nis (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nis_) wrote,@ 2006-11-21 03:42:00 |
|
technic 1857
UNDER REVISION
WILL REPOST when complete. This way if you're viewing this document, you don't have to spoil a single read by witnessing the revision cycle. This is my method to view the journal live with certain parameters in place, a work-around during editing where the standard preview function isn't adequate to my purpose. -nis
21 November 2006, 0757 UTC
DOCUMENT HISTORY:
0650 UTC: unexposed to public view. Validates (my part does, anyway).
0627 UTC: argh. xhtml standards. %^!#!%^(comic curses)
0617 UTC: exposed to public view (temporarily) for HTML validation.
ON MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE, it says my father was a technical writer; if I had to pick a description for what I do today, that wouldn't be entirely off-base. The phrase described him no better than it describes me, yet either could lay claim to that title.
His skill was applied to authoring manuals for periscopes, for the U.S. Navy, I think is how the story goes. Later, he started his career in the advertising business, as a copywriter, and was quite good at it. When the Internet came along he was published in trade magazines dealing with technical subjects.
My uncle (his brother) was a newspaper editor for most of his working life.
I'VE BEEN looking at Mini-ITX computer mainboards lately; I had the idea I might want another computer system to replace aging hardware, and after looking over the Mac Mini from Apple, I did what I usually do when I get a hankering for new computer hardware… I visited LinuxDevices.Com to see what's doing with Linux on the smaller hardware platforms (anything smaller than desktop computers and laptops). For years, I've looked there <lj-cut text="Read more"> for a certain envisioned substitute for either a laptop, PDA or tablet style of computer, that would run Linux and convey the benefits I was after in a device the size I thought most useful.
I'm not as plugged-in as people suspect of me; I hadn't noticed that the Mini-ITX form-factor had taken off in a significant market. They seem to be doing a fair amount of sales these days, judging by the participation seen in technical forums covering this style of computer motherboard… and concomitant smallish enclosures and appropriately-sized LCD displays to go with them… as well as forums covering related subjects such as power-efficient and near-silent computer platforms.
People are beginning to identify to a finer grain, those parts of the user experience that are important to them, as they spend more time using these machines.
I began pricing Mini-ITX systems, with an eye toward doing better (price-wise) than I could do at the Apple (online) Store -- for pretty much the same kind of machine: one that is unquestionably smaller than its larger work-alikes, lighter in weight, and, I hope… draws much less electrical power to keep it going, day and night.
skip to orphaned section
or
simply continue reading.
It is no longer necessary to tell people why I'd want to do that [run a computer all day and all night, unattended]; back in the day, the BBS I ran (called 'Johannes Kepler BBS') … ! … had to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except when feigning BUSY (telephone in use to another person, voice to voice as it were) or truly BUSY with BBS traffic (something of a rarity). If it weren't, I'd lose the interest in the BBS from the few callers who bothered to call it and investigate it. So it had to be ready for a phone call from another computer's modem, without advanced notice (just as today, your ISP had better be ready to accept your modem call, if you're still on dial-up, 24/7).
It's no longer necessary to describe all this to people because anyone who uses a computer much notices how annoying it is to have to start over with a generic desktop and session into the computer's operating system (what you get when you boot the machine from a cold start, and login… if required).
It still costs money… to operate; the wear on the machine's electromechanical parts; the thermal stress on the electronic components; and the utility bill from the local electric light company at the end of the month… it adds up. It adds up more when you want to operate more than one machine, part or full-time.
If the software were perfected, and you could rely on all the power-saving features of modern systems… if the ad copy was as true as the result you got when you bought the appliance and took it home and beta-tested it… that'd be one kettle of fish; but this is another: it is not that way, and when it is, you pay in some other way, such as vulnerabilities to both household and Internet-wide security matters (ranging from an unauthorized installation of defective entertainment software that slows the system to a crawl, to malware acquired over the Internet pipe).
[digression stop.]
^back
At some point the Buy It Now syndrome began to take hold, only this time I was questioning it, because I'd tried to buy this kind of happiness one too many times, and found the result through trial and error to be big on error and also it was trying. I looked a little deeper into the specifics of the systems I was interested in trying —specificially at the VIA EPIA series Mini-ITX mainboards, and systems based on them.
stop to preview here.
Generally, all hyperlinks above are within this document, to other LiveJournal destinations, or to Wikipedia entries. Links below generally point to outside resources, and also have return links pointing to contexts within this document.
^[1] www.linuxdevices.com: embedded Linux news/resource website.
^[2] Tech forums such as VIA Arena, Epiacenter Forums, SilentPCReview Forums; many are provided by vendors and trade magazines with an interest in the subject matter.
^[3] www.silentpcreview.com: near-silent computing.
[This (immediately above) cite may change; it is provisional until a more solid citation is found… if found!]
^[4] www.via.com.tw: VIA EPIA series of Mini-ITX mainboards.
temporary link:
XHTML validation in this sub-page.
UNDER REVISION
WILL REPOST when complete. This way if you're viewing this document, you don't have to spoil a single read by witnessing the revision cycle. This is my method to view the journal live with certain parameters in place, a work-around during editing where the standard preview function isn't adequate to my purpose. -nis
21 November 2006, 0757 UTC
DOCUMENT HISTORY:
0650 UTC: unexposed to public view. Validates (my part does, anyway).
0627 UTC: argh. xhtml standards. %^!#!%^(comic curses)
0617 UTC: exposed to public view (temporarily) for HTML validation.
ON MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE, it says my father was a technical writer; if I had to pick a description for what I do today, that wouldn't be entirely off-base. The phrase described him no better than it describes me, yet either could lay claim to that title.
His skill was applied to authoring manuals for periscopes, for the U.S. Navy, I think is how the story goes. Later, he started his career in the advertising business, as a copywriter, and was quite good at it. When the Internet came along he was published in trade magazines dealing with technical subjects.
My uncle (his brother) was a newspaper editor for most of his working life.
I'VE BEEN looking at Mini-ITX computer mainboards lately; I had the idea I might want another computer system to replace aging hardware, and after looking over the Mac Mini from Apple, I did what I usually do when I get a hankering for new computer hardware… I visited LinuxDevices.Com to see what's doing with Linux on the smaller hardware platforms (anything smaller than desktop computers and laptops). For years, I've looked there <lj-cut text="Read more"> for a certain envisioned substitute for either a laptop, PDA or tablet style of computer, that would run Linux and convey the benefits I was after in a device the size I thought most useful.
I'm not as plugged-in as people suspect of me; I hadn't noticed that the Mini-ITX form-factor had taken off in a significant market. They seem to be doing a fair amount of sales these days, judging by the participation seen in technical forums covering this style of computer motherboard… and concomitant smallish enclosures and appropriately-sized LCD displays to go with them… as well as forums covering related subjects such as power-efficient and near-silent computer platforms.
People are beginning to identify to a finer grain, those parts of the user experience that are important to them, as they spend more time using these machines.
I began pricing Mini-ITX systems, with an eye toward doing better (price-wise) than I could do at the Apple (online) Store -- for pretty much the same kind of machine: one that is unquestionably smaller than its larger work-alikes, lighter in weight, and, I hope… draws much less electrical power to keep it going, day and night.
skip to orphaned section
or
simply continue reading.
It is no longer necessary to tell people why I'd want to do that [run a computer all day and all night, unattended]; back in the day, the BBS I ran (called 'Johannes Kepler BBS') … ! … had to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except when feigning BUSY (telephone in use to another person, voice to voice as it were) or truly BUSY with BBS traffic (something of a rarity). If it weren't, I'd lose the interest in the BBS from the few callers who bothered to call it and investigate it. So it had to be ready for a phone call from another computer's modem, without advanced notice (just as today, your ISP had better be ready to accept your modem call, if you're still on dial-up, 24/7).
It's no longer necessary to describe all this to people because anyone who uses a computer much notices how annoying it is to have to start over with a generic desktop and session into the computer's operating system (what you get when you boot the machine from a cold start, and login… if required).
It still costs money… to operate; the wear on the machine's electromechanical parts; the thermal stress on the electronic components; and the utility bill from the local electric light company at the end of the month… it adds up. It adds up more when you want to operate more than one machine, part or full-time.
If the software were perfected, and you could rely on all the power-saving features of modern systems… if the ad copy was as true as the result you got when you bought the appliance and took it home and beta-tested it… that'd be one kettle of fish; but this is another: it is not that way, and when it is, you pay in some other way, such as vulnerabilities to both household and Internet-wide security matters (ranging from an unauthorized installation of defective entertainment software that slows the system to a crawl, to malware acquired over the Internet pipe).
[digression stop.]
^back
At some point the Buy It Now syndrome began to take hold, only this time I was questioning it, because I'd tried to buy this kind of happiness one too many times, and found the result through trial and error to be big on error and also it was trying. I looked a little deeper into the specifics of the systems I was interested in trying —specificially at the VIA EPIA series Mini-ITX mainboards, and systems based on them.
stop to preview here.
Generally, all hyperlinks above are within this document, to other LiveJournal destinations, or to Wikipedia entries. Links below generally point to outside resources, and also have return links pointing to contexts within this document.
^[1] www.linuxdevices.com: embedded Linux news/resource website.
^[2] Tech forums such as VIA Arena, Epiacenter Forums, SilentPCReview Forums; many are provided by vendors and trade magazines with an interest in the subject matter.
^[3] www.silentpcreview.com: near-silent computing.
[This (immediately above) cite may change; it is provisional until a more solid citation is found… if found!]
^[4] www.via.com.tw: VIA EPIA series of Mini-ITX mainboards.
temporary link:
XHTML validation in this sub-page.
