Posts by Fenton

AMD's Hondo APUs ready for Windows 8 Q4 launch - report

All in the memory!

For general office use an old Athlon x2 64 is totally adequate for your day to day needs.

It's memory which is the bottleneck on most office machines. Most companies still roll out laptops and desktops with 1GB of memory 2GB if you are lucky this is what really slows down productivity.

Add in a modern GFX (even a cheap one for £30) and you get good performance with modern browsers (thinking IE9).

Now build the GFX into the processor which AMD are doing, even with a lowly dual core or quad core and plenty of memory (64bit OS helps) and an office machine should last for years.

Workstations are a different matter, but they really only make up a very small proportion for standard business use.

Wind farms create local warming

Thermodynamics

mmmmm sounds wrong to me.

Kinetic energy is converted to electrical energy hence energy is taken out of the wind.

This has the concequence that

a) The pressure behind the blade will be lower

b) The temperature behind the blade will be lower.

Think of a turbine in a Gas turbine engine. Hot fast air flows in and turns the turbine (windmill blade) the air exits at a lower pressure and lower temperature.

The mixing of air is going to be insignificant except maybe for the local environment.

Tablets are the future of the PC, says researcher

Tablet to become the desk top

How about the tablet will become (a few more performance iterations will be required) the desktop.

All you need is a docking station with a decent monitor/mouse/keyboard.

You plug in your tablet (or compute unit) the OS then switches to desktop mode (aka Windows 8) and you use it in the traditional way.

Undock it and it switches to tablet mode. Most of the recently used info will be cached locally on the tablet with a sync to "the cloud" via wi-gi/3G.

Obviously the one thing that will be required will be a docking station standard.

Punters want BBC iPlayer in TVs, not 3D

Just a screen is all I need

AV amp has all the HDMI inputs and proper surround sound outputs I require.

Just need a set top box with all those bits (maybe with integrated bluRay).

Current bugger for me is. Apple TV and sky box don't have iplayer, but blueray player does.

Bluray player does have media capabilities to stream from a PC but interface is crap.

Not a problem for me but family gets confused which source they should use.

BYOD is a ticking time bomb for B2B resellers

Specify your own Device?

In some way I welcome BYOD. I don't have to lug two phones around, I can have a laptop that suites what I want to do.

Certainly when it comes to laptops most companies tend to have a one size fits all policy, suited firmly to the lowest common denominator.

Yes your senior exec only needs to run excel, powerpoint, outlook and watch some porn, but us power users do the above, but in addition may be running an X-windows client, visio, a browser with about 10 tabs open, a couple of PDFs and a load of putty windows. So our requirements are 17" screens, a minimum of 4GB memory, 4 core processor and large fast disk.

The lowest common denominator does not work, hence why more and more people are creating Vmware images of their work laptop and running the image on a personal laptop.

Austrian village considers a F**king name change

Wank & Wanking

Having grown up in Munich I saw these towns regularly.

There used to be a big Advert in one of the underground stations.

"Wilkommen zum Wankbahn"

With a picture of a cable car and smiling people looking out.

It was there for years and was defaces regularly.

Compulsory coding in schools: The new Nerd Tourism

macros VB for apps?

Is programming macros not programming?

You might learn Excell at school, but what about learning VB for applications at the same time?

Our best PAs have learned some VB and produce some really powerfull spreadsheets (OK not going to get into the argument of having a proper app vs Excell being the corporate database).

Kids need to at least learn to appriciate how a computer program works not just how to use it.

Maybe we should go back to good old BBC basic a nice old 3GL or pascal?

Easy to learn and quick to get results even if you do produce horrid code.

I learnt BBC basic when I was 15 and even got into a bit of assembler to speed things up. It is not hard for kids who have a knack for logic.

Do some fundamentals, i.e. core office skills for everybody with an introduction to programming and then have a seperate subject kids can pick who want to go down the programming route (they will probably not even need to learn office skills as they'll pick it up quickly anyway)

SAP flashes cash to pump up HANA biz

MAXDB=Adabas

MaxDb comes from Adabas, which SAP bought the rights to the code years ago (was known as SAPDB for a while). This was then handed over to MySQL and was going to be the MySQL enterprise addition. However oracle came on board at Sun so SAP grabbed the IP back again (Mysql was going to be certified for SAP at time).

MaxDB has been used for a while as an in Memory database with the SAP supply chain management suite it was known as live cache.

Game of Thrones Blu-ray disc set

Book for adults

We have to remember this is book/series for adults, depicting a more realistic depiction of the times.

where sex/violence was common place.

I for one applad the grittyness.

Think of the scene in Two Towers where the orc wants to gut the hobbits.

"I'll take out your innards" is not what violent grotesk orc would say.

BBC Micro team to celebrate historic machine's 30th year

BBC Basic on the Pi

My youngest has stated he'd like to have a go at programming. And thinking back 30 years, I still think that BBC basic was probably the best beginners language there was.

"Hello world" being one line of code.

Drawing a box on screen 5 lines of code

So please somebody, port BBC basic to the Pi.

Netflix lets Apple TV owners subscribe on screen

iplayer

Would love to see iplayer/4OD, etc supported as well

IT staffers on ragged edge of burnout and cynicism

Too many people are Semi IT literate

Half the problems stems from too many people think they know alot about computers, cos they built their own PC.

However they do not have a clue what the techies really do. Oh is just A:\install is the most common joke I hear from the guys in the business.

Then you tell them you have to set up 127 virtual servers. DR/HA half of them, do pen testing for the internet facing part,run stress/performance tests to proove the system meets the SLAs that have been plucked out of the air.

And all you get back is . "I only want SAP installed."

Business needs to get back to the point where they realise that quality IT costs money. It can't be done on the cheap.

I often see project plans (far too late in the process) that are so far fetched, and they don't even have dependencies on IT, it beggers belief.

Then you get the big strop when you add in the dependencies and the project goes RED.

I also find there are just not enough really experienced people around to hire. Most CVs I get are from the Gui generation, ask them what happens under the hood and they don't have a clue.

Death to Office or to Windows - choose wisely, Microsoft

Don't even need a screen

With projectors the next big think on mobiles, you won't even need a monitor, just a blank screen to project your screen onto

Early days yet

Now I do need a desktop for what I do at home.

Recording with Pro-Tools, image editing with Photoshop. Fondleslabs do not have the power yet.

Now the rest of the Home PC is pretty redundent, i.e. Optical drives/Hard disks (thats what a NAS is for).

Now consider the processing power and memory availability likely to be available on a tablet is 10 years time?

Why not have a portable processing unit with a screen for when I'm up and about, which I can then plug into a large screen and keyboard.

All files are "in the cloud" somewhere.

Now the OS on the mobile device doesn't really matter that much as long as the apps are available and if not, well there will be some cloud alternative where the processing power is not local or I use some sort of VDI solution on the fondleslab.

The race is going to be for the standard in portable space that is able to adapt to a bigger non touch screen environment when sitting in the office, using a mouse and a keyboard.

Now lets think who's going to release such a beast,. Ah yes Microsoft and Apple are slowly combining iOS and OS X for just such a device.

Samsung punts smartphone with built-in projector

Imagine the kids

Beam picture of boobs onto random person on tube/bus.

Beam picture of their bits onto tube/bus and accuse everybody of looking at child porn.

Beam "Kick me" onto the back of your boss.....

Apple's new TV allegedly spotted... in Canadian office

AV amp the best solution

As to the switching issues. Get and AV amp.

a) Much better sound (if you are allowed the extra speakers)

b) Is a much better switching system (with rename options for the inputs)

c) Only one cable going to the TV (well it's actually just a monitor now), which is a must if wall mounted.

As to the Apple TV. I have a Gen2. It is lacking massivly in content (certainly here in the UK), but the integration with other i devices is great, i.e. the ability to use an iphone/ipad whilst sitting on my sofa to choose music or a movie is great and so simple to setup.

I hated my old Netgear device the iTV replaced

Oracle demands retrial in SAP slurp spat

Dangerous for Oracle

Well SAP happens to be Oracles biggest VAR when it comes to database licenses, Piss then off too much and SAP with do an oracle and decide that it will no longer support oracle databases and priovide Sybase (or MaxDB) free of charge with some free consultancy thrown in to help migrate.

Alot of the SAP customer base on oracle (especially the old HP-UX customers) are already considering moving to DB2 or SQLserver as there is a distinct nervosness regarding oracle. Again oracles statement regarding VMware support is also steering customer away from Oracle.

More Brits desert high streets to spend £50bn online

Profits for the post office

Here's a novel Idea.

Rather than the likes of UPS, etc going back to their own depot, why not deliver (and pay a small fee) to the local post office. Just like we do if Parcel Force are delivering an item.

That way we always have a local pickup point and the post office gets a bit of extra money.

Experts: We're stuck with passwords – and maybe they're best

God I hate passwords

As a consultant working at multiple sites, they really have become a pain in the backside.

Each site has different timeouts, different rules (and they sometimes change).

The amount of time lost, due to having to reset passwords mounts up fairly quickly.

Even a well maintained encrypted password solution has it's limitations (i.e. I forgot the password that was reset just before I went on holiday). Hard disk crashed and the last good backup was two weeks old. (how many of us have nightly backups of our laptops)

Cloud power plant SAP closes 2011 on a high

Oracle arrogance

I think alot of this is down to people not liking oracle rather than prefering SAP.

I have a number of (SAP) customers, who are now considering migrating to DB2 or SQL server rather than stick with oracle. Far to much uncertanty as to where they are going support wise, (i.e. VMware, still not 100% supported and questions over the linux direction).

I'd imagine the same is happening when it comes to software choice, go to an expensive but reliable SAP or oracle...

Year of the Penguin - el Reg's 2011 Linux-land roundup

Why are developers copying MS/Apple

Because the Linux community does not use the ergonomics experts that Apple/MS spend alot of money on.

It is these guyes that create the requirements for the programers to code for. In the linux community it's mainly the programmers that decide what the requirements are or end users who ask.

"Make it look like Windows/OSX"

But why is it that all linux desktops I've seen just look blurred, fonts are crap and to me still look like the X-windows of old.

Benchmarks are $%#&@!!

Keep the bottleneck where it has least impact

In my experience if you find a bottleneck and fix the bottleneck the next bottleneck in line often makes the performance even worse. It's all about balance and not overloading any one component.

A CPU bottleneck can hide all manner of other sins

The BBC Micro turns 30

Crap Graphcis

Well I lived in Germany where the C64 was king (nobody had a BBC), so my parents got me an Electron. Booooooo.

OK this led me down the IT route. Was given a second electron and connected the two via the RS423 port and had one running as a dedicated graphics card (crap for real time work), so programs had the full 28K available with the other computer as the output.

However what really let it down for me (including teh BBC B) was the graphcs output.

The C64 had more colours much better sound and sprites.

But for programming the BBC/Electron was king (imbedding assmebler within your basic code was cool)

Inside the BBC's R&D Labs

22.2 Surround sound?

How the hell I am going to persuade "She who must be Obeyed" that I need an additional 17.1 speakers in the living room ????

AMD smacks Xeon 5600s with Opteron 6200s

SAP benchmark

Well I've done an extensive comparison of the HP DL580s and DL585s comparing the Intel 10core/20 thread chips and the interlagos. (see benchmarks at www.sap.com/benchmark).

With SAP the conclusion is that an AMD core has the same performance as an Intel thread but at half the cost.

Now if you to go for a DL580 fully loaded you get 16 more threads than you do AMD cores, so if you are looking at minimum rack space usage and high server utilization and cost is not a factor then intel all the way.

AMD rides Bulldozers into the x86 server chip war

Arch not suited to current Desktop

From what I can make out, Bulldozer is a server chip and was just not really suited to the desktop unless you are a real power users using all of the chips resources with lots of threads and apps running at the same time.

Now in the server this could be a real throughput monster although at the expense of single threaded performance, but not quite so bad as the Sun T2 processor.

But it will only really come into its own on a highly utilized server where hyperthreading on an intel chips stops showing its advantage.

NASA: 2012 solar flares could DEVASTATE CITIES!

Financial advice

Buy shares in canned food companies.

Their turn over will go through the roof with people stocking up.

Then sell the day before "dooms ay" (the shares will crach afterwards)

Fusion boffins crack shreddy eddy plasma puzzle

Polical fall out

Should fusion become a reality at the vast scales we'd love to achieve it will create and absolute nightmare polically around the world.

The middle east will loose its income becoming even more unstable than it already is.

Those countries without the technology will not be able to compete thus becoming unstable.

I hope to god that if we can get it to work the patents will not be inforced allowing everybody to use the technology and not create an even worse two tier world.

GNOME emits 'head up the arse' desktop update

Still looks pig ugly

I know Linux is all about function over form. But no matter the GUI it still looks pig ugly to me.

If Apple can design a decent looking UI ontop of unix why can't the linux community.

I like to get back to a nice looking desktop after being burried knee deep in unix terminal sessions

Rumor: HP giving Apotheker Das Boot

SAP merger on the card????

This is quite interesting.

HP need software (which is what Leo was trying to achieve), but without a big Enterprise app all HP have is just tools.

Now with the release of SAPs HANA in memory database they are tied to hardware more than ever.

Given the Oracle competition with Exadata, with Peoplesoft, Siebel, etc, an HP/SAP merger would be a very good fit to put a blocker on oracles world take over plans, but there was one person standing in the way for this to happen. Yes Leo.

People don't want tablets, they want iPads

Use of a tablet

There are lots of uses!!!!

Work:

Yes it not designed for media/document creation, but I can go to a meeting without having to lug a laptop around so I can get/search emails at a drop of hat.

Quick googles for info, etc without being hidden behind a screen.

I can plug it into a projector if needed.

Use it on the train/bus to compose email replies or to create rudementry diagrams/flowcharts.

Whilst listening to music

Home.

Lounge around on the sofa whilst watching TV and surf/play Angry birds ;o) catch up on email (always makes a good impression replying to work emails out of hours).

Keeping kids quiet on long trips (have one of those cases that hangs on the back of the seat)

Yes you can do all of that with a netbook but the tablet is alot more user friendly.

What has apple done Right!

OK, I am a unix geek so am not scared of text based interfaces, etc,

but for me apple have got it exactly right. (although I do still use windows on the desktop)

What they have invested in is the user interface. And it looks great and feel great.

Why has Linux not penetraced the end user market. It does not have the UI that OSX and Win 7 has. It does not look as pretty. It might not matter to the small majority of geeks who value function over form but I like my desktop to look and feel nice. If apple can create a decent looking gui on top of unix, why can't the OS comminity do it.

Now lets look at the mobile market.

Again Apple have done a great job at making even the casing look nice. Just compare an average iPod to other MP3 players out there. Why have the likes of Sony not stepped up to the mark.

Then there is the iPad. Nice aluminium back, great screen and a nice looking UI.

All of the alternatives just look cheap and nasty. And Android is still very much a iOS look a like.

Aussie retailer accuses UK shops of HDMI 'scam'

Expensive ones are crap

Well I had to buy a £30 cable at John Lewis. Was in a hurry and needed a 5m cable.

Now the difference between an expensive cable and a cheap one?

The moulding around the connector.

The cheap one is fully moulded so if you knock it it just falls out.

Now the Gold plated connector is clipped on. You knock it and the cable falls out and bends the pins on the inside and it becomes worthless.

(Why do flat screens have connectors on the back which stick out so you can stick it on the wall, hence the reason of knocking the connector when trying to wall mount the bloody thing)

GNOME 3: Shocking changes for Linux lovers

Still just plain ugly

When is the linux Gui community actually going to work on looks?

Apple have done a great job in creating a nice polished looking gui ontop of Open BSD.

I look at the linux Gui's and they look just plain dull (Just like the firefox Icon).

I'm normally a function over form person, but if you want mass adoption you need the bling (just look at any other apple product).

Dixons whacked by profit warning

Much better alternatives

DSG need to look at the likes of John Lewis.

Staff are fairly clued up. They price match offer a really good warrenty without extra payment.

If anything goes wrong they honor it.

Yes you can't buy that IDE to SATA converter then again you can't find them at PC world anyway.

The only time I ever go into a DSG store is to buy white goods or some printer ink if I run out during some work related print task.

The curious incident of Oracle and HP-UX on Itanium

Sybase to HP? Never

SAP will never sell Sybase.

However a SAP HP merger I could see coming

What next for Oracle and the rest of the industry?

As far as I can see there are five corner stones to the enterprise industry.

Hardware

Enterprise Software

Tools

A database

A consulting force

Now lets look at the three main players

IBM have

Hardware

Tools (websphere, etc)

A database

A consulting force

But are missing a big ERP package

HP have

Hardware

A consulting force (EDS)

Some minor tools (load runner)

But are missing a Database and a big ERP package

Sun have

Hardware

Software

Tools

A DB

but are missing a large consulting force.

Now there is one company out there that could fill HPs and IBMs gap very nicely

SAP who now own Sybase and they also own what was Adabas (MaxDB) which is already opensource

Now if HP were to buy SAP they'd have the DB and the software and could stand up to Oracle.

But they probably just can't afford it without getting rid of EDS.

If IBM got SAP they'd complete their stack for HP out of the market alltogther and stand up to Oracle

Ellison drops iceberg in front of HP's unsinkable Itanic

HP buying SAP now makes even better sense

Well SAP now own Sybase.

If HP got SAP with sybase they'd have good leg to stand on. In some cases leaving IBM out in the cold as they don't have an ERP stack

Oh well more work for me then.

What does SAPs hardcore customer base run on? HPUX/oracle.

So lots more OS/DB migrations on the way then.

But oracle is becoming a bit of a nogo area these days as they don't support the likes

of VMware or Xen which is becoming a very big must have in my customer base.

Can imagine SAP will release a version on sybase soon and they are already heavily in bed with IBM with DB2.

Apple to buy Sony? Good one!

Entry into the Enterprise market

What if he wants a chunk of the Enterprise market.

How about buying SAP, they deperatly need a buyer who know how to do

UI's cos SAP ain't got a clue

Apple to lead fanbois 'Back to the Mac'

I'd love to own a Mac but....

Why do they insist on bundling the computer into the monitor.

Yes you can get the powermac that has a seperate base unit, but

I don't want to have to throw away a perfectly good screen should I want

to upgrade my computer in future years.

HP strikes back at Oracle with SAP CEO pick

Sybase

Matt,

the Sybase purchase had nothing to do with the underlying database (SAP is currently in bed with IBM on that side), but all to do with the in memory database and more importantly mobile.

Sybase is not a supported DB with SAP

MS pitches Windows 7 at biz world ahead of Chrome OS release

Whatever happened to

BeOS.

Now that had massive potential.....

New iPod crew: 'Phoney, futuristic, retro, doomed'

Why have a dedicated MP3 player

Because I can do without my MP3 player when the battery goes.

But I can't do without the phone. Modern phones eat through their charge quick enough

without me draining the battery when using the MP3 functionality

Texan cooks up deep-fried Guinness

Whats wrong with

A nice cold litre of Munich beer with a large hot prezel on the side

Crowds greet A380 at Manchester Airport

Can't wait

For the time when they use the A380 to transport 1000 Chavs to Ibiza with the smallest seat pitch.

NOT

Ofcom makes space for luvvy radio until August 2021

Cross talk

Do you have problems with cross talk? OK I have to use rather amature equiptment.

There have been times where I was just about to launch into a solo when I have the local taxi company declaring a pick up coming through my amp ;o)

OpenSolaris axed by Ellison

Oracle/Solaris/x86

Oracle could be potentially be sitting on a gold mine with solaris on x86.

In the SAP benchmark world it's about 10% faster than running under windows.

When things go wrong your average CIO wants to throttle somebody.

So on x86 that would be Oracle or Microsoft, who do you sue if Linux breaks??

We all know UNIX is becoming marginalized by x86.

As far as I can see there are only two "Enterprise players" in the x86 space MS and Oracle.

Personally I think HP should port HP-UX to x86 to give oracle come decent competition as itanium just can't compete in terms of price/performance.

IBM at least have a compelling HW platform for AIX

Intel's 'Tukwila' Itaniums - hot n' pricey

SAPs per core

SAPs per core is usefull purely as a performance metric when comparing architectures. Also a number of SAP customers do purchase their databases from the vendor rather than SAP. SAP do price PI per core though!

SAP Power7 benchmarks

Well IBM have now published an SAP benchmark on Power 7.

4 socket/32core/128threads

85220 SAPs, thats a score of 2663 SAPs per core. Very impressive.

Power 6 had 1275 SAPs per core.

to compare.

Nahalem has 2097 SAPs per core

AMD about 1000 SAPs per core

SPARC VII 685 SAPs per core

HP has not published any Itanium scores for a long time and the benchmark has moved on so can't compare scores.