IT

One of the holy grails of networking is “always-on” connectivity, whether wired broadband or wireless (some telcos even thought there was a market for ultra-narrowband always-on at below 16kbps using ISDN signaling D channels). With the quiet but inexorable progression of broadband, this is coming closer to reality. All sorts of interesting applications become possible when you have such connectivity:

• Home automation: remote monitoring of alarms and thermostats, programming your ReplayTV/TiVo remotely

• Automated unattended network backup

• Self-hosted weblogs

• IP telephony and videoconferencing

One key enabler remains unaddressed: quiet PCs. Most PCs make too much noise (usually around 60-70 dB) to be left running all day (and all night).

Some vendors like Dell hide this information deep inside their websites, when they even bother to measure it. Some, like HP/Compaq list unrealistic figures (I have a Compaq Evo D315 rated at 26 dB (point of measurement unspecified but probably from an “operator position”), which I measured at 55 dB using a Radio Shack sound meter). Apple is the only mainstream vendor that has paid some attention to this problem, but even they have backtracked: the iMac G4, while relatively quiet, is still significantly noisier than the PowerMac G4 Cube it replaced.

Always-on connectivity will not realize its potential until computer makers seriously tackle this issue and make computers that are quiet enough to be left running all night in a bedroom.

This would require a change of emphasis from bleeding-edge processors, that are highly profitable, but also power-hungry (and thus require big noisy fans to cool down) when their power is almost always untapped. Just as many more ultra-thin laptops are sold in Japan than in the US because US consumers are not clamoring for them, the situation won’t change until users demand quiet PCs.

Most of the work on quiet PCs is done in more environmentally conscious Northern Europe and Japan. Some resources:

• A Swedish page on Silent PCs

• The Silent PC Review has some interesting articles.

• A number of quiet PCs using the mini-ITX form factor and the low-power VIA EPIA-M chipset can be found at www.mini-itx.com.

USB enabled flash memory drives have become popular as a floppy replacement (Dell actually offers them as such). They come in all sizes and capacities, most often 64 or 128MB, are usually shaped like keychain fobs. One model, the Intelligent Stick from PQI is particularly compact as they got rid of the USB connector metal shield to make it merely as thick as two stacked quarters. I keep mine in my wallet, with a basic toolkit of Windows debugging utilities and important scanned documents (passport, e.g.).

There’s not much to say about it – these gizmos are pretty much commodities nowadays. The remarkably thin design is very convenient, of course, although it also means the intelligent stick can’t be used on a keychain. The ferrule-free connector design mostly works, but in some rare cases it can lack traction and have problems staying put in a USB socket. In spite of the compact size, PQI managed to put a tiny write-protect switch (you can see it at the right of the stick on the picture) and an activity indicator LED, both nice touches.

Update (2003-11-07):

They are now also available in 256MB and reportedly 512MB sizes, and now ship with a USB adapter that has a complete metal ferrule for those rare situations where the simplified connector does not stay put.

Update (2004-12-07):

The Intelligent Stick is now available in 1GB capacity, and supports USB 2.0.

Phil Windley quoted me as a skeptic. Since his website is widely read and this is a hot-button issue for many people, I would just like to clarify my position on the issue.

I think open source is quasi-necessary but not sufficient for true security. Closed source solutions basically means blind trust in a vendor. I wouldn’t take relatively serious vendors like Oracle or Sun at face value, let alone one with a chequered past like Microsoft.

That said, the availability of source is not in itself a guarantee that security bugs will be found proactively, for two reasons:

1. The “with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” fallacy. While this may be true of a known bug, security is like the proverbial weakest link in a chain. Once a security bug is identified, it is relatively easy to fix and distribute, the real problem is becoming aware of its existence in the first place. This can only be done by systematic source audits searching for patterns like buffer overflows. This kind of systematic audit, as practised by the OpenBSD team or some companies like SuSE is neither easy nor cheap. It will certainly not come about because a casual source browser stumbled upon an issue

2. Secondly, even a full audit of source code is not sufficient to identify all vulnerabilities. Ken Thompson, the inventor of Unix, demonstrated this in his classic paper Reflections on Trusting Trust (PDF) where he put a backdoor into the login program and successfully concealed his tracks in the source by moving the backdoor to bootstrapped compiler binaries.

From CNET News.com:

Flat-panel monitors to take market lead

Flat-panel monitors for desktop computers are expected to surpass traditional cathode ray tube monitors in revenue this year, a sea change for the display industry.

And a good thing too. CRT monitors contain large quantities of toxic materials such as lead, and their disposal comes at a terrible human cost. All my home desktop machines now have LCD monitors. If you are in the market for a monitor, please spend the extra $100 or so. Your eyes and the planet will thank you.

Yamaha announced they will exit the CD-RW drive market. They make the excellent CRW-F1 drive, which is unique in that is capable of imprinting messages such as titles in the unused portion of the disc. The user interface for this “Disc@T2” feature is somewhat clunky, but this is a great feature that is easily worth the price premium in my opinion. Unfortunately, it seems my opinion is not shared and most people would rather pay less for a commodity than pay for innovation.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, Kenwood discontinued its line of 72x CD-ROM drives a year or two ago. When mine failed, I had no spare and no alternative but to get a noisier, slower Sony 52x. The Kenwood drives managed this by using a Zen Research beam splitter head to read multiple tracks in parallel, and thus did not need to rotate the disc as fast and induce as much vibration as conventional designs.

This time, I am prepared and I am hoarding 2 of these Yamaha drives before stocks run out…