“‘I started out by putting together a few machines on my own, and then began adding the Web site in my e-mail signature on mailing lists,’ Charles Parnot, a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, explained. In a matter of months, he had jumped to 100 machines running at any given moment,” Blane Warrene reports for MacNewsWorld.
“Charles Parnot, a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, had a lot of data to deal with in his human genetics research and not enough time. Then Parnot discovered Apple’s Xgrid, a technology preview for linking Macintosh computers into powerful clusters, and he began experimenting with a few computers to see what he could accomplish,” Warrene reports. “Fast forward five months, and what began as eight computers providing 4 GHz of processing power has become as many as 200 systems around the world providing between 80 and 130 GHz of processing power to Parnot’s efforts. The computer owners donate their processor power during idle time. A live gauge of the processing speed is displayed on Parnot’s Web site here.”
Full article here.
Cool, I’m in !
MacPhee’s Fearless Prediction:
Xgrid will turn the corner for Apple.
Microsoft: now would be a good time to start looking over your shoulder. You too, Mr. Dell.
Mike
I hope your prediction is true, MacPhee.
But more people have to be made aware of it.
I have harped on it for years, and will keep on it.
Word of mouth is more powerful than I thought, but not powerful enough. More needs to be done.
Apple needs an all new Xmac. A headless Mac built for business. It doesn’t really fit here, but is my current frustration. I need a couple of inexpensive machines for basic office work, and an emac with office is $1200. a semi-sort of comparable IBM is $650. I don’t need any monitors, and I don’t need all the other “bells and whistles” that come with the emac. They will only run office… wake up APPLE. And why does it make sense for them to ignore this market when they make the Xserve and Xraid so affordable compared to everyone…. they want in to the Enterprise, but the Enterprise is office workers, for which they don’t have a desktop available.
Rob, do you really need Office, or would AppleWorks suffice? It would save you a few hundred dollars per machine.
ThinkFree Office is $49.
From the Apple Store: “The award-winning ThinkFree Office is an affordable suite of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics applications. Its powerful, yet easy-to-use applications can seamlessly open, edit, and save directly to their corresponding Microsoft Office file formats like .doc, .xls, and .ppt. ThinkFree Write, Calc and Show allows users to effortlessly exchange files with friends and co-workers using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Its unique Java architecture enables it to run on Mac OS X, Mac Classic, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. ThinkFree Office features integrated, Internet-based file sharing and storage with end-to-end security and includes free online upgrades for one year.”
I need a G5 with all the power and bells and whistles to get my graphics work done, but maybe now is the time for Apple to consider a low cost basic business machine. Our newspaper is beginning to need to replace some base machines. One of our editors is proofing material on a 7100 running OS 8.6. It would be nice to upgrade him for $500-$600 without having to ditch a big monitor. (Maybe I should just surf for some deals on a G3 iMac
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> ) If they market them right, aimed directly at Office applications, they could use up any G3 and G4 chips left and sell the machine on compatibility and price, rather than power and speed. Maybe with the appropriate fine-tuning, they could make them excellent business machines, optimized for email, web brousing and light to moderate office/clerical work. Unless you are cranking out heavy-duty graphics or other processor intensive work, they should be great for the average business user. Perhaps they could also enhance the bus and network speeds to make them seem faster on the network.
Office is a much bigger expense on Mac… only $112 for office basic on PC, which is all I needed.
My users will be confused if we use another app to open word docs… especially if they don’t convert 100% accurately. Which I know has been an issue in the past.
Is ThinkFree office compatability good? I haven’t looked at that one yet.
Appleworks had issues, but to be honest, it was the previous version. And, I tried openoffice, which kind of sucked last year… is it any better on Mac now?
Thanks for your input.
What’s next? Xgrid 3d Live Chat Cluster Porn.
Xgrid rocks!
97Ghz when I checked!
Time for Micro$oft to start worrying I think
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
This link:
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?ProductID=523916
is for Office standard from CDW – cost is $370.51.
Where are you getting your $112 price? I’d guess it’s from a big PC Manufacturer – make sure you know what you’re really getting for that price.
For example – Dell has an “Office Basic” option for $149 – but all it has is Word, Excel, and Outlook (no Power Point). To get power point the price jumps up to $279.
Now I hear you saying that’s a still cheaper than the approx. $390 you pay for “Office 2004 Standard For Mac”, but you get what you pay for – if you read the fine print on a PC resellers page you’ll find that those cheap licenses (for example Dell’s “Basic” and “Standard” versions) are OEM licenses and can’t legally be used on another machine. To get a real license you’re back to the $370.51 from CDW.
Finally, in regards to alternatives make sure to check out “Open Office”. Sure it’s a little clunky to set up and looks a little ugly (because you run it in X11), but it’s free and constantly being updated to be as compatible as possible with Office.
One other thing I’d like to add is that Apple/Microsoft used to have some good rebate deals for Office if you bought a new Mac.
It’d be nice to see those again, maybe in concert with the release of the new iMac.
Yes, AppleWorks and OpenOffice are less expensive.
But most corporations don’t give a rats ass. If it’s not Microsoft Office they won’t approve the purchase or use.
Some companies don’t care, and in these cases count yourself lucky. My company is nearly blind to anything but Microsoft Office. Heck, the support department I work in mentioned Firefox as a secure replacement for Internet Explorer (on the PC) and you would have thought we’d suggested the end of the world.
Anyone who wishes to participate in another of Stanfords Universities great projects can join by visiting this site
http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/index.html
AppleWorks?
I love everything Apple/Mac.
But I don’t like AppleWorks. It is
probably just me.
I unfortunately use Excel and Word, and
I can’t wait until Apple either updates
AppleWorks or writes a true alternative
to Word and Excel.
Please, do not say, “hey what about ThinkFree?”
I wasted my money on it.
I wasted my money on QB for Mac too.