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Tom’s Hardware Guide posted their Reader’s Choice Awards 2002 Results.

Here is a brief overview…

Best Processor: Intel Pentium 4 w/Hyper Threading
Best Maker of Storage: Western Digital (JB Series)
Best Networking: D-Link DWL-900AP+ (close second: Linksys BEFWISY)
Best Display: Mitsubihi Diamond Pro 2060u (CRT 22″)*
Best Display (LCD): Samsung 152T (LCD 15″)
Best Consumer Product: Apple iPod (close second: Microsoft X-Box)
Best Mini PC: MSI Slim PC

Interesting note: Best display manufacturer went to Sony, even though they did not have any products in the top 6 best display category.

Biggest shock to me: MSI Slim PC — I didn’t even know this existed until I read it on the Reader’s Choice Awards (hense the reason I linked to it) — very cool specs — up to an Athlon XP2600+, 2GB RAM, 5.1 channel audio, integrated 10/100 networking, 2x 3.5″ and 1×5.25″ (enough for a DVD/CD-RW and two hard drives), 3xPCI and 1xAGP (install a fast video card), USB 2.0, Micro-ATX form factor. Granted, its a bit larger than some other mini-PCs, but definitely smaller than the traditional mid and mini towers.

Out of a possible 4,500,000 servers shipped last year, Intel was only able to bank 3,500 with its latest and greatest Itanium processor. (.078%)

This was according to the market research company IDC. Check out this article for more info.

hmm.. while I’m mudslinging the Itanium …. lets look at some other factoids..

According to this article (german) in the German magazine c’t, SAP benchmarks demonstrate that an Itanium system is 67% slower than an HP AlphaServer GS1280. Additionally the code for the IA-64 is around three times the bulk of the 32-bit equivilant. AMD’s X86-64 code is only 15% greater.

According to this article, IBM has discontinued its efforts to adapt Linux for the Itanium. “IBM doesn’t have anyone dedicated to working with Linux on Itanium.” Favali proceeded to explain, “Our view right now is that Itanium is like a science project. There’s not a market for it.”

In anycase, it seems like the bottom line is this –> lots of companies that initially teamed up with Intel/HP for the Itanium project are or have jumped off the bandwagon (This includes IBM and Dell). It also appears that these same companies are rumored to or have announced plans to release servers based on the AMD x86-64 platform. It will be interesting to see if AMD is successful in gaining a respectable amount of marketshare in the lucrative server market. Even more interesting would be to see Intel having to follow suit and come out with their own x86-64 compatible chip. Time will tell.

The Mac OS X Server 10.2.4 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for the following applications, services and technologies: AFP, SMB and NFS file services, DHCP, NetBoot, Open Directory, QuickTime Streaming Server, Sendmail and Workgroup Manager. It prevents Xserve drives from being unmounted while locked, provides digest authentication for WebDAV, management of Energy Saver settings, and supports NetBoot images greater than 2 GB in size. The update also provides the latest Security Updates. It’s available via Software Update or for separate download.

My system now runs Red Hat 8.0 w/KDE 3.1 …. this is not an official combo from Red Hat, but read on for my 1st day usage review!
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IBM has announced that it is using the linux based TrollTech Qtopia interface for a PDA blueprint that includes its own PowerPC 405LP chip and MontaVista Software’s version of Linux.

The Qtopia system is already available on the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 and SL-A300 and according to Trolltech, has over 600 applications available.

Articles:
ZDNet UK
TrollTech
geek.com

In other Linux news, Walmart.com will start selling the deskop centric Lycoris Linux for under $50. In addition to its desktop offering, Walmart.com will also offer the ProductivityPak office suite and the new GamePak.

For those that do not know, Lycoris Linux is a pretty darn spiffy desktop operating system. Out of the box, it supports a huge array of hardware and has many software applications including a photo editing suite, digital music, movie and video players, a wide range of internet applications, office suite, realplayer, acrobat, java, CD writer application, simplified networking & file sharing capabilities, firewall, desktop sharing, remote assistance, multiple games and much more.

Granted, I still like my Knoppix boot-CD, but for an easy to use linux desktop, Lycoris is hard to beat.