|
Miscellaneous
- If It Ain't Broke
- Benchmark Figures
<Software : Table
of Contents : Integrated Circuits>
If It Ain't Broke
From Catalog 27, page 12
If it isn't broken now, is that any guarantee that it won't fail later?
Do you have a disaster recovery plan? Here in California, we are constantly
reminded that an earthquake could happen at any time. As I write this,
there is an "Earthquake Warning" in effect for a 6.0 quake sometime
in the next 72 hours.
What can you do to prepare for an unplanned business interruption? Here
are some suggestions:
- Backup your data to both onsite and offsite locations. Keep at least
2 sets of backup and rotate the most recent offsite at the end of each
business day.
- Attach mission critical computers to an Uninterruptable Power Supply
(UPS). This is a "requirement" for network servers and should
be available for the backup workstation.
- Know in advance where you can obtain compatible equipment to run your
applications. Yours may not be the only enterprise affected, so being
quick may be important.
- Remember, you may never walk through the front door of your business
again. Have a plan that includes contacting your workforce and enables
them to contact you.
Derick Moore
JDR Gazette
San Jose _Sighs of relief were heard throughout the valley today as the
time of eminent danger expired. The past 60 hours have been tense with
fear as people cowered under tables, crowded the highways in search of
open land, and tore the hair from their scalps.
Scientists at Berkeley quickly disavowed the predictions of Prof. Sizemo
as the rantings of a deranged weirdo saying "We never agreed with
his findings, and the 'For Sale Cheap' signs in our front yards were obviously
put there by pranksters trying to give us a bad name".
Back to the Top
Benchmark Figures
From Catalog 10, page 5
For some time now JDR, and for that matter, nearly all of the computer
industry, has listed Norton SI and Landmark benchmark figures in their
advertisements. It's one of the first things I look at when comparing
computers.
From that you may conclude that those numbers are very important. They
are and they aren't! As relative measures of speed between various systems,
they'll generally tell you which is fastest, but they can mislead and
hide information if the buyer doesn't pay attention to the complete system.
The numbers you see advertised only indicate the amount of work that
the processor is able to do in a period of time. Because the program that
tests for speed is very small, it is unable to evaluate the system's response
in many "real world" situations.
Just as you'd select speakers rated compatible with your stereo's amplifier,
matching your computer system's components to each other and to the job
performed is necessary. In addition to memory speed ratings, look for
these features:
Memory type: 1Mb RAM is more cost effective than 256K RAM
Interleaving: Interleaved memory runs faster with fewer wait states
Memory cache: Bigger is better, and more expensive
Cache architecture: 4-way set associative is better than 2-way, which
is better than direct mapped
Back to the Top
|
