Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 22nd Nov 2008 17:53 UTC
One of the main problems with Windows Vista (and earlier versions) is that Windows consumes quite a lot of diskspace, with few means to trim down the installation. To make matters worse, Windows tends to accumulate a lot of megabytes and even gigabytes of space during its lifetime, leaving users at a loss as to how to reclaim this lost space. In a post on the Engineering 7 weblog, Microsoft program manager of the core OS deployment feature team (...) Michael Beck explains what Microsoft is doing in order to reduce the disk footprint of Windows 7.
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RE[2]: Disk storage & memory
by sbergman27 on Sun 23rd Nov 2008 20:49
in reply to "RE: Disk storage & memory"
Member since:2005-07-24
disk capacity + memory installed
------------------------------------------- = usage speed = const.
OS and software requirements
------------------------------------------- = usage speed = const.
OS and software requirements
And functionality seems to increase roughly as the cube root of (disk capacity + memory installed). That's the *real* tragedy.
Edited 2008-11-23 20:50 UTC
RE[2]: Disk storage & memory
by -ujb- on Mon 24th Nov 2008 10:39
in reply to "RE: Disk storage & memory"
Member since:2005-10-21
Energy consumption is usually better on "less performant" systems ("low end stuff"), but NB that performance is not a property of hardware or software alone - it's about the combination of both. Well written software is usable even on "low end stuff", just have a look at the many non-"Windows" operating systems such as BeOS (and its successors), the Linusi or the UNIXes.
Indeed, my Linux powered 1.6GHz Atom Netbook (Eee 900A) feels much more sluggish than my L2 cache less 400MHz PPC (MPC5200) driven multimedia frame (a design study based on Efika 5200B) powered by MorphOS 2.x.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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2006-10-08
I really follow this idealistic idea, but I don't think MICROS~1 will, sadly.
Systems as you suggested are very welcome to fields of use where the costs for running the machines are more important than the costs of purchasing them. Of course it's cheap today to buy huge hard drives and tons of RAM, a fast state-of-the-art GPU, mainboard and processor. But now for the power supply and the energy consumption - I think they've grown more expensive than, let's say, a 10 years old typical PC. Energy consumption is usually better on "less performant" systems ("low end stuff"), but NB that performance is not a property of hardware or software alone - it's about the combination of both. Well written software is usable even on "low end stuff", just have a look at the many non-"Windows" operating systems such as BeOS (and its successors), the Linusi or the UNIXes.
The tendency is this: Increase hardware power. Sell software that eats it up completely and cries for more. Sell better hardware. Sell more hungry software... you're getting the idea. That's what industry calls progess - selling all new stuff every few years just in order to keep the users doing the same stuff they did years before.
With today's means, it's relatively easy to build systems as you suggested. But that's not the way MICROS~1 makes profit. You need to buy - you mustn't use free products that offer better performance (and, in conclusion, better usage of the present hardware and furthermore better cost relationships). Whenever a new "Windows" comes out, you can already prepare to buy new hardware. The "old" stuff goes to the waste dump. The environment says "thank you". So instead of creating more efficient software industry just throws mre memory and bigger disks at the customers.
My usual final take:
disk capacity + memory installed
------------------------------------------- = usage speed = const.
OS and software requirements
The "const." conclusion is obvious because that's what happens if you keep increasing numerator and denominator of this quotient.