For the questionnaire to find out about Deptford/New Cross consumers and their shopping habits, follow this link:

www.crushed-core.com/questionnaire.html

I think this forum post by ‘revmoo‘ sums it up nicely;

Things I like about Vista:
Aero

Things I hate about Vista:
Everything else

After the VMware autorun debacle (basically turning off autorun in Vista will mess with the ability to actually use your CD/DVD drive) and the constant resetting of folder views, I busted out the trusty N-lite-ed XP SP2 CD and installed it. One problem I will come across is the 4GB RAM limit of XP when I next upgrade. Do I buy a copy of XP x64 or simply live with it? Maybe I could go down the hackintosh route. Hell, I already have all my apps in OS X flavour already. Things I’m missing from Vista; nothing, absolutely nothing.

Still loving XP? Can’t stand going back to XP from Vista? What are your thoughts on the limited step forward that is Vista?

Something that’s lacking from my current workstation setup, pixel estate. Although my cheap and cheerful 17″ Xerox display does reproduce colours exceptionally well, the intregal glass screen is a nightmare to keep clean and it is starting to show it’s age. The dream display upgrade would of course be a pair of Apple Cinema Displays. Two 23 inch-ers would be great but I guess I could live with two 20s.

Yeah my ancient G4 PowerBook’s health is starting to go seriously downhill. The battery holds almost no charge and now the power port is starting to come unsoldered. So a did one of my favourite past-times and played around configuring my ideal computer/laptop. MacBook Pro 15″ 2.5GHz. Up the RAM to 4GB and add in a remote = £1734.01.

The new series of Top Gear started on Sunday on BBC2. They did a tongue-in-cheek look at fuel-economy and declared the Audi R8 the most fuel efficient supercar money can buy. I just thank god the hypermiling craze has not caught on in Europe yet. It’s probably due to the fact we haven’t relied on gas guzzling, huge displacement engines. I don’t necessarily agree with hypermilers, but as long as you do it safely and don’t present a hazzard to others I don’t see why you shouldn’t be allowed to eek out every last mile out of your tank. Just don’t do what Wired Magazine tell you…

They don’t call Wayne Gerdes the king of the hypermilers for nothing. Not only can he pull 200 mpg in a Honda Insight but he can coax 59 miles per from a garden-variety Accord. Gerdes says no single technique will max your mileage. You need the whole toolbox: No brakes! In traffic, maintain a slow creep instead of accelerating and braking. Ignore the horns. Drive with the engine off. Shift into neutral, turn your key back a notch so the engine shuts down, then forward a click, so you can still have lights. Draft. Gerdes urged us not to reveal this (dangerous) move. But we trust you: Inch up behind, say, an 18-wheeler, and kill the engine as you enter its slipstream (you’ll feel it). You’re drafting now, getting pulled along by the truck’s gas instead of your own.

Wired Magazine Issue 15.08

Yeah Gerdes sort of urged you not to reveal the last technique because he knew you’d misinform the reader and endanger lives, good going Wired! You will gain an increase in gas milage from as far back as 100 feet from the trailer (as much as 10% in some cases), but what Wired don’t tell you is that to perform such a manouver, many seasoned hypermilers communicate to the truck via CB radio. Remember if you can’t see the truck’s wing mirrors he can’t see you.

Nope, you never get tired of seeing this.

Supermicro’s blade offerings are being touted as the best solution for a environmentally friendly clustered solution. CRN ranks their blades above the offerings of IBM and Dell. I’m anxious to see what other tricks they have up their sleeves. Obviously the answer is simple: Take their proven blade servers and shrink them even further to improve TCO and space management.

Obviously there are plenty of 4U blade servers out there, so when is Supermicro going to join the ranks? They already produce slim dual processor motherboards that feature in their 1U Twin servers, so two-thirds of the battle is already won. I’d definitely be waiting with the credit cards if a 4U blade was released. Maybe they could send me an engineering sample?

I’m in the middle of redesigning my home network (when I really should be in the middle of my uni work). One of the main points was sneaking a rack into the garage for a firewall, some servers and a beefy NAS. My new workstation has got me thinking of ingenious solutions to a big problem. My workstation is LOUD! Dual Xeons need serious cooling. I could just throw on a fan controller and throttle the two 120mm Akasa fans, but I’m getting back into the swing of Folding@Home and 100% across 8-cores is pushing it.

So the obvious answer is to move the workstation itself into the garage too! Wikipedia tells me the specification for DVI should be fine with the distance though the wall.

The maximum length of DVI cables is not included in the specification since it is dependent on bandwidth requirements (the resolution of the image being transmitted). In general, cable lengths from 1-15 feet (4.5m) will work for displays at resolutions of 1920×1200. Cable lengths up to 50 feet (15m) can be used with displays at resolutions up to 1280×1024. For longer distances, to eliminate the video degradation, the use of a DVI booster is recommended. DVI boosters may or may not use an external power supply.

Moving the box to the garage will solve more problems than just noise. Space constraints and heat issues would be solved. The CPUs could be watercooled using a large, passive external radiator.

I’d have to sketch up some designs, but a simple wall box containing two DVI ports, powered USB hub, FireWire and sound would be pretty simple. Imagine just moving all the I/O ports on the back of your PC to a wall jack. It’d solve the plug nightmare that is the corner of the living room too. Currently 10 devices all need a plug-socket with only one available? Oh god!

Of course it would be a great deal of hard work and investment into this project. For starters I’d have to fabricate a new case suitable for wall mounting. Feature check; wall mountable, light, sturdy, thin (2U if possible) and the operating environment would be quite a challenge. The I/O would be the next greatest challenge, I think the distances involved would be borderline for signal boosters on every bus (DVI, FireWire and USB would all need boosters over 4.5-5m cable length). I’d need a new external CD/DVD solution and it could be a pain to troubleshoot if something went tits up.

However ,the pay-off for such a project would be huge. Having a powerful, absolutly silent (but not in the garage!), ‘invisible’, always-on workstation would be fantastic. Time to check google to see if anybody has attempted/acheived this before!

Graduates Asked Not To Toss Hats via BBC News.

A university has asked students to refrain from throwing their mortar board hats in the air to celebrate graduation in case someone gets hurt.

Anglia Ruskin University, with campuses at Cambridge and Chelmsford in Essex, said a corner of a mortar board could hit someone as it falls.

Officials made the request in a statement on the university’s website.

“It is requested that graduands do not throw their hat up into the air,” the statement said.

The site also gives advice on protocol at graduation ceremonies and what to wear but makes a special plea about mortar board hat tossing.

“This not only causes damage to the hats but it can also cause injury if the corner of the hat hits the graduand or others who may be nearby,” the statement added.

A step too far perhaps? I’m sure we’ve all managed quite fine for a while with our normal graduation ceremonies.

Pretty busy for the rest of May then.

Photography

• Professional Practice preparation
• Launch dedicated portfolio website
• Photo 2 coursework
• Exhibition preparation
• Publish book
• 3rd Year Major project planning

Computer Geekery

• Switch over workstations and general PC setup
• Research Cisco Certification courses at my university
• Assemble my Firewall
• Research NAS solutions
• VMWare dedicated development box
• Day of Defeat: Source dedicated server
• Touch-screen Media server for the kitchen
• Local testing of new site theme

House Shenanigans

• Paint front and rear fences
• Tidy garage and conservatory