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Data Storage

Submission + - RAID vs. JBOD vs. Standard HDD's

Submitted by Ravengbc
Ravengbc writes: Hey everyone, I am in the process of planning and buying some hardware to build a media center/media server. While there are still quite a few things on it that I haven't decided on, such as motherboard/processor, and windows xp vs. Linux, right now my debate is on storage. I'm wanting to have as much storage as possible. At first I was thinking about just putting in a bunch hdd's and leaving it at that. Then I started thinking about doing a RAID array, looking at RAID 5. However, some of the stuff I was initially told about RAID 5, I am now learning to be not true. Such as, RAID 5 drives are limited to the size of the smallest drive in the array. And the way things are looking, even if I gradually replace all of the drives with larger ones, the array will still read the original size. For example, say I have 3x500gb drives in RAID 5 and over time replace all of them with 1TB drives. Instead of reading one big 3tb drive, it will still read 1.5tb. Is this true? I also considered using JBOD simply because I can use different size hdd's and have them all appear to be one large one, but there is no redundancy with this, which has me leaning away from it. If y'all were building a system for this purpose, how many drives and what size drives would y'all use and would y'all do some form of RAID or what? Also, if anyone has suggestions on motherboard/cpu thoughts, I'm open to suggestions. Thanks guys.
Power

Submission + - What happened to this efficient steam generator?

Submitted by c4colorado
c4colorado writes: I have recently been looking into efficient power and heating equipment and ran across this device:
enginion SteamCell (Translated to English from German)

This device apparently runs off of "Fuel oil, gasoline, Diesel, propane, various renewable bio fuels as well as hydrogen" with about 30% increased efficiency and reduced emissions. This device is only the size of a 12v car battery and can produce up to 25kw of thermal energy and is capable of jumping from 5% to 100% output in milliseconds.

I was interested in using this device to possibly power a modern steam-powered vehicle using a Quasiturbine or similar high-efficiency motor/engine. This could be a new avenue of research for "green" vehicles.

The information about this device and the company that designed it has disapeared, there was a great deal of information about it around 2003 but since then there has been no news or information about it.

I wanted to ask the community if anyone knows of the fate of this product, did the company change their name, get bought out by a big oil company with ulterior motives, go out of business because nobody cared, etc?
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Net taxes proposed for internet sales, email

Submitted by
snobody
snobody writes: "In an article in Cnet News, Washington politicians are planning to break the moratorium on internet sales taxes amd internet access taxes, with one politician even proposing to tax email messages. The politicians make the usual complaints about lost tax revenue to state governments as a justification for repealing the ban. Small businesses with less than $5 million in out of state sales would be exempted. Not discussed is how such tax systems would be implemented. A tax on email would be a non-starter for obvious technical reasons, but that doesn't mean that the politicians would let reality get in the way of their plans."
United States

Submission + - Does Boston Have a Future as a Tech Center?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine (http://www.boston.com/news/specials/futureboston/ ) has an interesting set of articles about how Boston will look ten years from now, including an article about Boston's struggle to reassert itself as a science and technology center in the face of competition from Silicon Valley and other areas and given transportation constraints, skills shortages, and housing challenges (http://www.boston.com/news/specials/futureboston/ articles/2007/05/27/americas_science_city/). Even more interesting: There's an affiliated social networking site, called FutureBoston, with a contest for people to collaborate in coming up with solutions for Boston in the areas of Health, Design and Energy.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - The Slurpr - Mother of all Wi-Fi Access Points!

Submitted by
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten writes: "

On June 1, 2007 Mark Hoekstra (geektechnique.org) will preview The Slurpr at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam. The Slurpr is a high speed Wi-Fi broadband router that takes up to six available Wi-Fi channels and combines them into one free and ultra broadband connection. Fast and Free Internet Access with just one box! Now you can enjoy the great advantages and comfort that come with a high speed internet connection, all for free.

The Slurpr automatically connects to the 6 strongest available Wi-Fi channels in your neighborhood to give you unparalleled connectivity. To make this happen, 6 Wi-Fi adapters are combined in one small package. The six extra sensitive antennae give you an even wider range of connectivity.

The Slurpr will be on display and available for pre-ordering at The Next Web Conference.

Technical specs:

The Slurpr consists of a Six-channel wardrive-box broadbandrouter with 6 11/54Mbit fully configurable Wi-Fi connections bundled and redistributed to 9 wired ethernet connections. A 266MHz MIPS CPU with 64MB RAM with Linux installed on a 1GB Compact Flash card powers this extraordinary set-up.

Both the hardware and software of The Slurpr will be released under a Creative Commons license making it easy for users to build their own Slurprs and using and enhancing the software.

More information on:
http://geektechnique.org/
http://www.slurpr.com/
http://2007.thenextweb.org/

How it all started:
http://www.bomega.com/2006/07/31/who-will-build-me -a-wi-fi-canalizer/"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft software ordered off Macs in NZ schools

Submitted by doofusdog
doofusdog writes: The New Zealand Ministry of Education has decided that the $2.7 million NZD that Microsoft wanted as part of the new Schools Agreement for Office Mac could not be justified. Therefore all schools that installed it under an old agreement must either remove it from all computers or buy separate licenses.

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