Scripting, Part Two: Looping for Fun and Profit

By Ken Hess

Crafty System Administrators who want to conserve energy need to learn the fine art of looping.

A Little (q)bit of Quantum Computing

By Douglas Eadline, Ph.D.

Recent news has put quantum computing into the spotlight. Is quantum computing almost here?

Extended File Attributes Rock!

By Jeffrey B. Layton

Worldwide, data is growing at a tremendous rate. However, one recent study has pointed out that the size of files is not necessarily growing at the same rate; meaning the number of files is growing rapidly. How do we manage all of this data and files? While the answer to that question is complex, one place we can start is with Extended File Attributes.

What’s an inode?

By Jeffrey B. Layton

As you might have noticed, we love talking about file systems. In these discussions the term "inode" is often thrown about. But what is an inode and how does it relate to a file system? Glad you asked.

Making the Evolutionary Leap from Meerkat to Narwhal

By Ken Hess

If you're using Maverick Meerkat (Ubuntu 10.10) or an older distribution, Natty Narwhat is a whole new animal.

SandForce 1222 SSD Testing, Part 5: Detailed Throughput and IOPS Analysis with a 2.6.38.2 Kernel

By Jeffrey B. Layton

In this series we've been working over the 2.6.32 kernel, which is a bit old. Let's kick the tires on a 2.6.38.2 kernel to see if it helps or hurts performance of the SandForce SSD.

Emailing HPC

By Douglas Eadline, Ph.D.

Email is not unlike MPI. The similarities may help non-geeks understand parallel computers a little better.

FAUMachine: First Impressions

By Ken Hess

If you'd like to try a new twist on virtualization, FAUmachine might be the next cool thing.

iotop: Per Process I/O Usage

By Jeffrey B. Layton

Based on a reader comment, we take iotop for a spin to see if it can be used for monitoring the IO usage of individual processes on a system. The result? It has some interesting capability that we haven't found in other tools.

FBCMD: Command Line for Facebook

By Ken Hess

What's better than the command line and Facebook? How about combining the two?

SandForce 1222 SSD Testing, Part 4: Detailed IOPS Analysis

By Jeffrey B. Layton

In this installment of our series examining the performance of SandForce-based consumer SSDs we dig into the IOPS performance of the drive. How does it stand up to an enterprise-class SSD? Let's find out.

Say Cheese, Webcam Effects Demo

By Ken Hess

Video effects walkthru of the desktop webcam application, Cheese. With commentary.

SandForce 1222 SSD Testing, Part 3: Detailed Throughput Analysis

By Jeffrey B. Layton

Our last two articles have presented an initial performance examination of a consumer SandForce based SSD from a throughput and IOPS perspective. In this article we dive deeper into the throughput performance of the drive, along with a comparison to an Intel X-25E SSD. I think you will be surprised at what is discovered.

Putting Drupal to Work

By Ken Hess

Drupal is a simple but powerful CMS. However, you'll probably want to configure it. Learn how to tweak Drupal's settings to your liking.

SandForce 1222 SSD Testing – Part 2: Initial IOPS Results

By Jeffrey B. Layton

SandForce has developed a very interesting and unique SSD controller that uses real-time data compression. This affects data throughput and SSD longevity. In this article, we perform an initial examination of the IOPS performance of a SandForce 1222-based SSD. The results can be pretty amazing.

Chasing The Number

By Douglas Eadline, Ph.D.

The Top500 list is a valuable measure of HPC progress, but the race it has spawned maybe over for many organizations

Stick a Fork in Flock: Why it Failed

By Joe Brockmeier

This probably won't come as a surprise to many, but the "social Web browser" has thrown in the towel. Don't cry for the Flock team - they're flying the coop for Zynga to go make Facebook games or something. But Flock's loyal fans are out in the cold. Why'd Flock fail? There's a few lessons to be learned.

Storage Highlights in 2.6.38

By Jeffrey B. Layton

We look into some of the new features/additions/changes in the 2.6.38 kernel. In a nutshell: think performance enhancements, additional capability, and additional management options.

CentOS 5.6 Finally Arrives: Is It Suitable for Business Use?

By Joe Brockmeier

CentOS bills itself as an alternative to RHEL or Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, but can you trust it to run your business?

2X ApplicationServer: Applications at the Speed of Cheap

By Ken Hess

If you're looking for a way to beat the high cost of application publishing, look no more, 2X has it under control.