The Wonderful World of Early Computing

The history of computing spans thousands of years - from the primitive notched bones found in Africa, to the invention of abacus in 2400 BC, to Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine in 1883, to the rise of the popularity of Personal Computers (PCs) in the 1970s.

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Rant :: Calliforinai Water Pump System

This is a small rant i have. It came about watching Modern Marvels on the history channel. They were talking about the Big Lift, a pump and pipe system in California to deliver water over the mountain rang, and down to the dry southern areas of California. What bothered me is how the guy answer the reason why this need to be done.  He  said that the northern parts of California gets to much water, while the southern part needs the water for the millions of people  living down there. What bothers me, that this would not be needed if was not so over populated in that area.

It is a very simple principle, if there is no water or food in the area don't live there.  Having a water supply where it is not attended, alters the environment and most likely hinders growth and normality. I would not be surprised in years to come with more water issues in the area.

RIP N00b Server

It is sad to say, i think my web server is and down and out. Don't worry it most likely wont effect you, because only a select few people new and had access to my web server. The n00b server project started a few years ago, when i was getting into website design and i needed a web host to practices with. If you know me, you know i can be cheep, therefore i made my own server.

The server was made up of several striped down computer components from old computers. When i say old, there not even breaking the gigahertz mark. To be exact it was running at half of that, at a break neck speed of 500MHz. I was able to squeeze an extra 59 Hz by overclocking it. I was hoping to get more out of it but because i had all miss match memory sticks. Also this was a old mother board and bios with out overvolting or fixing memory speeds. This was all before jumper free clock settings.

The computer was packed tight with hard drives. Four drives ranging in size from 2GB to 10 GB. Each drive had it own purpose. One was used for OS and programs. Another drive was used for was open to the Internet. There was also a drive with a ntfs partition that was mapped out on my local network to act as a small filer server. The last drive was used as the swap partition (page files).

The computer became a server over night, with few installation and configurations. For Os i had a ubuntu 6.06 lts. I opted to use graphic interface, because my Linux skill were not great. Keep in mind this was my first time using Linux on a computer. I was shocked on how smooth every thing went.  The computer ran so well that, at one time it became my main computer! With Apache 2 running in the background i was able to surf the net, down load, install and program.

In later months the server began getting more jobs. Soon it was running SQL for bugzilla, SVN, and TomCat.It was great, and very quick considering what parts i made it from.  The problem came about when i, decided to upgrade to 7.1. The computer locked up in the upgrade. I have a feeling the hard drive died, or just got very corrupt.

The question is what to do with the server. My needs to have my own server has disminition, since i have access to a real web host. I my decommission it, or turn it into a gateway for my network, to ad another security layer. Also it would like be to have a encrypted tunnel to my home network. Other wise, it may become my back end to handle user profiles when i switch completely to Linux with remote profiles. who knows, but I'm up set seeing the server be offline.

2007 Audi A4 2.0T Review

The best parts of buying a good car from a good dealer, with a good warranty. is the rental / loaner cars they let you use while your car is in for repairs or maintness. You drop of a 02 Audi they give you a 07 Audi, good deal in my opinion.

 

The third generation A4, have a bigger front grill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third gen has cleaner and overall smother lines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The doors are not as flat as the second generations.

 

 

 

 

 

Nice dual exhaust

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manual seats :(

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little dirt already

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Trunk, can fit 5 or 6 bodies

 

 

 

 

 

full spare

 

 

 

 

 

Sub in the trunk and rear dash

 

 

 

 

 

 

The control panel display looks the same, but in this model I cant change the display to show other data. Like MPG, runtime.

 

 

 

Love the controls on the steering wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

Six disk cd player

 

 

 

 

 

 

The display is much large then the other Audi. The presets are now on the left and right of the screen opposes to the bottom. The benefits of this, is that it will now display the presets value.

 

 

 

 

Climate controls all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

This is where gets interesting. the other Audi was a 6 speed manual transmission. This is a 6 speed automatic, but with tiptronic.

 

 

 

This is your basic drive. It shifts at around 2 to 2.5 thousand rpm depending how you stomp on the gas

 

 

This is in sports mode. The car becomes much more responsive, and shifts at a higher rpm

 

 

 

 

 

Now it is in the tiptronic mode. Now the power is in your hand. It does not have all the freedom as a true manual, but closet. It will automatically down shift and will up shift at 6000 rpm if you don't shift before it. 

When the car is in gear, the display will show your current gear

 

 

 

 

Very cool, computer controlled breaking system. This is part of the traction system of the quattro. It will on break on wheels that has traction. Also it will only put power on wheels that can handle it. This happens by applying small amount of break to the free spinning wheel. This will cause the shift in torque to the other side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought this was odd. The exhaust comes in to the middle. On the right hand side is what I think is the turbo. On the  left side is where the exhaust leaves.

 

 

 

The intake is on the opposite side of the exhaust. This is because the air is routed from the turbo to the inner cooler on the other side then to the intake.

 

 

That is not the radiator but the inner cooler.

Mac-a-tize Me MacWorld

I'm a little behind on my coverage of MacWorld.  Been busy running around and doing errands that I did not have the time to set down, and enjoy the new offerings.

As I write this, I'm sitting down, intently watching Steve Jobs on stage as if he was some kind of super star. There is something about him that gets people exited, something Bill Gates can never do. His presentations have so much excitement. Like they were saying on Twit last week, Steve can make anything sound interesting, unlike Bill Gates. This obvious, watch Bill Gates Keynote at CES then watch Steve Jobs at MacWorld. In MacWorld you will here hoots and hollers as the camera zoom outs and shows the audience, all  on their PDAs and iPhones, blogging away.

 

Leopard: 5million copes of leopard in 90 days. That's great, considering this was not a super major update. Leopard is 10.5, Tiger was 10.4.  It not like the jump from OS 9 to OS 10. I would consider the upgrade from Windows Xp to Vista as a huge upgrade. Apple has a much better business and development model, unlike Microsoft that releases upgrades every 3 to 4 years, at price of $200 or more.  Apple releases an upgrade about every year for $120. It gets better if you have more then one Mac, since Apple offers a family pack for up to 5 computers for $200.

 

Time Machine appliance aka Time Capsule: I think the whole time machine thing is great. It is nothing new but like always Apple made it user friendly with its' clean interface. Backing up used to be hassle, now with the Time Capsule, it is worry free and automatic. Using the program is almost fun, how you can just craw backwards in time to grab a file. The devices is like NAS unit built into the Airport Extreme. It becomes a great bargain since it is a two in one unit. It has all the router features of the Airport Extreme, which by it self goes for $179. Then apple throughs in either a 500Gb or 1Tb (1000GB) server grade hard drive for $299 or $499. If it was PC capable I would almost buy one.

 

iPhone mark share. If you have not watch the keynote, you will notice that he had a small case of dyslexia, he said 1.3 when it was 3.1. No big deal. The Big news still is what every iPhone user and programmer has been waiting for, it is the API for the iPhone, so we don't have to hack up our iPhone to get cool aps. Then there is those new updates for the iPhone, with Movies now having subtitles, and SMS more then one person at the same time. Most importantly the map upgrade with cell phone tower and WiFi triangulation. All free, Steve said. This scared me, why would a software/firmware update cost any thing. Specially to the one who just shelled out $2000 over a 2 year contract?

Reason why, iPod Touch users have to pay 20 dollars to get the same upgrades. That's messed up. If I ever had to pay for a firmware upgrade for my iPod 5th Gen, I would be flipping down at Apple store. Keep in mind firmware updates, normally removes bugs, and other issues. It is like paying the hardware manufacture of your motherboard to get a new and more stable BIOS to support newer hardware. I'm hoping iPod Touches still get these updates. I have a feeling they're branching the software development between the iPhone and iPod Touch. I also have the feeling that the development API will not be for both iPod Touch and iPhone.  Reason being iPhone is very easy to crack and to add third party programs, therefore they cant charge since there is already an open source program that does the exact same thing. To apple a cracked and unlocked iPhone is a bad thing. Since it increases the chance the user will switch providers. That up sets Apple because they get paid by AT&T for each contract they have with the iPhone.

iTunes: 4 billion song to date, 20 million songs on Christmas day, 125 million TV show, 7 million movies to date. According to to Steve, movies sales was lower then expected, his reason is that no one want to own a movie on there computer since they only watch it a few times and it takes up space. Therefore starting now there will be movie rentals, from every major movie producer. The prices are 2.99 for library title and 3.99 for new releases. A dollar more allows you to upgrade the content to HD. The rule is that you have 30 days to start the movie after purchase, then have 24 hours to finish the movie.

 

Apple Tv: Got an update that allows you to Rent DVDs in HD Dolby Digital 5.1, get the latest podcast, or show photos from flicker or .Mac. Don't forget you can also show Youtube videos, all from your living room seat on that 42 in plasma screen. No longer the need to have a computer to sync content to  the Apple TV. While showing the power of Apple TV with flicker, there was a hick-up in the system with Flicker not "delivering" according to Steve. I'm surprise the update is only software base. The reason why this is a free upgrade, because Apple is making money, because your more willing to order TV shows and rent Movies with this update. For the 40gb modal it will coast you $229, while the 160gb coast $329.The best news so far, is how Fox's DVDs includes a digital copy for iPhones and other digital devices and players.

"Opening the lid, the screen seems brighter. Touching the keys, they seem firmer, but it's the touchpad that captures your attention. Sure, the iPhone does multi-touch, and Microsoft has that table thing, but this is different. Rotating a photograph is no longer (1) selecting the photo, (2) moving the cursor, (3) pressing a button, but simply turning the photo. It's pinching, swiping, zooming your way by hand into the computer, and, in doing so, uncramping 25 years of muscle memory with the mouse. Everything is new again." By  Charles Jade in Macworld.Ars: MacBook Air spec shootout

THE MAC BOOK AIR: Some will say this was the best news during the MacWorld. I disagree, I was not so thrilled about this product. Yes it is the thinnest laptop, but... I was not impress. No cd drive for one. Steve made a good point there is no need for cd drives anyhmore, only to install software. The solution is remote disk. Simply it is like network mapping a local drive or remote desktop with hardware support sharing. There is an external drive you can buy for $99, but it only works with the mac book air. Some of the good news, 5hr battery and mercury free screen. Also the bonds between Apple and Intel seem strong, since they are using a 60% smaller chip designed for this computer.

images by wikipedia and or apple.com