Recent Posts

1251

Living Room / Re: Meet George

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 10, 2013, 01:18 PM »

'Sup, G?

1252

Living Room / Re: Emperor's New Clothes Kickstarter

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 10, 2013, 01:14 PM »

I guess I just don't make enough money to play with it like that.

You and me, both...

1253

Living Room / Re: Judge skeptical of "torrent chaser" law firm's antics. Jail time threatened.

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 09, 2013, 05:41 PM »

 

1254

Living Room / Re: Judge skeptical of "torrent chaser" law firm's antics. Jail time threatened.

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 09, 2013, 01:02 PM »

I really, really, really, really hope these snakes end up in jail. Society would be better if more lawyers knew what ruining people's lives means... first-hand.

Preach it, Brother Fodder! 100% agreement!!

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Living Room / Re: Judge skeptical of "torrent chaser" law firm's antics. Jail time threatened.

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 07, 2013, 08:27 PM »

To just think of how many lawyers out their either consciously or unconsciously lay aside their professional ethics in order to use legal technicalities for financial gain! It boggles the mind.

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Living Room / Re: Judge skeptical of "torrent chaser" law firm's antics. Jail time threatened.

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 07, 2013, 07:30 PM »

Thanks for the links! 

1257

Living Room / Re: Recommendations for a Host OS?

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 10:38 PM »

Yeah, definitely leave yourself a hassle-free way to return your system to its pre-Proxmox VE state. Since this virtual environment was designed to make better use of server hardware,  it can be installed on bare hardware (no OS needed). You simply download an ISO image and burn it on a CD or create USB stick, then boot from that media, and start the automatic installer. 8 GB of RAM is good, more is better of course. The quick setup guide is here . You can also install on top of X Windows, Debian, and, if memory serves, Windows Server 08r2. I second 40's suggestion to play with it only on a spare drive.

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Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 08:57 PM »

Just in the past few days, I've received multiple emails from my mother-in-law's Yahoo email account that are spam, and that I KNOW she is not manually sending to me. Just more anecdotal evidence...

1259

Living Room / Re: Microsoft and Windows 8 get two fingers from Stardock

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 08:49 PM »

Reeeaaaallllyyyyyy....

1260

Living Room / Re: Microsoft and Windows 8 get two fingers from Stardock

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 07:41 PM »

I believe that the "Two Fingers" is essentially the European version of the gesture you just described.

Ah, I have learned something! I wasn't aware of the cultural/demographic differences in how that sentiment is converted into sign-language.

1261

Living Room / Re: Recommendations for a Host OS?

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 07:37 PM »

If you're reasonably conversant with linux, Proxmox VE is the way to go. From what I've read, it's not for the faint-of-heart (i.e., those with only Windows familiarity).

1262

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 07:30 PM »

+1 for connecting to your router via ethernet cable. When I switched out my wifi-dongle and plugged in directly, my speed went from a variable 30-54 Mbps to a stable 100 Mbps (using a Linksys RangePlus WRT-110 router).

1263

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 03:06 PM »

...Buy a wireless N card for $16 or $25 or whatever, and then in 5 years or so when you buy an AC router, buy a new Wireless AC card for about the same price...the i7 will cost you about $100 extra, but it will allow you to do some fun things with virtual machines.

+1.

1264

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 02:56 PM »

With sufficient RAM and an i7, why settle on having just one PC when you could run several at a time - all on the same hardware.

Install ProxMox, then on top of that Win 7, Win 8, your favorite Linux distros, etc.

1265

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 02:39 PM »

Nothing shabby, at all, with that intended build, Mizraim. If you discover from your ISP that you are limited, by their equipment supplying your connection, to max 100 Mbps, maybe go for a less expensive wifi adapter and upgrade the intended i5 CPU to an i7? Are you gonna max the memory out at 32 GB?  

1266

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 06, 2013, 02:02 PM »

I assume you're going to buy (or already have) one of the new AC routers, such as the RT-AC66U? If so, I'm with 40hz. I'd LOVE to know your experience in speed improvements.

Are you on a T3 line or something? Hard to imagine getting that kind of performance at home, unless you're on something rather more high-end than the average PC user/enthusiast.

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Living Room / Re: Ancient Seagate 2.5 GB USB 1.1 drive still functioning perfectly...

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 04, 2013, 09:14 PM »

Hmm, I think I've caught upgrade fever. Seems I could upgrade this eMachine's CPU from the current dual-core 2.8 GHz to a triple-core 4.0 GHz CPU for ~$69 USD.... Interesting...

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Living Room / Re: Ancient Seagate 2.5 GB USB 1.1 drive still functioning perfectly...

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 04, 2013, 03:55 PM »

^ if the processor has enough grunt...



It has an AMD Athlon II X4 650 cpu, upgradeable to any of the following:

AMD Phenom II X6 10xxT Six-Core (Thuban core)
AMD Phenom II X4 9xx/9xxe/8xx Quad-Core (Deneb core)
AMD Phenom II X3 7xx/7xxe Triple-Core (Heka core)
AMD Phenom II X2 5xx (Callisto core)

1269

Living Room / Re: Ancient Seagate 2.5 GB USB 1.1 drive still functioning perfectly...

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 04, 2013, 03:23 PM »

^ Cool 40hz, I love stories about those kind of hardware experiences!

Now, do I shell out for a second 8 GB stick of RAM, upgrade my Pavilion to 16 GB ram, and start using it? I don't think I do anything that would benefit from such RAM...

1270

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 04, 2013, 02:42 PM »

though how someone in Korea could guess both an email address and the corresponding password in the UK beats me)

Easy...

[email protected]
password: careforaspotoftea

 

1271

Living Room / Re: Ancient Seagate 2.5 GB USB 1.1 drive still functioning perfectly...

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 04, 2013, 02:27 PM »

I know you're gonna laugh, but the PC I primarily use is ... wait for it ... an eMachine. Let me give you some time to recover...

Yeah, I'd originally bought it for the kids -- well, actually two of them. One of them they kept somehow messing up, so I switched out my Hp Pavilion p7-1003w machine and hooked up ye old crappy eMachine, or so I thought. Once I restored a decent starting-point Win7 OS from a Macrium image, and got the kinks worked out, it's not a bad little unit. It comes with two memory slots, which shipped from the factory containing a 1GB stick in one slot, and a 2GB in the second slot. I recently bought a 4GB stick from Crucial and replaced the 1GB stick, so now I'm running on 6GB RAM, and it's (perhaps it's only psychological) notably snappier.

Another recent hardware addition, and for the low cost of $18 USD + S/H I figured it'd be a bust, is my Calvary dual-Bay USB 2.0 RAID Dock:



The pair of 1 TB drives aren't of identical makes, so I've not been able to get RAID-1 working (as the manual says can happen in this circumstance), but JBOD is working fine, and I still keep the 2nd drive mirroring the first. They contain photos, MP3s, drive images for future emergencies, etc.

For someone who is not really a techie, and spent very little money on this, I've got a decent setup :



Meanwhile, I have this Hp Pavilion sitting here with 8 GB RAM (factory), upgradeable to 16 GB, so I'm sure it won't be long before the bug bites me to upgrade it and switch the PCs out.

1272

Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 03, 2013, 04:45 PM »

It also suggests that this (and probably most similar) wifi kit is likely to be out in the field, operating at well below the potential performance spec, due to incorrect operational parameters - never mind the environment.

Yeah, could be why my speeds aren't better. I've got multiple computers. The laptops have their own internal WIFI "radio" (of whatever brand, who can say), and the four laptops each have a USB wi-fi adapter of different brand, than the router, although they're all "b/g/n compliant" LOL!

For my family's relatively conservative needs (web browsing, checking email), 30-60 Mbps as an average range is acceptable. I'm not knowledgeable enough to go mucking about with things. If it ain't broke, don't fix it (unless you're adventurous, well-informed, and can afford the frustration and cost of failure). In my case, I'd have multiple irritated kids and a wife all irritated if I screwed up their internet connection by messing with something that "works".

1273

Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 03, 2013, 09:03 AM »

Here I am sitting at my usual desktop PC within five feet of my router... Meh!

1274

Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 03, 2013, 09:01 AM »

By the way, congrats Ian on achieving 150 Mbps... 

1275

Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?

« Last post by kyrathaba on March 03, 2013, 09:00 AM »

By the way unless you have corporate high speed broadband you won't see any speed differences at all for broadband - just large file transfer across the network.

^ +1.

It's great if, like me, you like to backup your Music, Vids, and many other forms of data to multiple other computers without the drudgery of physically moving removable media (USB stick, 2.5" external drive, etc.) from one machine to another. But don't expect a huge leap in your download speeds from the internet when you've only got non-corporate-speed broadband...