Rudolf Henning

In an interesting twist IBM has been ordered to reveal Unix code that SCO is claiming IBM stole... yada yada yada

http://news.com.com/Judge%20orders%20IBM%20to%20reveal%20Unix%20code/2110-1014_3-5543174.html?tag=nefd.hed

It seems the comments spam we were getting seems to have stopped. Thanks to the fix Armand implemented.

Thanks Armand!

Its sad that we have to go to such lengths and inconvenient ourselfs just to get rid of nonsense like that.

I officially welcome myself to my own AMD Athlon 64 club... ;)  (ye ye I'm bragging)

Some notes on the assembling and installation of the system to others that want to join my club :p

After opening the box (motherboard) I was amazed how much 'stuff' is included in the box. U can see this is not a low budget motherboard. Except for the mobo itself (obviously) there were a wireless network card, 4 x SATA I cables, 4 x SATA II cables, 4 x Molex to SATA  power cables, 2 x SATA back plate connectors, firewire backplate and CD's with drivers and software (and that was onyl a summary)

Installing the S939 AMD 64 3200+ CPU was a breeze. With most recent CPU's I had to install u had to about break ur fingers to get the cpu cooler clips locked over the cpu socket. Not with this baby. It had a special leaver u can first loosen to get the clip easily on the cpu socket and then just switch the leaver into the lock position to tighten the cooler in place. Why have'nt they thought about this years ago??

RAM (2 x 512MB DDR400) installation was ok, The RAM socket was a bit stiff to get the dimms in but once in they sit properly.

Graphics card installation/mounting was boringly simple. Fortunately the MSI GeForce 6600GT I got does not require additional power connectors.

Connecting up wires: this is always an interesting (and bit scarry) part. Fortunately the motherboard comes with a fairly desent manual that explains where what must comes. However, getting the right wires from the case is not always that easy as they usually have different markings and u need to figure out which wires comes where.

Initially I did not mount the mobo inside the case (everything outside like a big operation with the insides out...). This was done to more easily test the board and plug in/out wires etc.

At first I tried using some old hard drives just to see if the system can boot up but it turns out these old drives themself were shot (hence they were laying in the cupboard..). So I stripped the SATA drive (I actually got for this machine and since then ended up in my current/previous machine) out of the previous machine. Ok, so then I discovered another problem. Using the aditional SATA connectors (not the NForce4 ones) the windows installation could not boot up from the hard drive - it required extra drivers during setup and then once it tried booting by itself it could not see the drive anymore. It turns out u must use the NForce4 SATA connectors if u want to boot up from a SATA drive. The mobo actually detects SATA 0 and 1 as normal IDE drives so Windows can start normally without requiring additional drivers - very nice.

Once Windows was installed I started the job of intstalling drivers. All went fine without any real problems.

Then I installed the wireless card and a whole new world opened for the machine (almost litterally). Since I have wireless at home it immediately picked up the network and I could start downloading updates and browsing the net. I just wanna say - I love wireless!

I tested/monitored the CPU temperture - only 35C at idle. (I must still test the load temp). GPU temperature is about 55C at idle.

Running 3DMark05 I got a score (all default values) of about 3200. Considdering my previous card only got about 900 this is a big improvement!

I have yet to transfer all my optical drives and data to the new machine but all in good time.

For now I'm just impressed with how easy the installation was (give a few pains with the SATA drive booting) and problems organising the wires in the case so they look neat.

I like my AMD Athlone 64!

At finally last, after some months of waiting I got my AMD Athlon 64 motherboard. Actually I was planning on getting the non SLI version for finance reasons but when Rectron mailed me this morning to tell me they finally got stock of the NForce 4 motherboards I could not resist. Price was a bit steap but I think it will be worth it - touch wood.

Now the great job of assembling it will start. I've waited so long for this that I'm gona make double sure with every step and test everything step by step. Lets just hope all goes well!

One unfortunate thing is that I could only afford 'normal' DDR400 RAM and not anything fancy like Corsair or so on (that will come one day).

We've been playing with the idea for a while and now we're going to try it again in Feb.

Check out more details on http://www.sadeveloper.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=54345

The basic idea is to (initially) have fun coding something and compare the results to the work of others. We already have about 4 names on the list.

The first price is a copy of Visual Studio 2003 Enterprise Edition. Not a price to be dismissed lightly.

I posted a mockup of the story universe web site home page on my web site.

http://www.hen.co.za/storyuniverse/

It's not much but its something.

Not exactly new anymore but I found this interesting article on the 'theserverside' about the Data Layer and another way to look at it. Quite interesting.

http://www.theserverside.net/articles/showarticle.tss?id=FallacyDataLayer

It goes into some details of SOA and layering as well.

Just saw this for the first time. Paul Ballard made a list of predictions for 2005

http://www.theserverside.net/articles/showarticle.tss?id=Predictions2005

Now I can't decide if he's joking or just plain neurotic. Interesting read however. Love the part of VB.Net developers going riot.

Just had to take the test myself. Now u know.

In the quest to upgrade my pc I'v taken another step in obtaining my dream machine. Today I bought a new graphics card for the new pc (which is still in progress), a MSI GeForce 6600GT PCIe. Its a PCI express card so I can do nothing with it until I get a motherboard that supports PCIe (kinda like giving a hungry person a tin can without a can opener...).

Next step is to get the processor and RAM. Then I just have to wait till the motherboards become available. I'l post some pictures shortly - just to make others jealous ;)

One thing I can say for the MSI brand stuff is that they come with lots of extras. 3 full games, 14 game demo and a whole hand full of cd's with utilities and stuff extra.

Now I can't wait for the mobo to arrive!

I don't like moaning and bitching really by there is one topic that really gets my blood boiling!

We really need to implement some better scheme in avoiding those *sencored* spam we're getting on the comments. What we have now is simply not good enough. First off those kind of posts should not even be allowed to be posted. Secondly, we seriously need a way to delete multiple comment entries. Thirdly, having to click 'two' confirmation buttons to delete a comment post is really just plain dumb - really.

I suggest we don't allow url's anymore in comments. Or simply don't have them rendered as hyperlinks anymore making it pointless for spammers to post such spam.

I vow this is the year we kill spam and its roots!

A new year has started and its another whole year to achieve more and wonderful things. So what is going to happen this year?

For one thing, sadeveloper.net is gona go from strength to strength. During the next two months we'll have the code off competition plus some buddy training will be started. There is also the MCSD.Net training group that needs to continue.

On the personal side I'm still on my way to get myself an AMD 64 machine.Time with the family is still important. The story universe project must come of the ground and the 'bring back sci-fi channel' petition must get another push.

Workwise.... well, we'll just have to wait and see what is gona happen. All I can say is that it may be an interesting year with some focus more on the mobile technologies. There is also the BizTalk stuff that I need to do (not my favourite).

I think this could be a great year provided we continue the pace we had last year. The holiday season was good for some people to relax (although I had to work through).

Well, good luck for this new year!