Dell – System Board For Precision Workstation(6e580). Refurbished. In Stock.
6e580 Dell Motherboard Desktop Board Workstation Specifications*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Dec 30, 2009 18:35:03
Thursday, December 31, 2009
6e580 Dell Motherboard Desktop Board Workstation
6e580 Dell Motherboard Desktop Board Workstation Review
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Dell Studio Slim Desktop Pc, Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q8200 2.33GHz (4MB L2, 1333FSB), 4GB DDR2 SDRAM, 500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM), 16x DVD +/- RW W/dbl Layer Write Capability, Intel GMA X4500hd Graphics Card, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bi
Dell Studio Slim Desktop Pc, Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q8200 2.33GHz (4MB L2, 1333FSB), 4GB DDR2 SDRAM, 500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM), 16x DVD +/- RW W/dbl Layer Write Capability, Intel GMA X4500hd Graphics Card, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Review
- Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q8200 (4MB L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB), 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz (DDR2 is a memory architecture that enables systems to improve performance and reduce power consumption. The amount of RAM you have determines how many programs can be executed at one time and how much data can be readily available to a program. It also determines how quickly your applications perform and how many applications you can easily toggle between at one time. Simply put, the more RAM you have, the more programs you can run smoothly and simultaneously.)
- 500GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM), 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
- Integrated HDMI and 1394 adapter, Integrated Intel GMA X4500HD Graphics Card, 10/100 Integrated network card
- Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader, USB 2.0 Ports: 2 front, 4 back, USB Multimedia Keyboard, Dell USB 6-Button Logitech Mouse, 250 Watt DC Power Supply
- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 64BIT, Microsoft Works 9.0
The Studio Slim desktop boasts a stylish design with state-of-the-art-technologies that make a home media center more affordable than ever. Packed full of entertainment features, the Studio Slim desktop boasts a stylish design and state-of-the-art technologies for everyday computing and home theater entertaining. Whether you buy this for yourself or for your family, this powerful and scalable desktop can be customized to fit your lifestyle. Slimline design sets up vertically or horizontally. Sophisticated and streamlined, the new Studio Slim desktops piano black finish will be sure to turn heads. Its outer shine will catch your eye, but so will its compact size that allows it to be placed under the TV as a complete media center solution. Listen to music, watch TV, play your favorite movies and even view your digital photo albums all by using the Studio Slim as your media console. The Studio Slim desktop can transform your computing experience while adding a touch of pizzazz.Dimensions: H: 14.2 inches (362 mm), W: 3.9 inches (100.0 mm), D: 17.1 inches (435 mm). Front & Back AV Ports;Front: Microphone (1) and Headphone (1) 1394a (1), Back: line-in, line-out, microphone, rear surround, side surround, 1394a (1)Back: HDMI, VGA
Dell Studio Slim Desktop Pc, Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q8200 2.33GHz (4MB L2, 1333FSB), 4GB DDR2 SDRAM, 500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM), 16x DVD +/- RW W/dbl Layer Write Capability, Intel GMA X4500hd Graphics Card, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Specifications*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Dec 27, 2009 12:06:04
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Cheap Standalone Media Center
I was doing my usual bargain hunting at a local thrift store when I ran across a Dell 4550 Desktop. Needing a new media pc project I found the price tag of $20 hard to pass up. It only needed a hard drive so with one of those that i had laying around the house, a install of XP and some drivers from the Dell I got it up and running in no time.
Then, thanks to Lifehacker I got some really great Media Center DIY tips from this article, “Build a Silent, Standalone XBMC Media Center on the Cheap“.
So summing up:
Media pc 20$
Netflex Video Streaming service 9$ per month (unlimited )
Windows XP OS 0$
Hard Drive 0$
XBMC 0$
Enjoyment of a project well done priceless
You can also find this post at Vanport Media
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Help Support National Entrepreneurship Association
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Thursday, December 10, 2009
(E)Magazines Galore
Awhile back I posted an article linking Conde Nast Publishing and Apple’s development of a tablet PC rumored to hit the market in the fall/winter of 2010. The thought was that Apple was forming some sort of partnership to help pull E-readers to their tablet to help break into a market dominated by specialty readers like Kindle or Nook.
Whether Apple is involved or not, five major publishers have banded together to push for a more open e-literature world. Demanding a universal standard that allows their magazines to be accurately transferred to a digital medium across a wide range of viewers – rather than the specialized files used by current readers – it is clear that this is but a prong on a multi-faceted attack to allow PCs into the suddenly lucrative E-reader world.
If a standard is established and all magazines, newspapers and novels are published in that one form that is open for all computers/readers/cell phones/etc. to download and read, it’ll open up a world of competition for Kindle, Nook and the Sony Reader. Instead of having to make a severely specialized product to compete in the market, a company like Apple (or Del or HP or…) would be able to do what they do best: make a jack-of-all trade machine that hits a specific price range. We’ve seen the proliferation of the netbook (which I find horribly unusable with their smurf sized keyboards…) so we know big box computer companies can easily shift their gears to make smaller computers.
This is something to keep an eye on in the next year and maybe make you re-consider throwing down that two to three hundred bucks on that brand spanking new e-reader. While their displays are nice and they do what they do very well, the e-lit world could be on the cusp of a minor revolution.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
VirtualBox and DKMS
While upgrading VirtualBox to the lastest version (3.0.12) available in Debian repositories (for squeeze), I discovered that the modules needed for VirtualBox to work were compiled on the fly. An unknown process did the job for me : DKMS.
Until very recently, I had to compile myself the source of the following modules : vboxdrv and vboxnetflt
The compilation process was made with module-assistant.
Then, I had to load myself the new modules :
root@localhost:~# modprobe vboxdrv
root@localhost:~# modprobe vboxnetflt
Since the version 3.0 of VirtualBox, its installation has changed a bit.
Manual compilation is no more needed. This job is henceforth done by DKMS.
DKMS stands for Dynamic Kernel Module Support Framework.
Some programs need extra modules to work. These can be already compiled and included in a dedicated Debian package and possibly be loaded at boot time or manually loaded during an user session.
If you want VirtualBox to run properly, the following modules must exist and be loaded :
vboxnetflt, vboxnetadp and vboxdrv
These modules are compiled at boot time by a DKMS process if there are not already present. Then they are automatically loaded.
Before launching VirtualBox, check whether they are here or not :
root@localhost:~# lsmod |grep vbox
vboxnetflt 72328 0
vboxnetadp 66864 0
vboxdrv 102576 1 vboxnetflt
For further technical information about DKMS, please visit the following websites :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support
Dell and DKMS
Selecting the Right Laptop Charger
In recent times, laptop chargers are being easily duplicated. The selection of a good one is very important because the performance of a battery automatically depends on the charger. Hence before buying such a unit you must verify it and check with the user manual. If any of the specifications mentioned are not available then it is better no to buy it. Next you can also check with various user reviews and then decide whether or not to buy a particular unit. Another basic step is to find out that the particular unit you are buying is compatible with your battery or not.
One of the major factors that should be considered for buying these units is whether it is able to withstand extreme heat and cold conditions. Many of these are affected with moisture once they are removed from extremely cold temperature to the normal temperature. This damages the electric circuits within it. Similarly, extreme heat can also hamper the chemical composite of the unit. It must also be made sure that it is able to withstand long hours of charging, which the battery might require. Lithium ion batteries get heated up very easily; hence the chargers must be able to withstand the heat. Most of them are capable of enduring long hours of charging, but some are not.
Technology is so advanced these days that even solar chargers are available in the market; these are known as voltaic solar bags. These solar units convert the heat energy of the sun to electric energy by a process known as photovoltaic effect. With exposure to sunlight for an entire day, the generator of a voltaic solar bag can fully charge a laptop. These bags are protected by water proof panels. Although these bags are quite large and expensive they are totally eco-friendly and help in conservation of energy by using the energy from the sun. Hence, it is becoming common day by day.
These days even timer based chargers are available. The time taken to charge the batteries is noted and the time is then set in the charger. This allows the user to avoid over charging of batteries. Once the laptop is fully charged the charging automatically stops. Another important aspect is speed charging. Speed charging generates excessive amount of heat and hence such units are provided with cooling fans. Suitable batteries that can be charged by these units are NiMH cells.
Thus, there are several ways of selecting a good charger only you need to do your research before buying one.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Posicionamiento y su Importancia
Es un hecho que el fabricante o prestador de servicios debe convencer a su target (mercado objetivo) de que su producto o servicio va a satisfacer su necesidad, mejor que el de la competencia, y para hacerlo éste trata de desarrollar una imagen especial del producto o servicio en la mente del cliente, creando un posicionamiento para ubicar al producto o servicio en la mente de los clientes.
Wave European Southern Observatory, debe quedar claro que refiere Products Posicionamiento not have its own page, Sino-Japanese relations Mende Lo Que hare itself, pulling energy-saving customers ?德洛斯拉斯characters themselves a las Que quiere influenciar.
Producto servicio ES Raforumaanmonoeru Library of percibido Dentoroderamentederosu posicionado Library of consumidores puede ser mas importante para su éxito, el mismo producto mono servicio Library Anssi; no vende hamburguesas, vende sonrisas McDonald's, Xerox industrial de vende copiado, mejora la productividad Dellas oficinas; not Domino's Pizza vende, pizza, vende Tienpode entrega; no graphics card accepted Banamex vende, vende poder de compra; Terumekkusu no vende líneas telefónicas, vende lazos de afectividad, Pricewatherhouse no vende abogados, vende enterprise solution; Classic ejemplos Deuebu Posicionamiento.
El posicionamiento se refiere a las Estrategias orientadas a crear y mantener en la mente de los clientes un determinado concepto del producto o servicio de la empresa en relación con la competencia, siendo parte de una progresión natural cuando se utiliza la segmentación de mercado.
Ante tantos productos, Y ruidos Deoi ago compa?ías en base ES El enfoque no Deruuebu Posicionamiento from the 06% price% algorithm diferente, ya Ramente; ideas las existentes order infantry really mono está en China. La mejor manera de la sobresaturada get mensaje fraud claim Derearusoshieda ES UN penetrar Anramente Y easy, concentrados receptor en ser percibido Aneru Y Y Tienemono as is Anraderu producto realidad.
Si nuestro Posted tiene to objetivo customers can not only Chinese newspaper El Products page itself simplifica newspaper Proceso day selección, energy supplies and gear conceptos los principios que pueden incrementar la efectividad de la comunicación al cual itself concepto de que el Barcelona English La comunicación debe am Lugar is a Chinese newspaper tiempo adecuado supplies and gear depressions circunstancias propicias.
El mensaje para no fijar Anramentede imborrable ES UN Kaya's really El mensaje mas importante, ser China Erupurimeroan penetrarla, muy difícil de hecho ES's Login Ansegundoruga really hacemos Jeju. Sin embargo, hay ciertas estrategias para aquellos Posicionamiento Deuebu days El Mono Uno son Ross.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Stop doing marketing projects and start doing programs
Every marketing manager that I talk to in the tech industry complains about the same things. They don’t have enough budget and they don’t have enough time (resources) to get everything done. Many tech companies still have an open source agency model for below the line marketing activities, meaning they have numerous agencies that they can use to help them get their job done. What I’ve seen is that many marketing managers insist on dividing up their projects between 4 or 5 different agencies every quarter. Maybe it is their company culture to “spread the wealth” or may it is because they don’t want to put their eggs (marketing budget) in one basket.
I’ve been in marketing at both the client level and the agency side for over 13 years and my suggestion to marketing managers at tech companies is to think from a program perspective, rather than a project perspective. By bundling projects together and using one agency that you trust and love, you can save money and time. Instead of doing 5 projects at $40k a piece to 5 different agencies and having to deal with all the PO’s, project management, etc., use one agency for all of them. Benefits include: Less meetings, less PO’s, economies of scale (you can get a better deal on all of it), tighter control and “one throat to choke”. Many marketing managers are afraid of this because they feel it is more risky. Also they want different creative minds on things and want more choices. My suggestion is to request to have your creative work done by mutliple producers and writers within one agency so that you still get the advantage of multiple minds, but with the cost savings of running it like a program.
Again, think about consolidating projects into single programs and using one agency instead of 4 or 5 for the things that you need to get done. You’ll be happy you did.
How Linux (almost) Drove Me To Windows XP
Yep. Sunday afternoon, I was this close to nuking the linux partition on my laptop. Monday, a lack of blank CDROM disks saved me.
I have … three linux machines in the house, not counting commodity items like a TiVo and such. One backup machine, one media machine, and my desktop machine. The backup machine is frozen at Debian unstable sometime four years ago — it works, and upgrades of working boxes scare me. The media machine I keep up to date, again tracking Debian unstable. I recently lost a drive on my last 1.3 kernel machine, a truly ancient and no-longer-used NAT box. My desktop machine has Ubuntu (I think Ibex) on it; but that machine mostly is used as a Windows box.
For the last nearly 10 years, however, my work laptop has been my primary development machine. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in Java development for the bulk of that time; non-GUI Java development no less. Telemetry systems, compilers, logic database servers, etc. For me, the environment is Eclipse and Java. The OS is somewhat less relevant than it is for others. (In the old days of Java 1.0, the environment was Emacs and Make. Make + Java == headaches.) (Some would say Emacs is an OS. Heh.)
So Why Run Linux At All?
Every oneof my work laptops (a succession of Dell’s broken by a Thinkpad) has come with Windows installed; somewhere in 2003-2005, Blackdown’s JDK became available, before Sun was willing to support Linux. Prior to that, the Windows JVM was faster than the Solaris JVM for concurrent operations; for a long while Solaris’s JDK was mired in green_threads and such. But even the early Blackdown JDK delivered better performance on Linux than Sun’s own JDK did on Windows — I went where the speed was. Plus, for server applications, Java really was ‘write-once-run-everywhere’. So I worked hard to keep that Linux partition running as laptops came and went.
What Went Right?
When I got my current laptop, a Dell D830, over two years ago, I decided to stray from my Debian roots. The last laptop had introduced SATA, and has been a real pain to get Debian installed on as SATA support was new and wifty. This time around I decided to try a stock Ubuntu install; Gutsy Gibbon I think. It just flew in. Installation was trivial. I waded through the GCJ junk and got Sun’s JDK installed. Again, the same programs on the same machine under Java were faster under Linux than under Windows XP. Life was good.
Sure, suspend/resume was a fond hope, Flash lagged in terms of support, yatta-yatta. But for me, Eclipse + Linux + Java was fast, fast, fast.
What Went Wrong?
I kept up the install, moving from Gutsy to Hardy to Ibex. Things stayed good. I liked KDE3.
Then I updated to Jaunty and I noticed something. For the first time, Java under XP was nearly as fast as Java under Linux. It didn’t seem that Windows had gotten any better, rather it seemed like there was more gunk in the works in Ubuntu. Plus, either within the release or on purpose, I tried KDE 4.0. It wasn’t that I didn’t like KDE 4; but it just didn’t help me work any better, at a cost of familiarlity (I was compiling KDE 2 for Solaris a lifetime ago; I liked KDE3). Suspend/Resume were still missing, and Nvidia seem to hit a pothole with their drivers. Multihead was still a pain in the ass when you moved between multiple setups daily. I found myself sticking to Windows more often. In the last three months, I use Windows exclusively.
Then Karmic came around. I thought “Hey, there has been lots of rumbling about laptop support; maybe they fixed a bunch of stuff”. So I dist-upgraded. That did not go well; lots of stuff was in odd states, partial packages, strange error messages, general weirdness. I figured, I’d steadily upgraded across multiple releases — moving my partitions across machines — maybe it was time for a clean install? So I burned a CD, tar’d up my home directory, and installed from scratch.
Karmic is neat! Lots of stuff that just works, lots of eye-candy, cool.
Except.
It was slow as molasses.
I mean, ridiculously slow. I have a test suite (all Java) that I run multiple times a day. Around a thousand tests, across the creation and deletion of twenty-plus database servers. Under Windows it takes around 2000 seconds. Left to run overnight, it took over 4.5 hours on the exact same machine under Karmic.
9X Slower? WTF?
Turkey Troubleshooting
My family had a stay-at-home Thanksgiving. My girls watched Mythbusters for hours. I spent most of it installing various Linux distros and trying things. It was painful, and ultimately fruitless, but for an accident.
First, I realized the cpu frequency scaling was keeping my processors at 800Mhz, instead of 2.2Ghz. Further rooting revealed that cpufreqd, when installed, had a rule to limit the frequency to 800Mhz when the temp went above 55C. That was a bit low for my chip, so I removed that rule for the purposes of investigation. That was fun; I could force the system to run at 2.2Ghz, but the temp show up past 95C! I halted the tests before things got melty. (BTW, if you don’t bother to check your CPU speed, you can just be plagued by the feeling that your machine is slow, never realizing it is running slowly. The Gnome CPU Freq applet is a help here.)
No ACPI fan registered at all. The I8K modules see the fan, and can even make it spin faster, but after 3-5 seconds the fan would slow down. Still the system would zoom up past 80C.
Switching back to Windows gave me my first clue — the fan came on, louder than it ever was under Linux, and spun madly for around five minutes. Running the tests showed the CPU temp never getting above 70C. Perhaps there were fan control issues? I found various comments to this effect, lots of random cpufreq comments in the kernel changelogs, and a number of really interesting bug reports in Launchpad. This forum post sums things up nicely. Lots of frustration, apparently since Jaunty, precious few answers.
I ran through Debian Stable, Fedora 12 (very nice), and Arch Linux (also nice if you are willing to spend a bit more time managing your system). Gentoo looked attractive, but I was too cranky by that point. All the systems performed the same, with minimal fan speed and lots of overheating. Only Fedora seemed to match the polish of Ubuntu; only Arch matched the package management of Debian/Ubuntu. FWIW.
Sunday night I bagged it; resigning myself to leaving Linux behind for at least a while. I don’t really have time for a distro I have to work to maintain. This laptop is a tool. My boss will happily fail to pay me for screwing around with Linux.
Eureka!
I went into the office Monday, and I had a problem. The last distro I had installed, Arch, never picked up my Windows XP partition as bootable, and it wasn’t in the Grub menu. I could noodle around in Grub, or I could just install Ubuntu again. Hey, they might fix it someday? Maybe in Lucid?
We couldn’t find a blank CD. What are the odds? Then we found an old one, but Brasero under Arch failed to burn it. Blech.
Then my Release Engineer/IT Guy/Resident Mad Scientist says he thinks he has one already made up. We run Ubuntu on a batch of Dell servers, so it is plausible. (any guesses where this is going?) But he doesn’t have Karmic Desktop — he has Karmic Server.
What the hell — I use the laptop as a server for all intents and purposes anyway, so what could it hurt?
I got it installed, then I installed X, gnome-core, sun-java6, and Eclipse. Ran my test. Blinked. Listened as the fans spun mightily.
Temp never got above 67C. Tests completed in 1799 seconds. Ha! Victory!
Dance of the happy coder!
Wha-at Happened?
Got me. I have some theories.
- no acpid running. NO acpi modules installed. Yes, this means no suspend/resume — I don’t miss it. Boot is so fast I don’t care anymore. I suspect the kernel ACPI code of being … not quite happy with my D830.
- different kernel — Ubuntu server installs the PAE kernel by default. What else might be different in that kernel?
Something is now keeping it’s grimy paws out of the BIOS’s way when it comes to fan control. Someone with more time than I have can work their way incrementally from an Ubuntu Server install to an Ubuntu Desktop install and figure out where the tripwire is.
But Ubuntu Server saved Linux for me.
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