Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime.
Nobody says what "20% more annual uptime" means. Maybe "20% more annual uptime" is a result of having to run 20% more Windows machines to handle the same workload? Or maybe Windows has half the uptime, so they more than double the number of servers to get redundancy, to maintain availability while giving a server the three-finger-salute?
They made the mistake of trying to make a quick buck with their submarine patent, and they ticked off just about everybody. Including some very big players (Infineon, Samsung, Hynix, etc). This is just the big guys' way of exacting a very painful (and much-deserved) revenge. What the big memory makers did (assuming it's all true) may not have been legal, but boy, it sure feels good to see punks like Rambus writhe.
I was excited for Conroe, too...until I found out that the Intel-sponsored public benchmark demonstration of Conroe vs. an FX-60 was (surprise, surprise) rigged. More recent, hopefully more trustworthy reviews have still shown Conroe to lead AMD's current processors, but I'll hold onto my money until it actually is released and more reviews are available before I blow them on a new X2 or Core 2 Duo.
BTW, does anyone else see how the name "Core 2 Duo" could lead to confusing people? Joe Sixpack is going to have a hard time telling the difference between a Core (1) Duo and a Core 2 Solo. And is a Core 2 Duo the same as a Core Quad or a Core 4 Solo?
Considering that the Symantec (specifically Norton) products preinstalled on my E1705 were the worst behaving (and most difficult to remove - in fact I couldn't completely and cleanly remove them) components of Dell's preinstall, the fact that they are leaving an antivirus in their preinstall doesn't really help much. Antivirus programs are notorious for causing performance problems.
This is no joke. I just ran into a perfect example of this last weekend on my parents' computer. Here's the story:
1) Father buys 2-year subscription to Norton Internet Security and installs it.
2) At some point, LiveUpdate stops updating, saying "try again later....or just reinstall LiveUpdate"
3) A short chat with Symantec tech support reveals that it will require a full uninstall and reinstall of NIS
4) Opening the "add/remove programs" window reveals that NIS is occupying over 1GB on the hard drive
5) The uninstall encounters a fatal error and won't complete.
So now this computer has an install of NIS that won't update, and won't uninstall.
1) Rational people will wait until one or the other wins.
2) Current DVDs, with proper upscaling, will be close enough to the quality of the native-HD movies that there will be little-to-no incentive to spend extra on HD.
3) People already own the TV, the player, and plenty of other DVD's. And they're generally happy with what they have. Buying new movies in good ol' regular DVD is a 'safe' choice.
This is a case where both sides were saying "If I can't have it my way, then we won't do it at all". Both groups would prefer that everyone suffer equally (until the market sorts things out) than to have one group profit more than the other.
You're exactly right. I work for a large company (approx 80,000 employees). Last year they completed a transition from NT 4 to Windows XP. It wasn't done en masse, but done one group at a time.
EOL'ed software isn't that big of a deal. You can compensate for the lack of patches with a combination of a good firewall, proper use of user accounts, and Antivirus/antispyware software. It's not a perfect solution, but if it saves you the cost and time of 'upgrading', it's worth it. Particularly if your machine isn't up to the task of the next bloated, eye-candy-laden version of Windows.
I have done precisely that. I'm the youngest of nine, and typically the first call for tech support (although there's at least one other equally-competent if not more qualified geek in the family). I have now made it a mandatory condition of my help. I help them set up their router to allow VNC in, help them install VNC(but not as a service!). Now when I help them, it takes 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes, because I can see exactly what's going wrong.
It's not really a pump inside a pipe. It's like a pump inside a submarine inside the pipe. If you RTFA, the fiber is actually in a tube-like form. The electronics aren't actually embedded in the glass itself, they merely reside in a purpose-made pocket. I initally wondered if having a circuit in the middle of a fiber would reduce the transmission distance, but apparently it won't interfere.
It'll be interesting to see if this gets any traction in the real world. I guess I don't see much benefit beyond a possible reduction in latency.
The current number-of-writes for flash is somewhere in the 100,000-1,000,000 write cycle range. That's a lot of writes. Also, keep in mind that all flash chip controllers include logic that performs "write-leveling". This means that a specific chunk of data will 'jump' from one area of the memory to another in order to prevent one area from being worn out. Add to that the fact that flash chips contain some extra capacity to compensate for bad blocks.
With a careful configuration of Windows (no page file, no IE cache, no temporary files, use a RAM disk), this is certainly viable. In the absense of music/movie collections and monster games, even the 32GB size isn't that restrictive.
It's a very interesting question, with some telling answers. HD-DVD has the same physical structure as current DVDs--the data film layer is sandwiched between two.6mm layers of transparent plastic. Blu-Ray has the film closer to the bottom of the disc, with a very thin layer of scratch-resistant plastic covering it
This is the reason why manufacturers were much happier about HD-DVD than Blu-Ray--they can produce HD-DVD on the same lines with much the same equipment as normal DVDs. Blu-Ray requires much more re-tooling.
This also means that HD-DVD players don't have to do much to handle DVDs--the laser head moves slightly differently, but no focus problems. Of course, this may all be moot, since DVD players can also play CDs, which contain the data film on top of the plastic, right under the label (making it easier to scratch).
I think it's obvious to all of us that the NIC is certainly not the weakest link in a connection. I know there has been some effort to produce NICs that handle the TCP/IP stack onboard, thus reducing the load on the CPU, but the potential difference between NICs is on the order of microseconds, if not less!
For those of you looking for quite entertaining reviews of products that are quite obviously scams like this, I highly recommend articles like this one on Dan's Data
Joe Sixpack doesn't care about these new "features". Here's a summary:
-rewritten kernel
-rewritten SW/HW interfaces
-heap improved
-power management. I can't leave this one alone. In Vista, when the tech support guys tell you to "reboot", Joe Sixpack will be even more confused: "you mean even though my computer was off, it wasn't really off!?" This is just a lame way to avoid the "long boot time" complaint. (Linux is also guilty here)
-USB drive caching (SuperFetch)--USB drives are fairly fast right now. Joe Sixpack won't care
-new driver model--for the sixth time, it's transparent (assuming it works)
In other words, Joe Sixpack has absolutely no reason to upgrade. Of course, few of us ever HAVE had a reason to upgrade
The eventual plans are for a 62,000-mile cable. So they've made it 1/62,000th of the way there, or.00161% of the way. Keep walkin', boys.
One issue I have yet to see addressed is the issue of speed. Rockets make it up to geosynchronous orbit (22,240 miles) very quickly by moving really, really fast. Somehow, I don't think a robot climbing a ribbon will be very fast. Even at 1,000 mph, it'll take almost an entire day to get there. I don't know what the actual expected speeds will be, but I don't think that anything over 100 mph will be practical in the atmosphere due to wind resistance. And once you get out of the atmosphere, you have no easy way of dissipating the heat from friction.
You make a good point. I would wager that a significant portion of Skype's customer base know a fair amount about computers and networking. And exactly the kind of customer that will leave in a heartbeat when they see this sort of tactic.
At the same time, I am certain that Skype management is very concerned with making money. I'm sure that money coming from Intel more than offset the potential cost of lost customers.
2000 Turbolasers and 2500 laser cannons isn't that much when you consider the size of the deathstar. A sphere with a diameter of 120km (according to Wikipedia) would have a surface area of over 45,000 sq.km. That leaves more than 10 sq. km. per weapon.
I guess that's why Darth Vader had to send out the TIE fighters...
You must remember that Blizzard was not objecting to the existence of a GBLT guild, but rather to the public recruiting thereto.
IANA WoW Player, so I can't say whether or not these "Christian" guilds recruit as openly as the GBLT guild. In Blizzard's view (and, incidentally, in mine), it's irrelevant. If Christians were a hated minority, and I were a member of a Christian guild, I would also be hesitant to advertise/recruit openly.
Although it seems (and may be) discriminatory, we have to keep in mind a few things. First of all, this is a computer game. And like someone else already mentioned, Blizzard wants to keep the focus of the game on the gameplay, and not on the politics/religion/race/sexual orientation of the players. The intent of the game is NOT to recreate real life, but to create a fantasy world, and effectively entertain the players.
Secondly, Blizzard has a lot to lose from allowing a free-for-all on their forums & servers. Yes, we should encourage tolerance and understanding, but a fantasy online world is probably one of the worst places to do so. Besides, by allowing the free-for-all that would probably ensue if they maintained a hands-off approach, the persecuted members would probably leave because the harrassment ruined the game, some of the persecuters would leave out of disgust that Blizzard allowed the persecuted, and everyone would be a little turned off by the inevitable flamewars.
Thirdly, you must remember that Blizzard owns WoW. It's a business. And their priority is to make money. If that means asking some players with unpopular real-world views or characteristics to keep said views or characteristics to themselves in order to keep more people happy and paying, so be it. They are not infringing on those players' rights to free speech elsewhere, or their religion/race/sex/orientation/whatever in real life. It's a private institution, and they can set and enforce the rules as you see fit.
On the other, if I was still in middle school, I think DDRing in front of middle school girls would be a sure way to cause permanent [psychologically] scarring.Scarring for whom? Perhaps both?
All kidding aside, I don't think it matters what middle-school-aged boys do in front of girls. They'll be embarrassed in any case. This is just a good way to burn a little energy and be entertained at the same time.
For quite some time, Dell has used ducts on their CPU heatsinks, either to bring cool air directly to the processor, or exhaust the hot air immediately out of the case. It's not a complete ducted input and output, but it's a start.
It's worth mentioning that Intel made an attempt at it with the BTX form factor. They were driven by the increasingly hard-to-manage heat output of their processors (Presscott). Since they are changing direction and abandoning the GHz-at-any-cost approach, they will be using cooler, better-performing processors. Keep in mind that while processor power requirements have historically increased steadily, so has the performance-per-watt. In other words, performance is increasing faster than the power dissipation.
You're missing the point! A better heatsink means that the heat gets more efficiently transferred to the computer's surroundings, therefore heating your room more efficiently.
I will grant you that computers make great space heaters--they not only heat the room, but they can do allsorts of interestingthings in the mean time.
I fall into the "tightwad" category. And it's a wonderful place to be. It means I buy games about a year after they are released, and get to play them with maximum graphical detail with my mainstream graphics card. By the time I buy the game, I have (1) saved money on the game by getting it at a lower cost, (2) saved money by only buying good games, (3) saved money by getting older hardware that doesn't require a leaf blower to cool, and (4) saved time by not playing a game that turns out to be dull.
People may say "you miss all the fun of multiplayer games because by that time, everyone has moved on". Rubbish. There are still plenty of people playing the game online, and by this time, most of the morons have given up and moved on.
I agree that $50 or $60 is way overpriced, particularly when you're buying the latest model year of a sports game. The problem is this: price is determined by the market. Games cost $50 or $60 simply because there are tons of people who are willing to buy them at that price. While we may moan and complain and threaten to boycott, there are millions of suckers out there who think that it's an acceptable price.
No joke. [H]ardOCP did a review recently of a Dell XPS "gaming" machine, and found that all the junkware that came pre-installed actually prevented the user from playing some of the most popular games on the market, including Sims 2. Considering that someone buying an XPS is probably not savvy enough to mess around with uninstalling all the crud that comes pre-installed, it's a gaming machine that doesn't game.
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Rambus made this bed, now let them lie in it.
They made the mistake of trying to make a quick buck with their submarine patent, and they ticked off just about everybody. Including some very big players (Infineon, Samsung, Hynix, etc). This is just the big guys' way of exacting a very painful (and much-deserved) revenge. What the big memory makers did (assuming it's all true) may not have been legal, but boy, it sure feels good to see punks like Rambus writhe.
This ain't just business any more. It's personal.
I was excited for Conroe, too...until I found out that the Intel-sponsored public benchmark demonstration of Conroe vs. an FX-60 was (surprise, surprise) rigged. More recent, hopefully more trustworthy reviews have still shown Conroe to lead AMD's current processors, but I'll hold onto my money until it actually is released and more reviews are available before I blow them on a new X2 or Core 2 Duo.
BTW, does anyone else see how the name "Core 2 Duo" could lead to confusing people? Joe Sixpack is going to have a hard time telling the difference between a Core (1) Duo and a Core 2 Solo. And is a Core 2 Duo the same as a Core Quad or a Core 4 Solo?
Considering that the Symantec (specifically Norton) products preinstalled on my E1705 were the worst behaving (and most difficult to remove - in fact I couldn't completely and cleanly remove them) components of Dell's preinstall, the fact that they are leaving an antivirus in their preinstall doesn't really help much. Antivirus programs are notorious for causing performance problems.
This is no joke. I just ran into a perfect example of this last weekend on my parents' computer. Here's the story:
1) Father buys 2-year subscription to Norton Internet Security and installs it.
2) At some point, LiveUpdate stops updating, saying "try again later....or just reinstall LiveUpdate"
3) A short chat with Symantec tech support reveals that it will require a full uninstall and reinstall of NIS
4) Opening the "add/remove programs" window reveals that NIS is occupying over 1GB on the hard drive
5) The uninstall encounters a fatal error and won't complete.
So now this computer has an install of NIS that won't update, and won't uninstall.
Crapware at its best.
You're exactly right. Normal DVD will win. Why?
1) Rational people will wait until one or the other wins.
2) Current DVDs, with proper upscaling, will be close enough to the quality of the native-HD movies that there will be little-to-no incentive to spend extra on HD.
3) People already own the TV, the player, and plenty of other DVD's. And they're generally happy with what they have. Buying new movies in good ol' regular DVD is a 'safe' choice.
This is a case where both sides were saying "If I can't have it my way, then we won't do it at all". Both groups would prefer that everyone suffer equally (until the market sorts things out) than to have one group profit more than the other.
You're exactly right. I work for a large company (approx 80,000 employees). Last year they completed a transition from NT 4 to Windows XP. It wasn't done en masse, but done one group at a time.
EOL'ed software isn't that big of a deal. You can compensate for the lack of patches with a combination of a good firewall, proper use of user accounts, and Antivirus/antispyware software. It's not a perfect solution, but if it saves you the cost and time of 'upgrading', it's worth it. Particularly if your machine isn't up to the task of the next bloated, eye-candy-laden version of Windows.
I have done precisely that. I'm the youngest of nine, and typically the first call for tech support (although there's at least one other equally-competent if not more qualified geek in the family). I have now made it a mandatory condition of my help. I help them set up their router to allow VNC in, help them install VNC(but not as a service!). Now when I help them, it takes 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes, because I can see exactly what's going wrong.
It's not really a pump inside a pipe. It's like a pump inside a submarine inside the pipe. If you RTFA, the fiber is actually in a tube-like form. The electronics aren't actually embedded in the glass itself, they merely reside in a purpose-made pocket. I initally wondered if having a circuit in the middle of a fiber would reduce the transmission distance, but apparently it won't interfere.
It'll be interesting to see if this gets any traction in the real world. I guess I don't see much benefit beyond a possible reduction in latency.
The current number-of-writes for flash is somewhere in the 100,000-1,000,000 write cycle range. That's a lot of writes. Also, keep in mind that all flash chip controllers include logic that performs "write-leveling". This means that a specific chunk of data will 'jump' from one area of the memory to another in order to prevent one area from being worn out. Add to that the fact that flash chips contain some extra capacity to compensate for bad blocks.
With a careful configuration of Windows (no page file, no IE cache, no temporary files, use a RAM disk), this is certainly viable. In the absense of music/movie collections and monster games, even the 32GB size isn't that restrictive.
As it turns out, however, this whole story is not true at all.
You can also find the online version, with virtual tours and everything right here.
It's a very interesting question, with some telling answers. HD-DVD has the same physical structure as current DVDs--the data film layer is sandwiched between two .6mm layers of transparent plastic. Blu-Ray has the film closer to the bottom of the disc, with a very thin layer of scratch-resistant plastic covering it
This is the reason why manufacturers were much happier about HD-DVD than Blu-Ray--they can produce HD-DVD on the same lines with much the same equipment as normal DVDs. Blu-Ray requires much more re-tooling.
This also means that HD-DVD players don't have to do much to handle DVDs--the laser head moves slightly differently, but no focus problems. Of course, this may all be moot, since DVD players can also play CDs, which contain the data film on top of the plastic, right under the label (making it easier to scratch).
I'm sure they have good reasons for choosing RedHat. Better support, maybe, or lower price, or perhaps they have a business arrangement with them.
Geez, you guys remind me of the techs at userfriendly.
I think it's obvious to all of us that the NIC is certainly not the weakest link in a connection. I know there has been some effort to produce NICs that handle the TCP/IP stack onboard, thus reducing the load on the CPU, but the potential difference between NICs is on the order of microseconds, if not less!
For those of you looking for quite entertaining reviews of products that are quite obviously scams like this, I highly recommend articles like this one on Dan's Data
Joe Sixpack doesn't care about these new "features". Here's a summary:
-rewritten kernel
-rewritten SW/HW interfaces
-heap improved
-power management. I can't leave this one alone. In Vista, when the tech support guys tell you to "reboot", Joe Sixpack will be even more confused: "you mean even though my computer was off, it wasn't really off!?" This is just a lame way to avoid the "long boot time" complaint. (Linux is also guilty here)
-USB drive caching (SuperFetch)--USB drives are fairly fast right now. Joe Sixpack won't care
-new driver model--for the sixth time, it's transparent (assuming it works)
In other words, Joe Sixpack has absolutely no reason to upgrade. Of course, few of us ever HAVE had a reason to upgrade
The eventual plans are for a 62,000-mile cable. So they've made it 1/62,000th of the way there, or .00161% of the way. Keep walkin', boys.
One issue I have yet to see addressed is the issue of speed. Rockets make it up to geosynchronous orbit (22,240 miles) very quickly by moving really, really fast. Somehow, I don't think a robot climbing a ribbon will be very fast. Even at 1,000 mph, it'll take almost an entire day to get there. I don't know what the actual expected speeds will be, but I don't think that anything over 100 mph will be practical in the atmosphere due to wind resistance. And once you get out of the atmosphere, you have no easy way of dissipating the heat from friction.
You make a good point. I would wager that a significant portion of Skype's customer base know a fair amount about computers and networking. And exactly the kind of customer that will leave in a heartbeat when they see this sort of tactic.
At the same time, I am certain that Skype management is very concerned with making money. I'm sure that money coming from Intel more than offset the potential cost of lost customers.
2000 Turbolasers and 2500 laser cannons isn't that much when you consider the size of the deathstar. A sphere with a diameter of 120km (according to Wikipedia) would have a surface area of over 45,000 sq.km. That leaves more than 10 sq. km. per weapon.
I guess that's why Darth Vader had to send out the TIE fighters...
You must remember that Blizzard was not objecting to the existence of a GBLT guild, but rather to the public recruiting thereto.
IANA WoW Player, so I can't say whether or not these "Christian" guilds recruit as openly as the GBLT guild. In Blizzard's view (and, incidentally, in mine), it's irrelevant. If Christians were a hated minority, and I were a member of a Christian guild, I would also be hesitant to advertise/recruit openly.
Although it seems (and may be) discriminatory, we have to keep in mind a few things. First of all, this is a computer game. And like someone else already mentioned, Blizzard wants to keep the focus of the game on the gameplay, and not on the politics/religion/race/sexual orientation of the players. The intent of the game is NOT to recreate real life, but to create a fantasy world, and effectively entertain the players.
Secondly, Blizzard has a lot to lose from allowing a free-for-all on their forums & servers. Yes, we should encourage tolerance and understanding, but a fantasy online world is probably one of the worst places to do so. Besides, by allowing the free-for-all that would probably ensue if they maintained a hands-off approach, the persecuted members would probably leave because the harrassment ruined the game, some of the persecuters would leave out of disgust that Blizzard allowed the persecuted, and everyone would be a little turned off by the inevitable flamewars.
Thirdly, you must remember that Blizzard owns WoW. It's a business. And their priority is to make money. If that means asking some players with unpopular real-world views or characteristics to keep said views or characteristics to themselves in order to keep more people happy and paying, so be it. They are not infringing on those players' rights to free speech elsewhere, or their religion/race/sex/orientation/whatever in real life. It's a private institution, and they can set and enforce the rules as you see fit.
On the other, if I was still in middle school, I think DDRing in front of middle school girls would be a sure way to cause permanent [psychologically] scarring.Scarring for whom? Perhaps both?
All kidding aside, I don't think it matters what middle-school-aged boys do in front of girls. They'll be embarrassed in any case. This is just a good way to burn a little energy and be entertained at the same time.
I also couldn't see it at first--I apparently have an Adblock rule that kills it. Good to know that new technology works on old problems, too.
For quite some time, Dell has used ducts on their CPU heatsinks, either to bring cool air directly to the processor, or exhaust the hot air immediately out of the case. It's not a complete ducted input and output, but it's a start.
It's worth mentioning that Intel made an attempt at it with the BTX form factor. They were driven by the increasingly hard-to-manage heat output of their processors (Presscott). Since they are changing direction and abandoning the GHz-at-any-cost approach, they will be using cooler, better-performing processors. Keep in mind that while processor power requirements have historically increased steadily, so has the performance-per-watt. In other words, performance is increasing faster than the power dissipation.
You're missing the point! A better heatsink means that the heat gets more efficiently transferred to the computer's surroundings, therefore heating your room more efficiently.
I will grant you that computers make great space heaters--they not only heat the room, but they can do all sorts of interesting things in the mean time.
I fall into the "tightwad" category. And it's a wonderful place to be. It means I buy games about a year after they are released, and get to play them with maximum graphical detail with my mainstream graphics card. By the time I buy the game, I have (1) saved money on the game by getting it at a lower cost, (2) saved money by only buying good games, (3) saved money by getting older hardware that doesn't require a leaf blower to cool, and (4) saved time by not playing a game that turns out to be dull.
People may say "you miss all the fun of multiplayer games because by that time, everyone has moved on". Rubbish. There are still plenty of people playing the game online, and by this time, most of the morons have given up and moved on.
I agree that $50 or $60 is way overpriced, particularly when you're buying the latest model year of a sports game. The problem is this: price is determined by the market. Games cost $50 or $60 simply because there are tons of people who are willing to buy them at that price. While we may moan and complain and threaten to boycott, there are millions of suckers out there who think that it's an acceptable price.
No joke. [H]ardOCP did a review recently of a Dell XPS "gaming" machine, and found that all the junkware that came pre-installed actually prevented the user from playing some of the most popular games on the market, including Sims 2. Considering that someone buying an XPS is probably not savvy enough to mess around with uninstalling all the crud that comes pre-installed, it's a gaming machine that doesn't game.