I don't have any firsthand experience with this stuff, but I have read a lot of the reviews and whatnot. I gather that the difference is in scaling to 2 way (and 4 way) boxes. While a single 3GHz Xeon and a single Opteron are pretty competitive, the Opterons are built for dual and quad processor work - especially with memory intensive applications.
Each Opteron has it's own memory channels in multiprocessor boxes. All memory is still shared throughout the system, it's just that there is more total memory bandwidth to go around as you add Opterons. In comparison, Xeon systems have the same amount of system wide memory bandwidth from 1 CPU all the way to 4 CPU's. The net result is that in many cases a second Opteron processor nets a gain 80% or more performance - which is a LOT better scaling than Xeons. This will probably be even more evident in future comparative reviews of quad CPU boxes since the Xeons will be sputtering on memory bandwidth fumes (relative to the Opterons).
Funny, around my part of the world, no serious news organization would have picked this as the title of the article. Exactly what do they call pot in Britain?
Maybe time for a database of OSS sounds?
on
Free Sound Samples?
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· Score: 1
There are enough little games and screensavers out there that are open source. The tricky part is knowing where to look in the great big sea of code/packages. Maybe someone should put together a simple database of where to get free clips?
A lot of timeclocks have been cheated in the past, just as new higher tech. systems will be in the future.
I've never used a mechanical clock personally, but others have told lots of stories of people "punching in" for co-workers who are running late - or sometimes not planning on coming in at all!
No, I don't know the particular laws involved, but I see no reason why an old mechanical system would be inherently more tamper-resistant than a "whiz-bang gadget".
Once, at work, we picked up a few DIMMs of RAM from a large electronics chain. Someone had bought the RAM, steamed off (or maybe just pealed off) the serial number, stuck the labels on 3 smaller DIMMs, and returned them!
He or she got several free upgrades from 64Mb to 128Mb sticks - and wasted a lot of others people's time in the process! ARGH.
Umm... yeah, I think someone has spent too much time watching the Simpsons.
Seriously, if we want music, lights, and the temperature to respond to who's in the room, aren't we better off with some voice recognition software? You and I have seen it on Star Trek - it looks like fun. =)
Basic voice recognition would be feasible for this purpose. "Room, this is Joe. You know how I like it." Plus, there won't be nearly as many issues as this uncomfortable sofa will have. How is a sofa with a weight sensor supposed to know what to do when people are holding bags, or have just been to a buffet, or has a friend on the couch with them, or is jumping on the couch, or all of the above?
I like this idea. Those guys at Lindows sure know how to get publicity. Proof in point, they're on the front page of Slashdot for what, the 50th time? I'm going to guess that they'll be on Wired.com, News.com, a few newspapers, and elsewhere in the morning.
Sure, most people will format the software upon arrival. Sure, few people are going to convert to Linux because of a preloaded OS on the HD. BUT, it costs nothing. Nothing to Lindows, nothing to Seagate (they have to test the drives anyway, it's trivial to load some software), and nothing to the end-consumer.
At the very least, we shouldn't be dismissing this effort. It's another small step to bringing consciousness of Linux to the average PC user. Isn't that something we all want to bring some balance to the OS market?
Re:What you don't look at the page first?
on
Knoppix 3.3 Is Out
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· Score: 1
Yeah, I never could get Knoppix 3.1 off of their servers. For whatever reason, they don't seem as bandwidth endowed as, say, Red Hat. Nothing wrong with that, I wouldn't want to pay to upload an ISO to every/.'er either!
I generally agree. However, I am one of those users who at one time or another uses a lot of those weird features that "nobody ever uses". Macros, comparing documents, embedding stuff, mail merges, etc. I just did a quick browse of my Word 2000 menu bar, and the only things that I don't recall using are various wizards like auto-summarize, auto-format, and letter-wizard. The thing is, that I don't think I'm that unique in using a wide swath of features. True, most of the time 90% of the features are not used in a particular document, but over the course of 20, 30, or 50 documents, a whole lot of features are used.
One idea that I've been thinking about lately, is having 2 or 3 basic modes of operation; something like Novice, Intermediate, and Expert. And make it VERY obvious how to switch between modes. In Novice mode, lock down all the toolbars, don't auto-hide menu options (not that I care for that feature at all!), maybe make the help features come up quicker(?). For the other modes, let varying amounts of the features get displayed.
Eventually everyone would end up in Expert mode, but it would be a nice and gradual transition. This doesn't have to be too hard to setup... theoretically, someone could probably create an add-on to MS-Office or other suites to customize the appearance...
I haven't read the article (gasp!), but other have commented that this is a trademark issue.
But just for reference, copywrite laws vary a lot by country. In many countries of the old Common Wealth, like Canada, copywrite expires 50 years after the death of the author. Many books from the 1920's don't qualify for expiry of copywrite under this rule. Also, the copywrite in the US would be specific to the edition that was published before 1920ish. So, any newer revisions that include new sub-classifications for things like computers, genetics, nuclear science, etc. would still be covered by copywrite.
I don't know how different a "new" edition is from a pre-1920ish version... but I suspect it's quite substantial.
I suspect that AMD systems had more problems proportionally than Intel boxes, but the reason was that since AMD chips (and Cyrix for that matter) were cheaper, they tended to get bundled with other cheaper components. Flakey motherboards, undersized power supplies, off-brand hard drives, generic ram all provide plenty of opportunity for unstable systems. Unfortunately, it was AMD that would always get the blame.
Hopefully that negative image will go away soon - maybe having a few of the fastest super computers on the planet running AMD Opertons will smooth over the image problem.
I've used PHP quite a lot lately. And it's great. On the whole it is every bit as good as the last versions of ColdFusion and ASP that I've used (admittedly those are a version or two old by now).
To me, the biggest strength of PHP going forward is the huge number of people that are improving the PHP experience every day.
1) New features? There are free extensions and modules for templating, database abstraction, compiled script caching, and more.
2) Sample code. I'll bet that there are more free as in speech snippets and full applications of code available for PHP that any other web language.
2) Community. There are lots of sites and other online resources where PHP developers can find help with debugging code when they need it.
Once you toss in great cross-platform support - PHP runs on just about any web server of interest - and a good price ($0), PHP is very competitive.
No, I wouldn't want a bank running on PHP, but for MANY other uses inside companies, PHP is good and getting better. I liken it somewhat to Linux a couple years ago with respect to corporate acceptance. The foundation is more or less built, what's left is some time to mature and gain credibility.
Really, what doesn't pose a risk? How about shoes? Visitors? What about patients?! If they prevent sick patients from being in the hospital, they can't spread germs, right?
Looks like Slashdot didn't need to do anything, "Grokster, StreamCast Networks, Limewire and other file-trading software companies" are offering to pick up the 12yr old's RIAA tab.
Sounds odd to me too. I've got two guesses:
1) they're doing some fuzzy math, like including a 50% bonus for saving air conditioning and heating costs (as if simple blinds didn't exist)
2) maybe they do something really smart with trapping and focusing UV on a smaller number of cells (the article does say that they are a foot apart).
True, but if your PC is on anyway, 50W would be about the difference between a CPU at idle and a CPU at max - assuming, that your CPU had an idle mode that actually used less power.
Now if people were leaving their computers on at night, just to run this distributed program, you're right, 50 watts is probably too low.
Since they've added a modem, they might as well toss in some dial-up internet support. There should be enough power in the GBA to support a SSH session or two. Plus a web browser. It'd be a pain to enter text though...
I've used E-smith at home for three years now. It's all web-based configuration once the initial installation is done. It provides IMAP (I think Courier, but I could be wrong), webmail (IMP-Horde), POP3, SMTP. VERY easy to setup - I was by no means experienced with Linux or email servers when I first set it up, and it's only gotten better with maturity. Plus, for a few bucks you can order support services which include secondary MX services. The latest version is based off of RedHat 7.x I think.
I have no relation to the folks at e-smith, I'm just a happy user.
I was thinking the same thing. But check here for a list of countries where this PVR is currently available.
No Canada, or US for that matter. All European. I didn't see any specific reason why. Maybe it's a PAL/NTSC thing, or a patent thing, or simply an early stage of the product rollout thing. Too bad, it's a pretty nice looking box.
The prototype made by Lovley and Chaudhuri cranks out only a tiny amount of current -- enough to run a calculator or Christmas tree lights.
A battery life of 25 days is very impressive for a string of Christmas lights. Less so, for a calculator. I suspect that they meant a single (LED?) Christmas tree light, which would still be pretty good. Anyone know how much sugar and power are involved?
How about a virtual keyboard that uses symbols that only you recognize. Grab some random images from a clipart collection. Map them to letters and numbers. Print out a copy to keep in your pocket - or transfer it to a PDA somehow. Then use that!
Re:before you switched to google ?
on
Google Turns 5
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· Score: 1
Except their directory is pretty much all paid-inclusion now. Today, I'd take Dmoz's direcory over Yahoo, hands-down. (Actually, I usually go through Google's mirror of the directory - saves some load on DMoz's servers!)
I once imagined writing a little Java applet that would display a virtual keyboard that could be used to enter passwords. I never got around to it, and besides that, I'm not sure how feasible it would be - the keystroke logger would probably pick up all "virtual" keystrokes anyway.
My "better" solution would be to use Remote Desktop or VNC type systems to your home PC and use a on-screen keyboard program from there for passwords - then change your RD/VNC password when you get home.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have any firsthand experience with this stuff, but I have read a lot of the reviews and whatnot. I gather that the difference is in scaling to 2 way (and 4 way) boxes. While a single 3GHz Xeon and a single Opteron are pretty competitive, the Opterons are built for dual and quad processor work - especially with memory intensive applications.
Each Opteron has it's own memory channels in multiprocessor boxes. All memory is still shared throughout the system, it's just that there is more total memory bandwidth to go around as you add Opterons. In comparison, Xeon systems have the same amount of system wide memory bandwidth from 1 CPU all the way to 4 CPU's. The net result is that in many cases a second Opteron processor nets a gain 80% or more performance - which is a LOT better scaling than Xeons. This will probably be even more evident in future comparative reviews of quad CPU boxes since the Xeons will be sputtering on memory bandwidth fumes (relative to the Opterons).
Funny, around my part of the world, no serious news organization would have picked this as the title of the article. Exactly what do they call pot in Britain?
There are enough little games and screensavers out there that are open source. The tricky part is knowing where to look in the great big sea of code/packages. Maybe someone should put together a simple database of where to get free clips?
A lot of timeclocks have been cheated in the past, just as new higher tech. systems will be in the future.
I've never used a mechanical clock personally, but others have told lots of stories of people "punching in" for co-workers who are running late - or sometimes not planning on coming in at all!
No, I don't know the particular laws involved, but I see no reason why an old mechanical system would be inherently more tamper-resistant than a "whiz-bang gadget".
Yeah, there are some real scum out there.
Once, at work, we picked up a few DIMMs of RAM from a large electronics chain. Someone had bought the RAM, steamed off (or maybe just pealed off) the serial number, stuck the labels on 3 smaller DIMMs, and returned them!
He or she got several free upgrades from 64Mb to 128Mb sticks - and wasted a lot of others people's time in the process! ARGH.
Umm... yeah, I think someone has spent too much time watching the Simpsons.
Seriously, if we want music, lights, and the temperature to respond to who's in the room, aren't we better off with some voice recognition software? You and I have seen it on Star Trek - it looks like fun. =)
Basic voice recognition would be feasible for this purpose. "Room, this is Joe. You know how I like it." Plus, there won't be nearly as many issues as this uncomfortable sofa will have. How is a sofa with a weight sensor supposed to know what to do when people are holding bags, or have just been to a buffet, or has a friend on the couch with them, or is jumping on the couch, or all of the above?
I like this idea. Those guys at Lindows sure know how to get publicity. Proof in point, they're on the front page of Slashdot for what, the 50th time? I'm going to guess that they'll be on Wired.com, News.com, a few newspapers, and elsewhere in the morning.
Sure, most people will format the software upon arrival. Sure, few people are going to convert to Linux because of a preloaded OS on the HD. BUT, it costs nothing. Nothing to Lindows, nothing to Seagate (they have to test the drives anyway, it's trivial to load some software), and nothing to the end-consumer.
At the very least, we shouldn't be dismissing this effort. It's another small step to bringing consciousness of Linux to the average PC user. Isn't that something we all want to bring some balance to the OS market?
Yeah, I never could get Knoppix 3.1 off of their servers. For whatever reason, they don't seem as bandwidth endowed as, say, Red Hat. Nothing wrong with that, I wouldn't want to pay to upload an ISO to every /.'er either!
Let's see how BT works for me today!
I generally agree. However, I am one of those users who at one time or another uses a lot of those weird features that "nobody ever uses". Macros, comparing documents, embedding stuff, mail merges, etc. I just did a quick browse of my Word 2000 menu bar, and the only things that I don't recall using are various wizards like auto-summarize, auto-format, and letter-wizard. The thing is, that I don't think I'm that unique in using a wide swath of features. True, most of the time 90% of the features are not used in a particular document, but over the course of 20, 30, or 50 documents, a whole lot of features are used.
One idea that I've been thinking about lately, is having 2 or 3 basic modes of operation; something like Novice, Intermediate, and Expert. And make it VERY obvious how to switch between modes. In Novice mode, lock down all the toolbars, don't auto-hide menu options (not that I care for that feature at all!), maybe make the help features come up quicker(?). For the other modes, let varying amounts of the features get displayed.
Eventually everyone would end up in Expert mode, but it would be a nice and gradual transition. This doesn't have to be too hard to setup... theoretically, someone could probably create an add-on to MS-Office or other suites to customize the appearance...
How prevalent are large campaign donations in Europe? Are lobby groups any where near as powerful as they are in the US?
I haven't read the article (gasp!), but other have commented that this is a trademark issue.
But just for reference, copywrite laws vary a lot by country. In many countries of the old Common Wealth, like Canada, copywrite expires 50 years after the death of the author. Many books from the 1920's don't qualify for expiry of copywrite under this rule. Also, the copywrite in the US would be specific to the edition that was published before 1920ish. So, any newer revisions that include new sub-classifications for things like computers, genetics, nuclear science, etc. would still be covered by copywrite.
I don't know how different a "new" edition is from a pre-1920ish version... but I suspect it's quite substantial.
Well said.
I suspect that AMD systems had more problems proportionally than Intel boxes, but the reason was that since AMD chips (and Cyrix for that matter) were cheaper, they tended to get bundled with other cheaper components. Flakey motherboards, undersized power supplies, off-brand hard drives, generic ram all provide plenty of opportunity for unstable systems. Unfortunately, it was AMD that would always get the blame.
Hopefully that negative image will go away soon - maybe having a few of the fastest super computers on the planet running AMD Opertons will smooth over the image problem.
I've used PHP quite a lot lately. And it's great. On the whole it is every bit as good as the last versions of ColdFusion and ASP that I've used (admittedly those are a version or two old by now).
To me, the biggest strength of PHP going forward is the huge number of people that are improving the PHP experience every day.
1) New features? There are free extensions and modules for templating, database abstraction, compiled script caching, and more.
2) Sample code. I'll bet that there are more free as in speech snippets and full applications of code available for PHP that any other web language.
2) Community. There are lots of sites and other online resources where PHP developers can find help with debugging code when they need it.
Once you toss in great cross-platform support - PHP runs on just about any web server of interest - and a good price ($0), PHP is very competitive.
No, I wouldn't want a bank running on PHP, but for MANY other uses inside companies, PHP is good and getting better. I liken it somewhat to Linux a couple years ago with respect to corporate acceptance. The foundation is more or less built, what's left is some time to mature and gain credibility.
Really, what doesn't pose a risk? How about shoes? Visitors? What about patients?! If they prevent sick patients from being in the hospital, they can't spread germs, right?
Nice article on there today: P2P group: We'll pay girl's RIAA bill.
Looks like Slashdot didn't need to do anything, "Grokster, StreamCast Networks, Limewire and other file-trading software companies" are offering to pick up the 12yr old's RIAA tab.
Sounds odd to me too. I've got two guesses:
1) they're doing some fuzzy math, like including a 50% bonus for saving air conditioning and heating costs (as if simple blinds didn't exist)
2) maybe they do something really smart with trapping and focusing UV on a smaller number of cells (the article does say that they are a foot apart).
I wonder when the tae bo trainer game comes out.
"It's like having a personal trainer come to your house!"
On second thought, maybe a different type of "Adult" video game will be the next genre for this device...
True, but if your PC is on anyway, 50W would be about the difference between a CPU at idle and a CPU at max - assuming, that your CPU had an idle mode that actually used less power.
Now if people were leaving their computers on at night, just to run this distributed program, you're right, 50 watts is probably too low.
Since they've added a modem, they might as well toss in some dial-up internet support. There should be enough power in the GBA to support a SSH session or two. Plus a web browser. It'd be a pain to enter text though...
I've used E-smith at home for three years now. It's all web-based configuration once the initial installation is done. It provides IMAP (I think Courier, but I could be wrong), webmail (IMP-Horde), POP3, SMTP. VERY easy to setup - I was by no means experienced with Linux or email servers when I first set it up, and it's only gotten better with maturity. Plus, for a few bucks you can order support services which include secondary MX services. The latest version is based off of RedHat 7.x I think.
I have no relation to the folks at e-smith, I'm just a happy user.
I was thinking the same thing. But check here for a list of countries where this PVR is currently available.
No Canada, or US for that matter. All European. I didn't see any specific reason why. Maybe it's a PAL/NTSC thing, or a patent thing, or simply an early stage of the product rollout thing. Too bad, it's a pretty nice looking box.
A battery life of 25 days is very impressive for a string of Christmas lights. Less so, for a calculator. I suspect that they meant a single (LED?) Christmas tree light, which would still be pretty good. Anyone know how much sugar and power are involved?
Hmm...good point.
How about a virtual keyboard that uses symbols that only you recognize. Grab some random images from a clipart collection. Map them to letters and numbers. Print out a copy to keep in your pocket - or transfer it to a PDA somehow. Then use that!
Except their directory is pretty much all paid-inclusion now. Today, I'd take Dmoz's direcory over Yahoo, hands-down. (Actually, I usually go through Google's mirror of the directory - saves some load on DMoz's servers!)
I once imagined writing a little Java applet that would display a virtual keyboard that could be used to enter passwords. I never got around to it, and besides that, I'm not sure how feasible it would be - the keystroke logger would probably pick up all "virtual" keystrokes anyway.
My "better" solution would be to use Remote Desktop or VNC type systems to your home PC and use a on-screen keyboard program from there for passwords - then change your RD/VNC password when you get home.