Over at X-bit labs, they have a more comprehensive review of these chips' Thermal characteristics and power consumption. You will still need a big PSU and a good HSF if you are going to multitask or play games on these puppies.
Poor track record on proprietary stuff
on
Sony Admits MP3 Error
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
MiniDisk, El Cassette, ATRAC, Betamax, Memory Stick... not a good track record for Sony. Wonder if their support for BluRay will jinx the format...
I can only talk from experience as a contractor in Toronto for the past 8 years. Not sure how contracting works in the US but here contractors are usually incorporated. In my case my corporation get paid by the client and it (corporation) in turns pays me (and my spouse) a fixed salary every month from which I deduct taxes, retirement savings plan (for me and my spouse), etc.
Since personal taxes are higher in Canada, contracting makes sense because you have the advantage of income splitting as I outlined above. Also, many of my toys (PCs, PDAs, etc.) can be expensed out... subject to depreciation of course:-) Yet another advantage is you get to know more people (and make more friends) who can potentially be contacts for future gigs. If you do a good job, clients will be more than willing to hire you back.
Finally, learning is accelerated if one is lucky enough to work in different development projects and with different people who can add their own insight and experience to problem solving.
I swear the install of HL2 (install, get online, download patch, unlock game, etc.) took MUCH LONGER than installing an entire Operating System (Linux or Windows).
Then I start playing the fucking game and it is not even half as good as DOOM3 (graphics nor gameplay)... perhaps the entire install fiasco has left a sour taste but those folks singing praises for this game must either be astroturfers or smoking something. It's the same old shit from before including those retarded puzzles you have to figure get to the next level. Reload times take even longer than before despite me running a much faster CPU and hard drive compared to what I had more than 5 years ago.
Installed SP2 on 4 of the PCs at home (2 which dual boot to Linux). On 3 machines which are mainly used for gaming, surfing, messaging, and word processing, there appears to be no problem.
On another PC which is being used for development (.NET Framework installed, IIS Web Server, etc.) and with a bunch of peripherals installed (Scanner with SCSI interface, USB Printer, CD/DVD Rewriter), SP2 is causing the PC to BSOD intermittently (maybe once every 1 or 2 weeks).
I am now thinking doing a clean install of XP with SP2 on this machine then re-installing everything... a real pain in the rear. So I guess your mileage will vary with SP2.
Way back in the late 80's up to the mid 90's, when web shopping was non existent or at its infancy and you can only get stuff mostly thru mail order, CS was the Bible. I used to enjoy reading CS cover to cover looking at comparisons of PCs, scanners, hard drives, image editing software, etc. I also enjoyed reading Hard Edge by Alice and Bill in their lab of Doom. Sadly, CS is now but a parody of its former self... made nearly useless by NewEgg, Amazon, etc., on the shopping front and by sites such as AnandTech, Tom's, HardOCP, etc., on the hardware analysis front.
I am actually surprised CS/Hard Edge lasted this long... such is the furious pace of progress specially in tech... almost everything will be rendered obsolete sooner or later.
I read this article a few days ago and my recollection is that the author is not happy that he cannot navigate the messages displayed on his inbox using the up and down arrows. What he probably did not realize (and it took me a while too) is that you can navigate up and down the messages list by using the left and right arrows respectively.
I myself prefer KMail over Evolution because it is easier to integrate with SpamAssasin. It does not look as proffesional though... maybe the next version will be skinnable.
I agree, as the article mentioned towards the end, this is probably a strategy most big corporations are engaging in to get a bigger discount off Microsoft software.
Even if many of these corporations ultimately go with Microsoft, at least Linux is getting publicity as a viable alternative to Windows.
OSNews may have a more comprehensive review but ExtremeTech targets a more mainstream audience and is more popular Mozilla traffic rank wise (ExtremTech Mozilla traffic rank 9,146 vs OSNews' 42,597). So this would imply that a simpler article on ExtremeTech might pique the interest of many more folks to look into the merits of using Linux.
Yeah, I found an article in Circuit Cellar very helpful when I was building a prototype application that sends car engine parameters to my PDA. It was that article that pointed me to Muliplex Engineering in California where I was able to buy a multiplexer which enabled me to hook up the PDA to the car computer via a serial cable.
One thing I would like to do next is to turn my PDA or computer into a cyclocomputer hooked up to my stationary bike. The problem is I could not find a circuit diagram for a magnetic sensor on the bike's wheel which will send signals to the PDA via the serial or USB bus. Why build instead of buy a $20 cyclocomputer? Because I can get all the information and then put it into a real database (MySQL) automatically which will help me in my training. Maybe a future article on the new magazine will give some guidance.
While I am at it, perhaps there could also be an article on how I can intercept wireless transmissions from my heart rate monitor so I can also collate the same info into the database. Maybe intercepting wirless communications between these small embedded devices is the key... my current cyclocomputer is wireless and so is the Polar heart rate monitor I am using. Only problem is these might be in violation of some obscure DRM I am not aware of.
I suspect Microsoft got this idea from the HDMI standard (www.hdmi.org/what/what.asp) that HDTV sets are starting to implement in the place of the traditional DVI interface. HDMI is suppose to prevent rip offs of HD broadcasts.
Unfortunately, upgrading a Linux powered PC's BIOS will probably still require a floppy as many motherboard manufacturer's "non-floppy" based BIOS upgrade utilities run in Windows.
I am no apple fan-boy but I did buy the apple mini ipod BECAUSE of the interface. I was actually looking to buy a cheaper flash based mp3 player (Creative's or Samsung's) until I chanced upon the ipod at the local Best Buy. A few minutes of playing with the ipod and using the intuitive interface made me decide this was the one to get.
I noticed this (quiet operation) in our office which uses Dell Optiplex. But DIYers can build quiet PCs with temperature controlled fans too... Just need to use the right motherboard.
The last PC I built which was dual boot to run Linux and XP (mainly for games), was based on an Intel D865 PERLK motherboard that had temperature controlled fan headers (3 of them not including the header for the CPU fan). When the PC is not under stress (surfing, emailing, playin mp3/ogg, etc.), the fans would rotate slowly (2000 rpm) when the PC is put under stress... this is both in LINUX and XP.
I agree with your comments. I myself use XP at work and for playing games at home and the only time I see the Blue Screen is when I have some device driver problem... very seldom in other words.
However, I use Linux/OSS for most everthing else at home and one of the reason is because I absolutely abhor Product Activation (on XP, as well as on increasing numbers of Windows software and utilities). Avoiding Product Activation hassles using Windows XP/Windows Software should be put higher on the list than avoiding BSOD when it comes to convincing folks to try Linux.
Yep, that's what I got, an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe version 1.4. ASUS has not been particularly known to be supportive of Linux. There are also issues with their Gigabit LANs with Linux on their Intel based chipsets.
I have built many nForce2 PC for myself and friends too and it is fairly stable... in Windows XP. In Linux it's a different story... nForce2 chipset powered motherboards have been plagued with APIC related problems. Do a Google on "nForec2 APIC problems" and you will see what I mean. This problem basically causes the PC to lock up intermittently... a work around is to add "nolapic noapic" on the bootloader which minimizes but not entirely eliminates the lockup problems.
Some motherboard manufacturers have released updated BIOSes to fix this and I read somewhere that Linux Kernel 2.6.7 addresses this issue with nForce2 chipsets. However, the last PC I built, I decided to go use an Intel chipset (D865)... stable as a rock both in Linux and XP.
I agree. I got one of these almost 2 years ago and that was it. I went back to using regular sized cases since then (I like modular cases with sliding motherboard trays, drive cages, and PSU mounts - such as those from Lian Li, they are DIYer friendly).
The Shuttle took longer to build because of the cramped space inside. Also putting a high powered video card inside means the added heat makes the fan run at full blast most of the time generating more noise. The Shuttle power supply (PSU) is also limited in power which means using power hungry high end video cards like Geforce 6800s are out of the question specially if you are already using a 3+ Ghz CPU.
Finally another problem with Shuttles is that the upgrade path is non-existent. Shuttle won't sell you a just a motherboard to replace your obsolete one... you have to buy the whole package.
The safest way to surf those "Boobies" links at Fark is to use Firefox running on Linux... this way (hopefully), the only infection your PC will be remnants of cookies from those nasty sites.
Reading some of the nasty comments here on/. actually makes me feel sorry for the ExtremeTech guy. Ok so he made a couple of noob DIY mistakes, but who doesn't? Hopefully by the time he builds the next PC it should be easier... if he is smart to remember the mistakes he did.
OTH there are people who are just too hamfisted to be successful at handling/building delicate electronic components. I remember a manager I had once who kept on breaking stuff that we were building software for, almost everytime he "played" with one of them...
Yeah I do believe that Linux's time is coming soon too... BUT ONLY IF more hardware vendors bundle Fedora, Mandrake, SUSE, or whatever disto it is, with the PCs that they sell. Heck, I have spent countless hours trying to convince a group of former colleauges and my current officemates about the merits of Linux (it's mostly free, inherently more secure, etc.) but no one has tried it out so far. Maybe they already sense what I already know from experience... setting up Linux requires patience... lots of it.
There always seem to be one problem that needs hours or even days to figure out how to fix when installing a Linux distro from scratch... whether it is resolving hardware/driver issues or problems getting software to work. Most folks I know would not put up with this and would rather go through MS Product Activation crap than spend countless hours RTFM and/or Googling the web for answers...
As a kid who grew up reading Marvel and DC comics, Spiderman easily became my favorite. No, it was not the action scenes that captivated me but Peter Parker's initial "nerdiness". He was bullied early on by his schoolmate Flash and he was even too shy to make a pass at his officemate at the Daily Bugle who I think was his first object of desire... Betty.
The best Spiderman comic book episodes though was during the span of time he was fighting the Lizard (Dr. Connors), the Rhino, the Vulture and Kraven the Hunter... this was also a time of great turmoil in Peter Parker's life... he had to take care of his ailing Aunt May and was torn between his two ladies of interest... Gwen and MJ who as I recall, was introduced by Aunt May while Spiderman was about to face the Rhino. The original MJ on the comic book looked much better than Kirsten Dunst... thinner, more worldly. Peter Parker was in 7th heaven when MJ decided to go ride with him on his motorcycle.
I am not sure if any movie can capture in film what those comic books conveyed to comic book nerds at the time.
1. Cost - I can't afford to buy 5 XP PROs, 5 Office XPs, and renew 5 Norton Antivirus licences every year for the 5 PCs I have in the house. I do have 2 out of the five running XP PRO (dual booting to XP) so me and my son can still play DirectX games.
2. Product Activation - this feature has really soured me to Windows but at the same time opened my eyes to Linux and OSS (OOo, Evolution, etc.).
To those who are about to start cyclo commuting, a word of advice. Next to wearing a helmet, make sure you get a bicycle with one of those "anatomically correct" / V-Groove, or whatever it is called, saddles... better safe than sorry later in life:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Over at X-bit labs, they have a more comprehensive review of these chips' Thermal characteristics and power consumption. You will still need a big PSU and a good HSF if you are going to multitask or play games on these puppies.
MiniDisk, El Cassette, ATRAC, Betamax, Memory Stick... not a good track record for Sony. Wonder if their support for BluRay will jinx the format...
One thing I wouldn't want to watch in HD pron though... those rear end going on stuff might show more detail (and colors) than I could stomach :)
I can only talk from experience as a contractor in Toronto for the past 8 years. Not sure how contracting works in the US but here contractors are usually incorporated. In my case my corporation get paid by the client and it (corporation) in turns pays me (and my spouse) a fixed salary every month from which I deduct taxes, retirement savings plan (for me and my spouse), etc.
Since personal taxes are higher in Canada, contracting makes sense because you have the advantage of income splitting as I outlined above. Also, many of my toys (PCs, PDAs, etc.) can be expensed out... subject to depreciation of course :-) Yet another advantage is you get to know more people (and make more friends) who can potentially be contacts for future gigs. If you do a good job, clients will be more than willing to hire you back.
Finally, learning is accelerated if one is lucky enough to work in different development projects and with different people who can add their own insight and experience to problem solving.
I swear the install of HL2 (install, get online, download patch, unlock game, etc.) took MUCH LONGER than installing an entire Operating System (Linux or Windows).
Then I start playing the fucking game and it is not even half as good as DOOM3 (graphics nor gameplay)... perhaps the entire install fiasco has left a sour taste but those folks singing praises for this game must either be astroturfers or smoking something. It's the same old shit from before including those retarded puzzles you have to figure get to the next level. Reload times take even longer than before despite me running a much faster CPU and hard drive compared to what I had more than 5 years ago.
Installed SP2 on 4 of the PCs at home (2 which dual boot to Linux). On 3 machines which are mainly used for gaming, surfing, messaging, and word processing, there appears to be no problem.
On another PC which is being used for development (.NET Framework installed, IIS Web Server, etc.) and with a bunch of peripherals installed (Scanner with SCSI interface, USB Printer, CD/DVD Rewriter), SP2 is causing the PC to BSOD intermittently (maybe once every 1 or 2 weeks).
I am now thinking doing a clean install of XP with SP2 on this machine then re-installing everything... a real pain in the rear. So I guess your mileage will vary with SP2.
Way back in the late 80's up to the mid 90's, when web shopping was non existent or at its infancy and you can only get stuff mostly thru mail order, CS was the Bible. I used to enjoy reading CS cover to cover looking at comparisons of PCs, scanners, hard drives, image editing software, etc. I also enjoyed reading Hard Edge by Alice and Bill in their lab of Doom. Sadly, CS is now but a parody of its former self... made nearly useless by NewEgg, Amazon, etc., on the shopping front and by sites such as AnandTech, Tom's, HardOCP, etc., on the hardware analysis front.
I am actually surprised CS/Hard Edge lasted this long... such is the furious pace of progress specially in tech... almost everything will be rendered obsolete sooner or later.
I read this article a few days ago and my recollection is that the author is not happy that he cannot navigate the messages displayed on his inbox using the up and down arrows. What he probably did not realize (and it took me a while too) is that you can navigate up and down the messages list by using the left and right arrows respectively.
I myself prefer KMail over Evolution because it is easier to integrate with SpamAssasin. It does not look as proffesional though... maybe the next version will be skinnable.
I agree, as the article mentioned towards the end, this is probably a strategy most big corporations are engaging in to get a bigger discount off Microsoft software.
Even if many of these corporations ultimately go with Microsoft, at least Linux is getting publicity as a viable alternative to Windows.
OSNews may have a more comprehensive review but ExtremeTech targets a more mainstream audience and is more popular Mozilla traffic rank wise (ExtremTech Mozilla traffic rank 9,146 vs OSNews' 42,597). So this would imply that a simpler article on ExtremeTech might pique the interest of many more folks to look into the merits of using Linux.
Yeah, I found an article in Circuit Cellar very helpful when I was building a prototype application that sends car engine parameters to my PDA. It was that article that pointed me to Muliplex Engineering in California where I was able to buy a multiplexer which enabled me to hook up the PDA to the car computer via a serial cable.
One thing I would like to do next is to turn my PDA or computer into a cyclocomputer hooked up to my stationary bike. The problem is I could not find a circuit diagram for a magnetic sensor on the bike's wheel which will send signals to the PDA via the serial or USB bus. Why build instead of buy a $20 cyclocomputer? Because I can get all the information and then put it into a real database (MySQL) automatically which will help me in my training. Maybe a future article on the new magazine will give some guidance.
While I am at it, perhaps there could also be an article on how I can intercept wireless transmissions from my heart rate monitor so I can also collate the same info into the database. Maybe intercepting wirless communications between these small embedded devices is the key... my current cyclocomputer is wireless and so is the Polar heart rate monitor I am using. Only problem is these might be in violation of some obscure DRM I am not aware of.
I suspect Microsoft got this idea from the HDMI standard (www.hdmi.org/what/what.asp) that HDTV sets are starting to implement in the place of the traditional DVI interface. HDMI is suppose to prevent rip offs of HD broadcasts.
Unfortunately, upgrading a Linux powered PC's BIOS will probably still require a floppy as many motherboard manufacturer's "non-floppy" based BIOS upgrade utilities run in Windows.
I am no apple fan-boy but I did buy the apple mini ipod BECAUSE of the interface. I was actually looking to buy a cheaper flash based mp3 player (Creative's or Samsung's) until I chanced upon the ipod at the local Best Buy. A few minutes of playing with the ipod and using the intuitive interface made me decide this was the one to get.
I noticed this (quiet operation) in our office which uses Dell Optiplex. But DIYers can build quiet PCs with temperature controlled fans too... Just need to use the right motherboard.
The last PC I built which was dual boot to run Linux and XP (mainly for games), was based on an Intel D865 PERLK motherboard that had temperature controlled fan headers (3 of them not including the header for the CPU fan). When the PC is not under stress (surfing, emailing, playin mp3/ogg, etc.), the fans would rotate slowly (2000 rpm) when the PC is put under stress... this is both in LINUX and XP.
I agree with your comments. I myself use XP at work and for playing games at home and the only time I see the Blue Screen is when I have some device driver problem... very seldom in other words.
However, I use Linux/OSS for most everthing else at home and one of the reason is because I absolutely abhor Product Activation (on XP, as well as on increasing numbers of Windows software and utilities). Avoiding Product Activation hassles using Windows XP/Windows Software should be put higher on the list than avoiding BSOD when it comes to convincing folks to try Linux.
Yep, that's what I got, an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe version 1.4. ASUS has not been particularly known to be supportive of Linux. There are also issues with their Gigabit LANs with Linux on their Intel based chipsets.
I have built many nForce2 PC for myself and friends too and it is fairly stable... in Windows XP. In Linux it's a different story... nForce2 chipset powered motherboards have been plagued with APIC related problems. Do a Google on "nForec2 APIC problems" and you will see what I mean. This problem basically causes the PC to lock up intermittently... a work around is to add "nolapic noapic" on the bootloader which minimizes but not entirely eliminates the lockup problems.
Some motherboard manufacturers have released updated BIOSes to fix this and I read somewhere that Linux Kernel 2.6.7 addresses this issue with nForce2 chipsets. However, the last PC I built, I decided to go use an Intel chipset (D865)... stable as a rock both in Linux and XP.
I agree. I got one of these almost 2 years ago and that was it. I went back to using regular sized cases since then (I like modular cases with sliding motherboard trays, drive cages, and PSU mounts - such as those from Lian Li, they are DIYer friendly).
The Shuttle took longer to build because of the cramped space inside. Also putting a high powered video card inside means the added heat makes the fan run at full blast most of the time generating more noise. The Shuttle power supply (PSU) is also limited in power which means using power hungry high end video cards like Geforce 6800s are out of the question specially if you are already using a 3+ Ghz CPU.
Finally another problem with Shuttles is that the upgrade path is non-existent. Shuttle won't sell you a just a motherboard to replace your obsolete one... you have to buy the whole package.
The safest way to surf those "Boobies" links at Fark is to use Firefox running on Linux... this way (hopefully), the only infection your PC will be remnants of cookies from those nasty sites.
Reading some of the nasty comments here on /. actually makes me feel sorry for the ExtremeTech guy. Ok so he made a couple of noob DIY mistakes, but who doesn't? Hopefully by the time he builds the next PC it should be easier... if he is smart to remember the mistakes he did.
OTH there are people who are just too hamfisted to be successful at handling/building delicate electronic components. I remember a manager I had once who kept on breaking stuff that we were building software for, almost everytime he "played" with one of them...
Yeah I do believe that Linux's time is coming soon too... BUT ONLY IF more hardware vendors bundle Fedora, Mandrake, SUSE, or whatever disto it is, with the PCs that they sell. Heck, I have spent countless hours trying to convince a group of former colleauges and my current officemates about the merits of Linux (it's mostly free, inherently more secure, etc.) but no one has tried it out so far. Maybe they already sense what I already know from experience... setting up Linux requires patience... lots of it.
There always seem to be one problem that needs hours or even days to figure out how to fix when installing a Linux distro from scratch... whether it is resolving hardware/driver issues or problems getting software to work. Most folks I know would not put up with this and would rather go through MS Product Activation crap than spend countless hours RTFM and/or Googling the web for answers...
As a kid who grew up reading Marvel and DC comics, Spiderman easily became my favorite. No, it was not the action scenes that captivated me but Peter Parker's initial "nerdiness". He was bullied early on by his schoolmate Flash and he was even too shy to make a pass at his officemate at the Daily Bugle who I think was his first object of desire... Betty.
The best Spiderman comic book episodes though was during the span of time he was fighting the Lizard (Dr. Connors), the Rhino, the Vulture and Kraven the Hunter... this was also a time of great turmoil in Peter Parker's life... he had to take care of his ailing Aunt May and was torn between his two ladies of interest... Gwen and MJ who as I recall, was introduced by Aunt May while Spiderman was about to face the Rhino. The original MJ on the comic book looked much better than Kirsten Dunst... thinner, more worldly. Peter Parker was in 7th heaven when MJ decided to go ride with him on his motorcycle.
I am not sure if any movie can capture in film what those comic books conveyed to comic book nerds at the time.
1. Cost - I can't afford to buy 5 XP PROs, 5 Office XPs, and renew 5 Norton Antivirus licences every year for the 5 PCs I have in the house. I do have 2 out of the five running XP PRO (dual booting to XP) so me and my son can still play DirectX games.
2. Product Activation - this feature has really soured me to Windows but at the same time opened my eyes to Linux and OSS (OOo, Evolution, etc.).
To those who are about to start cyclo commuting, a word of advice. Next to wearing a helmet, make sure you get a bicycle with one of those "anatomically correct" / V-Groove, or whatever it is called, saddles... better safe than sorry later in life :-)