From the Web

[Cruncher Pete]

From apcmag.com
   
David Flynn27 May 2009, 7:30 AM (5 hours 3 minutes ago.)

Microsoft's all-new 'Kumo' search engine, which replaces Live Search, will be branded as Bing and launched in Australia this week at bing.com.au

Microsoft's latest attempt to regain traction in search, and thus search-related advertising, is expected to debut this week under the banner of Bing.

Previously known by the internal testing codename of Kumo, Bing will replace the current Live Search engine. And to ensure Bing becomes a global brand, Microsoft has snapped up almost every conceivable country-based domain.

In addition to the all-dominating bing.com, a WhoIs search revealed that Microsoft Australia is holding down bing.com.au while other Microsoft subs have snapped up bing.co.nz, bing.co.uk, bing.ca, bing.sg, bing.hk, bing.de and bing.fr. (The company also took out a trademark on 'Bing' earlier this year).

[Dingo]

From the Boinc_projects emails.  There was a smammer atacking a bunch of projects today creating bogus accounts.  This came up in one of the posts as to why gmail is used a lot by spammers which is something I did not know about gmail.

The trick is Gmail ignores dots in email addresses. elst.93 at gmail will
still deliver email to you, and so will els.t9.3 at gmail. So the spammer
only needs one email account, and he can create tons of accounts on websites
with it, by using random permutations of the dots.

[Dingo]

This is something interesting that I picked up from the web.  The Wayback Machine lets you put in a URL and you can see what it was like in the past.  I had a look at my web page and it has changed quite a bit.

[Vajras]

That is certainly a cool link - thanks

[ONYX]

wayback machine

oh. my. god.

Went to a few favourite websites - what a blast from the past, reading through some now non existant archives ....

[Wang Solutions]

I can tell you I made extensive use of the Wayback Machine when rebuilding this forum. I managed to retrieve quite a bit of useful information from it, from all except the members area.  biggrin

[Cruncher Pete]

From APC Magazine:
   
David Flynn01 June 2009, 11:00 AM (9 hours 34 minutes ago.)

At this week's Computex techfest Intel will showcase a V8 version of its Nehalem server chip runs sixteen threads backed by 24MB of cache, plus two top-end Core i7 superslabs.

While the rumoured Core i5 looks set to be nudged back a few months, Intel is full steam ahead on its more muscle bound Nehalem-class processors.

For sheer bragging rights the chip colossus can point to Nehalem-EX, its next-generation Xeon server processor. The current Xeon 5500-series 'Gainestown' server processors top out at four cores per CPU, and thus a maximum of eight threads, but the EX 'Beckton' powerplant doubles down that to eight cores and sixteen threads. It also sports a whopping 24MB of cache, three times that of the beefiest 5500.

If you want one more Big Number to toss around, try a count of 2.3 billion transistors – or one for every three people living on this plant.

Meanwhile, back on the desktop, two new Core i7 flagships are set to sail.

The Core i7-950 replaces the original Core i7-940 with which Intel launched the series in November last year – six months is a long time at the bleeding edge of technology. The specs are identical bar the clock speed, which bumps from 2.93GHz to 3.06GHz; the price tag also heads north, from the 940's US$562 to US$649.

The i7-965 Extreme Edition, also part of the i7's coming-out party, becomes wallflower as the i7-965 takes to the floor. Once again all the specs remain the same but for the clock speed, which the overclocker-friendly CPU boosts to 3.33GHz with an unlocked 25X bus multiplier and partners with a US$1,100 sticker.

There's no news yet on the fate of the entry-level i7-920, final member of the original i7 trio.

[yoda]

Yeah, I've used the Wayback machine from time to time when recreating a lost website :)

As for the 8 core Xeon, apparently they'll run with up to 8 of them in one machine.  That's 64 cores, 128 threads.  Would make a nice cruncher (but a prohibitively expensive exercise!)

[WikiWill]

If you want one more Big Number to toss around, try a count of 2.3 billion transistors – or one for every three people living on this planet.

I remember my electronics class in early high school years, which was run at the local YMCA, and I think was paid by mum out of wages from her part time work.  It was a time when a transistor was something I could marvel at in one hand while holding a valve in the other, yet I could still buy either (for a similar price) and connect either into a circuit I had built.  I built my own transistor radio which was a novelty at that time.  Our last class of the course used an integrated circuit that I think had about 100 transistors in it.  By that stage large-scale integration (LSI) production was coming along and microcomputers could have a processor with 10,000 transistors, and cost five times that in dollars :)

The technological advances that allow people to design and build a single chip that holds and utilises 2.3 billion transistors are almost beyond my comprehension.  It's less than 30 years since those classes - just what is this world going to be like when I retire in another 30?

I consider myself privileged to have lived through these advances - I also consider myself a bit old now 

I console myself with the knowledge that people do still buy valves and transistors.

Then I look at videos like these: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/earthobservatoryvideos/  :cry2:

[kashi]

......As for the 8 core Xeon, apparently they'll run with up to 8 of them in one machine.  That's 64 cores, 128 threads......

Haha, imagine if you were running Windows and decided to have a look at CPU Usage History in Task Manager, there would be 128 cores showing. :)

The 6 core Gulftown would make a good cruncher if it works with X58 motherboards, probably be too expensive at first though. I wonder if going to 32nm will allow an increase in L2 cache, that would really help with some projects.

[Furlozza]

Actually, that's a good point, about L2 cache.

Besides CPDN, what other projects require a decent amount of L2 to run..... shall we say.... at optimum?

(Maybe something to be added to FAQ?)

[kashi]

The PrimeGrid subprojects Proth Prime Search Sieve and the manual PPS Extended Sieving (both 64-bit) go extremely well with Yorkfield quads with their 12MB of L2 cache. Because of this the credit is generous.

The smaller L2 cache of Nehalem CPUs means that they do not perform nearly as well per thread on these 2 PrimeGrid subprojects. However because of hyperthreading Nehalems have 8 threads versus 4 for Yorkfields. This means that according to reported results a Nehalem will still process about 10% more manual PPS Extended Sieving work than a Yorkfield at the same clockspeed.

[teemac]

(K)Ubuntu's grandfather (great grandfather ?) turns 40 this month.

Unix was knocked up in one month 40 years ago:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Operating+Systems&articleId=9133570&taxonomyId=89