Generally I’m not a fan of Internet Explorer and usually recommend our clients use Chrome or Firefox. But this advert for the latest version of IE took me right back to school days and almost makes me want to try IE10!
Feb12013
Category Archives: Fun
Aug282012
Welcome, Minecraft. Seriously.
So, you are probably wondering, “what is with this rather peculiar title?”. Well, considering what I am about to unveil is something that has never been done before at Orbits, the title of ‘Welcome, Minecraft. Seriously’ seemed very appropriate. As a side note, the title is a spoof of a newspaper advertisement created by Apple many years ago. The advertisement’s title was ‘Welcome, IBM. Seriously.’, but I digress.
Moving on to the topic at hand, recently, we decided to run our own Minecraft server here at Orbits so that we could test some hardware. Now, before I go any further, for those of you who do not know, Minecraft is a PC game created by Mojang, and is notorious for being a CPU-hungry beast. So, it should be of no surprise that we used this game as a medium for conducting our server hardware tests.
So, without further ado, let us move on to discuss the environment which we used to run a Minecraft server in and, in addition, discuss the results of our tests.
Stress testing, TNT style.
As you could probably figure out by the above image, we used all sorts of fun necessary tests that helped us ascertain what the server could handle, and what it could not handle. High quantities of TNT were one of the things that it could not handle. Still, that was to be expected.
Breaking News: Lava engulfs Minecraftia!
Another test that we conducted was a lava stress test. Minecraft’s physics are certainly very CPU-intensive, so I decided to use lava as a means of stress testing, as well as TNT. I used a server plugin known as ‘WorldEdit’ to generate thousands of lava blocks at the same time. As you can probably imagine, this would place a heavy load upon any server. Fortunately, our’s passed this test, generating all of the lava blocks without too much lag.
Now, with regards to what environment we used to run the server, we used a virtual machine which was allocated a limited amount of RAM (approximately, one to two gigabytes), and using an Intel ‘Xeon’ processor, running at 3.10GHz per second.
So, the verdict? Well, considering that this server was running inside a virtual machine with a limited amount of allocated memory, I would say that the server performed rather well. Of course, this type of environment would not be suitable for everday use, and would only be able to manage a few players, at most. Still, this server proved to be a worthy test subject, surpassing my expectations with regards to its performance.
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Apr42012
Google unveils a possibly revolutionary hands-free device
Google have just announced their latest project, currently known as “Project Glass”, which purpose is to provide you with technology when you need it – Completely hands free.
The concept video uploaded by Google today demonstrates how a similar device could be used in the future to make your manage your daily tasks and routine in a simple and fun way.
A user interface is added to the users vision using a small pair of funky looking glasses, the device allows the user to; plan a route using indoor and outdoor navigation, add events to their calendar as well as capturing and sharing photos.
Although it is uncertain exactly how the technology works at this stage, the demonstration shows all of the tasks being completed by following the users vision and listening to their voice commands.
Google have stated that the project is still in its early stages of development but the company would love to hear your feedback and ideas on their, possibly life changing concept.
You can share your ideas and thoughts about Google’s Project Glass here
Jan172012
Laptopamabob – Simples!
Just a very quick post that has very little to do with IT, but it’s been amusing me all day and thought I would share!
Last night I caught the new comparethemarket.com advert with Aleksandr and Sergei and found it most amusing! For those who haven’t seen it, you can find it below.
Good effort comparethemarket.com – an advert that is instantly memorable but not cringeworthy or infuriating – yes I mean you Gocompare!
Simples!