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Tag: windows

Out with the old PC, in with the New Vista Ultimate Machine

February 6, 2008
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Sorry I’ve been absent from blogging for a while – my old Dell Dimension 4550 PC (which has lasted me just 2months shy of 5 years) practically failed. The power fan had been making funny noises for nearly 2 years on and off (rectified by just blindly plunging a screwdriver into the back of the power unit when it made a noise – not at all recommended) and the primary hard drive started failing. Yes, I know I could have just replaced the hard drive (at a cost of around 70 GBP for over 200Gb), but I couldn’t run certain large photo-editing applications on it as it had a measly 3/4Gb of RAM 🙁

So I splurged out with a combination of a new widescreen TFT Samsung SyncMaster 2032BW monitor from PC World – £180 (my old CRT was still in perfect working order after the nearly 5 years usage, but took up so much desk space), an extra 2GB kit (1GBx2), Ballistix 240-pin DIMM RAM from Crucial (£49.99) and the biggest purchase of all – a Dell Dimension XPS 420 with an Intel Viiv Q6600 Quad Core 2.40Ghz Processor, 2Gb RAM (giving a total of 4Gb), 16x DVD+/- RW drive (at long last – the old Dimension could never write DVDs for some reason), 512MB Nvidia Geforce 8800GT card, 2x 500Gb Hard drives and Microsoft Vista Ultimate. Total price (including VAT and delivery) – £760.75.

Was I disappointed and what did I think of Vista?

Continue ReadingOut with the old PC, in with the New Vista Ultimate Machine

Techy: The Season To Do Tech Support

December 19, 2007
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From my current webhost’s blog – an article about it “being the season to do tech support and how we techies do seem to spend our “downtime” (such as weekends, Christmas, Easter etc) fixing other peoples computers.

I can guarantee that any weekend I go around to see my parents, I’ll spend an hour “optimising” my Dad’s PC (antivirus checks, Windows updates, spyware removal etc etc) – and the only reason I don’t think I’ll be doing the same this Christmas is as I’ll only be doing a “flying visit” for around an hour before I go off to my Partner’s parents.

Joke: Airlines and Operating Systems

December 19, 2007
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Tension Not.com has some very funny analogies of how airlines would operate if they were ran the way operating systems (such as Windows, Linux and Mac) do. Here’s just two examples from their list:

Mac Airlines
All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told that you don’t need to know, don’t want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.

Windows Vista Airlines:

You enter a good looking terminal with the largest planes you have ever seen. Every 10 feet a security officer appears and asks you if you are “sure” you want to continue walking to your plane and if you would like to cancel. Not sure what cancel would do, you continue walking and ask the agent at the desk why the planes are so big. After the security officer making sure you want to ask the question and you want to hear the answer, the agent replies that they are bigger because it makes customers feel better, but the planes are designed to fly twice as slow. Adding the size helped achieve the slow fly goal.

Once on the plane, every passenger has to be asked individually by the flight attendants if they are sure they want to take this flight. Then it is company policy that the captain asks the passengers collectively the same thing. After answering yes to so many questions, you are punched in the face by some stranger who when he asked “Are you sure you want me to punch you in the face? Cancel or Allow?” you instinctively say “Allow”.

After takeoff, the pilots realize that the landing gear driver wasn’t updated to work with the new plane. Therefore it is always stuck in the down position. This forces the plane to fly even slower, but the pilots are used to it and continue to fly the planes, hoping that soon the landing gear manufacturer will give out a landing gear driver update.

You arrive at your destination wishing you had used your reward miles with XP airlines rather than trying out this new carrier. A close friend, after hearing your story, mentions that Linux Air is a much better alternative and helps.