illa romza

Ah, I see... But then again, you have more config options if you talk to one of Apple's business consultants and you can configure an Xserve with no drives if you'd like. Not sure what else the prior cluster node configurations had though, I guess I was unaware of their existence -- never saw them on the site, but I didn't really look.

I wasn't aware you could buy an XServe with no drives. It's odd for vendors to ship devices that can't be bench tested as is (unless Apple remote boots them on the line).
One of my big complaints with the XServe is that you don't get empty drive sleds if you don't order Apple drives. Apple ships covers for the un-used drives and you don't get the drive sleds unless you buy an expensive module from Apple.
Another complaint, Apple uses SMART but they don't support SMART on drives other than those that ship in XServes. The drives have to have Apple approved firmware. We bought 80GB modules and upgraded to nicer 300GB models (cheaper OEM even with a spare on the shelf compared to Apple's 250s) and the XServe won't read the SMART data from the drives.

The whole point of the XServe Cluster Node was to leave the frills out, like the drive bays and drives, so that you can get the most bang for the lowest buck. If Apple does go back to a cluster node, they'd likely drop the dual PowerSupplies also since a cluster node can go off line without pulling down a cluster.
A few bucks doesn't seem like much until you start pricing 40 or 100 or even 1000 compute nodes and then $300ish per machine becomes real money. I've got a group that has funds for a $300,000 cluster next year (and no money for additional IT ;-). Even if you dropped $250,000 on compute nodes and the rest on infrastructure you're looking at 50 nice compute nodes (at 5K apeace). Drop $300 per node and you've got another free $15,000. On a tight IT budget, that's a lot of money. Hell, my most metrics that's a lot of money.

I'm actually not looking to buy an Apple server for the small project I mentioned earlier. I need something with guaranteed Debian Linux support (or SuSe at the very least). I do want to go Core2Duo or Core2Quatro since we have tight thermal requirements and price/performance is a huge issue.

This is exactly what I predicted would happen when Apple went Intel. Now that Macs can be compared component for component with Wintel machines and new hardware is coming out every month, everyone is worked up about keeping up with latest thing at the best possible price and getting increasingly frustrated with Apple's unwillingness to create a product line with 10000 different machines that each compete with dollar for dollar and component for component with every other machine on the market. Meanwhile, we have people talking about $299 machines with DVD burners (AND Windows? I'd like to see THAT!).

If you're so concerned about keeping up with the Jones, just buy a Dell, already.

There has got to be some information that is missing.


yes, why "air" and not "light" or "lite"?

The more I see of iOS for the desktop, umm sorry I mean Lion, the more I dislike.

Definitely skipping Lion. Perhaps Mac OSX will return to being designed around a screen larger than the ipad/ iphone and (gasp!) a keyboard.

I knew they wouldn't get rid of the classic. Something about just being able to put my entire music collection on one device keeps me coming back for more. The iPod touch doesn't come close to having as much storage space of the classic which is why I'll continue to keep purchasing iPod classics. And also, if I wanted a device like the iPod touch I would just buy the iPhone instead.

Certainly not the most expensive mac ever sold. The 1990-1992 40 Mhz II fx @ $8,970-$10,970 (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_ii/stats/mac_iifx.html) was shipping while the 1989-1993 II ci sported an MSRP of $8,800 at 25Mhz (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_ii/stats/mac_iici.html). Cheapest the ci sold for even at developer discount at the end of its amazingly long 4+ year run was over $3,300, and those were early 90's dollars.

So to my mind, a few grand on a new machine these days is dirt cheap.I forgot that. You are so right. Apple marketing would be well served to use that fact by reminding 8-core customers what they had to pay back in the day for what is practically NOTHING today. Thanks for that correction. Man that was a lot of money for so little power back then. :(

Both could hold no more than 128MB of RAM running on a 40MHz or 25MHz bus respectively. Biggest possible HD was 160MB. Wow. Talk about a quantum leap. :eek:

""Magnetic Timeline": audio moves vertically out of the way instead of causing a trim collision"

YEAH!

i dont know i might buy an itv if i buy a tv lol

i dont have one right now. my macbook is my tv/computer/gf lol

oh ok.

you know, if you use the console client, you can tell it how many cores to use - like smp 7 would only use 7, instead of 8. but i'm not sure if it would make the deadline with only 7. probably not with less than that though.

so with the 09's you can do other things while it's folding bigadv units and no problems?

I don't use my 09 MP for anything real intense but even having several apps going it doesn't take anything out of folding, I get the same times regardless.

http://img.shoppingnexus.com/products/hamilton-beach-hot-oil-popcorn-popper.jpg

I don't have a microwave anymore but like the occasional bowl of popcorn. :)

For the sake of those who want to remain surprised until we see the video, there should be a page on MacRumors that says "will post link when video available" - so I can just check that page for the video to be uploaded later in the day. I plan to completely avoid all news until I see the video.

Can somebody do this?

After watching the ad 3 times, I *think* I like it. It treads just the right sign of 'schmoltzy' without going too far over. It (the device) looks gorgeous too, from a purely personal view.

It hasn't won me over (iPad v Playbook), but there's not doubting its a good ad.

Why is everyone so hung up on Merom?

I never expected the mini to go that way this year. Remember, the entire point of the mini is to be LOW COST.

The switch to Intel caused the price of the mini to jump $100. I would much rather see its processor lag behind a little bit if they can get that price back to $499.

Same thing with the Macbook, I'd rather see a $999 Macbook with the current chips than a $1,099 Macbook that keeps up with the Macbook Pro's chips.

Of course, there's nothing saying Apple will lower the prices but IF they do then I would be very happy to see the "old" Intel chips stay in those machines another 6 months. The first core chips are still VERY fast chips, it's the rest of the system (video card) that's holding things up now. I wonder how much extra benefit you'd even get from a Merom chip in a mini.

To cut the price of the Mini by $100, Apple better hope Intel are doing a "Half Price" cut which is extremely unlikely. How much would it hurt Apple to just double the height of the Mini and put a 1.83 GHz Conroe (Allendale) in there and a 3.5" Hard Drive? I'm pretty sure no-one would be whining about that. It would also get the price back down to $499 easy!

Actually, you can get Sirius in Canada and are able to stream Sirius anywhere in the world IF you have an account registered in the US. I've heard of many international customers setting up accounts to listen abroad.

I may be talking out of my ass here, but my understanding is that Sirius works via satellites in geosynchronous orbit, which means they are way way up there, "locked in" above a specific spot on the ground (they zip around the Earth once every 24 hours, which keeps them above the equatorial spot that is also zipping around a full rotation in 24 hours). It would be physically impossible for a receiver on the "other" side of the world to see a satellite above central America. Maybe Sirius has several satellites, but still if they only officially serve the US market I can't see these venturing any further East/West than the US Atlantic and Pacific coasts (maybe a little out into the Pacific to serve Hawaii better). I seriously doubt that they'd have a satellite where someone in, say, Bombay could hook in.

The other issue that comes up is angle of ascention. While it's a nice just-off-vertical and tilted south for the US customers, once you start moving east/west (or to the extreme north/south) you start making it a far more horizontal angle. Which means, living in an area without a clear horizon you will get poor results. Moreover, the smaller the angle of ascention, the more atmosphere the signal has to go through, causing connection issues.

I could be wrong. Maybe Sirius foolishly wastes its money providing satellite service to the other half of the world just for the small market of folks who are adventurous enough to open a US account just to sign on. Or, maybe they market world-wide service as a key feature for traveling businessmen (possible, but that makes me even less likely to subscribe!) Doesn't seem likely though.

You talk about the price but I look at it this way. shore it might not be that great for the price and the difference between the hign end mini and the low end imac is not worth the hign end mini price but the point of the mini is to get people off the windows crap.I was going to switch back when the first intel mini came out but wanted something bettter for the price I ended up getting another windows one but now that the low end mini has due core and more ram I'm looking at selling my pc and getting a mac.I have been a fan of apple and the mac for many years and can see that it is not there hardware that sells the systems but there OS. I feel vista is doomed to fail and apple will be there to pick up the pieces when leopard comes out. I think Macworld 07 will be the best yet and will put windows and the pc on the down fall for good.Apple will be king in 2007 and we need to stop complaining and know apple will keep on putting the goods out.