Piracy!
Piracy in the digital age – An essay about piracy in the digital age. Is it really that bad?
The WWW is not the internet!
A real geek should know the difference, do you? Learn the difference and stop being a n00b.
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PC upgrades – SSD
Posted on November 1, 2010 by Jingles | 1 Comment
It used to be RAM that was the bottle neck of many PCs but RAM these days is cheap and plentyful, Mechanical HDDs are the new bottle neck of any PC, especially laptops. Every other sub system has gotten faster and faster except for the storage sub system. SSDs eliminate that bottle neck they also make the whole PC feel faster and more responsive.
SSDs have come a long way in such a short amount of time and the price per a GB/performance ratio isn’t stellar, sure they could always be cheaper but what couldn’t? Although an SSD still seems expensive when they compare the price per a GB to a mechanical HDD, but if you compare the price to performance ratio it’s a no brainier. SSDs are expensive if you only compare cost per a GB but the performance that they offer is in orders of magnitude greater than of any mechanical HDD. I upgraded from a 15k RPM SAS drive and I noticed the speed and the quietness bliss that the SSD brought me. My last PC had a 10k RPM HDD and I thought that was good at the time.
Around the time I was building my HTPC one of my favourite PC shops PC Case Gear had a 64GB SSD on special for $179 so I snaped it up even though it didn’t have the TRIM command but the HTPC runs Vista which doesn’t support the TRIM command anyway. So I brought it just to try it, becauseit was new and cool and I’m a geel and I love new tech. It was the best upgrade ever! It was so fast and quiet which is important for a HTPC. Now all of my new (and old) PCs are going to get an SSD for a boot drive, and hang the cost.
Not only will an SSD improve the performance of your PC it will make it quieter, your PC will use less power (lower power consumption = lower power bills = more money saved on power) than a mechanical HDD. Normally power efficient or ‘green’ products = lower performance. Not SSDs, the power performance ratio is greater than any other ‘green’ product out there.
One thing to remember is that SSDs are not meant to be used for mass storage, that is what mechanical HDDs are for, they are best suited to being a boot drive, for games and applications not for storing you gigabytes of music and videos. If you brought an SSD for storage then you are not going to see any noticeable performance increase when you play your MP3s or videos. But if you buy a SSD to use as a boot drive and to house your games and applications then you will notice a huge increase in the speed of your PC the difference is night and day.
If you still think SSDs are too expensive find a geeky friend who has an SSD and ask them if you can use their PC. The performance difference is something you have to experience yourself, and if that doesn’t convince you then nothing will. If you are convinced then buy an SSD and some beer to offer as thanks/bribery to get your geeky friend to upgrade your PC.
If you are inclined to build your own PCs a best practice is to have a small and fast HDD (such as an SSD) as a boot drive to house the OS, applications and games and then have a cheap mechanical HDD or two, or three of four or more, for all your other data that needs to be stored…
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When is free not free?
Posted on October 31, 2010 by Jingles | 1 Comment
When were talking about free open source software.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about Free Open Source Software. Apparently you can’t call yourself a Geek and not know the difference according to Tech Republic
There are three different types of software:
1) Closed source software that requires a payment to acquire a licence to use which prohibits the changing of the software. The source code is closed, not distributed with the licence.
2) Free software that is free to use i.e. it doesn’t require a fee to acquire a licence to use but who s source code is closed.
3) Free Open source or just Open source which requires a licence to use but the licence allows the user to study, change and modify the source code that is distributed with the licence.
When I talk about software I’ll be talking about the latter two types of software. [Read more...]
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I hate Steam* but Puzzle Dimension is cool
Posted on October 29, 2010 by Jingles | No Comments
Steam is evil it keeps stealing my money! With such great games at even better prices (no this isn’t an advertisement, paid or otherwise) it’s hard to resist. Add to that the convenience of being able to download/install almost any game (except for some games that you can pre purchase and install on the release date) straight away and the ability to be able to back up your games make Steam a winner in my books. Oh and Steam always have specials on the weekend and great mid week deals. Some games are so cheap that I buy them anyway and if they are crap then it doesn’t really matter.
I find that I’m playing more casual games while I wait for Portal 2 and HL EP3. The last game I played and still play occasionally was Defense Grid The Awakening. Now I’m just trying to get the gold medal on every single map in every game mode there is. But I’m kinda over Defence Grid now that I have pretty muck beaten it a few times over, there isn’t much re playability. So I went looking for another good game that I can play for 10-15 minutes or more just to kill a little bit of time. That game has been Puzzle Dimension. [Read more...]
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Computers: DIY vs. OEM
Posted on October 28, 2010 by Jingles | 4 Comments
It’s a awesome feeling when you have built your PC, you power it on for the first time and it works. I love building my own PCs because I save money, can configure the PC the way I want it and it’s a great learning experience.
But not everyone has the time or knowledge to build a PC, some people just want to buy a PC and use it, these people buy an OEM box from a company like Dell, HP, or any number of PC builders.
Real geeks build their own PCs. I have built my last 2 PCs and I would never consider buying a desktop OEM PC… ever! There are advantages and disadvantages to buying an OEM desktop PC as opposed to building your own rig.
So lets have at the advantages and disadvantages of DIY vs. OEM PCs and I’ll explain why building your own PC is better than buying an OEM box. [Read more...]
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Microsoft & the public health system
Posted on October 27, 2010 by Jingles | 3 Comments
In my line of work as a PC technician I see is PCs with problems that need fixing all the time. One of the most common problems is PCs that are infected with viruses and other types of malware. My solution is to reinstall Windows, it’s the only way to be sure you have gotten rid of a virus. But prevention is better than cure but I’m not naive enough to believe that prevention will ever happen. All we can try to do do is reduce the problem. Which is why I think that Microsoft’s Scott Charney’s “collective defence”is a good idea.
Charney’s idea would see PCs quarantined, that is isolated or disconnected from the rest of the internet. The idea also states that PCs would be issued with a “health certificate” to prove that they have a clean bill of health. While bot infested PCs could potentially be disconnected from the internet and only be aloud to connect again once it was clean.
Granted the idea needs a lot more work yet and it might not be 100% fool proof but it will go a good way to reducing infections. [Read more...]
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Security, it’s all relative.
Posted on October 26, 2010 by Jingles | 2 Comments
Security isn’t an absolute it’s only relative. Noting is 100% secure. Some systems are just more secure than others.
I was reading one of my favourite tech web sites and came across a story about Linux having a serious security flaw. Which got me thinking.
You always hear about Windows security issues, even Mac security issues every now and again but rarely do you hear of Linux vulnerabilities. Often you will hear Mac or Linux fan boys clam that their chosen OS is more secure than Windows. But the truth is it’s only relatively secure. It’s a common misconception that Mac or Linux is more secure than Windows, simply because there are less security flaws in Mac and Linux OS’s. But they can be just as critical when a security flaw does get discovered.
More Average Joes use Windows than any other OS which makes Windows a bigger target for hackers and crackers. And you will hear more about Windows security issues in the media simply because more people use Windows than any other OS [Read more...]
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Pioneer one, US Now, Just to Get a Rep & Vodo
Posted on October 24, 2010 by Jingles | No Comments
Before doing a test run of the Intrezine podcast (it’s coming!) my co-host and good friend Ryan (of ryanjon.es) turned me onto Pioneer One. A free and freely downloadable new show about an astronaut that crashes to earth, causing the president to start fearing a terrorist act. The astronaut claims to be the son of a couple living on Mars.
Another interesting documentary that I rediscovered was Us Now which “looks at how ‘user’ participation could transform the way that countries are governed.” I highly recommend it.
Just to Get a Rep looks good too, it’s “the true story of aerosol art as told by New York’s pioneers as well as today’s innovators from all over the world.”. I am downloading it as I type this post.
The afore mentioned shows and documentaries can be found on Vodo, a web site dedicated to hosting free movies, documentaries, shows ect. In Vodo’s own words they “promote and distribute new creative works all over the world & enables those enjoying shared media to make donations to creators.” A worthy cause I’m sure you would agree. There is quite a bit of interesting content there right now. It looks to be a great alternative to mass media drivel.
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My favourite Windows gadgets
Posted on October 23, 2010 by Jingles | 1 Comment
Windows gadgets are one of my favourite features of Windows and a feature that I use all of the time. Being a geek I love metrics and monitoring my computers resources and having gadgets right on my desktop make it easy to see what’s going on under the hood. These are my favourite gadgets.
Uptime
The name says it all, it tells you how long your computer has been up since it’s last reboot. Pretty simple but it looks nice and more importantly it just works.
Drive meter
Monitors your HDD(s), it displays the physical disk activity in a graph. It shows how many bytes are read and written per a second, and a percentage of the active time.
Drives meter
Displays the used, free, and total space on your HDD(s) and shows it in a bar graph.
Note there is a new version of Drives meter that combines Drive meter and Drives meter into the one gadget but it doesn’t show a graph for each HDD unless you run an instance for each HDD you have. And it can only display the stats for 4 HDDs.
Network meter
Displays information for any wired or wireless network adapters, including a n upload download meter, a speed meter, a nice graph, and a bunch of other useful metrics.
All CPU meter
Monitors your CPU usage in a graph, a bar graph and as a percentage for all cores and threads. It supports up to 16 cores, and also shows the clock speed. A nice touch is it also displays the total amount of used, free and total RAM.
The other meter that I have is a usage meter for my internet connection. It gets my usage from my ISP and display it so I can see in a second my usage.
I’m sure there are a bunch of other useful gadgets but they are the ones I have on all the time.
Do you use gadgets, got any favorite gadgets? Leave a comment and let me know.
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Cyanide and Happiness
Posted on October 23, 2010 by Jingles | No Comments
Toxic happiness wouldn’t have sounded as cool as Cyanide and Happiness but the comics would still have been just as hilarious. This web comic is a bit hit or miss. If you don’t laugh your ass of at some of the comics then there is something really wrong with you. But be warned that it can be a bit, ok a lot, wrong sometimes but I reckon the more wrong it is is the funnier it is. Does that make me a bad person? They also have some great animated shorts that you can find on YouTube like Repulsel.
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The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains
Posted on October 21, 2010 by Jingles | No Comments
I dig reading, it makes you smart and stuff. Being the geek that I am I like reading about tech and anything tech related. The last 6 books I have read have all been computer/tech related. One of the more interesting books, and one that will most likely appeal to a wider audience beyond geeks is Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows. It’s about the internet and what it’s doing to our brains. Essentially he argues that the Internet is making us a lot shallower thinkers and consumers of information. The book explores what I think is an important contemporary topic. What I really enjoyed about the book is that it isn’t all about just the Internet, Carr explores other ideas that shapes our thinking like the start of time keeping which in itself is an interesting topic that I want to read more about. If I could only read one book all year, then this is the book that I would read, I highly recommend it whether your a geek or not.
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I'm Jingles, I'm like the Keith Miller of geeks, i.e. an all rounder, I'm a web scientist, an A+ certified (it means I'm not a “noob”) computer technician, and this is my blog. I'm your curator of all things awesome, cool and geeky on and off the net. More...
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