The old guard is dying

The long established giants of the PC and software industry seem to be fading away faster and faster every day. Intel, AMD and Microsoft being the three in particular that come to mind. With the introduction of smaller, cheaper and more power efficient SoC systems from FreeScale and Nvidia. To the latest in optimized and free operating systems like Ubuntu from Canonical, Android and Chrome OS from Google small and powerful will be supplanting these industry giants at a frenetic pace.

With the oncoming flood of ARM Cortex A-8 based units within the next couple of months to the nVidia Tegra netbooks and smartbooks will be offering incredible performance for less than a 1/3 the price of the larger brethren. To top it all off they are more power efficient and nearly as feature rich, especially when you include embedded 3G access.

Then there is the fast approaching future. Both FreeScale and nVidia announced their next line of SoC designs, both being multi-core. The Cortex A-9 from FreeScale and Tegra 2 from nVidia. When these make it into the next generation of smartbooks, netbooks, and open client desktops coupled with Google Chrome OS, Ubuntu or some other custom tailored linux solution the price/performance gap will widen even more making the everyday consumer want one as a replacement unit as opposed to a neat toy to have.

Couple all this with the introduction of the newest line of Android smartphones and the ultimate mobile office becomes a reality. Mind you these phones will also be getting multi core SoC chips in the next generation as well. Making the combination even more powerful, more flexible, cheaper and infinitely more portable than the currently accepted solutions.

Honorable mentions and what I believe to be the catalyst for the coming change in cheap, ultra portable, performance computing are the Apple iPhone, the Nokia Internet tablets (N770, N810 and upcoming N900) the latter being more of a PC in a phone footprint WITH cell phone capabilities as well.

All in all the will be a paradigm shift in how the everyday consumer approaches computing and communication. I also believe it will make a very large impact in the corporate world for both the traveling CEO and the everyday road warrior. Here's looking to the future!

Here's hoping CA goes bust!

Gov. Schwarzenegger's doomsday budget for California may be the greatest single thing to happen to California and this country in a long while. California being the shining of socialism in this country with HUGE spending on public aid programs, welfare and healthcare. A gigantic state government that sucks down cash like kool aid. Now the whole thing looks to be crumbling down and hopefully IF it is allowed to fall down like a house of cards it may show the rest of the country how NOT to run a state government. For that matter it will also be a very good example on how not to run the country seeing that California is just our current government on a smaller scale. Maybe then the 54% will have an epiphany and realize the mistake that was made with Obama and the rest of his administration.

Unemployment a Good Thing?

Well yeah I know this is a stretch but hear me out. Being recently unemployed due to lay off really stinks and I join the millions of Americans now looking for employment. The good thing though may be the lack of income tax that the government pulls in. With the Obamanation increasing spending on an unprecedented scale and the lack of money coming in it cannot be sustained or for that matter even justified. If unemployment continues at its' current pace the growing federal government will have even less money than previously thought. Now they can raise taxes on those that are still employed and put new taxes into place but in doing so I am hoping it will wake the country up. Maybe those that drank the kool aid now having to pay a tax to drink the same kool aid will come to grips with the lie that is Obama and his policies. This could end up well and the country could revert back to its' roots. The other is that it could plunge this great nation into complete and total socialism. Only time will tell but it is something to ponder.

End of America - Redux

Well I thought about this quite a bit after my previous blog and well things are definitely changing and maybe just maybe for the better. With the tea parties, which I proudly attended, to the mid-west states asserting their 10th amendment rights things are looking up. More and more people are beginning to see the lie that is Obama, his policies and his administration. More people including myself are making their voices heard. This is the start of something wonderful but it is just that a start. We as a people as the citizens of these great United States of America need to make our voices heard louder and louder every day. It is our right, no our duty, as Americans to demand of our elected representatives to represent us the citizens their constiuents and not special interest groups, campaign contributors, foreign banks and interests. This is a government of the people and they need to be reminded of that every moment of every day to ensure that our freedoms and liberties are no longer eroded and the ones that have been be restored. I for one feel that we are at a point that we the people can take back this country and make it the great nation it once was in the vision that our founding fathers had when it was formed.

The End of America

With the Obama administration in place and now going forward with their socialist and fascist plans I fear that the United States as it once was is lost. We are now turning into, at a very fast pace, the United Socialist States of America. With rampant spending, increasing debt, nationalization of the financial, insurance and auto industries as well the erosion of the constitution there will soon be nothing left. I once thought that fighting and speaking out for what is right as well as contacting my elected representatives was to make a difference and having my voice heard was to be that difference. Now it just falls on deaf ears and the only voices heard by the politicians are those of special interest groups and foreign banks and governments looking to corrupt and destroy this once great nation. Well it was a nice ride for the past 233 years but it looks like it's pretty much done with by the time this administration is done. To those that wanted change, you got it. With that change will come the tyranny and oppression you deserve for turning a blind eye and deaf ear.

The United States of America
1776 - 2012
R.I.P.

I HATE MICROSOFT!

Windows... what a PIECE OF SHIT operating system! This bug ridden commercially available virus they call an operating system is nothing more than a thorn in my side. Conficker is the latest threat to rear its' ugly head and has given me nothing but grief updating network after network. To top it all off after updating these damned networks Microsoft's own updates hosed some of the damned servers they were to protect! So I had to spend countless hours troubleshooting a problem caused by patches that were supposed to fix a problem. Ugh... I cannot for the life of me understand why in the hell people continue to use this turd of an OS. So many other viable and robust alternatives out there and they are all free of the heartaches that come with Microsoft operating systems and products. Mac OS X, Linux, Unix, BSD, etc... all of these are far superior to anything that Redmond can pump out yet the sheeple keep buying their shit and accept its' flaws as par for the course. Well I am done with this rant because the more I think about it the more pissed off I get.

Two Words

GO FEDEX!

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/manufacturing/2009-03-25-fedex-boeing-labor-law_N.htm

I nearly shed a tear

Two days ago I came in from work and as usual the kids were running about and doing their thing. I went into the living room and my daughter was doing her thing on her laptop browsing the web, YouTube, Myspace, etc... I ask her how her day was and she replied "ehhh..." then out of the blue comes "Daddy can you put Linux back on my computer?". That was a very heartwarming moment. Here's how it all started.

About a year and a half ago I got my daughter her first laptop, which was one of my hand me downs, and I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on it. I did this as more of an experiment seeing that up until this moment she had only used Windows in school and at home. I didn't tell her anything about the operating system nor did I mention that it wasn't Windows. I simply gave her her username and password and she was off to the races. The first few weeks she had some questions, mostly about where to get and how to install software, that I answered and showed her two or three times and never heard from her again. So up until December 2008 she had been plugging away happily on her laptop without a complaint, ever.

Then the inevitable happened and the unit went south and was in need of major servicing. I opted to get her a new laptop for Christmas from Dell and had it purposely shipped with Windows Vista Home Premium. Christmas came and she was thrilled with her new laptop that is until she started using it. The first couple of weeks she complained about performance and constant nagging from the anti-virus, firewall, etc... I told her to go along with it as it was necessary for security as well as to keep the computer as virus, spyware, malware free as possible. Fast forward to two days ago and well my daughter made a CHOICE. A choice that I had absolutely no influence in but one she made based on her own experiences with Windows and Linux. My daughter became a *Nix snob and that was a moment I almost shed a tear. She has seen the promised land and on her own accord relieved her unit of Windows in favor of a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10.

This took almost two years as it was like I said an experiment. In the end though it proves that if given the choice based on experience most users will choose Linux. My daughter is living, breathing proof of this as are millions of other users out there. When I started this I would use what I saw and her experiences as anecdotal proof. Now after her decision to switch back to Linux for better performance, security and features it is no longer anecdotal but absolute proof that Linux is the superior operating system.

IBM and Sun merger?

Even though IBM buying Sun for $6.5 Billion USD is rumor I can only hope it is true. It would be a HUGE boon to both Unix and Linux seeing that each of these companies push both platforms. IBM with AIX and Sun with Solaris all under one roof as well as further penetration of Linux thanks to IBM. The other beautiful thing is IBM's service now couple with Sun's client base. Then the eventual merging of technologies from both hopefully standardizing on the Power platform. Think about it for a moment if you will. Big Iron from IBM able to run AIX and Linux and Sun able to run Solaris and Linux with the underpinnings of both running on Power6 or future Power processors.

Then there is the whole market share thing. With IBM and Sun under one roof that would account for approx 2/3 of the entire Unix/Linux market in one house, the only competitor being HP. HP would be in a pickle simply because now IBM/Sun will be able to get new products to market faster and there would be a standardization across platforms for most of the popular applications running on IBM/Sun hardware. In any case HP getting knocked out of the big leagues, read UNIX, is no big deal as all they really offer is PA-RISC and the Itanium both of which are nothing special in comparison to the Power line and Sun's Niagara. Then there is HP's offering of in house operating systems HP/UX, Linux and OpenVMS with Linux being the only real contender in the *Nix space because HP/UX just plain sucks. OpenVMS on the other hand is still one of the most stable operating systems out so they would still have that to offer. It would also slow down or possibly reverse Microsoft's penetration into this space with their Enterprise licensed server products.

Here's hoping that this happens as I would love to see *Nix make more news.

EDIT: Well it seems like this is damned near a done deal. Sources from within both companies are expecting it to be done by the end of the week!

Technology Sheeple

Everyday the IT industry grows stale because people are force fed "norms". By norms I mean Intel Inside and Microsoft Windows. I can only hope for a day when the x86 processor architecture is no more and Windows is nothing more than a pane of glass to look through. With so many superior processor technologies out there from the PowerPC based systems like the IBM Power 5/6, PPC 970MP, Cell Broadband Engine to ARM and MIPS it makes me wonder how in the hell the x86 has endured. To think that the DEC Alpha was canned in favor of the Intel Itanium sickens me. Now on to operating systems.. ugh. Windows is a commercially available virus, no more no less, I would go as far as to say it is defective by design. Knowing this people STILL buy it en masse! I guess the brandwashing that happens at an early age is effective as both x86 processors and Microsoft OSs still reign supreme.

I just have a dream of having REAL computers capable of teraflops on my desktop and not these little toys. These computers would be running a real operating system like Linux or something similar to OS X using a BSD kernel. You may say to yourself teraflops! HA! Well it is coming and FAST but not in the x86/Windows world. An example of my dream machine with currently available technology would be a dual CPU Cell with 2 to 4 gig of RAM, a decent little GPU and another watered down Cell processor to offload transcoding, upscaling and heavy media functions to from the GPU. All this with a flavor of Linux and all is right in the world. Hell the Cell in its' current form, 65nm SOI, is estimated to cost about $75 to produce. Even if the cost of the system was $1500 it would be a bargain knowing what was under the hood. Granted the Cell is still in its' infancy but seeing what can be done with it on the HPC front, the PS3 and even MIT doing research grade gravity well simulations with a 8 node PS3 cluster makes me want a system like that even more. Not to mention the more of them out there the faster compilers, libraries and software becomes available and optimized. Well it's time for me to leave lala land and my ideal computer and come back to the reality which looks more like the stone age as opposed to the digital age.