Now this may sound simple in theory, but, in reality, it's rather difficult to implement correctly without having to perform many complex mathematical functions. TM allows designers to graphically simulate the real world in a virtual environment. For example, a virtual baseball is a sphere composed of many smaller elements. Without TM, for programmers to create a simple (but realistic looking) 3D baseball, they would have to keep track of the hundreds, if not thousands, of elements, right down to the baseball's stitching.

TM gives programmers an easier approach: create a solid sphere first, then texture map the 2D bitmap image of a baseball onto the sphere. The problem with this approach (known as single point-sampling) is, the final 3D image of the baseball will appear distorted. Because it is not possible to accurately map points from the 2D space to 3D space.

There are currently three types of TM available in 3D hardware:

A dedicated SCSI controller can lower processor utilization, which is critical in a server environment. And most servers require some sort of fault tolerance against hard drive crashes or failures.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (or Independent) Disks. The concept of RAID is simple: instead of having a single large capacity hard disk (which is expensive and prone to failure), gather a collection of smaller and inexpensive disks and call it a RAID array. For fault tolerance, split the data between the drives, instead of storing all the data on one physical drive. In addition, by splitting the data across different physical drives, I/O performance may be increased.

There are different levels of RAID technology; the three most commonly used are:

So you think you're computer-illiterate? Check out the following excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Carlton.

1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.

2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.

3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining that the system wouldn't read word processing files from his old diskettes. After trouble- shooting for magnets and heat failed to diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the diskettes then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.

4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies.

5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.

6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.

7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a couple of friends," the customer replied. When told Egghead was a software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a couple of geeks."

8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses shouldn't be taken personally.

10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.

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In the tradition of the what's hot and what's not list, or Wired's Tired/Wired list...

O F F	O N
GigaPOPs	TeraPOPs
NT 4.0 SP3	NT 4.0 SP4 beta
NT 4.0 SP4 beta	NT 5.0 beta 2
Matrox G200	nVidia TNT
Trilinear filtering	Anisotropic filtering

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