FrankFi's view of the world : Does IT matter? Some thoughts on SaaS

FrankFi's view of the world : Does IT matter? Some thoughts on SaaS: "So first let's think what a pure SaaS solution means: The application as well as the data is stored 'in the cloud'. (I do here a simplification I know). Is this enough? Sorry, no. But there are lots of people thinking that it actually is enough and it is totally understandable. If you see IT as a simple tool not as a strategic asset then you can stop reading here. But IT can do more if you release its powers. How can this work? Well, let's extend our definition... There is this nice architecture model with 4 distinct steps to make a SaaS application. It is all about making the application scalable and lower the invest per customer instance in CPU and memory while preserving the agility in it. Applications have to be highly customizable. It starts with the logo in the top left and ends customer specific processes. So I would add: The application is highly customizable."

Angry Richard's WebLog

Angry Richard's WebLog: "I've frequently heard the question asked, 'Can I use the profiler on a Virtual PC?' It has even come up on the blog feedback a few times. My answer has always been, 'Theoretically, yes.' I didn't want to post this answer externally until I'd actually gotten around to trying it myself"

CareerJournal | Why Silicon Valley Firms Are Rethinking the Cubicle

CareerJournal Why Silicon Valley Firms Are Rethinking the Cubicle: "Intel Corp. is often credited, or blamed, for popularizing the office cubicle. Now it is joining some prominent Silicon Valley peers in reconsidering the concept"

Windows Server Division WebLog : IDC publishes whitepaper on x64 Windows Server adoption

Windows Server Division WebLog : IDC publishes whitepaper on x64 Windows Server adoption: "IDC publishes whitepaper on x64 Windows Server adoption [re-posted due to format issues] A colleague, Dan Reger, pointed me to a new IDC white paper on Windows Server x64 adoption. The white paper is titled, “Understanding the Business Benefits Associated with x86 64-Bit Windows Server.” You can download it here."

sfence instruction

simd_ext.pdf (application/pdf Object)
http://download.intel.com/technology/itj/Q21999/PDF/simd_ext.pdf
Fencing
In order to allow efficient software-controlled coherency,
a light-weight fence (SFENCE) instruction was also
included in the new extension; this instruction ensures
that all stores that precede the fence are observed on the
front-side bus before any subsequent stores are
completed. SFENCE is targeted for uses such as writing
commands from the processor to the graphics accelerator
or to ensure observability between a producer and
consumer where communication of data uses stores with
a WC memory-type semantic.

TidBITS Entertainment: Amazon MP3 Takes on the iTunes Store

TidBITS Entertainment: Amazon MP3 Takes on the iTunes Store: "Amazon.com has launched a public beta of Amazon MP3, a digital music store that provides DRM-free downloads of over 2 million songs from 180,000 artists and 20,000 labels. In comparison, Apple says the iTunes Store now contains over 6 million songs."

I've already started to pick and choose what I want, getting the best "deal", as I view it -- either better price, no DRM and probably better quality from Amazon or getting more selection from iTunes.

For instance, on Saturday, the wife and I were listened to Freddy Fender song. She said "play more of those -- do you have the "teardrop" song?" Unfortunately, I didn't have any more Fender songs, so I quickly opened up itunes store and the amazon mp3 store and started digging. I was able to grab a "live" album of all the top Fender songs from Amazon for $5.95. But they didn't have the "orginial" versions of some key songs, those I had to get DRM'ed from itunes.

Slashdot | Intel Chief Evangelist Comments on Linux Scheduler

Slashdot | Intel Chief Evangelist Comments on Linux Scheduler: "If I could get ONE wish fulfilled would be for OS scheduling to focus on processes, and not threads Yeah, a lot of us feel the same way about the fancy-dressing guys that work over in the sales office."

Hassle-Free PC - Forbes.com

Hassle-Free PC - Forbes.com: "I've been using a Zonbu for weeks and have been blown away. It's fast and stable and boasts a clean, simple user interface. First thing you do when you turn on the computer is log on using your e-mail address and a password. From then on, when you save a file it goes to your documents folder just as it would on any PC. The most recently opened documents are stored on Zonbu's flash memory, with everything else stored on a remote server. To fetch files later you just open the folder and click on the document. Best of all, if you're on the road and need that document or photo, you can log on to your Zonbu account from any computer and get it. You can easily store everything locally by connecting an external drive to one of Zonbu's six USB ports."

EETimes.com - Analyst cuts AMD forecast amid MPU snags

EETimes.com - Analyst cuts AMD forecast amid MPU snags

Earlier this month, AMD released pricing for the nine models that make up its newly launched quad-core x86 microprocessor family, codenamed "Barcelona." The processor is based on 65-nm technology.
''We believe the company's late Barcelona introduction and disappointing early performance are an early indication of a bad marriage of process technology and design that will be hard to fix before a move to 45-nm is required,'' said analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research Inc., in a new report.
''AMD still has a lot of work to do to fix the architectural mismatch of Barcelona with the 65-nm process node and the poor performance of R600,'' he said, referring to ATI's latest graphics chip. That chip is also late to the market.

Really funny...

Coyote Blog "Apple Computer announced today that it has developed a computer chip that can store and play music in women's breasts as implants. The IBoob will cost $499 or $599 depending on size. This is considered to be a major breakthrough because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them"

The dumbing-down of programming

Bomb me--please!

Bomb me--please!: "would-be Lisper searching for a Lisp tutorial you can help out: if you have a web page where it would be reasonable to do so, consider linking to the url http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ with a link text of “lisp tutorial” or “common lisp tutorial”."

So:
Common Lisp tutorial

Virtualization Brings New Data Recovery Concerns, Benefits

Virtualization Brings New Data Recovery Concerns, Benefits: "The data is backed up but the systems are not. How do you effectively recover an entire server? The data is helpful but what about the tuning parameters for a SQL server, the patches and the database drivers? Everything that goes around that data is important. The more you have to do, the longer it takes to recover your environment,' said Stetic. PlateSpin's PowerRecon software basically does an inventory of a datacenter's physical and virtual machines, telling users how much processing capacity is required to keep them humming along and helps locate excess capacity so IT managers know where and how to begin the process of consolidating their datacenters. Its PowerConvert software streams workloads between physical servers, virtual machines, blade servers and back-up archives. 'The biggest challenge of whole system recovery is resolved because you no longer need the same type of hardware to restore your data,' Stetic said. '"

...on pampers, programming & pitching manure: 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005

...on pampers, programming & pitching manure: 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005: "Today there was an awesome story about Neal Jing. At the age of 40, with the cutoff date for sabbatical being 8 months away, and never having climbed a mountain, Neal decided he'd like to climb Everest. People said he was nuts, that you need to train for years, etc. He decided to do it anyway. He started training by running 8 miles a day every day but Sunday. Sundays he'd climb a local 1200 foot mountain - twice - wearing a 50lb backpack. Then, within the next six months, he climbed Mt Rainier in Washington (14k ft), Haba mountain in China (18k ft), and mt Aconcagua in Argentina (23k ft). Then he summitted Everest this past May. Some people feel that Everest has gotten easier because you hear about all the 'for hire' expeditions that are doing it. The following quote reminded me of how dangerous it really is: “On the day of the summit, I felt strong and was pushing the Sherpas to move faster,” says Jing. “I had to step over frozen dead people from previous years, some in sitting positions, and some in crawling positions. The only thing in my mind was to reach the summit ASAP.” Holy crap. That's so hardcore. Kudos to Neil for reminding us that 40 is anything but over the hill, and that we all could do with p"

Coyote Blog: More Vista Suckage

Coyote Blog: More Vista Suckage: "Vista is rapidly becoming the New Coke of operating systems."

In particular, the networking is an enormous step backwards from XP. The wireless networking was a real pain to get set up in the first place, in contrast to XP and my wife's Mac which both worked and connected from the moment the power switch turned on.

Now, we are getting two new errors. First, at random times, the computer will stop being able to connect to the internet. It will have a good wireless signal, and see other computers on the network fine, and the other computers on the network will see the internet, but Vista does not. Just rebooted the computer into the XP partition, and XP sees the Internet fine -- its just Vista that is broken.

Gamasutra - The Top 10 Myths of Video Game Optimization

Gamasutra - The Top 10 Myths of Video Game Optimization: "When comparing the growth rate of instructions retired in the past five years, the GPU is the winner. The CPU, by means of increased instruction level parallelism and multi-core is in second place. The slowest growth (of resources commonly utilized in game runtime) is the memory system."

Inside Apple's iPhone: More than just a dial tone - 7/27/2007 - EDN

Inside Apple's iPhone: More than just a dial tone - 7/27/2007 - EDN: "Samsung's nascent MLC (multilevel-cell, aka two-bit-per-cell) NAND-flash-memory program. This is the same NAND flash memory used in the iPod nano."

...confirmed that the applications processor is a Samsung design, thereby following in the footsteps of Samsung's first CPU design win with Apple in the second-generation iPod nano

stevenf.com: Bugs Are Magic Tricks

stevenf.com: Bugs Are Magic Tricks: "Bugs thrive on the same human brain deficiencies that earn magicians their living. We are shown something that is apparently impossible -- but the reality is that we just don't have all the information"

Stevey's Blog Rants

Stevey's Blog Rants: "In the new study, researchers found that Java programmers understand an average of seven fewer Computer Science concepts per hour spent with Java each day compared to similar programmers using other languages. Sun calls the study 'seriously flawed', "

Quad socket Intel Caneland platform benchmarked

Quad socket Intel Caneland platform benchmarked: "The impact of handling four FSB links and a large snoop buffer shows on the latency - a total of 140ns for 64MB random access range, compared to 118ns on Greencreek dual FSB chipset, 71ns on X38 chipset A0 beta version, and 55ns on highly-tuned Asus Striker Extreme Nforce 680i. "