November 2009

Dear Client,

This last month brought a couple of outages for us in the 2-3 hour range for the mail server. Nothing severe and no data was lost, but it is always ‘exciting’ for us when we do an upgrade and a part of it doesn’t come up.

This past month also brought us a couple of problems with our local area network. We had to rework authentication on it—twice. The outside world (ie, you) didn’t see any issues, but for a while our machines couldn’t see one another. We have non-critical processes that run in the background that require this visibility, so now that things are settled down again, we can restart those and catch up.

Anyone who has purchased a new computer recently may have noticed that most CPU manufacturers (Intel, AMD and others) offer what is known as ‘multi-core’ processors. They embed multiple central processing units, called ‘cores’ onto the same chip. For Windows XP, Vista and now Windows 7, as well as Macs, this gives you much better throughput. But as more cores are crammed onto the same chip, bottlenecks occur getting to memory. Intel hasn’t been able to put more than 8 on a chip without serious problems.

A research team at MIT used a different approach with something called a ‘mesh network’, and was able to produce a test chip that has 100 cores on it(!). And it could get to memory without any problems. Even better, they used existing technology so they are projecting this will be in production in about 3 years or so. I don’t know about you, but I don’t even know what I’d do with that much processing power. Rent it out to the CIA?

One company we’ve been following for a while in terms of energy efficiency is called Aptera (www.aptera.com). They have a pretty cool design for a car, but had been ineligible for government loans as it has only 3 wheels, and was legally a motorcycle. The law was just changed and they can now apply for loans. I’m hoping their efforts pan out.

Please note that we will be closed November 26th for Thanksgiving as well as November 27th. Please leave a message for callback.

On the home front, after 4 years the raised bed vegetable garden needs redoing. I’ve taken out the 21 4’x4’ squares and am replacing them with 7 4’x20’ squares. Those are big boxes to move around(!). And they’re twice as deep as the old ones, as I’m using 12” douglas fir. That should give a much better growing depth for things like carrots and other deep-rooted plants. I have 3 of them done, with 4 to go. The good news is a lumber yard with 20’ stock is only 1 ½ miles away from us.

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

Sincerely,

Ben Conner