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The Internet

Submission + - Making Solar Power Work in Data Centers (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by
1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: "There's been a flurry of recent announcements of data centers incorporating solar power, including new projects this week from Emerson Network Power in St. Louis and the Sonoma Mountain sustainable community in California. Cost issues make photovoltaic solar a challenge for use in data centers, which require enormous amounts of energy — and thus lots of physical space for solar arrays. But some projects are finding strategies to make solar work. The huge new Phoenix One colo center will combine a 4-megawatt rooftop solar array with a thermal storage system, while the a UK hosting company is powering down idle servers to scale down to the capacity of its solar array. Meanwhile, a glut of PV solar panels is translating into lower pricing."
Businesses

Submission + - The Rise of the Digital Nomad

Submitted by krou
krou writes: The WaPo has an interesting look at the rise of the digital nomad, workers who have shunned the idea of working in an office, or working from home. Instead, they've taken the next logical step in the evolution of teleworking, and work wherever there is a Wi-Fi connection, using tools such as Facebook, Skype, and Twitter, to gain both primitive ("If I'm working at home by myself, I am really hating life. I need people.") and practical ("there is no hope for the road system around here") benefits from this "nomadic" lifestyle. The need for contact with other people has driven some nomads to start working with others in public places and at strangers' homes. Other benefits from nomadic working include changing the scenery, and starting the work day long "after many of their colleagues out at the cubicle farm have spent hours preparing for and getting to their workstations". Coffee shop owners love the trend, and so do some employers, one of whom (an AOL manager), says: "It's a win-win" because the employee in question "is happy doing what he loves and from a business perspective, we gain valuable industry knowledge, contacts and insights." There's even a website for the digital nomad in you.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Building to building 802.11 on a budget?

Submitted by Shoeler
Shoeler writes: An organization I do volunteer work with has two buildings, separated by about 200'. Currently there's only a single CAT3 wire run between the two buildings for the single PBX drop we have in building 2. We wish to run a network connection between the two. We can run a network cable between them, but that would require digging and conduit and wireless seems, on the surface so far, to be simpler. We'd like to keep the total solution $1000, using off the shelf components.

The goal is to bring a network connection to building 2. Building 1 is the main building and has the current DSL line, LAN, and a single access point. Building two currently has no network currently, only a single phone. My idea was to run an external antenna on both buildings (a yagi or similar), connecting to an access point on each side. That part seems straight forward except there's not many small business-type (i.e. easy to manage, not a grand each) devices that have external antenna ports, from what I can find. Linksys had some cool stuff but it's 802.11b/g. I suppose I could always go with a WAP54G or something like that, but I'd love some suggestions for: 1) external, outdoor antennas (be specific — where can I find that specific one) 2) access points with external antenna ports. Power over Ethernet is not necessary but would be fine. Would I need more than 2 antennas?

In my perfect world I'd like to have the access point be able to do 802.11n — either the 2.4Ghz or 4Ghz bands are fine. I'd like to have the feature my Airport Extreme has where there's dual SSIDs that can be partitioned if desired, and their "simultaneous dual band" would be sweet too. Built-in gigabit is a plus if it's 802.11n, but honestly not necessary, though I have to question why any 802.11n access point doesn't have at least a single gig port.

Bringing the network in via wireless seems to be a win because we then not only provide the network connection building 2 needs, but we also provide wireless there so we don't have to run cables internally. Building 2 is not currently wired for any network.

We are in north eastern Florida, so we get storms. Lots of them, with lots of cool-looking electrical activity, if that makes any difference. I'll admit ignorance on this issue as to how it related to outdoor 802.11.

It is too much to ask for those features except with an external antenna connection?? I mean I guess I can get 2 WAP54G's and 2 antennas and be done with it, but I'd be surprised if I can't get a more modern access point with an external antenna.

Thanks in advance!
Cellphones

Submission + - The Cell Phone Empire Strikes Back

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Last week David Pogue of the NY Times took the cell phone industry to task for its ridiculously greedy practices such as billing both parties for a call or a text message; doubling text-message rates in two years; earning $850 million a year by making us sit through 15-second instructions on how to leave a message; and milking the handset subsidy system. Now Stefan Constantinescu, the chief executive of Verizon Wireless, has responded to Pogue's column with a rebuttal letter to the publisher of the Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. stating that Americans pay ten cents per minutes less than Europeans, that according to Former Vice President Al Gore US wireless companies are the most competitive on the globe, that according to a GAO study 84 percent of American wireless customers are satisfied with their service, and that Verizon wireless is the company with the most rural wireless customers. As Pogue points out in his latest update, Verizon's rebuttal doesn't address a single one of the points he originally made. "It's as though I'd writtten, 'Verizon Wireless is a terrible singer,'" writes Pogue. "and his rebuttal was, 'That's absolutely not true! I speak three languages!'""
Cellphones

Submission + - DeviceScape port to OpenMoko finished & availa

Submitted by crazyirishhobo
crazyirishhobo writes: As slashdot reported awhile ago on the start of a port of device scape to the OpenMoko, the port is now been completed and is available for public download. However like other things in the OpenMoko community (including the phones), it appears that it has reached the end of the line, with the developer behind it apparently moving to the Android platform.

Comment Applications what keeps MS at bay (Score 1) 1

by Rural (#28836057) Attached to: Windows to run on ARM processors by 2013

I don't doubt that Microsoft would love launch (desktop) Windows on ARM processors. They will not do this because there would be no applications or utilities for Windows/ARM, and until many, many developers port all their x86 programs to ARM, people would have a bare Windows install. Not good for Microsoft. The ease of porting is what helped MacOS with their switch, and why Linux distributions can serve so many platforms.
Google

Submission + - IPv6 at Google: A Chat With Lorenzo Colitti

Submitted by Alex Band
Alex Band writes: IPv6 Act Now has posted a recent video interview with Google network engineer Lorenzo Colitti, in which he discusses the experience of making Google services available over IPv6. "We're committed to a good user experience and IPv6 will give us that when IPv4 addresses run out," he explains in the video, adding that, "We basically went from zero to being able to serve most Google services over IPv6 to users that had good connectivity in a year and a half. Lots of progress can be made because it's not a huge undertaking." Colitti is the latest to appear on the IPv6 Act Now website. It already features discussions with, for example, IIJ's Randy Bush on IPv6 deployment and Cisco's Patrik Fältström on the role of governments with regards to IPv6. New interviews are released on a regular basis.
Data Storage

Submission + - OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD Improves Write Performance (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "OCZ Technology's first generation Vertex SSD was praised for its strong performance and competitive price point and it remains a very popular drive amongst enthusiasts today. OCZ recently saw fit, to update the Vertex with faster on-board cache and proprietary firmware to improve performance even further. The drive you see pictured here is a 120GB OCZ Vertex Turbo SATA SSD. It uses the same 2.5" form factor as most other SSDs currently available and is housed in a standard metal enclosure. The OCZ Vertex Turbo is built around an Indilinx controller, paired with 64MB of 180MHz DRAM cache--the original Vertex drives had 166MHz cache. If you look at the original Vertex drive's performance, not only are write speeds significantly improved on the Turbo Edition drive shown here, but the consistency of writes across the drive are smoother as well. This SSD should compete well with Intel's X25-M."

Comment Only 24% are Vista (Score 1) 580

by Rural (#27502409) Attached to: Microsoft Ending Mainstream Support For XP

I'm sure Vista would have a share greater than 24% of Internet-connected if people could actually manage to connect to the Internet. Seriously, I've worked with many OSs and Vista is the only one where my wireless network didn't just work. It seems to work on every other reboot. Thankfully the cable works (once I managed to dig it out).

Comment Re:Potential for Netbooks (Score 1) 244

by Rural (#26918721) Attached to: Web-based IDEs Edge Closer To the Mainstream

Install sshfs. Then you can use a locally-installed editor (both emacs and vi work fine, as do others) to edit those remote files. Works great and needs very little bandwidth and even works with intermittent connections, such as trains rolling through the countryside. The newer Gnome gvfs with fuse export achieves pretty much the same thing and I believe KDE has had something similar for a much longer time.

Alternatively, emacs supports direct sftp access, but that's not as convenient for me.

Compiles go through a remote SSH session.

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