Barker Bites Back
A look at some newsy stuff and interesting bits as well as those hopefully amusing byways of technology.
Friday 30 January 2009, 5:25 PM
Amazon lowers cloud costs
From the first of February users of Amazon’s CloudFront will find the cost of the cloud computing application has dropped.
On Friday, Amazon said that the cost of transferring data around the cloud has come down from $0.170 per GB for the first 10TB to $0.050 per GB or just 5 cents per GB in the US or 3p in the UK.
The storage of the service is charged on a quarterly basis for certain levels, or tiers, of use. The existing tiers apply at the 10TB, 50TB, and 150TB data transfer levels but the company said it would be adding new tiers with new price breaks at for 250TB, 500TB, 750TB, and 1PB.
CloudFront is a cloud computing service that integrates with Amazon cloud applications. It provides services using the network edge which means that as you use the service for your own applications it should always route through the nearest geographic location and so speed up processes and cut costs at the same time.
You can check out CloudFront by going to its website which can be found on your nearest Amazon site.
On Friday, Amazon said that the cost of transferring data around the cloud has come down from $0.170 per GB for the first 10TB to $0.050 per GB or just 5 cents per GB in the US or 3p in the UK.
The storage of the service is charged on a quarterly basis for certain levels, or tiers, of use. The existing tiers apply at the 10TB, 50TB, and 150TB data transfer levels but the company said it would be adding new tiers with new price breaks at for 250TB, 500TB, 750TB, and 1PB.
CloudFront is a cloud computing service that integrates with Amazon cloud applications. It provides services using the network edge which means that as you use the service for your own applications it should always route through the nearest geographic location and so speed up processes and cut costs at the same time.
You can check out CloudFront by going to its website which can be found on your nearest Amazon site.
Friday 30 January 2009, 1:09 PM
Fujitsu closes HDD head business
Fujitsu announced on Wednesday that it was getting out of the hard disk drive (HDD) head business and handing it over to Toshiba. The "head" on a disk drive is the part that flies across the surface of the disk "reading" or "writing" the data on the disk.
In a statement, Fujitsu said that it was discontinuing the HDD head business at the end of March.
“The HDD head development and manufacturing operations are currently performed at the Nagano Plant. The company will reassign plant employees working in the HDD head operations to other operations within the Fujitsu Group,” the statement said, making it clear that this is the end of the business and they are not thinking of starting it up again soon.
Other parts of the plant working on circuit boards for servers and in telecomms will continue, the company said.
The closure is not likely to be the last in the HDD business as companies re-organise themselves in the face of a tough market.
In a statement, Fujitsu said that it was discontinuing the HDD head business at the end of March.
“The HDD head development and manufacturing operations are currently performed at the Nagano Plant. The company will reassign plant employees working in the HDD head operations to other operations within the Fujitsu Group,” the statement said, making it clear that this is the end of the business and they are not thinking of starting it up again soon.
Other parts of the plant working on circuit boards for servers and in telecomms will continue, the company said.
The closure is not likely to be the last in the HDD business as companies re-organise themselves in the face of a tough market.
Monday 26 January 2009, 5:25 PM
Microsoft accused over $8.52bn Vista bill
A Washington academic has estimated just how much it cost the world to become "Vista Capable" and the figure is a very heft $8.52bn.
"Vista Capable" in this sense is the term that Microsoft and IT suppliers used when Windows Vista was launched in 2006, to show that their PCs and laptops were capable if running Microsoft's operating system (OS).
An academic at the University of Washington, the economist Keith Leffler, came up with the estimate of between $3.92 billion (£2.8bn)and $8.52bn to upgrade the world's notebooks and PCs so that they can run a full version of the OS.
The question came up because of a court action taking place before US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman and the unsealing of some documents relating to the action on Wednesday. Microsoft is facing some criticism for, is is argued, misleading people over what made a PC, Vista Capable.
Microsoft said at the launch of Vista that it only needed 1GB of memory to run but 2GB would be better and also 2GB would be required if you wanted to run the Vista Aero interface. According to the legal action, as Vista needs 2GB memory to run properly, Microsoft should have made this clear.
Now 19.4 million PCs will need 1GB of memory and graphics cards or onboard chipsets to run Aero, it is argued. Leffler put the maximum cost of upgrading the desktops at $155 a shot, and suggests that the notebooks' integrated graphics would be more tricky to replace and would cost between $245 and $590 per unit. This could make a total cost of from $3.92 billion to $8.52 billion and in some cases would include complete replacements of notebooks that could not be feasibly upgraded, according to testimony from Leffler said CRN.
Microsoft could face a total price tag of $3.92 billion to $8.52 billion and in some cases if you include the complete replacements of notebooks that could not be feasibly upgraded, according to Leffler.
"Vista Capable" in this sense is the term that Microsoft and IT suppliers used when Windows Vista was launched in 2006, to show that their PCs and laptops were capable if running Microsoft's operating system (OS).
An academic at the University of Washington, the economist Keith Leffler, came up with the estimate of between $3.92 billion (£2.8bn)and $8.52bn to upgrade the world's notebooks and PCs so that they can run a full version of the OS.
The question came up because of a court action taking place before US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman and the unsealing of some documents relating to the action on Wednesday. Microsoft is facing some criticism for, is is argued, misleading people over what made a PC, Vista Capable.
Microsoft said at the launch of Vista that it only needed 1GB of memory to run but 2GB would be better and also 2GB would be required if you wanted to run the Vista Aero interface. According to the legal action, as Vista needs 2GB memory to run properly, Microsoft should have made this clear.
Now 19.4 million PCs will need 1GB of memory and graphics cards or onboard chipsets to run Aero, it is argued. Leffler put the maximum cost of upgrading the desktops at $155 a shot, and suggests that the notebooks' integrated graphics would be more tricky to replace and would cost between $245 and $590 per unit. This could make a total cost of from $3.92 billion to $8.52 billion and in some cases would include complete replacements of notebooks that could not be feasibly upgraded, according to testimony from Leffler said CRN.
Microsoft could face a total price tag of $3.92 billion to $8.52 billion and in some cases if you include the complete replacements of notebooks that could not be feasibly upgraded, according to Leffler.
Friday 23 January 2009, 9:20 AM
Seagate issues second fix for disk issue
Seagate on Thursday issued a firmware update which the company said should solve a problem it has been having with some of its disk drives.
The problem came to light on .came to light on Tuesday when users began reporting they were having problems with the disk which would freeze or stop working completely. The company issues a firmware update to fix the problem but then users reported the update was raising more issues.
On Wednesday the company said it sould issue another update which should be available the following day.
Seagate said on Thursday that it had finally resolved the issue. In a statement on its KnowledgeBase website, Seagate said:
"While we believe that the vast majority of customers will not experience any disruption related to this issue, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade to proactively address those with potentially affected products. This new firmware upgrade corrects compatibility issues that occurred with the firmware download provided on our support website on Jan. 16. We regret any inconvenience that the firmware issues have caused our customers."
The first issue and the second, related issue affected the Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, and Barracuda ES.2 SATA drives. Throughout the episode, Seagate has told ZDnet UK that the issues should not endanger users data which might not be accessible but would remain safely on the disk until it could be accessed.
For Seagate's latest fix for the problem go here.
The problem came to light on .came to light on Tuesday when users began reporting they were having problems with the disk which would freeze or stop working completely. The company issues a firmware update to fix the problem but then users reported the update was raising more issues.
On Wednesday the company said it sould issue another update which should be available the following day.
Seagate said on Thursday that it had finally resolved the issue. In a statement on its KnowledgeBase website, Seagate said:
"While we believe that the vast majority of customers will not experience any disruption related to this issue, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade to proactively address those with potentially affected products. This new firmware upgrade corrects compatibility issues that occurred with the firmware download provided on our support website on Jan. 16. We regret any inconvenience that the firmware issues have caused our customers."
The first issue and the second, related issue affected the Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, and Barracuda ES.2 SATA drives. Throughout the episode, Seagate has told ZDnet UK that the issues should not endanger users data which might not be accessible but would remain safely on the disk until it could be accessed.
For Seagate's latest fix for the problem go here.
Thursday 22 January 2009, 9:02 PM
Seagate issues second fix for disk issue
Seagate on Thursday issued a firmware update which the company said should solve a problem it has been having with some disk drives.
The problem came to light on Tuesday when users began reporting they were having problems with the disk which would freeze or stop working completely. The company issues a firmware update to fix the problem but then users reported the update was raising more issues.
On Wednesday the company said it would issue another update which should be available the following day.
Seagate said today that it had finally resolved the issue. In a statement on its KnowledgeBase website, Seagate said:
"While we believe that the vast majority of customers will not experience any disruption related to this issue, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade to proactively address those with potentially affected products. This new firmware upgrade corrects compatibility issues that occurred with the firmware download provided on our support website on Jan. 16. We regret any inconvenience that the firmware issues have caused our customers."
The first issue and the second, related issue affected the Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, and Barracuda ES.2 SATA drives. Throughout the episode, Seagate has told ZDnet UK that the issues should not endanger users data which might not be accessible but would remain safely on the disk until it could be accessed.
For full details of the issue go here.
For Seagate’s latest fix for the problem, go to its website here.
The problem came to light on Tuesday when users began reporting they were having problems with the disk which would freeze or stop working completely. The company issues a firmware update to fix the problem but then users reported the update was raising more issues.
On Wednesday the company said it would issue another update which should be available the following day.
Seagate said today that it had finally resolved the issue. In a statement on its KnowledgeBase website, Seagate said:
"While we believe that the vast majority of customers will not experience any disruption related to this issue, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade to proactively address those with potentially affected products. This new firmware upgrade corrects compatibility issues that occurred with the firmware download provided on our support website on Jan. 16. We regret any inconvenience that the firmware issues have caused our customers."
The first issue and the second, related issue affected the Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, and Barracuda ES.2 SATA drives. Throughout the episode, Seagate has told ZDnet UK that the issues should not endanger users data which might not be accessible but would remain safely on the disk until it could be accessed.
For full details of the issue go here.
For Seagate’s latest fix for the problem, go to its website here.
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