Micron Introduces Industry’s Highest Density DDR3 Components and Modules. New 2Gb Component Enables Up to a 16GB Server Memory Module and a 4GB Desktop and Notebook PC Memory Module.

Boise, Idaho , Tuesday, October 30, 2007 – Building on its heritage of innovation in DRAM technology, Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the industry’s first 2 gigabit (Gb) double data rate (DDR) 3 component. Micron’s newest DRAM innovation is the highest density DDR3 component available on the market.

By using 2Gb components, Micron can enable 8 gigabyte (GB) and 16GB modules for servers and 4GB modules for desktop and notebook PCs, which are the industry’s highest density DDR3 modules available. This increase in memory density is ideal for optimizing today’s memory intensive operating systems. Micron is now sampling modules based on its 2Gb DDR3 component for server, desktop and notebook applications.

Commercial availability for the product is planned for the first quarter of 2008.

Disk Heal is a free useful tool that performs many useful functions. It is an application that fixes disk errors which occur after a virus removal and performs various other tweaks as well.

Visit the “Features” page to view a more detailed description of all of the features in Disk Heal.

DUMA (Detect Unintended Memory Access) is an open-source library (under GNU General Public License) to detect buffer overruns and under-runs in C and C++ programs. This library is a fork of Buce Perens Electric Fence library and adds some new features to it.

Features of the DUMA library:

• “Overloads” all standard memory allocation functions like malloc(), calloc(), memalign(), strdup(), operator new, operator new[] and also their counterpart deallocation functions like free(), operator delete and operator delete[]
• Utilizes the MMU (memory management unit) of the CPU:
  allocates and protects an extra memory page to detect any illegal access beyond the top of the buffer (or bottom, at the user’s option)
• Stops the program at exactly that instruction, which does the erroneous access to the protected memory page, allowing location of the defectice source code in a debugger
• Detects erroneous writes at the non-protected end of the memory block at deallocation of the memory block
• Detects mismatch of allocation/deallocation functions: f.e. allocation with malloc() but deallocation with operator delete
• Leak detection: detect memory blocks which were not deallocated until program exit
• Runs on Linux / U*ix and MS Windows NT/2K/XP operating systems
• Preloading of the library on Linux (and some U*ix) systems allowing tests without necessity of changing source code or recompilation

The latest version are available at the DUMA project page at Sourceforge.net

IBM will consolidate some 3,900 computer servers onto about 30 System z mainframes running the Linux operating system. The company expects the new set-up to use about 80 percent less energy than the current arrangement. The switch is part of Project Big Green, a commitment by IBM to sharply reduce data centre energy consumption for the company and its clients.

“The mainframe is the single most powerful instrument to drive better economics and energy conservation at the data centre today,” said James Stallings, general manager, IBM System z mainframe. “By moving globally onto the mainframe platform, IBM is creating a technology platform that saves energy while positioning our IT assets for flexibility and growth.”

“As one of the world’s largest technology providers, IBM consistently assesses how our systems can be maximized to support our employees and clients,” said Mark Hennessy, vice president and chief information officer, IBM.

With more than 8 million square feet of data centre space (equivalent to 139 football fields), IBM runs the world’s largest and most sophisticated data centre operation. The company plans to recycle the 3,900 servers through IBM Global Asset Recovery Services.

IBM estimates they’ll save around $250 millions over the next 5 years based on lower energy comsumption, less licences and also less people. Through heavy use of virtualization and Linux, IBM thinks they’ll get even more power from the mainframes than from the former server park.

I applause the environmental aspect of this move from IBM but do feel a bit sorry for all those guys who’s job is going to the “Global Asset Recovery Services”.

For further info read the press release.

WLAN routers are not known to impress through its innovative design, however the new N1 from Belkin certainly stands out from the crowd.

Wednesday last week Belkin announced their forthcoming N1 model with a somewhat new concept and the highest WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) ever.

In addition to great design it’s equipped with an advanced interactive network display that allows you to view the activity of your network.

Besides a sleek Download/Upload Speedometer this provides info about network bandwidth usage, number of connected devices, guest access network key and the date and time.