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Also, be sure you have a very well planned backup strategy before you boot from the SSD. Unless you don't care about the data you put on it, you do need something that can painlessly handle continuous backup. (Genie Timeline had some really nice features, but in the end I gave up on it - story for another post. CrashPlan isn't nearly as sweet, but it does the job almost well enough).

I have Genie Timeline as part of my tool stack, I want that story!

Well considering all our POTS telephone conversations are being monitored and stored - enough companies sell this technology to governments - not sure what the fuss is all about. At least with skype *I* can keep a copy too

On the PSU, most PSUs have a "peak performance" zone - you want to buy a PSU that will be in that zone for most of the time you use the computer. So it should be a bit overpowered but not too overpowered, else you will be in a less optimal zone on PSU usage.

I didn't spend a lot of time digging through details and reviews and calculations, though.

I've just recently redone my husband's PC with that very board (Sept) - he's an AMD-predisposed guy but I went intel as well, and with that very motherboard. Great board.

One of the things I pay attention to is the power usage idle and in use. This is because I like my systems as quiet as can be.

If you read up, the power performance (from an energy use and therefore cooling/quietness point of view) of the Intel processors is better at the moment. Seems AMD didn't care about that aspect much. Lower idle consumption, lower full load consumption, it adds up to less energy bills but also less heat and therefore less noisy cooling needed.

On the other hand I went AMD for the graphics because at the time the power usage for the performance you get is better, especially in idle mode or when the screen is asleep but not the machine.

For info - happy to give details on the hardware or check things.
He's on Windows 8 on this machine and only the AMD graphics drivers give any kind of occasional trouble.

case: Antec Solo << all the noise/vibration features of the expensive Antec cases, at a more reasonable point, and looking, well, normal!
Graphics 1GB Gigabyte GV-R777OC-1GD rev2.0 H      << AMD radeon, sweet price point
Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H, Intel Z77           << great chipset, fab board, was already win8 ready when i bought it in September
Intel Core i3 3220, S 1155, Ivy Bridge   << was at the time great price, overclockable quite a bit (which i don't do, it goes back to "quiet".    
Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Pro    << great cooler
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance << i pay zero attention to memory details and performance, so this is just what looked good, no research.

Only went for 8Gb, although if he starts coding/compiling again I'll up the memory and CPU (not holding my breath). But RAM prices had gone up and it is easy to upgrade later, so I made my compromise. Even in games, not noticing that RAM is a limit at the moment

For comparison, here's my spec - whereas husband's is all new, mine is a mix of stuff I'd bought a year before or earlier this year

Antec Solo Case << had already
Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3, Intel Z77,
750W Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 10
Plextor PX-891SA 24x DVD±R, 12x DVD  
Intel Core i5 2500k << had already
8GB Ram (don't even remember)
Intel 320 80GB ssd drive SATA II (filled to about 45-50, boot drive only)
WD Caviar Black 2Tb SATA III (files, games, apps)
Scythe shuriken low profile
HIS HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo << had already

Some clever guy was having trouble having anyone answer his questions in the forum, and he found a solution!

Another problem is that the energy and content that is needed to make a project sexy and successful on Kickstarter isn't at all similar to the energy and planning needed to build and launch a successful product and delivery...

I have put both my laptop and my desktop on the floor and started opera. No suction whatsoever. Maybe the bag needs changing. Or maybe they don't suck dog hair very well, might need a motor attachment for that.

Opera is not perfect but it is very neat in many ways. I wish I knew why recently the homepage of my site is really slow on my copy of Opera (mystery), and some sites don't test on Opera so don't work quite right, but all in all it is a fast and responsive browser out of the box (ghostery has a bug on opera though)

Most "professional FLOSS software" lacks a good QA. At least the software I tried so far.

That is a challenge of the volunteer nature of many projects & the attribution of status and respect. Because in the industry QA is considered a lower status job (as is support and documentation), then in a project of a volunteer nature people would much rather do higher status tasks. This is one of the reasons why methodologies which bake more of the documentation and QA process in with development are especially valuable.

Projects which change this dynamic (either having QA provided by a company as a donation, roping in users en-masse for QA, or changing the dynamics and status balance with "marathons" or better recognition for QA) end up beating commercial software.

I do need some form of browsing of things installed because for things I don't use very often, I have this terrible tendency to forget, or worse, misremember, the name of the applications  

like docfetcher, for example, always search for docfinder... browsing fixes that. Of course if things installed in tiles I can browse or menus I can browse or if they installed with a 1 line description that one can search for too... all of it would work for me

I used to use Spideroak & Syncplicity in combination - on two different data sets (backup of core and key files for the first, and backup-sync of configs and documents for the second, with some folders on both). I also have local backup and sync of course.

After Syncplicity nerfed their plans (do I see a pattern) I ended up switching to sugarsync for the second one. I've heard of unforgivable past bugs but it's proven OK, and between the two when an important folder disappeared in a defrag accident, I recovered everything.

Ill give it another whirl - I've just not had luck with that on steam at all so far. It didnt matter that I would connect at work and check, by the time I was at the not-connected hotel and tried to start a game steam would say an update is needed, or my credentials havent been used recently, or any of 6 different excuses. It greatly reduced my purchase frequency, as I like to own my stuff and be able to use it

Will try again

How could they not know there's a bear in toblerone?

I guess I'm too much of a logo person, all of these were immediately obvious to me - just like the fact that the london 2012 also mirrored a map of london...

I'm curious whether they will make the software sold via steam able to run without running steam. If not, you're buying software that you can only rely on when you have access to a connection, which is inadequate imo.

Ghostery on Opera triggers some annoying blocks and security that dont happen on other browsers. 

Yes, this will fail for foreigners, people with learning disabilities, and the words are hard to read even for me.

Which considering who had done this is a little disappointing. We're obviously all US high school graduates to them

can't imagine any new sofware patent making it through this - anything not granted is toast. Good.

not sure this applies to already granted patents though, there we are probably stuck with the legal system

I find Adobe PDF a huge monster. I liked it up to version 6, then it has gone mad, huge, and forces updates all the time.

Nitro PDF reader is actually pretty good and no hidden gifts that I know of. Quick to start, has print-to-PDF and a few editing features http://www.nitroreader.com/

I have the Pro tool paid, but on other computers I put that one

How many DC people do we have in the UK? I have a whole bunch of things I could donate, but if it's just 12 of us it's too much effort

Curiously they haven't tried to sell me one for my nano business yet - guess they know what money we're making...

Scientific publishing doesn't make lots of money - I worked in it, I know. The cost of publishing, on or offline, massive amounts of content that is only of interest to a tiny minority just doesn't.

WHat makes money are derivatives - bibliographical databases (at least they used to make money, nowadays I am not so sure), financial derivatives. I remember that the finance department was one of the big profit centres in one of the ones I worked with - playing with options, advances, and currency FX

Sounds lovely but then I see this text on it

"Images may not be copied or offloaded, and the images and their texts may not be published. All digital images of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are © Imaging Papyri Project, University of Oxford. The papyri themselves are owned by the Egypt Exploration Society, London. All rights reserved."

So... we help them decypher it all and then they own it all, and will they charge the rest of the academic and scholarly world to access it? It would make me far more likely to give a bit of time if there was some form of open science commitment.. but no, it will be published in paid for series

I've been hoping for that kind of solution for a while, so curious what people find

What i want to do is avoid having to *manage* my files and folders like I have to.
In my email I have switched to a "big archive pot" and using search and virtual categorisation for finding things. This was because at some point around 2000 i was spending more time moving and reorganising email than actually processing it.
I've managed to do the same for photos and music thanks to the standard tags available there. Doesn't matter where they are

For documents, I am not there yet.
I've looked at some of the tagging options, but the amount of work of switching makes me hesitate - knowing what has worked (or not) for others would be valuable. One thing I wont do is move them all into a database like some of the document management tools do. Feels far too risky, documents need to stay in files on disk

It's not clear at all when you look at the product page that you are getting the product at a discount in exchange for getting ads.

On the UK page there is(was, when i last looked, i havent checked this week) no mention of ads - and the price is not that different from other readers or android tablets. It doesn't appear all that subsidised and you'd think that the "you must buy ebooks on amazon" tie-in is already enough to justify the subsidy.

girls who have been squeezed in the gender pigeonhole, I guess...

one day all these manufacturers full of patronising old gits will wake up having lost half the worlds population as customers. Here's to hoping

I use newsblur, went away from google reader when it removed the social element. Might revisit it in the light of G+

Newsblur has some nice features, but it, too, marks things read when you browse by default. But the configuration supports "mark as read after n seconds" and "mark as read on keypress".
The tool has some intelligence to it, sharing (both publishing to blogs and sites, and creating your own share feed within newsblur. I dont use mine much but it would be http://superiphi.newsblur.com), saving - the usual stuff.

http://www.newsblur.com/

Think of what an ad on the screen saver implies: it implies that when I am not using my device, and it is perhaps on the coffee table or my desk at work, it is broadcasting ads. And because up to now screensavers have always been personal choices, it is communicating to people around that I endorse this brand.

There is implicit endorsement assigned to something shown on a personal screen. That's why advertisers should jump on this for the short time it will work, and that's why people should run away from it in horror. But then people "like" a brand on facebook just for a chance to win a freebie, even though it will push an ad (with endorsement!) on all their friends feeds, so perhaps I am the only one horrified by being hijacked to promote brands I might object to.

If I am not, there will be a lawsuit "kindle showed ads I object to on religious grounds" or "kindle on my desk showed ad that could have got me fired"... it will happen