Practical Technology

for practical people.

March 14, 2008
by sjvn01
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Parallel Computing`s Already Here

The future is today. When Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, looked into his crystal ball and predicted that parallel computing would be the next revolution in computing, he was quite correct. It’s just that he was looking into the past. Parallel computing has been here and changing the world for years.

The problem with parallel computing today is that we don’t tend to see it. Just as the Internet had been around for decades before the parallel rise of the CIX (Commercial Internet Exchange) and the Web in the early ’90s transformed the world, most of us are blind to the changes that today’s multicore processors and MPP (massively parallel processing) have already made.

CIX, which made commercial use of the Internet possible, allowed people to make money from the net. The Web was the killer application.

Today, multicore processor and MPP are already in use, just like ftp, e-mail and gopher were in use in the pre-Web Internet. Some applications, such as video editing programs like Sony Vegas Movie Studio and Nero, are already making use of dual core processors and parallel processing today.

It’s not just video though. Supercomputers are made up of MPP arrays of hundred or even thousands of ordinary Intel or AMD chips running Linux. The current top supercomputer, the IBM Blue Gene/L system at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, can hit 478.2 teraflops (trillion calculations per second) with its tens of thousands of PowerPC processors running Linux. Indeed, 85.2 percent of the fastest 500 supercomputers in the world run Linux.

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March 11, 2008
by sjvn01
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Windows Home Server: Unbelievably Bad Storage

Add another hard drive and lose your data. What the heck is this?

Believe it or not, recently I’ve seen several Microsoft products – Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V virtualization – that I think are winners. But then, just when I think Microsoft might finally be getting its technology act together, it comes up with a complete disaster: Windows Home Server.

I never liked Home Server because I couldn’t see a point to it. There’s really nothing it gave users that they couldn’t already get with any one of the dozens of cheap USB hard drives or NAS (network-attached storage) devices now on the market. If users wanted more, any version of Linux and Samba could turn any old Pentium system into a full-powered file server.

What I never even imagined, though, was that Microsoft would ship a basic file server operating system that was fundamentally flawed. Windows Home Server’s problem, in brief, is that if you have more than one hard drive in, or attached to, your Home Server, it may destroy your data if you use any of nine programs. The list includes Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 and 2007 and Intuit QuickBooks. In other words, exactly the kind of programs you’re likely to use on files on a file server.

How could Microsoft blow this? I mean, come on. Microsoft gets many things wrong—see Vista, Microsoft—but file-serving 101? It managed to get that to work back in 1993 with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and NT 3.1. Not to mention, everyone else in the operating system business—such as NetWare and Unix—had already mastered getting files to work on a file server years before Microsoft got it right.

On top of that, Home Server, Microsoft told us, is built around Windows Server 2003. I can make Samba run rings around Server 2003 in terms of performance, but Server 2003 is stable. I’ve never lost a file on it.

Now Microsoft is telling us that it doesn’t even really have a clue as to why Home Server is losing files. Oh, in the blog announcing that there really was a problem with Home Server, Microsoft’s Home Servers developers said, “We understand the issue really well at this point—it is at an extremely low level of the operating system and it requires thorough testing to ensure that the fix addresses the issue.” So, they continue, the real fix is “currently estimated for June 2008.”

Say what!? How can there be a low-level problem in Home Server if it’s really based on Server 2003? How, if they know what the problem is, can they say with a straight face that it will take three months to fix that most simple of problems: a file server that corrupts files?

This is beyond bad. This is awful. If I were in charge of this division, I’d fire them all and let unemployment sort them out.

In the meantime, I know there’s been a lot of interest among small and midsize businesses in Home Server. Many users even wanted to know if they could run Home Server with SBS (Small Business Server). Don’t do it!

Do you want your accounts receivables in QuickBooks to vanish? Do you want your Outlook e-mail store to disappear, or those of you who are running SharePoint on Home Server to possibly see all your collaborative work to disappear into a black hole? I don’t think so!

SharePoint? Yes, I know it’s not listed by Microsoft as a problem program for Home Server, but with so many of Microsoft’s own programs on the list, I wouldn’t trust any program’s data on Home Server. Would you?

If you really want an inexpensive server for storage and nothing but storage, just buy a USB hard drive or a cheap NAS box from Netgear, Linksys or SimpleTech. They run Linux and, in my experience, NAS devices from all three of these vendors are as stable as bedrock. If you want more from a server, then just install Linux and Samba on the PC of your choice. It will cost you less and any of these will certainly do a better job of keeping your data safe than the fatally flawed Windows Home Server.

A version of this storyt was first published in eWEEK. >

March 11, 2008
by sjvn01
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Microsoft Admits to Home Server Data Corruption Problem

Microsoft admitted on a technical blog on March 10 that Windows Home Server can corrupt data when used with a wide variety of common applications.

According to the blog posting, Microsoft has been aware of the “data corruption issue” since “late December 2007.” Specifically, Microsoft states in its KnowledgeBase listing that on servers with more than one hard drive running Windows Home Server users can experience data corruption with Windows Vista Photo Gallery; Windows Live Photo Gallery; Microsoft Office OneNote 2007; Microsoft Office OneNote 2003; Microsoft Office Outlook 2007; Microsoft Money 2007; SyncToy 2.0 Beta; Intuit QuickBooks; and uTorrent, the popular BitTorrent client.

When any of these programs are used to edit, copy, or move files, the files may become corrupted. In the blog posting, Microsoft claims that, “We are aware of only a very small percentage of users with confirmed instances of this issue, and we believe that most people are unlikely to be affected.”

That said, one of Microsoft’s own, technology evangelist, Volker Will, lost 180GBs of data from a Microsoft Home Server error. In his MSDN blog, Will wrote, “I might wait until version 2.0, if I ever decide to install it again. The current piece will be permanently banned from our home by the weekend. Sorry folks, I think it is a GREAT idea, this implementation is just not ready for prime time.”

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March 10, 2008
by sjvn01
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Can iPod Touch Find a Home in the Enterprise?

I have a confession to make. I love my iPod Touch. It’s simply the best way to listen to music on the go or to watch a film when I’m stuck on a long flight. What it hasn’t been, though, is a useful work tool.

That was then. This is now.

First, on Jan. 15, Apple added a new set of software programs to the Touch. For office purposes, the most important one is its full-featured e-mail client. With it, you can use essentially any kind of e-mail server and the client can also download and display PDF, Microsoft Word and Excel files.

In addition, even before Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol support arrives in June’s iPod/iPhone 2.0 firmware release, the Touch also already has Outlook calendar and contact support. E-mail, calendaring and addresses, those three things alone, are enough to make the Touch a work machine.

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March 10, 2008
by sjvn01
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Desktop Linux goes retail

Blog — Desktop Linux systems have been available from vendors both small — such as NorhTec — and large — such as Dell — for some time now. But, until recently, users who feel more comfortable buying from a retailer have had few choices other than some low-end systems from Wal-Mart. Things are changing.

First, in January 2008, Sears got into the low-priced Linux desktop act. Sears is now selling Freespire 2.0-based minitower PCs via its online store. Now Best Buy, the leading U.S. electronics retailer, has gotten into the act.

Beginning at the end of February, Best Buy began selling the latest-model Asus Eee laptop.

This inexpensive laptop runs Xandros Linux. It comes with a 900MHz Intel Celeron M processor and 512MB of DDR2 (double data rate 2) memory. It also has a 7-inch 800 by 480 pixel screen, a 4GB solid state drive and a built-in Web cam. Weighing in at about 2 pounds, the Eee PC sells for $399.99.

Best Buy isn’t the only retailer getting into the Linux act. Amazon.com is now selling the Asus Eee laptop as well. What’s more, if you look at Amazon’s list of best sellers in computers and PC hardware, you’ll find that seven of the top 25 best-selling items are Asus laptops, topping out at number five with the “Galaxy Black” model.

Above the top-selling Asus model, you’ll only find Macs. In addition, Amazon is also selling Nokia’s Linux-powered Portable Internet Tablets, the N800 and the N810, which are also on Amazon’s best-selling list. Altogether, nine Linux desktop devices appear on Amazon’s list, and only two Windows Vista-powered laptops.

It’s not all good news for the Linux desktop in retail though. Wal-Mart told the Associated Press on March 10 that it’s decided not to restock its in-store gOS Linux-powered Everex Green gPC TC2502. “This really wasn’t what our customers were looking for,” Wal-Mart spokesperson Melissa O’Brien said, according to the AP story.

Wal-Mart will, however, according to Everex, sell its new gPC2 for $199 without a monitor and its gOS-powered UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC), the Everex CloudBook, for $399, through Wal-Mart’s online store. At this time, the gPC2 was already available and the CloudBook just became available on March 10.

While Wal-Mart’s in-store customers may not be looking for Linux-powered systems, it’s clear that online retail customers are another story. It’s also evident that inexpensive, low-end systems are what seem to be grabbing consumers’ attention. Finally, as Amazon’s rankings show, desktop Linux has become, almost without anyone noticing it, a mainstream desktop operating system. Indeed, desktop Linux, and Mac OS-based systems, appears to be outselling Vista by a considerable margin.

A version of this story first appeared in DesktopLinux.

March 7, 2008
by sjvn01
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The iPhone Leaps into the Enterprise, but How Will You Manage It?

Microsoft Exchange support has just brought Apple iPhones into the corporate network. But how will network administrators manage them?

Anyone who has ever used an Apple iPhone loves it. Besides just being cooler than an iceberg, it’s actually a great smart phone.

So, from the very beginning, iPhone users wanted, oh how they wanted, to be able to use their iPhones in the enterprise.

I mean, a BlackBerry Pearl is pretty neat, but come on, which would you rather have? Enough said. Now, thanks to a just-announced deal between Microsoft and Apple, iPhones will be able to use Exchange as an e-mail and groupware server thanks to Exchange ActiveSync. And to think analysts used to say the iPhone wouldn’t be relevant to the enterprise. Ha!

Great news, right? Well, yes, it’s wonderful news if you’re an eager iPhone user, or someone who wants his company to buy him an iPhone. But if I were a CIO or a network administrator, I’d be locking my door and turning off my phone right now.

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