A small form factor PC

VIA has been producing a series of Mini-ITX motherboards for some time. Recently it introduced a so-called Nano-ITX board with the size of 12 x 12 cm. There are plenty of PC modders using Mini-ITX boards to build many weird-looking PCs, which can be seen from mini-itx.com. But what really raises my interests in Nano-ITX is the JDOS project. The project promises an embedded system running Linux and Java. I have been dreaming about using the cellphone systems running J2ME as the microcontrollers for robots. What advantages does the JDOS solution have over J2ME? The other thing that baffles me is about the real-time operation in Linux. Some people claimed that Windows CE naturally supports real time operations but Linux does not. Does J2ME have real time capability? And why are there so many questions in life without answers?

Count Linux Distros

It seems nowadays a great number of geeks could take the Linux kernel and bundle it with different flavors of software and make their own distros. What distro should I grab to fit my next PC project?

• Xandros - Do printer/file sharing just like Windows. It is used by Extremetech to build a home server. Great for beginners. Bundled with Walmart PC.
• Gentoo - Features Portage (based on FreeBSD's Ports tool) that lets administrators acquire and update software by downloading source code and compiling applications to suit their particular system.
• Fedora - Fedora Core 3 has a better plug-and-play and wireless networking support.
• Mandrake
• SuSe
• Debian - Very hardcore!
• Ubuntu - A derivative of Debian.
• uClinux - For embedded systems.

The caveat of installing Linux is of course making sure that all the hardware in the PC system can be properly supported. Many hardware by default only ship with Windows drivers and there is just no way to get around. Try to put Linux on laptop is proved to be no small task.

La Pyramide Inversée

Dan Brown claims that the tiny stone pyramid is actually only the apex of a larger pyramid hidden underground that holds the real Holy Grail.

Carly Fiorina and Mark Jen got fired!

I didn't realize that Carly Fiorina is so much hated by her employees at HP until I read the postings on SlashDot. There are many CEOs turning around their shambled companies by laying off thousands of people. They are applauded in the end for their achievement even though the means to success is evil. It's more or less like the Chinese cliche - one who succeeds is a king but one who fails is a thief.

So who the heck is Mark Jen? He is the guy fired by Google after he blogged about his work life. Here's the story at CNET. The moral here is do not piss off your boss in your blog. Mark is now on his own just like Carly but without a $8 million severance package.

Hurricane is gone

Hurricane is gone! It might sound good to most people. But for the people who have been working on the Hurricane engine program for over a year, the news is just a blow to them. I don't actually hear people expressing their frustration, but I just feel it in the air. The reason of canceling the program is Ford is not going to meet the CAFE restriction due to the poor fuel economy of this engine. Duh!? Isn't it just obvious from the very beginning? I was surprised when I heard this engine program is a GO. It is a backward thinking to compete with the pushrod engines from GM and Chrysler. The decision making of the senior management is plain ridiculous. Somebody please conduct a Six Sigma project to eliminate the senior management to cut cost ...

The related mid-range diesel program got canceled too since it shares the bottom end with Hurricane. Nonetheless, diesel engines are still a correct direction to pursue. I think the program should be revived but with a smaller displacement. There is more advanced technology coming with the diesel engine package, in which the know-how should be brought into V-engine.

There is no denying that the brutal competition of truck market demands more horsepower. High revving and advanced VVT can provide horsepower but not low-speed torque. Are we going to bring back the supercharger to the 5.4 L?