20k Points Per Day :-D

So I sat up until 3 this morning fixing and reconfiguring my folding machine (Specs in the sidebar and click the "folding machine" to see progress). the motherboard had decided to stop posting so it was a battle to get it back to life. I had to swap in an Old Pentium 3.0Ghz that the board liked and "fiddle" with the whole machine. I moved ram, tried all three PCI-E slots and tried repeatedly clearing the CMOS. Nothing I did seemed to want to make it startup. I was just about to give up on it when I fired it up one more time and it sprung to life! I got a lovely post screen and set about reconfiguring the BIOS. I set the APM settings so that as long as the machine has a Power lead it just switches itself on and gets folding. It's using a Wireless "n" adaptor so I can move the machine anywhere and just hook it up to the web to get folding. I had to add a new fourth GPU client and add the tracking info in FAHMON and I also decided to set all fan speeds to 100%. I thought this was a good idea as all the cards are so tightly packed together. The new XFX 750W PSU is also a Success. It looks great (not essential but nice) and has all the modular options i need. Oddly It has a moulded 4+4 cpu power and a moulded 8 pin lead. Would have thought they'd make the 8 pin modular but meh, just means one more cable to hide. HWMonitor Pro is also Awesome! remote monitoring of temps means I dont have to hold a full VNC connection open which is nice, very happy with that.

So anyway I've noticed how the mobile phone market is turning quite suddenly into a mirror of the PC market. The release of the first antivirus packages for Android mean that it's quickly turning into the Windows of mobile phones. The thing is, No one really uses windows mobile, yes there are a few users but its not as prevalent as Android (kinda like Linux). This makes Android a big target, much like Windows XP is now, And given reports of how many viral applications and exploits there are for the operating system, it seems that it isn't the most secure of OS's. The iPhone's OS gives you quite a limited smartphone experience in the way it limits your choice. You may do things Apple's way, and only Apple's way. With Android you do get much greater choice. You can pick a media player that works for you, you could argue that Apple's software works "for everyone" but in alot of cases it still might not be what you want.

It's an endless argument but at the end of the day all that matters is you have the choice to choose the one that works for you. The fact I have an iPhone surprises alot of people and often myself. I bought an iPhone 3G back when there wasn't really anything else on the market that could match it. Using the 3G for 18 months meant that I "invested" in the platform. I build up databases of texts, contacts and save data for games and applications. I'd spent money on the individual applications themselves and organised my entire music library into iTunes. More importantly I had experience with it and understand the limits and boundries of the operating system. At the end of my 18 month contract I was adament that I would move to Android. I wanted the "free-er" experience with the choice I expect from technology. But having played with a few of the top end android phones of the time, I found their lack of a cohesive approach to design a bit of a turn off and also the fact that they didn't pay as much attention to having a responsive intuitive user interface. For example on the desire, I found that when you opened the applications menu the entire interface lagged up to an almost unusable level.

I know that if I owned an Android phone, I would come to love it. With time I would personalise it and set it up just the way i liked it. The worry is that your phone is something you entrust with alot of personal information. In mine there's lots of sensitive data that I would not want getting into other peoples hands. The idea that I would have to be especially careful what I did with my android phone, or run antivirus software that slowed down the entire system is a bit of a down side for me. We aren't there yet, so it didnt affect my decision this time round. But next time i'm picking a phone, I reckon it may be more of a concern.

Folding machine is still running well. PPD depends quite heavily on which work unit I get and drifts between 18500ppd and 21000 ppd. The combined potential PPD of my home is now over 40000 ppd but alot of it is either not running F@H or not running it 24/7

Saw this video today and it's a (slightly archaic) reminder of how important CPU cooling is :-)

So thats, Me, Telling it like it is in IT, and the Weather is SUNNY!!!