Someone discovers that Wikipedia being slammed by secret agents. And my take on the flashlight that makes you vomit!
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Hard to believe the multicore fiasco, cos’ all the benchmarks on heavily multi-threaded apps, like 3D rendering, scale almost linearly up to 4 cores. That’s FUD.
Of course if all you do all day is surf the web, respond to mails and type some docs, Multicore does nothing to you.
pedro, just grab the position marker and drag it where you want. Crikey™!
The embedded player is a WrodPress plug-in..it’s commonly used. It has limits. If something better comes along I’ll use it instead.
2 for 2 John..good broadcast wonder if this is a lead in to the radio thing you where talking about a few weeks ago.
John C, I don’t know if you’ve ever had any personal experience with big iron, but ‘virtual machines’ are 40 years old. Hell, I was running multiple virtual OS/VS2 systems under VM/370 on a 158 and a 3033 25 years ago and it was a mature tech then. So how does Dell act like this is something new? Are memories that short, or is everyone who knew about it already dead?
Lauren, you just outed yourself as really old and geeky :p
Sheeit, I was old and geeky be4 I was 13…
John you were wrong again. It was the most important SEVEN minutes of my day, and I appreciate the 40% more than promised. Thank you.
6. “So how does Dell act like this is something new? “
Because for the past 20 years Microsoft has been keeping virtual machines off of OEM computers to prop up their Windows monopoly The fact that an OEM such as Dell is even considering it makes it new.
#6 very familiar with VM…and I agree, this is nothing new. But the X86 chips could never self virtualize so this core thing is kinda new.
#10 the way I see it only 5 minutes of the 7 were important 🙂
Wow, this is one of the first times I can say I actually don’t qualify for “old fart” status (thanks to Lauren). I’ve never used virtualization on big iron, but I’ve used it for several years on PCs. It’s one of the coolest things for tinkering, trying new software, and for generally doing things you’d never want to try out first on your main machine. With VMware, you can totally screw up a virtual machine, and then restore it to pristine status within a few seconds by regressing to a snapshot machine state.
Virtualization certainly isn’t new, but maybe Dell is going to start bundling and really promoting it. In the server space, its usefulness goes well beyond what I’ve used it for, in terms of load-balancing to maximize server utilization. I know that XenSource just released a major new version of its server-oriented hypervisor a few days ago, so maybe Dell is working with them. In lieu of actual details of Dell’s plans, lets make something up 😉
Fingerprint vs. Watermarking:
I actually think it’s the other way around. Watermarking will never work cause you can easilly build a software that blurs the watermark automatically by simply comparing two files of the same piece of art, and whatever invisible watermark is the difference between the two files and that is easilly detectable by software, it can simply be blurred so the watermark is made totally useless. Watermarking is also digital pollution in my view. Cause that requires a different encoding for every single file, talk about some wasted CPU cycles right there. Also it is a waste cause it makes it impossible to use p2p to distribute the files as one digitalisation. Instead there will be hundreds of different digitalizations out there, and with no usable ground to sue the originator cause files can be shared on p2p without the users knowing it through virus and malware for example. Should people be sued if they cannot protect their windows PC from getting virus and malware infected?
Analogic fingerprinting technology on the other hand will be very usefull. We do have digital hash based fingerprinting., that makes it easy to detect copyrighted material only if they are from the same digitalisation. Analogic fingerprinting lets you analyse the analogic waves in the image and the sound, and makes it very easy to identify different digitalisations of the same piece of audio or video. Youtube with all their billions, should have implemented this a long time ago, and they could be sued for not implementing this fast enough.
yeah intel needs to fix that shit
Well, I know one thing – it’s sure to make certain Dell’s peripheral vendors happy if it takes off, as virtualizing servers seems to me would be very I/O intensive and demand terabytes of fast RAID on fat channels – or, OTOH, of course, maybe not, as the case may be. ¿Quien sabe?
About time for them to come up with something to differentiate themselves from generic-box makers…
… this watermarking thingy – watermarking audio is unacceptable to audiophiles, as no practical system yet, despite their creators’ reassurances, if free of objectionable audible artifacts. But OTOH, the concerns of audiophiles, representing as they do a low single-digit segment of the market, are unlikely to cut any ice w/ content producers; they never have so far… I’m just afraid that when high res lossless content becomes available finally – 24/96 or better – that the bastards will pollute it with such shit.
So that’s what that bubbling, water noise I hear in the audio !!!
Watermarking!
Cool.
Cripes..how many times do I have to deal with the cauldron?
here:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=13086
Mr D: WOuld it be possible for you to put a “download MP3” button on these posts? Maybe I’m missing something simple but I can not find a way to download the audio from the Tech 5 site. I work overseas in remote areas and don’t usually have a connection fast enough to stream these things. And, isn’t that the whole idea behind a “podcast”? Not streaming…
Thanks.
11. Jerk-Face. “Because for the past 20 years Microsoft has been keeping virtual machines off of OEM computers to prop up their Windows monopoly The fact that an OEM such as Dell is even considering it makes it new.
I agree with multi-core systems now mainstream changes how VM might work.
No one mentioned that Microsoft has offered VM as a free download for quite some time.
http://tinyurl.com/2jr7a7
Also free is Virtual Box by Innotek Gmbh which I have been using with WinXP for a while – I ran Vista in VM and another version of XP to try out software. The only limit to how many VM OSs you have is the size of your HDD.
http://www.virtualbox.org/
VM cannot emulate directx so no 3d apps or 3d games but everything else seems to work great – Its scary how everything runs so normal in VM you forget it is is running on top of Windows – and I do forget sometimes!
With it you can run about any version of Windows from 3.1 to Vista including Windows Server 2003 but only NT4.
Other OSs supported are
Dos
Linux
OS/2 Warp 3,4,4.5
FreeBSD
OpenBSD
NetBSD
Netware
Solaris
L4
Lacking is Apple OS X but we know why.
Can’t let OS X out of Apple’s cage, old Stevo-reno made sure of that. We wouldn’t like to see OS X running on a computer that wouldn’t be comfortable with all the beautiful people like Paris Hilton. Apple’s market is selling hardware and fashion, not software like MS. And people complain about Bill and MS being restrictive…Geeze!
Cheers
Footnote about Apple:
Running VM with OS X or with Intel Macs means more Windows sales to Bill and Mac users get to have a play on the other side of the fence. There is a risk to Apple that some Mac users find that Windows is not the Dark Side of the Force and do the math – I can get a PC much cheaper…more apps available…hmmm….why did I need OS X again?
Which is why Lindows (Linux running Window apps) never happened. As John pointed out in his nice article on Lindows I think Lindows might fly if it can conquer one simple roadblock, and that’s running Microsoft Office 97, 2000, and XP. If Lindows can run these versions of Office, then look out below. Bombs away.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,754,00.asp
So Apple and MS are really peas in a pod in many ways. 😉
Cheers
@22
It is kinda a shame about OSX. Apparently it is going to miss out on another large migration. Right now I am working with HP to run every computer in my company vitalized on a single HP integrity server. Because of apples policy on virtualization, they don’t even get a seat at the table.
Did you catch that? I have going to be running about 65 computers on a single server. The individual computers will be replaced with thin clients.
My network of computers is spread out over 7 locations, so I will also gain the additional advantage of every computer appearing to be on the same lan. For me this is huge because instead of 7 separate POS systems, I will have one POS system. The ERP/CRM package will be available everywhere seamlessly.
All that on a smallish server… 16 cores (with the possibility of going to 32 if I need it, and 64 gig of ram… again more if I need it)
Well that is the idea anyhow. It will be interesting to see how it all works out.
Oh yeah, looks like it is all the client OS’s are gonna run either server 2003 or XP.
T_H, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize profusely on behalf of Apple, Inc., for their obstinate refusal to voluntarily slit their own throat.
But now let me step back into the shadows so you may continue your trolling activities… 🙂
Vitualization is moot. No need of virtualization on the desktop client anyway.
We’re moving to client agnostic software. It’s a fact. Call it web 2.0, call it google apps. whatever. And as the hardware has done a great big convergence:
Silicon Graphics stopped building MIPS systems, Apple stopped making PowerPC machines. HP killed Alpha, Itanium doesn’t fly.
Let’s face it: It’s a x86 world.
The only place where x86 didn’t rule was BigIron. But thanks to AMD opterons and intel’s Xeon’s (conroe based). Blade servers are mostly x86. That’s what’s new, and that’s why they need it to virtualize.
And, oh, by the way, it can also be another check in the features list… so that’s why Dell put’s it as an advantage.
The other day i found out a nice little site. It had a Sinclair Spectrum emulator in Java. Cool and it worked flawlessly…
But the gist of this is: we need a 3000 mhz machine to emulate a 4mhz 8 bit machine over two or three abstraction layers.
It’s like using a V8 3600cc to power your toothbrush…
My point on the previous post was somewhat lost:
It’s because everything is x86 nowadays, that the virtualization can be done at chip level.
If virtualization is done over two different chip architectures, then Emulation is needed and that’s a performance killer.
#24 Aww Lauren Be fair! I wasn’t trolling too much (Well a just little with the Paris Hilton comment – but it just fell out, I couldn’t resist! It was too easy! Help me, oh God, I am an addict :D)
I did say that Apple can’t release OS X because they will as you said they will “slit their throats”.
Seriously though, running Windows natively on a Intel Mac does open a door that Apple really does not want open. E.G. Before if someone wanted to run Windows on a Mac it required a VM to do it for reasons of the non X86 cpu and 3d apps don’t run in a VM. So now a with x86 Intel under the hood of a Mac a user can run Windows – that is what is so different unless I am missing something.
Really aside from the rhetoric both ways it is a matter of what you are used to and personal choice.
If a company makes that choice easier for your customers to make you risk losing that customer. A person who has a Mac may have never had a PC before – and now they can have a choice and in so doing so the next purchase may not be a Mac. That is a business reality.
I said that MS and Apple are peas in a pod both are restrictive in protecting their markets. MS will not allow any of their software products to run on any other OS other than Windows. MS wants to and needs to protect its market. You like Office fine got to use Windows or get a Mac.
Will MS allow Linux to run Office? Why should they? This is what John was talking about if Lindows (or any form of Linux) ever did run Office – the bombs are dropping. MS even made Lindows change their name as it is too close for comfort.
Linux in all of its forms will only fit a niche market – its cheap (free) and while there is a range of software available it is not for everyone IMHO.
MS is software and Apple is hardware – Boxes
Apple boxes cannot compete with all the various PC boxes on the market – unless Apple is happy to join in to the already crowded ranks of Asus, Dell, and all the others.
Apple by having a viable alternative to Windows in OS X which only runs on Apple’s hardware – Macs – this sets Apple apart from all the other vendors like Asus, Dell and who ever.
This I believe is an important juncture for Apple to cross and the future will be interesting.
What if way back then IBM had more restrictive licensing – no clones, or Windows only ran on MS boxes? What would we have now?
See no rants, no trolling but a nice lucent discussion taking no sides. (I’ll hold back on the Paris Hilton tie-ins Ok?)
Cheers 😀
Now pedro, on the other hand, is not only trolling he is setting a chum line! LOL!
Cheers
#25 But the gist of this is: we need a 3000 mhz machine to emulate a 4mhz 8 bit machine over two or three abstraction layers.
It’s like using a V8 3600cc to power your toothbrush…
And why do this? Because you can!
You made some very good points in that its a x86 world now that supports my point about Apple entering the general rank and file with the only alternative OS to stand them apart from all others.
VM is good for running multiple OSs without having to reboot.
#23 As you said “It is kinda a shame about OSX. Apparently it is going to miss out on another large migration. — Because of apples policy on virtualization, they don’t even get a seat at the table.”
Will Apple be nudged by market forces to change policy? Interesting times ahead.
Cheers
Tihz_ho.
IBM didn’t license it’s PC architecture. The clone appeared in spite of IBM.
Sure, the architecture back then was way simpler. The only thing these guys had to make was reverse engineer a BIOS. And that’s what they did. Come to think of it, the real genius move in the PC revolution was the one taken by Gates. He didn’t sell DOS to IBM. He made a non-exclusive contract with them. As the rest of the world builds the PC industry around, MS balooned and the architecture was standardized as they went along. Much of the PC as it is today was shaped by Microsoft. And Microsoft was shaped by the clone makers.
MS is a product of the PC revolution more than a shaper.
Hey John,
To Iran with your listener, I think you should change your opening to “The most important 5 minutes of your life!” or better yet “The most important 5 minutes in the history of mankind!”. Roll with it and have some fun.
#32
I guess it should have an entry in the Hitchikers guide to the Galaxy.