The NCSA held a community day yesterday at their new National Petascale Computing Facility located in Champaign, IL which will be the home of the Blue Waters Sustained Petascale Computing super-computer amongst other super computers. When the new hardware comes online next year it will be the world's fastest super-computer yet, powered by IBM's POWER7 systems. With the rest of … [Read more...]
Good in Theory, Poor Execution: A/C in the Home Office
This is one of those occasions where I get to tell you that I was wrong. I tried something and it failed. In theory it was sound, would have saved energy, and improved comfort. The plan was to add a window air conditioner in my office at home. With the weather we've already had before even getting to the hot summer months, it sounded like an ideal setup. Unfortunately, like … [Read more...]
Product Review: Apple iPad
I had the opportunity this past week to check out an iPad and use it as my own for a few days. The conclusion I'm walking away with is that I'm underwhelmed and grateful that it wasn't my own money that I spent on the gadget. This may be one of the few critical iPad reviews out there but of course, it isn't all negatives. There are a number of positive features on the device … [Read more...]
Greener Electronics
Greenpeace today published their 15th version of their Guide to Greener Electronics. In it, they give companies like Nokia, Apple, HP, Sony, and others a score out of 10 on how the company is doing in important green efforts in the categories of chemicals, e-waste, and energy. The organization has been publishing these guides regularly since August 2006. Our three goals for … [Read more...]
Photocopiers, an Identity Theft Gold Mine
About a month ago, there was an interesting story on the CBS evening news that revealed a little known fact: most photocopiers have a hard drive in them and they contain a copy of every document ever scanned on the photocopier. We've covered using DBaN before to wipe the hard drive of your computers before you get rid of them but did you even know that your photocopier had a … [Read more...]