A few months ago I decided to retire my SN41GV2 Shuttle Box PC. The Shuttle Box, which is named Titan, has served me well as a home server, but I had grown tired of the noise level associated with its power supply fans. I worried too that after being upgraded to an Athlon XP 3200, it would one day overheat and take my data with it. Considering price as the most limiting factor, I set out to setup a new Windows Server and found some interesting choices along the way. For example new Intel based Shuttle Box models were intriguing, but the small form factor is limiting and not all that cheap. Intel based servers are fast and reliable, but their price ranges are high for all but entry level Celeron based systems. I have had good experiences with AMD’s Athlons, so I decided to give AMD another chance and looked for Opteron based servers.

The Flavors of AMD Opteron

Seems like AMD is quite popular in the small business server market. You have choices, like the HP ProLiant ML115 Server and at the time I was able to find a lowend Opteron based IBM System X server as well. Almost all of the Opteron servers used an NVidia based chipset and featured similar motherboard specs, so the only decision came down to price and extras. The HP ProLiant had one major difference on the Dell PowerEdge T105, it came with built-in SATA RAID. In end, I waited for Dell to have a sale and the price range ended up being significant. The T105 on sale goes for $349, while everyone else had a $500 or more price tag. At this price it is hard not to buy a Dell. Note that this does not include an operating system or any hardware upgrades like more memory and bigger hard drives. Do not forget to add $20 for shipping, so we are now at around $380.

Server Upgrades

For computer upgrades, you really cannot beat Newegg.com. They have great service and their site has pretty much everything you could ever want when it comes to components. I ended up ordering a 500GB Western Digital SATA hard drive for around $105. The only problem with buying an Opteron based machine is that it uses ECC memory and not regular DDR memory. This ended up costing me twice as much. Instead of the $40 or so for 2×1GB DIMMs, I had to pay around $80 for the same memory and only Kingston has DD2 800 memory ECC DIMMs. The same ECC DIMMs now cost around $50, so they have gotten cheaper in the last six months.

Eventually I will upgrade the DVD Drive and add another internal hard drive. I am still waiting for 2GB ECC DIMMs to become cheaper. The T105 can take up to 8GB of RAM.

Windows2003 Server Performance

At first I had a lot of problems with Windows2003 stability on the new server. Hard drive access especially was slower than expected. The fix ended up being to go into Device Manager and for disk drive, choose Optimize for Performance. This ended fixing the weird pauses I saw in Explorer. Comparing the system to the old Athon XP 3200, which ran at 2.2GHz, the dual core Opteron 1210 18GHz is more stable and application wise feels faster. Some apps do perform better than others, so performance is always relative to the application and if both cores are being utilized. Since this is a server, other than terminal server RDP, I really do not run much in the way of desktop applications. Apache 2 is definitely better on dual cores.

Overall the new server was a good bargain. It is quiet enough for the home office and while the size factor is that of a normal tower, it is very expandable compared to a small form factor PC. I guess it is true, you can’t beat Dell on price.

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In today’s online world, writing skills are a must. Chances are that if you are going to blog, write in-depth reviews, or simply make some comments on why you hated the latest movie you rented from NetFlix, your points will carry more weight if you write them correctly and with style. If you happen to run into problems when putting your thoughts into words, consider the following advice.

The Difference Between Writing And Editing

The first thing to understand is that no one writes great works the first time around. I know there is that story of Jack Kerouac writing his famous book, On The Road in only one draft, but the truth is that there were many drafts and revisions. Most writing comes from a few inspirational moments when you open your mind and just let the words come to you, as natural as breathing. Once you have your inspirational notes written down, you put them away and come back to them later. Some writers then add more to their notes and form a first draft or if their work is long enough, they begin an editing process. During the editing phase, you correct words, phrases, even try to correct the points your are trying to make.

Writers often have what is called writer’s block, periods of time that they can not come up with anything to write about. It is especially important at these times to be open and jot down whatever comes to mind. We sometimes let the editing phase take place too soon, and nothing kills inspiration like an editor’s point of view! It may surprise you how well you do write when you are not thinking of proper grammar and punctuation.

Learning To Write From Others

It may surprise you to learn that being original has nothing to do with writing. Most works get their storylines and ideas from previous works. Writing is not about coming up with something new, but about saying it in a new and/or inventive way. This means that writing well, has a lot to do with studying your subject matter and the writers that write about it. If you want to write reviews of video games, then you need to read a lot of game reviews to see what the standard is. Who knows, you might find that these reviews all lack something which you feel can make your reviews stand out.

Another example is my growing fascination with basketball, which I am now trying to write about for my personal site. Much to my surprise I find myself having trouble writing about sports, to which I can only attribute to the fact that I have had very little exposure to sports writing in general. This is something I am trying to remedy by reading as many sports books as I can find at my local library.

So even if you find yourself stuck when writing about particular subject matters, it may not mean you are a terrible writer, but that you need to learn more about writing that subject matter.

Developing Style

Something which I myself find hard to explain is style. To me style is not something you learn from a grammar guide, but something you develop over your life time. Most of the time people refer to it as personal voice. As you read more authors, you will find that some appeal to you more than others, and some you will undoubtedly try to copy their style. This will lead over time to your own style, as you keep copying different styles that eventually you will find your own uniqueness. The process is slow, but the more authors you read, the more your technique will improve with practice. This is true of most art and not just writing. U2’s guitarist The Edge, Eddie Van Halen, and countless other guitarists all learned to play like Eric Clapton, before they developed their own styles. Yet U2’s music sounds nothing like Clapton’s.

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