Does anyone know if there are legal reasons why Apple (or Dell, or anyone else) wouldn't be allowed to sell machines without RAM or harddisk, that is machines that cannot possibly work out of the box? Nope, there are no regulations in the US regarding the sale of a machine that isn't operational "out of the box".
However, there is a potential financial liability to PC vendors regarding the sale of a "naked" machine - if a customer has to install hardware to a new PC to get it to work, and then later there are problems with the PC operating properly, then it becomes much more difficult to assign fault.
Currently, if a PC works out of the box and then breaks without modification, it is clear that it is PC vendor's problem. Conversely, if a machine is modified by a user using unknown third-party components, it becomes significantly more difficult to assign blame: it could be PC vendor, the third party vendors, the installers, the customer, or a combination of all of them.
As a former worker in a computer store, I found returned PCs were often due to the customer error- for buying incompatable memory, or by breaking clips, latches, and other physical parts. Installing RAM with the power often caused trouble. Of course, the customer never would take responsibility - they often claimed that the latch was poorly manufactured or that the RAM works most of the time, and therefore it was the motherboard we sold them.
Base model with two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processors start at $3997, (albeit with unacceptably minimal RAM or HD space; To me, a great minimum would be zero RAM and zero HDD. Then I could populate it with what I like.
But I think I see Apple's desire to sell an operational machine - it'd be hard to support a machine if it is untestable in the store - in other words, there are a lot of idiots out there who can still manage to screw up RAM and HDD purchasing and installation, and when the do screw up, they're likely to blame anyone else other than themselves.
Then again, my needs aren't really impacted by the "unacceptably minimal" 250 GB single disk and 1 GB of RAM - my world is CPU bound - loads of RAM and disk do not solve my problems where I work.
My god, what kind of house do you have to use that much electricity, and where do you live? My house doesn't use a quarter of that [100 KWH/month] in a full year, including heating. And I'm in Canada! A single 100 watt incandescent light bulb, on 24 hours a day, consumes roughly 73 KWH per month:
100 watts * 730 hours/month = 73,000 watt-hours per month, or 73 Kilowatt hours per month.
Your 25 KWH over a year is equal to having a 3 watt light bulb on 24x365. Either you freeze your ass up there, or you might calculate KWH differently in Canada.
My home PC server, which I left on 24x365 for email, backup, etc, ended up costing me well over $150 per year in electricity just for the PC (no periferals, monitor, or anything else).
Noticing this cost, I compared a bunch of Macintosh and PCs, as you can see in this article on PC and Mac electricity use.
As you can see, it's pretty easy to see that the cheapest devices can end up costing more in power alone.
If you plan to run an electronic device close to 24x365, factor electricity consumption into your purchase decision. Also factor in devices like cable modems, wireless routers, and so-called "sleeping equipment" - in combination, they can easily put another several hundred to your electricity bill every year. I use an X10 "appliance" controller to truly switch off idle equipment.
My total monthly electric consumption these days is well under 100 KWh.
We are submitting this $9 million voting machine contract proposal. Please consider DIEBOLD.
PS- If you don't choose DIEBOLD, you better keep close watch your rear view mirror. We'll sue you in court, attempt to ruin your name, and have your dog killed.
From the article:
[The blogger Wu] specifically asked Maynor and Ellch if they were using Apple's Wi-Fi hardware in their official Black Hat demonstration. They clearly said that no Apple Wi-Fi product was used for the exploit. Finally the truth comes out - Maynor's Wi-Fi vulnerability demonstration had nothing to do with Apple's Wi-Fi products. He was just using the Apple platform for presentation impact. Otherwise it would have been an even more boring talk than it was (at least for us technical guys). Ah.......um, didn't we learn about this trick a few months ago? Is this another SlashDup, or is there some finer point in his long post that I'm missing?
Oh! I see! There are lots of ADVERTISEMENTS on this blog page! Phew! This was a great way to drive traffic! Thanks ZD-Net, for the "news"!!!
Now I'll turn on CNN and watch the "news" about the next dreaded disease from Asia that could kill my children (and see Viagra ads at the same time.)
Microsoft's own bug hunters should cut Windows Vista some slack and rate its vulnerabilities differently because of the operating system's new, baked-in defenses, according to [Michael Howard, a senior security program manager in Microsoft's security engineering group] who is often the public persona of the company's Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process. Microsoft shouldn't have this guy as the "public persona" of security if he isn't 100% within both the security & public communications loops at Microsoft. "Vista" is supposed to be all about security. Why are they having this guy "chat" about it when he isn't a communications expert and when he isn't representing Microsoft's corporate opinion?
I'm sure we've all said a few things that were externalized "thought experiment" instead of "well thought out conclusions". And I think I can see how his line of thinking was going, although I disagree with his statement. And I wouldn't be surprised that in hindsight he disagrees with his own statement.
Microsoft has inadvertently set this guy up as a fall guy by anointing him as a semi-official spokesperson. Hopefully he won't find himself on the street due to what is a failure of his management.
I was driving down my suburban street the other day when the car in front of me veered off the road. A gun battle ensued, and three cars caught fire (undoubtedly due to all the bullets flying). Then a gasoline truck happened to be driving by, and Kaboom!
Happily, my totally hot girlfriend and I made it out of there and to the orphanage, where we help feed very cute poor kids who are "trapped by the system". Disappointingly, the criminals were released due to a technicality.
The funny part: the same thing happened last month.
Just about all television programing sucks, with sparse few exceptions here and there. The easiest way to attract viewers to such a lousy program is to show a powerdrill going into a guy's brain, or a lady with revealing outfits, or the old car blowing up after a fender-bender.
If you can't attract viewers with quality, attract them with something that they'll remember: boobs, blood, and bombs.
If network TV continues to fail, it certainly won't be due to censorship - it will be due to the networks' inability to address their piss-poor programming.
There's less emphasis on creativity, and more on maintenance.
Welcome to IT! It's great to hear that you've taken a job working on America's information infrastructure.
IT is like a roadway. You spend a shitload of effort to build it - designing bridges, blasting through mountains, cutting through forests, etc. Then you're done, and then, for the next 100+ years, it gets maintained thanks to an additional shitload of effort. IT is perhaps a bit different because a roadway can't be screwed around with as easily as, say, your accounting software.
New hardware, new software, new technologies, new customer requirements. Maintaining software is the core of what IT is. And well-controlled, well maintained software is the difference between organizational success and failure.
If you haven't maintained software, then you are not qualified to design or build new software.
Finally, everything you've ever wanted to know about being an employee at Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. ... based on a few weeks of experience of an intern.
This is intersting information for someone who is looking to be an intern, but that's about it.
Microsoft was saying that it couldn't find the tapes and that it would take millions of man-hours to search for them...
Yes, it is best if they have a person search through the tape backup database to see where the tape is physically stored. It would take millions of hours. A computer could perform the database search in a couple seconds, but the query keeps crashing SQL Server ever since the Vista upgrade.
The plan is that [the satellite] will be built using open standards-based software designed to prevent problems caused when software programs developed by various agencies are incompatible with each other Whoa! That means that they'll no longer be able to leverage the power of Microsoft Access on board the satellite. I don't know if they thought this one through... I know, I'll call my congressman and let him know that a law should be passed requiring MS-Access on all NASA devices. That'll save tons of taxpayer money. You should call your congressman on this one too.
General Motors has finally gotten the message about electric autos. They are about to introduce the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid From the article:
GM officials stressed that development of the battery pack is critical to the concept vehicle reaching showrooms, and the technology likely won't be available until 2010 or 2012.
So it's due in 3 to 5 years - assuming GM doesn't change its commitment to the project, and that the battery pack development goes as well as it's hoped to.
That reminds me, whatever became of that ARPANET thing they were all talking about way back? Oh, that ARPANET thing sucks. Only that dumb-ass Gore would think that regular people would like to use ARPANET.
Instead, I recommend what the free market developed: The powerful, easy-to-use NetBEUI. Perfect for your home, and built into Windows!
I've dropped my electricity consumption by more than half. This chart on my blog shows my total KWHs consumed over five years.
Sure, I replaced incandescent bulbs with CFLs when I moved in. So where is the savings? I optimized things like computers and then "insignificant, low-power" devices.
I'd love to see this journalist's KWHs per year over the past 5 years. I've love to see how many KWH he consumes a month. Perhaps given his waste, a savings of 100 KWH/month is insignificant.
Some people think that saving $200 a year in electricity is just about the same as saving nothing - because saving less than $20 per month is not worth thinking about. But for me, saving $200 a year is significant, and I don't mind if I have to do it in $17 increments over 12 months.
(note: I have a natural gas dryer, hot water heater, furnace, and oven)
$500 for a complete PC system installed? Your $500 machines aren't nearly as powerful as my 2.5 year old equipment! Why should I upgrade for $500 if I end up with significantly lousier equipment? Such a strategy will not improve my software developers' performance.
I need something that will last for several years with near-zero fuss. I really can't afford to buy equipment that was obsolete last year, or that needs constant tinkering and upgrades and support.
Plus, your $500 fails to factor in any other costs.
Try this: procure a software developer's desktop through your organization's IT department, and factor in installation costs, data migration, and normally required periferals. Assume that this machine will be in service for at least 3 years with near-zero maintenance.
Upgrading to Vista from our current XP standard is a non-starter. There is no way that I'm interested in upsetting my worker's day-to-day productivity by having a desktop admin perform an upgrade. If my employees cost me $500/day each (with salary, benefits, and per-employee expenses such as office space), and they lose a day's worth of productivity, then upgrading to Vista is an extreme waste of money (since I don't see any benefit).
I'm sure I'll start to move to Vista once I start procuring new hardware. But I have good equipment now. The benefit of brand new Desktop PC's for my people isn't clear at all to me. I'll replace my old equipment once it makes sense to do so, but I'm not going to drop $2000 on a new desktop until I can see a clear benefit in doing so. I'd rather allocate that money to something that can make a real difference to operations (like bonuses).
Maybe I'll see a Vista productivity benefit in six months - or maybe in two years. But right now, I say "no way" to an upgrade - it looks like a money sink to me.
Today, it almost seems that voice calls are the least-used function of most phones
In other words, despite the fact the cell phones are used mostly for voice calls, more money can be made by selling data services - data services that use the same technology that the voice calls use.
So it's a hard sell if you call it a "cell phone with high priced data transfer features".
So a new name is in order, with the exclusive purpose of charging more monthly and per-byte fees.
Perhaps "Super-Z i-DataMax" is an awesome name that'll help sales of these otherwise lame services? How else can we sell to this otherwise saturated market? Vote "yes" by texting to 50493, or vote no by texting to 50494! (fees apply!)
Yes, I agree that the heat that is generated out of your PC is nearly 100% efficient in terms of the input electricity. Virtually all the electricity a PC consumes is released as heat. But the electricity that is available from your wall outlet is only about 30% of the energy required to generate and deliver that electricity. So, in the end, electricity is quite expensive in terms of the cost required to generate heat.
Compare the cost of heat generation of: 1. Resistance heating (like in your PC, or an electric baseboard) 2. A heat pump 3. Oil fired furnace 4. Natural Gas fired furnace
My argument is that using resistance heating (#1) in your home is substantially more expensive than any of the other means of heating (#2-#4).
Likewise, in the summer, it takes energy to remove excess heat from your home. That means heat pumped out of your PC needs to be removed by your A/C unit. This cost, for an efficient A/C, is roughly 30% of the input electricity.
Those who run data centers see this "in the large" - adding new computers to a data center means increasing A/C capacity.
Yes, I agree, one can easily calculate the delta between "energy cost savings" potential versus "investment earnings". I made a little spreadsheet, chose some reasonable values for inflation, investment earnings, and taxes on investment earnings. I assumed that my PC that cost $X more than a cheap PC saves me $Y/year in electricity costs. From there, you can fairly accurately calculate if or when you'll break even in terms of total cost. The savings (or lack of savings) is highly dependent on those variables.
Also, I agree that inefficient transformers are not mandated by any law I know of, at least here in the US.
My realization wasn't that I didn't need a server. My realization was that I was keeping a machine powered up 24x7 because it provided services (namely, a network backup server for my extended family). I realized that I could keep it up on a timer for about an hour a day, put it in a lower power consumption mode, and have zero decrease in service.
In a nutshell, my annual power consumption went down by 30% (!) once I started to power down my home-built "home server PC" when not in use.
I also figured out that when buying a new PC that is going to see a lot of use, power consumption should be a factor. If you're saving $100 in purchase price, but spending $50/year for additional electricity because the cheap PC's power supply is grossly inefficient, well, have you really saved anything if you keep that machine for 3 years? The short answer. NO.
Is this all just an attempt by a few software vendors attempting to push their unproven "anti-cheating" products into the higher ed marketplace?
Anonymous postings by "tenured professors"? Or a "research paper" that hasn't been accepted for publication in a any respected journal? Do the rantings by a couple of individuals have any more weight than a press release by a software vendor attempting to sell their products to a cash-strapped Higher Ed institution?
I think not.
I'm much more likely to listen to a research study that was conducted in a manner that is generally accepted by the research community. I'm much more likely to believe a non-anonymous, highly respected professor than an anonymous posting. Instead, I am given some kind of story - but there is no way for me to determine if it's valid - or just opinionated spin.
Yes, I have an opinion. But I can be convinced to think otherwise if I see quality information. I haven't seen it.
Slashdot Mirror
However, there is a potential financial liability to PC vendors regarding the sale of a "naked" machine - if a customer has to install hardware to a new PC to get it to work, and then later there are problems with the PC operating properly, then it becomes much more difficult to assign fault.
Currently, if a PC works out of the box and then breaks without modification, it is clear that it is PC vendor's problem. Conversely, if a machine is modified by a user using unknown third-party components, it becomes significantly more difficult to assign blame: it could be PC vendor, the third party vendors, the installers, the customer, or a combination of all of them.
As a former worker in a computer store, I found returned PCs were often due to the customer error- for buying incompatable memory, or by breaking clips, latches, and other physical parts. Installing RAM with the power often caused trouble. Of course, the customer never would take responsibility - they often claimed that the latch was poorly manufactured or that the RAM works most of the time, and therefore it was the motherboard we sold them.
But I think I see Apple's desire to sell an operational machine - it'd be hard to support a machine if it is untestable in the store - in other words, there are a lot of idiots out there who can still manage to screw up RAM and HDD purchasing and installation, and when the do screw up, they're likely to blame anyone else other than themselves.
Then again, my needs aren't really impacted by the "unacceptably minimal" 250 GB single disk and 1 GB of RAM - my world is CPU bound - loads of RAM and disk do not solve my problems where I work.
100 watts * 730 hours/month = 73,000 watt-hours per month, or 73 Kilowatt hours per month.
Your 25 KWH over a year is equal to having a 3 watt light bulb on 24x365. Either you freeze your ass up there, or you might calculate KWH differently in Canada.
My home PC server, which I left on 24x365 for email, backup, etc, ended up costing me well over $150 per year in electricity just for the PC (no periferals, monitor, or anything else).
Noticing this cost, I compared a bunch of Macintosh and PCs, as you can see in this article on PC and Mac electricity use.
As you can see, it's pretty easy to see that the cheapest devices can end up costing more in power alone.
If you plan to run an electronic device close to 24x365, factor electricity consumption into your purchase decision. Also factor in devices like cable modems, wireless routers, and so-called "sleeping equipment" - in combination, they can easily put another several hundred to your electricity bill every year. I use an X10 "appliance" controller to truly switch off idle equipment.
My total monthly electric consumption these days is well under 100 KWh.
Dear Election Official:
We are submitting this $9 million voting machine contract proposal. Please consider DIEBOLD.
PS- If you don't choose DIEBOLD, you better keep close watch your rear view mirror. We'll sue you in court, attempt to ruin your name, and have your dog killed.
Oh! I see! There are lots of ADVERTISEMENTS on this blog page! Phew! This was a great way to drive traffic! Thanks ZD-Net, for the "news"!!!
Now I'll turn on CNN and watch the "news" about the next dreaded disease from Asia that could kill my children (and see Viagra ads at the same time.)
I'm sure we've all said a few things that were externalized "thought experiment" instead of "well thought out conclusions". And I think I can see how his line of thinking was going, although I disagree with his statement. And I wouldn't be surprised that in hindsight he disagrees with his own statement.
Microsoft has inadvertently set this guy up as a fall guy by anointing him as a semi-official spokesperson. Hopefully he won't find himself on the street due to what is a failure of his management.
I was driving down my suburban street the other day when the car in front of me veered off the road. A gun battle ensued, and three cars caught fire (undoubtedly due to all the bullets flying). Then a gasoline truck happened to be driving by, and Kaboom!
Happily, my totally hot girlfriend and I made it out of there and to the orphanage, where we help feed very cute poor kids who are "trapped by the system". Disappointingly, the criminals were released due to a technicality.
The funny part: the same thing happened last month.
Just about all television programing sucks, with sparse few exceptions here and there. The easiest way to attract viewers to such a lousy program is to show a powerdrill going into a guy's brain, or a lady with revealing outfits, or the old car blowing up after a fender-bender.
If you can't attract viewers with quality, attract them with something that they'll remember: boobs, blood, and bombs.
If network TV continues to fail, it certainly won't be due to censorship - it will be due to the networks' inability to address their piss-poor programming.
There's less emphasis on creativity, and more on maintenance.
Welcome to IT! It's great to hear that you've taken a job working on America's information infrastructure.
IT is like a roadway. You spend a shitload of effort to build it - designing bridges, blasting through mountains, cutting through forests, etc. Then you're done, and then, for the next 100+ years, it gets maintained thanks to an additional shitload of effort. IT is perhaps a bit different because a roadway can't be screwed around with as easily as, say, your accounting software.
New hardware, new software, new technologies, new customer requirements. Maintaining software is the core of what IT is. And well-controlled, well maintained software is the difference between organizational success and failure.
If you haven't maintained software, then you are not qualified to design or build new software.
This is intersting information for someone who is looking to be an intern, but that's about it.
Microsoft was saying that it couldn't find the tapes and that it would take millions of man-hours to search for them ...
Yes, it is best if they have a person search through the tape backup database to see where the tape is physically stored. It would take millions of hours. A computer could perform the database search in a couple seconds, but the query keeps crashing SQL Server ever since the Vista upgrade.
GM officials stressed that development of the battery pack is critical to the concept vehicle reaching showrooms, and the technology likely won't be available until 2010 or 2012.
So it's due in 3 to 5 years - assuming GM doesn't change its commitment to the project, and that the battery pack development goes as well as it's hoped to.
Instead, I recommend what the free market developed: The powerful, easy-to-use NetBEUI. Perfect for your home, and built into Windows!
I've dropped my electricity consumption by more than half. This chart on my blog shows my total KWHs consumed over five years.
Sure, I replaced incandescent bulbs with CFLs when I moved in. So where is the savings? I optimized things like computers and then "insignificant, low-power" devices.
I'd love to see this journalist's KWHs per year over the past 5 years. I've love to see how many KWH he consumes a month. Perhaps given his waste, a savings of 100 KWH/month is insignificant.
Some people think that saving $200 a year in electricity is just about the same as saving nothing - because saving less than $20 per month is not worth thinking about. But for me, saving $200 a year is significant, and I don't mind if I have to do it in $17 increments over 12 months.
(note: I have a natural gas dryer, hot water heater, furnace, and oven)
$500 for a complete PC system installed? Your $500 machines aren't nearly as powerful as my 2.5 year old equipment! Why should I upgrade for $500 if I end up with significantly lousier equipment? Such a strategy will not improve my software developers' performance.
I need something that will last for several years with near-zero fuss. I really can't afford to buy equipment that was obsolete last year, or that needs constant tinkering and upgrades and support.
Plus, your $500 fails to factor in any other costs.
Try this: procure a software developer's desktop through your organization's IT department, and factor in installation costs, data migration, and normally required periferals. Assume that this machine will be in service for at least 3 years with near-zero maintenance.
Upgrading to Vista from our current XP standard is a non-starter. There is no way that I'm interested in upsetting my worker's day-to-day productivity by having a desktop admin perform an upgrade. If my employees cost me $500/day each (with salary, benefits, and per-employee expenses such as office space), and they lose a day's worth of productivity, then upgrading to Vista is an extreme waste of money (since I don't see any benefit).
I'm sure I'll start to move to Vista once I start procuring new hardware. But I have good equipment now. The benefit of brand new Desktop PC's for my people isn't clear at all to me. I'll replace my old equipment once it makes sense to do so, but I'm not going to drop $2000 on a new desktop until I can see a clear benefit in doing so. I'd rather allocate that money to something that can make a real difference to operations (like bonuses).
Maybe I'll see a Vista productivity benefit in six months - or maybe in two years. But right now, I say "no way" to an upgrade - it looks like a money sink to me.
Today, it almost seems that voice calls are the least-used function of most phones
In other words, despite the fact the cell phones are used mostly for voice calls, more money can be made by selling data services - data services that use the same technology that the voice calls use.
So it's a hard sell if you call it a "cell phone with high priced data transfer features".
So a new name is in order, with the exclusive purpose of charging more monthly and per-byte fees.
Perhaps "Super-Z i-DataMax" is an awesome name that'll help sales of these otherwise lame services? How else can we sell to this otherwise saturated market? Vote "yes" by texting to 50493, or vote no by texting to 50494! (fees apply!)
Yes, I agree that the heat that is generated out of your PC is nearly 100% efficient in terms of the input electricity. Virtually all the electricity a PC consumes is released as heat. But the electricity that is available from your wall outlet is only about 30% of the energy required to generate and deliver that electricity. So, in the end, electricity is quite expensive in terms of the cost required to generate heat.
Compare the cost of heat generation of:
1. Resistance heating (like in your PC, or an electric baseboard)
2. A heat pump
3. Oil fired furnace
4. Natural Gas fired furnace
My argument is that using resistance heating (#1) in your home is substantially more expensive than any of the other means of heating (#2-#4).
Likewise, in the summer, it takes energy to remove excess heat from your home. That means heat pumped out of your PC needs to be removed by your A/C unit. This cost, for an efficient A/C, is roughly 30% of the input electricity.
Those who run data centers see this "in the large" - adding new computers to a data center means increasing A/C capacity.
Yes, I agree, one can easily calculate the delta between "energy cost savings" potential versus "investment earnings". I made a little spreadsheet, chose some reasonable values for inflation, investment earnings, and taxes on investment earnings. I assumed that my PC that cost $X more than a cheap PC saves me $Y/year in electricity costs. From there, you can fairly accurately calculate if or when you'll break even in terms of total cost. The savings (or lack of savings) is highly dependent on those variables.
Also, I agree that inefficient transformers are not mandated by any law I know of, at least here in the US.
My realization wasn't that I didn't need a server. My realization was that I was keeping a machine powered up 24x7 because it provided services (namely, a network backup server for my extended family). I realized that I could keep it up on a timer for about an hour a day, put it in a lower power consumption mode, and have zero decrease in service.
I figured out that my PCs were consuming more electricity than my fridge, dish washer, and clothes washer. Combined.
I made a chart of actual electricity use of various PCs and Macs on my blog: PC and Mac power consumption.
In a nutshell, my annual power consumption went down by 30% (!) once I started to power down my home-built "home server PC" when not in use.
I also figured out that when buying a new PC that is going to see a lot of use, power consumption should be a factor. If you're saving $100 in purchase price, but spending $50/year for additional electricity because the cheap PC's power supply is grossly inefficient, well, have you really saved anything if you keep that machine for 3 years? The short answer. NO.
OSX.Macarena is a proof of concept virus that infects files in the current folder on the compromised computer.
News: An anti-virus software vendor decided to have a Mac OS virus created in order to improve the sale of Anti-Virus software.
Related news: A tire changing shop decided to dump a box of roofing nails on the road approaching their shop in order to sell tires.
What's the difference?
If a recent patent filing is any indication,
These days, patent filings are rarely indicative of the delivery of any product.
In fact, the claim is often made that patents are usually filed exclusively to create barriers for competitors.
two Russian companies plan to build the world's first floating nuclear power plant
Um, far from the first. See Nuclear Navy .
Is this all just an attempt by a few software vendors attempting to push their unproven "anti-cheating" products into the higher ed marketplace?
Anonymous postings by "tenured professors"? Or a "research paper" that hasn't been accepted for publication in a any respected journal? Do the rantings by a couple of individuals have any more weight than a press release by a software vendor attempting to sell their products to a cash-strapped Higher Ed institution?
I think not.
I'm much more likely to listen to a research study that was conducted in a manner that is generally accepted by the research community. I'm much more likely to believe a non-anonymous, highly respected professor than an anonymous posting. Instead, I am given some kind of story - but there is no way for me to determine if it's valid - or just opinionated spin.
Yes, I have an opinion. But I can be convinced to think otherwise if I see quality information. I haven't seen it.