Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category

The @home distributed computing method has been around for several years now.

What is distributed computing? In short, it’s being able to break a large piece of work into smaller pieces and send them to computers around the world to work on in their spare cycles. Everyday folks like you and can download some software and complete work units while our computers aren’t doing other things.

Most techies are aware of SETI@home which is the search for extra terrestrials. System Administrators have been running up instances of SETI@home for years and years on servers with very light loads. SETI@home takes sections of “space” and chunks it down for the distributed computer cluster to look for radio transmissions.

In the last decade distributed computing model has started being used for more projects. Some of the more exciting projects of late have been medical. One that I’m getting excited about and am contributing to is FOLDING@home.

From the FOLDING@home website

What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease?
Proteins are biology’s workhorses — its “nanomachines.” Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or “fold.” The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. “misfold”), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

You can help by simply running a piece of software.
Folding@home is a distributed computing project — people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer takes the project closer to our goals. Folding@home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems millions of times more challenging than previously achieved.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to collect computers. I have at least 3 laptops that hang around not doing anything as they’ve been replaced with something better. I know, isn’t the life of the consultant lavish and exciting?

The upshot is that I’d like to do something to help out, so have run up FOLDING@home on a couple of these machines, and when we’re settled in our new place will organize things a little better and see how much I can help.

I setup a team account to track the amount of work the different computers do, team orangesands.

There are some monster teams out there, they have websites and forums dedicated to helping members setup and maintain their FOLDING@home rigs. Some of the members are running, racks and racks of servers in their homes, with the primary focus of those machines to chew through work units of protein folding. I don’t think I’ll get to that stage, but I would like to pitch in and certainly have the spare machines to help.

If you’d like to check it out, swing on over to the Standford University folding site

I might even run up a page to keep track of how the hive is going.

Cheers,
Shane

Stacey called me up the other day and started raving about the Kindle 2. I know of the Kindle but haven’t seen one and have thought they were kind of gimmicky.

My wife isn’t exactly a gadget geek like I am. So for her to start getting excited about the Kindle got me intrigued. I started looking into them a little and it seems pretty cool.

For those who’ve been under a rock the last couple of years. The Kindle is an ebook reader from Amazon. It’s designed to give a similar reading experience to paper, with the added benefit of carrying a thousand books around with you.

Kindle 2 takes what was a good thing and makes it better by adding additional colours, TTS (Text to Speech), longer battery life and host of other bits and bobs that seem nice to have. It’s still an expensive bit of kit to just go try but the reviews are all seeming positive.

I usually like to sit down with a paper book in hand, but I’m willing to give it a shot. With Stacey and I contemplating a trip or two around the states full time RVing, space will be at a premium and it would be good to read what I wanted without taking up so much storage.

Still need to look through the catalogue and make sure all the stuff I like is in there like Clive Cussler, Anne McCaffery and technical books on programming etc.

Here’s a little blurb that shows it off nicely.

Kindle 2: Get it at Amazon

From the Runway to the Road is the catch phrase for the Terrafugia Transition that could be in showrooms within a couple of years.

Below is a short video showing how the Transition would land and then change to car mode and head home.

On the surface, I’m thrilled at the thought that for the price of a small plane, I could have a vehicle that could turn into a car at either end of the trip. Then I start thinking of what’s going to happen to airspace as more and more of these things start to fill up the sky. Are they going to require a Pilots license to fly? I would certainly hope so, as that alone would cut down on the the numbers of them in the sky.

I still think it’s a great idea and while not as space age as the Moeller Skycar, looks to be more likely to get off the ground and into production. Pun intended.

It’s already looking nice. You can get one in 2011 if you place your $200k order today.

I’ll take two.

Below I just found a short flight from Terrafugia of a scale model RC version of the Transition. Flight seems nice and stable.

Cheers,
Shane

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

With MacExpo 2009 firing on all cylinders, this was too good not to repost.

I have a MacBook on the top of my shopping list and should be able to pick it up early February. Unless of course they announce the MacBook Wheel and can get that within the first quarter of the year.

Enjoy,
Shane

The new Macbook is still calling my name and while Apple doesn’t seem to be doing a lot in the way of post Christmas there are bargains to be found.

The best I’ve seen so far is at Amazon. $100 off on the Macbook 2.4ghz with Free shipping.

$1499 with free shipping on the new Macbook sounds like a bargain by any definition of the word.

There is a bunch of stuff I’m looking forward to tackling in the new year once my Macbook arrives. High on the list are iphone development, movie editing and writing some new music for the kids.

I look forward to mine arriving and will be doing some articles on the tech, programming and programs around it when it turns up on my doorstep.

I know Macmall has had some good prices, especially on the older models. Has anyone seen better pricing that Amazon?

Kind Regards,

Shane

Check it out at Amazon