Comment Re:How About FreeBSD? (Score 2, Informative) 507

by taobeastie on Friday October 30, 2009 @06:13PM (#29930023) Attached to: Installing Linux On Old Hardware?

If unafraid of console only, FreeBSD (7.2) or even current versions of OpenBSD or NetBSD should work just fine, probably able to use the Network card straight out the gate... -Just a thought...

Comment Re:Network install? (Score 0) 507

by taobeastie on Friday October 30, 2009 @06:06PM (#29929967) Attached to: Installing Linux On Old Hardware?

Mandrake 8-9.2 ran like crap on my P3 500. This guy has jack for memory, so, we're talking Mandrake 6.0 (which is basically a rebranded RH 5.2)... I would probably suggest going with something like Debian 2.0-3.0 at greatest, personally...

Comment Glitches, ya'll... (Score 0) 152

by taobeastie on Friday October 16, 2009 @09:35AM (#29768489) Attached to: Wi-Fi Direct Overlaps Bluetooth Territory For Connecting Devices

Hooray! Another glitch, just waiting to happen! --TaoBeastie

What Kind of Cloud Computing Project Costs $32M? 158

Posted by timothy on Wednesday October 14, 2009 @01:51PM from the those-investors-should-be-pissed dept.

coondoggie writes "The US Department of Energy said today it will spend $32 million on a project that will deploy a large cloud computing test bed with thousands of Intel Nehalem CPU cores and explore commercial offerings from Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Ultimately, the project, known as Magellan, will look at cloud computing as a cost-effective and energy-efficient way for scientists to accelerate discoveries in a variety of disciplines, including analysis of scientific data sets in biology, climate change and physics, the DOE stated. Magellan will explore whether cloud computing can help meet the overwhelming demand for scientific computing. Although computation is an increasingly important tool for scientific discovery, and DOE operates some of the world's most powerful supercomputers, not all research applications require such massive computing power. The number of scientists who would benefit from mid-range computing far exceeds the amount of available resources, the DEO stated."

Comment Cloud computing: Fail! (Score 0) 266

by taobeastie on Wednesday October 14, 2009 @07:50AM (#29743287) Attached to: Yet Another Premature Declaration of Email's Death

Personally, I do not enjoy the prospect of cloud computing and not having the ability to download my emails for offline use. The area of the US where I live is known more for moonshine, not high speed internet access. So, here's my thought: Until we have a fully functional world wide web, where anyone can connect with anything from a cell phone, an ipod touch, a personal computer, or a television and use the www interactively for any purpose from absolutely any location, with ZERO downtime, we will not have the ability to scrap email or the hard disk drive. -Just a thought --TaoBeastie

Comment Re:Glory? (Score 1) 623

by taobeastie on Monday September 28, 2009 @04:09PM (#29572299) Attached to: Has the Glory Gone Out of Working In IT?

Office Space is friggin' awesome... Personally, though, my hero is Eugene "The Plague" Belford, in Hackers. IT is not glorious. IT is grueling, boring, and tedious. IT is why we have Shell scripts, BOFH stories, and 2600 magazine. Oh, and Jolt Cola, Mountain Dew, and coffee makers. The only good parts about a job in IT is the "Flex" scheduling (42 hours in a weekend and a week off to follow is nice), and the ability to smoke where you aren't supposed to (Thanks, Jones). Take IT, like you would a job at McDonald's, with a grain of salt. --Tao Beastie

Comment Why not a shell script? (Score 1) 460

by taobeastie on Tuesday September 22, 2009 @03:42PM (#29508635) Attached to: Large-Scale Mac Deployment?

I don't know if this has been suggested already, but here goes nothing: Setup a BSD shell script for installing the software. That's what I did a few months ago for about 50 or so in a business. In the shell script, I embedded an executable to download a common package from a Linux SFTP server. Once the software install was completed, I only had to click "OK" to exit the install of MS Mac Office 2008. (Aren't corporate licenses great?!) Just a thought... --Taobeastie