilities esiting well before the completion of the thought.
Anyhow, I should probably stop rambling and go outside or something.
I've got a few Debian servers here at work, and a few at home. I read the release notes and warnings, updated my apt and proceeded into a dist-upgrade. All of my boxes upgraded without trouble. The only strange dependancy that I have noticed, is that Sarge is trying to replace Postfix with Exim!
HT is marketed as something that gives the P4 an advantage over competing chips, and as such it is indeed a joke. Sure, it saves the P4 from it's own performance woes (remember the Willamette? I'm stuck with one on my desk at work), but it's usefulness ends there.
I encode movies, run GIMPS and offer remote (FreeNX) access to friends nearly 24/7 on my Athlon 3200+ and I have no problems with responsiveness. I think perhapse that the impression that HT is useful comes from the fact the the P4 is so terrible at dealing with pipline stalls.
At work I operate a Windows 2003 terminal server on a P4-2.8 machine with 2GB of memory. At home I operate Debian on a K7-2.2 with 1GB of memory. Both provide remote desktop access, usually 3 or 4 concurrent connections. With HT enabled on the Intel machine, the performance is reasonable. With HT disabled, the Intel machine is strangely lagged, to the point that I get support calls about it from folks trying to work from home. The AMD machine, of course, isn't equipped with HT at all and it runs just fine.
If HT was simply a trick to squeeze 20% more work out of a processor, then the difference would not be so pronounced. Truth is the P4 is terrible with branchy code, and the problem is exacerbated when running many simultaneous threads of branchy code.
HT is an excellent way to minimize the damage done by pipeline stalls, though I think it's given much more attention than it deserves. The problem that it was inteded to solve can be avoided entirely (and more gracefuly) by building a shorter pipeline!
It should work on any version of NT that includes the task manager and task scheduler, which I believe is all of them. I've personally tested it on everything from NT4 to Server 2003.
There's another way to kill processes that say 'access denied' without having to download additional software. Using the commandline 'at' command, schedule taskmgr.exe to run in interactive mode. If the clock on my system tells me that it's 2:30:56pm, I'll run the following command: /interactive taskmgr.exe
at 14:32
That will produce (at 2:32pm) an instance of the Task Manager running as 'Local System', which has even higher privileges than Administrator. From there you can kill nearly everything!
If the point releases from Redmond were free upgrades, then it might not matter so much. Last I checked, upgrading from Windows NT 5.0 to 5.1 costed several hundred dollars.
You might want to try putting your more valuable equipment on some small UPS units. It sounds to me like you might have poor electricity in your house. One of the houses I lived in had bad power, and I lost all sorts of electronics equipment there (I miss my Atari ST the most!) but once I moved, things pretty much stopped breaking. I've got computers and CD drives that have been working flawlessly for well over 10 years.
I have a similar DSL connection where I work (merchants bank) and I have users that send out upwards of 400 emails per day, each one ~350KB!!! Before I got there, they actually used a second DSL line for outgoing mail so that they wouldn't saturate the main line! I implemented traffic shaping on the DSL and put SMTP back on the main connection, and now everything is smoooooooth.
Give WonderShaper a chance. It takes a bit of tuning, but within two weeks or so you won't know how you got by without it.
Anyhow, the article mentioned that in these early datacentres they experienced something like a 25% hardware failure rate, but that it didn't matter because the software worked around it and the hardware was cheap.
Here's a link to the page where I read all this neat stuff. It's probably mostly about the same stuff as the article we've all just slashdotted, but I won't be albe to tell for a while....
I went from 2.6.6 to 2.6.11-rc2 to get my new Audigy Value working. I've been going from rc-to-rc, and so far I've been very happy with 2.6.11. My only real problems have been with my GeForce drivers, but the problems have been fairly minor, and I'm sure nVidia will catch up soon. I'm not very pleased with the new kernel development model, but 2.6.11 seems to be a very solid release. I'll likely be running it until my next hardware upgrade.
He was using an Electronic Thumb to hitch a ride on the vogon ship. No magic there, he's just well prepared.
My potato gun can show you a fast vegetable.
After dark is the best time to demonstrate fast vegetables, because sometimes you can see the purple streak of flaming butane chase the spud across the sky.
Mmmmm... fast vegetables.
Slashdot came to be in 97 I believe, while hard drives hit the ~500MB mark (540?) around 94.
In servers and such. I'm working at a place right now that likes to build their own servers for whatever reason, and right now they're all equipped with Radeon 9200 cards (I don't know why). If this card were open, they wouldn't need to worry about writing the driver, so they should be able to make a decent, stable card for _cheap_! Sounds about right for server use. This might also be handy for MythTV users.
After we installed a couple of large telephone systems, including one multi-site hospital, I decided that I was sick of being the only tech on call. I asked my boss to hire another tech, but he refused and instead tried to negotiate my salary down, so I quit. Months later, unable to find another technician with the training needed to support the unusual French telephone systems we had installed, the company went bankrupt.
While I was working there, I got a raise from $12.50 to $16 per hour. I was payed for 35 hours of work per week, no overtime.
I have since found much better work. Don't think that all jobs in Toronto are quite so terrible, but you asked for examples, and this seemed appropriate.