Kacang is Nuts!

I had to perform a long due upgrade on my home server about two days back. The problem with it was that the server processor would overheat under high computing load. It became so bad that the CPU alarm would trip occasionally, indicating a “fever” of more than 60°C. As with most electronic equipment, Computers + Heat = Big No No + Big Computer Junkyard in The Sky. A new CPU heat sink seemed to be in order, with both the Thermalright Ultra 120 and the Thermalright Ultima 90i looking to be pretty good choices.

The Ultra 120 model is a huge behemoth of a heat sink, weighing in at over 700 grams. The Ultima 90i is far lighter at less than 500 grams. While the Ultra 120 offers much better cooling performance, its weight is a problem, especially for a computer which will be transported around. With the increased mass and inertia, any shaking or rapid vibrations would result in potentially damaging force to the motherboard. Not to mention that it may plain break off. I’ve still yet to hear something like that yet, but being a first on this doesn’t win any prizes. Also, with the Ultra 120 going for RM255 and the Ultima 90i going for a more reasonable RM205, I decided to go with the Ultima 90i.

The Ultima 90i, while not as heavy as the Ultra 120, is still hefty enough to need more than your bog standard heat sink mounting mechanism. And installing the special mounting means taking off the whole board to install a back plate.

Here’s the naked computer with the ole’ standard issue Intel heat sink fan set.

Here’s the naked computer WITHOUT the ole’ standard issue Intel heat sink fan set. That’s the processor chip there. Four lip-smacking cores of Intel Q6600 goodness. It runs hotter than hell, hence this blog post.

The mounting brackets are installed by screwing them against a supplied back plate.

The said back plate, the primary cause of all this monkey business.

Once the mounting’s done, it’s time to work with the Ultima 90i itself.

The heat sink doesn’t come with it’s own fan, so I had to scavenge around for a spare 120cm fan. This one’s a spare taken off a casing somewhere. I had to take the fan off again to actually mount the heat sink on the board, or else I couldn’t tighten down one of the locking screws.

Ta-da! Bunged together and almost ready to go, with the fan reinstalled after the earlier snafu…

Here’s the front view. Looks huge, doesn’t it?

This is after installing the board back into the casing. Yes, it’s quite a mess. One thing I can’t seem to get right is tidying up the innards of the computer. Too many cables and stuff in the server already.

The heat sink seems to work pretty well. While before this, the baseline temperature of the processor was around 44°C, it now holds around 35°C. This is pretty good, leaving a much larger buffer to the dreaded alarm at 60°C. While the system will need monitoring for some time after this, I do believe the heat problem is solved. More on this later on if anything breaks!

Kacang Technology computers, pc tech

Microsoft has offered US$44.6 billion to buy Yahoo, the one-time web search leader. Yahoo, as of November 2006, was still the second most popular search engine behind Google. The acquisition, if completed, would give Microsoft access to all of Yahoo’s search technology, advertising base and popular services such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, 360° and Yahoo Messenger.

The implications of such an acquisition are huge. By taking Yahoo out of the equation, the only two major players left in online search and advertisement would be Google and Microsoft. If one of these giants fell, the survivor would monopolize the entire field. And we all know how “well” monopolies treat their customers, especially in regards to Microsoft. Remember how awful Internet Explorer was before Firefox came along? Remember Vista and the disaster it has become since there are no viable competitors out there? That’s monopoly, and it’s not just a board game.

That aside, it is strange that Microsoft even considers buying Yahoo at all. While it would gain significant advances from Yahoo’s web search technology, Microsoft would also be wasting quite a fair bit of money buying online services which directly compete with its own services. Take Flickr, Del.icio.us, 360° and Yahoo Messenger for example. Microsoft already provides competing services such as Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Favorites, Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Messenger. Would it then decide to shut down one or more of these competing services to save operating costs? Will the acquisition even go ahead? Looks like time will tell.

Kacang Technology acquisition, microsoft, takeover, yahoo

Signing up for an account anywhere on the web these days is a chore in itself, what with all the uncomfortably personal details being requested. One thing never changes, and that is your e-mail address will invariably be needed to complete the registration via a “confirmation e-mail”. Giving a real e-mail address is an invitation to have it inundated with spam within minutes. The alternative for some time has been to register for a “throwaway” e-mail address with a free e-mail provider to be used as a disposable “spambox”. The address is used for registrations, and is finally discarded only when the junk mail comes on too thick and too fast.

A service which I recently stumbled upon, Mailinator, allows you to use a temporary e-mail address to sign up for any services and receive their confirmation mail. No registration hassle. No maintaining a “throwaway” account. Just use and discard. Or as the military types say, fire and forget.

How do you use this amazing service? Say you’ve just come to a site which has a dubious privacy policy but requires your e-mail address during the registration process. Just use a random e-mail address at their domain (eg. wonkeywackywatercloset@mailinator.com, asdfkjasdfklj@mailinator.com, use your imagination!) and continue with the registration process. To retrieve the confirmation e-mail, just go to www.mailinator.com and enter the address you used into the “Check your inbox” text box and click on “Go”. No prior sign-up is required. This should bring you to the inbox containing the confirmation letter from your registration. Do what you need to, and then just forget about the account. It’s as simple as that, and everything is totally anonymous. Can’t think of a e-mail address to use? Just go to the the Mailinator page and use the randomly generated e-mail address.

One other advantage of using this service over keeping a reusable “throwaway” e-mail account is that the paranoids amongst us can use a different e-mail address everytime, thus removing even the minute possibility that our Internet use habits can be tracked via a common e-mail address.

However, bear in mind that the service requires no authentication, meaning that it is possible for someone else to stumble into your e-mail account (think johndoe@mailinator.com), allowing them to view your e-mails and even potentially break into the accounts which you have applied for using the Mailinator address. Unless you use a truly unique e-mail address, pretty much anyone would be able to retrieve the e-mails. My advice? Use the randomly generated addresses at the site itself. That should prevent anyone from accidentally or deliberately getting your e-mails until the site automatically deletes it after a few hours. As with many things, a little prudence will go a long way to ensure safe and happy use of the service.

Kacang Technology Technology