The Clever Shark

February is always a month of much rejoicing at our office. The reason for this is simple — it’s the month when bonuses roll in. Yes, when it seems that everyone else gets an extra dose of holiday cheer in the form of extra money in the ol’ pay packet, we are made to wait an extra two months. Then again that’s not a bad idea, because February in the New York area is a rather “blah” time of year, so the boost is always welcome.

This year I thought I’d do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: build a server from scratch. I’ve had a pretty good idea for a while of the specs that this machine should have:

• CPU: twin Athlon MP processors, 2200+ or above
• RAM: 1GB registered, ECC RAM (2x512M)
• Disks: 2x80GB Serial ATA (SATA) disks in raid 1 configuration

Fortunately for me RAM prices are quite reasonable these days, and the growing popularity of SATA make it an increasingly attractive alternative to budget-buster SCSI drives. In other words if it weren’t for SATA I’m not sure I could afford to do this!

I actually put in an order for the components today, so I can be a little more specific about what this machine will end up like. I ended up getting all the gear from the same web site, and if they decide to sponsor these articles I might even tell you who it is and link to their site :-).

CPU

I’m an AMD man. 7 of the last 8 computers I have purchased have had AMD processors, so it’s quite the ingrained habit with me. I think this is largely due to a poor experience with a Celeron-based laptop I bought some time ago. As such I was looking for Athlon MP processors from the very start.

I ended up settling for a pair of Athlon MP 2400+ chips. This of course meant not getting the top-of-the-line processor, but then I seriously doubt that an extra 200mhz here or there would make altogether that much difference in the dual-processor configuration; after all this is not a 3d workstation we’re building here!

Motherboard

Initially I was leaning heavily towards getting the Asus A7M266-D, as I quite like Asus boards; in the end however I went with the Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW-P, mostly because it was cheaper and had the same chipset anyway (all Athlon MP boards have the same chipset). Also there were a couple more issues with the Asus board — some of them had USB 2.0 and some didn’t (different revisions), plus it had integrated sound, which is pretty useless for a server. Why pay for features I’m not going to use?

Memory

That was pretty simple actually — I wanted 1 gig, so I got that, in a 2x512M configuration because 1x1G was too expensive. If I ever need more than 1G memory it will be because the site sees so much traffic that it will easily pay for the upgrade at that time (yeah, I’m a dreamer). I got Kingston brand, ECC, registered PC2100.

Disk Controller

SATA might be gaining in popularity, but it’s still mostly available by using an external controller; it’s definitely not included on the Gigabyte motherboard. So I went for an Adaptec 1210SA board, which is somewhat low-end but (according to the description) supports raid 1 (mirroring). In practical terms what it means is that I will have two identical hard drives attached to the controller, and every time the server writes something to the primary hard drive it will also write a copy of the new addition to the second hard drive. In case of failures the “backup” drive can serve the purpose of the primary one. This is a common configuration for web servers.

Hard drives

SATA drives, having only become mainstream recently, tend to be huge. The very smallest ones I could find are 80 gigabytes in size. To satisfy the raid 1 requirement I purchased two 80G Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 drives. I’ve mostly used Maxtor in recent years and have been quite satisfied with those drives.

Power

Another important item is power. An athlon processor typically requires quite a bit of juice, so you can imagine what two will need! I went for a Thermaltake 480w dual fan power supply with “active PFC”, which seems to be Thermaltake’s new buzzword for “it distributes power intelligently”. We’ll be able to see if this holds true or if it’s just marketing hype.

Cooling

Athlon processors definitely need a decent cooling solution; I fried one just by running it with the heatsink slightly off! Each of the processors will get a Thermaltake Volcano 11+ Xaser edition heatsink and fan. These are rated for the 3200+ processor so it’s a bit of an overkill, but you can never have too much cooling. In fact I had to restrain myself from getting a water-cooling system (I’m not made of money).

To sum up…

There’s only one thing I can guarantee — this will be one sweet, kick-ass system. Next week we’ll begin the process of putting all this stuff together, and configuring it for optimal performance.

In a defiant move, San Francisco officials marry lesbian partners. Expect the army to move in on the Castro next.

Former officer says the Texas National Guard ‘cleaned up’ the President’s records. Surpringly enough The Smoking Gun isn’t there (yet).

Tank for sale on eBay, no bidders found. Gee, doesn’t *everyone* want one of those? I mean, that would make the neighbors stop complaining about your dog on their lawn wouldn’t it.

Mozilla.org unveils Firefox, the best browser out there. It’s not just a must-have, it’s the official browser of this web site!

CleverShark Photo now features photos of the World Trade Center. Taken from 1999 to summer 2001.

Earlier today I was reminded that I hadn’t written a follow-up on my Eclipse trial since Tuesday, so it is high time indeed that I wrote the final article on this. I’ve been putting a lot of work both in the office and on the photo site (feel free to check it out, the link is on the right side of the page), and in my world “time flies when you’re coding.”

To recap…

It has now been 10 days since I decided to change the brand of cigarettes I smoke. I used to be a pack-a-day “full-flavor” (they should really just call it “full-strength”) cigarette smoker, and had (I think) signed up for smoker information on an RJR site, so in January 28th I received an advert and discount coupon for RJR’s new Eclipse cigarette. At that point I decided to smoke these for a 7-day trial period — nothing official or funded by RJR, by the way — and report on what those cigarettes were like from the point of view of a habitual smoker.

At this point I feel confident that I can make certain observations about this cigarette which will be useful to smokers considering switching.

From the onset I should mention that I have decided to stick with these new cigarettes. It’s not every day that you see a smoker switch brands, but this is really something different.

Taste and smell

The taste of this cigarette is really something one must get used to. This cigarette has very little taste, when compared to a regular brand. This is largely due to the Eclipse primarily heating, and not burning, tobacco. The taste is hard to describe. It’s a slightly more “humid” taste, and it tends to change as the is smoked — it’s fuller at the beginning, then fades gradually, and when the cigarette is finished it is faintly redolent of inhaling from an unlit tobacco pipe. Because it doesn’t burn, that taste is the signal that the cigarette is done.

The chief advantage here is that Eclipse really doesn’t smell, compared to full-strength cigarettes. Unscientific as it may sound, my apartment smells a lot better since I made the switch, as do my clothes (and, probably, my breath). This is certainly due to it not producing ashes.

All in all I think the Eclipse is an improvement over my former brand in terms of taste and smell, and while it did take some getting-used-to, I think it would be equally hard for me to go back to a normal smoke at this point.

Strength of the Eclipse

The Eclipse is a low-nicotine, low-tar cigarette. Unfortunately the pack doesn’t show the tar/nic numbers, so this can take you by surprise (it certainly surprised me). If you’re switching from a full-strength cigarette you will definitely notice some discomfort for the first couple of days. This could lead some to smoke more, but it didn’t do so in my case — I started the trial during the work week, and there are limited opportunities for me to go out and smoke then anyway.

Lung irritation

I have noticed that Eclipse causes considerably less irritation of the lungs than other cigarettes. This manifests itself in no coughing or wheezing in the morning due to cigarette smoke (although I am getting over a chest cold just now). The smoke produced by Eclipse is considerably less dense and more humid than regular cigarette smoke, and that is probably why. Note that I’m not implying that this is a healthier smoke, just that it’s a lot more pleasant from the “lung irritation” standpoint.

How it’s smoked

By and large the Eclipse is smoked like any other cigarette, except for some aspects. First, it can be rather hard to light sometimes and require re-lighting in the initial stage. This can be really annoying to certain people.

Also the Eclipse will burn in a certain amount of time (I haven’t measured), whereas with regular cigarettes people tend to smoke them more or less quickly depending on their own puffing patterns.

There is also the fact that only the Eclipse’s tip burns, while the rest appears intact (although it does get warm). This gets you a few funny looks, but that’s about it; you get used to it rather quickly. Putting what seems to be a whole cigarette in the ashtray does feel a bit off at first.

Availability

This is the bit that worries me about Eclipse. It’s already been put on the market and withdrawn, more than once. Granted, it is said to have been greatly improved since then, but it is a cause for concern that they might disappear from the market once again.

It is also not available everywhere normal cigarettes can be purchased. So far I’ve noticed that the safest bet is to look for them at drugstores, since smaller establishments usually don’t carry them.

Overall conclusion

I am feeling quite positive about this cigarette, which represents what is probably the biggest advance in smoking since the filter. Granted, it does require some adjustment on the part of a regular cigarette smoker, but in the end I think it is well worth a try for smokers who are looking for something new.

Apparently the era of free speech is over for America. Apparently if you’re against the war you’re a terrorist.

Kerry never granted favors in exchange for political donations? CNN seems skeptical. Good thing that Kerry is the candidate who will chase “special interests” right out of Washington!

Rules for being a Republican! (via Metafilter) You’ve always wondered, well, now you know.