Despite any rumors BS might have spread, I'm still alive.  My absence (as always) was due to my job.  Nothing like a 5 month long project to snow a guy under.  So now I'm hoping to start getting things back in order.  The site is behind in updates, which will be my first priority.  After that, well, we'll just have to see.

I do see that it's been a while since PGS has posted anything, anyone know if he's still around?

Got a 3 day project pulling fiber for aheavy hitter here in Northwet Arkansas. Might lead to some more regular work later if w do this right.

So of course you know what I do when I get the call.

Customer "Yeah I need a couple of guys to pull fiber from the 1st story of a hotel to the 14th story..."

Me "How many ya need?"

Customer "A small army..."

Me "Fortunately for you I specialize in small Armies..."

Customer "Thats what I have heard. And exactly what I wanted to hear."

So myself and about 4 guys all of my former employer are heading out to pull fiber. From the sound of the Scope of Work we'll get 40 hours in the next 3 days pretty easy.

Thusly blogging may be light for  day or two, but rest assured I will try to put something up 

On Thursday, the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research unveiled the new IBM computer, dubbed Blue Fire, which will be one of the 25 most powerful — and efficient — computers in the world.

(Large Picture Image located here)

The machine is capable of performing more than 76 trillion calculations a second, per NCAR.

  It's replacing three older supercomputers with an aggregate processing speed of 20 teraflops. One teraflop is equal to 1 trillion floating decimal point operations per second.

Bluefire is part of NCAR's effort to build a computing platform called the Integrated Environment for Scientific Simulation. The system is set to go live in August.

With Bluefire, NCAR researchers and their collaborators now can add more detailed information than in the past — because there had not been enough computing power.

Bluefire also should let researchers add changing landscapes — the expansion of cities and conversion of forests into cropland — into climate models.. This should improve their accuracy.

The new computer, an IBM Power 575, is made up of 11 closet-sized cabinets and will consume about as much energy as 600 to 700 typical households.

That's significantly less than the energy consumed by NCAR's two supercomputers in use today.

When those two computers are turned off in a few months, NCAR's supercomputing facility should require about 10 percent less energy.

Bluefire relies on a unique, water-based cooling system that is 33 percent more energy efficient than traditional air-cooled systems. Heat is removed from the electronics by water-chilled copper plates mounted in direct contact with each POWER6 microprocessor chip. As a result of this water-cooled system and POWER6 efficiencies, bluefire is three times more energy efficient per rack than its predecessor. Bluefire is cooled by the  copper pipes carrying chilly liquid — not the energy-intensive air-conditioning units more common in recent years.

Bluefire more than triples computing power at NCAR,

You can see all the pictures at the NCAR website

A big congratz goes out to my long time friend Tom (aka Edge) and his wife on the birth of their second daughter Laila.

While Tom and I have never actually met in person, we have been friends for roughly 11 years and I am very happy to spread the news of his family's good fortune.  May there be many bedtime stories in her future.

Ok, I've been the proud owner of a HP Photosmart M425 for a bit now.

It has been an awesome camera and up until recently I have loved owning it every second. Until, as I said, recently.

Then, one day, the LCD started showing as a white screen. All my menu's were fine, I could view my old pictures, just fine, but if I wanted to take a new picture...white screen. And then if I viewed them, those pictures would be white, almost a negative look to them; but my old ones would still be in color.

Then the power button broke while I was fiddling with it.

So i call up HP, they made the thing right? $180 camera at the time, surely they can do something to help me right?

Not.

90 day warranty is all they give the unit. And my $180 camera, they will trade in, and if I'm willing to give them another $90 bucks plus shipping and handling they will send me a new unit of "equal or lesser value than your current one"

You have to be kidding me. Is it just me or suddenly does every product making company in the US view their items as disposable, and think I have $90 or $180 to drop at a moments notice?

I bought their product to begin with on the basis of reliability, ease of use, and good support.

Now I need a camera for my Georgia trip next week, so i can do my technical documentation correctly, and what do I have to take my pictures with? Nothing.

Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

What makes it worse is, when i called the HP Support Center, first they made me register via their website. Then I had to call back in. Then the new guy the automated system transferred me to spoke English so bad, After he told me I could get support for my broken button online. I asked how, and then he realized "Oh, maybe not.", he transferred me to yet another department. " Who couldn't tell me if my Camera was in warranty or not, even after I gave them the serial number, again trying to get me to use their online support for a physical defect, and transferred me to yet another department who told me they don't actually repair anything. They just replace it. But they couldn't replace my unit, they had to transfer me to yet another department who finally told me "Oh gee, your unit is out of warranty."

I was on the phone over 45 minutes, had to call back in once, transferred 3 times all to be told "Your unit is out of warranty."

Thanks for nothing HP.

I'll be spending my money elsewhere next time.

The death of XP is coming, and unlike 2000, it is coming with much more fanfare and opposition.

Personally I still use 2000. I detested XP. I truly detest Vista.

But either way, get ready.

Microsoft has already made changes in its timetables. Last year, the company extended the sales life cycle -- the time during which PC manufacturers and system builders could sell computers with XP installed -- to June 30, 2008. It will stop selling XP altogether on Jan. 31, 2009. And it extended the mainstream support period for XP to April 14, 2009, in an effort to reassure customers made nervous by the long delays in shipping Vista.

The result of all this tweaking is that Microsoft will stop selling XP long before it stops supporting it. You may be able to run XP for as long as you want, but before too long you may not be able to buy a legitimate copy of XP to run.

First laid out in 2001 and revised in 2002 and 2004, the guidelines defined a three-phase life span and created a division between business desktop software and consumer desktop software. (In the beginning, it was easier to distinguish between business products based on the NT kernel -- like Windows NT and Windows 2000 -- and consumer products that ran on top of DOS, like Windows 98 and ME.)

• Mainstream phase: In the prime of a product's life, Microsoft provides both free and paid live support, support for warranty claims and online self-help support information. Software support and maintenance is extensive and free, with downloadable fixes and updates, service packs and freely available support for problem incidents, as well as requests for design changes and new features. Business customers may pay for additional support.
• Extended phase: Free live support and warranty support end, and free maintenance of consumer products is limited to security fixes. Self-help support information remains available online. Pay-per-incident live support remains available. Software patches and updates continue for business desktop software.
• End of life: Online support information is removed. Patches and updates cease. The product is history.

Yes yes yes I am a horrible person for not updating sooner.

I *will* be at Celtic Grill tonight.

Look for the short fat Irish guy, with the Black Guiness Hat, and Green Polo with little Golfers all over it.

Oh yea, and I'll have a "Kiss me I'm Irish" Pin :)

So in Honor of St Patrick's Day here are some of our irish Blasts from the Past!

Tribute to St Patricks Day

Toasts for St Patricks Day

The Orangemen

The American Wake

Danny Boy

Easter Rising

A gentle reminder, dear readers and bloggers.

The 4th Annual Techography St. patricks Day Blog Party will again be held at Celtic Grill in Bentonville.

All bloggers and readers are invited.

I'll be arriving early, around 18:00 Central Time at the locally reknowned Celtic Grill

Directions can be found here.

I hope to see many of you there for the live traditional Irish music, Guiness on tap, and Blioggers!

Feel free to use the image on the right  to display and invite attendee's!

Just incase anyone was wondering, yes I'm still alive.  So put the chapange away for a while longer.

Much like BloodSpite, I work in IT, however, I don't have to travel much or lead a team of circus performers.  I do however deal with about 1000 local users, their workstations, my fair share of servers and a horribly planned aging network.  Well, some of that is now changing.

A full building rewire is about to start any day now.  Moving from cat3 to cat6e for both network and telco.  Fun times, but lots of work.  For the last few months, this project has been looked at from every side, vendors brought in for quotes on the wiring as well as construction/demolition.  So, thats why you never hear from me. 

Problem is, it's been bad enough that I haven't even had time to call BloodSpite on the weekends.  So I thought I'd steal a few min between conference calls just to let the world know that I'm still kicking.

For some IT Guys, having a bad day is reimaging computers.

Or having a software glitch.

Or a tape back up fail.

Or a lot of service tickets.

For My Team & I however....?