Wenn Sie Boulevardzeitungsnervenkitzel suchen, die tatsächlich eine Wahrheit hinter ihnen haben dürfen, lässt mich das beste, die plausibelsten Gerüchtstellen empfehlen:
1. The Register. Diese britischen Nachrichten platzieren ist keine Gerüchtstelle an sich, aber es gibt viele Geschichten auf Technologie auf Entwicklungen heraus, die basiert sind auf geheimen Quellen. Das Register hat eine gute Erfolgsgeschichte, damit es klar ist, dass seine Journalisten eigentliche Quellen haben. Sie können sich nicht vollständig auf seiner Genauigkeit auf unangemeldet und prerelease Produkte verlassen, aber es ist eine der wahreren Quellen für Gerüchte.
2. Boy Genius Report. Dieser unerschrocken fanboy Stelle hat eine aufschrecken gute Erfolgsgeschichte auf Erhalten von frühen Anzeigen, wovon in iPhones sein werden, iPads, Brombeeren, Androiden, und andere bewegliche Vorrichtungen Wochen und manchmal Monate vor dem Pack. Dies ist das ein Gerüchtstellenwertfolgendes.
3. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Beide Zeitungsstellen erhalten gewöhnlich die meisten Güter auf bedeutsamen neuen beweglichen Produkten, wie zum Beispiel der iPad 2, eine Woche oder zwei vor der offiziellen Entlassung. Sie werden viel auf solchen Dingen bis bald vor ihrem Start nicht finden, wenn die eigentliche Hardware in der Versorgungskette ist, aber bevor sie zur Verfügung zu Kunden stehen, damit Sie langfristig auf Planung basiert auf den Offenbarungen ihrer geheimen Quellen nicht machen können.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, March 1, 2010
Freaky Photography!
Necessity is the mother of invention. We at CHIP are always looking for such necessities which can lead to innovative solutions in technology. This may not really be a ‘necessity’ at the core for the audience of this workshop but then which photography enthusiast would not like to have the option of using or at least trying macro photography the way it should be. On the camera’s macro mode, you can still shoot minute things such as flower buds, sea shells, grains of rice etc but imagine going deeper into their details and seeing much more with the naked eye. And then going a step further and actually capturing that minute moment clearly and definitively on a consumer digicam.
Most digital camera models available today have the ‘Macro’ mode feature. This workshop will help advance the utility of this feature and help you go much deeper into the details of your subject. For instance, you will clearly be able to see (of course, only if you manage to acquire and put these below the lens) the proboscis of a mosquito, the deadly fangs of a red ant, the finely netted texture of fabric, and even the single dot of a printed ‘i’ character on paper.
Below is the apparatus you need to gather to make a macro lens at home and put up a lighting suite to capture your subjects in great detail. This workshop is not completely inexpensive but needs to be carried out at your own risk.
You need to unscrew one of the eyepieces of a binocular or telescope—not those crazy expensive ones, nor the ones which are too cheap. The one we used in this workshop was an entry-level telescope eyepiece (25 mm and 12 mm). The telescope eyepiece is easily detachable so you don’t need to worry about breaking it.
Lighting Panel: You need to a buy a bread board, align and solder white light LEDs on it to make a lighting panel and use it as the light source beneath or around the subject. Divide the lighting panel and the subject using a white flimsy plactic card or an ordinary white paper which basically functions as a light diffuser. Creating the lighting panel can be tedious for some and we suggest, you can try using other lighting techniques or sources. You can try using a white bulb or LED torch and find an optimum distance between the diffuser by trial and error.
Attaching the lens: After you have removed the lens from the telescope, the next step is to mount it to your camera’s lens. Use a normal clear adhesive tape (which you can buy at a stationary shop) to stick the eyepiece on the camera’s lens. But you need to be very careful while you do so to ensure that the lining of the tape is neatly aligned with the lens. This will ensure that when your camera draws back its lens, the tape does not damage, block or jam the path of the lens entry. Look at the images on the previous page to get a glimpse of how we carefully mounted the lens on our camera (Canon PowerShot A720 IS).
Now, that your camera is ready for use with the attached lens with required lighting, all you need is a tripod (as you need immense stability for this type of photography) and a few subjects! In our case, we went on a wild hunt to find subjects still in the primary enthusiasm of setting up the project.
Photographic Subjects: We got all sorts and varieties of samples to test our kit and its macro potential. We got back to the lab, a mosquito, a spider, a piece of sponge, an ant. Besides these, we shot other things like the surface of paper, the edge of a ripped business card, a handkerchief and almost everything that fit on our card-sized diffuser. We also got an image of a cellphone TFT screen which clearly shows you the RGB pixels. We must warn you that this is very addictive and in the first few days, you will find yourself making a subject of just about everything around you. This is also very good exercise of understanding anatomy of tiny subjects.
Procedure: The procedure is fairly simple once you have set up your kit properly. Mount your camera on a tripod and have it perpendicular to the LED panel placed on a table with a white diffuser sheet on it. Switch your camera to ‘Macro’ mode and set the aperture to the least. In our case, we used an aperture of 3.2. Do not worry, if your camera is almost touching the subject—the optimum distance between the subject and the lens should be a few millimeters. The camera should automatically focus on the subject. If it does not, then the following could be the troublesome areas:
1. The subject is moving (it needs to be dead or inanimate!)
2. The camera is not set according to the light. The flash should be turned off.
3. Do not zoom in or the camera will not be able to focus on the subject.
So, there you go! Have all the fun with your new obsession and do send us what you clicked!
Most digital camera models available today have the ‘Macro’ mode feature. This workshop will help advance the utility of this feature and help you go much deeper into the details of your subject. For instance, you will clearly be able to see (of course, only if you manage to acquire and put these below the lens) the proboscis of a mosquito, the deadly fangs of a red ant, the finely netted texture of fabric, and even the single dot of a printed ‘i’ character on paper.
Below is the apparatus you need to gather to make a macro lens at home and put up a lighting suite to capture your subjects in great detail. This workshop is not completely inexpensive but needs to be carried out at your own risk.
You need to unscrew one of the eyepieces of a binocular or telescope—not those crazy expensive ones, nor the ones which are too cheap. The one we used in this workshop was an entry-level telescope eyepiece (25 mm and 12 mm). The telescope eyepiece is easily detachable so you don’t need to worry about breaking it.
Lighting Panel: You need to a buy a bread board, align and solder white light LEDs on it to make a lighting panel and use it as the light source beneath or around the subject. Divide the lighting panel and the subject using a white flimsy plactic card or an ordinary white paper which basically functions as a light diffuser. Creating the lighting panel can be tedious for some and we suggest, you can try using other lighting techniques or sources. You can try using a white bulb or LED torch and find an optimum distance between the diffuser by trial and error.
Attaching the lens: After you have removed the lens from the telescope, the next step is to mount it to your camera’s lens. Use a normal clear adhesive tape (which you can buy at a stationary shop) to stick the eyepiece on the camera’s lens. But you need to be very careful while you do so to ensure that the lining of the tape is neatly aligned with the lens. This will ensure that when your camera draws back its lens, the tape does not damage, block or jam the path of the lens entry. Look at the images on the previous page to get a glimpse of how we carefully mounted the lens on our camera (Canon PowerShot A720 IS).
Now, that your camera is ready for use with the attached lens with required lighting, all you need is a tripod (as you need immense stability for this type of photography) and a few subjects! In our case, we went on a wild hunt to find subjects still in the primary enthusiasm of setting up the project.
Photographic Subjects: We got all sorts and varieties of samples to test our kit and its macro potential. We got back to the lab, a mosquito, a spider, a piece of sponge, an ant. Besides these, we shot other things like the surface of paper, the edge of a ripped business card, a handkerchief and almost everything that fit on our card-sized diffuser. We also got an image of a cellphone TFT screen which clearly shows you the RGB pixels. We must warn you that this is very addictive and in the first few days, you will find yourself making a subject of just about everything around you. This is also very good exercise of understanding anatomy of tiny subjects.
Procedure: The procedure is fairly simple once you have set up your kit properly. Mount your camera on a tripod and have it perpendicular to the LED panel placed on a table with a white diffuser sheet on it. Switch your camera to ‘Macro’ mode and set the aperture to the least. In our case, we used an aperture of 3.2. Do not worry, if your camera is almost touching the subject—the optimum distance between the subject and the lens should be a few millimeters. The camera should automatically focus on the subject. If it does not, then the following could be the troublesome areas:
1. The subject is moving (it needs to be dead or inanimate!)
2. The camera is not set according to the light. The flash should be turned off.
3. Do not zoom in or the camera will not be able to focus on the subject.
So, there you go! Have all the fun with your new obsession and do send us what you clicked!
Friday, February 26, 2010
IBM to start DB2 for z/OS beta program on March 12
Here are some features of DB2 10 for z/OS, straight from the announcement letter:
1. CPU reductions for all workloads.
2. Five to 10 times more concurrent users on a single subsystem by avoiding memory constraints.
3. Greater concurrency for data management, data definition, and data access, including DDL, BIND, REBIND, PREPARE, utilities, and SQL.
4. Additional online changes for data definitions, utilities, and subsystems.
Improved security with improved granularity for administrative privileges, data masking, and audit capabilities.
5. Temporal or versioned data to understand system and business times at the database level.
6. pureXML™ and SQL enhancements to improve portability from other database solutions.
7. Productivity improved for database administrators, application programmers, and systems administrators.
8. Enhancements in QMF™ Classic Edition that allow greater interoperability with other programs as well as features that improve queries, forms, certain commands, diagnostics, performance, and resource control. QMF Enterprise Edition provides even more value, including support for QMF-based dashboards and visually rich page-based reports; enhanced QMF security model for access control and personalization; support for HTML, PDF, or Flash QMF report and dashboard output formats; and a QMF metadata layer simplifies content authoring.
You need at least a z890 or later running z/OS V1.10 or later to take part in the beta program. The announcement letter does not say when DB2 10 for z/OS will be generally available, or how much it will cost, or when DB2 8 will go out of service.
1. CPU reductions for all workloads.
2. Five to 10 times more concurrent users on a single subsystem by avoiding memory constraints.
3. Greater concurrency for data management, data definition, and data access, including DDL, BIND, REBIND, PREPARE, utilities, and SQL.
4. Additional online changes for data definitions, utilities, and subsystems.
Improved security with improved granularity for administrative privileges, data masking, and audit capabilities.
5. Temporal or versioned data to understand system and business times at the database level.
6. pureXML™ and SQL enhancements to improve portability from other database solutions.
7. Productivity improved for database administrators, application programmers, and systems administrators.
8. Enhancements in QMF™ Classic Edition that allow greater interoperability with other programs as well as features that improve queries, forms, certain commands, diagnostics, performance, and resource control. QMF Enterprise Edition provides even more value, including support for QMF-based dashboards and visually rich page-based reports; enhanced QMF security model for access control and personalization; support for HTML, PDF, or Flash QMF report and dashboard output formats; and a QMF metadata layer simplifies content authoring.
You need at least a z890 or later running z/OS V1.10 or later to take part in the beta program. The announcement letter does not say when DB2 10 for z/OS will be generally available, or how much it will cost, or when DB2 8 will go out of service.
RAID 6: A comparison with RAID 5
RAID (Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks) has its own place in the storage arena, especially with storage as a concept taking off quite seriously in India. There are half a dozen RAID levels which organizations can choose from; the more persistent one seems to be RAID 5. With criticality and protection of data becoming more vital with each passing day, RAID 6 is slowly making its way into the storage infrastructure of Indian organizations.
The pros and cons
The main question that arises: Why should organizations shift to RAID 6 leaving their comfort zone of a certain RAID level? Also, for which organizations does it make sense? To find the answer, one needs to take a close look at the advantages of RAID 6 as well as its downside.
The biggest advantage is its ability for dual disk parity. Currently, some hard disk drives (HDDs) have a capacity of almost 1 TB, in contrast to HDD capacities just a decade ago which were not over 30 GB. Thus, the amount of time needed to fix the fail drive would be more, and it would be a smarter decision to have dual disk failure protection. RAID 5 seems to work really fine with SMBs, which are cost-conscious and do not have any great need to extra protect their data, though in certain environments it may be otherwise.
Apart from the additional protection, RAID 6 provides high fault tolerance, thus sustaining simultaneous disk failures. It is a safer option given that in today's environment there are a lot of organizations having SATA-based drives which are extremely huge in terms of capacity but low on reliability. Thus, RAID 6 is more valid when there is a large capacity to address. SATA is less reliable than SCSI drives or FC drives, hence when environments need added security, RAID 6 makes a lot of sense.
On the downside, one would need to buy a lot more in terms of raw disk space. It will cost more upfront due to the additional drive that needs to be procured. As two of the disk drives are being used for parity, the dilemma is between raw disk space and usable space.
Also, for RAID 6, one needs a more complex system with a method for encoding. One also needs hardware acceleration, otherwise the performance suffers. Thus, performance loss is one more disadvantage. Nowadays we get intelligent raid controllers which enhance the performance. SSD drives from different vendors provide high IOPS, which reduce the performance impact for RAID 6.
The pros and cons
The main question that arises: Why should organizations shift to RAID 6 leaving their comfort zone of a certain RAID level? Also, for which organizations does it make sense? To find the answer, one needs to take a close look at the advantages of RAID 6 as well as its downside.
The biggest advantage is its ability for dual disk parity. Currently, some hard disk drives (HDDs) have a capacity of almost 1 TB, in contrast to HDD capacities just a decade ago which were not over 30 GB. Thus, the amount of time needed to fix the fail drive would be more, and it would be a smarter decision to have dual disk failure protection. RAID 5 seems to work really fine with SMBs, which are cost-conscious and do not have any great need to extra protect their data, though in certain environments it may be otherwise.
Apart from the additional protection, RAID 6 provides high fault tolerance, thus sustaining simultaneous disk failures. It is a safer option given that in today's environment there are a lot of organizations having SATA-based drives which are extremely huge in terms of capacity but low on reliability. Thus, RAID 6 is more valid when there is a large capacity to address. SATA is less reliable than SCSI drives or FC drives, hence when environments need added security, RAID 6 makes a lot of sense.
On the downside, one would need to buy a lot more in terms of raw disk space. It will cost more upfront due to the additional drive that needs to be procured. As two of the disk drives are being used for parity, the dilemma is between raw disk space and usable space.
Also, for RAID 6, one needs a more complex system with a method for encoding. One also needs hardware acceleration, otherwise the performance suffers. Thus, performance loss is one more disadvantage. Nowadays we get intelligent raid controllers which enhance the performance. SSD drives from different vendors provide high IOPS, which reduce the performance impact for RAID 6.
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