My Dream Computer… Assembled

I am in the last stages of assembling have assembled my dream computer. The final hurdle is a DVI to VGA connector which turned out defective. I wanted a strong Java development system with reasonable costs and high quality tested components. I also have plans for am also using it for high throughput data processing. Here is the specification:

Full article (553 words) »

Micro Guide To Distributed Batch Processing With PBS (Portable Batch System)

PBS is an old name in distributed batch processing circles. We had used it earlier in DoubleTwist for genomic annotations. Portable Batch System (or simply PBS) is a software job scheduler that allocates networked resources to batch jobs. It can schedule jobs to execute on networked, multi-platform UNIX environments (and widnows if you are using PBSPro). It is a superb envrionment to run discrete jobs in wide variety of languages (language independent) like Java or Perl (we used both).

For a long time PBS was free and openly available. However recently it is hidden behind compulsory regsitration which has to be manually reviewed (with promise of taking several days to approve). In short lots of pain. An alternative is to download PBSPro at a premium price. However I have better alternatives for you.
Full article (416 words) »

Protected by Comment Guard Pro