Super hdd sale

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Originally posted by dyanni
We used Dell at work for as long as I can remember - Servers and Workstations. We recently went though a large contract bidding process where Dell, IBM, and HP all competed.

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I too went through a vendor eval for desktops and laptops. I headed the "project", and we sampled HP, IBM, Dell, Micron, and Gateway. We ended up going with Micron as we had used them before, their sales managers were great to work with, and their products for the price couldn't be beat (laptops had/have finger print recognition!). Dell came out somewhere in the middle.

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Originally posted by dyanni ( and cool looking cases IHMO )

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I agree... check out their gaming cases:

http://di.dell.com/images/us/segment..._XPS_front.jpg

Fingerprint recognition is a joke. I worked on the AFIS part of the FBI's IAFIS system - that's the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System that is used for nationwide fingerprint IDs including the background checks for gun purchases. The actual finger-print IDs are done on a bunch (20 or so) mini-supercomputers loaded to the gills with DSP accelerators and running custom software, but we had a couple of PC-level commercial fingerprint ID systems and none of them were worth a hill of beans. Typically you could fool the PC-level systems 1 out of 20 times - as in just keep rescanning your finger and eventually it thinks you are the original finger-printee. They were even less discriminatory between biological family members, as in if you wanted to lock up your computer pr0n using the fingerprint system so as to keep the kids out, it would only take them about 5 rescans until the system was fooled.

I work for a service of the Treasury, and they are pushing us into using their fingerprint/smart proxy card combo methodology. You need the right finger - and the right card to get in. Haven't seen it in action yet, but understand the hybrid is working out well for the big T.

In our evaluation, we had to eliminate all but Dell/HP/IBM from the bidding pool - because none of the other companies had the product maturity in the areas we wanted to expand. ie: Blades, SANS, storage virtualization. We are in the midst of a massive push to reduce the number of servers down from the current 4000 to around 750. We had to go with the heavy hitters - and HP just went all out in their presentations - showing their upcoming models - and pie-in-the-sky plans to my team. Although not my first choice - I do look forward to seeing if they can pull off what's on their drawing table. Dell was my fav going in - and it had nothing to do with the fact that I spotted a Proton VX sitting in their employee parking lot. :)

We did something similar and went with IBM blades in the production environment. Our office infrastructure is all Dell. You can't beat their service agreement.

-- John

At our Sheriff's Office, they spen an un-godly amount of money on a hand recognition system.. It scans your right hand and checks it amongst a bunch of readings and allows you entry to the "Secure" areas.. I really pissed them and the installer off when I told them that the whole system was junk.. They said that it was top-o-the line stuff and it is infallible and told me to prove my claim. Well, they believed me when I scanned my LEFT hand UPSIDEDOWN and it allowed me entry!!
Almost lost my job over it ;Dy;

Back on topic:

The whole industry has been overpriced for the last 10 years.

You buy a new top of the line system for $2-3K. In 6 months it's worth half and in another 6 months it's worth 1/4 of the original price. Thats not even mentioning the 30-50% markup on hardware. Just take a look at the videocard segment to get an idea of what I'm referring to. High end card starts at $350-500. In a year it'll be under $150. The sellers sure don't mind bending the customer over every chance they get.

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At our Sheriff's Office, they spen an un-godly amount of money on a hand recognition system.. It scans your right hand and checks it amongst a bunch of readings and allows you entry to the "Secure" areas.. I really pissed them and the installer off when I told them that the whole system was junk.. They said that it was top-o-the line stuff and it is infallible and told me to prove my claim. Well, they believed me when I scanned my LEFT hand UPSIDEDOWN and it allowed me entry!!

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Top of the line and it didn't use retina scan. That would be THE best for security purposes. Much more accurate than fingerprints if done properly. By the way, I have taken roughly 50,000+ set of fingerprints;Dy; using the Identix system (Moncha probably knows about this).

Triathlete - What is the Identix system? At work I routinely have to do fingerprints using an inkpad and an SF-312 card, but would love to find a better solution. Do you know of a system that easily plugs into a standard PC and can print out an SF-312?