Flexiscale add new (virtual) hardware options

So, a couple of months back, i mentioned a company called Flexiscale who, at the time, where offering Windows and Linux Virtual machines, much like Amazon. Well, they have been emailing me a bit for the last while since my account balance is running low, so i decded to check out what had changed on their site.

Since the last time i checked, they updated their pricing page and now they include prices for VMs with upto 8Gb of ram and 4 Processors. but one very nice feature is the more RAM you add to a machine, more CPUs become free!

so, for example, the base system with half a gig of ram and 1 CPU is 5p, and if you want an extra processor, it costs 3p. but once you move to 2Gb of RAM, 2 processors will be the same price as one. 4Gb and above gets you 3 processors and 8Gb will get you 4. nice feature. Windows server is still an option, with either standard 32bit or standard 64bit on offer. both cost 3p per hour. if you want to use more than 4Gb of ram, standard 64bit is the only choice.

one other nice feature is their new calculator, which can go quite granular on times. your not just limited to months, but can go anywhere in hours (1, 6, 12, 24) to days (2 or 20), then a month or a year. very handy!

Building a New Media Centre PC, Part 3: Big speakers, little speakers and Subs

i have been meaning to write this article up for a while now, but with one thing and another, its gotten delayed...And to tell you the truth, this is more a link to guides on what to look for in speakers. See, i dont know enough about speakers to tell you what to buy, but, the articles i am going to link to hopefully will!

So, Home Cinema Choice.com has an article talk about what to look for. they include their tips, including some specs to look for. they even talk about cabling! a friend of mine told me not to use just normal "phone cable" (cheap 2 wire cable) with your speakers. use proper stuff. So, this is a tip i am taking. for another interesting read, HDTVOrg.co.uk have a guide around speakers, amps, placement and audio standards, which is a definate read. No point getting great speakers, and not knowing where to place them... its a bit silly!

So, on to what i am looking at. Well, after some thinking, i am looking at keeping the standard speakers i have at the moment as my souround speakers. There are Yahama speakers which i will talk about later. but the new speakers i am looking at are 2 nice Floor Standing speakers. the Amp i talked about in Part 2, the Onkyo TX-SR606, has 2 sound zones: one for sorround sound and one for stereo. the plan is using the 5.1 for movies, tv, etc, and the stereo for music. Or at least thats the plan.

For Reference, the Yahama speaker kit i have currently is the NSP110, or at least they look very simular....

So, in the next part, which should be the second last post, i will talk about Media Sources: where i am getting my content, how it gets into the house and how it gets from the Media to the Screen and speakers. The final post will be on the setup. Weather the PC will be in at this stage or not is yet to be seen, but the rest should be ready!

Moving to Windows 2008 server as workstation: Part 3: 6 weeks on

Ok, so, this post has been delayed for quite some time. in part 1 of this series, i talked about Media. And in part 2, i talked about Photography. these where both looking forward, at what could go wrong. Well, part 3 is now looking back. The upgrade of the Mac PRo to run Win2k8Srv happened about 6 weeks ago, and so far, so good. some notes below.

Some things i want to play with (Channel 4 On Demand, Sky Player) wont work, but thats not because of Windows Server. thats because they dont play nice with 64 bit machines. This sucks! When will Channel 4 or Sky get proper developers in and fix the problem?
Hyper-V rocks, but as a solution to the above problem, well, its not. Hyper-V does not have a sound card, so, no sound... In reality, makes sense. how many times have you installed a sound card in a server?
the speed of this thing rocks! everything seems faster, responds quicker, and runs more stable. ok, i have had no crashes with Vista, but i have a sense that its more stable... probably just me...
The iPhone, iPod touch and iPod classic all sync well with iTunes. no problems there. it even talks with my Apple TV without issue!
I havent used the big DSLR camera in a while, but my small point and shoot one works perfect. plug in, download and see everything recorded! very nice.
Back to Hyper-V and speed. I currently have 3 VMs running under Hyper-V: Win2k8 Enterprice, Win2k8 Web and a Virtual Cacti install. Everything still responds quickly, and the only slow down i have is if all 3 VHDs and the host need something of the HDD. Since all are sitting on one single spindle... This is my problem, and adding more drives should solve it...
all my coding tools work grand on this, and because its a Server OS, i can install a Full SQL Box directly on the machine, which has its advantages!

So, there you have it. all is going well after 6 weeks, give or take. if anyone has any questions, leave a comment!

some quick updates: server move and mobile version of site

So, its been one of those months. busy, busy! I havent had a chance to do a lot of blogging, but, hopefully i will over the weekend. but just some quick updates on whats going on.

First, the blog, which is currently hosted in France, will be moving back home over the weekend. Its not that i am not happy with OVH, the guys running the server, but its because i now have extra bandwidth to play with. i hope to start the move over the weekend, and you should not notice any down time (Famous last words...).

Next, a mobile version of the site is now live. Thanks to the guys at MoFuse, I have 2 versions. 1 for mobiles and one for iPhones. the links are as follows:

Mobile version: http://tiernano.mofuse.mobi/
iPhone Version http://tiernano.mofuse.mobi/iPhone/

I have been playing with it on the iPhone and it works quite well. So, hopefully, a more normal post schedule will return soon...

UPC announces 20Mb broadband, brings my total bandwidth to over 40mb!

Right, so this is a very cool announcement! UPC, the new name for NTL, has announced 20mb broadband packages in Ireland. This is now the 2nd upgrade this year. The year started with 6mb down, 600k up. this was nice. had a 40gb bandwidth cap, i think... anyway, in March or April (cant remember off hand) they upgraded the connection to 12mb down, 1mb up. this came with a 120Gb bandwidth cap. Nice, you may say. And it was! Finally, Tomorrow, July 1, they upgrade their connections to 20mb down, 1.5Mb up and no bandwidth cap! SWEET! this now brings my total bandwidth to the house at over 40mb/s...

20Mb Cable model into my comms/bed room
8mb ADSL line into my comms/bed room
10mb cable model into my sisters room (was 3mb, now 10).
3.6mb/s 3G modem, which i use mainly on my laptop.

Starting to wonder if BT will retaliate with a faster than 8mb connection.... I know that Smart are currently offering up to 15mb down, and 1mb up (though the extra upload is an extra fee...).

SkyNet, take 2

So, a few days ago, i mentioned the SmugMug SkyNet system they have running for photo and video processing. Well, today i started to think about it a bit more, but not with virtual machines, but more physical machines. i suppose Virtual Instances could be used aswell, but physical hardware is what started me thinking, and he is my theory:

It all starts with the Physical machine. I am thinking the Mac Mini (or, a couple of these) since they make good HPC clusters. You get a few of these runnning, say, Windows Server 2008, and enable Wake On Lan. this is one of the important parst.

Next, a Windows service should be installed on each of the machines which talks to a central head node. this head node is also the cluster head. if there are no items in the cluster queue, it sends a message to the machines to go to sleep (shutdown). all machines then are completly off, using no power at all. You then need a task done and you send it to the cluster head. if there are more items to be processed than machines, all machines are fired up and start processing. If there are less, only the required number of machines are kicked off. and when the queue empties, the machines start to get shut down again!

now, this is one of those chalanges which would not be too hard to actually do. the problem is more around working out cost savings. but, lets do some estimates...

Apple lists the 1.8Gz Dual core Mac Mini (i think this is the Core Duo since its "from late 2006") as 23W @ idle and 110W @ full load. given the new Mac Minis have more ram, processor power and hard drives, etc, i am going to estimate (and if i am wrong, please comments) that the NEw 2Gz Core 2 Duo Mac mini uses 25w @ idle and 120w @ full load.

We will also assume your a bit mad and have 16 of these in your home cluster (a little over 8 grant, 32 cores, up to 32Gb of ram and a load of storage...).

so, if the machines are idle for 20 hours a day, and your cost per KW/H is 12c, for all 16 machines to run idle all day, it will cost you 96c... doesent sound like a lot though does it... but thats only 16 machines, and thats not including the saving on Air con...

Also, this is only for Mac minis. if your using bigger, larger machines, which could use 80 - 120 w of power at idle, your talking EUR3.06 to EUR4.60 per day in electric! neadless to day, the less idle time, the less youll save... shutting down 16 mac minis idle for 1 hour a day will only save you about 5c...

i suppse the next question you have to ask your self is why? with virtualization being a big thing now, why have loads of full machines running? it could be procesisng power. if you need a lot of stuff processed, and its going to need 50 or 60 CPUs to run on at 100%, then sticking it on a machine with 8 cores aint going to solve anything... but sticking it on 32 mac minis, each with dual cores, could be handy.... Hmmm... starting to wonder about shutting down Virtual Hosts when load goes down... 32 mac minis, each dual core, running 64 instances to start. as instances are not needed any more, they are shutdwn using the Virtualization API (Hyper-V and PowerShell). when all a hosts instances are down, shut down the host till its needed again... youll be waiting a little longer for the whole thing (host and instance) to boot, but it would definatly save power!

looks like 3G iPhone is contract only....

Looks like my worst fears for the new 3G iPhone are comming true... It will be contract only, with no activation at home... SiliconReplublic.com are reporting that O2 are doing new pricing for the iPhone, all based on contracts. quoting their site:

The 8GB iPhone 3G will cost €49 on the €100 monthly iPhone tariff, €99 on the €65 tariff and €169 on the €45 tariff.

The 16GB iPhone 3G will cost €129 on the €100 monthly tariff option, €169 on the €65 tariff and €299 on the €45 tariff.

thats looking bad. they wont sell you an iPhone for EUR49 assuming your going to pick the EUR100 a month contract when you get home. they want proof, and the best proof is in store... :( mind you, i did see some interesting news on the UK O2 Store: PrePay iPhone comming soon! no contract signing. i like that.

iPhone in US Activation in store only, please dont let it be world wide...

Looks like one of my theories has come to fruition, and i was really hoping it wouldent... Engadget are reporting that 3G iPhone activation will be instore only... Either an Apple or AT&T store. No online activation for anyone...

To qute AT&T From the Engadget site:

"There is no question that many enjoyed the convenience of at-home activation, but we also found that many others wanted to complete purchase and activation in one step so they could walk out of the AT&T store with their iPhone up and running. We have decided to take the latter approach and we think customers will like it. It will be especially helpful if any questions or issues arise during activation. They can be resolved on the spot and in-person.

This is the way our wireless phones have been activated for years and customers have been very happy with it.

And, activation should take just a few minutes."

In other words, they are moving to this model to stop people from bypassing the activation... Because in reality, who in their right mind wants to talk to a phone sales drone about their contracts? also, this 10-12 min to activate the phone: heh. i can see the queues in any store being around the block, a couple times over!

3G iPhone and MobileMe announced at WWDC

So, the WWDC keynote has come and gone, and the 3G iPhone was announced. Specs:

3G and HSDPA internet on the go
A-GPS
and all the features of the old iPhone, plus Firmware 2.0 update.

will be released 11 July, and will cost $199 for the 8Gb black model, and $299 for either a 16Gb white or black model.

one interesting thing though i found looking at the store... check out these 2 screen shots of the Requirements section from the Apple Store:

US Store:

US Store

Irish Store:

Ireland Store

As you can see, the US requires a 2 year contract with AT&T, but the Irish one says you need a Wireless Service, but doesent say who... does this mean its unlocked? Definatly one way of getting more customers buying them!

Next, MobileMe.... This is the replacment to .Mac. This is being touted as Exchange for everyone else... Push email, contacts and calander, and the rest that came with .Mac. Its an interesting service, and .Mac customers get upgraded for Free. It sells at the same price, $99. This comes with 20Gb storage (usually split between Email, web pages and online disk storage). Quite cool stuff. Due out Mid July (maybe 11 July, like the iPhone 3G)....

Just one more thing... Wondering if 11 July will be the release day for the new Firmware? they said "July" but i cant off the top of my head find out if it was "mid" or "end of"... Mid would be the same general time frame as the iPhone 3G and MobileMe.... and we got pricing for it too... Firmware 2.0 will be free for existing iPhone users (as expected) and $9.99 for iPod Touch users...

WWDC 2008 tomorrow

So, tomorrow is the WWDC 2008. I will be watching a few places, waiting for news on what gets announed, released, etc. I will do some preditions and hopes, but first, where to get the information:

Engadget always have a live blog going on at Apple Events, and tomorrows is no different. Tune in here tomorrow from the following times tomorrow:

07:00AM - Hawaii
10:00AM - Pacific
11:00AM - Mountain
12:00PM - Central
01:00PM - Eastern
05:00PM - GMT
06:00PM - London/Dublin
07:00PM - Paris
02:00AM - Tokyo (June 10th)

[borrowed from Engadgets page here].

Engadget are also twrittering the WWDC, from what i can gather. keep your eye on or subscribe to Engadget on Twitter.

Finally, i will be wirting up stuff once the dust settles and the credit card is maxed out... But, if you want to following me on Twitter too, go ahead. i may post stuff there when i can.

So, Predctions, hopes, etc? So, everyone is predicting 3G iPhone with GPS. i hope this gets released. I would be very happy if it did. I'm also thinking that there will be 2 pricing structures for this: 1 price locked from the carriers, but at a very steap discount, and one from Apple, unlocked, but probably more expencive than the iPhones at the moment. You may also see Activation of the iPhone going in store and customers either not being given the option of activating at home, or paying full price at the store and getting money back on their contract after activation... Since the iPhone can be JailBroken, this sounds a likley option... Hopefully not ture, but we will see tomorrow...

Next, Mac Mini: I really hope this little critter is not killed. Given its usefullness as a HPC cluster, i want a couple of these. Could we see Quad Core Mac Minis? probably not... I also hope, in one way, that apple dont modify it to run the Atom Processor... If it did, it would not be as powerfull as the current Core2Duo in it, and would reduice my Want factor. mind you, a Mac Mini Mini would be very cool with an Atom Chip...

Finally, redesigned MacBook Pros? New Mac Pros? New iMacs? Who knows... Well, Steve Jobs, more than likley... only time (and Jobs) will tell...

Mozy

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