hardware
I can't believe it's been almost two and a half years since I built my last PC. I originally documented that process in a series of posts: * Building a PC, Part I: Minimal boot * Building a PC, Part II: Burn in * Building a PC, Part III:
hardware
We recently upgraded our database server to 48 GB of memory -- because hardware is cheap, and programmers are expensive. Imagine our surprise, then, when we rebooted the server and saw only 32 GB of memory available in Windows Server 2008. Did we install the memory wrong? No, the BIOS
scalability
In My Scaling Hero, I described the amazing scaling story of plentyoffish.com. It's impressive by any measure, but also particularly relevant to us because we're on the Microsoft stack, too. I was intrigued when Markus posted this recent update: Last monday we upgraded our core
hardware
I was thrilled to discover that Santa Claus left a little unexpected present on my doorstep on Christmas Eve: the two Lenovo ThinkServers that I ordered for stackoverflow.com [http://blog.stackoverflow.com/category/server/]! They weren't supposed to arrive until sometime next week. I immediately began unboxing
hardware
Given the rapid advance of Moore's Law [https://blog.codinghorror.com/moores-law-in-practical-terms/], when does it make sense to throw hardware at a programming problem? As a general rule, I'd say almost always. Consider the average programmer salary [http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Sr._Software_
graphics cards
Hello, my name is Jeff Atwood, and I'm an addict. I'm addicted... to video cards. In fact, I've been addicted since 1996. Well, maybe a few years earlier than that if you count some of the classic 2D accelerators. But the true fascination didn&
hardware
I got a call from Rob Conery today asking for advice on building his own computer. Rob works for Microsoft, but lives in Hawaii. I'm not sure how he managed that, but being so far from the mothership apparently means he has the flexibility to spec his own
hardware
In previous posts, I've talked about building your own desktop PC, and building your own home theater PC. I'm still very much in love with that little HTPC I built. Not only does it have a modern dual-core CPU, and fantastic high-definition capable integrated video --
multicore programming
Like Donald Knuth, I think much of the current multicore hype is overrated. The machine I use today has dual processors. I get to use them both only when I'm running two independent jobs at the same time; that's nice, but it happens only a few
multicore cpu
Dual core CPUs are effectively standard today, and for good reason -- there are substantial, demonstrable performance improvements to be gained from having a second CPU on standby to fulfill requests that the first CPU is too busy to handle. If nothing else, dual-core CPUs protect you from badly written
hardware
Last summer I posted a four part series on building your own PC: * Building a PC, Part I: Minimal boot * Building a PC, Part II: Burn in * Building a PC, Part III: Overclocking * Building a PC, Part IV: Now It's Your Turn My personal system is basically identical
laptop
Back in 2006, I examined the power usage of my Dell Inspiron 300M laptop. It was the first ultraportable I ever owned, and I fell in love with it. I stuck it out as long as possible on that wonderful little laptop until the true heir to the ultraportable throne