Exactly what I was about to post. The cost of supporting know-nothing users on Linux would be huge. Considering they would have to either retrain or hire a decent number of their support staff on Linux, their specific distro, their drivers, other hardware (acceptability lists).
Yes, the upfront cost for the PC would be lower, but the cost of revamping and maintaining the support would be significantly higher. Like the parent said, if they want to sell a turn-key linux PC, they need to go with a paid linux distro that already has the support structure to handle that kind of volume.
as the lawsuits that follow. The USPTO has appear to have given up any hope of actually tracking IP. So they will issue copywrites to just about anything and let the lawyers sort it out in court.
In theory the thought is that you can make a more efficient system off of a centralized AC->DC conversion system. So instead of going AC (utility) -> DC (UPS) -> AC (Power Supply) -> DC (Server) where each of those components could have a varying efficiency rating, you can go AC (utility) -> DC (UPS and Server). True, in that mix you'll do a lot of converting with high freq AC and voltage controls, but those can be significantly more efficient then a utility AC to 12v DC. So where the AC to Server power could go through 4 conversions, each one anywheres from 85%-97% efficient, the DC to Server power would go through 1 traditional conversion at 95%+ efficiency, then numerous high freq conversions at 99% efficiency.
Also, since you can pump the 48v DC in from a single power source you can mount the converter out side of the server room which can help cut down on a lot of heat which would otherwhys require more cooling power.
To see a 50% reduction in power though you'd have to have some pretty out dated and crappy systems in place. If you replaced your old UPS's and power supplies on a system like that you could probrably see a 25% improvement.
The motivater is likely costs. With the PPC chip Apple was locked into IBM for hardware. By switching to x86 they now have their pick of about 50 different manufacturers that will be compeating for the bid plus they may have some flexibility in different Intell chipsets and possibly AMD.
Writing an AJAX page with out a tool like Atlas is possible, but a royal pain in the ass. Atlas makes it easier on both side, and adds in common functionality so that you don't have to redesign the wheel every time you goto the store.
I've made the invisible frame and multi-frame pages before to emulate what AJAX can do natively now. And not only did it suck designing them, but in the case of live time updates, you get the constant 'click' noise in the background every time the invisible frame reloads. A rather irritating draw back.
But I agree with you, AJAX definately does the same thing in a much better and cleaner way.
What you mean is that we need a better client side script. But I disagree. Javascript performs the duties of AJAX wonderfully. Especially with the new Visual Studio tools, create AJAX enabled web systems is a brease.
The.Net alternative IS AJAX. VS.Net 2k5 has AJAX components built in. It takes a mater of seconds to get AJAX running in 2k5. There are also plug ins available for VS 2k2/2k3 to run AJAX.
Now that's an interesting question. Does Microsoft have grounds to sue? I mean, look at the impact Sony's crappy DRM has on Microsoft's good name (snicker). But in all seriousness, can they?
Most people will plug their 360 into a standard def CRT TV. 30fps is fine, and standard TV is what 320x200 resolution? Even if you run 640x480 and down sample to a standard TV resolution you should be able to run damn near anything.
I'm not sure what the output on the 360 is, but it is likely designed for 1040i or some other HD format. And running 1024x768 is a good deal more realistate. Throw in full screen 8xAA and other standard goodies, and its understandable why cloth physics would get dropped.
That said, I wouldn't touch a game console with a 10 foot pole. And I look forward to enjoying TES4 on my PC.
The key note speaker at the conference I attended said he could walk from VP row in the Cisco campus, get on the tram and ride to the other side of the campus with out ever losing his connection to the network on his handheld device. He also showed some live time tracking systems (Cisco door keys apparently have some sort of WiFi device built in) where he could pull up a map of his office building, see the wireless signal overlay and all of the wireless devices, including an employee who was working late(or had left his key behind).
I attended a future of wireless conference in Madison, WI a few weeks ago, they had a keynote speaker from Cisco who talked about this very technology. The things its hardware can do is impressive. And yes, a lot of it could (and is) taken care of via software. These mesh nodes can detect other nodes and alther their signal strength to improve coverage. They can adapt to cover for another node that has gone down. They can immediatly detect unauthorized access points and alert NetAdmins of a potential security issue. These systems are self contained, you don't need to wire each one to the network, they just need juice except for the gateway which can run off of power over ethernet. No expencive wire pulling. No manual configuration. Just plug it in and go.
"I am one of those people who would rather have three devices that do their respective functions very well than one that does three different things in a mediocre way."
I'd rather have 1 that did all well with a battery that lasted for more then 2 hours of activity.
Let me know when I can have PDA like flexibility, Wireless internet access, Cellphone communication, and iPod like music playback on a battery/fuelcell that will run for 8 hours of [b]activity[/b] on one device.
As for your hard drives, you might want to look into some sort of SATA array. The drives are about the same as standard IDE, but you're not limited to 4 channels. You could theoreticly run like 10 100g drives and keep the inactive drives in standby.
-Rick
"What makes Windows susceptible is its poor design. Hello? Blaster rebooting two-thirds of the world's computers?"
And given the general status of the internet and user knowledge world wide at the time, had Linux been in the #1 market share seat we would have very likely seen a similar worm for it.
"VBScript executable attachments opening by default for years"
I beleive that was an issue with Outlook, not Windows.
"You're just trying to look hip and enlightened by "going against the grain," but it's making you look stupid because your position is, frankly, dumb"
No, I'm presenting an alternative train of thought. Which I am defending with logic as oposed to personal insults. Although my initial post was pretty heavy with sarcasm, it was not ment to be an insult directed at the parent, just a humourous way of showing my dissent.
It sounds like you are going to be doing the majority of your work on you laptops and what you are looking for is a large file server.
VIA has some great micro/nano-ITX boards with power saving in mind. Many of which can run with out a fan. Combine that with a few 120g notebook hard drives (Toshiba has a 120g 4200rpm drive for under $200 on http://newegg.com/
Last I heard Ubuntu was still the king of powersave mode in Linux. Most of the people I know who have set up fileshares have used Samba.
Get a 1000mbps ethernet card for it and hook it up the the router. The low hard drive speed and power save functionality will likely give you a bit of latency, but once it starts pulling sequencial data, it should be fine. There was a great article about low power solutions, I think I saw a link to it on http://mini-itx.com/ and they had some storage arrays running under 30watts IIRC)
And let me commend you for your excellent drive. Energy conservation is a great field for both professional and financial improvement. With new integrated home systems like Solar Shingles and improved energy efficiency designs we can greatly reduce the growth demand on grid power.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly what I was about to post. The cost of supporting know-nothing users on Linux would be huge. Considering they would have to either retrain or hire a decent number of their support staff on Linux, their specific distro, their drivers, other hardware (acceptability lists).
Yes, the upfront cost for the PC would be lower, but the cost of revamping and maintaining the support would be significantly higher. Like the parent said, if they want to sell a turn-key linux PC, they need to go with a paid linux distro that already has the support structure to handle that kind of volume.
-Rick
as the lawsuits that follow. The USPTO has appear to have given up any hope of actually tracking IP. So they will issue copywrites to just about anything and let the lawyers sort it out in court.
-Rick
In theory the thought is that you can make a more efficient system off of a centralized AC->DC conversion system. So instead of going AC (utility) -> DC (UPS) -> AC (Power Supply) -> DC (Server) where each of those components could have a varying efficiency rating, you can go AC (utility) -> DC (UPS and Server). True, in that mix you'll do a lot of converting with high freq AC and voltage controls, but those can be significantly more efficient then a utility AC to 12v DC. So where the AC to Server power could go through 4 conversions, each one anywheres from 85%-97% efficient, the DC to Server power would go through 1 traditional conversion at 95%+ efficiency, then numerous high freq conversions at 99% efficiency.
Also, since you can pump the 48v DC in from a single power source you can mount the converter out side of the server room which can help cut down on a lot of heat which would otherwhys require more cooling power.
To see a 50% reduction in power though you'd have to have some pretty out dated and crappy systems in place. If you replaced your old UPS's and power supplies on a system like that you could probrably see a 25% improvement.
-Rick
The motivater is likely costs. With the PPC chip Apple was locked into IBM for hardware. By switching to x86 they now have their pick of about 50 different manufacturers that will be compeating for the bid plus they may have some flexibility in different Intell chipsets and possibly AMD.
-Rick
What kind of drugs are you on?!? And more importantly why aren't you sharing?
-Rick
It generates HTML/CSS/XML. And I need to type more with out using caps to get this post past the lameness filter. -Rick
Writing an AJAX page with out a tool like Atlas is possible, but a royal pain in the ass. Atlas makes it easier on both side, and adds in common functionality so that you don't have to redesign the wheel every time you goto the store.
-Rick
I've made the invisible frame and multi-frame pages before to emulate what AJAX can do natively now. And not only did it suck designing them, but in the case of live time updates, you get the constant 'click' noise in the background every time the invisible frame reloads. A rather irritating draw back.
But I agree with you, AJAX definately does the same thing in a much better and cleaner way.
-Rick
ATLAS is MS's new toolset designed to make working with AJAX easier.
-Rick
What you mean is that we need a better client side script. But I disagree. Javascript performs the duties of AJAX wonderfully. Especially with the new Visual Studio tools, create AJAX enabled web systems is a brease.
-Rick
Other then building a super simple implimentation of it in VS 2k5 and plug-ins for earlier versions of .Net
-Rick
The .Net alternative IS AJAX. VS.Net 2k5 has AJAX components built in. It takes a mater of seconds to get AJAX running in 2k5. There are also plug ins available for VS 2k2/2k3 to run AJAX.
-Rick
Asynchronous And XML?
With out Javascript AJAX doesn't work.
-Rick
Now that's an interesting question. Does Microsoft have grounds to sue? I mean, look at the impact Sony's crappy DRM has on Microsoft's good name (snicker). But in all seriousness, can they?
-Rick
Couldn't see this one coming from day one or anything.
-Rick
The world according to Steve Jobs is a scary scary place.
-Rick
Most people will plug their 360 into a standard def CRT TV. 30fps is fine, and standard TV is what 320x200 resolution? Even if you run 640x480 and down sample to a standard TV resolution you should be able to run damn near anything.
I'm not sure what the output on the 360 is, but it is likely designed for 1040i or some other HD format. And running 1024x768 is a good deal more realistate. Throw in full screen 8xAA and other standard goodies, and its understandable why cloth physics would get dropped.
That said, I wouldn't touch a game console with a 10 foot pole. And I look forward to enjoying TES4 on my PC.
-Rick
"Java ... handles the UI stuff quite well"
Who put crack in your weaties this morning?
-Rick
The key note speaker at the conference I attended said he could walk from VP row in the Cisco campus, get on the tram and ride to the other side of the campus with out ever losing his connection to the network on his handheld device. He also showed some live time tracking systems (Cisco door keys apparently have some sort of WiFi device built in) where he could pull up a map of his office building, see the wireless signal overlay and all of the wireless devices, including an employee who was working late(or had left his key behind).
-Rick
I attended a future of wireless conference in Madison, WI a few weeks ago, they had a keynote speaker from Cisco who talked about this very technology. The things its hardware can do is impressive. And yes, a lot of it could (and is) taken care of via software. These mesh nodes can detect other nodes and alther their signal strength to improve coverage. They can adapt to cover for another node that has gone down. They can immediatly detect unauthorized access points and alert NetAdmins of a potential security issue. These systems are self contained, you don't need to wire each one to the network, they just need juice except for the gateway which can run off of power over ethernet. No expencive wire pulling. No manual configuration. Just plug it in and go.
-Rick
"I am one of those people who would rather have three devices that do their respective functions very well than one that does three different things in a mediocre way."
I'd rather have 1 that did all well with a battery that lasted for more then 2 hours of activity.
Let me know when I can have PDA like flexibility, Wireless internet access, Cellphone communication, and iPod like music playback on a battery/fuelcell that will run for 8 hours of [b]activity[/b] on one device.
-Rick
As for your hard drives, you might want to look into some sort of SATA array. The drives are about the same as standard IDE, but you're not limited to 4 channels. You could theoreticly run like 10 100g drives and keep the inactive drives in standby. -Rick
"What makes Windows susceptible is its poor design. Hello? Blaster rebooting two-thirds of the world's computers?"
And given the general status of the internet and user knowledge world wide at the time, had Linux been in the #1 market share seat we would have very likely seen a similar worm for it.
"VBScript executable attachments opening by default for years"
I beleive that was an issue with Outlook, not Windows.
"You're just trying to look hip and enlightened by "going against the grain," but it's making you look stupid because your position is, frankly, dumb"
No, I'm presenting an alternative train of thought. Which I am defending with logic as oposed to personal insults. Although my initial post was pretty heavy with sarcasm, it was not ment to be an insult directed at the parent, just a humourous way of showing my dissent.
-Rick
"What have you thrown lately?"
Hmm, (1) 11x17 weighted paper airplane. (3) ruber bands. (2) paper foot balls. (1) cupcake. (1) playing card. (250+) pages of invoice test runs.
-Rick
It sounds like you are going to be doing the majority of your work on you laptops and what you are looking for is a large file server.
VIA has some great micro/nano-ITX boards with power saving in mind. Many of which can run with out a fan. Combine that with a few 120g notebook hard drives (Toshiba has a 120g 4200rpm drive for under $200 on http://newegg.com/
Last I heard Ubuntu was still the king of powersave mode in Linux. Most of the people I know who have set up fileshares have used Samba.
Get a 1000mbps ethernet card for it and hook it up the the router. The low hard drive speed and power save functionality will likely give you a bit of latency, but once it starts pulling sequencial data, it should be fine. There was a great article about low power solutions, I think I saw a link to it on http://mini-itx.com/ and they had some storage arrays running under 30watts IIRC)
And let me commend you for your excellent drive. Energy conservation is a great field for both professional and financial improvement. With new integrated home systems like Solar Shingles and improved energy efficiency designs we can greatly reduce the growth demand on grid power.
-Rick