Comment I love the new redesign (Score 1) 2254
This new design rocks, for everyone else who doent like it all i have to say is "Deal with it Nerd"
The Go-Anywhere Cyber Cafe In a Shipping Container 145
nk497 writes "UK IT charity Computer AID has come up with a clever idea to use shipping containers to house thin-client-based, solar-powered cyber cafes, which can be used to bring connectivity to rural communities in Africa. The £20,000 boxes use a single Pentium 4 PC split out using thin client devices to offer computing to 10 people via local wireless access or mobile broadband. The solar power created from a single panel is enough to power the PC, 10 monitors, lighting, and also to charge mobile phones. Computer Aid founder Tony Roberts notes, 'The power of this idea is that we can drop that container anywhere in the world, literally in the middle of the Sahara desert.'"
Submission + - Start-up claims SSD achieves 180,000 IOPS (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: "Three-year-old start-up Pliant Technology today announced the general availability of a new class of enterprise SAS solid state disk drives that it claims without using any cache can achieve up to 180,000 IOPS for sustained read/write rates of 500MB/sec and 320MB/sec, respectively. The
company also claims an unlimited number of daily writes to its new flash drives, guaranteeing 5 years of service with no slowdown. 'Pliant's SSD controller architecture is not vastly different from those of other high-end SSD manufacturers. It has twelve independent I/O channels to interleaved single level cell (SLC) NAND flash chips from Samsung Corp. The drives are configured as RAID 0 for increased performance and the controller.'"
company also claims an unlimited number of daily writes to its new flash drives, guaranteeing 5 years of service with no slowdown. 'Pliant's SSD controller architecture is not vastly different from those of other high-end SSD manufacturers. It has twelve independent I/O channels to interleaved single level cell (SLC) NAND flash chips from Samsung Corp. The drives are configured as RAID 0 for increased performance and the controller.'"
Submission + - Thieves Clear Out Apple Store In 31 Seconds 3
theodp writes: "An amazing surveillance tape of a burglary in progress at a NJ Apple Store (YouTube) shows five perps in masks smashing the plate-glass doors at 2:05 a.m., signaling to the security guard that they had a gun, and clearing off the display tables with the efficiency of a Indy 500 pit crew. The take: 23 MacBook Pros, 14 iPhones and 9 iPod touches in 31 seconds flat. Estimated value, based on average selling price: $46,345. No word yet on whether Microsoft's Laptop Hunters have alibis."
Submission + - All-You-Can-Eat College for $99-a-Month
theodp writes: "Writing in Washington Monthly, Kevin Carey has seen the future of college education. It costs $99-a-month, and there's no limit on the number of courses you can take. Tiny online education firm StraighterLine is out to challenge the seeming permanency of traditional colleges and universities. How? Like Craigslist, StraighterLine threatens the most profitable piece of its competitors' business: freshman lectures, higher education's equivalent of the classified section. It's no surprise, then, that as StraighterLine tried to buck the system, the system began to push back, challenging deals the company struck with accredited traditional and for-profit institutions to allow StraighterLine courses to be transferred for credit. But even if StraighterLine doesn't succeed in bringing extremely cheap college courses to the masses, it's likely that another player eventually will."
Submission + - Kernel 2.6.31 to speed up Linux desktop (techworld.com.au)
Dan Jones writes: As the Linux community looks forward to another kernel release, the kernel hackers have been working on improving the memory management so that the X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. The result is an improved desktop experience. Benchmarks on memory tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. Another improvement coming with 2.6.31 is kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards enabling faster user switching and a more seamless startup experience. Peripheral developments that will also improve the Linux desktop experience include support for the new USB 3.0 specification and a new Firewire stack. Even minor Linux releases have heaps of new features these days!
Submission + - Running Old Desktops Headless? (blogspot.com) 2
CajunArson writes: I have recently dug up an old P4 that is in fine working order and done what any self respecting Slashdotter would do... I slapped Linux on it to experiment making an NFSv4 server. One other thing I did was to remove the old AGP video card to save on power since this is a headless machine. Now... I removed the video card after the installation, and I'm doing just fine as long as the machine will boot to a state where networking works and I can SSH to it.
My question for the Slashdot audience is: Is there a good solution to allow me to login to this box if it cannot get on the network? I'm looking for solutions other than slapping a video card back in. In my case, I will have physical access to the machine.
A few caveats to make it interesting: This question is for plain old desktop/laptop systems, not network servers designed to run headless. Also, I am aware of the serial console, but even "old" machines may only have USB, and I have not seen any good documentation on how and if USB works as a substitute. Finally, if there is any way to access the BIOS settings without needing a video card that would be an extra bonus, but I'm satisfied with just local OS access starting from the GRUB prompt. I'm all ears for advice from any Slashdotters with these setups running.
My question for the Slashdot audience is: Is there a good solution to allow me to login to this box if it cannot get on the network? I'm looking for solutions other than slapping a video card back in. In my case, I will have physical access to the machine.
A few caveats to make it interesting: This question is for plain old desktop/laptop systems, not network servers designed to run headless. Also, I am aware of the serial console, but even "old" machines may only have USB, and I have not seen any good documentation on how and if USB works as a substitute. Finally, if there is any way to access the BIOS settings without needing a video card that would be an extra bonus, but I'm satisfied with just local OS access starting from the GRUB prompt. I'm all ears for advice from any Slashdotters with these setups running.
