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Slowly taking form again. Like getting mail=in links again at every day.
2008-05-14 ^:
Weather - -
Clouds and haze turned up. Yes, for a couple of days we had perfect sunny weather with clear blue skies. Which means it cools down at night. But all the heat has caused humidity to peak en with a drop in wind that forms an insulating layer. (21°C ^_^ 31°C)
News - -
Adaptec is coming back. As SCSI disappeared from the low end Adaptec disappeared as well. But with disks becoming cheap and storage needs creeping up RAID on the desktop is viable again. So Adaptec pops up again.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/14/adaptec_series_2_raid/ )
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Is that a PS3 in your Blade server? Nope. But the Cell is growing up into business.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/13/ibm_fresh_cell_blade/ )
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Just one hour of battery on a laptop is laughable. But a server with a one-hour UPS built in is a another story. And it is up at server performance really what with 1.5TB disk 8GB memory and a quad-core. It is more a portable server than a notebook, well fit for a mini-lanparty server or building a portable office.
I do wonder though why they fix a screen and keyboard on it, wouldn't it be more interesting to have an ultra thin screen and keyboard separate (or removable). Kind of linking a portable server with an Apple Air.
( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/13/eurocom_server_laptop/ )
(Remarks about words)
2008-05-13 ^:
Weather - -
Still full out summer. With temperatures cranking up out of the comfort zone. I usually walk around barefoot but out in the sun the ground is getting to hot to stand still. (15°C ^_^ 31°C)
News - -
Microsoft. Copy-right, -left end center. Their stand is where the money is. They defend the copyright of big corporations so they can get money from that stream and they allow all other infringements to be bale to sell more of their own stuff. To bad if you are a small company (or private person) with copyrights to hold up.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/12/microsoft_on_copyrights/ )
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The second Babage machine is up and running. Now how to install Vista on it ... ::ponder:: ...
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/12/babbage_difference_engine_museum/ )
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AMD has lost it's advantage a long time ago but it isn't down and out. Of course AMD catching up a one of the best indicators for Intel to move the goal-posts again.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/12/amd_low_power_opteron/ )
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Nope nVidea isn't going to buy VIA for it's CPU technology. While such a move makes some marketing sense that, with AMD and Intel marrying graphics and cpu cores, I doubt nVidea is going in that direction. Certainly not with VIA. With all respects to the VIA cpu team but their core is not capable enough. AMD and Intel are merging very good GPUs with top-class CPUs in multi-core chips. The VIA cpus are far from top class and probably not worth integrating. A medium range nVidea GPU externally linked to a plain AMD or Intel chip is likely to beat a nVidea-VIA integrated design.
They may end up buying VIA but I suppose they would drop the CPU business itself (side note) and use the architects in adapting the GPU and preparing it for integration with CPU designs from other companies. I think for example a Cell-gForce integrated job would be an interesting beast. Sony-nVidea. Maybe they can lob in a VIA core on the side for some x86 compatibility and cryptographic stuff.
( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/12/nvidia_and_via/ )
Side note : How long is the VIA CPU line going to survive anyway now that Intel (and probably AMD) is making work of mopping up the low power market. Up to now VIA could play in that market cause there was almost no competition in the low power x86 range. With Intel's Atom that picture changed. Suddenly a company with more and better design-teams and with superior process-technology walks into the playground. I think VIA should be looking for a good exit strategy
(Remarks about words)
2008-05-09 ^:
Weather - -
Still nice and -to- warm. (14°C ^_^ 27°C)
News - -
It ain't no Longbottom leaf. The stuff great Laws are made of.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/08/cannabis_law_analysis/ )
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The yellow-danger is back.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/08/belgium_india_china_warnings/ )
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This looks like a promising little drive. 320GB and 7200rpm for a notebook. It also sounds nice for extra small desktop. Of for putting a small raid box together for NAS. I really expect to find a typical CD drivebay sized box with four of these drives in a raid configuration. I did that a couple of years ago but without the RAID part it's silly as it costs more and still is smaller and slower than a regular drive. 4x 4GB (I used cheap end or range drives) when 40GB drives are common and cheap) makes no sense but it was fun doing.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/08/hitachi_travelstar_7k320/ )
(Remarks about words)
2008-05-08 ^:
Weather - -
Good weather is boring, isn't it (14°C ^_^ 27°C)
News - -
Multiplying cores is a kind of fun game. For a desktop I doubt anything over three or four cores is going to help much. With running just a few apps concurrently even a single core chip is idling most of the time adding cores will shrink the delays during busy peaks but with two or three cores even those are caught well. Even demanding games are GPU limited more than they are CPU limited.
On the server side more remains better. Certainly as vitalisation moves on.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/07/amd_server_roadmap_may_2008/ )
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I wonder how there can be any doubt.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/07/wikipedia_eff_defamation_immunity_lawsuit/ )
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Live airshow.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/07/air_france_incident/ )
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Play Station turned into a plain old video recorder. At about triple the price of a decent video recorder.
( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/07/playtv_ps3_sony/ )
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Could be interesting. The problem with debugging web stuff is that a page/site is often build up of components written in different languages or different versions of a language. Few tools are able to debug a diverse environment like that
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/07/opera_dragonfly/ )
(Remarks about words)
2008-05-07 ^:
Weather - -
Sunny, nice and warm is becoming blinding, stifling and hot. Well, outside it's nice but inside and office with a bunch of people it gets uncomfortable (12°C ^_^ 28°C)
News - -
Itanium was intended to start as a high end chip and then move down to eventually end up on the desktop. But now it's the little desktop ship that is pushing the Itanium out from the super computing scene.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/06/sgi_moon_nasa/ )
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How is the car knowing you said Stop to the radio in stead of stop to the engine ??
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/06/windows_mobile_automotive/ )
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Yes we will see power-assisted soldiers sometime. But this ain't ready yet.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/06/sarcos_exoskeleton_iron_man_puffery/ )
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Hey, I didn't know those were in production. A gyrostat is not the perfect replacement for batteries but it works well enough.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/pentadyne_flywheel_release/ )
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After years of struggling you finally replaced your hunt-and-peck typing with touch-typing. And then you get a new Dell laptop.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/dell_keyboard_blunder_vostro/ )
(Remarks about words)
2008-05-06 ^:
Weather - -
Pre-summer lasts. I love this time of year cause you got long days and lots of sun but the temperatures don't yet shoot over the comfort zone and it is cool at night. (12°C ^_^ 25°C)
News - -
Another reason why off-site backup is important.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/05/peter_gabriel_server_theft/ )
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Green is in. But how green are you going to be and at what cost?
Low power components are important and they work. I notice in the computer room we have three HP Blade boxes. One old, about 4 years old, a newer, almost 2 years old and a brand new, about one month old baby. Standing behind them makes you feel the difference between energy efficiency and spillage. The new box blows out a reasonable amount of cool air. The old box blows out the same amount of warm air, a bit like a air-drier on low setting. And the ancient box blows out twice as much of really hot air, about the same temperature as a hair-drier at it's highest setting. Let's forget the ancient one, it's old and probably up for replacement by the end of the year. Comparing the two other boxes is interesting. They are basically the same model with the newer one just using the more recent Core Duo processors while the older one is using the last of the P4 Xeons (or the very first CoreDuo Xeons). Going real green would mean we replace the old box with a new one. That would probably cut a quarter to a third of it's power consumption. And it would probably mean the airco can run a bit less cutting some of it's consumption as well. At a cost of nicely over $10.000 (for a full populated blade center). Doesn't look good for the balance.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/ibm_green_partner_rollout/print.html )
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Of course they are going to bring out a Bluerayed 360. With HD off the market there is no other choice.
( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/02/xbox_360_blu_ray_pegatron/ )
(Remarks about words)
2008-05-05 ^:
Weather - -
Lots of sun. To much actually. (12°C ^_^ 24°C)
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MS is sitting on a nice mountain of money. Even though it's a very good place to sit it still isn't comfortable.
Yahoo isn't sitting in a comfortable place either of course.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/04/microsoft_withdraws_yahoo_offer/ )
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Global warming of the next ice-age? It's easy if you can rewrite history..
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/ )
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Switches getting smaller. Usually ships in switches and other external components lag a couple of generations behind in processor technology. Basically manufactures use their financially written of fabs to increase profits on those less demanding ships. If they are getting 65nm at that market it just means the huge investments in fabs are payed back faster than expected.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/broadcom_interop_2008/ )
(Remarks about words)
2008-05-02 ^:
Weather - -
The weather was weird yesterday afternoon, what with thunder and lightning and hail while the sun is shining and all that. But today it's all back to boring normality. Nightly clouded. (6°C ^_^ 18°C)
News News - -
You would better not carry anything into the US.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/01/electronic_searches_at_us_borders/ )
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And here I innocently assumed the RIAA was responsible for collecting the money and distributing among artists. Apparently song-writers aren't artists.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/01/ascap_aol_real_yahoo/ )
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BlueRay isn't a runaway success. Not surprising really cause there is not much advantage over standard DVD. Not enough to run out and buy a drive. Most people who do buy one do so together with a big and HD capable screen. And in a slow economy those are not high on the agenda.
( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/01/blu_ray_us_sales/ )
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The mamsistor. It sounds like the discovery of quarks and other fundamental particles. One knows they exist but can't find them.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/01/hp_labs_unveils_memsistor/ )
(Remarks about words)
A day you don't learn something is a wasted day.
A day you don't teach something is a lost day.