Microsoft to Fix Broken Windows
We mentioned
last week that Microsoft Vista had some issues, and we thought some venders were a little quick to adopt the new operating system. While some users were going out of their way to avoid Vista. Jim Louderback the Editor in Chief of the Well known PC Mag. Gave a
parting shot on Vista and that earlier reviews may have gone to easy on Microsoft.
Rest assured, you haven't heard the last of me. I will continue to write a column in PC Magazine. I still have too many issues to discuss with you. For example, my latest beef is with Vista.
Maybe it was something in the water? I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly.
...
I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won't bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux.
It looks like there is some
super secret beta testing for Service Pack 1. Microsoft just announced that they should be r
eleasing it in the first Quarter next year. This is gonna be a big one an over 1 gigabyte download for a servive pack. and one that isn't promising much for extra features.
Vista SP1 will be a large download: Roughly 1GB, based on current test versions. By way of comparison, Windows XP--the whole thing--shipped on a CD, which only holds about three quarters of a gigabyte. Installing the OS upgrade will require 7GB of free hard drive space, though much of that will be returned to the user once the megapatch is applied, Microsoft said.
Some of the fixes will include addressing hibernation and waking up of laptops. Groups Management and allowing Google desktop searching. Of course there will be added driver support and promises of fewer crashes.
A View of Vista
It looks as though vendors for DCS and control systems have jumped on the band wagon pretty fast to use Vista. Foxboro and Honeywell were slow to adopt Windows 2000 and XP platforms, yet, They both seemed to adopt Vista right out of beta. Perhaps its those partnership agreements that they have. I wonder though how much resistance though there is in the users accepting XP. some people don't seem real happy happy with Vista and they may be going out
of their way to avoid adpopting Microsoft windows platforms.
An Open Invitation for the Rosenberg’s of the 21st Century?
It wasn’t enough to let Halliburton dominate the rebuilding of war-torn Iraq, but now Microsoft, EMC, and Cisco have joined together to develop a “secure” network to transmit sensitive government data. I guess it seems absurd to think that one of sixty-thousand Microsoft employees could defect and compromise the entire system. Apparently this alliance was formed in order to simplify the data management and security that the government already has implemented. The three companies will create what they call the SISA Alliance, Secure Information Sharing Architecture; it will allow the government to communicate with all of its vendors securely. Each company is bringing its own expertise to the table: Cisco has its network security, EMC has its storage and information life cycle tools, and Microsoft will use it identity management and client, and operating systems. Other smaller vendors are included in the project: Liquid Machines, Inc., Titus Labs, Island Networks Inc. In order to be apart of the SISA Alliance members must go through a certification process and complete SISA training. It was agreed that all the companies would release any technology for the SISA Alliance together. If memory serves me correctly, EMC had gotten into a little trouble with the quality of their “secure” data storage systems; well it was more of a cover up. We all know how well Microsoft’s products work; the words are worn off of my Ctrl, Alt, Delete keys. When you are talking Big Business and their profits vs. American values, I think Halliburton did a fine job showing America what the privatizing of military responsibilities leads to: $9 Billion in war profiteering. I think the Rosenberg’s just RSVP’d...
Paper May Soon Power The Machine That Replaced It
Ever notice that the only reason some of your electronics are as big as they are is because of their batteries? For instance how much smaller and lighter would your laptop be if it had a battery the size of a piece of paper in it? Well huge, clunky batteries may soon be a thing of the past thanks to some students Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Two groups of students were working on two different projects: working to dissolve paper to be cast for dialysis and making carbon nanotubes with polymers. The two RPI groups got together and figured out that they could combine the two projects. Instead of using the polymers for the nanotubes they could use the paper casting techniques. The device is an integrated device; it is not a combination of several pieces. The paper is in infused with an electrolyte and embedded with the carbon nanotubes. The tubes act as electrodes, the paper the separator, and the electrolytes are the medium in which current flows. Their ultimate goal is to develop a process that allows the batteries to be “printed” like newspapers. This idea is already in use with PCB design and board printing. The current prototype, “a thin sheet black on one side and white on the other”, is still far from being put into any consumer or commercial device, but the hope is there. In the past 18 months the students and researchers have developed the battery, a capacitor, and a new device that acts like both. So until this product hits the market, I guess we are stuck with keeping up with all those letters and numbers: AA, AAA, C, D, A23, AAAA, CR927….
Labels: Electronics, Industry
The Wait Is Over
Let’s say you just got to work and you are booting up your PC, this is where the waiting begins. You have to wait for your hard drive to turn on and get its head in the game. Oh and of course as you are waiting for your system to boot up your boss walks by and definitely notices you sitting there not doing anything. “But it’s not my fault I was waiting for the computer to…” Next thing you know you are putting all your stuff in an empty Hammermill paper box. Well this my friends may be a thing of the past. Japan and the Netherlands teamed up to reinvent the hard drive; a year after its 50th anniversary. The physicists reign from Rabboud University Nijmegen of the Netherlands and Nihon University of Japan. They have devised a way to use lasers to flip the magnetic memory bit in hard drives. Currently, as it is, data is stored on hard drives via magnetic moments that are either in an ‘up’ or ‘down’ position. Then, a certain number of ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ correspond to a binary bit, which then in turn correspond to a piece of data as a whole. An actuator arm with a head at one end and a voice coil on the other control the amount of electricity that gets through the voice coil and on to the platter(the spinning disk inside) which may be spinning at speeds upwards of 15,000RPM. The physicists’ hard drive would use a laser concentrated to 5 micrometers on a piece of magnetic film. The pulse used to flip the bit would be 40 femtoseconds (10-15 s). “Ok, who cares and what does that mean?” Well it means that hard drives will be able to access data 50,000 times faster. Let’s put this in perspective: it takes you 10 minutes to get from your house to the grocery store, now we apply this hard drives speed to your trip now it only takes you 0.012 seconds to get to the store. This is an incredible feat and it is a commercially viable product. If a few minor kinks get worked out, like finding materials with a higher coercivity than the gadolinium, iron, cobalt alloy that they used in the experiments, the hard drives could be on the market in less than 10 years. One of the researchers has already patented the process, he says that anyone could do what they did the only problem would be concentrating a laser to a 50 micrometer spot. By the way 50 micrometers is smaller than the wavelength of the laser itself. So the Hammermill box will soon be a thing of the past, well at least in this instance…
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/30762
Labels: computers, Computing, Electronics, Industry
Energy Directions
Crude oil prices have held pretty firmly to over $70 a barrel for well over a year. With this price structure comes opportunity for some businesses and individuals.
Marathon Oil made the news this week by investing $5.6 Billion in oil sand exploration and development.
CALGARY/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fat wallets and limited opportunities elsewhere may continue to push acquisitions in Canada's oil sands region, analysts say, though soaring costs may leave the sector open to only the very biggest companies.
Earlier this week U.S. refiner Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) agreed to pay $5.56 billion for Western Oil Sands Ltd. (WTO.TO: Quote, Profile, Research), an eight-year old firm whose only operating asset is a 20 percent stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project run by Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research).
The agreement is the latest in a series of big-ticket deals that have extended the reach of some of the globe's biggest oil and gas players into the muskeg and forests of northern Alberta, where an estimated 174 billion barrels of oil lie trapped in sand, a resource second only to Saudi Arabia's.
Marathon joins the Canada sand oil club with Exxon, Shell oil and Chevron. High oil prices are only part of the story. Instability of the Middle East and fears of Venezuela and other nations nationalizing their resources, are causing developers concerns. The higher prices of oil sands and shale oils.
BP is staying out of the feeding frenzy, instead they are choosing to invest in alternative energy. Industries know that stability in our future necessitates moving our dependence from unstable suppliers. Because of a changing market we at Process Control Outlet are making solar energy becomes a part of our future. Adapting is what allows growth and leadership in an ever evolving world.
Labels: Industry
Big Blue Slips Into The Governing Position
It’s not unusual for companies to have rules and guidelines for their employees in the workplace against discrimination, harassment, and the discussion of company property to outsiders, but is expanding these rules to the internet taking it a step too far? Well, IBM and Intel don’t think so. It was reported this week by The Associated Press (AP) that IBM has created a “code of conduct” for what IBM calls the “3D Internet”. However, Intel has taken a slightly more affable approach to the situation. They are drawing up a list of suggestions and organizing a course for Intel employees to take that covers all aspects of the “3D Internet”. The reason behind these rules and”suggestions”? Well, there is a whole lot of money involved in this pseudo-Internet. IBM and Intel now give presentations to clients, link up employees thousands of miles away, and hold business meetings. The users aren’t the only players with money tied up in this. IBM also has also started a “3D Internet” advising company for corporate customers. It wants to help customers design a “3D” business strategy. This idea isn’t as balmy as you may think. Their current customers already include Circuit City and Wimbledon. As for the rules set-up by these companies, well there are some peculiar ones. For instance one of IBM’s rules is that its employees must “create animated avatars with distinct appearances, personalities, and gestures.” They also warn employees of using more than one avatar and equate it as being the same thing as having more than one email address for personal and work related business. These rules are ‘building a reputation within a virtual word” and “abandoning your digital persona may be a violation of that trust”, IBM states. These rules, if violated, aren’t anything that will land the violator in the stocks, but more so to promote moral behavior amongst IBM’s employees. Sandy Kearney, Director of IBM’s 3D initiatives, compares IBM’s rules and regulations to “building a nation.” Some may consider it a little much to start laying down rules on something like a virtual life, especially considering that it is a big business. Where do the rules not apply? What if an employee uses his/her “virtual person” outside of work? Until all of that gets figured out I just hope Palmisano doesn’t get the wrong idea and take his new gig as president the wrong way.
Labels: internet
