Since I won't be using a Mac for desktop publishing and web design...

I tore apart my IBM Intellistation M-Pro 6850 earlier last week. There was method to my madness, because I ripped out the two 1.7Ghz Xeon DP processors, and installed two 2.2Ghz Xeon DP processors as replacements. I then added four more RIMMs of 256mb 800/45 memory, for a grand total of 2.0Gb. I also put in my old ATI TV-Wonder PCI tuner card, to use as a DVR and video input device for editing. So far, so good, so it was time to turn the big black Monolith (Stanley Kubrick would probably agree) back on and watch the show:



No problem getting to the BIOS screen, so I enabled hyperthreading and let it reboot again. Voila'! XP Pro reported that it could make good use of the two hyperthreaded processors:




That's right, boys and girls, 4, count 'em, 4 each Xeon 2.2Ghz processors in the task manager! The bank consists of two hyperthreaded Xeon processors, so Windoze XP Pro sees 4 processors, two real and two virtual.

Now, you'll often hear that hyperthreading doesn't really offer an advantage for non-multithreaded apps. That's true, up to a point. If you have applications that hog a processor or do a lot of multi-tasking on your machine, multi-cpu and/or hyperthreaded processors offer a lot of extra headroom to allow those resource hogs to do their thing at 100% while shuffling background tasks to the additional processors. I learned that a long time ago with my first Tyan dual Pentium 166 running Windows NT 4.0 Workstation.

If you're like me and run multi-threaded stuff like Adobe Creative Suite, or most flavors of AutoCAD, you will definitely appreciate the extra horsepower. The same goes for the more popular applications that edit music and video - they can be quite computer intensive. So while my idea to use a PowerMac G4 for graphics and various media was a good one, my trials and tribulations with the platform simply pointed me into taking the easy route and loading more crunching power into my trusty monster of an IBM.

Just for giggles, I once again loaded BOINC and pointed it towards SETI@Home. This has been a type of benchmark I've always used to check the performance and durability of my various multi-CPU computers over the years. With the new processor and memory upgrades, each CPU can spit out one SETI Work Unit every 12 hours or so. That's not bleeding-edge fast compared to newer processors from Intel and AMD, but remember that little Task Manager graph I pictured earlier? This IBM Intellistation is relying on Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) to crank out 4 of those SETI Work Units every 12 hours, or 8 of them per day from just one computer. That ain't half bad.

You're going to see a lot more of the multi-CPU, hyperthreaded, Core 2, Dual Core, Core-Duo , Quad Core whatever processor labels in the near future. Why? Moore's Law has started to fall by the wayside as engineers struggle to shrink die sizes and cram more (Moore?) transistor junctions into a given square centimeter of silicon wafer. Barring any revolutionary breakthroughs in photolithography technology, processor speed has leveled off, pretty much reaching a plateau at the 65 nanometer circuit mask size. Efforts are underway to bring that down to 30 nanometers, but for now, CPU speeds have hit a speed bump near the 4 Ghz mark.

Nor does the clock speed of a processor really tell the whole story of how fast a given CPU will perform tasks. Cache and motherboard memory speed (in the x86 world, at least) usually lag behind the processor's internal speed, so the core is waiting precious clock cycles to retrieve data from cache and motherboard memory. Hyperthreading was a neat trick that made use of the core's down time waiting for external data to go ahead and process a second thread, timing things so that both threads wouldn't ostensibly interfere with each other as they hit the cache. As I mentioned before, having a second CPU on either the chip or the motherboard also allows multithreaded apps to keep crunching efficiently, or at least give some extra headroom to the first processor's task so it can run at 100%.

Since processor, cache, and memory speed have hit a temporary roadblock, Intel and AMD have thrown their eggs into the SMP basket, offering dual-core and quad-core CPUs to the general public, vs. being the exclusive domain of high-end workstations and servers. It would certainly be a bit of overkill, but could you imagine somebody buying a dual processor quad-core system with Hyperthreading enabled, just to browse the Web and send e-mails? Of course, they'd have to run Windows 2003 Server, the Vista equivalent, or a Linux distribution to make use of the mix of 16 real and virtual processors, but my goodness!

As a footnote, my wife, who has the same type of IBM workstation of her own, has been using my machine a bit more lately, and is quite vocal about how zippy it runs. It appears I will have to duplicate the CPU/memory upgrade for her as well. I guess that's only fair.

Tam's muse is back in full stride.

The erudite Ms. Tamara has written a concise entry here regarding something that's very near and dear to my heart.

That would be the Czech VZ-52 SHE rifle, in 7.62x45 Czech M-52 flavor, see the big chunk of wood and metal above and to the right.

For several years now, I've had something of an informational web page describing the rifle, its history, and the care and feeding thereof.

Of course, she has Oleg Volk's excellent photography to liven up her expose' of the obscure little rifle. How can I compete with that? (Yes, I'm jealous)

But I can't be too jealous. Here's the secret: I've been making and selling good reloadable 7.62x45 Czech brass for a while, pretty much about as long as my VZ-52 web page has been running. Most of the sales have been via word-of-mouth, but thanks to my recent military retirement and a few new techniques and tools, I've made a quality product even better and more available at the same time. Tam has helped me by letting the cat further out of the bag with her linky goodness. And for that, I am quite grateful.

The Mac is gone.

And I don't miss it. I traded it off for a Tektronix Phaser 780 fuser assembly. At least that works.

Maybe someday I'll get another one. But not too soon.

I had an interview with J.L. Kirk & Associates last year...

And I couldn't believe the scam job they were trying to pull over on me. It was a beautifully polished, nice setting, with well-groomed and dressed "counselors" and slick pamphlets. But no matter how hard I tried, they wouldn't tell me what their fees were to "network" me into a new job. That was yet another flag popping up in my view, and I felt like going into my professional interrogator role with the guy at that very moment. It would've been fun, too.

However, I didn't have time for his silliness, nor did I bother to attend his second interview where I was supposed to bring the wife along. For a while I wondered how that would've gone.

Not any more. The rest of the story is out there to view in BlogLand, and has caused J.L. Kirk to threaten a lawsuit, as well as shut down their email service. I knew it was a scam, but didn't know how expensive a scam because I walked (ran) away before I could be described as a victim. Here's what goes on, and I hope the Better Business Bureau gets an even bigger earful of what they're doing.

Just Another Pretty Farce

Note that it's also been green-lighted on www.Fark.com, so that'll be a thorn in J.L. Kirk's side for some time to come. They may very well have to re-name their business again, like they did a few years ago when they were called Bernard Haldane & Associates.

It ain't a problem. (Until it's a problem...)

From the "poops where it eats" crowd, we learn that Spec Ops has gone against the grain and ordered the HK416 gas-piston upper for their M4 carbines.

The Army has gone on record as stating they won't purchase the conversion for regular troops. Not because it doesn't work better or increase reliability. Nope. They don't want to buy it because they're holding out for the next generation of issue weapons that fire airburst rounds.

The futuristic XM29 and XM8 didn't make the cut. I wonder how long they will hold out before M4 stoppages wake them up to the reality that is the HK416?

I understand the HK416 isn't cheap. It's also a German idea, but damnit, so was the Mauser 93, which was product-improved into the Springfield 1903, lest we forget.

If the GSA bean counters are so adament, let our defense contractors use the HK416 as a starting point for a homegrown gas-piston upper, change the design by at least 10% to avoid patent problems, and call it our own. Then get it to the guys in the sandbox who need it.

How do YOU back up your important files?

It was a good question, really. Maybe I'm a bit over-the-top, but I practice the "Law of Averages Scatter" computer backup technique. What's that, you say?

Easy. The Law of Averages states that if you have several computers on a home network, the chances of all those machines failing at the same time is pretty slim, and the more computers, the better! (Yeah, I know, a lightning bolt can do it, but that lightning has to go through all the APS, Powerware, and CyberPower UPS units first) So I "scatter" duplicate files throughout the network.

Each computer in the home network has an identical hard drive partition, with sub-folders for each person in the household. The partitions are also mirrored on a pair of Snap Server 1100 units. I have the backup software do a file compare of all the files on all the partitions one night a week, and then mirror them across the network. The IBM and Dell workstations also have individual RAID 1 arrays, something I did as part of my IT training a while ago.

Suffice it to say, I'm not too worried about losing data. I don't back up files to CD-ROM, because I've seen them degrade over time, and what's good for today's format will be tomorrow's obsolete format. It's already happening with the transition from CD-ROM to DVD-ROM. So for now, the rat's nest below does the job nicely.


Pee Ess: I really love the little Quantum Snap Servers. They're about as trouble-free as it gets.

The PowerMac G4 is still basically TOAST.

Looks like I'll be taking it to an authorized Apple/Mac shop in Madison next week, unless the Angel of Mac appears to me in a revelation with the fix before then. If it were a PC, I'd think it was a problem with bad or incompatible memory, the machine is so flaky!