A Common Sense Twitter Analysis

Author: James Nelson
Source: articlecity.com

Technologies and innovations emerge and mature and fade over an ever shortening life cycle as we humans continuously pursue our abiding interests in doing more and more, faster and faster, easier and easier. One such phenomenom of current interest is Twitter, and its dynamic influence on our lives at present seems certain to rocket it to an exceedingly significant position as the lists of applications for it along with their accompanying benefits increase virally!

The diversity of directions in which knowledge and skills are advancing today combined with the pace at which they are occurring is absolutely mind-boggling to this particular senior citizen! As I reflect on the many new developments I’ve seen introduced over the years and then replaced by something even more spectacular, I can only shake my head in amazement. Why, I remember when I studied computer science, or data processing, as we called it then, in college, the computers were gigantic machines maintained in controlled-access, air-conditioned rooms, data was input on punched cards, and outputs were stored on magnetic tapes!

Yet, I’m not unlike the majority who feel, I believe, that if there are new technologies, new adaptations, new products or services, new methods, new whatever for doing better what I want and need to do in my life, my family, my business, my community, then I certainly want to be able to employ and enjoy them, too!

Unfortunately, making that happen is increasingly difficult, I find, as I age. Two of the guiding principles that I’ve followed successfully over the years are: 1) be a life-long learner, and 2) do what you do do well, then find others to do the rest best! I’ve also discovered that there are some things I’m not going to learn, no matter how much I study, no matter how many graduate courses I take, no matter how many training seminars I attend. Similarly, I’ve learned that implementing automation and employing good people to do what I can not or do not want to do are smart moves,indeed.

And that brings me back to my review of Commonsense Twitter. I am personally at an Intro to an Introduction to Twitter level when it comes to grasping this Twitter subject! But, I sure can appreciate its present power and growing potential! In fact, I recognize that, like so many innovations before it, it is imperative that I implement it just so that I can maintain, and hopefully improve, my competitive position!

So, how do I approach taking advantage of the benefits awaiting me in an innovation like Twitter such as I do understand, much less tap into those which as yet I can’t even conceive?

Well, I find a product or service like Commonsense Twitter that I research and evaluate, then communicate with colleagues that I respect about it, and when I’m satisfied with my findings and results, I tell others about it. And that is what I am doing here!

In my opinion, if you have a business or organization or hobby or cause that you are enthusiastic about, then you should include Twitter in your tactical and strategic plans for increasing your success with it. Furthermore, if you are in the “I can spell Twitter” category of competency about it, like me, I urge you to watch our video review of “Commonsense Twitter” at http://www.JuJamVideoReview.com/commonsensetwitter.html, to check it out and decide for yourself if it’s a good choice for you, too!

‘

James Nelson has accumulated almost 40 years of successful business experience, and much of it has been based on the maxim, “Do what you do do well, then find others who can do the rest best!” Mr. Nelson is currently President of JuJam Enterprises Incorporated where they focus on “Helping People Help Themselves.” You can learn more about “Commonsense Twitter” at http://www.jujamvideoreview.com/commonsensetwitter.html.

Checking a Drive Belt

Author: Lois Ling
Source: articlesbase.com

In the market, there are various kinds of mechanical parts. All of them, small or big, are very important for the whole machine. Among the numerous components, belts are rather simple and common, meanwhile, they are also indispensable.
A belt is a loop of flexible material used to link two or more rotating shafts mechanically. Usually, belts are looped over pulleys. They cooperate with pulleys very well to achieve certain function. They may be used as a source of motion, to track relative movement, or to transmit power efficiently. When the designed belts and pulleys are working together, then the power transmission can be achieved. Compared to other parts, belts are the cheapest utility for power transmission between shafts that may not be axially aligned.
Belts have a wide usage. For example, drive belts are commonly used for power transmission. A drive belt is a seamless belt that is used to transmit torque and power from one wheel or shaft to another in a machine or any mechanical system. As is mentioned in the above, the belts work together with pulleys to have the power transmission. In vehicles, there is a drive belt system which powers the water pump, the air conditioning, power steering, brakes and alternator among other components. Because power is quite important for vehicles to run regularly, obviously, the drive belt also plays a very important role in transmitting the power. As a result, it is very necessary for machine owners to take care of the drive belt and check it on each time they change the oil. This intends to ensure that the drive belt is working regularly without any problem, which will also guarantee the proper work of the whole system.
How to check a drive belt? Firstly, the tension and general condition of the belt should be checked. This step is very useful to ensure whether the vehicle is in proper condition. When inspecting the drive belt, you should pay attention to many aspects. For instance, cracks, the presence of frays, and missing ribs, etc. Any of these problems should be dealt with.
Secondly, you should ensure that you inspect the entire length of the belt surface. Except the above mentioned elements, sometimes, vehicles may produce a squealing sound which may be a sign of loosing or wearing out of the drive belt. This is because a loose belt may slip and subsequently produce a squealing sound, causing the alternator to vibrate rapidly, thereby wearing it out more easily. If the sign of wearing out is quite obvious, it is better to replace the drive belt to ensure the safety.
Addition to the above aspects, it is also very important to inspect the drive belts before problems appear. If there is any problem with the drive belt, you should find out the reasons. And you should replace the drive belt if necessary. The proper status of the drive belt may ensure that the vehicle can run under a good situation.
According to the above analysis, we can safely draw the conclusion that the drive belt is a rather important component for power transmission. And the appropriate inspection of it becomes necessary. You should make sure that it is under the proper situation.

SeekPart.com is the global B2B platform in the industry of mechanical parts. SeekPart aggregates the trade leads in this area, and our ultimate target is to benefit the buyers and sellers of mechanical parts by utilizing these leads through our online tools.

Save Pocket Expenses by building lighting

Author: Sushant Shukla
Source: articlesbase.com

If you wish to cut down on your electricity bill then you can do so by replacing your building lighting with LED lights. With building retrofits, you would be able to reduce the amount of energy that is used in your building and this can further help you to reduce the bills. If you are concerned about the installation charges then you need not worry about the same. With led retrofitting programs offered by the different companies, you can save pocket expenses easily.
Companies like ESI are now coming up with special programs wherein you are not required to pay any installation charges and can still get your building lighting and get the LED retrofitting. You don’t have to pay anything extra for the building retrofits and have the option to pay them back from the savings you make on your electricity bill. Thus, this system allows you to cut down on your electricity bill and you don’t have to worry about extra expenses at all.
The LED lighting retrofits are quite popular in offices and residential building as they are eco friendly and save money. The bulbs used for the LED retrofitting can run for about 75000 hours easily, which means that you do not have to worry about changing them again and again. Another thing that makes the LED lighting retrofits popular is that using these bulbs in your home allows you to contribute towards the environment as well. The LED bulbs do not emit carbon or UV rays like other bulbs and are therefore safe.
The other bulbs also emit heat and therefore lead to increase in air-conditioning cost as well. But when you opt for Led bulbs for your building lighting, you do not have to worry about the same and can in fact cut down on your air conditioning bill. This means a further reduction in your electricity bills which further implies positive cash flow.
The led retrofit can be done in your office building or your residential building easily. Apart from building retrofits, you can also opt for outdoor lighting retrofits, condo retrofits, and industrial retrofits etc., which can help reduce your electricity bill and come at no extra expense. There are various different LED retrofit programs that are now available to you and you can opt for one that suits your pocket and your requirements.

Energy Smart Industry brings building lighting program with no out of pocket expense. Energy Smart Industry’s Green Lease Management Program (GLMP) is a unique system designed for LED Lighting systems for your building.

PC Covers – Q & A on Computer Dust Protection

Author: Joe Otto
Source: ezinearticles.com

Don’t personal computers come with some kind of dust protection?
Unfortunately, PC covers are not usually standard equipment with the purchase of a new desktop computer. To protect your investment, you’ve got to consider your own circumstances. Vinyl PC covers might be fine for overnight protection in a clean office. Owners of “high-dust” work spaces like factories need to take extra steps to protect computers that need to run in more dusty environments.

I have an air conditioned office. Do I need to use a PC cover?
Even though you can’t see dust in the air around you, be assured that it’s constantly there. Over time, as the cooling fans suck air through your PC, dust will stick to the electronics inside by static charge. As it builds up in a thickening layer, it will definitely become visible – and dangerous!

What harm can a little dust do?
When dust coats the electronics inside your office PCs, it will insulate them and eventually prevent the fans from properly keeping them cool. Overheating is the actual “cause of death” in many electronic systems.

What can I do to extend PC life?
Prevent dust buildup from becoming a problem. There are many kinds of PC covers available:

Vinyl PC covers – good for overnight protection in a relatively clean home or office; must be taken off when the computer is in use.
Vent filters – If you can find these small filters in a material that doesn’t impede airflow, they may be effective in filtering out some of the dust entering through airflow ports. Replace them often!
ShopShield

Download a free report from Computer Dust Solutions on The Effects of Dust on Computer Electronics and Mitigating Approaches to learn more about computer covers. Joe Otto is a consultant for http://www.computerdust.com.

Laptop Or Desktop No Longer a Valid Question? Part 2 of 3

Author: Tony Stockill
Source: ezinearticles.com

The main heat generator in both laptop and desktop is, of course, the processor. Beginning with the intel 8086 16-bit microprocessor, incorporating almost 30,000 transistors, through the 80286, to the 80386 32-bit microprocessor. This i386SX initially with 275,000 transistors was also produced as a cut-down version, the i386DX with a 16-bit external bus to reduce circuit overheads in the PC. Another version, now specifically designed for laptops, the i386SL, had circuitry to save power, such as sleep mode, etc. this brought the transistor count to around 3x that of the i386DX.

Notably at this time, AMD introduced their version of the 386, which became very popular with laptop manufacturers, due to its lower heat generation, and power consumption properties.

The next generation, the i486DX introduced floating point to the capabilities, with corresponding increase in circuitry and therefore heat generation.

Since then development has proceeded through dual core processors to quad core plus other designs specifically targeted at various types of computer, such as 64-bit architecture, rather than just desktop or laptop.

When you consider that the mainframe computer in the 80′s had a processor with similar capabilities to the i486DX, in a cabinet the size of a small walk-in wardrobe, with forced cooling, by air or water, which needed to be operated in a tightly controlled air conditioned computer room, you can get a better idea of the work involved in reducing the size to that of a PC and further to that of the laptop. A multi-processor involved having another similar cabinet for each processor. Further similar sized cabinets held the main memory, cache memory, and Input/Output processors. Mainframes today are trending towards multiple PC style circuitry.

Getting back to the Desktop/Laptop question, what are we going to do about all this heat we are generating? The desktop doesn’t have to much of a problem, we can install a standard muffin fan to get rid of the heat, if that is not enough, add another one!

The problem is quite different in the laptop. Compact size means more heat generated, due to crowded circuitry, with less possibility of having a sufficient airflow. Heatsinks have been used from the beginning, especially on processors, but we still need to remove the heat absorbed by the heatsink. Specially designed miniature fans, with associated heat channels, draw in the air so that it flows over the heatsinks, and exhausts as a hot airflow. These cooling systems concentrate on the processor, as that is the main source of the heat. Many manufacturers have used the lap top computers case itself as a heat radiator, as anyone who has actually used one of these laptops on their lap will attest!

A couple of years ago, the early dual core (two processors in one) Centrino Duo processor was notorious for overheating, causing the laptop to shut down when in the middle of some processor intensive operation, such as graphics or video (or both together!). The later Centrino 2 dual core processor is much more tolerant and can handle such processing with ease.

The conclusion to this article is in Part 3, where we consider the inevitable dominance of the laptop.

Tony is a retired computer engineer, now working from home on the internet, he regularly publishes websites, see http://laptopcomputerstyle.com

Choosing an Optimal Site For Your Data Centre

Author: Derek Rogers
Source: isnare.com

When the time comes for your business to consider a data centre, how do you choose the optimal site? Obviously, you will want to avoid any potential hazards, but there will be some specific physical attributes you will want to look for.

An ideal data centre should include qualities that allow protection from potential hazards, easy accessibility and should be able to accommodate future growth and change.

Data Centre Zoning

When evaluating a property’s suitability for use as a data centre, you will need to verify the property’s zoning. Some zoning classifications prohibit a data centre as part of the property’s usage. You can request information regarding a property’s zoning from the local municipality, council area, or shire in whose jurisdiction the property falls.

If for some reason the property you want is zoned as unacceptable for use as a data centre, then you can apply to have the property rezoned.

Data Centre Site Risks – Natural Hazards

Knowing what potential hazards may affect the property in which you plan to house a data centre can be a huge consideration. Choosing a data centre site in an earthquake-prone location, hurricane-prone locality or in a flood plain will mean making some specific choices about your construction plans.

Another hazard you might want to consider while you are still in the planning stages of your data centre is fire. Factor in the cost or fire-resistant walls and doors. Include smoke detection devices and fire suppression systems. You may also consider including adjustable dampers on ventilation and air conditioning systems so that you can manually prevent air from outside the server environment from entering.

These known hazards will affect your decision about your data centre’s design and you should alter your design accordingly to prepare and protect against them.

Data Centre Site Risks – Man-Made Hazards

Choosing a site that is in close proximity to an electrical tower means your data centre may experience significant electromagnetic interference, which can seriously affect a server environment.

Perhaps the area in which you have selected for your data centre is prone to ice storms, which bring about extended periods of power-outages. The need to incorporate a standby power generator will factor highly in your data centre infrastructure.

Pollution and airborne contaminants, like dust, pesticides, or industrial by-products can cause server components to short-circuit or overheat. You should consider including a method of protecting your equipment by controlling the amount of outside air that is cycled into the server room.

Data Centre Accessibility

Once you have assessed the potential risks and hazards of a site for your data centre and you have decided to go ahead with plans, you will need to fully evaluate the physical attributes of the site too.

Easy accessibility to the data centre is a factor that needs to be taken into consideration, along with where the site is in relation to the company’s other server environments. When assessing accessibility to the site, look at details such as being visible from a major roadway or multiple routes to reach the property.

You will also need to be sure your data centre is located near large population centres. This can influence how close your employees live to the data centre, but it can also dictate how long it may take an employee to reach the property in the event of an afterhour’s emergency.

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who writes for a number of UK businesses. For Data Centre design, he recommends Network 24, a leading data centre design company.

How to do the Xbox 360 Towel Trick – Does it Really Work?

Author: Jon Fera
Source: isnare.com

Ever since the Xbox 360 was released in the market, folks have started purchasing it. Besides, with a games console that is ready to offer state of the art graphics and the facility to play online, who would not need to buy it? Anyhow, though Xbox 360 does offer one of the finest Playstation gaming experiences today, there are some issues that have been related to this games machine.

When dealing with the dreaded red light, your power supply light is going to be either red, orange or green. If it is orange you are still not out of the doghouse quite yet. Here are some Xbox 360 red light repair tips when the power supply light is orange.

One problem lies with the red light round the power button. Generally known as the red ring of death, Xbox 360 gamers have been protesting about this problem ever since Xbox 360 was released in the market.

The red ring of death interprets to general hardware failure. What this suggests is you need to ship the Xbox 360 to Microsoft to get it mended by their pro technicians. As the red ring of death became common among gamers of Xbox 360, Microsoft even offered an extended guaranty where they can correct any issues with the Xbox 360 free including the red ring of death. To stop the red ring of death from occuring to your Xbox 360, you have got to remember the general reason for this problem is overheating.

Often , you’ll see folks playing with their Xbox 360 games with their games console stored within a display cupboard. While it does look neater and prettier, it’ll preclude air from entering and exiting the games console, which causes it to overheat. The towel strategy where it claims to fix this problem essentially irritates it.

You have got to remember that wrapping your Xbox 360 with a towel will mean that you are really obstructing the holes that allow air out and in of the games machine. This will cause excessive heat within the system which may cause it to overheat and damage the hardware within, particularly the GPU chip.

By placing your Xbox 360 in a well-ventilated or if possible an air condition room, you’ll be in a position to stop it from overheating. The wires may look messy but working and messy is far better than neat and damaged.

However, if you do experience the red ring of death, then you may need to try out some of the correct strategies available out there. Today, you’ll see the internet provides tons of info referring to how to patch up the red ring of death. As much as practical, always go for the fix instructions that have video included.

This may truly help you on the step-by-step fix of your Xbox 360 and you’ll be sure that you’re going to be in a position to correct it as safe and as quick as possible. Using basic hand tools, you’ll be able to fix the red ring of death.

If You Want To Fix Your Xbox 360 Now In 1 hour Guaranteed Visit: http://Xbox360RepairCenter.info  Forget sending it into Microsoft, Fix your Xbox Now. http://Xbox360RepairCenter.info

Industrial Motherboard, Industrial Monitor, Industrial PC

Author: thompson
Source: articlesbase.com

The need of computing has been increased in different sectors whether it’s manufacturing, business or official sector. Industrial computer coming up with Industrial motherboard, industrial monitor have taken a lead in this concept. Industrial PC controlled many applications including stock control, dispatch and that’s too if the needs are different. Running in a lot of different environment, Industrial PC’s are the need of many offices nowadays. But there are certain conditions that need to be considered while using Industrial PC’s such as nicely air-conditioned suites, free from dust, water to be more reliable. To prevent the explosions in potentially explosive and dusty atmospheres, Industrial computers used in the food manufacture industry needs to be waterproof and should be intrinsically sealed. These computer needs to be made of stainless steel and other easy to clean material. Computer used in heavy industry needs to be protected from dust and dirt which would be able to withstand excessive temperatures, knocks and vibrations. Industrial computer having Industrial motherboard are most commonly found in personal computers and laptops. Industrial motherboards are tougher then the normal motherboards and because of this quality, they are able to cope up with higher temperatures which need to be tougher in case of a shock or a hit. Industrial computer have acquired a special place in the market that are devised to safeguard fragile computer equipments such as Rack mount system and embedded system. These systems have proved as one of the suitable options for businesses, home and office aiming at making your work convenient, well thought-out, and creative. There are many unique features that are available in these systems such as durability, ease of installation, light weight, reliability and high quality. Becoming more and more important in today’s world, Industrial computer covers almost all of the communication, computing, display and any other electronic device that we can think of. Spanning across all aspect of modern life, industrial computers applications could be easily seen in the sectors like education, entertainment, communication or science. Dedicated to specific tasks, Industrial computers are optimized by embedded design engineers which results in reduced size and cost of the product with increased reliability and performance. With unmatched reliability features, Industrial computers are laced with redundant mirror hard drive and long life power supplies too. Industrial Computers are the devices which are specifically designed to reliably operate in harsh usage environments and conditions, such as strong vibrations, extreme temperatures and wet or dusty conditions. These computers are designed from inception for the type of rough use typified by these conditions; commercial units upgraded for this purpose make poor substitutes. http://www.corvalent.com 18655 Madrone Parkway, Building 180 Morgan Hill, CA 95037 USA Toll-Free +1 888.776.7896 Phone +1 408.776.7896 Fax +1 408.776.7496

Thompson is an expert author and webmaster of corvalent website. The website having details of
industrial computer, industrial monitor, industrial motherboard

Clean Room And Its Importance In Data Recovery

Author: James Wallis
Source: articledashboard.com

The height of cleanliness would be an air-conditioned room with a freshly scrubbed floor, a clean table and chair, and from our side, very properly washed hands. Unfortunately, this is not enough to ensure safety for our hard disks. A hard disk is assembled in a clean room and, in case of data loss, will have to be taken out in a similar room.

The clean room was born in the 1960s when precision technology needed to be manufactured and assembled for the aerospace industry – including both commercial aviation and special aircrafts– space shuttles, rockets etc. These machine parts needed to be made in an atmosphere that was as free of dust as possible. Soon, the use of such rooms spilled over to other industries. When it came to the computer industry, the clean room is an essential requirement for manufacturing, assembling, data recovery and data forensics. Therefore, it was quite natural that a standard would be needed to grade the ‘cleanliness’ of clean rooms. There are two standards by which this is measured. The first one, the Federal Standard 209, was set in the US in 1963. According to this, there are six standards of a clean room. If a room contains 1 foreign particle of 0.5 micron in a cubic foot of air, then it is a Class One standard clean room. In this way, there are clean rooms of Class 1, 10, 100, 100, 1000, 10, 000, and 100, 000. The last room mentioned is not even clean by industry standards, since a really clean office would contain five to ten times dust as it would, which makes it not exactly useful, and the cheapest. Usually, a good company would have a clean room of standard 100. The second parameter to judge the cleanliness of a clean room is the usual ISO rating. In 1999, the ISO 14644-I was developed, that graded clean rooms on a scale between one to nine. On a comparative scale, an ISO 5 clean room would be equivalent to a Class 100 clean room. The ISO standards are much more exacting and, therefore, less popular, as such rooms are terribly expensive to make. A clean room has the following properties:

• It has a certain amount of foreign particles only in the air, as stated above.
• It controls humidity, temperature and pressure factors.
• All machinery inside it must be completely pollution-free, including the ones being brought in.
• Sweating, sneezing, and handling the machinery with our hands can all kill the hard drive and its components. People working inside these rooms wear space suits or special suits designed for this purpose, heavy duty gloves, and masks.

Why are They Important?

A clean room is the place where your hard disk is going to be taken apart. Whether it is a case of hardware or software failure, the problem will be diagnosed here. Thereafter, an exact copy of the hard drive will be created (if required) and the recovery work will be carried out on it. The original damaged drive will be kept untouched in this way. Finally, the new drive and the data in it in the form of CD or DVD will be handed over to the client. In the case of data forensics, this is the room where the ‘post mortem’ will happen, and the exact details of the crime would be revealed. In some cases, there may be no need to create a copy of the disk. This happens when there is an electric failure or something wrong with the read or write heads, or the cards plugged into the disk. The component must be replaced with an exact matching one, but sometimes it still may not work, as there are software issues and new problems of adaptability that arise with each new generation of technology. In general, software-related failures are easier, faster and cheaper to deal with than hardware-related problems. Needless to say, merely having an excellent clean room is not enough, the experience of the staff, their level of expertise and constant upgrading on part of the company all contribute to the effectiveness of the data recovery process.

The Making of Energy Efficient Datacenters

Author: Amarjyoti Krishnan
Source: articleage.com

The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron is a wonderful movie to watch. It is based on the book, The anatomy of greed, written by a former employee of Enron, Brian Cruver. One interesting thing that comes on our minds is the size of all power companies. They are all huge. We all depend on power for just about everything and yet very rarely do we think about conserving energy. A typical PC for example takes about 135 watts of power. A data center with about a 1000 servers should typically take about 135 x 1000 Watts or 135 Kilowatts and that would just power the computers. This does not include the air-conditioning and lighting. According to to a research paper sponsored by The California Energy Commission in a datacenter about 50% of the total energy consumed is by the servers and
about 35% is the air conditioners.

Here are some interesting research done in this field –

Feeling the heat- An interesting paper by Liebert describing the challenge
of effectively managing the heat dissipation in datacenters.

Heat-Density Trends in Data Processing, Computer Systems, and Telecommunications
Equipment- This white paper provides valuable
current data and best available insights regarding historical and
projected trends in power consumption and the resulting heat
dissipation in computer and data processing systems (servers and
workstations), storage systems, and central office-type
telecommunications equipment.

This problem can be solved by making better energy efficient air
conditioners and by making more energy
efficient computers. Many companies have taken a lot of interest
in subject. However, nothing substantial has been done primarily
because of the market requirements. The end users still want to host
their sites on the fastest processors which drives the market with the
latest processors. Going at this rate we would reach a time soon when
the energy required would be much higher than the energy available in
the market.

Intel, AMD, Transmeta and Via have all released processors which
consume very low power. A typical Pentium or AMD processor consumes
about 25 Watts of power, whereas these low powered processors take only
about 5 watts of power i.e. about 5 low powered processors would
consume as much power as a single main stream processor of today. These
low powered processors are also generally fan less processors which
means lower noise levels too. Intel has the centrino which has a lower
power consumption than the regular pentiums. Intel also has the arm
processors but those are RISC. Our prime focus would be AMD, Transmeta
and Via. They all have some very promising products.

One thing to be noted is that most of these low powered processors work
only at about 1.2GHz or lower. So they won’t be as fast the pentium4s.
Which means one would have to host lesser sites per server. A good
recommendation would be upto a maximum of 600 sites on a
regular pentium 4 server. A low powered processor should comfortably
take about 200 sites. One advantage of these low powered processors is
that they have a very small form factor too. This means that one can
have more such servers in the same space that is typically allocated to
a high powered servers. All datacenters use a profitability matrix
based on the following rule: Performance/Per
Watt/Per Cubic Foot. This is one place where the low powered
processors really score high.

AMD Geode™ NX Processor family
comprises of the AMD Geode™ NX 1250@6W processor, the AMD Geode™
NX 1500@6W processor and the AMD Geode™ NX 1750@14W processor. The
first two in these consume only 6Watts of power and run without a
cooling fan. According to AMD they provide the highest x86 performance
for fan less operations. They are based on the mobile AMD Athlon
processor technology.

Transmeta was one of the first companies to develop low powered processors.
For a long time Transmeta was known as the company where the
Microsoft co founder Paul Allen had interests in and the place
where Linus Trovalds, the father Linux, worked. Both of them are no
longer part of the organization. Today they are known for the two
processor families they have – The transmeta crusoe and
the transmeta
efficeon

Transmeta Crusoe™-
processors range from 500Mhz to 1.2 Ghz. According to Transmeta,Crusoe is a unique combination
of software and hardware. It’s this radical design that gives Crusoe its
important advantages, and manufacturers of all kinds of electronic
devices their first truly innovative new platform in over 25 years.
Thanks to Crusoe, mobile devices can be made smaller and lighter than
ever. These new devices will be more comfortable to use, too, because
Crusoe generates very little heat a problem that plagues the industry’s
legacy hardware-only processors. And because it uses far less power,
mobile devices running on Crusoe run far longer on a single battery
charge, and Crusoe-powered ultra-dense servers do far more work per
watt, far more efficiently.

Transmeta
Efficeon processors are the higher end processors from Transmeta
and they run at upto 1.6Ghz and have high performance I/O interfaces.
They are built upon Fujitsu’s next-generation 90nm silicon technology
featuring transistors with a length of just 40nm.

The entire Transmeta range not just uses the x86 instruction set, they
also have full multimedia instruction support (MMX, SSE-SSE2).
Transmeta has done very little in marketing in terms of selling their
products for the server market. Like all other companies they have
focussed on mobile products, set-top boxes etc.. While these products
are
great for the mobile market, they do have a great potential in the
server market. FIC, JM-Net etc. have some products for the server
market
which run on the Transmeta processors.

Via, the Taiwanese
manufacturer
purchased the Cyrix processors and has since gotten out of the race of
faster processors with AMD and Intel. Instead they are focussing on fan
less, low-powered processors. They have the Eden and the C3 range of
processors. The power consumption varies from only 7watts to
15Watts. Additionally, the processors come with the
PadLock Hardware Security Suite which provides a platform approach to
computer security, ensuring uncompromising security performance. These
features include the implementation of the Quantum-based VIA PadLock
RNG (Random Number Generator), and the VIA PadLock ACE (Advanced
Cryptography Engine) supporting AES encryption.

According to Via, the VIA Eden-N
Processor is the world’s smallest, lowest power and most secure
native x86 processor. It is a mere 15mm x 15mm in terms of size and
consumes between 2.5W @ 533MHz to 7W @ 1GHz.

Via again like Transmeta has not focussed in the server market. The
images above give a good idea of the benefits of this processor in the
server market. For datacenters, Via may be the best in the
Performance/Per Watt/Per Cubic Foot matrix.

Companies like Hitachi make some very good low powered hard disk drives
which have a very small form factor. They have both IDE’s at 7200 rpm
as well as SCSI hard drives.

Many may think it is better to take higher end servers as the power or
heating problem does not directly affect them. As mentioned earlier a
server driven by a low-powered processor would be able to take just
about 200 sites. This means that a person with 600 sites would need to
take 3 such servers instead of one higher powered server. Here are some
benefits of this scenario.

One of the biggest factors influencing the performance of sites on the
internet is the capability of the network card (ethernet) .
When all sites are
hosted on just one server, they all would use the same network
card to push the data. Now if these sites are distributed among 3
servers the amount of data that the sites can push would be 3 times
more
which means faster access to the sites. Another benefit is that if one
of the site goes down all 600 people would not be effected, rather only
1/3rd the number of sites would be affected.
Hence, the number of support request would be lesser. And finally, such
processors are very affordable. Typically they would be just a third of
the cost of regular mainstream processors.

Amarjyoti Krishnan heads bobcares.com, a tech support company for webhosts and ISPs. He is the co-founder of Poornam Info Vision Ltd., a software and IT services company which specializes in Linux based solutions for Webhosts and ISPs. Poornam Info Vision is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company with a team of over 100 engineers.
Amarjyoti is a Computer Engineer based in India and has over 7 years of experience in the hosting industry. He has spoken and written extensively on the subject. His articles have been published both online as well as in print in magazines.

http://poornam.com

http://bobcares.com

http://amarjyoti.com