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RE: The Dream Machine

Philipp Post — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 04:40:04 GMT

[quote][b]Alex Gay (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]I've got to that age where as long as it works, reliably and consistently I'm happy.[/quote]Same with me. At work we have recent Lenovo equipment which works quite well.For my private use I got a used ThinkPad T61 15' with Intel Graphics (Nvidia are not reliable on this type of ThinkPad). I bought it at a fair price and upgraded it a bit and purchased some of the rare accessories (e. g. Parallel and Serial Port bay adapter, AC/DC power supply which can also be used in cars, airplanes). I like the IBM / Lenovo Hardware Maintenance Manuals which makes it easy to disassemble the whole thing if it needs.Last weekend I was happy to find a VGA port at the machine as I had to hold a presentation and the beamer had nothing else but VGA and adapters were not there.I like reliable computers with good keyboards and a clear and contrast rich screen. RAM and HDD should not be too short, but I do not need the latest and greatest.One monitor is enough for me but if on a desktop I like one bigger than 19'

RE: The Dream Machine

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 09:50:15 GMT

[quote][b]Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]For those running windows under Apple products.How do you right click?[/quote]Two finger click on the trackpad.

RE: The Dream Machine

Nadrek — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 13:04:12 GMT

[quote][b]Eric M Russell (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]The sysadmin can always reset the password for a user for service account; why would one user ever need to "crack" another user's SQL Server account password in the process of performing their job?Are you talking about certificates on an encrypted database?[/quote]To A) verify that password policies are actually being followed, and B) to find passwords which are putting the company, data, and/or database at risk because they are out of compliance with corporate, industry, regulatory, legal, or classification level requirements despite passing Microsoft's rather primitive implementation, for instance 'P@$$w0rd' is an eight character password with upper case, lower case, symbols, and numbers - and yet it is one of the weakest passwords in the world. 'P@$$w0rd123' is the same, but is fully 11 characters long.Microsoft using only a single SHA1 (SHA256 in 2012) hash pass only makes weak passwords that much more vulnerable.Note that for the cloud storage/use, for some industries there are serious legal and regulatory security requirements.

RE: The Dream Machine

Todd.Everett — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 12:50:01 GMT

[quote][b]Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/7/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]Todd.Everett (9/7/2012)[/b][hr] Now suddenly we have two key uses for our laptops - social media and cloud storage - that we can't live without. Many employers block both. ...I now use producteev for task management, evernote for note taking, dropbox for cloud storage, and AWS to play with cloud instances of SQL Server and Oracle. My employer blocks every one of these as well as my facebook page, my twitter feed, and so on. ...Thanks Steve for the very timely editorial (I continue to be amazed at how you find something interesting and timely to write each day in SQL Server Central.com) and the space for us in the community to write back![/quote]Does your employer block those for some security issue or just they think it improves productivity?[/quote]I think they block them primarily due to security risks and not necessarily because they think it improves productivity. They are concerned about "data leakage" when it comes to cloud storage and about virus/worms getting into the network from social media. I know next to nothing about security but it seems to me there ought to be ways to address the security issues while allowing these kinds of tools. So maybe it is an underlying fear of productivity loss ;-)

RE: The Dream Machine

Eric M Russell — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 12:29:54 GMT

[quote][b]Nadrek (9/7/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]Eric M Russell (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]If cracking encypted data is what one does for a living, then I could see a need for a high end graphics card. However, most employees, even most in IT, couldn't persuade their employer it's a legitimate part of their job description.[/quote]You'd be astounded by some of the passwords people (and 3rd party products) have chosen for their SQL Server accounts.[/quote]The sysadmin can always reset the password for a user for service account; why would one user ever need to "crack" another user's SQL Server account password in the process of performing their job?Are you talking about certificates on an encrypted database?

RE: The Dream Machine

Nadrek — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 12:10:05 GMT

[quote][b]Eric M Russell (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]If cracking encypted data is what one does for a living, then I could see a need for a high end graphics card. However, most employees, even most in IT, couldn't persuade their employer it's a legitimate part of their job description.[/quote]You'd be astounded by some of the passwords people (and 3rd party products) have chosen for their SQL Server accounts.

RE: The Dream Machine

Eric M Russell — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:43:01 GMT

[quote][b]Nadrek (9/7/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]Eric M Russell (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]I don't know why someone would care to have a high end graphics card in their work PC... unless they are playing Modern Combat 2 or watching movies on NetFlix while waiting for their long running SQL queries to complete.[/quote]Doing a password audit at 3.7 billion guesses per second [url=http://hashcat.net/oclhashcat-lite/]Hashcat[/url] is a solid reason for a high end graphics card in a work PC.P.S. Eric, high end machines do indeed substitude for a space heater when they're highly active... which is very nice in the cold, since many companies prohibit space heaters for safety reasons.[/quote]If cracking encypted data is what one does for a living, then I could see a need for a high end graphics card. However, most employees, even most in IT, couldn't persuade their employer it's a legitimate part of their job description.

RE: The Dream Machine

Megan Brooks — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:42:05 GMT

[quote][b]Nadrek (9/7/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]Eric M Russell (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]I don't know ...P.S. Eric, high end machines do indeed substitude for a space heater when they're highly active... which is very nice in the cold, since many companies prohibit space heaters for safety reasons.[/quote]My MacBook Pro only doubles as a space heater when Windows 7 is running. :-)

RE: The Dream Machine

Megan Brooks — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:39:42 GMT

[quote][b]Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]For those running windows under Apple products.How do you right click?[/quote]The same way as when using OS X, by right-clicking. Most mice have at least two buttons (and I wouldn't have one that didn't). Trackpads (either built-in or external) use a two-finger tap for right-click.

RE: The Dream Machine

jfogel — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:38:47 GMT

[quote][b]mbrooks (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]My employer allowed me to specifiy my own machine, as long as I bought it myself! (We're a small nonprofit association with only one developer -- me.)I went through a couple of others before settling on a 15" MacBook Pro (2011 model). It has plenty of oomph to run both OS X (for me) and Windows 7 (for work), using VMWare Fusion.[/quote]I buy my own machines as well. I don't like cheap computers.

RE: The Dream Machine

Nadrek — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:36:00 GMT

[quote][b]Eric M Russell (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]I don't know why someone would care to have a high end graphics card in their work PC... unless they are playing Modern Combat 2 or watching movies on NetFlix while waiting for their long running SQL queries to complete.[/quote]Doing a password audit at 3.7 billion guesses per second [url=http://hashcat.net/oclhashcat-lite/]Hashcat[/url] is a solid reason for a high end graphics card in a work PC.P.S. Eric, high end machines do indeed substitude for a space heater when they're highly active... which is very nice in the cold, since many companies prohibit space heaters for safety reasons.

RE: The Dream Machine

Eric M Russell — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:31:14 GMT

I don't know why someone would care to have a high end graphics card in their work PC... unless they are playing Modern Combat 2 or watching movies on NetFlix while waiting for their long running SQL queries to complete.

RE: The Dream Machine

Luis Cazares — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:18:07 GMT

For those running windows under Apple products.How do you right click?

RE: The Dream Machine

Megan Brooks — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 10:55:16 GMT

My employer allowed me to specifiy my own machine, as long as I bought it myself! (We're a small nonprofit association with only one developer -- me.)I went through a couple of others before settling on a 15" MacBook Pro (2011 model). It has plenty of oomph to run both OS X (for me) and Windows 7 (for work), using VMWare Fusion.

RE: The Dream Machine

Eric M Russell — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 10:20:56 GMT

[quote][b]Nadrek (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]Dream machine for work?Well, without price limits it's a pretty silly question - that's going to be something like a Dell T620 tower, dual socket octo-core 2.9Ghz Xeon, 384GB of RAM, dual RAID cards, 16 400GB SAS SSD's, 16 1TB 7.2k SATA nearline drives, 10Gbps Ethernet, and a full set of NVIDIA Tesla cards. That's somewhere in the range of $100,000. I do have to wonder what some of the companies that ask you to build a dream machine do with that.[/quote]If someone works in a cubicle or home office, that wouldn't be ideal, takes up too big of a footprint and too much hot air blowing out of it.

RE: The Dream Machine

Miles Neale — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 09:46:02 GMT

Dream machine - 1929 Indian 101 Scout

RE: The Dream Machine

Nadrek — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 09:45:21 GMT

Dream machine for work?Well, without price limits it's a pretty silly question - that's going to be something like a Dell T620 tower, dual socket octo-core 2.9Ghz Xeon, 384GB of RAM, dual RAID cards, 16 400GB SAS SSD's, 16 1TB 7.2k SATA nearline drives, 10Gbps Ethernet, and a full set of NVIDIA Tesla cards. That's somewhere in the range of $100,000. I do have to wonder what some of the companies that ask you to build a dream machine do with that.For the Lenovo person - would they buy a ThinkServer? With high but normal corporate price limits, a nice top end CPU, a 600GB Velociraptor, 32GB of RAM, dual monitors and a nice video card for password auditing.Laptops that corporations buy don't cut it for any of my dreams, and laptops that do don't come with corporate support and maintenance.

RE: The Dream Machine

Luis Cazares — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 09:26:59 GMT

[quote][b]paul.knibbs (9/7/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/7/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)[/b]Four is overkill, but it's nice and symmetric for me.[/quote]Terry Pratchett would disagree--I saw a TV program which showed his main work station, and he has 6 monitors--big ones, too. He even mentioned it:"People ask me why I have six monitors on my PC. I answer, 'Because I couldn't have eight'".;-)[/quote]As most thing in this site: "It depends"I can see someone using 8 monitors at a time, but not for my everyday work (queries for reports on SQL and Office), it just seems ridiculous.I'm sure there's a theory that would say something like: "Once you get your dream machine, you'll find something better that will become your new dream machine".

RE: The Dream Machine

paul.knibbs — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:58:28 GMT

[quote][b]Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/7/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)[/b]Four is overkill, but it's nice and symmetric for me.[/quote]Terry Pratchett would disagree--I saw a TV program which showed his main work station, and he has 6 monitors--big ones, too. He even mentioned it:"People ask me why I have six monitors on my PC. I answer, 'Because I couldn't have eight'".;-)

RE: The Dream Machine

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:40:11 GMT

[quote][b]Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]The ability to use two monitors is important, I'm not sure if I can handle more or I would just get crazy.[/quote]Three is really nice. I tend to keep email/twitter/notifications on one and a lot of cut/pasting in others. Or I can drop a VM on one and have local SSMS on another and do some testing between versions while keeping notes /ref/BOL up on the other.Four is overkill, but it's nice and symmetric for me.

RE: The Dream Machine

jasona.work — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:33:52 GMT

I would have two dream machines, one for work use, and one for personal use...My work box would just be a desktop, support 2+ monitors, LOTS of RAM and a Xeon CPU so I could load Server2012 w/Hyper-V for throwing together VMs to test various things (and one Win7 Pro VM for "normal" work) and the company to pay for a Technet subscription for me.Considering my current box at work (which so far allows me to do my work) is an older Dell Vostro with a Core2 Quad CPU, 8GB of RAM, and dual monitors, I can't complain too much.As for a personal "dream machine," something similar to the above, but in a laptop...

RE: The Dream Machine

Luis Cazares — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:17:24 GMT

My dream machine needs a balance between portability and horsepower.With portability comes a long lasting battery. I've had some Dell laptops (Inspiron) with a battery that won't even last 2hours of normal work, that's not great.The ability to use two monitors is important, I'm not sure if I can handle more or I would just get crazy.Processor, RAM and HDD will vary with time, but more is better :-DOne thing that I'm not sure about is if I should buy a laptop in the US, because I'm really used to mexican keyboards and the use of "ñ". I can configure the keyboard settings, but with an american keyboard, I'm missing one key. So if I have "ñ", I won't have"<>", that's annoying.

RE: The Dream Machine

Greg Charles — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:17:10 GMT

[quote][b]steve.neumann (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]"I see now shortage".. do you ever proofread?[/quote]Do you ever post anything but complaints about spelling and grammar? [url]http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Search1-0-2.aspx?SessionID=gbtacbbixlcxtw55lhxxqs45&SortBy=2&SortOrder=1[/url]

RE: The Dream Machine

Annette Ehrlich — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:52:46 GMT

I agree-my Saeco Vienna Deluxe helps me start my morning and without that, I am not ready for my desktop (Dell Optiplex) or my laptop (Thinkpad R52). My trusty laptop needs an upgrade, but I am not sure if Lenovo is where I will go next. All I know is I need to trackpoint along with the touchpad. I am not of this new "swipe everything with my finger" generation! It also needs lots of memory and lots of storage, but I haven't requested one yet because my old Thinkpad is setup exactly the way I want it! I must be getting old.......

RE: The Dream Machine

Eric M Russell — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:40:01 GMT

I have no special preference when it comes to the hardware sitting on my desk; in my department we have a scores of database servers provisioned for Development and QA, a few of which where I'm a sysadmin. As far as a "dream" setup, it would be Windows 7 64-bit, Virtual PC, a MSDN Premium edition license, Safari Books Online subscription, and an allowance for time spent on certification training and side projects.

RE: The Dream Machine

thadeushuck — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:29:43 GMT

with all the possible choices, and p-o-s apple kids toys are mentioned more than anything else

RE: The Dream Machine

Bob Thiele — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:26:36 GMT

I've built some PCs and bought about the same. Laptops have finally caught up to providing the power and with a few adapters the abiltiy to attach other HDDs when trying to remove viruses from other PCs. The 4 montiors would be great at work if my desk was big enough. Currently I use an old PC (E-Mail, research, notes...) and a laptop (for the real work). I'll be getting to pick a new one next year and will get to pick one within reason on the price and it will be a laptop instead of a PC. I mainly work on application development and some support of databases. Needs: 17" display minimumi7 processor (I compromised processing speed last time and won't do it again).8GB RAM (but if I can get more I will)At least 1 external monitor portAt least 1 USB 3.0 portE-Satasd card slotsAs big of a battery as I can getBacklit keyboad (letters don't wear off).DVD burnerIdeally I would get 2 HDDs, but I doubt that would be in the budgetHP has one that I recommended for my nephew going off to college for $800 with all of the above. I need to stick with Dell for work though so the price will be higher. It's amazing how much you can get for under $1000 compared to only a couple of years ago.

RE: The Dream Machine

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:22:36 GMT

[quote][b]anthony.dean (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]oddly enough working for a very large company I have no complaints....so I guess my ideal machine to add to the office would be...[url=http://www.thebestcoffeemachine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/espresso-machine.jpg]one of these[/url]...[/quote]LOL, but from personal experience, lots of cleaning needed for these things to keep working over time.

RE: The Dream Machine

SQLWorks — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:11:40 GMT

oddly enough working for a very large company I have no complaints....so I guess my ideal machine to add to the office would be...[url=http://www.thebestcoffeemachine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/espresso-machine.jpg]one of these[/url]...

RE: The Dream Machine

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:10:31 GMT

[quote][b]Todd.Everett (9/7/2012)[/b][hr] Now suddenly we have two key uses for our laptops - social media and cloud storage - that we can't live without. Many employers block both. ...I now use producteev for task management, evernote for note taking, dropbox for cloud storage, and AWS to play with cloud instances of SQL Server and Oracle. My employer blocks every one of these as well as my facebook page, my twitter feed, and so on. ...Thanks Steve for the very timely editorial (I continue to be amazed at how you find something interesting and timely to write each day in SQL Server Central.com) and the space for us in the community to write back![/quote]Does your employer block those for some security issue or just they think it improves productivity?

RE: The Dream Machine

jfogel — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:07:01 GMT

Cray CX1

RE: The Dream Machine

chrisn-585491 — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 06:47:33 GMT

My personal laptop is more powerful than many of the servers at work and with my MSDN membership, I probably have more server licenses/keys and experience than the IT department. :(So my dream machine is a decent workstation... elsewhere.

RE: The Dream Machine

Jeff Moden — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 05:56:54 GMT

[quote][b]steve.neumann (9/7/2012)[/b][hr]"I see now shortage".. do you ever proofread?[/quote]With as many articles and editorials that Steve publishes, I'd say he's miles ahead of the proof readers for most books. Give the man a break. ;-)

RE: The Dream Machine

steve.neumann — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 05:36:14 GMT

"I see now shortage".. do you ever proofread?

RE: The Dream Machine

Todd.Everett — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 05:28:40 GMT

Just purchased the Lenovo W530 and aftermarket memory (16G) and SSD (256G). That is my dream machine. It turns out that I have used Thinkpads since 1997 and am quite used to the trackpoint. I've recently been using a Gateway with a trackpad at home and am ready to pitch that thing out the window! That, coupled with the power and the recent mention by Glenn Berry and you, I was sold.Interestingly, I think the "worm has turned" on purchasing your own dream machine and attempting to use it for work as well instead of trying to convince your employer to buy more horsepower. I have for years managed my business and personal life on a single computer provided by my employer, and the "high end" laptop (as they call it) was always plenty fine. I think that was because the horsepower, the bandwidth, and disk storage hadn't reached a point where there was much you did with your laptop beyond business. Maybe a spreadsheet to track your kid's scout achievements or compare cars for your next purchase. And corporate servers were the only way to play with an enterprise version of SQL Server and really learn it. Now suddenly we have two key uses for our laptops - social media and cloud storage - that we can't live without. Many employers block both. And it is not possible to convince an employer to purchase a beast for you to install virtual box and set up availability groups for a learning experience along side a linux VM to run Oracle (where I work we use both). I now use producteev for task management, evernote for note taking, dropbox for cloud storage, and AWS to play with cloud instances of SQL Server and Oracle. My employer blocks every one of these as well as my facebook page, my twitter feed, and so on. So I think we are seeing folks wanting to buy their own equipment and bring it to work, instead of trying to use their work equipment at home. My next step is trying to get my employer let me bring my new "beast" to work and provide me a citrix desktop to reach the corporate assets. Its a win for them and its a win for me. I think we will see a rapid tipping toward "bring your own technology".Thanks Steve for the very timely editorial (I continue to be amazed at how you find something interesting and timely to write each day in SQL Server Central.com) and the space for us in the community to write back!

RE: The Dream Machine

WWDMark — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 04:51:20 GMT

I was quite lucky when I came on board with my employer as they basically said that I could spec my own laptop prior to me starting (providing it was a Lenovo!). I choose the Lenovo E520 Edge which gave me the balance between keeping costs realistic, portability & the performance I needed (Core i5, 2.30 Ghz, 4 Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD). I do use an additional 21" screen via the VGA out on the laptop (don't really have the need for any other monitors at the moment as we only have a few servers running a maximum of 2 SQL Server instances each and in conjunction with the laptop screen it works well enough (for now!). I'd love to have been able to spec up the actual servers as well though - maybe in a couple years we'll look to upgrade!!?? :-D

RE: The Dream Machine

Alex Gay — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 03:57:04 GMT

I've got to that age where as long as it works, reliably and consistently I'm happy.The Dell workstations we have were top of the line when we got them 6 years ago and are still good machines, if a little low on local storage, but we shouldn't be using this anyway, as everything we do should be stored on the network where it can be backed up.I don't want multiple monitors, but a bigger one is always nice at work I have a 21" monitor and a 23" one at home.I use to spec and build my own machines, but these days I have better things to do than read up on the latest and greatest, reliability and longevity are more important to me now, so I went into a high street retailer for my last machine and got their top of the range desktop. Unless the next version of Visual Studio or Open Office requires a ridiculously powerful machine, I should be fine until about 2020.

RE: The Dream Machine

paul.knibbs — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 03:11:46 GMT

Dream machine would have a super-fast hard disk subsystem (maybe SSDs in RAID), at least 16Gb of RAM, super-powerful CPU and a single, very large monitor. (I dislike using multiple monitors, always have).

RE: The Dream Machine

Michael Lysons — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:54:12 GMT

I love my MacBook Air too. For on-the-go stuff, I'd just spec the MBA I've already got as it's the top-of-the-range new model they just released :-DIf it was a desktop machine I'd wait for the new iMacs to be announced and ask for the top-spec of one of those.

The Dream Machine

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 21:44:08 GMT

Comments posted to this topic are about the item [B]The Dream Machine[/B]