World: r3wp

It's considerable better than REBOL.org -- which runs on the original 
8086 chip as far as I can tell :-)
Console: 0:00:00.11134 - 4546 KC/S 
Processor: 0:00:00.704108 - 1227 RHz (REBOL-Hertz) 
Memory: 0:00:03.0809 - 15 MB/S 
Disk/File: 0:00:09.183468 - 3 MB/S

Those are good numbers for a current machine Louis.

Henrik, Sunanda, Gregg, Thanks for the feedback!

By the way... Is there anybody outthere that has a Hardware device 
that runs with rebol?.. I like a Hardware device.. that talks and 
uses Rebol.. I want to program that thing to do in Rebol what i want 
it to do... Because im very Jalous at these guys at Processing "http://hardware.processing.org/"..its
JAVA oke.. but If I want my Home-Robot to do a job for me I would 
like to say that in Rebol rather than in Java or C... ;-)

I just want my Home microwave to say to me "** Script Error: I have 
no power yet or was it jet?

Like the HP Calculators.. they where so famous on their programming 
that people went crazy back then... (And that was only in Basic or 
C)..

I want to visit a Cash-Machine and "not" see the blue screen of dead 
but "Please call Carl, init.r is missing"..

In 100% a electronics but it should be possible to create a Hardware-Gadget 
that has rebol inside without theneed of a VM..

Rebolint - don't worry, with R3 architecture, those things you describe 
are - inevitable. I am sorry for guys who were not with us from the 
very beginning, as they will be jealous to hear all the stories of 
pre version 3.0 era :-)

;-)

Anyone, who has bought a Playstation3? Any good games? Tried to install 
Linux on it? I've played Motorstorm and Oblivion at my nephews place. 
Good experience! :-)

a ps3 with linux is something that i want to eventually try... (well, 
a ps3 with rebol/os would be better, but...)

I would not mind have the linux kernel with a rebol dektop running 
over it :-)

Consoles dont need that much drivers. Could be a nice target for 
an own os. But i guess coding at the game-level will cost lots of 
money.

Yes, my son just installed Yellow Dog.

What's your impression? Do you have prior experience with Linux to 
compare it with? How is performance compared to a PC with/without 
hardware accelerated graphics?

Well, I don't have much experience with Linux so I wouldn't be able 
to judge but it works so that is a start. I don't think that it is 
optimized to take advantage of the graphics HW but I could be wrong. 
We have 1080p projector so seeing a 12 foot wide browser is pretty 
cool. I've pretty much decided that it will be my next "Amiga" as 
a couple of guys at work now have PS3's. I just bought some parts 
for a new PC Build but the next comp will be a PS3. Apparently they 
are coming out with a better Cell chip.

Just got a Playstation 3. The experience so far reminds me much of 
when I bought my first Amiga, an A500 back in 1987. Let's see, if 
I'm as hooked in the next days and weeks as I was back then.

Geomol, will you be able to play Mass Effect and Halo 3 on it? :-)

Probably not. :-)

Favorite setup configs; hardware recommendations; what hasn't worked 
for you.

My current machine is 3.5 years old, and is starting to breathe heavily 
at times, and take little naps when it chooses. It's time to think 
about the future.

This setup will be for software development and remote administration. 
It can be a big box, but I'm not opposed to docking a small machine, 
as long as I can use a good monitor and my ergo-keyboard.


What are your favorite setup configs? Have multiple monitors helped 
you? Lots of disk space? An in-house NAS? etc. On the software side, 
what general infrastructure bits do you use? I like Reichart's drive 
model, and have used it very well with Ghost and Partition Magic, 
but haven't gone to PGP or TrueCrypt (yet).


Hardware wise, after setting up a machine with a fast SAS drive, 
man, that's appealing, but expensive. What kind of KVM do you like, 
or do you avoid them (my epxerience is mixed)? Do you like separate 
machines or VMWare? Do you like a Mac base, and emulation, or a real 
Windows machine? Any converts from Win to *nix? Build your own, or 
who do you like these days? Plain Jane, or something special like 
they build for traders? Silent PC? Mini?

What have you tried that didn't work out?


Space is not an issue. I have a huge old surplus desk that will hold 
anything.

My Mac iBook is the best machine, I've bought in more than a decade. 
I've used it daily for more than 2 years without any problems at 
all. I plan to get a Mac Mini and a flat HD monitor in the near future. 
I hope to have better Mac support for REBOL with R3. I find, that 
I get more work done with a Mac, because it just works. When I have 
to use Windows, I use Remote Desktop Connection from my Mac to a 
Win machine at work.

I still use 1.8GHZ Athlon machine, I have ability to use 2 notebooks, 
or other hw. The main trouble for me is noise. When I come home, 
in the evening, I would prefer silent pc. So, even my current set-up 
has some Arctic Cooling Silent Pro CPU cooler and my gfx card is 
fan free. I also bought power supply with big 12cm fan, as fanless 
(passive is quite expensive). If you want to silent your pc, go and 
read some sites, as:

-  www.silentpcreview.com
- www.mini-itx.com
- www.epiacenter.de


IMO nowadays you need all those fancy DualCore CPUs only if you do 
some CPU crunching intensive work, e.g. video, sound editing, etc. 
Other than that, I can bet your PC is pretty much overspecced. I 
remember doing fine with Duron750, with enough of memory and windowsXP. 
If your PC starts lagging, then just reinstall XP from scratch ...


I will live with my current set-up for another one - two years, and 
then I plan on completly silent PC, maybe even without HD, with gigabit 
local network plus wi-fi around the house.  I will combine it with 
some new hi-fi set-up, as my Technics set-up starts to be a bit aged 
(12 years) ...

as for two monitors set-up - go for that, absolutly. I worked with 
that for more than year. If someone tells you, that the experience 
is the same as having wide 21" display, than don't believe him, unless 
such person tried both set-ups - I did .....

There seems to be new trend though - buying really big LCDs - 24" 
or so ... Dunno how I would like to work on such big display :-)

in my above post, it is www.epiacenter.com

I've heard many good things about the Apple Cinema Displays: http://www.apple.com/displays/

The 23-inch model is 1920x1200 pixels, which is enough for HD, 1920x1080. 
But there is something about a standard (HDCP), and that's not supported 
on the Apple displays, afaik, so it might not be the perfect monitor. 
Apple hasn't updated their displays in a long time, so maybe there's 
something new just around the corner, who knows.

I think, it's ok with a big monitor, if it has high resolution. Then 
it feels ok to sit so close to the image. And you start using your 
OS desktop in a new way, having e.g. the browser window at one side, 
other windows on the other side, etc. instead of always on top of 
each other.

I'm at 1600x1200 now, and would like more space, particularly for 
remote monitoring bits, though I could also do it virtually. If going 
multi-monitor I'd like to do it from the start, rather than try to 
add later.

About noise, as Pekr wrote about. Even if my iBook has a fan, it 
very rarely starts, so my computer is totally noise free, which I 
really enjoy. The new MacBooks are the same, and battery lasts for 
6 hours. I'm not sure, if the MacMini is the same!?

(I sounds like an Apple salesman, yuk!) ;-)

:-) I went to a Ruby meeting, to talk about REBOL and scout for local 
developers, and two of the five people had MacBooks. Of course, that's 
not great for demoing REBOL, but it did impress enough to download 
and try it.

I've owned a PC with a rather cheap motherboard for a few years and 
suffer under bad RAM performance. It was bought so I could use my 
then current PC133 RAM, but did not expect it to perform about half 
as fast as other motherboards with the same CPU.

My Mac Mini however is pretty fast for a G4 (runs circles around 
the 2.6 Ghz PC) and amazingly stable.

New Minis are Intel-based though, correct?

yes, there are no PPC machines left.

for the quality of the hardware, it's rather cheap. sure you can 
get the 300$ PC, but you get what you pay for under those circumstances.

Geomol, when my mac mini fan is running at max speed, it's about 
half as loud as my PC. During normal operation it's about as loud 
as a brick. :-)

Nice! I like silence, when I'm typing along on my keyboard.

geomol, speaking of which, did you see the new apple keyboard?

it has the same keys as the macbook

no

henrick - http://www.trettech.com/product_info.php?products_id=18762

Just a shameless plug from my site.

2 Mac mini (PPC) with 23" Cinema displays plus an iBook with Parallels 
running WinXP. The whole lot is networked via AIrport Express to 
an ADSL modem and a Brother MFC-8840D. I've had no problems and zero 
downtime for over two years. I switched from Windows/Linux about 
two years ago and haven't looked back. Some of the business advantages 
include:

	- Almost silent operation
	- Low power consumption
	- Small footprint
	- Zero admin
	- The WOW! factor when clients see your setup
	- Cheap
	- Out-of-the-box solution (no extra s/w required)


In fact, the only software I have purchased is iWorks and .Mac membership. 
The one issue I have is with Spreadsheets on the Mac minis. I don't 
want to use/pay for MS*Office and iWorks does not have a spreadsheet, 
so I'm using NeoOffice (aka OpenOffice) which is SLOWWWWW on PPC 
hardware. Works well on the (Intel) iBook though. I'll upgrade the 
Mac minis to Intel when Apple refreshes the line (probably when they 
release Leopard later this year).


Parallels is a must if, like me, you have to run or support legacy 
software running on Windows. Coherence mode puts the Windows task 
bar directly on the Mac OSX desktop and enables you to run Windows 
programs directly from it. It's hardware virtualization so it's fast, 
and removes the need for multiple machines. The ability to cut&paste 
directly from a Mac app to a Windows one is also pretty handy.


Bottom line is, if you like to play and endlessly tinker with stuff 
then WIndows/Linux is the way to go; if you want a tool that just 
works then get a Mac.

Thanks Ashley! That's valuable info. I do *not* like tinkering with 
hardware. I want a set-and-forget setup. The main issue is getting 
over the FUD of changing platforms in a big way.

Yep...I'm with Ashley.  If you want a computer to use, get a Mac. 
 If you want to stick it to the man, use GNU/Linux, but do so knowing 
that whizbang feature X will be lacking or require gnome level tinkering.

If you want to be a lemming, go Windows, sorry I mean, if you like 
mainstream, go Windows.

Ashley, can you explain in a little more detail how your setup works 
for you? i.e. why two minis, is the iBook just for traveling, etc.