Circuit Writer Version 5.8 by Jim Scheef A New Mainframe! Long Live the Mainframe! It’s not often that IBM, the only company still making “mainframes”, announces a new one, but that is exactly what happened February 26. Predictably named the z10, the new machine is equal to nearly 1,500 x86 servers according to the IBM press release. Someone who has those 1,500 x86 servers could realize significant energy savings of “up to 85%”—whatever that means. Of course IBM and virtualization have been synonymous for 40 years so maybe you could partition a z10 into 1500 virtual machines. Vista at Bargain Basement Prices Microsoft dropped the price of Windows Vista Home Premium from $159.95 to $129.29. So, will you upgrade now? Was the price really the reason holding you back? It wasn’t for me either. Instead, Vista has the reputation of a being a pig. (No offense intended to swine fans). Jason Brooks of eWeek did some simple tests (you can’t call them benchmarks as that upsets Microsoft) comparing Vista with and without the new Vista SP1 service pack and comparing the results to XP, all on identical hardware. One of the features touted for SP1 is improved file handling performance. To test this, Jason copied a large block of files from one partition to another and zipped and unzipped the files using Windows Compressed Folders. From the article on the eWeek website:
He goes on to say that the XP user interface may make it appear to be finished while some cached I/O continues in the background. Unfortunately for Microsoft, perception is reality and that is what the user sees. Does this make you want to “upgrade” to Vista? Personally, I think there is another reason for Vista’s failure and that is the lack of apparent progress in hardware performance. New machines are just not that much faster. Years ago people realized that they really only need so much performance for the typical tasks like email and web surfing. As long as that’s all they do, their old machine is “just fine.” I’m a perfect example of this as I still use my old 800 MHz P3 Winbook laptop for casual web and email. I bought the machine in 2001 just before XP shipped and it is still running the same copy of XP I first installed. I even moved that installation to a new hard drive when I ran out of space on the one that came in the machine. Yes, I tell people that three years is what they should expect from a PC, and after four years I bought the Acer Ferrari laptop that is my main computer today. But even after countless software installs and uninstalls, the Winbook still runs acceptably for the simple stuff nearly seven years later. Thru the 90’s we saw processor upgrades every year or so. Moving from a 486 to a Pentium produced a visible change in the way programs opened and ran. As we moved from a 386 running DOS and Windows 3.x to a 486 running Win9x and on to a P2/3 running Windows 2000, we used the available performance to run multiple programs so we could do more in less time. The hardware and software upgrades brought demonstrative benefits. Now it appears that any performance gains available in the hardware are being eaten by things we don’t want or need—like digital rights management and the Aero graphical interface. I guess I just don’t understand the benefits that a 3-D view of my very 2-D open windows brings to my computing experience. After one good “gee wiz” I’m content to return to Alt-tabbing thru the icons—just like we did in Windows 3.1! And one more thing: I touched on it earlier—DRM and other under-the-covers “security” features. We know that these are “better” in Vista; but better for whom? Microsoft is dialing back one of the more onerous features of Windows activation in SP2. The Windows Genuine Advantage will no longer disable Vista installations but will return to the more thoughtful nagging used under XP. Remember the Microsoft initiative called “Trusted Computing”? While it no longer has a name in the feature list, parts of it are in Vista and the people it trusts are the movie studios, not you. Known as PVP-OPM (Protected Video Path-Output Protection Management) and COPP (Certified Output Protection Protocol), these “features” enforce video digital rights management all the way from the PC hardware to the monitor connected to it. This is the PC version of the same feature in HDTV equipment. Now, isn’t that worth an upgrade? Microsoft Patent Lets Your Computer Watch You I saved the best for last. According to The Times (that would be London, not New York), Microsoft has filed for a patent for software “capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical well-being and competence.” Are you happy, tired, blood pressure a little high? The new Microsoft technology goes way beyond counting keystrokes or even monitoring the number of emails or phone calls you make. This system could take all sorts of monitor inputs to determine if you are frustrated and then take appropriate action. One can only imagine what such action might entail! No, this is not science fiction. Read The Times article; you will either have a nice chuckle or get a cold chill and then read the really excellent blog where I found the reference at Internet Infrastructure Zone. If you think your boss is watching you now… My columns are now available at http://circuitwriter.spaces.live.com/, where there are more links and comments are welcomed. |
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