Recent Posts

1526

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« Last post by JavaJones on March 17, 2010, 12:51 PM »

Why are you stuck with 32 bit? Athlon 64 X2...
http://www.amd.com/u...ctural-features.aspx

As for app compatibility, I have yet to see a 32 bit application that doesn't work under a 64 bit OS. That's not to say they don't exist, they're just very rare. Sure not many apps are *optimized* for 64 bit, but that doesn't mean A: they won't run under one or B: they'll perform worse. Neither is generally true.

The only concern to address really is whether there are drivers for all your hardware, but likely by now there are, unless you run some odd, rare hardware like a strange backwater sound card.

- Oshyan

1527

Living Room / Re: 35 Beautiful Photography Websites

« Last post by JavaJones on March 17, 2010, 12:35 PM »

Big Picture rocks!

- Oshyan

1528

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« Last post by JavaJones on March 17, 2010, 12:33 PM »

Hmm, ok. Well first, Google tells me that the 7NF-RZ is an Athlon board, not P4. So if you're planning to use the board to get access to better graphics cards (AGP), you'll have to buy a new CPU (unless you have an Athlon sitting around): http://www.giga-byte...p;ProductName=7NF-RZ

The cheapest AGP card easily found is $30:
http://www.newegg.co...Item=N82E16814130210

You said you have 1GB of RAM but not the configuration. I'm going to assume 2x512MB DDR modules for now, and that you have 4 slots available, each of which could support 1GB modules. So 2x1GB modules to bring you up to 3GB would be $27x2=$54.
http://www.newegg.co...Item=N82E16820161626

So together you're up to $84, plus shipping and possible tax, depending where you live and where you buy from.

Not sure what the need for a sound card is as most motherboard audio is fine, but perhaps you have particular needs there.

Or for $200 you could get a Case+PSU (dunno how quiet), motherboard, CPU, and RAM that ought to best your current system in basically every way:
http://www.newegg.co...temList=Combo.352997
(onboard graphics)
Add your own hard drive, transfer the DVD-ROM from your old system, and you're set.

That's just a preconfigured low-end bundle. You could probably find better deals, higher performance, etc. if desired. And, perhaps crucially, that would be a much more upgradable system in the future. Whereas if you spend time and money upgrading the P4, even if you're happy with its performance now, it'll really be at the end of its useful upgrade life after that. No headroom.

Personally, as I said at the start, I would recommend spending a bit more to get a nicer upgrade and position yourself better for future upgrades as needed. I'd get a socket 775 motherboard and CPU as above, look into whether the current PSU can support the voltages needed, keep it if so or buy new if necessary, transfer the HD and DVD-ROM over, maybe re-use the case if that's possible, get some RAM. Start with onboard video (for the use you've described so far it's fine), and then get an add-in video card later if desired.

- Oshyan

1529

Living Room / Re: Cafepress Alternatives - Find out the truth about 'CP's' biggest competitors.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 16, 2010, 06:26 PM »

Oo, very useful article! I recently bought a CafePress t-shirt for my girlfriend and while it turned out ok, the price and available colors weren't quite what I would have liked. It was an organic shirt, so it's going to be more expensive, but I ended up paying upwards of $30 for a printed (front and back) t-shirt, and that seemed pretty steep. I see pricing is possibly a bit cheaper with Printfection, *and* they have more color options for organic shirts. Very cool. The print quality of the CafePress shirt is also mediocre, so I'm intrigued by this person's review of Printfection being much better. Of course CafePress offers some products that Printfection does not, but if the product is available there, they do seem like an interesting option.

Overall I think I'd say use CafePress only if they're the sole option that provides the product you want to make. Otherwise use Printfection (based only on this person's comments for now) if they have the product you want. Use Zazzle for any large prints, e.g. posters, etc. as that's really what they specialize in. Use Kodak or someone similar for photo prints and photo books (or maybe Lulu.com).

- Oshyan

1530

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« Last post by JavaJones on March 16, 2010, 06:12 PM »

Do you have a particularly exciting PSU? Hehe

- Oshyan

1531

Living Room / Re: Windows doesn't recognize HDD.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 16, 2010, 04:09 PM »

Yeah, hard drives are finicky enough things that I think it's best just to stop using one the moment it does *anything* odd. Usually oddness is a sign of current or impending doom (failure). Sometimes we can be lulled into complacency if the problem goes away or is intermittent or something, but I find that almost inevitably it comes back, eventually gets worse, and then it's all over. So better safe than sorry. Hard drives are cheap! In fact, I'll have a batch of 500GB drives just sitting around pretty soon as I'm consolidating onto a couple of 2TB drives. So if anyone wants one and can pay shipping...

- Oshyan

1532

Living Room / Re: Windows doesn't recognize HDD.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 16, 2010, 03:26 PM »

You make a hard drive clock, of course!

- Oshyan

1533

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« Last post by JavaJones on March 16, 2010, 03:24 PM »

Hmm, yeah I guess we just disagree there. I think with proper research, you can find the right product(s) that will make your expenditure feel worthwhile. I have a pretty good track record (by my own reckoning of value of course, heh) with that.

For example I just bought a Core i7 860 and motherboard, 4GB of RAM, new case and power supply, for under $600 shipped (from Tiger Direct, no tax). This is not cheap by any means, but it's an extremely good price/performance ratio for a rendering system, which is what I'm using it for. I of course had the hard drive, CD/DVD-ROM, used onboard graphics on the motherboard, and bought an OS for it (separate, about $80).

Given that many of the same components probably carry over in Stephen's system, and he probably doesn't need an i7, a very good upgrade could probably be had for $200 or so, including motherboard, CPU, RAM, case, and power supply. That seems like a pretty small amount, especially since it seemed clear he was willing to spend *something* and there's very little hardware of any value as an upgrade that you're going to get for less than $50.

- Oshyan

1534

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« Last post by JavaJones on March 16, 2010, 03:01 PM »

I'm confused, are you suggesting that you're going to "upgrade" while sticking with this ancient hardware?

You're unlikely to find much that will really improve your experience there. I really think you're better off spending a little more and getting a new or mostly new system. New motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc. It's possible though unlikely that you could keep the power supply. You might be able to keep the case...

And of course, always the question with this kind of thing: what's your budget?

- Oshyan

1535

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Twigatelle

« Last post by JavaJones on March 15, 2010, 03:01 PM »

Hooray for renewed activity in this thread, and new upcoming levels! 

- Oshyan

1536

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Windows 7

« Last post by JavaJones on March 15, 2010, 02:51 PM »

Cheapest legitimate(ish) licenses of Win7 I've found are at Royal Discount, for around $80 for an OEM "branded" upgrade x64 Home Premium version. Questionable how legit it is to install this on a different brand system, or where they got the "spare" discs in the first place. I've ordered several of them, they turn up so far as Dell or HP "recovery" discs. Interesting. Not sure exactly how this is working, but so far no credit card issues, Royal Discount is reputable(ish), and the discs are real, physical items that arrived at my door step, install, and pass activation with MS. So far, so good.

- Oshyan

1537

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2010, 06:31 PM »

So my feeling is, if you want (or need) to be paid for doing whatever it is you do - then require payment for your efforts. And if it's not forthcoming - stop doing it.

-40hz (March 10, 2010, 06:16 PM)

Wholeheartedly agree. If the ads aren't working, adjust your profit model. If that doesn't work either, maybe your content isn't worth what you thought it was. There are still "bubbles" around on this here Internet waiting to burst, and if the content can't flow free, you will quickly get to the clearest measure of the value of your content to your audience...

- Oshyan

1538

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2010, 05:39 PM »

Flattr? Saw it, wasn't impressed. It's interesting but not what I'm looking for. The concept is unique, but it's too different and difficult to grasp to see wide adoption.

- Oshyan

1539

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2010, 05:05 PM »

When oh when will a good micropayments system come around?

- Oshyan

1540

Living Room / Re: Pirate vs. Paying Customer illustrated

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2010, 01:21 PM »

Uh, I don't think Steam really works that way. At least not the last time I used it (admittedly a year or so ago). Ubisoft's new games on the other hand are exactly like that. One would assume the big fuss about Ubi's new practices wouldn't have been such a big deal had Steam been doing that all along.

- Oshyan

1541

Living Room / Re: Watch a game instead of playing it - NextgenWalkthroughs.com and others?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2010, 01:16 PM »

Interesting, I've actually been an appreciator of "observational gaming" (or is it really just classic spectating? ) for quite a while, but never really knew many (any?) other people who were. It doesn't seem to be particular to one type of game necessarily either, there's something just enjoyable about seeing people in the act of overcoming challenge, which is fundamentally what games are (or attempting to overcome it). Just "exploring" and moving through a story like the Final Fantasy series can be interesting too. However I'm not sure just watching a movie of it is quite the experience that interests me. I suppose I would say it's a more personal thing for me, I want to be sitting behind the person, a friend of mine preferably, and watching them, sharing their moments of achievement and commiserating with their failures. The personal connection is relevant to me in the enjoyment factor. Still, this is an interesting thing, the pure spectator enjoyment of games. I believe Xbox's "1 vs. 100" is kind of like that, and lots more spectator functions are making their way into games with the massive connectivity of the mighty interwebosaur.

- Oshyan

1542

General Software Discussion / Re: Putting a Classic Menu on Windows 7 - Redux

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 07:05 PM »

Granted there are some good things about Win7 start and task bar, I've always agreed with that. I just feel they shouldn't have (and certainly didn't have to) get rid of the older alternatives that people were used to.

And yes, the option of Shift-Click for the new menu style really makes this a no-brainer. Use the new one when you like it, use the old one when you prefer that. *Options*. That's what MS should give us. Lord knows it's not something they're fundamentally opposed to. There are more options in *most* parts of Win7. That they chose to cut down some options in a few places where they might matter most (fundamental UI elements) is IMO somewhat nonsensical and really can't be fully explained with "UI improvements" or "efficiency" given the lack of that elsewhere and comparative detriment such changes have caused to some (not insignificant) portion of users.

Oh well, rant over.

- Oshyan

1543

Living Room / Re: Will you miss newspapers when they're gone?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 07:02 PM »

I dunno, I don't have a great deal of experience with local, professional journalism (though what little contact I've had has never particularly blown my socks off). But I do reckon government spending has ballooned quite nicely in the last 20 years. Maybe that's down to lack of proper reporting already creeping in during that time, though it hasn't really been a crisis for newspapers until the last 5, maybe 10 years. I'm also inherently skeptical of any "it was better in my day" subjective assertions, not that I doubt your experience or your character, just that it's not a particularly compelling argument.

- Oshyan

1544

Living Room / Re: Will you miss newspapers when they're gone?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 06:06 PM »

      Every city and town needs a newspaper to do at least one essential thing: let the public know what the local government is doing and how.  each town has its businesses which may, or may not, be serving the public as they should. Who's going to tell citizens about it if not the local newspaper?
     Newspapers are essential to a democracy. Which is why all tyrants suppress try to suppress them.   
     Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797), a British politician, is supposed to have said "that there were three Estates in Parliament [the Lords Temporal, the Lords Spiritual and the Commons], but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than they all."
    The internet and TV provide good news services. But none of them, and nothing else, can do what a local newspaper can do.
    However, we do need a *new kind* of newspaper.... Anyone have any suggestions?
           So says an old former editor of his town newspaper.

-Bill Steo (March 09, 2010, 04:47 PM)

Then again, what about independent citizen journalism and discussion? Blogs, forums, even Facebook groups. I see them having at least as much power and relevance as a local paper, which may be more prone to influence from local deep pockets anyway. True though that sometimes not enough citizens will really run down a story to quite match up to *good* investigative journalism. On the other hand how many "towns" have good investigative journalism for local events?

- Oshyan

1545

Living Room / Re: You are what you charge

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 04:23 PM »

I dunno, the free ice cream at our local county fair seems to be pretty popular...

- Oshyan

1546

Living Room / Re: Speaking Of: Torrent Sites

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 03:41 PM »

Personally I think Bittorrent is a fantastic content *distribution* system, but not really a good content *discovery* system, and existing indexing sites are fairly good at indexing content and providing basic info about it, but they're not at all a good promotional or even informational platform for the content. In other words if your neighbor is making good music and wants to tell the world about it, the last thing I'd recommend is just to put it up in Bittorrent and hope people will find it. Leveraging Bittorrent for content distribution for his music is a great idea, but nobody will really *find* him that way. So BT is an adjunct to other systems, not a replacement. Use BT for what it's good at - data transfer - and pair it with effective use of other tools, a website, a facebook page, etc. and I think you have a good platform for success with minimal cost and other overhead.

- Oshyan

1547

General Software Discussion / Ribbon Hero turns learning Office into a game - interesting idea!

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 03:07 PM »

Headline is copied from the source site, I couldn't think of anything better, though it doesn't totally describe what I hope this topic can discuss. First, here's the link, to a "game" that helps teach users how to use Microsoft Office:
http://lostgarden.co...ing-office-into.html

I haven't actually tried it as I only have OpenOffice on this system, but I personally found this concept fascinating. It's true that people will go through great lengths, endless repetition, and much more that would otherwise be out of the question, all for simple game rewards - higher points, more items collected, higher levels, etc. So what about applying these concepts to application usage tutorials, even going so far as creating games to teach an application? I think the idea is very promising. Perhaps this first incarnation doesn't get everything right, but the core point - the value of the game-inspired reward mechanism for learning and practice - seems very important to me.

Hopefully some app developers will weigh in on this, as well as users. Does anyone know of any other examples of this kind of thing?



- Oshyan

1548

General Software Discussion / Re: Putting a Classic Menu on Windows 7 - Redux

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 01:08 PM »

Woo, let's keep the dream alive! Thanks 40hz.

P.S. "Can show the free disk space and the total file size in the status bar" THANK CHRIST!

Also, I kept feeling like the new copy "overwrite yes/no/maybe" dialog was less functional and intuitive than the previous method, but kind of just chalked it up to unfamiliarity. But the Classic Shell page shows exactly why the new method is so retarded. Why oh why does MS do this?? Seriously, to all those people who love the new Win7 method(s) of doing things, what do you have to say about this? Or, put another way, put *that* in your pipe and smoke it.

It's funny, because Win7 *is* an improvement in many respects, but in many other ways not so much. At the least it seems they could make these things optional.

Well, at least they brought back "restore folders on launch"...

- Oshyan

1549

Living Room / Re: Help me build my new Home Theater PC

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 12:42 PM »

If you already have a decent home theater "receiver"/amp with digital inputs and surround sound decoding, then you definitely want to do your decoding there and just output digital from the computer. The sound card you linked to appears to be mainly useful for taking existing analog sources in a system and outputting them to digital for external decoding and playback and for passthrough of existing digital blu-ray source data (which should be a function of your player and work with other HDMI output ports anyway, and also assumes you will be buying a blu-ray drive). However if you get the right other components in your system they ought to pass through digital audio with no intermediate analog step, thus maintaining max quality and avoiding the need for a separate sound card. That has at least been my experience. You will want to verify all that of course. If you do decide to go with a separate sound card, the Auzentech options seem well regarded, though I can't find a review for that particular model.

Whatever solution you go with, you'd want to use digital out, whether optical or HDMI. I'd recommend HDMI if you can do it, just for ease of cabling and modern spec compliance. RCA out is analog and definitely not preferred. With HDMI, even if your amp doesn't support it, you should be able to go to your TV with HDMI, then output to your amp from there with some other digital connection (e.g. optical - hopefully your TV supports it). Finding a common digital connector for all your components is obviously a must.

Finally, the nice thing about a separate audio card is you can always purchase and install it later. So I would recommend against springing for it now, just plan against it for the initial build and you can get it out of consideration and out of the budget. Then build your system on the assumption that you'll pump everything through your graphic's card's HDMI and/or through a motherboard optical out (most have them these days, but verify on the model you choose). Then if you get it and it doesn't all play nice, you can always fall back to analog audio and then upgrade to the separate audio card as soon as you're ready. Motherboards come with audio whether you want it or not, so it's not like the decision against the separate card will affect anything else at this point, and it can easily be decided on later.

- Oshyan

1550

Living Room / Re: Networks and external drives

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2010, 12:25 PM »

I'd be careful with USB powered drives on a laptop as laptops don't always provide the level of power needed. Most of those drives push the limits of the USB power spec, which is why they often have 2 USB jacks (not always). Self-powered drives have more cords, which is "inconvenient", but they're more reliable.

- Oshyan