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Submission + - how to choose the "right" enterprise deskt

drakpzone writes: My company asked me to identify "the right enterprise desktop" as part of a branch overhaul project that involves a few thousands PCs. OS and applications are already chosen and mandatory (OS being MS Windows XP), and the expected workload is in the "average business pc" range. So, identifying the class of pc to choose from the usual big vendors is pretty straightforward, but I'd really like to justify my choice not only on perceived performance/coolness/you name it: I want to get real measurements/benchmarks results about power efficency, heat and noise produced, and of course the usual cpu/gpu/storage/etc performance metrics, based on our real workload scenarios. What would you suggest as software tools (FOSS really welcome) and hw sensors/probes that can be a part of a (hopefully cheap) 360degree benchmarking kit?
Idle

Submission + - Missouri Car Dealer to Give away AK-47's?! (max71.com)

Frizbie writes: Max Motors in Butler Missouri is giving away free AK-47 Assault Rifles with Purchase of a new Truck. The promotion starts the beginning of August. CNN did video of the promotion and can be seen at. The video shows Mark Muller being interviewed by CNN news, it was clear that the woman was taking a very strong stand against what Muller had to say, however it seems to have backfired pretty heavy. Very funny. http://www.max71.com/wpress/index.php/1185/max-motors-cnn-interview/ also at http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/07/dealer-offers-ak47-with-each-new-truck-purchase.html This is crazy.
Data Storage

Submission + - "Five-Dimension" Disc May Store 10TB on On (computerworld.com)

QuixoticWonderer writes: "Computer World has a story about a new disc technology that has the potential to hold up to 10TB on a DVD sized disc.

Researchers from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne said the technology, dubbed multiplexed optical recording, can create a "fifth dimension" of recording, using polarization and gold nanorods to reflect light, boosting data density beyond 1,012 bits per centimeter. The team was able to store 1.6TB of data on a disc with the technology and said that someday the technique could yield up to 10TB on a single DVD-type disc.

You can find more details in the Computer World story here."

Wireless Networking

Submission + - SPAM: Military: $155M for nucleus of future wireless net

coondoggie writes: "The central component to the military's bulletproof IP wireless network strategy is now in place. Raytheon this week was awarded $24.4 million of what could end up being a $155 million contract to develop the key technology, known as MAINGATE, that will link disparate military wireless networks. MAINGATE, or the Mobile Ad hoc Interoperability Network GATEway is a key cog in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project the agency calls the next generation of its Network Centric Radio System (NCRS) that will ultimately connect different tactical ground, airborne and satellite communications terminals together. The system has myriad requirements as you might imagine. For example, it must support a minimum of 20 simultaneous 384 kbps video streams, as well as voice and data applications, peer-to-peer applications, such as CHAT), and network management for aggregate per link data rates ranging from 6.5 Mbps up to 100 Mbps... [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Building a 10 TB Array For Around $1,000 227

As storage hardware costs continue to plummet, the folks over at Tom's Hardware have decided to throw together their version of the "Über RAID Array." While the array still doesn't stack up against SSDs for access time, a large array is capable of higher throughput via striping. Unfortunately, the amount of work required to assemble a setup like this seems to make it too much trouble for anything but a fun experiment. "Most people probably don't want to install more than a few hard drives into their PC, as it requires a massive case with sufficient ventilation as well as a solid power supply. We don't consider this project to be something enthusiasts should necessarily reproduce. Instead, we set out to analyze what level of storage performance you'd get if you were to spend the same money as on an enthusiast processor, such as a $1,000 Core i7-975 Extreme. For the same cost, you could assemble 12 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 hard drives. Of course, you still need a suitable multi-port controller, which is why we selected Areca's ARC-1680iX-20."
Image

Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself Screenshot-sm 445

Extreme economic problems require extreme solutions, and Wells Fargo Bank has come up with a good one. They have decided to sue themselves. Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium that is going into foreclosure. As holder of the first, they are suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is Wells Fargo. It gets better. The company has hired a lawyer to defend itself against its own lawsuit. The defense lawyer even filed this answer to the complaint, "Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property. All other allegations of the complaint are denied." On the website The Consumer Warning Network, Angie Moreschi wrote: "We've apparently reached the perfect storm for complete and utter idiocy by some banks trying to foreclose on homes."
Announcements

Submission + - Extra dimensions? Only if smaller than 3*10^-6 m!

Vincenzo Romano writes: The website of the fortnightly scientific magazine Science News is reporting today an interesting article about the maximum size of any extra dimension, if any.
A team of theoretical physicists and astronomers has calculated that any hidden extra dimension beyond our familiar three-dimensional space, a world known in physics parlance as a 3-brane, must be less than 3 micrometers.
The study has been submitted online by Oleg Gnedin, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts of the Univesrity of Michigan and is based on observations on one of the oldest black holes ever found in our universe, lurking deep inside the NGC 4472 galaxy.
Basically, that black hole has not evaporated yet by the Hawking radiation on the predicted "short" short timescale, thus posing an upper limit to the size of any extra dimensions to less thab 0.003 mm.
So what? String theorists must buy better magnifying lenses if they want to prove to be right.
Security

Submission + - Alberta Health Care lost data on 11,582 citizens

Jeruvy writes: The Alberta Government released a press release informing a "computer virus briefly infected the AHS-Edmonton network and may have captured patient health information". This has affected 11,582 citizens over a two week period in May 2009.



Requests to find more information about the type of 'virus' or which systems were infected, or if the infection may have spread since this affected machines on the province wide accessible network (accessible via government, medical, and public means) or how the attack was carried out have not been disclosed.
Businesses

Submission + - Hispanic electronics chain switches to Linux (stores.org) 1

DJ DeFi writes: "La Curacao is a Los Angeles-based chain of Hispanic-focused electronics stores. Its locations are decorated with symbols of ancient Mayan and Aztec civilizations: the chain's motto, "Un Poco De Su Pais," translates to "a little bit of your country."

While La Curacao enjoys strong levels of customer loyalty, its previous operating system sometimes left both customers and sales associates frustrated. Transactions could take a long time to complete, which prompted some sales associates to abort the process and start over... In addition, the system would occasionally crash and remain down for 15 or 20 minutes — usually during the company's busiest sales periods.

Read about how La Curaco took the plunge and switched to Linux."

Privacy

Submission + - Court IP addresses not "personally identifiabl (mediapost.com)

yuna49 writes: Online Media Daily reports that a federal judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personal information. "In order for 'personally identifiable information' to be personally identifiable, it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies a computer," U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones said in a written decision. Jones issued the ruling in the context of a class-action lawsuit brought by consumers against Microsoft stemming from an update that automatically installed new anti-piracy software. In that case, which dates back to 2006, consumers alleged that Microsoft violated its user agreement by collecting IP addresses in the course of the updates.

This ruling flatly contradicts a recent EU decision to the contrary, as well as other cases in the US. Its potential relevance to the RIAA suits should be obvious to anyone who reads Slashdot.

Mars

Submission + - ESA and NASA establish a joint Mars exploration in (spacefellowship.com)

Matt_dk writes: "At the bilateral meeting in Plymouth, the executive board recommended NASA and ESA establish MEJI spanning launch opportunities in 2016, 2018 and 2020, with landers and orbiters conducting astrobiological, geological, geophysical and other high-priority investigations, and leading to the return of samples from Mars in the 2020s. The Director and Associate Administrator agreed, in principle, to establish the Initiative and continue studies to determine the most viable joint mission architectures."
Mozilla

Submission + - FireFox To Get Multi-Process Separation

An anonymous reader writes: FireFox 3.5 is a very strong contender in the browser market but one feature it lacks that Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 has is multi-process browsing. Multi-process browsing gives the browser ultimate stability and performance for computers with multiple processors or CPU cores by having each page or tab, run in a separate process. This means each tab could theoretically could be on separate processors or cores giving you a performance boost over having just one process (the browser) running on just one CPU or core. We gain not only performance from this type of process separation, we also gain security because if one page ends up being malicious its process can be closed and is segregated from the remaining browser processes.
Security

Submission + - Current Security Technologies Impede E-commerce (net-security.org)

Mirko Zorz writes: "A recent survey revealed consumers showed no desire to understand the mechanics of IT security in more detail and had high expectations about their rights if affected by a security threat. Consumers suggest they would not respond favorably to stricter security. Despite 66% stating they would be more confident online if websites imposed additional security measures, they were unlikely to accept these measures if it meant the transaction process increased in either time or complexity. In fact, 26% reported that such measures would drive them onto competitors' sites."

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