Month: February 2007

YouTube will start carrying old TV shows like “I Spy” and “Gumby” according to MarketWatch. Oh goody!

YouTube to post classic TV shows

Fire up that browser and get a “blast from the past!”

“A chip with 80 processing cores and capable of more than a trillion calculations per second (teraflop) has been unveiled by Intel. The Teraflop chip is not a commercial release but could point the way to more powerful processors, said the firm. The chip achieves performance on a piece of silicon no bigger than a fingernail that 11 years ago required a machine with 10,000 chips inside it. The challenge is to find a way to program the many cores simultaneously. Current desktop machines have up to four separate cores, while the Cell processor inside the PlayStation 3 has eight. Each core is effectively a programmable chip in its own right. But to take advantage of the extra processing power, programmers need to gives instructions to each core that work in parallel with one another.”

Teraflop chip hints at the future

A teraflop on one chip… NOW we’re talkin’! I want one in my laptop! I like the photo they show that the new chip has the same power on the size of a fingernail that used to take and entire, huge computer room full of mainframe systems!

It knows “The Answer!” What answer? THE Answer… to Life, the Universe, and EVERYTHING! Which, to those that don’t know, or have never read, Douglas Adam’s book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” is 42!

Just go to Google, then type in (with no quotes) – “what is the answer to life the universe and everything” and you will have the answer… now if we could just work out the question!

How geeky is that?!?

As a Linspire Insider I got an early notice… Linspire and Ubuntu have begun an alliance. What will each get out of the deal? Well, Linspire will now be based off of Ubuntu instead of Debian… a HUGE change… and Ubuntu will get the CNR technology for software installation. This is will be a BIG synergistic deal for both organizations! I have to admit… it makes sense. CNR was always Linspire’s big innovation… and Ubuntu has gotten the acceptance that Linspire has not in the Open Source community. As Linspire President Kevin Carmony says, “Why do Linspire and Canonical want to work together? For the benefit of synergy – each can get farther, faster by working together than continuing to work individually. Each group does certain things well and there’s also a fair amount of overlap in what both have been doing. The less time, energy and resources Canonical, Ubuntu, Linspire, Freespire, and others spend duplicating efforts on the common challenges that face all of desktop Linux, the faster desktop Linux as a whole can advance. The partnership also frees up resources for each to dedicate to unique improvements and innovation that are important to their specific users and market segments.”

Wow! Both my favorite Linux distros sharing tech… gotta love that!

Linspire and Ubuntu Join Forces!

Security expert, Steve Gibson, said not long ago that you could bring down the entire Internet by attacking the root DNS servers. well, somebody did it. Just like he said. BUT… the redundancy that makes the Internet work also made it impervious to permanent harm! Hooray for the good guys!

UltraDNS attack targeted G and L root servers

“Reports confirmed by the AP (Associated Press) and RIPE prove that two of the thirteen root domain servers were taken down during attack Tuesday. Servers G and L failed to respond to ninety percent of the requests made to them. The two servers are managed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and the United States Department of Defense. There are reports, again confirmed by RIPE, that two other servers aside from G and L were slowed by the attack. These servers did not fail under the strain of the vast amounts of data sent to them. The denial of service was carried out by Botnets, zombie like computers, to spread the load of the attack across all thirteen of the root servers. What is known is that the attack centered on ‘.org’ domains and UltraDNS. UltraDNS is the company who manages many of the ‘.org’ domains. The attacks, the largest since 2002, lasted over twelve hours. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, ‘There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or our computing systems at this time.'”

Wow!