Sunday, June 18, 2006

A Magazine Partially Loaded

The English Publication "Linux Format" has been my favorite magazine since I discovered it 5, maybe 6 years ago. On top of the excellent articles on "Things Linux" it came with a CD or DVD of Linux Software.
I've always been a fan of this method of "playing with the system software". I began using monthly magazine software since the days of Tandy's (Radio Shack) Color Computer, when I was receiving a monthly CASSETTE called "Chromasette". Linux Format has dutifully produced a CD version and a DVD version for the last few years, and always wanting more for my money, I usually grabbed the DVD-version at my local B&N bookstore. Sometimes, being in too much a hurry, or for smaller Boot Distros, I'd get the CD-version. I did this this month and grabbed the CD-version by mistake.

The CD does hold a lot, compared to the 60-minute cassette that came for the COCO, but a DVD holds tons more.

Well, it turns out that the June Issue of LFX will be the Last One to come with a CD-version. The End of an Era.

I've been forced to migrate, because of technology, from cassette to CD to DVD.

I also upgraded my storage from 80 gig to 160 gig, trying to stay ahead of the curve.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

One Shiny Moment, quickly Dashed

A couple of weeks agao I read a newsfeed that I felt was going to send shockwaves throughout the Server Sector. Sunmicrosystems had a NEW Processor that was multi-core and multi-threaded. It promised to stem the trend of Server Bloat that necessitated the ever increasing size and space for Servers. The New Core would knock down size of the Server by 60% and increase performance by 80%. And an additional benefit was less power and heat.

All this sounded too good to be true.

I wondered what kind of a "hit" linux servers would take.

That was a couple of weeks ago.

Today, on the morning business update, a report came out that Sun Microsystems was cutting 5,000 jobs.

What is the back story?

Stay tuned.