May
26
2008
I ordered a new computer today.
The fit-PC is a 500MHz computer with 256MB of RAM and 60GB of disk. It has two ethernet ports, a VGA port, audio in/out, and a serial port. It costs $325 (shipped), has Ubuntu 7.10 pre-installed (or optional Windows XP), and draws a maximum of 5W under load.
The fit-PC draws 5W under load.
To put that in perspective, my MacBook has a 65W power adapter. A typical desktop has a 200W power supply. The fit-PC draws less juice from the wall than an energy saving light bulb. It is fanless, so the computer is no louder than the hard drive… (which, in an aluminum case, is going to be very, very quiet). That, and it’s small. A CD jewel case is 142 mm × 125 mm × 10 mm. The fit-PC is 116mm x 120mm x 40mm. That means it is as tall as four CD cases, and has a footprint that is smaller than those CD cases.
This computer is slated to become the backup server for Untyped. I’ll plug in a USB hard drive (possibly two) and just let it back our dedicated host up. Once we get settled in our new home, I may find a use for another as either a firewall or as a media server. We’ll see… mostly, I’m just amazed to have found a fully-featured Linux computer that is so incredibly power efficient.
Links:
May
11
2008
I’ve had a marvelous year at Olin College. And this week, that year is coming to a close. Finals are over, and only EXPO and graduation remain.
Last week, my students threw at surprise going away party for me. By “surprise,” I mean “I had no idea it was coming.” By “my students,” I guess I mean “all the students at Olin I’ve interacted with in some significant way.” They came from Software Design in the fall, to HFID and Robotics in the spring, to SCOPE and independent research and projects… and even just a few who don’t fall into any particular category at all. For the time being, the blog’s header is a slightly larger version of our group photo:
This was a wonderful, wonderful surprise. They baked cakes (absolutely amazingly tasty), and all signed a huge card. The front of the card read “You’ve been an amazing teacher, mentor, and friend to all of us.” As teaching awards go, I think it counts as one of the best. I will say, however, that I had some incredible material to work with; every one of my students made my first year as a full-time faculty member an absolutely joy. These people were the reasons I wanted to go to work every day.
Thank you.
May
10
2008
The Sony Ericsson Z750a gets horrible battery life.
Carrie and I just recently picked up two new phones on a family plan. The materials in the store said “up to 16 days standby” for the phone we chose. Now, I understand that it says “up to”, but this is gross.
I charged my new phone overnight, and then left it sit. Every now and then, I’ve used the phone’s internal battery meter to find out what its current charge status is. I dropped the data into Excel, and plotted it.
I know battery discharge isn’t strictly linear, but I don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that the data has a linear trend so far, and that it is not anywhere near a 16-day standby life. Currently, if the battery continues to discharge at its current rate, I’m going to get between 3 and 4 days of standby time from my phone. Standby means I’m not actually using it. If I were to use the phone (to, say, talk to people) the battery life would drop rapidly.
The battery life on the Sony Ericsson Z750a is horrible, and is nowhere near the published values. Anyone choosing this phone because they believe it will get close to two weeks of standby time are sadly mistaken; this phone will eat through its battery in a huge hurry. It is a poor choice if you want your phone’s battery to last a long time. Consider that this is a brand new battery; after roughly 100 charge cycles, I can expect a degradation of around 5% (pdf). At 200-400 cycles, I might see my battery life degrade by as much as 50%. Now, if I have to re-charge my phone every two days under normal usage, that implies that I’ll hit 200 cycles in about 1 year.
And then I’ll have to buy a new battery.
This is not what I want from my phone. I want a phone with a long battery life that lets me make and receive telephone calls. I’m not interested in having to recharge it every few days, or even every night for that matter.
May
06
2008
You know who you are…
May
02
2008
Yesterday was the last day of classes at Olin.
Yesterday, I mailed my contract to Allegheny.
Just now, I deleted 867 messages dating back to August 12, 2007. They were labeled “jobs.”
.