Sunday, December 23, 2007

My New Rig - Part I : Shopping

Well, in Delhi - where I live - we have this famous place called "Nehru Place" where we get all our components.    It's the pilgrimage we undertake when we have a requirement for a new PC. 

You need to understand that in India we do not have the likes of Best Buy or Fry's or any such specialized chain stores.  We have a Hong Kong style - China style? - bazaar, an array of stores so small that it cannot fit a compact car, teeming with people that tries to sell everything from software [pirated, of course] to sleaze to laptops to pre-assembled computers to full blown parallel processing marvels.

Yeah, I see you rolling your eyes.  Ok, I'm stretching it a bit but only the last bit ;).  And for those patriots, ok, we are the next US of A.  We do starting to have stores such as eZone that specialize in computer components.

The point is, when you ask for some component with a number such as D975XBX2, it's  most likely the shop in question would make a couple of phone calls to determine availability [to one of the shops in the same complex, of course] and say why don't I buy Asus P5KC.  It's the new in thing that the rest of the Delhi is buying [, you moron].

Another beauty is that you have to make your decision, in a jiffy.  You see, there will be people - at least a dozen - jostling with you, shouting at the shop keeper for a DDR 2 RAM or a Microsoft Ergo mouse.  The shopkeeper's attention span is usually less than a two seconds.  He'll be juggling two phones and a cellular phone simultaneously talking to his customers and vendors and showing off his parallel processing capabilities.

Bottom line:   I did dutifully accept the offer of taking an S975XBX2 instead of the asked for D95XBX2.

Here's my final component list:

  • A pirate's version of  Apple's cabinet with handles
    • I couldn't find the link where I saw the apple's design.  Will provide it later.
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
  • SG975XBX2
  • Transcend 4 GB DDR II RAM [800 MHz]
    • 4 single pieces.  Surprise, Surprise!  The guy didn't have a 2 GB pieces of DDR II
  • No Graphics Card
  • No Sound Card
    • All the newer boards support 7.1 Surround which would suffice my needs.
  • Ethernet Card
    • Most of the above motherboards have LAN built-in

I purchased them about 3 weeks ago.  At last, got sometime to blog [with my darling daughter throwing things at me in the background].

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Scalability in Physics vs. Scalability in Computer Science

In my experience, I've seen that most of the solutions are just a restatement of their scale.  That is, scale and the solution is so intricately intertwined, that the solution is not applicable to the same problem of a larger scale.  Unless, of course, the solution keeps scale in mind [a solution that can be scaled up, and more importantly scaled out].

I saw this [couple of months ago]:  A nuclear reactor built in the basement.

Hmm... I'm no physicist, but it seems scalability in software is a unique problem ;)

 

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Saturday, December 08, 2007

My Proposed New Rig: Core 2 Quad 6600

I think it's time for a new rig for me.  This would be my third - DIY - custom built system (See:   Jeff's DIY evangelism).   My current one is a Intel Pentium 2.4 GHz HT.  Here's the complete configuration:

  • Intel Pentium 2.4 GHz HT
  • Intel D865GBF Motherboard
  • Nvidia GeForce 6200
    • More recent addition, after I installed Vista Enterprise on an auxiliary drive
  • 1 GB DDR RAM [400 MHz]
  • HDD
    • 120 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA
    • 150 GB Samsung SATA
    • Elements 300 GB [External, USB]
  • No Sound Card
    • I find the integrated audio enough for my needs [4.1 Surround]
  • Ethernet Card
  • Samsung SyncMaster 206BW 20" LCD
  • Sony DVD +- RW Writer
  • Sony DVD ROM
  • Kensington Wireless Keyboard, Mouse Combo
    • I had a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.  I also have an imp for a daughter - 2 and half a year old.  She had a field day drenching it with a mouthful of water. 
  • Creative Ultra Webcam
  • Intex Headphones

I run the following OSs:

  • Windows XP SP2 [primary]
  • Windows Vista Enterprise  [Auxiliary]

My proposed rig:

Proposed OS:

  • Windows Vista Enterprise 64 Bit

My new machine would probably inherit everything else starting from SyncMaster down from my old machine.  Also planning to keep my old one around.

I'll do a Jeff Atwood in the coming week assembling my new rig.

Update: VS.Net 2008 Team Suite RTM

I'm still seeing only VS.Net 2008 trial as you can see below:

vsnet2008teamsuite

 

A brainwave struck me about ten minutes ago.  OK!  Only trial is available for download but I read somewhere the trial or full version is determined by the product key - obviously!  This is what I'm seeing when I  went the Product Keys page:

 

vsnetkeys

 

It talks about VS.Net rather than VS.Net 2005 / VS.Net 2008.  I reckon this should work for VS.Net 2008 Team Suite RTM.  I've started downloading VS.Net 2008 RTM.  Oh, yeah, just 30 more hours to go :)

vsnet2008downloadfilemanager