stuart test blog

Sun are breaking all the rules once again with a datacenter in a box product. Dubbed Project Blackbox, this is essentially as many servers, networking and storage devices as possible all crammed into a shipping container. Using revolutionary cooling systems this thing is guarranteed to stay cool in any situation. You could even consider it ‘portable’ as all it needs is network connectivity and electricity. There’s a bunch of photos on the site showing different scenarios – I especially like the mars landing! But this is a serious product and although I can’t think of too many uses for it off the top of my head, I still want one, just to run my little empire from the back garden!

CEO, Jonathan Schwartz blogs about it.

Link to Project Blackbox

The red, iPod nano that everyone has been talking about is now available from the US Apple website. This was launched by Bono and Oprah Winfrey and $10 from each sale goes towards the fight against AIDS in Africa.

I really like the colour of this, and if I was in the market for a nano I would probably buy this one. I am looking to get a shuffle before the end of the year, so if Apple want to release one of those, then I’ll definitely get the red one.

• Link to Apple – iPod nano – (PRODUCT) Red™
• Link to Blogtown Gagdets » Apple – iPod nano – (PRODUCT) Red™

A new version of Windows Live Writer has just been released. This is by far the best Live product that has been released yet, and the only one that actually shows some originality. (The rest of the Live product range are all clones of competing software, or, renamed MSN services.)

This is a really useful update too – the categories list has now been improved (although not perfect yet) and it now sports a scroll bar to navigate through a long list of categories. Also, the Tags plugin functionality has now been built into the core application and has been redesigned and drastically improved to allow easy tagging of posts (now if only WordPress supported this!) Other improvements include performance enhancements and support for Blogger beta.

The Live team have also integrated their plugins directory into the Live Gallery so that all plugins can be centrally maintained. The first plugins most people will install is the “Insert Flickr Image” plugin and the “Blog This from Firefox” plguin. There’s also a “Blog This from IE” plugin for those other die hard fans!

By the way, I installed Live Writer and am now running it from MojoPac running on my iPod. Full write-up on MojoPac coming soon – just as soon as I figure out how it works…

(Also posted in the beta @ amanzi site.)

Seems like lots of users had problems with iTunes 7 so it’s good to see Apple release an update so soon. Thanks to Neowin for the heads-up.

Buy music, movies, TV shows, and audiobooks, or download free podcasts from the iTunes Store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Organize and play everything on your Mac or PC. Then sync it to your iPod and bring it along. Anywhere.

• Download here for Windows or Mac
• Apple website

Is it just me, or is this post intentionally naive? Jeff Jones claims that Windows Server 2003 has less critical updates than an Ubuntu 6.06 machine. But if you dig a bit deeper, it appears that most of the updates that have been provided by Ubuntu are for 3rd party software products. Microsoft doesn’t provide any updates for 3rd party software so I think this is a bit unfair. It’s basically comparing Windows Server 2003 to: Ubuntu, AND the entire suite of software that is available for Ubuntu.

Any thoughts?

Update: Just realised that I missed off the link to Jeff’s blog, so just added that now. He’s also responded on his blog, so be sure to read his follow-up too.

There’s a big announcement coming from Apple in the next couple of hours, did Apple in NZ ruin the surprise…? 

Link to Apple Nz website Leaks details of new ipods 50 & 80 gb – Mac Forums

This may prove that the banner showing an iPod with full, wide screen is indeed not a fake.

 Banner for September 12th event?

Tags: apple, ipod, nz, mac, rumours

As if they weren’t having enough problems as it was, but Sony have now delayed the release of the Playstation 3 by almost half a year to all countries that use the PAL system! The console was due to be launched in Europe in November this year, but they have had to delay it until March next year! America and Japan will still get the console in November as planned but Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, and Australisa (and NZ) will have to wait another 5 months before getting their hands on the new console.

Microsoft must be so pleased with this news – I bet they never thought that they would have so much of a head start with the Xbox 360. Could this be the final nail in the coffin for Sony? Even I have started to consider the possibility of purchasing an Xbox – and I’ve always been a loyal PS2 fan.

Looks like Sony’s desperation to win the next high definition optical disc war is causing all the problems. The reason for the delay is a production issue with the blue laser diodes which are required for the Blu-ray drives. If Sony hadn’t been so determined to include the Blu-ray drive in the PS3 we would all probably have one already, and at half the price that’s expected to come with the high-end PS3.

Is Sony willing to sacrifice the Playstation 3 in the hope of defeating rival HD-DVD…?

[Source: Engadget]

Tags: sony, playstation, ps2, ps3, microsoft, xbox, xbox-360, bluray, hd-dvd

Lukas Zawilski has recently started up the New Zealand Citrix User Group and is looking for interested people to sign up. The site has recently been updated with the Drupal CMS software. You can register with the site here: http://www.cug.co.nz/?q=node/9 or just browse through the site here: http://www.cug.co.nz

Tags: citrix, cug, drupal

It’s not that often that I get overly excited about a server, but you’ve got to hand it to the guys at Sun – this is an impressive box! It’s a 4 core server with 24 TB (yes, that’s TERRABYTES) that fits in a 4U chassis and weighs 170kg when fully loaded. It packs in 48, 500GB SATA II drives which, when coupled with the new ZFS file system, should give some impressive performance. In fact, Sun’s internal name for the X4500 server is the Thumper!

Read Jonathan Schwartz’s blog for more.

Microsoft employee, Ryan Rogers, has posted a blog entry asking for the public’s thoughts as to whether Microsoft should release an open-source version of Windows. Now I’m not sure whether Ryan is that high up the food chain to be able to influence this decision, but he seems to think it’s  a good idea. Read on for more…

Blah Blah Blog [Ryan Rogers] : Wouldn’t a Free, Open-Source Windows be Great?