I'd been considering getting an Intel 600 series proc for my next box (which only exists in my mind, bot in any affordable future) bu after reading a shootout between them at Linux Hardware, I'm not so sure.

I like the idea of having both HT and 64-bit on a box, but ultimately 64-bit isn't much of a win (for virtually everything in Desktop-land) but HT is a win and the benchmarks don't address that. So perhaps I'll still keep my options open.

Bristol Sound and Vision

It was what I anachronistically call "The Hi-Fi Show" this weekend. I've been most years over the 18 for which it has run, and it's always nice to wander round - hearing some lovely kit and the occasional bit of salesman-type flannel.

Yamaha launched a very clever device (a Sound Projector) which gave a realistic surround sound but just from an array of (42!) speakers sat below the TV. Good VFM at only 750 smackers but a fatiguing listen. Still, if you hate wires and multiple boxes then this is definitely the choice for you. Something to look out for in future revisions, perhaps.

Onkyo showed their very impressive looking AV products, but I didn't really get to hear what they sounded like.

Many manufacturers were using Arcam AV amps which certainly sound fantastic. A few used Yamaha's Z9 (which costs 3k!) and sounds rather tasty - as it should! Arcam's offerings (AVR250 at 1k and AVR300 at1300 quid) sound pretty fantastic and should be enough for most people - although if you can afford it their AV8/P7 combo - then be my guest - it was possibly the best sounding AV at the show. Their new Solo product was also pretty nice for people who want that sort of thing (it's an all in one box).

On the speaker front, ProAc, Spendor and PMC all sounded fantastic in two channel land. Tannoy's Arena sounds fantastic for small speakers (but it is pricey), Epos ELS series sounds great and so does Monitor Audio's Radius.

Personally, I bought a TCI Constrictor for my CD player which has clarified the sound even further (I bought a Constrictor 6-way block last year).

JWZ on groupware

After yesterday's photoblogfest, I thought I'd post a link to JWZ's comments on groupware. Very funny, insightful and revealing.

The nic-mobile 

My Mum's Honiton Lace 

You guys'll never make professionals.. 

Bob's beautiful cat 

At the park and ride 

Other peoples cats 

The fifth sentence

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

I'm at work so you get:

"Now give sendmail rule set 3 and Hubset as you did before, but this time specify a sender's address that contains a user and a host part:"

Sad, I know. :-( (From "sendmail (2nd edition)", Brian Costales with Eric Allman).

Power PostgreSQL

As seen on PostgreSQL News, Power PostgreSQL looks like it's going to be a good book. We need decent books on PostgreSQL!

Why I'm a member of the EFF

Endangered Gizmos!

While I couldn't really care about P2P networks (although I use BitTorrent a lot for ISO images of Linux Distros etc.) it's this "you can not reverse engineer anything so that you can bypass our huge mark-up on selling you accessories" and "thou shalt not be able to copy/back-up your own music/films for personal use (or if we're talking Marcovision shit - even play the disk in the car, for example)". Plus more.

Read it and weep. And then donate or join!

Solaris on RHN!

Looks like we'll be able to update Solaris boxes using RHN. Yay!

Patching Solaris boxes is one of the biggest pains in the whole world (compared with managing a whole load of servers through RHN).

This should make my life one hell of a lot easier (until we ditch Solaris completely...)

RPM dependency hell? No such thing...


rpm -Uvh eclipse-gtk2-3.0.1-4jpp.i386.rpm eclipse-jdt-3.0.1-4jpp.i386.rpm eclipse-pde-3.0.1-4jpp.i386.rpm eclipse-platform-3.0.1-4jpp.i386.rpm eclipse-scripts-3.0.1-4jpp.i386.rpm libswt3-gtk2-3.0.1-4jpp.i386.rpm eclipse-source-3.0.1-4jpp.i386.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-antlr-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-apache-*rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-commons-* ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-jdepend-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-jmf-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-jsch-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-jsch-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-junit-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/antlr-2.7.4-2jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-nodeps-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-swing-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/ant-trax-1.6.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/jasper4-4.1.30-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/jsch-0.1.17-2jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/lucene-1.4.3-1jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/lucene-demo-1.4.3-1jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/jakarta-commons-net-1.2.2-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/jdepend-2.6-3jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/servletapi4-4.0.4-4jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/jzlib-1.0.5-2jpp.noarch.rpm ../../../generic/free/RPMS/tomcat4-4.1.30-6jpp.noarch.rpm


1280 x 1024

I've blagged a 17" screen at work now. It makes so much difference being able to see loads of windows on one workspace.

I won't be giving this bleeder back!