a record of thoughts

I will not be preaching or discussing the current state of world economy. It’s still happening and I’m not an expert in it. The point I will be relaying in today’s entry is the sense of being economical in projects.

I am currently developing an application in a few spared hours of my dull life. I’m a few months delayed because of improper planning. The application I am developing requires massive information storage. Information that is improperly organized is simply garbage in a storage bin. Therefore, I will be using a database to organize the information. According to my projection, I can’t afford to use flatfile or filebased database system. I need an engine to run and manage the database system. There only a few RDBMS out there that’re stable enough to handle megabytes of information daily.

If you are talking about software, which company would first pop-up in your head? Microsoft. Since we are all used to Microsoft’s softwares, a programmer would easily decide to use MSSQL Server. In my case, I’m very picky when it comes to database management. I am not loyal to anyone because I choose according to my needs. However, I would avoid MSSQL.

The few reasons I have for ignoring MSSQL Server are (1) there’s a cheaper solution that can offer the same or superior quality, (2) difficult to use [not intuitive]. I can’t say never, but I don’t overestimate my needs because they cost a lot. I’m a Filipino and Filipinos always (not often) believe that the more expensive the product, the more superior it is. I don’t value something because it costs a lot. In database management system industry, it surely is not true. I always use MySQL for my large scale database needs. It’s free, easy to use, portable, and you have unlimited support from the community. And if you are upgrading to enterprise-scale data, then you can purchase an enterprise version for a handsome cost.

I honestly believe that’s economical. At work, I have MySQL deployed so that I can store needed information anytime I want without asking for a budget. The reason why I wrote this is that I’m running source install on my Western Digital MyBook and it’s been hours since I sent a Make command. It’s my way of killing time I guess.

The main reason why I entered the computer science field is CREATION. Given a computer and programming environment, one can create something from his imagination from an empty notepad. Though I’m far from becoming a successful one, I still persist in learning. Learning is double edged. It’s fun and it’s demanding. Since my topic is cluster computing, there’s no reason for me to delve on the negative side of learning. Instead, let’s jump on the fun side. (more…)

I’ve been out of Eee PC news for a while, so I decided to check on what ASUStek has in store for us. They have a 10.0″ beauty in the 1000H 80G model. I strongly recommend the unit for Windows-slave users because it has a gigabyte of RAM and 80GB hard drive running on Genuine Windows XP Home. It’s not a solid state drive before you get your hopes too high. The model I’m speaking of is using a regular hard drive which explains the minimal cost at huge storage space. Nonetheless, there’s a model sporting a 20GB SSD if you’re interested. The unit weighs 3.2lbs which is not bad. It’s a decent replacement for MacBooks that cost ridiculously high, Toshibas, or Sonys. The battery life is estimated to run at about 7.5 hours. That’s excellent provided the weight. It has Bluetooth capability in addition to WiFi. The webcam is stil mediocre, but it’s not an important peripheral for me.

I’m still not replacing my 701.

Everex has unveiled an Eee PC competitor with its CloudBook. Scheduled to be available at Walmart.com only starting January 25, 2008 at an affordable $399. This is the same price as my Eee PC 4G, except that it has better specifications. The CloudBook also weighs 2lbs with a 9-inch screen and has 9 times more of gigabyte storage space than my 4G. It is pre-installed with gOS which I think rocks.

I’m a little disappointed that I just bought an Eee PC and a new interesting machine cos out. I’ll have to wait for reviews, maybe for the next generation of CloudBook before I decide to get my hands on it.

9 Inches, 2 pounds, 5 hours of battery life.  Surf, email, blog, IM, Skype, compute. Cloud computing makes it simple and easy for everyone.

Based on the latest gOS Rocket operating system, the ultra-mobile Everex PC comes with popular applications from Google, Mozilla, Skype, OpenOffice.org and more.

Find your $399 CloudBook at Walmart.com beginning 1/25/08

Additional Preinstalled and Linked Software
Mozilla Firefox, gMail, Meebo, Skype, Wikipedia, GIMP, Blogger, YouTube, Xing Movie Player, RythemBox, Faqly, Facebook and OpenOffice.org 2.3 (includes WRITER, IMPRESS, DRAW, CALC, BASE)

Hardware Specifications
1.2GHz, VIA C7®-M Processor ULV, 512MB DDR2 533MHz, SDRAM, 30GB Hard Disk Drive, 7″ WVGA TFT Display (800 x 480), VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics, VIA High-Definition Audio, 802.11b/g, (1) 10/100 Ethernet Port, (1) DVI-I Port, (2) USB 2.0 Ports, (1) 4-in1 Media Card Reader, (1) .3MP Webcam, (1) Headphone/Line-Out Port, (1) Microphone/Line-In Port, (1) Set of Stereo Speaker, (1) Touchpad, (1) 4-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

Below is the specification of my E P C.

(* This is the manufacturer-estimated battery life. Actual battery life may vary with usage.)

Eee PC comes with XandrOS distro of Linux, therefore the way I access my network files is different than when I’m using Windows. Fortunately, there is a system called the Network File System (NFS). First generation of WD Netcenter are NFS enabled, but my recent acquisition — the MyBook World Edition — is not NFS enabled. Therefore I have to do the dirty work before I can access my audio/video files from my half-terabyte hard drive. The following are the steps I went through before successfully accomplishing the task:

1. SSH Access in MyBook WE
2. MyBook WE as NFS Server
3. Mount the path:

 mount mybook_ip:/shares/internal /mnt -o rw

That’s all folks!

Today we live in the world of information. Every bit of information is significant in whatever we do everyday. Obviously, we need storage for these data. Though resources are scarce, I still believe that we have enough storage to store what information we have. The problem, I believe, that is very disturbing is how secure our storage is. I may be wrong since I don’t religiously follow technological advances, I think that there is no perfect way to backup data. Data is bound to be lost one way or another and it is unpredictable when to lose them. It doesn’t matter how often or regularly you make backup of your data, there still is a window of opportunity to lose data. In addition, backups are not always in working condition because we don’t test these backups.

I am a victim of data loss. I didn’t lose much because I don’t have much. My host’s servers crashed and all data were lost. The recent backup they made was corrupted, thus I had to use an old backup.