PC vs. post-PC

To me the whole argument doesn't make sense. The world simply isn't going to dump what we consider the PC, it's just too useful. To me the argument boils down to one of form factor vs. usage:

Desktop. A standard large-case PC with a separate keyboard, mouse and monitor. It's advantage is, to quote Tim Allen, "MORE POWER!". It can run pretty much the most powerful CPUs around full-bore constantly without overheating. It doesn't worry about draining a battery. It can have a lot of screen real-estate with multiple large monitors. It can have a full-sized keyboard and mouse. It's got lots of relatively fast local storage, and continuous network access. It's nailed down to a single location and tethered to the network via a wire, which makes securing it easy. And while that's also it's biggest downside, the spot it's at is also where most of an office worker's work is anyway. It's most useful when you've got a lot of text to type, data to enter, output to view. It's, quite bluntly, the full-sized pickup truck or van of the computer world.

Notebook. Not the ultra-light, the totable one you carry around in a bag. You plop it down on a table, plug it in to power and maybe a network jack, and you're good to go. It's got a smaller keyboard, mouse and display than a desktop, and not as much horsepower under the hood, but it's ideal when you need something you can plop down anywhere but not something you have to constantly carry around. Think a businessman at a hotel, or someone out at a customer site for the afternoon. It's literally a portable substitute for the desktop, not a mobile device.

Netbook. This is the ultra-light. It's small, low-powered and easy to carry. Ideal for when you need to do some stuff that involves a keyboard but need something you can carry around all the time. It's what you might take to the coffee shop when you expected to be doing some IMing or light typing, but didn't expect to be typing page after page. Typically has a wireless network interface, and connectivity is assumed to be intermittent.

Tablet. Something from about the size of a paperback book up to a clipboard. No keyboard, no mouse, it's based around a touchscreen interface. You aren't going to be doing a lot of typing of text on this, the interface just isn't suited to it. But you can browse the Web easily, and deal handily with applications that involve selecting things from what's displayed on the screen. It's network interface is wireless, and it can't assume a constant network connection. Great for a lot of floor work like taking inventory, and times when you need to view the Web but not enter a lot of data.

Smartphone. Sizes up to about the size of a paperback book. It's mostly a scaled-down version of a tablet, the much smaller screen size being the big distinguishing feature. Where a tablet might be able to get away with the same sort of presentation you'd see on a notebook or desktop system, there's no way that works here. The other big difference is that, since it's expected to be connected to a cel phone network, it assumes a more constant network connection. It may take advantage of a wireless network if one's available, but if no it's still got a data connection through the cel network. Where a tablet's used to a greater degree for processing data and doing things, the smartphone form factor's used more for communication. Voice, video, IM, it's a pocket-sized device for talking to other people that oh, by the way, can also display data. A tablet, OTOH, is a device that displays and lets you manipulate data and oh, by the way, can also probably be used as a phone.

You can see how different the various categories are in terms of what people do with them. I think people don't want a replacement for the standard desktop PC, unless it's to replace it with a laptop that can accept attaching a larger monitor and a better keyboard and mouse for desktop use. And even then a lot of people would wonder why bother, since they don't want to take their desktop home with them. They either want something else instead of the desktop, because they don't do the things a desktop is good at and spend all their time doing things the netbook, tablet or smartphone form factors are good at, or they want those other form factors as an adjunct to the desktop with data shared between the various units. In large part what they want is the way Google services work: I can tie my Google address book and calendar into my e-mail program and when I update a contact there or through the Web interface the changes automatically show up on my phone, and vice-versa. If I change a document on the tablet, I want to see the changed version on my desktop system. I may want to make up my grocery list using a tablet as I check the cupboards and freezer for what we're out of, and then be able to call up that shopping list on the pocket-sized smartphone while I'm shopping and all I'm doing is scrolling through the list and marking things off as I get them (I could carry the tablet along, but it's a little big to fit in a pocket conveniently).

But in the end, I don't expect people will give up their big desktop systems for things like gaming or typing long documents or working with large spreadsheets or all the other stuff you do at the office. And I sure don't see PC gamers giving up their systems, there's just too much stuff you can do with a full keyboard and mouse that console games don't have the input devices to match. We'll be in a post-PC world in the same way IT is in a post-mainframe or post-COBOL world, or the way computers have led us into a post-paper world, or the way nuclear reactors and solar power have led us into a post-steam-boiler world. Oh, that's right, nuclear reactors and most large-scale solar farms just... boil water using a new heat source. Mainframes and COBOL are still firmly entrenched. And paper, well, "It's the 21st century. Where's my paperless office?". I don't expect "post-PC" to be any different. We'll add new devices and new capabilities, and the PC will adapt to work with them without ever disappearing (or even becoming less of a central player).

Another reason to avoid the Windows Phone 7

Apparently the OS on Windows Phone 7 permanently modifies SD cards. Now, bear in mind that the card slot involved isn't an externally-accessible one, it's under the battery like the socket for the SIM card and you can't readily swap SD cards in and out of it. I suspect it's meant to offer carriers expanded storage for stuff that the user can't mess with or replace/upgrade themselves (if the carrier does things right). But it does bring up one point: Windows Phone 7 devices won't have an SD card slot users can swap cards in. No more dumping your files onto a card and reading them into another phone. No taking the card with phone files over to the computer and reading them in. No external backup of data. No external swappable storage period. To me that's a good reason to avoid those phones. I'd stick with an Android or other smartphone, where I've got the option of external storage.

Tablets, netbooks, laptops and PCs

Forrester Research is predicting iPad sales will tank. I'm not sure about that. In fact I think Forrester is dead wrong. Here's my predictions:

• Tablets will displace netbooks as lightweight mobile platforms. On their own they're lighter and slimmer than netbooks and work well for media playing, Web browsing and the like. Attach a lightweight Bluetooth keyboard and they're OK for light text entry without needing too many accessories hauled along. And mobile devices like tablets will show high sales because they tend to be replaced relatively often (mostly because they're sold through cel-phone services with 2-year contracts and hardware upgrade offers just before the contract expires to tempt you into renewing).
• Laptops will keep on being the portable computing solution. You won't take them to the coffee shop, but a single bag's easy enough to haul to a hotel or on a trip where you can set up on a desk. They'll show sales growth but not as much as mobile devices, because the wear and tear on the hardware's greater and you tend to have to replace them every 3-5 years because they're breaking down. And if not, you're seeing big increases in capability (bigger hard drives, larger displayes, lower weights) that make a replacement attractive.
• Traditional desktop PCs will continue to be a non-growth sector. Everybody who wants one already has one, and they only replace it when it stops working. CPUs and such are already fast enough for ordinary stuff, so there's no real push to upgrade the hardware. When it comes right down to it, though, desktops offer speed, display quality, keyboard quality, peripherals and security/safety that mobile devices lack. Desktops nailed down to a wired network aren't vulnerable to outsiders sniffing traffic. They can support bigger displays, because those displays are sitting on a nice solid desk and don't have to be carried around, and those bigger displays make for more comfortable reading of what's on them. But you don't buy a new desktop every 2 years, you replace them maybe every 5-8 years when they finally do start to break down.

nVidia exits the motherboard chipset market

nVidia's known for making graphics chipsets and cards, but they also make another indispensible part of a system: the motherboard support chipset. nVidia's offering is the nForce series of chipsets. But nVidia's leaving that market, at least as far as Intel CPUs are concerned. It's planning to cease making motherboard chipsets to concentrate solely on graphics. This'll leave only two major players making motherboard chipsets: Intel (for Intel CPUs) and AMD (for AMD CPUs). This'll also leave nVidia the odd man out in graphics as the only major player who isn't affiliated with a CPU maker (Intel makes their own video chipsets (albiet very low-end ones) and AMD acquired ATI a while back). This may be a bad move for nVidia, it'll leave Intel and AMD/ATI with a major advantage in terms of integrating graphics chipsets with motherboard/CPU components.

Fortunately my planned motherboards were all going to use AMD chipsets, since I was planning on AMD CPUs and neither Intel nor nVidia make motherboard chipsets for them.

Computer case

I got the case for my new gateway/router machine: an Antec 300 through Newegg. The nice thing about it's that the power supply mounts in the bottom with the motherboard above. That means fewer cables dangling over everything, and fewer problems getting front-panel cables to reach to the back of the motherboard where some of the headers are. It's also got plenty of fans: one on top, one high on the back, one on the side panel and two behind the front panel. Two downsides, though. The first is that it doesn't have any external 3.5" bays, and the 5.25"-3.5" bay adapters are a pain to get. Not a problem for this machine, it won't have much in the way of USB hanging off it, but it may be a problem for desktop/gaming machines if I can't find decent 5.25" panels. The second is that you can't get at the air filter on the front bezel without taking the side panel off. That makes cleaning the filter a bit more of a pain. Again not a problem with this machine since it'll be sitting where the side panel'll be in the clear, but it may be an issue with machines that'll be under desks.

Another option for a desktop/gaming case is the Antec P183 or P193. Both of those have an external 3.5" bay and filters that seem accessible by opening the front door. I may have to see if someone locally carries them so I can get a hands-on look at them.

Oh, why am I building a new router? The answer lies in the CPU of the current one: a 400MHz AMD K6-3. This is an old Pentium-class. Not P3 or P2, Pentium. It's performance is, bluntly, anemic. I've got a leftover Abit KN8 Ultra motherboard and a CPU to go with it, so that's what I'm turning into a replacement router. It's still old hardware, but it'll be an order of magnitude more powerful than what I've got currently and should handle being a router and access gateway OK.

The Kindle 2 and newspapers

Thinking about the Kindle 2, it may be the salvation of newspapers. A lot of the cost of newspapers is in the printing: the paper, the ink, the presses, the cost of distributing the sheer physical mass of paper. The Kindle 2 provides a secure subscription-based channel for delivering black-and-white printed content that doesn't require moving physical material around. Amazon already has a content distribution network set up. A newspaper could mark up their edition electronically and distribute it to Kindles. As long as nobody involved gets greedy, I think it could be profitable once the costs of physical printing and distribution are shed.

Meece

Grumble. The trusty old Microsoft Trackball Optical I've been using at work is starting to go. The optics work fine, but the ball is starting to stick and not want to roll easily. I've no idea what's causing it or how to correct it. It's done it and then cleared up a couple of times before, but it's happening more often and not clearing up as readily each time. So now I have to go get a replacement. Microsoft doesn't make this model of trackball anymore, the Logitech thumb-operated trackballs are all too narrow for my hand and the finger-operated trackballs I just can't get used to. So I guess it's back to a laser mouse for me.

Projects I need to do

• Clean up LJBackup. It's been sitting on the back burner for way too long.
• Take the EQ2 body-part inventory system I've got, that's currently based on a hand-maintained CSV file, and convert it into a Spring MVC web app. For low-volume stuff I can run it under Tomcat on an odd port on my gateway machine. That'll let me update the inventory through the in-game browser while I'm actually moving body parts in and out. It'll also be a useful show-off project if I want to move into Java and/or web-app work.
• Create a utility to back up Blogger blogs, both entries and comments, locally. This should be easier than LJBackup.
• Multiple new computers. I've got the guts for a new gateway box (obsolete AMD dual-core Socket 939), just need a case for it. I can turn the existing machines into two boxes sufficient for the kids. That just leaves main/gaming systems.
• I need to scheme some way of getting a hosted server and the time to configure and maintain it correctly. I want to handle e-mail, Web server, DNS and such myself and drop the XMission hosting.
  

Cooling a data center without AC

http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/archives/2008/09/intel_air_side.html

Intel has done a test, cooling a high-load data center model without using air conditioning, just ambient outside air. They did see a higher failure rate on the equipment, but not nearly as much higher as was expected. And the portion that used a simple, cheap cooling system without all the climate control of a true data-center AC unit had a lower server failure rate than full-on data-center-class AC yielded. My feeling is that it's not the cold air that's critical to data-center health, the servers will be entirely happy with 80-90F cooling air. It's mostly the dust and to a lesser degree the order-of-magnitude changes in humidity that cause most of the failures. Scrub the dust from the air (even cheap AC units do this, and simple filter systems can do it too) and keep the humidity in the 5-35% range (no need to control it to +/- 2%) and you'll give the servers 95% of what they want to be happy. And you can do that for a fraction the cost of a full climate-control system that controls everything to within 1%.

Abit leaving the motherboard market

According to this article, Abit is exiting the motherboard market by the end of this year. Abit's been my preferred motherboard brand for a long time now, with the right mix of interfaces and options for what I want. Now I've got to find another brand that has models with the right mix and a history of reliability. Annoying.