Recent Posts

1376

Living Room / Re: Please tallk me off the ledge... Intervention needed!

« Last post by Darwin on February 08, 2009, 11:26 AM »

or a killer deal presents itself.

sounds like an excuse to buy something new when you know you shouldn't.

-mouser (February 08, 2009, 09:08 AM)

  Am I that transparent 

You're right though - whenever I give this much thought I can't see the point. I guess the sensible thing to do is use it as is until prices come down... a lot and then see if I really need to bother. I certainly don't NEED this now 

1377

Living Room / Re: Please tallk me off the ledge... Intervention needed!

« Last post by Darwin on February 08, 2009, 09:05 AM »

Heh, heh - I still have a BIG soft spot for my Win2k Notebook (RAM and Harddrive both upgraded but otherwise original) 

I tend to keep my equipment for a long time - this current generation notebook replaces a 2003 model Centrino.

I'm still struggling with this upgrade, but have decided to bide my time until either prices come down or a killer deal presents itself.

1378

Living Room / Re: Please tallk me off the ledge... Intervention needed!

« Last post by Darwin on February 06, 2009, 11:03 AM »

Actually, what app cautions is in line with what the more rational part of my brain is saying: what I've got is powerful enough for either Vista or Windows 7 so I'm probably good for the next two to five years. Hell, my PIIIE notebook still flies with Win2k and Office 2003...

Anyway, thanks everyone. I had pretty much talked myself out of this before posting, but wanted to be sure that my reasons NOT to do it are sound. Right, off to deposit $450 in my savings account 

PS:

buy something else for "$300 [to] $450" ??
ouch

you know you could get one of those cheap eee type laptops  - I better go here before I get lynched lol

-tomos (February 06, 2009, 09:50 AM)

No fear, tomos! An eee WOULD be a better use of my money, though I don't need one at the moment (my XP notebook only weighs 3 pounds and runs Office 2007 without drama or complaint).

1379

Living Room / Please tallk me off the ledge... Intervention needed!

« Last post by Darwin on February 06, 2009, 08:42 AM »

I'm seriously tempted by some attractive deals on notebook CPU's that are floating around on the web.

Unfortunately, I've discovered that the T5750 (65nm Memron) chip in my Gateway notebook is easily upgraded to a 45nm Penryn chip (T8xxx or T9xxx series). There is something wrong with me... I can't help jonesing for more speed and a larger cache. On paper, going from 65nm to 45nm and newer technology will yield greater battery life and cooler operation = (slightly?) longer hardware life and a 2.0Ghz to 2.4-2.6GHz boost should noticebly improve overall performance.

The reality is that, while I do some amateur level photo editing and vector/raster illustration, my usage of this machine is pretty average: e-mail, internet, and Office applications, and the rational part of my mind (which sadly is quite a small slice of the pie) doesn't quite see how this upgrade will do more for me than lighten my wallet (or burden my credit card  ) and give me bragging rights ( ).

Specs on the notebook:

2.0Ghz T5750 (2MB cache 667FSB) - motherboard will limit me to 667Mhz FSB regardless of the chip that I install, and yes I understand that I am limited to 800Mhz chips, so T8100 and T8300 and the T9300 and T9500 - sweet spot would be either the T8300 or the T9300.
7200 rpm harddrive (Sata-III)
4GB RAM at 667 Mhz

This upgrade would cost somewhere between $300 and $450 depending on what chip I choose and where I source it...

So, what do people think?

1380

Living Room / Re: Hot geek love - holy smokes! [just sad]

« Last post by Darwin on February 06, 2009, 08:25 AM »

The site is not, but this portion of it would have to be, don't you think?

-zridling (February 06, 2009, 08:15 AM)

Absolutely - Dave, in particular, has a wonderful sense of humour!

1381

Living Room / Re: Hot geek love - holy smokes! [just sad]

« Last post by Darwin on February 06, 2009, 07:29 AM »

 

Please tell me this site is a joke (because I don't know whether to laugh or to cry)?!

1382

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by Darwin on February 06, 2009, 07:23 AM »

urlwolf - live with 64-bit Vista is just fine, in my experience. My two-bits is go with either Vista or with XP - who knows what Windows 7 will wind up looking like?

1383

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 06:18 PM »

Yup live and learn. Or, in my case, not... 

1384

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 03:34 PM »

I hear, ya, 40hz! I’ve pretty much abandoned the beta in favour of Vista. It’s stable, it’s attractive, and it does what I want it to do, when I need it to, efficiently, quickly and without drama. Why on earth am I even considering messing around with a beta OS? BTW, you will have inferred that I’ve not yet gotten around to installing Win 7 on actual hardware (as opposed to my VM install), and you’d be correct! I don’t think I’m going to bother, either. I haven’t run the VM in at least two weeks and feel no urge to any time soon, either...

I’ll wait for Windows 7 to be released and re-assess at that time. No doubt I’ll be waiting for SP-1 before upgrading, though.

1385

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Hound: a grep-alike that searches inside PDFs

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 01:34 PM »

Nice find. It ripped through a 1.23GB directory of 43K files (doc/html/txt/pdf) without a hiccup.

Liked the sheep pic. Wonder if it really is Dolly.

-40hz (February 05, 2009, 12:53 PM)

Maybe it's a clone... ?

1386

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 01:32 PM »

I've given up trying to give advice.  People have their habits and emotions locked in. 

-MilesAhead (February 05, 2009, 12:43 PM)

Sound... er, advice  I should have known better before going with him to buy the computer, but I am an eternal optimist and thought that years of my having generally been proven right where disagreements over computer issues had "sunk in". WRONG!

When he asked me last night about downgrading to XP I just told him that I'd forward some Vista tweaking links to him and that if he did downgrade to XP, to be sure to buy a 64-bit copy and left it at that. I'm pretty sure that he'll be installing a cracked 32-bit version, but at least I tried...

1387

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 12:11 PM »

Fools

-f0dder (February 05, 2009, 10:07 AM)

Knee-jerk reactionary fools!

1388

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 12:08 PM »

As far as I can tell, the three app limit is Netbook only and I surmise it's to keep users from overloading the hardware - non?

-Darwin (February 04, 2009, 05:48 PM)

Just an arbitrary limit to segment the market and sell more versions and confuse users, *SIGH*.

-f0dder (February 04, 2009, 06:03 PM)

Crap. You (and other respondents) are probably right... I've yet to play with a Netbook, so have no idea of their capabilities, though a friend just bought one for her daughter, so I hope to have an opportunity soon.

1389

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 12:06 PM »

Hmmm...that  probably wouldn't be the best ad slogan even if it were the most accurate.

-40hz (February 05, 2009, 10:01 AM)

Volvo: boxy but good!

1390

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 07:49 AM »

[*Barely* on topic - I mention 64-bit a number of times] Funny, I went along with a friend while he purchased a Vista Home Premium-64 SP-1 notebook for his wife last week (T3200 2.0 Ghz, 4GB RAM, 5400 rpm 320GB drive). I was taken along to provide advice and insight, which was completely ignored... At any rate, she despises Vista - last night she was heaping vitriol on it because she claims it runs slower on this new machine than XP Home did on the single core (1.73 Ghz, 1GB RAM) notebook it is intended to replace.

I haven't been near the thing, but I find this very hard to believe. I suspect that this is a case of two years of negative press getting in the way of objectivity. Kind of pisses me off. When we bought the damned thing her husband insisted on going 64-bit and 4GB RAM (a similar model with 32-bit and 3GB of RAM was about $80 cheaper) over my objections that there ARE issues with Security software not running under 64-bit (and I knew that he wanted to run SpyDoctor as he has a licence for it and is very stingy), that she would never notice the difference between 3 and 4 GB RAM, given that all she uses it for is webrowsing, e-mail, and word processing. But no, he wanted to "future proof" his investment and go 64-bit. At any rate, sure enough SpyDoctor won't run under 64-bit and now they're lamenting Vista and want to put XP on it. I'm telling them to get rid of the crapware and let me direct them to some tweaking tips (Ed Bott and others), but they're pretty insistent... Note that they're considering installing 32-bit XP on it. There are so many opportunities for "I told you so's" at so many levels here that my head is spinning    [/*Barely* on topic - I mention 64-bit a number of times]

1391

General Software Discussion / Re: MOGware's FileHamster (Complaint)

« Last post by Darwin on February 05, 2009, 05:00 AM »

This is why God invented adMuncher

-urlwolf (February 04, 2009, 05:57 PM)

God = Murray Hurps, in this case 

1392

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on February 04, 2009, 05:48 PM »

As far as I can tell, the three app limit is Netbook only and I surmise it's to keep users from overloading the hardware - non?

1393

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by Darwin on February 04, 2009, 03:33 PM »

I went from Vista 32-bit to Server 2008 64-bit to Vista 64-bit and haven't looked back. Rather than getting upset about the software/shell extensions/what have you that no longer work under 64-bit, I see it as an opportunity to streamline my operation. Case in point: XP 32 bit machine has 377 applications installed while my Vista 64-bit machine has 145 installed...

I went 64-bit because I am running 4GB RAM and object to (in my case) 1GB of it not being utilized/recognised by the OS! Besides, Windows Server 2008 was free and, when I realised that a lot of my software was licenced for "Home" use but not for Servers, I ponied up $70 to get Vista Ultimate 64-bit through the Ultimate Steal...

I'm very happy with it. If I still had the 3GB of RAM that this computer came with installed, I'd probably still be on 32-bit though. I can't say I've noticed a huge difference in performance (actually, the same applies to the 3GB vs. 4GB upgrade - in everyday usage I didn't notice a difference, but dammit, I have 4GB of RAM. I repeat I HAVE 4 GB OF RAM! Yeah, I know, I'm pathetic). The big boost came when I went from a 5400rpm drive to a 7200rpm drive. Zoom, zoom, zoom!

FWIW I use Vista 64-bit pretty much "out of the box". I've left UAC alone and have moderately tweaked the services that are running, but that's about it.

1394

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on February 03, 2009, 12:52 PM »

OK guys, geez... Sorrrrrry.
Didn't mean to stir up the hornet's nest, it's just something I noticed and thought should be brought to attention, it's easily fixed, the whole damn thing is BETA anyways, YMMV, etc, ad nauseum...



Edit: Fixed post.

-Edvard (February 03, 2009, 10:14 AM)

Naughty Edvard!

PS 

1395

Living Room / Re: Man, those British folks sure know how to live

« Last post by Darwin on February 03, 2009, 12:27 PM »

No one has commented on the picture of Hugh Laurie in his pre-House days...

-Darwin (February 02, 2009, 04:11 PM)

is that a comment then Mike

That looks like Blackadder - he was in that, wasnt he? Yes, he was, now there's something to spend a snowed in day watching

Pre-"House" - I'm out of touch - is that good then?

-tomos (February 03, 2009, 02:19 AM)

Hugh Laurie has been in a medical drama in the states called "House" (he plays a flawed but brilliant doctor named House) for a few years now. I've never actually watched it... but about two years ago it was extremely popular and critically acclaimed.

I'd definitely say that the screencap was from BlackAdder, and yes! that was a comment 

1396

ProcessTamer / Re: 为什么不更新了

« Last post by Darwin on February 02, 2009, 10:42 PM »

Yahoo Bable Fish:

This software is practical on the single nucleus machine the outstandingly. Hoped that the author can renew. Maintains the vigor!

Seems like a pretty good translation - my usual experience is that such translations usually result in gibberish 

1397

Living Room / Re: Man, those British folks sure know how to live

« Last post by Darwin on February 02, 2009, 04:11 PM »

No one has commented on the picture of Hugh Laurie in his pre-House days...

1398

General Software Discussion / Re: Hard Disk Heat

« Last post by Darwin on February 02, 2009, 08:03 AM »

I'd look at the cooling vents on the exterior of the laptop - check for excessive dust buildup. You probably won't be able to see anything, though. Up until recently, I would have recommended blowing compressed air through the vents to blow dust out, now I'm not so sure! Perhaps a vacuumn cleaner would be a better option?

1399

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by Darwin on February 01, 2009, 10:15 PM »

Still haven't received responses from PTFF "support".  How nice of them.  I do support for a software vendor, and if I pulled that kind of crap, I'd be out of a job.  Nice that some people just don't have to give a damn.  Good for them.

-Scott (February 01, 2009, 07:51 PM)

Yes, sadly my communications with the developer, while pleasant enough, have been VERY sporadic! I’m not running PS Tray Factory at all at the moment as the latest build sends explorer.exe into fits, so I await a fresh release. I find Vista's 'Hide Inactive Icons” feature to be much better implemented than the one in XP and don't really miss having a third party solution available.

PS just took a look and realize that you've not had a response in two months now. Not good - you probably don't care at this point (though your cash is invested in the thing), but have you tried writing again? I got a response on my second try...

1400

Living Room / Re: Man, those British folks sure know how to live

« Last post by Darwin on February 01, 2009, 02:39 PM »

People here have heated driveways as well... Usually, they live in the mountians mountains and have steep driveways, which are heated to keep them from icing up, rather than to clear snow off 'em!

EDIT: spelling!