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3706 Crondall Lane,
Owings Mills, MD, 21117-0211
Owings Mills, MD, 21117-0211
Tel: (410)654-0803
Beth Israel Religious School, a supplementary school affiliated with the Conservative Movement and the Baltimore Council on Jewish Education Services, teaches Jewish children the way to go by providing quality Jewish education.
The Joseph and Corinne Schwartz Religious School of Beth Israel Congregation provides a quality Jewish education and is committed to developing the creativity and potential of each child, along with vigorous and disciplined intellectual growth.
The school's goals are to instill in children a positive Jewish identity, a love of Judaism and a desire to live the Jewish life through the study of the Hebrew language, Bible, holidays, prayer, social studies and experiential programs.
School Overview
|School Type
|Early Childhood / Day Care
|School Membership(s)School Assoc.
|Other religious school association(s)
|Religious Affiliation
|Grades Offered
|Grades Nursery/Preschool - Prekindergarten
Student Body
|Total Students
|6 students
|Student Body Type
|Students by Grade
Academics and Faculty
Nearby Schools:
All Schools | High Schools | Elementary Schools | Preschools | Public Schools
Show me:
- School Location Miles Students Grades
Owings MillsBeth-el
11500 Cronridge Drive
Owings Mills, MD, 21117
(410)581-0017Daycare / Preschool (Jewish)0.6 mi | 8 students | Gr. K
Owings MillsHarbour School At Baltimore
11251 Dolfield Blvd
Owings Mills, MD, 21117
(443)394-3760Special Education School0.9 mi | 109 students | Gr. 1-12
Owings MillsJewish Community Center-ece Dept
3506 Gwynnbrook Ave
Owings Mills, MD, 21117
(410)559-3554Daycare / Preschool (Jewish)0.9 mi | 13 students | Gr. PK-KG
Owings MillsTorah Institute
35 Rosewood Ln
Owings Mills, MD, 21117
(410)654-35001.1 mi | 531 students | Gr. PK-8
All-boys (Jewish)
Owings MillsTorah Institute Of Baltimore
35 Rosewood La.
Owings Mills, MD, 21117
(410)644-34541.1 mi | 516 students | Gr. PK-8
All-boys (Jewish)
School Reviews
Area Statistics
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Updated October 26, 2014
What do you do when you are dissatisfied with your local public schools? Homeschool your children? Send them to private school? Let's look at your options.
Your religion matters to you. You want your child to attend a school which will combine academics and religious education. Here is an overview of what is available together with some links to denominational web sites.
Add things up and you'll quickly find the answer- math is crucial both in academics and the real world. By following these strategies and following personal training programs, students can uncover their weaknesses and conquer math.


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Rent Is Too Damn High: NYC Singles Pay $1,275 A Month For "Luxury" Apartments The Size Of A Prison Cell
Posted on November 14th, 2014 - By Bossip Staff
Categories: Did You Know, For Discussion, For Your Information, Get Your Life Together, Hate It or Love It?!?!, Mo Money, News, out of pocket, Really????, SMH, The Side-eye, What the Hell???, You Can't Be Serious...
WTF?!?! Continue »

subset: commoncrawl


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Searching for any info on my great grandmother, Pearl Lumpkin, born 1896, death 1991. So far we know her father Alonzo Lumpkin born 1865, her mother Sallie N born 1863. They had many children. Known sisters, Ethel born 1892, Nonnie born 1894, Delia born 1900 and a brother Walter born 1897. Pearl had two children, my grandmother Margaret Lawley and my great uncle William Jones.
Any info would be appreciated. Thank you.
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Most Talked About Centerpieces
Categories: New Homes Madison | Posted: November 21, 2014
Falling leaves and falling temperatures means winter is fast approaching and entertaining has moved indoors. Before the appetizer is even served, make a great first impression with these harvest inspired ideas for the dinner table.
- Natural elements. Vases made from squash and pumpkins are simple to make and decorate beautifully. Attach acorn caps to a basic napkin ring. Pair sunflowers with warm autumnal colors. Create a runner made of twigs.
- The vibrant color creates a rick backdrop for pumpkins, gourds and pinecones. Accent with mercury glass votives and gold-rimmed plates.
- Pair high and low elements. Prop tea lights on birch bark coasters. Intertwine grape branches around tall candlestick holders. Create a runner made out of twigs.
- Impressive place setting. It's easier than you think! Start with a charger, followed by a dinner plate, top with a folder napkin and salad plate. Finish with a small trinket your guests can take home or a pinecone name holder. Knife and spoon on the right; fork on the left. Above the plate, wine and water glass to the right; bread plate on the left; dessert fork and spoon directly above.
- Kids table. Set up a separate kids table to keep the little ones occupied with the adults enjoy conversation. Cover the table with brown craft paper (or use brown grocery bags!) and provide small containers with art supplies like crayons, wood beads and leather cording.
- Rule of 3. Easiest decorating rule of all when creating balance. Pick an element (or color or shape or object) and repeat it three times.
Set the stage for your dining experience by starting with elegant granite countertops. Sign a contract with William Ryan Homes by December 1 to receive a free upgrade to granite countertops for the kitchen.*


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So, funny things happen when you pray to be more loving. You get more opportunities to love — even when you'd rather not. That's what happened to me at least when someone side swiped our car. The mirror and half the hubcap are gone and there are new scars that look suspiciously like the emotional […]
Mary Alice Pedersen, age 61, of Sturgis, Mich., passed away Monday, Oct. 20, 2014, at the Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo.She was born March 22, 1953, in Auburn, Ind., a daughter of Andrew and Joan (Ruse) Frenak Sr.
After tracing the BRCA1 and 2 genes through her paternal side, one 23-year-old made the life-changing decision to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy as a preemptive strike against breast cancer.
Exercise-related injuries can be frustrating. Here's how to get on the mend in no time.
Lady Chiefs win in three
�Hola! It's Latin Night on�Dancing with the Stars, and we've got plenty of steamy...
Saturday's collection of household hazardous waste and other hard-to-dispose-of items was deemed a success by event organizers.
Live from New York, it's�Leslie Jones!
Reality star�Tori Spelling�was hospitalized after suffering an awful coughing attack�Saturday,...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's�Nicholas Brendon�apologized�Monday�for his "unacceptable...
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I am searching for any info (parents, etc) on the following>
NATHAN JARRET CASH B1801VA/d1891Ky. He came to Ky. in 1811 with his 17 yr. old brother DOW CASH. DOW returned to VA., raised a family and came to Cumberland Cty, Ky. looking for NATHAN and died in Ky. I cannot find anything else about him. NATHAN may have married twice and one wife would be MARGARET (PEGGY) COOKSEY B1818Tn/d? I cannot find anything about her. NATHAN'S son>
PHILLIP S. CASH married to SOPHIA COOKSEY were my gg'grandparents. Their son>
JAMES NATHAN CASH married to ARLOTTY (LOTTIE) BOWEN were my g'grandparents. Their son>
FINAS HAYTON CASH married to MATTIE KINSLOW were my grandparents. Their daughter>
ALICE JOSEPHINE (CASH) married to RUSSELL MCGUIRE was my mother.
There was a Wm CASH that moved from Va. in 1811 to Pulaski Cty, Ky. His children latter moved into Cumberland Cty, Ky. We think perhaps NATHAN and DOW may have been orphans and came to Ky. with this family. Does any of this mean anything to you? Thanks...Ginny...email@example.com
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Game time should be a protected resource, and games should never underestimate the power of the first impression. Even if it managed to turn itself around, no game should start like this. SimCity We have a level of understanding when it comes to launching online only games, not so much when the developer doesn't provide… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Mind F*** of the Year
We did not see that coming. This clever feature or twist set the game apart regardless of how the rest of the game panned out. This is worth experiencing for yourself. Controls tie to the story – Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons We've grown emotionally attached to more characters in the last few years… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Best Gameplay Gimmick
There's always one part of a game that you will always remember. Its defining feature whether it is completely new, borrowed, improved, or just weird is what makes it worth playing. That was cool. We'd do that again. Wire Jacking – Gunpoint Taking control of a building and turning it into your own sandbox has… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Best Real Job
Losing yourself in fantastical settings is one thing, but games also explore more grounded topics like real occupations that real people do in their day-to-day life. After our on-the-job in-the-game training was complete, we could see ourselves paying the bills with this new career option. Trucker – Euro Truck Simulator 2 There was a moment… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Best Debut
New franchises need to be celebrated at this stage in video game history. This is the best new idea we've seen in a while. Gunpoint The complete package out of the gate, Gunpoint ran away with the puzzle platformer genre this year. It features memorable characters, fantastic writing, clever level design, great pacing, and enough… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Game Against Humanity Award
It's true, video games do sometimes enable the player to commit some truly heinous acts. It's also true, that some of these moments never stop being fun. Saints Row IV With great super powers comes great something, unless you already failed as President and are trapped in some alien computer simulation. Then, by all means… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Tingle Award for Worst Character
It's quite simple, the mere existence of this character is offensive and a detriment to video games. Go away. Dr. James Whitman – Tomb Raider No doctor (or non-doctor for that matter) grated against its cast quite like Dr. Whitman. Instantly unlikable even before the plot embraces him. Every time he was on screen we… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Award Selections Part 2
Some of the games of 2013 deserve more than just a participation trophy. Justin, Ethan, Aaron, Coop, and Jordan settle in for a five part deliberations to hand out The 2013 Grimmys. This round we look at 2012, horror, characters, and failures. This special episode is a part of The 2013 Grimmys, Horrible Night's game of the… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: F*** Me Award
Our level of frustration is only matched by the few sharp moments of pure bliss that come from being one step ahead of the pure evil that this game is designed around. We love to hate you. Tiny Barbarian DX Lots of developers attempt to pull off both a retro look and a retro challenge…. Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Queued Up Award
It doesn't have to end this year. This game shows a tremendous amount of promise for 2013 and we think its only going to get better with age. Starbound We've barely scratched the surface of one planet in Starbound, let alone the galaxy. Add in the inevitable co-op adventures and plenty of game updates yet-to-be… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Not Entertained Award
Bad games come in many forms, but a disappointing game at one point showed promise. Unfortunately, this game not only failed to live up to its hype, it collapsed underneath it. SimCity We're still not sure how you screw up SimCity, but there's a blueprint for that now. Add in a ton of online features… Continue reading
The 2013 Grimmys: Mr. Dave Award for Best New Character
In honor of the greatest create-a-character in Horrible Night history, we do not take our relationships with video game characters lightly. This new character stole the show. Richard Conway – Gunpoint Richard Conway is just an innocent spy-for-hire caught in the wrong pair of pants. Clearing his name isn't easy, but having enough wit to… Continue reading


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Kukla's Korner Hockey
Hamhuis Signs
by Paul on 09/21/06 at 12:50 PM ET
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Nashville Predators Executive Vice President/General Manager David Poile announced Thursday that the club has agreed to terms with defenseman Dan Hamhuis (Dan HAM-yoos) on a four-year contract that will pay him $1.5 million in 2006-07, $1.75 million in 2007-08, $2.25 million in 2008-09 and $2.5 million in 2009-10.
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Custom Search 1
AUTO REPAIR SHOP accepting applications for * Master Certified Lead Tech * Certified Auto Tech *Mechanic Helper/Lube Tech All positions require current driver's license & must own tools too perform work in your licensed fields. To apply, call or text (808)443-3923 or email resume, email@example.com
Sodexo @HPA is looking for a part time and a full time utility worker. Need to be available nights & weekends. Excellent Benefits. Accepting Applications on Site 65-1692 Kohala Mountain Rd. Located @ Upper Campus. Enter through Kohala entrance and apply in person at the Kitchen Department. Hours are from 8am - 11am and 1pm - 3pm Monday to Friday. No Phone Call Please
Hawaiian Earth Products has an immediate openings for Part Time and Full Time Equipment Operator positions in Kona. Contact: 206-832-3012 Apply: firstname.lastname@example.com
Waikoloa Resort Area Cleaning company is looking for a Housekeeper, experience a plus. Must have own transportation, flexible schedule, & good communication skills. Please call 808-313-2280 to schedule an interview
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JOB OPENINGS IN KONA go.Alamo.com Greeters Return Agents Exit Booth Agents Driver Service Agent CDL Bus Driver go.Nationalcar.com Emerald Club Service Specialist Return Agent go.Enterprise.com Management Trainee (Bachelor's degree) Customer Assistance Rep., Sr. Please apply: www. go.enterpriseholdings.com Please inquire within call recruiter at 808-489-3442 E O E /Minorities/Women/ Veterans/Disabled
Blue Hawaiian Helicopters is seeking a Full Time Refueler for the Waikoloa Base. Qualified candidates will possess the Aloha Spirit and excellent communication skills. Auto-maintenance skills, a plus. Must be able to work a flexible schedule. We offer an exciting, fast paced work environment with excellent medical/ dental benefits & 401(k). Apply in person at the Waikoloa Heliport Corner of Waikoloa Rd & Queen Kaahumanu Hwy Fax resume to 808-856-3184 or email resume to email@example.com NO PHONE CALLS, PLEASE!
HUMANE OFFICER FULL TIME POSITION Hawaii Island Humane Society, Waimea Shelter. Candidate will perform work in enforcement of animal related county and state ordinances; assists in the operation of all Animal Control Facility activities including field and kennel work; performs clerical duties to provide support for office functions; and performs related duties as required. Job requires individual to be on-call outside normal business hours, including nights, weekends and/or holidays. Applicant must possess a valid driver's license with a clean driving abstract, self motivated, good oral/written communication skills, problem-solving ability, and computer skills desirable. Applications available at Waimea shelter.
CUSTODIAL CLEANING Kona/Hualalai Area Immediately Hiring FT/PT Competitive Pay Contact Ganir & Co. PH: 808-847-4202 firstname.lastname@example.com
OPEN HOUSE Bali in Paradise Turnkey Home Saturday 1-5 pm, Sunset, pupus 5-6pm Sunday 1-5 pm Ocean views, Walk to Beach 3/2 + massage/Bonus room Huge lanai, fountain , hot tub , gazebo. Designer & quality finishes throughout. This home will go fast! $549,000 87-3180 Guava Rd. Capt. Cook south of mm97, makai, look for signs or call "Kona Carla" Womack RS, GRI Coldwell Banker 808-896-6768
86 ACRES working Cattle Ranch for sale. Zoned Ag 5, incl. 5,441 sf home with ohana, barn and cattle shutes, current owner paid $5 million for property, huge price reduction to $1.699 million for quick sale. Saul Brecher (RS) 808-990-2727 email@example.com Century 21 All Islands
Hawi Plantation Home 5BR/ 2.01BA on 1 acre, ocean views, private, nice condition. $499,000 MLS #278529 Chris Helmuth R(B) Kohala Pacific Realty 808-895-6431
OPEN HOUSE 69-1647 Puako Beach Rd. Condo #107 Sunday 12 noon - 4 pm Newly up-graded renovation. Eco-friendly $435,000 Holly Algood, RS Hawaii Palm Properties, Inc. (808) 557-0354
RENTALS Nov 24, 2014
$30/night tax included. Coastal Pahoa area. visit website: kapohovillageinn.com 808-937-0588


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Browsing the "Supra Falcon" Tag
Supra Falcon "Red"
February 2, 2014 BY Ian Hundiak / 6 0 / 5
The all over red colorway has popped up again. Even though all red sneakers have been around for ages, it seems that now, perhaps more than ever, every company is releasing all red col...Read More
Supra Falcon – Purple Velvet
December 1, 2013 BY Aaron Hope / 2 0 / 5
The Supra Falcon was already the Crown brand's most daring silhouette, and this latest colorway is one of its boldest renditions yet. Treated to a plush purple velvet, this new...Read More
Supra Falcon "Red Star" – Available
August 9, 2013 BY Patrick Johnson / 0 0 / 5
The Supra Falcon silhouette ditched the traditional Supra subtlety in lieu of something more head-turning, but as of late the sneaker has quieted down with tonal colorways. Today, the ...Read More
Supra Prestige Pack
August 6, 2013 BY Aaron Hope / 1 0 / 5
Black, white and gold is a colorway several brands have used to evoke a luxury vibe over the years. Add Supra to that list with this new 'Prestige Pack', a trio of the Cr...Read More
Supra Falcon "Desert" – Available
July 20, 2013 BY Aaron Hope / 0 0 / 5
Arguably the most exciting Supra Falcon colorway to date finally hits retail, as the Crown brand gets on board with the patterned look that's been oh so popular over the past yea...Read More
Supra Desert Pack
July 20, 2013 BY Brendan Dunne / 0 0 / 5
Do you remember a couple years back when Supra spent a whole summer serving up themed packs of sneakers? They've slowed down quite a bit on that approach, but they still do go wi...Read More
Supra Falcon "Cheetah Print"
April 12, 2013 BY Aaron Hope / 0 0 / 5
The Supra Falcon is one of the most expressive silhouettes we've seen. Add to it one of today's wild prints and you're looking at a true neck-breaker, as the Falcon...Read More
Complex x Supra Falcon Custom by Brush Footwear
April 10, 2013 BY Brendan Dunne / 0 0 / 5
You want a free pair of the Supra Falcon? Howbout if that free pair is a one-off custom? This unique version whipped up by Brush Footwear can be yours. The pair was made in collaborati...Read More
Supra Falcon – Black – Neon Orange
April 5, 2013 BY Aaron Hope / 0 0 / 5
Introduced last year with a silhouette that was already one of the most eye-catching on the market, the Supra Falcon has shown it's ready for even more attention in 2013. Follo...Read More
Supra Falcon "Cheetah"
February 12, 2013 BY Brendan Dunne / 2 0 / 5
The Supra Falcon is a standout sneaker just based off its shape alone what with that super thick piping connecting the various parts of the sneaker. This just released pair manages to ...Read More


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Added Sep 20, 2013
by momita
Valencia, Spain
This Burda Style mod. 122 Burda Style 07/2011 is very confortable and versatile. You coult see how I made it in my Blog.Momita´s Blog
Sep 23, 2013, 07.56 AMby Winnie Nkosi
LOvely dresses,i love the 1st one:)Oh and forgive me as im gonna make a copy,lol
Sep 21, 2013, 04.43 AMby Ellen Hatteland
Wonderful dress! I like the red as well :) Nice blog too!
Sep 21, 2013, 04.02 AMby bethmaryharley
Beautiful dress! It looks perfect for hot weather and very comfy indeed!
Sep 20, 2013, 10.17 PMby Mary Athey
Great dress, both of your dresses are lovely x
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Get an inside look at the patterns from the first 4 issues of BurdaStyle US
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A Room of Her Ownwww.aroomofheroine.wordpress.com
Inside a room of heroine...
amber leilani designwww.amberleilani.etsy.com
sweet and bizarre circus and sideshow inspired folk art paintings
Goddess Momswww.GoddessMoms.com
Created for you. Every woman is a Goddess. How can we help your inner Goddess shine today?
I want my nannywww.iwantmynanny.com
I WANT MY NANNY!! is a cry for community. I've brought out my stories in a hope to find other like-minded, nanny-enabled parent's out there. I want us to come together to share our stories and find solace in the fact that even with a nanny, life's not per ...
Bringing a fresh approach to entertainment journalism, Moniqueblog analyzes movies, cartoons, and comics and how they reflect American culture and teach about different lifestyles, cultures, and different points of view.
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Fun clothes for nonconformist babies and toddlers. All fair trade, lots of organic cotton.
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Original Bone jewelry for men and women. CRUELTY FREE! Lots of one of a kind pieces with apothecary themes and always real bone. Skull pendants, jaw bone earrings and accessories! Priced so real people can afford them! No animals are ever harmed for my ...
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Raised in a Southern Baptist congregation, the authoress left the church when she was thirteen years old. She spent the next decade exploring her spirituality in a wide-variety of religions, pondering the deep-rooted mystery of existence, and questioning ...
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Shower Art is waterproof art you can hang in your shower (or anywhere else, we're no dictators) with a suction cup.
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Outside Contractor Sales: Lumber & Building Materials - NH
Our client, a strong and growing lumber and building materials dealer in NH, has hired SnapDragon Associates to assist them in their search for a few more experienced Contractor Sales Professionals to add to their already explosive team.
Position Responsibilities:
- ...
Nov 10 -
Quality Leads/ NO COLD CALLING!!!
Life Insurance Agent (Insurance Sales Agent)
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The Watkins Group of Symmetry Financial Group (SFG) is seeking highly motivated and driven professionals to take advantage of an excellent career opportunity as an Independent Insurance Agent. Our innovative ...
Nov 6 -
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Client Service Representative
Clean Uniforms and More! –
Clean Uniforms and More http://www.cleanuniforms.com/ is currently looking for motivated and coachable candidates to grow with us.
For CSR recruits, we offer:
1. Competitive Salary! 30-35k plus commission to start.
2. Generous commission plans for ...
Oct 2 -
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The W3C HTML5Apps team is very proud to relay the good news that HTML5 reached the W3C Web standard status today!
HTML5 defines the fifth major revision of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the format used to build Web pages and applications, and the cornerstone of the Open Web Platform.
" Today we think nothing of watching video and audio natively in the browser, and nothing of running a browser on a phone," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and Web inventor. " We expect to be able to share photos, shop, read the news, and look up information anywhere, on any device. Though they remain invisible to most users, HTML5 and the Open Web Platform are driving these growing user expectations."
HTML5 brings to the Web video and audio tracks without needing plugins; programmatic access to a resolution-dependent bitmap canvas, which is useful for rendering graphs, game graphics, or other visual images on the fly; native support for scalable vector graphics (SVG) and math (MathML); annotations important for East Asian typography (Ruby); features to enable accessibility of rich applications; and much more.
For news on what's next after HTML5, see W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe's blog post on " Application Foundations for the Open Web Platform".
Find out in less than 2 minutes why Web Standards for the future are important by watching the Web standards for the futurevideo.
Filed under: HTML5 , html5apps , Standardization


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|By Marketwired .
Article Rating:
|February 1, 2013 10:53 AM EST
ROCKVILLE, MD -- (Marketwire) -- 02/01/13 -- While the energy drinks and shots market may be a small component of the non-alcoholic beverage industry, it has defied the odds by remaining one of the most dynamic parts -- growing by 60% from 2008-2012, according to Packaged Facts estimates just released in "Energy Drinks and Shots: Market Trends in the U.S." In 2012, total U.S. sales of energy drinks and shots exceeded $12.5 billion.
Thirst quencher/sports drinks remain the most formidable competitor for energy drinks, as this type of beverage attracts a large constituency of energy drink users. Energy drinks are also subject to competition from other energy-boosting beverages such as ready-to-drink iced coffee and tea beverages. But most interesting, as always, has been the revolution within.
At least in their Western product incarnations, energy drinks have long been associated with raves and college cocktails. The karma of energy drinks is an update on sex and drugs and rock 'n roll, with extreme and racing sports thrown in.
But then energy shots arrived with their purely utilitarian positioning. According to David Sprinkle, research director for Packaged Facts, "If energy drinks are about loving the nightlife, energy shots are about getting through the daily grind. An energy boost is, bar none, the top functional benefit consumers look for from foods and especially from grab-and-gulp beverages."
A loss of edge came with a gain in audience: students who are holding down full-time jobs and course loads rather than too many cocktails, soccer moms, moonlighters fighting the recession to keep family finances afloat, long-distance commuters and truckers, night shift workers -- all types of consumers lined up to buy 24-packs of energy shots.
The shift from edgy to everyday came full circle as energy drink marketers themselves reined in the party vibe, and energy drinks became available at nearly every type of retail outlet imaginable, from Walmart to push carts. For every old school sympathizing-with-the-devil energy drink brand, there are now many New Kids on The Block. And while the prime time energy drink brands may not be ready for boy bands as spokespersons, vanilla has infiltrated the energy drink market, both literally and figuratively, along with flavors like pink lemonade.
There is demand for greater diversity in energy drink and shot products, according to the Packaged Facts report. Sales-tracking figures confirm that the market is dynamic enough to allow for all-around opportunity rather than just bull-eat-dog dynamics. The energy drink category experienced 42% growth from 2008-2012, the recession notwithstanding, while energy shots grew 168% and energy drink mixes stepped up to the plate.
In the energy drinks market as elsewhere, brand line extension and new marketer entry are both important to meeting varied consumer needs and keeping short-attention-span consumers engaged. Energy drink marketers can leverage several growth areas and positioning strategies, particularly targeted marketing. And any energy drink purveyors who are so determined can retain their edginess by taking brand imaging, product innovation, flavor juxtapositions, packaging technology, and marketing tactics to a new level of extremity -- creating a next-generation beverage that's not your mother's energy drink.
For more information, please visit www.MarketResearch.com or http://www.packagedfacts.com/Energy-Drinks-Shots-7124908/
About Packaged Facts - Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com, publishes market intelligence on a wide range of consumer market topics, including consumer demographics and shopper insights, consumer financial products and services, consumer goods and retailing, consumer packaged goods (including foods and beverages, health and beauty care, and household products), and pet products and services. Packaged Facts also offers a full range of custom research services. To learn more, visit: www.packagedfacts.com. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and on our blog: http://packagedfacts.blogspot.com/
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David Sprinkle
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SYS-CON Events announced today that Windstream, a leading provider of advanced network and cloud communications, has been named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9–11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York, NY. Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN), a FORTUNE 500 and S&P 500 company, is a leading provider of advanced network communications, including cloud computing and managed services, to businesses nationwide. The company also offers broadband, phone and digital TV services to consumers primarily in rural areas.
Nov. 23, 2014 07:30 PM EST Reads: 1,648
"There is a natural synchronization between the business models, the IoT is there to support ," explained Brendan O'Brien, Co-founder and Chief Architect of Aria Systems, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 15th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Nov. 23, 2014 12:00 PM EST Reads: 1,590
The major cloud platforms defy a simple, side-by-side analysis. Each of the major IaaS public-cloud platforms offers their own unique strengths and functionality. Options for on-site private cloud are diverse as well, and must be designed and deployed while taking existing legacy architecture and infrastructure into account. Then the reality is that most enterprises are embarking on a hybrid cloud strategy and programs. In this Power Panel at 15th Cloud Expo (http://www.CloudComputingExpo.com), moderated by Ashar Baig, Research Director, Cloud, at Gigaom Research, Nate Gordon, Director of T...
Nov. 23, 2014 07:45 AM EST Reads: 1,439
The definition of IoT is not new, in fact it's been around for over a decade. What has changed is the public's awareness that the technology we use on a daily basis has caught up on the vision of an always on, always connected world. If you look into the details of what comprises the IoT, you'll see that it includes everything from cloud computing, Big Data analytics, "Things," Web communication, applications, network, storage, etc. It is essentially including everything connected online from hardware to software, or as we like to say, it's an Internet of many different things. The difference ...
Nov. 22, 2014 10:00 PM EST Reads: 1,313
Cloud Expo 2014 TV commercials will feature @ThingsExpo, which was launched in June, 2014 at New York City's Javits Center as the largest 'Internet of Things' event in the world.
Nov. 22, 2014 05:30 PM EST Reads: 1,421
An entirely new security model is needed for the Internet of Things, or is it? Can we save some old and tested controls for this new and different environment? In his session at @ThingsExpo, New York's at the Javits Center, Davi Ottenheimer, EMC Senior Director of Trust, reviewed hands-on lessons with IoT devices and reveal a new risk balance you might not expect. Davi Ottenheimer, EMC Senior Director of Trust, has more than nineteen years' experience managing global security operations and assessments, including a decade of leading incident response and digital forensics. He is co-author of t...
Nov. 22, 2014 05:30 PM EST Reads: 1,264
ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is bringing a greater level of control, security and flexibility to cloud-based application development and delivery with a single-tenant version of Bluemix, IBM's platform-as-a-service. The new platform enables developers to build ap...
Nov. 22, 2014 05:30 PM EST Reads: 1,441
Explosive growth in connected devices. Enormous amounts of data for collection and analysis. Critical use of data for split-second decision making and actionable information. All three are factors in making the Internet of Things a reality. Yet, any one factor would have an IT organization pondering its infrastructure strategy. How should your organization enhance its IT framework to enable an Internet of Things implementation? In his session at Internet of @ThingsExpo, James Kirkland, Chief Architect for the Internet of Things and Intelligent Systems at Red Hat, described how to revolutioniz...
Nov. 21, 2014 09:15 PM EST Reads: 1,351
Technology is enabling a new approach to collecting and using data. This approach, commonly referred to as the "Internet of Things" (IoT), enables businesses to use real-time data from all sorts of things including machines, devices and sensors to make better decisions, improve customer service, and lower the risk in the creation of new revenue opportunities. In his General Session at Internet of @ThingsExpo, Dave Wagstaff, Vice President and Chief Architect at BSQUARE Corporation, discuss the real benefits to focus on, how to understand the requirements of a successful solution, the flow of ...
Nov. 21, 2014 08:00 PM EST Reads: 1,420
The security devil is always in the details of the attack: the ones you've endured, the ones you prepare yourself to fend off, and the ones that, you fear, will catch you completely unaware and defenseless. The Internet of Things (IoT) is nothing if not an endless proliferation of details. It's the vision of a world in which continuous Internet connectivity and addressability is embedded into a growing range of human artifacts, into the natural world, and even into our smartphones, appliances, and physical persons. In the IoT vision, every new "thing" - sensor, actuator, data source, data con...
Nov. 21, 2014 08:00 PM EST Reads: 1,356
"BSQUARE is in the business of selling software solutions for smart connected devices. It's obvious that IoT has moved from being a technology to being a fundamental part of business, and in the last 18 months people have said let's figure out how to do it and let's put some focus on it, " explained Dave Wagstaff, VP & Chief Architect, at BSQUARE Corporation, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held Nov 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Nov. 21, 2014 07:00 PM EST Reads: 1,271
Focused on this fast-growing market's needs, Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation (Nasdaq: VTSS), a leading provider of IC solutions to advance "Ethernet Everywhere" in Carrier, Enterprise and Internet of Things (IoT) networks, introduced its IStaX™ software (VSC6815SDK), a robust protocol stack to simplify deployment and management of Industrial-IoT network applications such as Industrial Ethernet switching, surveillance, video distribution, LCD signage, intelligent sensors, and metering equipment. Leveraging technologies proven in the Carrier and Enterprise markets, IStaX is designed to work ac...
Nov. 20, 2014 09:15 PM EST Reads: 1,366
C-Labs LLC, a leading provider of remote and mobile access for the Internet of Things (IoT), announced the appointment of John Traynor to the position of chief operating officer. Previously a strategic advisor to the firm, Mr. Traynor will now oversee sales, marketing, finance, and operations. Mr. Traynor is based out of the C-Labs office in Redmond, Washington. He reports to Chris Muench, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Traynor brings valuable business leadership and technology industry expertise to C-Labs. With over 30 years' experience in the high-tech sector, John Traynor has held numerous...
Nov. 20, 2014 06:00 PM EST Reads: 1,322
Bit6 today issued a challenge to the technology community implementing Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC). To leap beyond WebRTC's significant limitations and fully leverage its underlying value to accelerate innovation, application developers need to consider the entire communications ecosystem.
Nov. 20, 2014 04:45 PM EST Reads: 1,113
The 3rd International @ThingsExpo, co-located with the 16th International Cloud Expo - to be held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY - announces that it is now accepting Keynote Proposals. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the most profound change in personal and enterprise IT since the creation of the Worldwide Web more than 20 years ago. All major researchers estimate there will be tens of billions devices - computers, smartphones, tablets, and sensors - connected to the Internet by 2020. This number will continue to grow at a rapid pace for the next several decades.
Nov. 20, 2014 01:00 PM EST Reads: 1,567
The Internet of Things is not new. Historically, smart businesses have used its basic concept of leveraging data to drive better decision making and have capitalized on those insights to realize additional revenue opportunities. So, what has changed to make the Internet of Things one of the hottest topics in tech? In his session at @ThingsExpo, Chris Gray, Director, Embedded and Internet of Things, discussed the underlying factors that are driving the economics of intelligent systems. Discover how hardware commoditization, the ubiquitous nature of connectivity, and the emergence of Big Data a...
Nov. 20, 2014 12:30 PM EST Reads: 1,783
Almost everyone sees the potential of Internet of Things but how can businesses truly unlock that potential. The key will be in the ability to discover business insight in the midst of an ocean of Big Data generated from billions of embedded devices via Systems of Discover. Businesses will also need to ensure that they can sustain that insight by leveraging the cloud for global reach, scale and elasticity.
Nov. 18, 2014 09:00 PM EST Reads: 2,010
SYS-CON Events announced today that IDenticard will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. IDenticard™ is the security division of Brady Corp (NYSE: BRC), a $1.5 billion manufacturer of identification products. We have small-company values with the strength and stability of a major corporation. IDenticard offers local sales, support and service to our customers across the United States and Canada. Our partner network encompasses some 300 of the world's leading systems integrators and security s...
Nov. 18, 2014 08:15 PM EST Reads: 1,554
IoT is still a vague buzzword for many people. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mike Kavis, Vice President & Principal Cloud Architect at Cloud Technology Partners, discussed the business value of IoT that goes far beyond the general public's perception that IoT is all about wearables and home consumer services. He also discussed how IoT is perceived by investors and how venture capitalist access this space. Other topics discussed were barriers to success, what is new, what is old, and what the future may hold. Mike Kavis is Vice President & Principal Cloud Architect at Cloud Technology Pa...
Nov. 18, 2014 01:30 PM EST Reads: 2,004
Cloud Expo 2014 TV commercials will feature @ThingsExpo, which was launched in June, 2014 at New York City's Javits Center as the largest 'Internet of Things' event in the world. The next @ThingsExpo will take place November 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California. Since its launch in 2008, Cloud Expo TV commercials have been aired and CNBC, Fox News Network, and Bloomberg TV. Please enjoy our 2014 commercial.
Nov. 13, 2014 05:00 AM EST Reads: 3,540


text:
This document contains only my personal opinions and calls of judgement, and where any comment is made as to the quality of anybody's work, the comment is an opinion, in my judgement.
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I found again today the box where I had stored L1710B LCD monitor that I had bought in 2003 and that I have not used for some years. I took it out and tried it again and it worked well. Compared side by side with my recent U2412M it is rather smaller but still quite usable, and it has a nice 1280×1024 pixel size, with a better aspect ratio and vertical space than more recent monitor.
The LCD display if of course still very sharp and legible and usable and despite not being IPS or VA it still has pretty wide viewing angles: horizontally I can't see a contrast or color shift, and vertically I can't see a color shift even if there is a contrast shift vertically, but fairly mild. I think that the viewing angles are much better than many contemporary TN displays with claimed viewing angles of 170°/160°, even if the specification reports viewing angles of 160°/140° which seems to be a bit pessimistic; or perhap there has been some specification inflation.
Display visual quality is reasonable, even if the 18-bit colors and much lower contrast ratio are noticeable, and there is some backlight bleed. The greatest signs of passage of time are born by the backlight (four CCFL tubes) as it has a noticeable yellow tint, and it is dim, and at the same time there is a fair degree of backlight bleed.
The physical size of 340mm×270mm is usable, even if it is not possible to have two regular size windows side by side as with the U2412M physical size of 518mm×324mm. The smallest monitors currently for sale have a 474mm×296m (pixel size 1680×1050) dispkay size, which is significantly larger.
Over ten year of display development have brought many improvements, and my LG 21.5in 1920×1080 IPS225V is clearly better, even if the 10 year old display is still quite usable, even with a yellowed backlight; but this L1710B was in turn rather better than my previous 15in Hansol H530 and the even older Samsung 570S that were a bit too small and with too narrow viewing angles compared to it.
I think that the biggest improvements in a decade have been in order of decreasing importance:
There have been more examples of storage madness but a recent one made me laugh out loud:
I am using xfs on a raid 5 (~100TB) and put log on external ssd device, the mount information is: /dev/sdc on /data/fhgfs/fhgfs_storage type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,delaylog,logdev=/dev/sdb1,sunit=512,swidth=15872,noquota). when doing only reading / only writing , the speed is very fast(~1.5G), but when do both the speed is very slow (100M), and high r_await(160) and w_await(200000).
Apart from the the bad idea of having a single 100TB filetree, which is well beyond what I think is comfortable to maintain, it is amazing that it seems to be a single RAID5 with a 100TB capacity.
This seems confirmed by the large value in
swidth=15872 which is a multiple of 31 over the
sunit=512: if this is indicative of the physical
geometry the RAID5 set is made of 32 drives, and probably high
capacity and low IOPS-per-GB 3TB ones.
This is an admirable level of storage madness, both as to the very thin degree of redundancy, and as to the consequences of RMW with writes smaller or not aligned to 15.5MiB which is the stripe size.
The resulting speeds are actually pretty good, for example for sequential access 1.5TB over 31 drives means 50MB/s per drive, which is not bad (even if the drives can do 100MB/s and higher on the outer tracks).
For what is essentially random access, due to both the concurrent reads and writes from the the applications layer, and the consequences of RMW in the RAID5, those 100MB/s are quite good, as per-drive that is 3MB/s, which is well above the transfer rate of around 0.5MB/s for a disk drive doing purely random 4KiB operations.
There is another detail that may impact the concurrent
read-write rates: that the mounted device name is
/dev/sdc suggests that the RAID5 set is attached to a
host adapter. Many brands and
models of hardware-RAID host adapters have buggy or
firmware; a typical case is
scheduling reads ahead of writes or viceversa.
This may be happening here as the average read completion time r_await is reported to be merely high at 160ms but the average write completion time w_await is much biggers at 200,000ms or 200 seconds.
There is an extra layer of madness in the situation: from the
name of
/data/fhgfs/fhgfs_storage it can be guessed that this
100TB is supposed to be an object-storage pool for the
parallel distributed meta-filesystem. If this is true it has
two entertaining implications:
The latter point begs a question, which is why the 32 drive set was configured as a single 32 wide RAID5 set when it was obviously possible to do something else.
In part this is likely to be not knowing much about storage systems, as revealed by the surprise about the consequences of a very wide stripe in parity RAID.
But my guess, based on the attitudes of so many clever
people, is that the
designer of this
storage system wanted to achieve the lowest possible up-front
cost, boasting to their boss that:
wastedon parity, while still keeping the safety of having a parity member (probably based on the mad assumption that probability of failure is independent of set size).
uselessparity members.
A potential alternative would have been six 5 drive RAID5 sets, plus 2 hot spares, or one or two RAID10 sets, plus perhaps the same 2 hot spares. But with the former the capacity of only 24 of the 32 drives is used for data, and only 4 data drives at most can be used for parallel IO per RAID set; and with the latter only the capacity of 16 of the 32 drives can be used for data.
All of the above is indeed correct in itself, except that:
However as usual if what really matters is up-front cost, then insane designs that minimize it as the expense of longer term speed and risk are attractive. In this case however even initial speed is impacted because the design seems to me excessively targeted at the lowest possible upfront cost per capacity.
I am still often surprised by the absurdity of certain
situations and expectations, for the example the case where
umount takes a long time to complete
even if there are only 3GB of uncommitted updates (also called
dirty data) to be committed and over the
network between two
Now, for a moment, assume
- you don't have DRBD in the stack, and
- a moderately capable IO backend that writes, say, 300 MByte/s, and
- around 3 GiByte of dirty data around at the time you trigger the umount, and
- you are not seek-bound, so your backend can actually reach that 300 MB/s,
you get a umount time of around 10 seconds.
The first reason is that it ought to be well known that for
good reasons umount is a
operation with respect to uncomitted updates, and that it can
take quite a bit of time to write 3GB of updates to probably
randomish locations on two disks, one of which requires
network traffic, as explained next:
Still with me?
Ok. Now, introduce DRBD to your IO stack, and add a long distance replication link. Just for the sake of me trying to explain it here, assume that because it is long distance and you have a limited budget, you can only afford 100 MBit/s. And "long distance" implies larger round trip times, so lets assume we have a RTT of 100 ms.
Of course that would introduce a single IO request latency of > 100 ms for anything but DRBD protocol A, so you opt for protocol A. (In other words, using protocol A "masks" the RTT of the replication link from the application-visible latency.)
That was latency.
But, the limited bandwidth of that replication link also limits your average sustained write throughput, in the given example to about 11MiByte/s.
The same 3 GByte of dirty data would now drain much slower, in fact that same umount would now take not 10 seconds, but 5 minutes.
But the bigger reason is how common is the idea that having in memory a lot of uncomitted writes is a good idea or at least something that is unremarkable. It is instead a very bad situation that should be avoided because usually the benefits are not that significant:
blockover the delay period. But the most common patterns generating updates are randomish writes and sequential writes, and when in-place updates occur they usually happen in a short time.
delayed allocationthat benefits from delaying updates there is a limit to that benefit, even in the case of purely sequential writes to a single file, as the goal of delayed allocation is to achieve contiguity, and some contiguity is good enough.
So there are some potential benefits to delaying the commit of updates for a long time, but they are limited. But the delay can have large costs:
FlashSSD it can trigger a lot of scattered erasures at the same time; either can cause a long single surge in latencies instead of a less noticeable series of small ones.
elevatorsthat can schedule writes ahead of reads too.
page(block) cache subsystem does not really have a high and low water marks, but a cruder mechanism that tends to be more erratic in the amount of traffic it generates.
The result therefore can be that when a lot of uncommitted blocks get written out most Linux processes can seemingly freeze for dozens of seconds, as those that are reading get their reads queued behind writes, and those that are writing get crowded out by the sudden mass of page cache writes.
The best policy therefore usually is to have relatively few uncommitted updates in memory, and my guideline is for at most a few sconds worth of write time, and not more than 1GiB even when there is very fast IO and lots of memory in the system.
So for example for a typical desktop with Linux I would not want more than 100MiB of uncomitted updates, or perhaps 200MiB with a flash SSD, and to achieve this I use parameters like:
# Writes queued up to 100MB and synchronous after 900MB sysctl vm/dirty_bytes =100000000 susctl vm/dirty_background_bytes =900000000 # 6s before flushing a page anyhow, scan all pages every 2s sysctl vm/dirty_expire_centisecs =600 sysctl vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs =200
The above is to write uncommitted pages when either more than 100MB of uncommitted pages have accumulated or if less than those if they have been uncommitted for more than 6 seconds.
Traditional UNIX would write out all uncommitted blocks every 30s but that was on systems that typically had 256KiB of main memory and disks with a speed of a few MiB/s.
It has become ime for another small upgrade for my main desktop system, (some previous system configurations: September 2005, January 2006, March 2006, June 2009) and I have upgraded not long ago the desktop I use for games and some software and configuration testing, with the resulting main components for the main desktop PC:
|Supports ECC memory natively.
|Kingston 2× 8GiB ECC DDR3 at 1333MHz
|ECC is good, 16GiB total is a lot for this system.
|AMD Phenom II X3 720
|Not the fastest or coolest anymore, but still pretty good for a system used mostly for office tasks.
|Arctic Freezer Pro 7
|Recently installed, an enormous improvement in cooling and a significant one in noise over the fairly lame (just a block of aluminum still, no heatpipes) one included with the CPU.
|Graphics card
|Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 1GiB
|Not the fastest or coolest anymore, but still pretty good for a system used mostly for office tasks, and tested with oldish games like Team Fortress 2 it can still cope, with average quality settings. It also has a particularly quiet cooler, especially at low loads.
|Various brands, 2× 2TB 7200RPM + 2× 2TB for nightly backup; 4× 2TB on a shelf for periodic backup.
|I am not using much of that space, but currently 2TB is the size to get, as for 1TB or smaller the price is not that lower, and for larger capacities the ratio between capacity and IOPS is even more ridiculous.
|Power supply
|Corsair HX520W
|It is fairly quiet and apparently quite efficient. It
also has
modularcabling, but it does not matter much because with all the disks and cards it is nearly maxed out anyhow.
My gaming and experimental PC has instead:
|Supports ECC memory natively.
|Corsair 2× 4GiB DDR3 at 1333MHz
|This does not have ECC, and for a gaming and test PC I don't mind. I should have gotten ECC anyhow, because of the small cost difference, but I was at a computer fair and these were immediately available...
|Not the fastest or coolest anymore, but still pretty good for a system used mostly for office tasks.
|Arctic Freezer Pro 13
|Recently installed, a large improvement in cooling and a significant one in noise over the barely sufficient one (small, single heatpipe) included with the CPU.
|Graphics card
|Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GiB
|Still a pretty good midrange card, capable of running conteporary games fairly well and runs oldish games like Half-Life 2 at full quality and very high rates. This model also has a Dual-X cooler which is much less noisy than most others.
|Various brands, 1× 500GB 7200RPM + 6× 1TB 7200RPM.
|The disks are all old ones that I had previously for various reasons. The 500GB one has the system and games, the others are for storage setup testing.
|Power supply
|Corsair TX650
|It is fairly quiet and apparently quite efficient.
It is not
modular, but it does not matter because with all the disks and cards it is maxed out anyhow.
Some general comments:
As previously remarked web browsers consume resources that are cost-free to web site designers, so they tend to overuse them or be careless about the impact their web designs have on client systems, perhaps because what matters usually is running a good demo to whoever commissioned the web site design.
Note: I had previously noted with outrage that some web browser in 2005 was using over 200MiB; while I am talking about several GiB here...
This has become very common with the use of AJaX where data can be added incrementally using XMLHttpRequest to an initial page.
A good example is Tumblr blog
archive pages which can grow very long as they
are scrolled forward; for example this one for
a blog of kitten photographs
that is so addictive that one may be tempted to scroll forward
all the way.
The first deleterious consequence is that memory usage goes up dramatically as the page grows by adding new rows of blog thumbnails. The second and even worse is that Firefox won't release the memory thus allocated even when the page is closed and I have tried in several ways:
Minimize memory usage.
Some memory is reclaimed, but in about:memory's
Measure... page the heap of allocated objects remains
sometimes very large (several GiB after a while)...
Saving the session, terminating the browser and restarting it obviously shrinks the memory back, but that means losing window positions and it is a bit cumbersome.
Note:The whole session has to closed because currently Firefox runs a single process with multiple threads, while some other web browsers instantiate a new process for every window the user creates.
However when Firefox changes some aspects of its setup it
does a very convenient
This can be invoked by using the Developer Toolbar which allows the user to type commands in a command line, and one of them is restart.
A quicker alternative has been developed by someone with probably the same issue, as a tiny and very convenient extension to invoke the same functionality from a menu at any time, called Restartless Restart and that works quite well.
Note: I also use the extension Session Manager which has the very beneficial effect of avoiding to load (if so configured) any page in a newly recreated GUI tab until it is actually accessed.
I have mentioned previously that a good gamma calibration of a monitor's display can be significant, and I have now found a page that handling gamma properly is also significant when writing program to resize a picture: because resizing a picture does not shift the gamma curve only if it is done in a linear color space, and apparently most image editing applications don't do that right.
Incidentally the sample images in the article (for example here but the others too) are also pretty good for checking the gamma calibration and color range quality of the display they are shown on.
As previously mentioned (1, 2) I am fond of using ECC RAM whenever possible because it is both cheap and gives some protection against undetected corruption of data.
While essentially all
enterprise servers
support and usually require memory with ECC, most desktop
systems (whether for business or personal use) don not.
This may be because of
market segmentation
strategies by suppliers, to ensure that lower margin desktops
would not be used in the same role as higher margin servers.
But in part I think it is because of people using desktops don't care about potential undetected data corruptions, or only care about getting the cheapest price. In some cases like for gaming or media oriented desktops it does not matter a lot: the very occasional undected data corruption is insignificant. But for most other cases the additional cost of ECC is or should be quite small, after all it is a physical overhead of 1 over 8 (memory chips, bus widths) and a small time overhead.
Anyhow, fortunately it is possible to get desktop components that support ECC memory and ECC memory, and currently that means:
Overall the cost of going with AMD CPUs and ASUS motherboards is insignificant: the pricing of those is entirely in line with market averages. AMD CPUs are priced for higher ratios of performance/price, and ASUS brand motherboards are priced as midrange products, and that's fine.
The price difference for ECC memory is also not large currently; for example a 4GiB 1600MHz DIMM from Crucial costs $42+taxes without ECC and $57+taxes with ECC or from Kingston $40+taxes without ECC and $49+taxes with ECC. That difference multiplied by a few DIMMs is rather small in absolute terms, and anyhow compared to the cost of the system.
I have long been using the delighful recoll text indexing system, which uses as the database backend Xapian and I have only recently discovered that it comes with a tool that can compact databases and on a freshly filled database is already quite effective:
# xapian-compact /var/data/search/recoll/xapiandb /var/data/search/recoll/xapiandb2 postlist: Reduced by 49% 1218024K (2469208K -> 1251184K) record: Reduced by 2% 10848K (484160K -> 473312K) termlist: Reduced by 28% 542928K (1899720K -> 1356792K) position: Reduced by 0% 17832K (7047320K -> 7029488K) spelling: doesn't exist synonym: doesn't exist
How can it be so effective on a freshly filled
database? It (wisely) uses mostly
and since they grow and autobalance dynamically they tend to
have 2/3 full blocks. Presumably the compactor merges together
blocks, for example 3 blocks into 2, where possible.
Which reminds me of the point made by Michael Stonebraker automatic tuning of data structures particularly including the B-tree and static trees. The point was that the B-tree has the advantage that its default is not optimal but still fairly decent in frershly created , and then it can be compacted; while static trees by default when freshly created are very suboptimal, and then become pretty optimal when explicitly compacted.
I have continued to use daily my new-ish Dell U2412M monitor with with an 24in 1920×1200 IPS display and the Acer B326HUL monitor with a 32in 2560×1440 AMVA display and I am still very impressed with both.
They don't quite the exquisite colour range of the Philips 240PW9ES but the colours are still pretty good and their LED backlights power up a lot faster than the W-CCFL backlight of the latter.
Also both the Acer and the Dell LED backlights don't use PWM for changing brightness, which is good for people who notice the flicker that often accompanies PWM.
By the way I did not mention one peculiar aspect of the B326HUL which is that it does not have a VGA analogue video input, only digital ones. That is the first no-VGA monitor that I have used.
As to whether I like better the 24in or 32in display size, obviously 32in are somewhat better, but the 24in are adequate too and cover enough of the viewing area too at the viewing distance I use either of them, around 80cm.
For a shorter viewing distance I would probably prefer the 24in monitor, and for a somewhat longer one I would prefer the 32in one.
I have previously discussed how terribly inappropriate are (1, 2) (ordinary) filesystems for storing what are in effect individual records as files, instead of using files to store collections of records.
Having had to recently used MHonArc there are some additional considerations that occurred to me.
The MH/Maildir style of mail archive is based not just on the lazyness of not being bothered to use a container layer for records other than the filesystem API, but on the example of mail spool implementations.
Mail spool implementations are almost always directories with individual files for indivual messages being spooled, that is MH/Maildir style, and usually for acceptable reasons:
The last point is the most important because a mail spool is essentially transient, it is a (random access?) queue, while a mail archive is essentially permanent, it is a mostly a one-way stack: very rarely are mail messages removed from a mail archive.
In particular invidual messages are essentially never removed
from a mail archive indexed by MHonArc. Therefore the MHonArc
implementation of the mail archives as a set of directories
with invidual mail messages as files in them, and the index as
a set of HTML files, one per mail message, is particularly
demented, because in effect doubles the number of files in the
archive, whose structure is optimized for being a transient
mail spool, making it very easy to add and in particular remove
random messages, but that never happens, as messages are never
removed and always added at the
Looking at it more generally: mail archives are in effect
logs, that is timewise collections, and
mail spools are in effect
that is spacewise (keyword indexed) collections.
As to implementation, directories as in MH/Maildir archives may be up to some (low) size limit a lazy yet still acceptable implementation of spacewise collections, especially those with random access and deletions, but they are a terrible way to implement timewise collections, especially accumulative, log-like ones.
Directories are terrible implementations for large spacewise collections or for timewise collections because:
heavyweightentities with many attributes and giving pretty strong guarantees about them, for example as to ACID properties.
The latter point of the difference between peak and average load is particularly important for mail archives: the average load on a mail archive is minuscule, because most accesses are to a small number of relatively recent small mail messages, but backups and searches (such as index building) involve scanning all or most or many members of the collection, triggering high volumes and rates of very expensive metadata accesses; expensive because they are typically random, and filesystem APIs guatantees make those metadata accesses expensive to implement.
Anyhow, it turns out that a lot of popular data happens to have natural timewise, log-like structure, where older data is essentially read-only and newer data gets appended: more or less any data related to people, amusingly enough. That means mail, photos, music, personal documents and blogs... At most older data gets deleted, usually in a timewise way too, rather than deleted in random order or updated.
Almost the only data that is not naturally timewise is source and object code, which gets created and deleted fairly randomly during development. However there are some really huge qualification to that: if the source code is version-controlled the version-control system effectively handles a lot of it timewise, and when it gets packaged and installed most of it also becomes mostly readonly with new data appended (except for whote-package updates).
search engines include a search
component and an indexing component and a query component, and
the searcher is largely a producer of logs and the indexer is
largely a consumer of logs and perhaps because of that Google
a special purpose filesystem
that is implemented in a way that favors archiving and
appending; it would be unsurprising if were quite suitable
also to store Google's mail, videos, blogs, social
It is for me a huge disappointment that so many developers and people are tempted by lazyness to implement archives in the same way as spools, like MHonArc.
Note: it ought to be clearer now why this very blog is not organized as a page-per-post, as each page contains a lot of several posts.
The past month of July has been quite warm and as a result I have often kept my doors and window open. This has resulted in some flies coming into the house and I have noticed that:
I have previously reported some impressions of high end
keyboard devices
but I also bought some time ago so
high end pointer devices
mice) and accessories. In part this was to
see if their usability and robustness was better than that of
low-end mice, which tend to break early (especially the left
button and the wheel) and have somewhat clumsy handling.
In part this was to see if they improved my scoring in
first person shooter games, as they are
claimed to do thanks to higher resolution pointing and faster
and steadier handling. I chose these pointer devices from
favourable reviews and because they are fairly different.
I have this tried three pointer devices and two pointer
surfaces (
mousepads), they are all
relatively mid-high-end mice:
Black, rough body with a somewhat fancy shape, with the usual 2 buttons and wheel-button on the front, plus two extra buttons on the left hand side and designed for right handed use; the body is shaped also to be much wider and longer than most ordinary mice.
Note: some users report that the rough matte finish of the sides wears out fairly quickly and becomes smooth.
Two extra buttons on top in line with the wheel allow changing the reporting during use in three steps, from 3200PI to 800DPI; the settings are programmable. The event rate can go from 1000 per second down to 500, 250, 125 per second, but only via reprogramming.
It has 3 optional metal weights at the bottom that by default make it a fair bit heavier than the others, which helps with stability.
The M40 is programmable via some sort of MS-Windows only tool, but it does not require the tool work as a normal mouse, or to switch DPI.
To me it feels pretty good, and usually I use the middle resolution durign desktop use and the higher resolution during games; the lower resolution is useful for image editing. It costs around £33 (incl. VAT).
Shaped like a rather ordinary mouse, smaller than the the other with, tow a glossy white body (the other two are black and matte) with the usual two buttons, wheel-button on the front, and two side buttons. There is a single button on the bottom to switch resolution among 450DPI, 1150DPI, 2300DPI, and the mouse wheel light will change color to indicate which one. The mouse by defaults has a motion event rate of 1000 per second, but in case this is not compatible with the rest of the system it can be reduced to 500 or 125 events per second.
The manufacturer claims that the wheel has a fully optical encoder, and that makes it more precise and robust.
It handles very well, it has especially large teflon pads on the bottom, and it is quite light. it seems a bit less robust than the other two, being of more conventional mechanical design. It costs arund £ 52 (incl. VAT).
Shaped to be large and squat, with a definite right handed shape like the Raptor M40, has the usual 2 buttons, wheel-button on the front, plus two side buttons. There are two extra buttons on top change DPI, in line with the wheel, and when the DPI is changed the lighting of the wheel change color.
It has fairly wide pads on the bottom, not quite as wide as those of the Zowie EC1. It is fairly comfortable to handle and changing DPI works well.
I handles very well and very reliably, and seemes fairly robust too. I like the handling and precision; I don't like that it seems to have a very sentitive wheel-button which is very easy to press inadvertenly. It costs around £40 (incl. VAT).
This is an old product, designed for electro-mechanical mice, with a sensor tied to a rotating ball. The surface is made of rubber coated with a very rough patterned plastic on top.
It worked pretty well with mechanical mice, and works pretty well with optical mice too, where the roughness is non uniform and that suits the optical sensor. It is faily small which is good for me, and the rubber back adheres very well to my my desk, making the surface very stable. It also seems durable as I have used one for several years and is not much worn out.
What I like is that it is relatively small and quite stable and works well, what I don't like is that the surface is very rough and somewhat abrasive. It costs around £10.
This mousing surface is completely different from the 3M one, and is made of aluminum metal, with a dark black smooth burnish on top, and is huge. It has some pad underneath that give it some grip, but sometimes during game play it moves.
It works very well with the Mionix mouse, and also mostly with the Zowie one, but the Corsair mouse does not work on it; I suspect that it is too smooth for its sensor.
What I like is that it is very durable as it is made of aluminum and works well with some mice, and what I don't like is that it is huge, slips sometimes and some mice don't work with it. It costs around £14.
All the mice above are pretty good and they can be used without any special driver with GNU/Linux. They are USB2 mice. Their mouse protocol is however not one of the more common ones, and I have found that they don't work with some KVM switches as a result, except in USB pass-through mode, which is a bit inconvenient but mostly works.
Overall I like the Zowie EC1 for desktop use, as it is white and nice and looks more conventional and less garish, yet it is very precise and can change resolution with a hardware button, even if one has to lift it and turn it to do so. I am not sure however that £52 is worth paying for a much better desktop mouse (which is also a pretty good gaming mouse), and I haven't had it long enough to see whether it is more durable than the low-end ones.
I like the Raptor M40 and the NAOS 3200 more for gaming, and currently I use the NAOS for gaming. All three are much, much better than low-end mice for gaming, and my first-person shooter game aiming has been improved quite significantly by them. I have been surprised how much aiming is improved by a higher resolution, higher event rate mouse. The price for either seems more reasonable than that for the Zowie, and I think they are good value. Overall I like the Raptor M40 more than the NAOS 3200 (customizable weights, less sensitive wheel-button), and it seems cheaper too.
As to the pads, the smoother metal pad of course lets the mouse glide much faster, so I use the ENSIS 320 for gaming with the NAS 3200 mouse, and they work well together, and it seems very tough, but it is huge and slips occasionally. I use the 3M Precise Mousing Surface for desktop use to protect the wood of the desk, but its surface is a bit too rough for resting my hand on, but it happens rarely. Both seem very durable, while low-end mousepads made of cloth or soft rubber tend to fray after a few months of use.
Having reported my impressions (1, 2) of some relatively expensive premium keyboards and related products, there is question that I have never seen sensibly and explicitly answered, as to why it is worth to pay for a premium keyboard 3-10 times more than for a low-end.
The primary answer given by many, that premium keyboards are mechanical key switches, and mechanical key switches just have a better key-pressing feel, is quite wrong in its premise.
Premium keyboards as a rule do have a better, much better in
some cases, feel than cheap ones, but while most premium
keyboards have electro-mechanical key switches, some of the
best have membrane key switches, for example
buckling spring
What is common to all keyboards that have a better typing feel is that the keys have springs, and that is what gives the better, crisper typing feel, and also makes them more expensive. Rubber dome keys have the keycaps supported directly on the rubber dome of the membrane, and pressing the key presses down on a rubber dome, a feeling that is fairly mushy and non-linear. Pressing the keycap on a premium keyboard means pressing down on a well calibrated metal spring, a rather different, more definite feel.
Note: that's why this and previous
writings use the term
premium keyboard instead of
mechanical keyboard which is used (misleadingly) by
most related publications.
Some people then, as a secondary answer, like
mechanical keyboards in particular, not
just because they have spring supported keys, but because the
electro-mechanical switch can be constructed so that it had a
positive mechanical feel and/or sound signal when it gets
switched; but some premiums keyboards with mechanical key
switches don't have either, and still pressing on them feels
better than with a rubber dome supported keycap.
Note: key switches that on registering
a press give a bump are called
tactile, if
they give a sound they are called
and when they just have a spring with neither are called
The obviousness of the dump, or the loudness of the sounds, and the stiffness of the spring are also parameters, plus some others.
A third answer is that mechanical switches in particular are as a rule designed to switch midway through their travel extent rather than near the end, therefore a typist can learn to touch-type with short strokes that requires very little effort and is rather fast, and also accurate, and makes little noise as the key deos not get pressed fully banging against the bottom. As a rule this requires tactile or clicky mechanical switches, but can be learned also with linear ones, even if it is rather more difficult.
Note: spring based keys tend to have a rather longer full travel extent than rubber dome ones.
Another answer is that given that putting a spring in each key switch is already expensive, many premium keyboards also have additional features, such as better build quality, including often better keycap quality, and some extra features, such as key backlighting or a detachable cable, and it is easier to find them in custom layouts than low-end ones which are produced for the mass-market in size-fits-all fashion. Among these better features that usually accompany spring-based keys:
coolthan black ones.
dye-sublimatedor even
So while the main draw of a premium keyboard is the better feel given by a spring under each keycap, the extra money often also buys useful extra aspects.
As to me I use keyboards for many hours a day, so a difference in price of a few dozen UK pounds is not going to stop me, and I particularly like the feel of the spring and the smaller layouts, in particular the TKL one, and the options for more durable keycap legends.
But I also like the better build quality, the availability of less slippery keycaps plastics, and of light colored or back-lighted keycaps. I am not particularly fond of clicky key switches, and I sort of like tactile ones, but also linear ones with a stiffer spring; and I am not interested much in macros or animated back-ligthing modes.
I have previously mentioned that I could play well recent games with AMD/ATi based cards like a model 7850 with the AMD/ATi proprietary fglrx driver, on on Ubuntu 12.04 and on Debian 7.
By upgrading my Ubuntu 12.04 system to Xorg and kernel packages backported from the more recent 14.04 release I am now able to enjoy quite high rendering speed on for TF2 on both my AMD/ATi 4770 and 7850 cards. How high? With the classic size of 1920×1080 pixels:
The key details are:
modesettingis enabled.
This is the list of relevant packages I have installed, from a list by Aptitude:
i 1994 kB 6884 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libegl1-mesa-drivers-lts-trusty i 1997 kB 6824 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libegl1-mesa-drivers-lts-trusty:i386 i A 58.6 kB 250 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libegl1-mesa-lts-trusty i A 57.8 kB 245 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libegl1-mesa-lts-trusty:i386 i A 19.3 kB 145 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgbm1-lts-trusty i A 19.3 kB 135 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgbm1-lts-trusty:i386 i A 359 kB 1564 kB 0.0.22-2ubuntu 0.0.22-2ubuntu precise libgegl-0.0-0 i 4907 kB 33.6 MB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgl1-mesa-dri-lts-trusty i A 4796 kB 33.8 MB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgl1-mesa-dri-lts-trusty:i386 i 109 kB 513 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-trusty i 108 kB 483 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-trusty:i386 i A 21.4 kB 248 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libglapi-mesa-lts-trusty i A 21.4 kB 183 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libglapi-mesa-lts-trusty:i386 i 11.6 kB 127 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgles1-mesa-lts-trusty i 11.3 kB 122 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgles1-mesa-lts-trusty:i386 i 12.6 kB 133 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgles2-mesa-lts-trusty i 12.5 kB 128 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libgles2-mesa-lts-trusty:i386 i A 9667 kB 28.3 MB 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 precise-updates libllvm3.4 i A 9858 kB 27.6 MB 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 precise-updates libllvm3.4:i386 i 13.0 kB 132 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libopenvg1-mesa-lts-trusty i 13.0 kB 124 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libopenvg1-mesa-lts-trusty:i386 i 157 kB 520 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates libxatracker2-lts-trusty i 1746 B 28.7 kB 184.108.40.206.26 184.108.40.206.26 precise-security,precise-upda linux-generic-lts-trusty i A 2490 B 28.7 kB 184.108.40.206.26 126.96.36.199.26 precise-security,precise-upda linux-headers-generic-lts-trusty i A 2500 B 28.7 kB 22.214.171.124.26 220.127.116.11.26 precise-security,precise-upda linux-image-generic-lts-trusty i A 509 kB 1305 kB 3.13.0-30.55~p 3.13.0-30.55~p precise-security,precise-upda linux-lts-trusty-tools-3.13.0-30 i 2542 B 28.7 kB 184.108.40.206.26 188.8.131.52.26 precise-security,precise-upda linux-signed-image-generic-lts-trusty i 2496 B 28.7 kB 188.8.131.52.26 22.214.171.124.26 precise-security,precise-upda linux-tools-generic-lts-trusty i 2488 B 28.7 kB 22.214.171.124.26 22.214.171.124.26 precise-security,precise-upda linux-tools-lts-trusty i 1594 kB 3841 kB 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 precise-updates llvm-3.4 i A 45.5 kB 179 kB 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 1:3.4-1ubuntu3 precise-updates llvm-3.4-runtime i 707 kB 2733 kB 10.1.3-0ubuntu 10.1.3-0ubuntu precise-updates mesa-vdpau-drivers-lts-trusty i 33.5 kB 123 kB 7.7+2ubuntu1~p 7.7+2ubuntu1~p precise-updates x11-xserver-utils-lts-trusty i 22.2 kB 1788 kB 2:1.15.1-0ubun 2:1.15.1-0ubun precise-updates xserver-common-lts-trusty i 1561 kB 3771 kB 2:1.15.1-0ubun 2:1.15.1-0ubun precise-updates xserver-xorg-core-lts-trusty i 4760 B 65.5 kB 1:7.7+1ubuntu8 1:7.7+1ubuntu8 precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-all-lts-trusty i A 34.3 kB 140 kB 1:2.8.2-1ubunt 1:2.8.2-1ubunt precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-evdev-lts-trusty i 25.8 kB 115 kB 1:1.6.2-1build 1:1.6.2-1build precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-joystick-lts-trusty i 15.6 kB 98.3 kB 1:1.8.0-1build 1:1.8.0-1build precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-kbd-lts-trusty i A 41.2 kB 134 kB 1:1.9.0-1build 1:1.9.0-1build precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-mouse-lts-trusty i 25.4 kB 108 kB 0.3.0-1build2~ 0.3.0-1build2~ precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-mtrack-lts-trusty i A 67.9 kB 233 kB 1.7.4-0ubuntu1 1.7.4-0ubuntu1 precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-synaptics-lts-trust i A 15.2 kB 117 kB 1:13.0.0-1buil 1:13.0.0-1buil precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse-lts-trusty i 7532 B 74.8 kB 1:1.4.0-1build 1:1.4.0-1build precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-void-lts-trusty i A 93.0 kB 308 kB 1:0.23.0-0ubun 1:0.23.0-0ubun precise-updates xserver-xorg-input-wacom-lts-trusty i 17.4 kB 194 kB 1:7.7+1ubuntu8 1:7.7+1ubuntu8 precise-updates xserver-xorg-lts-trusty i 9954 B 68.6 kB 1:0.3.7-1build 1:0.3.7-1build precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-dummy-lts-trusty i A 13.5 kB 87.0 kB 1:0.4.4-1build 1:0.4.4-1build precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-fbdev-lts-trusty i 9670 B 58.4 kB 0.6.0-0ubuntu4 0.6.0-0ubuntu4 precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-glamoregl-lts-trust i A 770 kB 2811 kB 2:2.99.910-0ub 2:2.99.910-0ub precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-intel-lts-trusty i A 23.5 kB 106 kB 0.8.1-1build1~ 0.8.1-1build1~ precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-modesetting-lts-tru i A 93.3 kB 308 kB 1:1.0.10-1ubun 1:1.0.10-1ubun precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-nouveau-lts-trusty i A 165 kB 516 kB 1:7.3.0-1ubunt 1:7.3.0-1ubunt precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-radeon-lts-trusty i A 16.5 kB 91.1 kB 1:2.3.3-1build 1:2.3.3-1build precise-updates xserver-xorg-video-vesa-lts-trusty
For Ubuntu 14.04 all these package versions are the standard ones, so it is quite easy to install them.
After using for a while two nice very different premium keyboards in the lower-end price band for mechanical keyboards I was pleased enough with both of them to try and extend the experience, so I bought another fancier keyboard and a set of specialty keycaps, and these are my impressions:
Keycaps from Ducky Channel for Cherry MX (1, 2) key switches, with main key keycaps in white and special key keycaps in pink (other color combinations available), with these features:
What I like:
What I do not like:
I have been considering infilling the engraved legends by hand with black nail polish. Since the keycaps are made of PBT a solvent like acetone can be used later to remove the nail polish if desired (while ABS keycaps dissolve in acetone).
Overall perhaps I should have bought a Cherry keyboard with light grey PBT keycaps and just scavenged those. Apparently the Cherry G81 series keyboards have PBT keycaps (only the light gray models) and cost less than this one (but their PBT keycaps are less thick).
Note: I have discovered that I have an old Cherry G83 keyboard which has also has light grey colored PBT (or possibly POM) keycaps, a lucky find.
I had bought this keycap set for the Corsair K65 mentioned previously as that has printed legends but I have actually put them on the QuickFire TK Stealth for now which worked out well, both as to improved visibility with front illumination and as to better typing feel than the default ABS ones. The total cost was still within the range of many equivalent products at around £100 (VAT incl.) and one gets two alternative sets of keycaps, for potentially quite a long life.
As to sticker legends glued on keycaps I have been surprised that they seem fairly durable; while laser etched legends in my experience are abraded pretty soon (1-2 years usually for the first legends to disappear), and even worse for th printed and lacquered legends which often last less than a year on heavily used keys (and not just on keyboards).
Overall these are very good quality keycaps, and the price is high but not out-of-line with that, but that the keycaps are engraved but not infilled is for me only marginally useful. With infilled engravings, either as purchased, or added later, they would be much better.
This is from Ducky Channel and has MX black key switches, with these notable features:
What I like:
linearthat is without any clicky actuation feedback. Perhaps I would prefer the MX Clear variant that are as stiff as these MX Black but with the soft actuation feedback of the MX Brown.
What I do not like:
Overall this is a very good quality keyboard, and the orange per-key back illumination is very pleasant and useful. But the price and the lack of compatilibity with older USB sometimes make me think I should have got the Quick Fire TK instead even if the latter is less compact and less cool.
However of the three keyboards I recently bought it is the one I like best, but by a small margin.
Overall I am very pleased with the keyboards I have bought, and even with the PBT keycaps, even if I will infill their engraved legends with nail polish. Burt as to the latter perhaps I should have just used the PBT keycaps from my old Cherry G83 (or I would have bought a sacrificial Cherry G81 just for the keycaps).
I very much like that they are available in different layouts and in particular in TKL layout as that is ideal for my usage (I have been tempted by compact layouts without special and arrow keys though), that there are several flavours of key switches, and of keycaps.
Note: If I had been interested in full size keyboards I would probably have bought Cherry G80 ones, as they are available in light grey colour, with PBT keycaps, at prices that are the lowest among mechanical keyboards. Unfortunately usually they are only available with MX Blue switches, but some rare shops have them with MX Black ones too.
Their price is 4-5 times that of average keyboards, but the absolute difference is relatively small and the typing quality and product durability seems much better: I have gone through a number of average keyboards and most were defective or something broke fairly quickly or wore out in less than 1-2 years, and the quality of typing usually fairly dire.
Since I spend a lot of time working on a computer, mostly desktops but also laptops, I am fairly keen to have a healthy and comfortable setup; for example visually with good monitors (for example 1, 2, 3) with legible displays and good fonts.
But I have also been interested in finding good keyboards (and mice), even if that has not been quite as important as the visual aspect.
So I have tried several keyboards in the past, with a strong preference for light-color keyboards, even if currently dark-colored ones are more commonly found.
I have also tried to find shorter ones, in part because my computer desk at home is a somewhat narrow one on rollers, which is very convenient, but also because I prefer the main key block of the keyboard to be centered on the monitor, and longer keyboaard extend exclusively to the right.
So I have gone through a number of
keyboards of various types, and not being happy with them,
usually because of their being light (lack of stability),
fragile, with mushy key action, keycaps with easily abraded or
difficult to read legends, and poor quality construction;
usually with a life of 1-2 years, which is inconvenient, even
if not expensive given the low cost of each.
With the much greater diffusion of computer use over the past
decade the market for all computer accessories has expanded,
and this has supported a both a shallower range of product for
average items but also a wider range for
premium items.
So while average keyboards are all small variations on a single theme of shiny black mushy key action very cheap designs, premium products are easier to find and there is a greater variety of them. So I have looked for premium keyboards with:
In general like for many other product this means
gamer oriented products, because the marketing
prejudice of many manufacturers is that only gamers are
enthusiasts who are prepared to pay higher
prices for better products, if only to show off, and quality
keyboards (and mice) actually have an impact on game
Premium keyboards are almost always built around
mechanical (actually electro-mechanical) key switches
as they are longer lasting and give a better typing feel than
rubber dome ones used in average
keyboards; premium keyboards also often have better keycaps
(better-feeling plastic, more durable legends, sometimes back
illumination) too. So I bought two rather different ones, in
part because they are for two different desktops, in part
because of wanting to try two different approaches:
This is from Corsair which is a brand of mostly gamer-oriented product and has these notable features:
ISOlayout with a TKL set of keys with Cherry MX Red key switches that stand directly off their base plate, without being set off by the kind of frame that is common on other keyboards. Also, detachable mini-USB cable.
scan ratesand for a compatibility mode with older USB equipment, in particular KVMs.
Windowskeys, and for media player operation.
What I like:
What I do not like:
This is a pretty good basic relatively cheap mechanical switch good quality keyboard. Probably it is the cheapest TKL one, and only Cherry G80 full size keyboards are cheaper.
It would be better for me with light-colored keycaps, and ideally with illumination, even if not per-keycaps, just background illumination, but that is not available in its price range.
Given that the keyboard is however a fair bit cheaper than several others, it is feasible to buy and then replace the keycaps immediately (if one really objects to the feel of ABS plastic) or later when they wear out.
Also the switch that enables the compatibility-mode USB protocol can be a really useful feature.
Overall I quite like it.
This is from CM Storm which is a sub-brand of Cooler Master and has these major features:
ISOlayout with a TKL keyboard with Cherry MX brown key switches. Also, detachable mini-USB cable.
What I like:
What I do not like:
Overall it is a quality keyboard but perhaps I might have bought instead the equivalent model with the equivalent top printed keycaps model or the similar top printed back illuminated keycaps model even if more expensive.
So far I have been fairly happy with both. The MX Brown switches of the QuickFire seem slightly preferable for typing than the MX Red ones, but the MX Red ones are very quick to press, so probably better for gaming. I find the tallness of the QuickFire a bit too much sometimes; neither has back-lighting, which would instead make the back-face captions of the QuickFire in particular far more visible; however I use it far more often than the other.


text:
Comment posted School Meals saga: Council distorts facts and blocks Martha's blog by Robert Wakeham.
Something else for the New Order to look into, if promises were made but never honoured.
Robert Wakeham also commented
- But 'Government and European imposed procurement restrictions' – just what are you referring to, JayC?
- Maybe too much choice? – and the wasteage must surely bump up the cost.
- In some cultures the only form of response to criticism and protest is to attack. Reminds me slightly of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but then he thinks the country and its people are there for his benefit, rather than the other way around.
- Looking at the 'damage limitation measures' taken by the council I just wonder if they've seeped out of a bastion of the old order within the senior management? Any attempt to impose the rule of omerta looks like it could backfire very badly indeed, and the sooner whoever's responsible realises that southern Italian practices are no longer acceptable – or resigns to spend more time with their family – the better. Otherwise they might just be digging their own grave.
- 'Argyll and Bute Council' – yes, but which one, the old contemptibles or the new order? – I wonder if the latter are aware of the 'one party state' trick of blocking Martha's blog, or was this a 'delegated decision'?. Wait till the Daily Mail etc get to hear of that.
Recent comments by Robert Wakeham
- Argyll & Bute Alcohol and Drugs Partnership: addicted to abuse
I really don't understand all this.
After the rural schools closure shambles I'd assumed that Mr Sneddon had either departed for pastures new, or had been 'let go' by his employer, our council.
That he's still in post is a great surprise, and I wonder how our councillors justify this?
Have they been advised by someone that senior staff are untouchable?
Do our councillors think that they cannot be held accountable for the actions of their senior staff, in the event that there's clearly a record of maladministration, and that our councillors knew it?
Or do they perhaps think that, at the end of the day, it's only about drug addicts, who can be blamed for their own misfortunes?
- Gigha community ownership on brink of failure
Depends what you mean by 'scenery' – Gigha strikes me as being an attractive place, with a variety of attractive landscape – and seascapes.
- Gigha community ownership on brink of failure
- Time to stop to think – as the cult sweeps into Campbeltown
Pot…Kettle, Kassandra.
- HIAL response to devolution to Scotland of Air Passenger Duty
Fascinating – how did you get it at that price?
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text:
4W 6.8 OHM Wirewound Resistor.
Resistance: 6.8 ohm
Power Rating: 4W
Product Range: TE CONNECTIVITY - SBC Series
Resistance: 10kohm
Resistance Tolerance: ± 5%
Resistor Case Style: -
Resistor Element Material: Wirewound
Temperature Coefficient: ± 200ppm/°C
Temperature Coeff. -: 200ppm/°C
Temperature Coeff. +: 200ppm/°C
Full Power Rating Temperature: 20°C
No. of Pins: 2
Operating Temperature Max: 70°C
Operating Temperature Min: 0°C
Operating Temperature Range: 0°C to +70°C
1.0 ohm
4.7 ohm
6.8 ohm
100 ohm
220 ohm
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MCM Cat 56, Page 696
Order was ready for Will-Call pick-up when promised and all items and quantities were correct and in the bag! Smooth transaction. Thanks!