TDC Wonk: June 2007

Monday, June 25, 2007

Testing, Testing….1,2,3

This is a short, sweet, to the point Blog Post made to demonstrate the capabilities of Microsoft Word 2007 to post to my blog.

Enjoy!

So, I was tooling around the web this morning and remembered one of the really cool guys I worked with in the past, Van Smith (website).  He works for VIA in some capacity (I don't quite remember what) and really had a lot of good things to say about the EPIA platform. In any case, one of my favourite sites in the past was Mini-itx.com and, I headed there to see what the current news on the platform was.  As soon as I got there, I noticed the following:

mini-itx.com - epia px 10000 review

Now, I'm not easily impressed (and I daresay, the basic FP/ALU perf on these devices is terrible compared to Semprons and Celerons) but, imagine the potential applications.  Car PCs typically don't need much in the way of video performance, portlets won't need much more than a TCP/IP pass through and some basic I/O (did I mention that the Pico-ITX has a SATA port?) and as a network storage appliance (like this), it'd actually function quite well. 

Technorati Tags: VIA, mini-itx, pico itx, embedded, NAS, storage, AMD, Intel

Friday, June 22, 2007

I'm back!!!

not that any of you missed me, but...I'm back!  End of the quarter at my company and things are a madhouse so, i probably should get back to work.  just for reference, I'm going to also start blogging over at Dailytech.com. I'll be focusing on storage and storage technology.  enjoy!

Technorati Tags: storage, technology, blogging, dailytech

Friday, June 8, 2007

Insanity...

...ensues when uninformed, semi-intelligent persons project their ideas of what "should be" on the shoulders of a company who, for lack of a better way of putting it, has recently assimilated a new company. Ideologically, in these persons mind, the buyout should equal the immediate takeover, integration, and co-development of completely NEW products; forsaking the old, already-in-the-pipeline developments that have committed funding, etc.

What said persons don't understand is the assimilation process that has to be done when Company A takes over Company B. Fundementally, the following has to take place:
a.) Corporate Systems (HR, IS, IT, et al.) have to be aligned and integrated. Depending on the size of the companies, this can take several months to several years.
b.) R&D budgeting has to be cleared and re-established. Again, pipeline projects, unless they're deemed untenable are allowed to complete their cycles before funding is removed.
c.) Staffing Re-alignment. Cut-and-burn still happens but culling selectively amongst the ranks can take time to weed out less profitable members of the assimilated org. Oftentimes, financials will suffer for several quarters based on the overhead amongst staffing, acquired debt, etc.

It's a short list but honestly, tremendously impactful to a company trying to grow themselves.

-Dave out.

Technorati Tags: AMD, ATI, buyouts, assimilation, takeovers

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Exhausted...

Spent all day in a QBR (quarterly business review) that just drained me. And the fact that I went last (out of about 17 people) really didn't help. Sure, the coffee, donuts, and bagels that I brought helped assuage the boredom/hunger I was feeling but, still, it's about the equivalent of jamming a pitchfork into your foot repeatedly...the longer you do it, the less painful it gets from the shock.

Technorati Tags: QBR, exhaustion

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Cancellations...

I love being notified of things. When my stock holdings go up, I like hearing that. When quarter-to-quarter revenue at "the other companies" (read: competitors) drops, I'm estastic when notified. What really gets my goat (bah!) is when meetings with my teams are canceled and I'm not notified.

It's not an Outlook problem (heck, Outlook 2007 is the best thing since sliced bread) but more of a control issue with the meeting organizer. *sigh* Back to the training slide decks I was working on.

I hope your meetings are canceled and you're told about it! That'd improve upon my process. :)

Technorati Tags: meetings, tech, teams, outlook

Further explanations on Barcelona

To answer some of the criticisms I've received this morning:

No, it's not nitpicking. There are real disparities present that supercede stupid fanboyisms. Even further, no one actually knows about how the platforms were configured, etc. so, going on the principle of repeated scientific validation, it's completely a kludge.

I'm not saying that Barcelona WOULD win at a clock/clock level. I'm simply taking issue with deriving production #'s from a 5 minute test conducted without ANY sort of validation or data on the tested platforms.

I'd love to lab test the same scenario with apples/apples. it'd be interesting, to say the least.

Technorati Tags: AMD, Barcelona, Intel, Dailytech

Benchmarking Idiocy

So, a "person who shall not be named in my blog" posted a link to this story over at DailyTech. Now, a few notes on the article (for people who can't read):
a.) There is a decided clock speed DISADVANTAGE between the Barcelona and the Xeon 3220 (1.6ghz vs. 2.4ghz)
b.) The Intel Xeon 3220 is running on the newest Intel Chipset (x38) versus an older, non-HT3 compliant nVidia Prof. 3400
c.) The Intel Xeon 3220 is running 4gb of DDR2-800 versus 4gb of DDR2-667 on the AMD Barcelona.
d.) The Intel Xeon 3220 is a "mature" processor built on already established silicon that's been out for at least a year. The Barcelona is pre-release silicon that hasn't even completed the final silicon runs at the foundry.

So, people who claim that Barcelona isn't performing well are really basing their ridiculous assumptions on pre-release, heavily biased benchmarking.

Note: Kristopher Kubicki and I do have a good history of interaction together and I know that this article is not to belittle AMD's work so far. The points I've enumerated above simply point to 4 KEY discrepancies in the benchmarking methodology that people should be aware of before jumping to conclusions.

Technorati Tags: AMD, Barcelona, clock speed, Intel, processors, DailyTech

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

More Pac-Man?

Looks like Pac-Man is coming back into town!!!!

I remember the Pac from way back when: sitting in the local pizza joint at the 2 seat console playing against my brother. good times.

Technorati Tags: pac-man, games, microsoft

Conference Calls...

Conference calls are fun, especially if you're just one of the occasionally listening/responding kinda persons. I'm sitting on one right now that's been going for 50 minutes (out of 3 hours) and honestly, it's still rolling along like an old steam train. Love my Cisco phone and Plantronics headset for their relative comfort on the volume and ergonomic capabilities and punching blogging through using Firefox 2.0.4 and ScribeFire makes chatting with ya very easy. Dave out.

Technorati Tags: conference, technology, users, Cisco, Plantronics, Firefox, ScribeFire

Happiness is...

...thinking you have a tool that makes your job easier only to discover, you read the briefing wrong, are not considered part of the "group" that is the ultimate recipient of said tool, and, to further complicate things, the job you were hoping was going to be made easier is redundant anyway. Oops.

Technorati Tags: job, tool

Tape and VTL....

So, I noticed the following on one of the forums I frequent:

We have a few corrupted tapes here and I was just wondering if anyone else here has restored any data using some particular software?

Now, of course, I've got some snippy come-back like "Ah....tape...God Bless You but we're using VTL" or "Tape? Got a magnet handy?" but, it got me thinking. ATA disk is so freaking cheap these days that it actually seems quite ridiculous to spend XX dollars on slow, offsite storage mechanism like, well, tape. So, what I'd propose is one of these: EMC EDL. What do YOU think?

Technorati Tags: EMC, tape, disk library, storage, VTL, EDL

Shipping News...

Shipping is a nightmare. Not only do I tend to ship a lot of product around the world, I have some customers who's schedules are insane. "Dave, I need X product by tomorrow." or "Dave, can you get this to me in Bangalore by week-end?" so on, so forth. I LOVE challenges, don't forget, but the logistics are killer. For what it's worth, it's quicker to get a package to the UK via Global EMS than to a customer in Canada via the same courier.

Technorati Tags: Global EMS, shipping, Canada, UK

Monday, June 4, 2007

I hate Projects!!!!

So, I was given a project timeline today to "press through" and create a nifty little Project Professional 2007 Gantt chart for. 5 hours later i'm about ready to do myself in. Not because of the Project software, the rep involved or....well, whatever. My eyes are bleeding by now. It hurts, Drake! It HURTS!

Technorati Tags: microsoft, project professional, Gantt

Coke Plus: Stranger than...

Remember Crystal Pepsi, Coke II, and various other one-offs created by the policy engines at leading "cola" manufacturers? Remember how well they did as a profitable item? Me either. Enter "Coke Plus: Coke with Vitamins and Minerals." Tastes sweeter than standard Diet Coke and contains 15% of your daily allowance of Niacin, Vitamin B6/B12, 10% of Magnesium and Zinc. Yipee. Just another excuse to drink something that is in the company cooler.

Technorati Tags: Coca-cola, coke, coke plus

So, you're In Hell?

Because I am a doctor's son, I occasionally get the unmitigated joy of finding stories that have, at their core, medical significance, etc. Imagine my glee this morning to run across this story at the Houston Chronicle: "Parents of TB patient are 'in hell.'" I am a kind and generally loving man. However, one thing that REALLY pisses me off is this particular TB patient's casual dismissal of doctor's observations accompanied by a brief jaunt to Europe with a "tail between the legs" escape back via Canada. And now his parents are "in hell?" Please. Grow a pair.

Introductions

I'm no one popular, no one funny.  Just simply me with my perspective on life, liberty and the pursuit (of happiness, etc.).  So, without further ado, here's my brief introduction.

Name: Dave

Relational Status: married w/child

Children: 1

Job: yes, at a rather large technology firm

Hobbies:  computer system building, music (guitar playing), reading, playing with my kid

Political leanings: erfff....i'm not a registered party member on either side. I vote MY issues, not yours.

State of Residence: MA

anyhow, more later....

TDC Wonk