center

Big Blue scraps servers for big power savings

IBM intends to undertake a massive server consolidation in an effort to make its data centers more "green."

The computing giant on Wednesday said it will transfer the computing load now on 3,900 servers onto about 30 System z mainframes running Linux.

That transfer will reduce power consumption at IBM's 8 million square feet of data centers by 80 percent over the next five years.

Earlier this year, IBM officially launched what it calls its Big Green Innovations program to offer products and services around environmental conservation and energy efficiency.

Data centers represent large consumers of … Read more

Pendulum has swung in the open source debate

Once upon a time, the term "open source" was coined to save the free-software world from itself--or, rather, from the free-software zealots, as you can read on the Open Source Initiative's Web site.

Today, I can't help but feel that the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, where we're so self-satisfied with the money we're making off open source that we have neglected the essential freedoms that make open-source profit possible.

The wake-up call about the necessary freedoms came from Eben Moglen at last week's O'Reilly Open Source Conference. Some, including software consultant Stephen Walli, don't like the way Eben said it. I wasn't in the room to hear Eben. At any rate, I'm not one for handwringing and am just glad it was said.

Why?… Read more

Legal vetting clears open-source project--again

Update: I updated this posting to correct my misunderstanding of an ambiguous point in the news release--the ar5k-based OpenBSD driver isn't proprietary.

The Software Freedom Law Center, which provides free legal advice to free and open-source software projects, has declared an open-source project to support Atheros Communications wireless network devices to be free of copyright infringement.

The group--which employs notable attorney and former Free Software Foundation counsel Eben Moglen--performed a confidential comparison of the OpenHAL project and the Atheros HAL software whose functions it attempts to duplicate, the center said Tuesday. The audit was a response to allegations of … Read more

Iomega unveils new members of its StorCenter line for small businesses

Iomega announced today three new members of its StorCenter Network hard drive family. All three offer a built-in media server, an on-board print server, Active Directory support, a journaling file system, and EMC Retrospect backup and recovery software, as well as two external USB ports for hard drives or printers.

The 1TB product comprises two 500GB drives and supports RAID 1, RAID 0, and JBOD. The 500GB and 750GB versions each contain just one drive. All three use 7,200rpm SATA-II drives with 8MB of cache. They also offer a gigabit Ethernet connection.

Both Macs and PCs are supported, as … Read more

Another $100 PC... or is it?

It was inevitable that someone would try to capitalize on the interest in the $100 XO laptop from the One Laptop per Child project. I'm sure we all remember the brief craze for free PCs in 1999, where a cheap PC was given away with a relatively expensive or ad-sponsored Internet service agreement. When I started hearing about the $100 laptop, I expected it would spur a resurgence in such deals.

So when I checked out Zonbu, a Silicon Valley company offering a $99 Linux-based PC, I wasn't surprised to discover there's a service agreement involved there … Read more

You're an attorney. You need open-source education. Get it here.

As Steven Vaughan-Nichols is reporting, the Software Freedom Law Center is offering a free day of open-source legal education from the best in the business. Let's put it this way: if you get any opportunity to hear Eben Moglen speak, you take it. Especially when admission to the event is free.

The Summit will have two parts: a closed session in the morning for a private meeting of some of the world's foremost FOSS attorneys, and an open session in the afternoon consisting of free legal presentations to the public.… Read more

Scientists reconstruct still-horrifying 9-11 images

A computer simulation of the attack on the World Trade Center is now showing at YouTube. While the images are designed to help engineers and scientists study how a large structure behaves when smashed into by an airliner, they are still horrifying.

Flight 11 crashed into the WTC's North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. A team of researchers from Purdue University used scientific principles, state-of-the-art simulation code and animation computer system to recreate the three-quarters of a second following impact.

Over and over again, wreckage from the Boeing 767 careens towards the viewer. Sometimes the simulation includes only the … Read more

'DigiDesk' lets you play world dictator

If you've ever found yourself lusting after a workstation with multiple monitors or other multi-tasking command centers, wait till you get a load of this futuristic creation from Microsoft. The "DigiDesk" literally turns your desk into a desktop with a dual-pane workstation that features touch-screen surfaces to control everything from documents to workflow, according to SlashGear. Alas, it's only a prototype, which the guy in the video says is one of just two in existence. We applaud the concept, but we're still waiting to take it even one step further, throwing entertainment into the mix … Read more

Check out our great Rebate Center offer on Panasonic

Our Rebate Center has some great rebate offers on limited Panasonic products. Panasonic is just one of many rebate offers that you will find on Shopper. Check out other manufacturer rebate offers on cameras and notebooks as well.

You can check out any store's Better Business Bureau rating prior to making a purchase by going to our Certified Store Program page. Just click on the Better Business Bureau link located under the rating scale information.