What a week

There's so much I want to get done and so very little time to do it, where to start.

I breezed through the pro-RAID article that was /.ed a couple of days ago; I'm not one to directly criticize someone else's work, I'd rather let my work stand on its own and have the readers come to their own conclusions so that is all I will mention on that topic. You all aren't here to read about my review of someone else's review of a review, so I won't bother with something like that - instead I've got a better idea :)

Ever since I posted my RAID article I've been working up ideas to make everyone happy for inclusion in a future definitive desktop RAID guide; the debate died down after the article so I didn't expect to revisit it until later, but with the renewed interest I thought about getting the guide done sometime this week. Reality set in and I don't believe it's physically possible for me to get the type of guide I'm planning done before the week is over, so it will have to wait until September. But rest assured, it will be done. Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see tested in particular, but I'm not planning on leaving any stone unturned for that guide - those of you who know me should know what to expect :)

Topic #2: Kris' article. I didn't read the article before it went up (my fault), and I saw the instant backlash. I've already talked to Kris and he's planning a followup with the fastest Opteron available, but to his credit here's what he was trying to do: show an Athlon 64 vs. Pentium 4 F (64-bit Prescott) comparison. He did a good job of that in the article, but I think what was lacking was exactly pointing out that the Xeon test bed is basically a preview of the new Pentium 4 F (desktop P4 with 64-bit extensions). There were a few errors in the benchmark graphs which he has since corrected and he's explained the theory behind the comparison as well, which should hopefully get the point across a bit better.

The problem with benchmarking under Linux is that there aren't that many good benchmarks, so you're left with a handful of decent tests and a lot of synthetic benchmarks. I went over some ideas with Kris about other more real world tests to run under Linux for part 2 of the article, we'll see how many can get in there.

To those who are questioning him, I trust Kris enough to leave him in charge of the site while I'm gone. His loyalty's are in the same place as mine, with the readers, and he will do any and everything to do the best job possible. Kris did a good job of making the Pentium 4 3.6F vs. Athlon 64 3500+ comparison, but I think a lot of his intent got lost in translation so to speak (another movie I need to see).

In any case, the Xeon vs. Opteron comparison will be coming thanks to your demands - Kris will be working all night making sure it happens asap. Ask and ye shall receive, that's how things have always worked here and that's how they'll continue to work.

Next up is the long awaited Mac section - bringing up the first question: when will it have articles?

We've had some contacts at Apple show interest in the section, but I think there is still hesitation since we are a very PC oriented site and I think they are afraid it will be more of the usual "oh it looks pretty but is overpriced and slow" type of reviews. The article that I hope changes that is my Mac experience article which I've been working on for quite some time, but I'm still not happy with. It's probably one of the most difficult articles I've had to write because it's reviewing an experience that is very difficult to quantify. There are many strengths to the Mac platform, but just as many weaknesses; the same can be said about the PC platform, but truly evaluating the two and drawing any sort of conclusive...conclusions is difficult. I'm still working on it and it is scheduled to go live while I'm away this month, I'm just hoping I can finish it in time. I want it to be perfect, and perfection is often times difficult to achieve if you're picky :)

I have other articles lined up as well; I've been in touch with ATI for quite a while on Mac coverage and they've already invited me up to talk to their Mac team about what they're up to. I've talked to NVIDIA about Mac stuff a couple of times and have even put in a request for the new 6800 card, but have had much less response. We'll see what happens with those but the rest of the articles will definitely have to be published when I get back.

It irks me that I can't get more done in time, but I guess I've got to learn to do this whole taking time off bit. I honestly think it'll be good for me to get away for that long, it's also kind of scary at the same time.

Because some have been asking I thought I'd clear up any confusion about the master plan here:

1) Get married
2) Honeymoon for 2 weeks
3) Back to NC for a couple of days and then move up to CT for 2 years
4) Parents take my current house for another year, sell their current house all while building a new house for them (they need a downstairs master, mom can't walk up stairs very well anymore) then sell my current house before we move down.
5) While in CT we build our new house down here for our return.

Because of step #5 to the master plan, we're also frantically interviewing builders for our upcoming house project (that's also why we're renting up in CT instead of buying) before we leave.

I think I covered everything for now - goodnight :)