{patrickrice.net blog}

Facebook looking in to open switches, people are starting to figure out that, a switch is just a PC with a lot of IO going on, VMware and others are getting in on the act too. It could be interesting times for Cisco and very destructive technology for the networking industry.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08/facebook_ocp_switch/

Windows 8 is starting to look like is going the way of windows vista, the reg (ttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08/microsoft_coke_moment_windows_8/) is reporting that windows 8 is going to have a major redesign, I think Microsoft were too far ahead of the hardware on this one, a laptop needs a touchscreen before it can go to fully to windows 8, problem is that there isn’t too many touch screens out their on laptops.

The Reg is reporting that Google Glass is on the way http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/17/google_project_glass_api_developers/ but it looks like its going to be like the early androd protypes first, the tech specks are listed here http://support.google.com/glass/answer/3064128?hl=en&ref_topic=3063354, and if you want to go programming it and see how it works have a look here https://developers.google.com/glass/about

Well we are in silly season, windows 8 has been launched, so Microsoft will be doing its best to get the product out there. So should we run to Windows 8, or should we shy away. I don’t believe a operating system gets good until at least Service Pack 1 is released, but if you want to jump in with two feet, here is whats coming out.

So what kind of machines are out their

Dell have the following

http://www.dell.com/us/p/d/campaigns/windows-8-consumer

So dell are selling us flip hinges, touch screens

HP are doing more less the same

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/static/page-windows8

And PC world are selling everything Windows 8

http://www.pcworld.ie/aspx/Homepage.aspx

Prices seem to vary a lot, and the minimum requirements are low enough (below), but I expect this is bottom run of the lader, so you may have to spend to get good user experance.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/system-requirements

Windows 8 has been designed for touch, so all devices shoud have a touch screen to get the most out of it, but the question is was will physically work best.

Destops could be an intersting case in point, as holding you hand out and touching a screen while sittng down could get pretty tiring after a bit, anyone that has ever painted a wall will testify that its hard work. So will this compromise the path to least restance or in this case user adoption.

Or will the tablet take over as a  the new input device. What has to change to make this happen ? …. well processors will have to get quicker, as the physical swich is hard to replicate in terms of speed and feedback. In terms of data entry, I’m touch typing here, and this could be the major down fall of a tablet, as in it will be very hard to give the “feeling” of typing (haptic feedback), Blackberry tried this before with the Blackberry Curve, but this didn’t go so well for them.

So if your wondering what is inside Google’s Data centers, please see below. There’s a bit of PR and “saving the world” but it dose give an insite in to a data center.

http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/

So your back in college and you need a computer. So what to buy well it’s always a tough choice, but you don’t need to go into the thousands for a PC these days. the lower end laptop will do the job for most things, and the way to go here is low end.

• Keyboards: if your buying a laptop be sure to try it out and type on it, and type a paragraph on it, cause if it’s a bad keyboard your stuck with it for 3-4 years.
• Memory, go for as much memory as you can, Memory is not hard disk space, we’re looking here at on-board memory, it will be quoted like 4096MB which is More than enough if your running windows 7, also make sure you can expand it.
• Hard drive space: Don’t worry about hard drive space 160GB will be enough for most people, if your into music and video, you can always get an external USB drive. USB if you can come across USB 3.0 on a system, then that’s a plus.
• Screen size, rember the bigger the screen the more its going to cost to replace it if some one sits on it, of if it falls off the bed/desk or what ever!, a 17inch screen is going around €200 for a replacment, and its not an easy job.

The next thing is software:

• Office software, well Microsoft office is the standard, but you can use open office or libre office, once you have made sure that you save everything as Microsoft file format and it will work fine.
• Photo-shop is a standard but GIMP gives you all the functionality that most people need, it’s also open source.
• The Zotero plug-in for Mozilla FireFox, is great for citations.
• LYX is great for producing papers and Theseus, and is much better at handling documentation than word.
• If your a publisher look at scribus, its open source desktop publishing system, you could always pay for quark.

Happy shopping, and don’t spend too much!