So many of us know that USB 3.0 is starting to show up just about everywhere but here in the USA.  Granted some high end motherboards now have it that we can get, but, that's about it.  Granted again, who is able to get anything that uses it just yet?  But let's face it, we all want to be ready when it gets here and right now, that's not an option.

It is now.  Belkin has brought out a USB 3.0 PCIe add on card for your desktop, Express-card adapter for your laptop and some nice USB A-B & mini-B cables to use with them.  This is great right?  Sure, save that Belkin seems to think that being first to market also means first to pillage.  The PCIe card will run you $79.99, the Express-card will hit you for $79.99 and the pack of 4ft cables will run you $39.99. 

Lets face it, we are used to high prices for new tech, really we are, but there are limits.  Enjoy it while you can Belkin, as soon as a few others bring their horses to the race, the markup will have to come down a tad.

That being said, anyone with deep pockets that wants to send one of those to us for some testing, would be greatly thanked.

 

Those wacy Belgins @ MadShrimps took the Xirex water cooling system for a spin and had a few things to say about it.  Actually, they had lots to say and some pretty pictures to go along with it.

Personally, I have yet to get my hands on a water cooling rig, but I think it might just have to happen soon once the mercury starts rising in the Techography bunker.

If you haven't seen Boston Dynamics contribution to the Dept of Defense via DARPA then you should definitly take a look now.

Big Dog is absolutely the coolest thing I have seen in a while in military geared robotics!

 

 

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.

No not that kind of fiber. THIS kind of fiber. Yet I must admit the visual imaging that comes with the phrase "Pulling fiber..." can be somewhat nauseating.

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

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.

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....?

Ok, so I lied, but it's still some pretty nice stuff.  As much as Bloodspite and PGS would like for you to believe, I'm actually not dead.  However, as many of you might know, this site was orginally going to be about technology.  Like so many other attempts I've made, it's pretty obvious I failed on this one big time.  All is well however.  I've been given the good fortune to afford multi domains.

An since I own this one as well, that means I can come over here and post a link to another of my sites that is dealing with technology. (I don't sound bitter do I?  I'm really not going for bitter, so please don't misread)

After 5 years, I'm upgrading my PC innards.  You can get some details by visiting our sister site, techography.org.  Though if you click on the big blue line to the left of this text, you can get there a little quicker.  I'm going to finally join the 21st centry of computing and get in on some o that 64bit, multi gb's of ram action I've been reading about for the last few years.  An maybe in a month or so, I might even be able to try some hot SLI action.  We'll have to wait and see.

Frankencase, my loyal home Desktop of many years, is offline.

The storms we had Tuesday was more than my poor old motherboard could handle.

Short version? My external ports on board got fried. The system works but I have no Internet access at home.
So blogging and E-mailing will be limited to me being at work. Which is to say it will be minimal, until I can come up with the money to rebuild Frankencase.

Damn technology.

I'd love to do this while working Tech support.....