Oh c'mon, you make it sound like AMD actually has a future.
While AMD screwed up buying ATI, and didn't move towards quad processors fast enough, I would not count AMD out. This is not the first time this has shifted and will not be the last. And AMD still has the price point, as grandma does not need a $2+K 8GB quad core to surf the Internet when a $600 AMD X2 is overkill.
I currently have 3 systems based on AMD, 2 of which have been over clocked, over heated, abused and been through multiple sets of fans and hard drives (aging). They keep on ticking. Over the years I probably have had mostly Intel by a small lead, but have always been pleased with AMD. Right now the score for failed systems is 2 for Intel and 0 for AMD. But most get retired. For me, it isn't just about speed.
So long as AMD keeps it reliability, I will have them as my top choice. But I will admit, if they tie in ATI chips to the CPU, they could lose me as only 1 of my 7 systems runs MS anything.
I don't believe AMD/ATI. their video cards have always had really bad unix support.
Quite true. Many years ago, almost last century ATI had a series of well supported cards that worked well with Linux, but also BSD and Solaris. Quite nice cards too in their time. But then ATI changed hard and fast to being closed and getting drivers became near impossible. A lot of times the VGA basics would work, but you were under utilizing the card. It is about where I stopped buying ATI and moved to nVidia because they are least supply drivers. nVidia drivers here Given ATI support is increasing, I will watch. But just that.
I just upgraded my system. I'm not a big graphics user but I bought an ATI HD 2600 Pro over an Nvidia card because AMD seem to be really supportive of Open Source at the moment.
So far, this is lip service. ATI first has to release the information or reference driver source and then give it 6 months for testing before you see see it in the sources.
If you are buying a GPU, I would first look at the hardware list for your favorite Linux distro, and purchase based on that as support is proven, the vendors have either indirectly helped or it was reverse engineered. By buying these products it sends a clear message to vendors, Linux or loose this market share.
What I will do when picking my next PC is I also take a Live CD of the distro or similar. Say SUSE 10.3 Live CD and go down to the shop and have the salesperson run it. If it boots, runs well, sees the network on DHCP I will likely buy it.
But it looks like AMD is finally going to start servicing that section of the market, I'm still skeptical but we'll see how things turn out.
I too will join your skepticism and it was the very reason I stopped buying ATI some years ago. At first, ATI support seemed good, then it faltered miserably. Myself and others asked ATI for some information to fix this and didn't even get the time of day. Now that their is talk of coming around I will sit back and wait to see if AMD/ATI can walk the talk. But forgive me for not running out and buying ATI until it happens.
Blocking 2o7.net is relatively easy if you have a DNS and/or firewall. I have been blocking 2o7.net both privately and professionally for years as this is hardly the first time 2o7.net has been involved in surveillance of users, in fact it is what they do.
If you have DNS, create a zone file db.2o7.net, db.2o7.com and other tracking domains. In the zones, resolve a wild card address to 127.0.0.1. By putting it in your in-house DNS you can black hole their domains. Also consider reverse zones, as a lookup, even reverse can spill information.
Next is the firewall, simply block their IPs and name servers. I usually block the who netblock(s).
Remember, it does not take much to use DNS as a way to send out information. Just do a lookup of pcyourpassword.domain.com and out it goes. More sophisticated methods can be less obvious, say encode it and make it look like a cable modem pool or something.
So if you don't trust a domain like 2o7.net, don't just block the http, block everything.
I have a BIG pile of stuff around here that does not, cannot and likely never will run MS Vista but runs Ubuntu just fine. I don't even think the Vista kernel will load on them. Drivers? Haven't had to putz with those in at least a few releases of Ubuntu. Install? Goes much faster.
The sad fact is when buying hardware you now must buy hardware rated for the OS of choice, like Apple. I don't see OS/X being a simple install on a Dell or HP, nor is Vista going to be put on a Mac Pro. Get used to it, MS monopoly is cracking. Those little Linux rodents are multiplying.
The good part is when you do give up being a MS fan boy, you will find 20 minutes is all you need to learn the basics of Open Office. Firefox, especially with the center button/tab functionality is a hoot. With Ubuntu the buttons are more likely to be in the familiar places like XP and you don't have to shake your head at Vista looking for the damn button.
As for stuff like wireless, I buy the Linux friendly ones. Printers? Even HP now has Linux drivers. Cameras, worked right off.
Something like a distributed RAID volume striped over multiple machines?! BRILLIANT!
Add the words encrypted and redundant to it and you have the idea.
A file system that is like raid 5, but double writes each entry to different networks for added redundancy so if one dies another picks up. Add the sophistication in the background to dynamically repair for missing nodes and volume segments.
Then the 100GB unused disk space of 5000 PCs becomes a 500TB disk volume, say 200TB of double redundant reliable and usable. Or add 1 500GB dedicated disk to each PC, make it 1000TB of storage. A lot of backup storage. (Yes, my initial numbers were off but the point is the same).
I wish I didn't have to work, would be neat to write a file system driver/server to do this. Or maybe Google can contribute theirs. I have long suspected Google does not use tape for redundancy.
This article along with all of those who have something to say about backups should be modded "Redundant". After all, what good is a backup solution without redundancy?
That whole article sucked.
1) Says absolutely nothing that hasn't been true for over 30+ years.
2) Did this come from a random word generator?
3) Object based storage systems, maybe given enough time but 2008 isn't going to be magical.
4) Yep, we will see very high end $$$ laptops use solid state, but given the cost, current densities and Moore's law, at least 5 more years.
5) iSCSI? Why not DASD? DASD is still faster. EMC paying the bills?
6) Already happened. Think removable disks and USB.
7) Why eat the latency, recovery risk and costs in a secure data center? The TAPE needs securing, not the disks. (They didn't mention laptops, different story).
8) Says nothing
9) Green, had to find an excuse to say the word. If I bought new 35W CPU it could be green, or if I re-use the 145W heater it is green?
10)Is fluff 'n stuff. Motherhood.
Now a few choice predictions I will make.
1) Think if your organization has 5000 desktops and each has a spare 100GB that is 50TB of backup storage that is not used. 2008 will be the year we will serious start to look at distributed disk to disk backups.
2) Big one box storage solutions have maxed out in market penetration, mid-sized and small sized storage appliances is where the growth this. Disk is cheap and we over manage it.
3) Disk drive manufacturers will still do very well as they have the price/performance point. Even a high end laptop will say boot from 64G of flash, will still want a 800GB drive for storage.
4) Disk encryption will be standard in **laptops** for government and many corporations making some small headway into the consumer market.
5) Your next high end tape cartridge might be a hard drive with contact points. Same volume, higher density, 10 times as fast and no tape mechanism to eat tapes. Might even have built in hardware encryption. 2008 will be a serious start year for this.
6) A realization of what information we need to "dump" and what we really need to keep will grow. While an unsightly mess inside a computer goes unseen, it is none the less there. Data retention policies will grow and need more work.
BTW, personally I haven't used tape backup in over 9 years. After spending far too much money on tape transports, tape jams, longevity/storage issues I gave up on tape. Been using disk-2-disk over the network ever since. Preferring cpio, Samba, NFS, rsync/rdist etc. For compression, use gzip in a pipe, for encryption (where I need it) keys on a USB and PGP. Works great. And oh yes, I have had to recover. Works like smoke.
Except for laptops. Especially those that belong to governments and corporations. But do agree with the datacenter, it is useless in a secured area. The IDC serves up a poorly thought out storage trends should be the title.
Was Microsoft behind the curtain or McBride and his gang did it by themselves?
Everyone knows MS was behind the curtain.
If not, let's celebrate the end of SCO.
Why would that make a difference? Lets rejoice in SCO dieing! Let MS run and sneak away, their time is coming. Maybe many years off, but a coming.
If yes, doesn't the Novell-MS agreement stink a bit more now?
Sinks/stinks in real good. Novell isn't going sue one of SCO's biggest backers they have a sourcing agreement with, MS. Real dumb move on Novell's part as they did need to develop/support SUSE and forget MS promises. The executive should be fired.
Let us take a moment to remember SCO, and all that they did for us. For yea, they did take douchebaggery to new heights, and may their executives never again find work, and their lawyers develop sores. May their stockholders be infested with fleas in places they cannot scratch, and the offices that they occupied cursed for all time. As we prepare to bury this pitiful excuse for a company in the grave of history, may its death continue to be slow and painful.
Let us not forget the Microsoft connection. From early versions of Zenix, SCO UNIX etc. the boot copyrights and later Microsoft contributions.
While the SCO head is on a death kneel, the other head is still very much alive and up to something.
I big, bad company like Google picking on a itsy-bitsy company like Microsoft. Will there never be justice in this world?
If./ readers haven't noticed, Googles gross revenue is getting mightily close to M$FT. In fact, if you extrapolate the growth, 2008 will likely be the year Google surpasses M$FT in gross revenue.
M$FT also knows Google could fire a missile right at M$FT that would be hard to take. Imagine if Google put out GooLinux, one click download and install with Open Office.....right over XP or Vista. Not a joke either.
M$FT knows while they were wasting their time/energy on Linux, Google made an end run on them and are now in a position to surely hurt M$FT right where it counts, in the OS/Office. Linux is the knife, Google is the real enemy.
And Google isn't a monopoly, Microsoft is. When I can buy a commodity Dell or HP from Best Buy without the M$FT tax, I will say the monopoly is over.
This could be easily solved if the pre-installed software would only work after you insert an activation code related to your license IF AND ONLY IF you bought said license as well as the computer, but it would have to be two quite different things.
That is a most excellent point. In fact you could include a variety of Windows (XP, Vista with MCE/Home/Premium/Pro 32 bit or 64 bit etc, including a variety of Linux and even Solaris i86/i86_64 for that mater. Even a 160GB drive could hold 30+ choices and just wipe out the ones not selected. And this would not be hard for the OEMs to do either, in fact quite trivial.
Or alternatively put the OS on a $10 USB drive or 20 cent DVD at time of purchase.
I do agree, if Microsoft manufactured it's own PCs, it should be allowed to do like Apple, bundle. But given Microsoft is more like a tire manufacture, a component of the system Dell, HP, Lenovo and others sell, it is bundling/MS tax. If simply because we have no choice.
Just like car companies do with tires/rims. Let the consumer choose.
You say the strength of Linux is also it's weakness. But I don't see the weakness in morphing new distros and versions. In fact, unlike Mac OS and Windows it is free to evolve! Even it's very weakness is a strength.
Lets just wait a few years, all those One Laptop per Child PCs is going to harvest a computer literate crop of talented kids in a few years. Oh, many will wind up broken in dumps, but many will educate and open up a whole new world. And it will not have Apple nor Microsoft as the monopoly.
Early Apple's, Macs, PCs and even Microsoft products brought computing to the middle classes and out of the suit controlled glass houses of IBM/Amdahl, now Linux is going to take it to all classes. It will be a slow but sure revolution of computing in time, and like the death of the monster mainframe, it took many years.
While I do agree it sort of myopic to state Linux 2008 desktop, it is not without merit in that Linux is growing. The proof is in Microsoft anti-Linux FUD. Companies don't spend that kind of money (billions) on impeding the competition if they are not feeling the heat.
Well of course! Didn't say it wouldn't. But you assumed I loaded 32 bit?
But I didn't buy AMD X2s to run 32 bit anything, it runs 64 bit Fedora. I don't know of a major Linux distro that does not have 64 bit and at no extra charge. In fact, the BSDs do this too. Even came with Microsoft taxes paid.
And to boot, (love the pun) haven't had near the problems I am having with drivers for my XP MCE 64 bit edition. I gave up on MCE being anything other than standard XP. If I didn't need at least 1 XP PoS for work, I would wipe it with Linux or Solaris.
This is what's going to happen when the TV's go blank.
We will put our computers in there, skip HDTV lock-in and download what we want, when we want and in a format we want -- OR -- we will not watch it.
Where I am in Canada I don't think standard Digital PVR cards work here. So I will not need cable for TV. Will still need it for the Internet. And increasingly more stations are providing content on line. In fact of the 3 stations and 4 shows I regularly watch, only one is not on the Internet.
If it were not bundled with the Internet on my cable, I would have dumped it years ago. If they try jumping my rates for a digital box (costs more here) I am going to consider dropping TV to get the cost lower. I would rather have a souped up Internet connection with static IPs.
You mentioned Solaris, but didn't it too runs on 64 bit x86_64 and can used more memory if it is there. In fact put 8GB in there for good measure, have one running like that as I speak. Ditto Linux. Running mysql? Add the RAM and tweak the config to use it and watch it go like smoke. Seems like only MS is having the 3.1/4GB issue.
How many times do I have to keep telling people that security is more about the skill of the IT staff than it is about the operating system it runs on?
Only partially true. Some are easier to secure than others by their very design. Heck, the people have to use these things, if we make a PC/Windows user operate as non-admin, most apps FAIL!
One game is to just clock up the frequency and make you think you have more. Put a divider in the middle and I could give you a 20GHz CPU. It is about throughput. How much can I get don in n cycles. For this, benchmarks are where it is at. Pick a benchmark(s) that is similar to the anticipated loads and work from there.
Not that I don't think that ink is severely overpriced but where did they come up with this number? Did they include the price of the cartridge that the ink comes in as well?
They could also put 4 oz cartridges out so you don't need to buy them as often. And given it is glycol and food coloring it would only cost pennies more.
This is a classic case of waste marketing causing expense to the consumer. You get the printer for $29 as part of your new computer. You wrestle with it until you master it enough to get your photos and documents out without too much waste of ink. Not wanting to go through the hassle again for another printer you pay the $45-50 for a refill. The refill maybe costs HP 50 cents, maybe a $1 to make. And of course you need these often like a tax as they dry as soon as they are opened even if you don't print much. Then the recycle gimmick.
I'm pretty sure that paying a retailer not to stock your competitors' products constitutes collusion and is a clear violation of antitrust laws. This is akin to Nike paying Wal*Mart $100 million not to stock Adidas shoes. The only thing that muddies the water a little bit is that 'compatible' inkjet cartridges violate the DMCA and probably several HP patents, and hence are illegal. Anyone know how this might affect the lawsuit?
Much of this depends if the US and other countries will enforce their anti-competitive laws. These laws exist but haven't been exercised in years. There is no reason I should not be able to buy a competitive refill for these things. Cheaper to buy a new printer than a cartridge might also stem the flows of new printers into our dumps.
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Oh c'mon, you make it sound like AMD actually has a future.
While AMD screwed up buying ATI, and didn't move towards quad processors fast enough, I would not count AMD out. This is not the first time this has shifted and will not be the last. And AMD still has the price point, as grandma does not need a $2+K 8GB quad core to surf the Internet when a $600 AMD X2 is overkill.
I currently have 3 systems based on AMD, 2 of which have been over clocked, over heated, abused and been through multiple sets of fans and hard drives (aging). They keep on ticking. Over the years I probably have had mostly Intel by a small lead, but have always been pleased with AMD. Right now the score for failed systems is 2 for Intel and 0 for AMD. But most get retired. For me, it isn't just about speed.
So long as AMD keeps it reliability, I will have them as my top choice. But I will admit, if they tie in ATI chips to the CPU, they could lose me as only 1 of my 7 systems runs MS anything.
I don't believe AMD/ATI. their video cards have always had really bad unix support.
Quite true. Many years ago, almost last century ATI had a series of well supported cards that worked well with Linux, but also BSD and Solaris. Quite nice cards too in their time. But then ATI changed hard and fast to being closed and getting drivers became near impossible. A lot of times the VGA basics would work, but you were under utilizing the card. It is about where I stopped buying ATI and moved to nVidia because they are least supply drivers. nVidia drivers here Given ATI support is increasing, I will watch. But just that.
I just upgraded my system. I'm not a big graphics user but I bought an ATI HD 2600 Pro over an Nvidia card because AMD seem to be really supportive of Open Source at the moment.
So far, this is lip service. ATI first has to release the information or reference driver source and then give it 6 months for testing before you see see it in the sources.
If you are buying a GPU, I would first look at the hardware list for your favorite Linux distro, and purchase based on that as support is proven, the vendors have either indirectly helped or it was reverse engineered. By buying these products it sends a clear message to vendors, Linux or loose this market share.
What I will do when picking my next PC is I also take a Live CD of the distro or similar. Say SUSE 10.3 Live CD and go down to the shop and have the salesperson run it. If it boots, runs well, sees the network on DHCP I will likely buy it.
But it looks like AMD is finally going to start servicing that section of the market, I'm still skeptical but we'll see how things turn out.
I too will join your skepticism and it was the very reason I stopped buying ATI some years ago. At first, ATI support seemed good, then it faltered miserably. Myself and others asked ATI for some information to fix this and didn't even get the time of day. Now that their is talk of coming around I will sit back and wait to see if AMD/ATI can walk the talk. But forgive me for not running out and buying ATI until it happens.
-----------
Linux is cute.
Blocking 2o7.net is relatively easy if you have a DNS and/or firewall. I have been blocking 2o7.net both privately and professionally for years as this is hardly the first time 2o7.net has been involved in surveillance of users, in fact it is what they do.
If you have DNS, create a zone file db.2o7.net, db.2o7.com and other tracking domains. In the zones, resolve a wild card address to 127.0.0.1. By putting it in your in-house DNS you can black hole their domains. Also consider reverse zones, as a lookup, even reverse can spill information.
Next is the firewall, simply block their IPs and name servers. I usually block the who netblock(s).
Remember, it does not take much to use DNS as a way to send out information. Just do a lookup of pcyourpassword.domain.com and out it goes. More sophisticated methods can be less obvious, say encode it and make it look like a cable modem pool or something.
So if you don't trust a domain like 2o7.net, don't just block the http, block everything.
Linux is cute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aufL76bXLAg
So what? Your grossly over rating drivers.
I have a BIG pile of stuff around here that does not, cannot and likely never will run MS Vista but runs Ubuntu just fine. I don't even think the Vista kernel will load on them. Drivers? Haven't had to putz with those in at least a few releases of Ubuntu. Install? Goes much faster.
The sad fact is when buying hardware you now must buy hardware rated for the OS of choice, like Apple. I don't see OS/X being a simple install on a Dell or HP, nor is Vista going to be put on a Mac Pro. Get used to it, MS monopoly is cracking. Those little Linux rodents are multiplying.
The good part is when you do give up being a MS fan boy, you will find 20 minutes is all you need to learn the basics of Open Office. Firefox, especially with the center button/tab functionality is a hoot. With Ubuntu the buttons are more likely to be in the familiar places like XP and you don't have to shake your head at Vista looking for the damn button.
As for stuff like wireless, I buy the Linux friendly ones. Printers? Even HP now has Linux drivers. Cameras, worked right off.
Something like a distributed RAID volume striped over multiple machines?! BRILLIANT!
Add the words encrypted and redundant to it and you have the idea.
A file system that is like raid 5, but double writes each entry to different networks for added redundancy so if one dies another picks up. Add the sophistication in the background to dynamically repair for missing nodes and volume segments.
Then the 100GB unused disk space of 5000 PCs becomes a 500TB disk volume, say 200TB of double redundant reliable and usable. Or add 1 500GB dedicated disk to each PC, make it 1000TB of storage. A lot of backup storage. (Yes, my initial numbers were off but the point is the same).
I wish I didn't have to work, would be neat to write a file system driver/server to do this. Or maybe Google can contribute theirs. I have long suspected Google does not use tape for redundancy.
This article along with all of those who have something to say about backups should be modded "Redundant". After all, what good is a backup solution without redundancy?
That whole article sucked.
1) Says absolutely nothing that hasn't been true for over 30+ years.
2) Did this come from a random word generator?
3) Object based storage systems, maybe given enough time but 2008 isn't going to be magical.
4) Yep, we will see very high end $$$ laptops use solid state, but given the cost, current densities and Moore's law, at least 5 more years.
5) iSCSI? Why not DASD? DASD is still faster. EMC paying the bills?
6) Already happened. Think removable disks and USB.
7) Why eat the latency, recovery risk and costs in a secure data center? The TAPE needs securing, not the disks. (They didn't mention laptops, different story).
8) Says nothing
9) Green, had to find an excuse to say the word. If I bought new 35W CPU it could be green, or if I re-use the 145W heater it is green?
10)Is fluff 'n stuff. Motherhood.
Now a few choice predictions I will make.
1) Think if your organization has 5000 desktops and each has a spare 100GB that is 50TB of backup storage that is not used. 2008 will be the year we will serious start to look at distributed disk to disk backups.
2) Big one box storage solutions have maxed out in market penetration, mid-sized and small sized storage appliances is where the growth this. Disk is cheap and we over manage it.
3) Disk drive manufacturers will still do very well as they have the price/performance point. Even a high end laptop will say boot from 64G of flash, will still want a 800GB drive for storage.
4) Disk encryption will be standard in **laptops** for government and many corporations making some small headway into the consumer market.
5) Your next high end tape cartridge might be a hard drive with contact points. Same volume, higher density, 10 times as fast and no tape mechanism to eat tapes. Might even have built in hardware encryption. 2008 will be a serious start year for this.
6) A realization of what information we need to "dump" and what we really need to keep will grow. While an unsightly mess inside a computer goes unseen, it is none the less there. Data retention policies will grow and need more work.
BTW, personally I haven't used tape backup in over 9 years. After spending far too much money on tape transports, tape jams, longevity/storage issues I gave up on tape. Been using disk-2-disk over the network ever since. Preferring cpio, Samba, NFS, rsync/rdist etc. For compression, use gzip in a pipe, for encryption (where I need it) keys on a USB and PGP. Works great. And oh yes, I have had to recover. Works like smoke.
1) there is no need 2) encryption costs resources
Except for laptops. Especially those that belong to governments and corporations. But do agree with the datacenter, it is useless in a secured area. The IDC serves up a poorly thought out storage trends should be the title.
Was Microsoft behind the curtain or McBride and his gang did it by themselves?
Everyone knows MS was behind the curtain.
If not, let's celebrate the end of SCO.
Why would that make a difference? Lets rejoice in SCO dieing! Let MS run and sneak away, their time is coming. Maybe many years off, but a coming.
If yes, doesn't the Novell-MS agreement stink a bit more now?
Sinks/stinks in real good. Novell isn't going sue one of SCO's biggest backers they have a sourcing agreement with, MS. Real dumb move on Novell's part as they did need to develop/support SUSE and forget MS promises. The executive should be fired.
Let us take a moment to remember SCO, and all that they did for us. For yea, they did take douchebaggery to new heights, and may their executives never again find work, and their lawyers develop sores. May their stockholders be infested with fleas in places they cannot scratch, and the offices that they occupied cursed for all time. As we prepare to bury this pitiful excuse for a company in the grave of history, may its death continue to be slow and painful.
Let us not forget the Microsoft connection. From early versions of Zenix, SCO UNIX etc. the boot copyrights and later Microsoft contributions.
While the SCO head is on a death kneel, the other head is still very much alive and up to something.
I big, bad company like Google picking on a itsy-bitsy company like Microsoft. Will there never be justice in this world?
If ./ readers haven't noticed, Googles gross revenue is getting mightily close to M$FT. In fact, if you extrapolate the growth, 2008 will likely be the year Google surpasses M$FT in gross revenue.
M$FT also knows Google could fire a missile right at M$FT that would be hard to take. Imagine if Google put out GooLinux, one click download and install with Open Office.....right over XP or Vista. Not a joke either.
M$FT knows while they were wasting their time/energy on Linux, Google made an end run on them and are now in a position to surely hurt M$FT right where it counts, in the OS/Office. Linux is the knife, Google is the real enemy.
And Google isn't a monopoly, Microsoft is. When I can buy a commodity Dell or HP from Best Buy without the M$FT tax, I will say the monopoly is over.
Oh come on, that was funny.
It is actually, MicroSoft Fear and Terrorism at it's best. Now give me a PC without Microsoft tax.
This could be easily solved if the pre-installed software would only work after you insert an activation code related to your license IF AND ONLY IF you bought said license as well as the computer, but it would have to be two quite different things.
That is a most excellent point. In fact you could include a variety of Windows (XP, Vista with MCE/Home/Premium/Pro 32 bit or 64 bit etc, including a variety of Linux and even Solaris i86/i86_64 for that mater. Even a 160GB drive could hold 30+ choices and just wipe out the ones not selected. And this would not be hard for the OEMs to do either, in fact quite trivial.
Or alternatively put the OS on a $10 USB drive or 20 cent DVD at time of purchase.
I do agree, if Microsoft manufactured it's own PCs, it should be allowed to do like Apple, bundle. But given Microsoft is more like a tire manufacture, a component of the system Dell, HP, Lenovo and others sell, it is bundling/MS tax. If simply because we have no choice.
Just like car companies do with tires/rims. Let the consumer choose.
You say the strength of Linux is also it's weakness. But I don't see the weakness in morphing new distros and versions. In fact, unlike Mac OS and Windows it is free to evolve! Even it's very weakness is a strength.
Lets just wait a few years, all those One Laptop per Child PCs is going to harvest a computer literate crop of talented kids in a few years. Oh, many will wind up broken in dumps, but many will educate and open up a whole new world. And it will not have Apple nor Microsoft as the monopoly.
Early Apple's, Macs, PCs and even Microsoft products brought computing to the middle classes and out of the suit controlled glass houses of IBM/Amdahl, now Linux is going to take it to all classes. It will be a slow but sure revolution of computing in time, and like the death of the monster mainframe, it took many years.
While I do agree it sort of myopic to state Linux 2008 desktop, it is not without merit in that Linux is growing. The proof is in Microsoft anti-Linux FUD. Companies don't spend that kind of money (billions) on impeding the competition if they are not feeling the heat.
No, 32-bit Linux also has the 3/4 GiB issue, ...
Well of course! Didn't say it wouldn't. But you assumed I loaded 32 bit?
But I didn't buy AMD X2s to run 32 bit anything, it runs 64 bit Fedora. I don't know of a major Linux distro that does not have 64 bit and at no extra charge. In fact, the BSDs do this too. Even came with Microsoft taxes paid.
And to boot, (love the pun) haven't had near the problems I am having with drivers for my XP MCE 64 bit edition. I gave up on MCE being anything other than standard XP. If I didn't need at least 1 XP PoS for work, I would wipe it with Linux or Solaris.
This is what's going to happen when the TV's go blank.
We will put our computers in there, skip HDTV lock-in and download what we want, when we want and in a format we want -- OR -- we will not watch it.
Where I am in Canada I don't think standard Digital PVR cards work here. So I will not need cable for TV. Will still need it for the Internet. And increasingly more stations are providing content on line. In fact of the 3 stations and 4 shows I regularly watch, only one is not on the Internet.
Now is a good time to get rid of the TV.
If it were not bundled with the Internet on my cable, I would have dumped it years ago. If they try jumping my rates for a digital box (costs more here) I am going to consider dropping TV to get the cost lower. I would rather have a souped up Internet connection with static IPs.
TV is so last century.
Sooner or later, the OEMs will start offering 64-bit Vista on these machines...
Or maybe offer Linux or Solaris instead.
You mentioned Solaris, but didn't it too runs on 64 bit x86_64 and can used more memory if it is there. In fact put 8GB in there for good measure, have one running like that as I speak. Ditto Linux. Running mysql? Add the RAM and tweak the config to use it and watch it go like smoke. Seems like only MS is having the 3.1/4GB issue.
How many times do I have to keep telling people that security is more about the skill of the IT staff than it is about the operating system it runs on?
Only partially true. Some are easier to secure than others by their very design. Heck, the people have to use these things, if we make a PC/Windows user operate as non-admin, most apps FAIL!
Right. Because more gigahertz means faster.
That is a fallacy big time.
One game is to just clock up the frequency and make you think you have more. Put a divider in the middle and I could give you a 20GHz CPU. It is about throughput. How much can I get don in n cycles. For this, benchmarks are where it is at. Pick a benchmark(s) that is similar to the anticipated loads and work from there.
Not that I don't think that ink is severely overpriced but where did they come up with this number? Did they include the price of the cartridge that the ink comes in as well?
They could also put 4 oz cartridges out so you don't need to buy them as often. And given it is glycol and food coloring it would only cost pennies more.
This is a classic case of waste marketing causing expense to the consumer. You get the printer for $29 as part of your new computer. You wrestle with it until you master it enough to get your photos and documents out without too much waste of ink. Not wanting to go through the hassle again for another printer you pay the $45-50 for a refill. The refill maybe costs HP 50 cents, maybe a $1 to make. And of course you need these often like a tax as they dry as soon as they are opened even if you don't print much. Then the recycle gimmick.
It would be good for HP to get slammed on this.
I'm pretty sure that paying a retailer not to stock your competitors' products constitutes collusion and is a clear violation of antitrust laws. This is akin to Nike paying Wal*Mart $100 million not to stock Adidas shoes. The only thing that muddies the water a little bit is that 'compatible' inkjet cartridges violate the DMCA and probably several HP patents, and hence are illegal. Anyone know how this might affect the lawsuit?
Much of this depends if the US and other countries will enforce their anti-competitive laws. These laws exist but haven't been exercised in years. There is no reason I should not be able to buy a competitive refill for these things. Cheaper to buy a new printer than a cartridge might also stem the flows of new printers into our dumps.