Let me guess, you aren't in the IT department, are you? How large is your organization? How many folks are working in IT? I suspect they are starving the IT department to keep the company afloat,and WinXP SP2 and IE6 may be the most recent they can get from MS - you may not have software that passes Microsoft Genuine Advantage, making IE8 (or maybe even IE7) and SP3 unavailable to you...
The cost of a Win7 licesne doesn't enter into it, most llikely.
Your Fortune 500 company most likely doesn't have retail/OEM Windows XP licenses - they ar emost likely under "Software Advantage" and pay a per-desktop licesne fee for a number of MS apps per year. It is more economical if you turn your desktop operating system or MS applications over every three years.
They pay a license fee each year (software maint.) - do you really imagine a Fortune 500 company can just 'migrate off Win XP' incurring only "training costs"? Every end-user, desktop support tech, and server admin will need exhaustive retraining, plus many, many new applications will need to be evaluated to replace all those handy applications they've used for years...
Apparently you aren't in the IT part of your Fortune 500 employer...
Any concept of what's involved in migration?
on
Time To Dump XP?
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· Score: 5, Informative
Windows 7 has hardware requirements that many, many otherwise capable WinXP boxes can't meet either technically or economically.
It's easy to say well, upgrade your 1 Gig RAM 2 GHz P4 desktop to 2 Gig of RAM, but if you have to pitch 2x 512 Meg sticks and buy 2x 1 Gig PC3200 sticks it can get expensive fast. And that IDE drive will suffice, but it won't be very speedy - an upgrade may be in order, but unless your desktop includes a SATA port, will it really be cost-effective? Oh, and you can toss in a ReadyBoost USB flash drive to improve performance, but this is starting to get expensive...
PC3200 RAM is about $40-50 a Gig, a 4 Gig ReadyBoost USB flash drive will cost another $10 and where does that leave you? With an investment of $100/desktop plus labor in performing the hardware upgrade, or half the price of a new low-end Dell OptiPlex which will blow the socks off the 5-7 year old P4 you are investing in.
OR you could just sit on WinXP boxes for another year and start saving up for a forklift upgrade next year...
How exactly does buying advertising space around search engine results "clog the flow of information"?
All it does is give them a hook to ensure their information/spin is included in the mix - for better or worse, it doesn't do anything except block out lower-paying advertisers on related search results...
THat is an amazingly odd way to try and squeeze more simultaneous users out of one box. FIrst you take a four or six core CPU, add an ungodly-expensive video card, and then (I assume) a couple dozen USB ports for keyboards/mice THEN you get to write the glue software to make it all work together.
Exactly how would this be more useful than a dozen Atom-based systems at $200/each (plus monitors/keyboards/mice, common requirement for either your solution or mine)? Assuming the appropriate software exists (and I don't think it does), if the main unit goes down, all 12 users are SOL, but with my RAIPC (Redundant Array of Inexpensive PCs) you can keep working until all 12 systems go down!
And pro-war people aren't? "Iraq has WMDs! Oops, we mean they don't." "If we go to Afghanistan, we can capture and/or kill bin Laden! Oops, I mean we can't."
Come on. Seriously? You're acusing anti-war folks of being gullible?
Both sides are gulible.
Anti-war folks like to blame the administration for not knowing facts that came to light months or years after the decision to go to war was made.
Pro-war folks didn't challenge assumptions enough at the time.
Honestly, do you think the government he worked for, swore an oath to defend and protect, and that trusted him to properly handle secret documents should give him an award for violating that trust/oath?
You can't on one hand call "leakers" brave heroes for risking severe consequences and then act suprised when their actions have those very same consequences.
History may prove him right or not, but right now his offense is punishable, and he knew it when he did it.
I clipped the exact same quote to make my comment - but I had a slightly different take - how is paying for a home data plan with my cable co. and paying for a different data plan for my smart phone paying for the same thing twice?
I have wiored phone service and cellular service - are those the same offerings? Am I being billed twice "for the same thing"? No. A wired phone provides certain things and a cellular phone provides others, same with mobile and fixed data plans.
Also, remember, each data plan and telco plan incurs another round of state and federal taxes, so what is the government's motivation to reduce my number of accounts, thus reducing their tax revenue?
I think the writer is confusing her desire for simplified billing/lowered costs with her ISP/telco/cable company's need to change things.
If I go to an "al you can eat" restaruant, and there are four people in my party, each one has to pay the price of an "all you can eat" meal, they all can't share the cost of one "all you can eat" meal (Why not? They paid for an unlimited amount of food, why can't they share it?), why does she expect internet access to be different. An unlimited data plan allows fo "X" amount of bandwidth, two devices can consume "2X" amount of bandwidth (operating in parallel, even if each device can get max. bandwidth x 24 hours each day of the month).
If I have, say, a cable network connection at home with one ISP and one data plan and then I have two iPhones each with their own data plans I can run all three devices at the same time, would she prefer that she only pays one fee, and that when she uses one iPhone the other iPhone and her home connection go offline, since she is only paying for one "unlimited" data stream? Or when she is online at home her iPhones don't have internet connectivity through the EDGE/3G network?
Three devices can consume 3X the bandwidth, why should she only pay for 1X the bandwidth?
The NComputing thin-clients aren't donated, and they likely aren't cheap compared with other options (like an Atom-based thin client with local compute functions)...
They appear to buy everything in the container either new or second-hand, they can't throw an extra $100 into the mix and use a low-power current model CPU/"server"?
Honestly this sounds more like an ad for the awesome computing power of a P4 system, likely funded by NComputing...
So this is a complete, stand-alone internet cafe solution - drop it anywhere in the world you want with a moments notice (note: Internet access sold separately, a 50 foot Cat5e cable is included to connect to existing network).
So the malarial research institute has power and internet access (via satellite link), what exactly was the pressing need this solution provided? Apparently they have power and internet access already, they just needed a little bit of office space, ten flat panels, and chairs?
This example proves the "freeze-dried water" nature of this effort - just add Internet Access to provide Internet Access to paying customers...
Absolutely - this container has everything you need, just add "internet access" and it can provide, uhm, internet access! Sounds a bit like freeze-dried water - just add water!
As I read the article, it seems to be supplying a start-up business with multiple revenue streams (charge for internet access from the thin clients, charge for phone charging, charge for WiFi hotspot access, etc), NOT dropping free internet access in the remote parts of the world.
Remember the Katrina trailer fiasco? How would your idea resolve the issues in those trailers?
Once the container train arrives, how will it get unloaded? How will the containers be positioned, powered, and provided with water? Once you get past the "neat, they stack for easy transport" all you've done is stuff an airstream into small steel box that is hard to reposition without expensive equipment (crane, trailer bases, tractor-trailers to move them from here to there, etc.).
It's a nice idea, but I think the logistics of moving the container at the disaster site cause serious problems.
OK, here's what I see - a shipping container with a PC shared among 10 users, 10 desks, flat panels, and a WiFi access point. It is powered by an array of solar panels. Sounds lovely, but a few observations:
- I'd like to see a power comparison between latest Atom MBs netbooting off a server (like the Intel D510MO with new low power chipset) and this thin computing solution. Those particular Intel MBs are about $90/ea retail with lower-cost units available, including boards that can be run off 12VDC.
- It's great that this "solution" doesn't require mains power, but it oddly requires a hard-wired Internet connection - how many places in developing nations have a stable internet connection but no power (the obvious "market" for this "solution".)
- I find it hard to believe that this solar panel array could support all these workstations AND a satellite uplink (ruling out the mid-Sahara installation).
- Other posters asked about A/C - I don't think you can run the 10 terminals and a PC and an uplink device as well as an A/C unit... I think vents, fans, and filters are what are called for here.
- Part of the real, unspoken, value is the security of a steel container that can be locked up when not in use - a $20K "jewel" in the midst of extreme poverty would likely prove very tempting to criminals.
Once you get past the novelty, I think this is an under-powered solution to not really too-pressing problem in many developing countries. Twenty thousand dollars can go a long way, solving a lot of problems in developing countries that are far more pressing than ensuring everyone can pay for access to wikipedia (the article talks about revenue streams, like charging folks to recharge their cellphones)...
But, it did look nice inside, but it could use more sunlight IMHO, one 18" square window is too small.
If this is a problem in your environment, consider a kensington lock, enabling chassis intrusion, and running some management suite that will capture and alert the admin of changing hardware specs.
Or, of course, get better, more trustworthy employees...
With a round-trip ticket from Heathrow to NYC going for under $500 (Virgin, leaving Heathrow Saturday, returning from NYC on Monday), how many iPads would a Londoner have to buy in the US to cover the airplane ticket with the money saved? Just a handfull or so?
Atoms are (and always have been) low-power, it was the chipset that caused problems. Using older 945 chipset caused power/heat to rise, the new low-power chipsets have been out for months now, as shown on boards like the D510MO mini-ITX board from Intel.
Dual-core Atom CPUs have been around for a while (first the 330, now the 510 chips), the real advance is that now you'll get better performance from DDR3 RAM for integrated graphics and the newer chips support the first low-power support chips.
A dual-core Atom-based system can satisfy many user's needs, when you bake in a discrete graphics option (nVidea ION, for example) it will satisfy many more users, but it will never be, and was never intended to be, the 'only chip you'd ever need'. It is a niche product that got caught up in the home server/media center swell of interest.
Perosnally i try and teach my kids to be aware of advertisements and that they are all lies. Many people just don't have the time or the intelligence to teach their kids that.
And how is it that you have the intelligence and time to teach your children but others don't? What makes you so special?
I'm right there with you the responsibilities of "parenting", but you too easily conclude that "parenting" and "legislation" are interchangeable. Parents that abdicate responsibility to the state are no longer parents, they are merely sponsors of underdeveloped citizens...
I agree - the people behind this act think this is the right thing to do, that is their motivation. I may question their understanding of the problem, their belief that this will have the desired effect, or their inability to see how this will rub many, many people the wrong way, but I don't question their motives.
How, exactly, can you make even a slippery-slope argument that restricting plastic toys in low-priced children's meals in some way leads to "the man keeping you down" - you can still get low-priced food for your kids, you can still buy plastic toys, they just won't come together in a convienient paper bag (or cardboard suitcase)... I'm against the rule, but I don't think this is the first stepp in world domination - it's just the end result of electing too many do-gooders to the local governing body...
I am similarly insulted by the local "Night Off" here in my home town - a couple of obsessive, do-gooder moms convinced the local sports teams and schools to "take one night off each year to let families eat together and enjoy each other's company."
Excuse me, my family eats together over 300 nights a year, this one extra night does little more than feed the selfish needs of a few moms to feel they are helping out those poor families that never see each other...
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Let me guess, you aren't in the IT department, are you? How large is your organization? How many folks are working in IT? I suspect they are starving the IT department to keep the company afloat,and WinXP SP2 and IE6 may be the most recent they can get from MS - you may not have software that passes Microsoft Genuine Advantage, making IE8 (or maybe even IE7) and SP3 unavailable to you...
The cost of a Win7 licesne doesn't enter into it, most llikely.
Your Fortune 500 company most likely doesn't have retail/OEM Windows XP licenses - they ar emost likely under "Software Advantage" and pay a per-desktop licesne fee for a number of MS apps per year. It is more economical if you turn your desktop operating system or MS applications over every three years.
They pay a license fee each year (software maint.) - do you really imagine a Fortune 500 company can just 'migrate off Win XP' incurring only "training costs"? Every end-user, desktop support tech, and server admin will need exhaustive retraining, plus many, many new applications will need to be evaluated to replace all those handy applications they've used for years...
Apparently you aren't in the IT part of your Fortune 500 employer...
Windows 7 has hardware requirements that many, many otherwise capable WinXP boxes can't meet either technically or economically.
It's easy to say well, upgrade your 1 Gig RAM 2 GHz P4 desktop to 2 Gig of RAM, but if you have to pitch 2x 512 Meg sticks and buy 2x 1 Gig PC3200 sticks it can get expensive fast. And that IDE drive will suffice, but it won't be very speedy - an upgrade may be in order, but unless your desktop includes a SATA port, will it really be cost-effective? Oh, and you can toss in a ReadyBoost USB flash drive to improve performance, but this is starting to get expensive...
PC3200 RAM is about $40-50 a Gig, a 4 Gig ReadyBoost USB flash drive will cost another $10 and where does that leave you? With an investment of $100/desktop plus labor in performing the hardware upgrade, or half the price of a new low-end Dell OptiPlex which will blow the socks off the 5-7 year old P4 you are investing in.
OR you could just sit on WinXP boxes for another year and start saving up for a forklift upgrade next year...
How exactly does buying advertising space around search engine results "clog the flow of information"?
All it does is give them a hook to ensure their information/spin is included in the mix - for better or worse, it doesn't do anything except block out lower-paying advertisers on related search results...
Really, you want to run VGA/DVI cables around your house instead?
Haven't you heard of converting older laptops into picture frames? I have to believe there are WiFi-enabled picture frames out there...
THat is an amazingly odd way to try and squeeze more simultaneous users out of one box. FIrst you take a four or six core CPU, add an ungodly-expensive video card, and then (I assume) a couple dozen USB ports for keyboards/mice THEN you get to write the glue software to make it all work together.
Exactly how would this be more useful than a dozen Atom-based systems at $200/each (plus monitors/keyboards/mice, common requirement for either your solution or mine)? Assuming the appropriate software exists (and I don't think it does), if the main unit goes down, all 12 users are SOL, but with my RAIPC (Redundant Array of Inexpensive PCs) you can keep working until all 12 systems go down!
Anti war people are so gullible.
And pro-war people aren't? "Iraq has WMDs! Oops, we mean they don't." "If we go to Afghanistan, we can capture and/or kill bin Laden! Oops, I mean we can't."
Come on. Seriously? You're acusing anti-war folks of being gullible?
Both sides are gulible.
Anti-war folks like to blame the administration for not knowing facts that came to light months or years after the decision to go to war was made.
Pro-war folks didn't challenge assumptions enough at the time.
Honestly, do you think the government he worked for, swore an oath to defend and protect, and that trusted him to properly handle secret documents should give him an award for violating that trust/oath?
You can't on one hand call "leakers" brave heroes for risking severe consequences and then act suprised when their actions have those very same consequences.
History may prove him right or not, but right now his offense is punishable, and he knew it when he did it.
I clipped the exact same quote to make my comment - but I had a slightly different take - how is paying for a home data plan with my cable co. and paying for a different data plan for my smart phone paying for the same thing twice?
I have wiored phone service and cellular service - are those the same offerings? Am I being billed twice "for the same thing"? No. A wired phone provides certain things and a cellular phone provides others, same with mobile and fixed data plans.
Also, remember, each data plan and telco plan incurs another round of state and federal taxes, so what is the government's motivation to reduce my number of accounts, thus reducing their tax revenue?
I think the writer is confusing her desire for simplified billing/lowered costs with her ISP/telco/cable company's need to change things.
If I go to an "al you can eat" restaruant, and there are four people in my party, each one has to pay the price of an "all you can eat" meal, they all can't share the cost of one "all you can eat" meal (Why not? They paid for an unlimited amount of food, why can't they share it?), why does she expect internet access to be different. An unlimited data plan allows fo "X" amount of bandwidth, two devices can consume "2X" amount of bandwidth (operating in parallel, even if each device can get max. bandwidth x 24 hours each day of the month).
If I have, say, a cable network connection at home with one ISP and one data plan and then I have two iPhones each with their own data plans I can run all three devices at the same time, would she prefer that she only pays one fee, and that when she uses one iPhone the other iPhone and her home connection go offline, since she is only paying for one "unlimited" data stream? Or when she is online at home her iPhones don't have internet connectivity through the EDGE/3G network?
Three devices can consume 3X the bandwidth, why should she only pay for 1X the bandwidth?
Since it is the weekend, here's a little "unlimited food" humor from John Pinette - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdwuiyO7hOU
The NComputing thin-clients aren't donated, and they likely aren't cheap compared with other options (like an Atom-based thin client with local compute functions)...
They appear to buy everything in the container either new or second-hand, they can't throw an extra $100 into the mix and use a low-power current model CPU/"server"?
Honestly this sounds more like an ad for the awesome computing power of a P4 system, likely funded by NComputing...
I think the big steel container provides security for the contents, both people and technology.
So this is a complete, stand-alone internet cafe solution - drop it anywhere in the world you want with a moments notice (note: Internet access sold separately, a 50 foot Cat5e cable is included to connect to existing network).
So the malarial research institute has power and internet access (via satellite link), what exactly was the pressing need this solution provided? Apparently they have power and internet access already, they just needed a little bit of office space, ten flat panels, and chairs?
This example proves the "freeze-dried water" nature of this effort - just add Internet Access to provide Internet Access to paying customers...
Absolutely - this container has everything you need, just add "internet access" and it can provide, uhm, internet access! Sounds a bit like freeze-dried water - just add water!
As I read the article, it seems to be supplying a start-up business with multiple revenue streams (charge for internet access from the thin clients, charge for phone charging, charge for WiFi hotspot access, etc), NOT dropping free internet access in the remote parts of the world.
The article describes cellphone charging as a possible revenue source - they want to encourage this activity, for a fee.
Remember the Katrina trailer fiasco? How would your idea resolve the issues in those trailers?
Once the container train arrives, how will it get unloaded? How will the containers be positioned, powered, and provided with water? Once you get past the "neat, they stack for easy transport" all you've done is stuff an airstream into small steel box that is hard to reposition without expensive equipment (crane, trailer bases, tractor-trailers to move them from here to there, etc.).
It's a nice idea, but I think the logistics of moving the container at the disaster site cause serious problems.
OK, here's what I see - a shipping container with a PC shared among 10 users, 10 desks, flat panels, and a WiFi access point. It is powered by an array of solar panels. Sounds lovely, but a few observations:
- I'd like to see a power comparison between latest Atom MBs netbooting off a server (like the Intel D510MO with new low power chipset) and this thin computing solution. Those particular Intel MBs are about $90/ea retail with lower-cost units available, including boards that can be run off 12VDC.
- It's great that this "solution" doesn't require mains power, but it oddly requires a hard-wired Internet connection - how many places in developing nations have a stable internet connection but no power (the obvious "market" for this "solution".)
- I find it hard to believe that this solar panel array could support all these workstations AND a satellite uplink (ruling out the mid-Sahara installation).
- Other posters asked about A/C - I don't think you can run the 10 terminals and a PC and an uplink device as well as an A/C unit... I think vents, fans, and filters are what are called for here.
- Part of the real, unspoken, value is the security of a steel container that can be locked up when not in use - a $20K "jewel" in the midst of extreme poverty would likely prove very tempting to criminals.
Once you get past the novelty, I think this is an under-powered solution to not really too-pressing problem in many developing countries. Twenty thousand dollars can go a long way, solving a lot of problems in developing countries that are far more pressing than ensuring everyone can pay for access to wikipedia (the article talks about revenue streams, like charging folks to recharge their cellphones)...
But, it did look nice inside, but it could use more sunlight IMHO, one 18" square window is too small.
If this is a problem in your environment, consider a kensington lock, enabling chassis intrusion, and running some management suite that will capture and alert the admin of changing hardware specs.
Or, of course, get better, more trustworthy employees...
Shame they don't carry these in the duty-free shops in international airports ;^)
With a round-trip ticket from Heathrow to NYC going for under $500 (Virgin, leaving Heathrow Saturday, returning from NYC on Monday), how many iPads would a Londoner have to buy in the US to cover the airplane ticket with the money saved? Just a handfull or so?
Atoms are (and always have been) low-power, it was the chipset that caused problems. Using older 945 chipset caused power/heat to rise, the new low-power chipsets have been out for months now, as shown on boards like the D510MO mini-ITX board from Intel.
Dual-core Atom CPUs have been around for a while (first the 330, now the 510 chips), the real advance is that now you'll get better performance from DDR3 RAM for integrated graphics and the newer chips support the first low-power support chips.
A dual-core Atom-based system can satisfy many user's needs, when you bake in a discrete graphics option (nVidea ION, for example) it will satisfy many more users, but it will never be, and was never intended to be, the 'only chip you'd ever need'. It is a niche product that got caught up in the home server/media center swell of interest.
Wow, are you afraid their belief in a higher being will some how rub off on to you if you eat there?
Don't confuse corporate mission with the personal beliefs of the employees. It's a company, not a cult.
And how is it that you have the intelligence and time to teach your children but others don't? What makes you so special?
I'm right there with you the responsibilities of "parenting", but you too easily conclude that "parenting" and "legislation" are interchangeable. Parents that abdicate responsibility to the state are no longer parents, they are merely sponsors of underdeveloped citizens...
I agree - the people behind this act think this is the right thing to do, that is their motivation. I may question their understanding of the problem, their belief that this will have the desired effect, or their inability to see how this will rub many, many people the wrong way, but I don't question their motives.
How, exactly, can you make even a slippery-slope argument that restricting plastic toys in low-priced children's meals in some way leads to "the man keeping you down" - you can still get low-priced food for your kids, you can still buy plastic toys, they just won't come together in a convienient paper bag (or cardboard suitcase)... I'm against the rule, but I don't think this is the first stepp in world domination - it's just the end result of electing too many do-gooders to the local governing body...
I am similarly insulted by the local "Night Off" here in my home town - a couple of obsessive, do-gooder moms convinced the local sports teams and schools to "take one night off each year to let families eat together and enjoy each other's company."
Excuse me, my family eats together over 300 nights a year, this one extra night does little more than feed the selfish needs of a few moms to feel they are helping out those poor families that never see each other...