Hardware

I have evolved over the years with windows. I have used every single windows implementation ever built from windows 3.1 through Vista. Yeah, even Windows Millennium (! yuck), so I know about windows faults, every one of them.

I have also used (worked with etcetera) quite a number of UNIX derivatives including all major (as at 2005) Linux distros, several BSD distros (including FreeBSD which is my personal favorite), HP UX, AIX etcetera.

But two weeks ago, I picked up an Apple MacBook and I wondered; "why all the hoopla?".

"Open Source" almost always refers to software.  Of course it doesn't have to be so restricted, and so it was interesting to come across an Open Source project devoted to hardware!  The <a href="http://openprosthetics.org/">Open Prosthetics Project</a> "is producing useful innovations in the field of prosthetics and giving the designs away for free."

The logic is similar to that used to justify Open Source software.

I wish them well!

Chip maker Intel have announced that they will release the 2D and 3D graphics drivers for their 965 family of chips. This will provide a way for open source users running Linux, and BSD to get the very best out of their hardware.

There are three likely motivations for this. Firstly, a significant minority of desktop and laptop hardware shoppers know that they're going to be running open source and so will presumably going with Intel will allow them to be confident that their new hardware will "just work." Secondly, the increasing power and memory of modern GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) such the 965 family makes them very attractive for use as general purpose computing, and open sourcing the drivers enables developers to build novel new hardware configurations, which use the Intel chips in exciting ways. Thirdly, Intel relies on a steady stream of bright young men and women from universities and open sourcing the drivers makes it more likely that universities will use Intel rather than a competitors hardware in low-level graphics teaching and research, making Intel a more attractive place to work when they leave.

Five weeks ago, I returned from a one week vacation to find a dead hard drive in my computer. It's a standard DiamondMax Plus 8 40GB drive that came with my HP/Compaq WinXP Pro system. When I booted up, it just did some clicking and said that the drive had 0 MB on it. We have since sent the drive to DriveSavers for recovery, but they were not able to recover any data.

I think they normally charge a couple hundred dollars for an attempt fee, but for us, they charged nothing because we're an educational institution. The recovery fee was estimated at $1700. So, since they would not get any payment unless they recovered data, and since they sent it back with no results, I'm assuming that my chances are slim at finding someone who can recover the data. We've now sent two such drives to DriveSavers with no luck. I'm wondering if anyone else has had any luck in this area, with DriveSavers or anyone else.

(I've spent the past 5 weeks building a new life on my new hard drive. I've been working here for a year and a half and no, I didn't have any backup of any kind. It's like being a new employee again. No e-mail. No bookmarks. I've already heard it all from my loving and caring colleagues here at SNC, so don't start.)