Month: September 2009

Alan Turing Petition

Alan Turning is one of the pioneers of the computing industry, working at “Station X”, Bletchly Park during the 2nd World War cracking the Engima codes that helped shorten the war by 2 years.

However as a gay man in the 1940s, he was prosecuted under what is now antiquated, discriminatory laws, and forced by the government to undergo chemical castration. Turning committed suicide in 1954. He was never public recognised for his efforts.

However, a public petition is now underway, with almost 30,000 signatures on it at this stage, to ensure he is given official recognition for his work.

Turing stands as one of the great Computing giants of Britain, along with Sir Tim Berners-Lee (WWW), Lovelace (ADA), etc.

Acer Aspire Revo dual-core Linux

Here is the product number, or what looks like it, for the Dual-Core Atom 330 Linux edition of the Acer Aspire Revo: 92.NVDYZ.UI0. Finally!

It appears there are three retailers in the UK listing this right now:

None of these appear to have any stock, but this is a good sign that soon we will have dual-core goodness without having to buy a Microsoft license!

Check out more Revo stuff on the blog site AcerAspireRevo.com.

Pending Fatherhood

So, we’re past the risky first bit, so safe to say – I’m going to be a Dad, early in the new year! Woo-hoo! My own little mini-me (& Andrea, of course)! Its going to be a very special spring-time for us.

To my little one who may come and read my random blog posts in years to come – hi xxx ;)!

To Andrea; I love you completely. We go into this together, forever.  xxx

Acer Aspire Revo: stock issues?

I’ve been pleased with my little 64-bit Linux box that is my Acer Aspire Revo, UK£149 from Play.com.Happily running Debian Lenny (of course), and playing with MythTV, I now also have a small radio-based keyboard & touch pad for it.

There doesn’t seem to be any sign of an Intel Atom 330 dual-core in the UK yet either, though some reports talk of this beast being available in Taiwan now and of a re-branded unit in the US. So while this is take a little longer than the optimistic “early June” I saw on one site months ago, I continue to play with my single-hyper-thread-based Revo.

What has been surprising is how there doesn’t seem to be any retailer in the UK who now have stock on hand (of the Linux version) ready to ship of these. Some sites claim “sold out” and “exhausted supply lines”. I’m a little unsure – if it was that much of a success (which I hope is true), then where is all the supporting documentation and support information on the official Acer corporate web site? Its almost as if it has been orphaned from its creator! Acer doesn’t mention it in the UK or US sites.

Meanwhile, I have seen main-stream the Channel 5 (UK TV station) in-house geek-fest that is The Gadget Show give away a Revo in their weekly prize pool.

I haven’t had any response from Acer to my enquiries for the availability of these units. I wish them success with the Revo – for me it’s an Asus Eebox killer, simply by the integrated HDMI, and cheap price (no MS Windows tax). I’d buy a second (and possibly a third) if there were supplies at the price I purchased (UK£149), and some visibility on the Atom 330 dual-core model.

It’s September now; the Atom 230 model has been out for 4 months. Acer, have all your UK based supplies of the Revo run out? Where is the dual-core model?

Some fan sites are now around: AcerAspireRevo.com, etc. Home Theatre PC sites are all a-twitter (!) with talk of this unit.