Fiber connections

Are there any other tech heads out there like me who wish deployment of better connectivity technology would move a little faster?

A month or so ago I visited a friend in Florida. While I was there his ISP was installing fiber to the house for Internet connectivity. Of course it made my mouth water thinking of the reliability and speeds he would have.

That is just totally cool that they are converting their entire network for all consumers to fiber connectivity.

After installation he purchased a connectivity package which allowed for up to 20MB download speeds and I believe 6MB upload. Now if you are an avid tech head or a system administrator you know just what that means…..no more slow uploads due to those darn limiting QOS files.

I hope this practice becomes a standard for all high speed Internet ISP’s. I dont know about you but that would enable me to be twice as productive when uploading websites or large files.

Reasons for buying Vista

10. Because you want to upgrade your hardware

9. So your already purchased applications wont work

8. Because you want to have the latest and supposedly greatest

7. Because you just love to be a BETA tester

6. To take advantage of all the annoying security features

5. Because you just want to spend the weekend frustrated after the install fails

4. Because you never heard the old saying “If it isn’t broke dont try and fix it”

3. So you can see how many new ways hackers can invade your system until Microsoft apllies security updates

2. Because you just want to stimulate the economy

1. Last but not least….Because you just love headaches
 

Drivers

One of the most important things you can do to maintain peak performance and avoid incompatibility issues is to keep your system and device drivers updated. Of course manually updating drivers can be some what time consuming.

Locating the drivers alone then searching each manufacturers web site for your particular model and acquiring the most recent software and drivers for each individual device is pain enough.

Of course if you document your last version and the most recently installed for restore purposes, this can add to your time spent.

I understand how time consuming this can all be, but in order to avoid compatibility issues and maintain peak performance then updating your drivers should be high on your list of to do maintenance.

new laptop

This week I purchased a new laptop from one of the major manufacturers. Since I was using previous components such as an air card to connect wireless to Internet from anywhere I assumed due to the configuration of my new laptop that I would have no difficulties in upgrading.

Once my new laptop was received I notice that the air card would not fit as the pcmcia slot was not a standard slot but rather a proprietary slot designed by the manufacturer.

I contacted the manufacturer and of course I was told I could buy a new air card to use with the laptop for $199.00. You can imagine my outrage. I stated that they should note on their purchase page that it was not a standard slot so future customers would not find themselves in this same situation.

Of course it is difficult to get anywhere with someone who does not speak english very well so I doubt they will make these changes.

I mentioned to the support personnel that there used to be a few companies who started to employ this tactic so customers had to buy their proprietary equipment. Those being Packard Bell, Acer and the original Hewlett Packard company. We all know what happened to their market share.

Bottom line when purchasing a new laptop computer you may want to chat or speak with their sales personnel before completing your sale.

Ram Drive

Years ago I remeber the buzz about creation of a RAM drive. This new idea seemed to be a sound idea. At the time the only hurdle was the fact that RAM memory was volatile (meaning without power it could not hold the information).

Over the past couple of years the volatile issue has been addressed as we know when we use usb drives to hold data. Many memory based drives now have a nonvolatile setting which will enable memory retention.

Im just curious what ever happened to this idea. We know that a RAM drive would be faster than typical magnetic drives. As well since they have no moving parts they would be more reliable.

Could you imagine if someone was to create a RAM drive. It would almost be instant data access. Think about it….as soon as you were to power on your computer the operating system would be loaded. I know I would have to purchase one if they were made available.

I guess the manufacturers can make more money by having us upgrade an older technology rather than allowing us to have access to a new technology which might make our computer as fast as we need it to be.

I hope one day someone decides to revisit the idea of a ram drive.

Intel or AMD?

Which CPU (Intel or AMD) do you prefer for your particular application? Intel and AMD have been rivals for what seems forever.

Each users preference is different just as each users particular reason for choosing a processor brand for a particular application is different. Whether choosing a processor for gaming or choosing it for number crunching. The reasons can vary as much as the number of different types of processors.

Now may be the time to upgrade as AMD has recently slashed prices of most of their processor models. Intel is slated to follow suite in mid July. So if you have been considering an upgrade you may want to watch for announcements from Intel in mid July so you can shop comparitively.

For any users that have not replaced a cpu there are a couple of things that you may want to remember.

Often when replacing a CPU as well you may have to replace your motherboard due to a socket change. As well you might have to replace your RAM memory. Be sure to review any documentation on the CPU of your choice and review it against you current hardware configuration. Otherwise a couple hundred dollar purchase can easily turn into two or three times as much.

Of course both CPU’s seem to benchmark well, especially when most of the benchmarks are completed by their own manufacturer. If peak performance is high on your list for a particular aplication you may want to find a benchmark completed by an unbiased third party.

I have always used an Intel product by choice. Of course AMD has come a long way in the past few years. Let me hear what you think of the choices. Post a comment and if you have benchmark numbers that support your reason for the choice be sure to leave a reference to the documentation. I’m sure everyone could use a second opinion before deciding which brand to choose.

Regsitry errors

I think I saved my self a reinstall after experiencing intermittent errors. Last week I started experiencing intermittent errors while operating in Windows Vista.  I decided to try and locate a utility to aid in the editing of the registry.

After quite some time of researching utilities there don’t seem to be many such utilities that are designed for Windows Vista.

I finally came across one that looked promising. The program was called PC Registry Cleaner (Simple enough to understand what it does huh?). I ran the program twice performing a restart after each time it was run cause as we know the registry is only read during the start up process and any changes made would not be read until then.

Well I didn’t have to reload my OS so I would say it was a success. The only downfall is this program was in beta. Of course it still worked. I look forward to them releasing the fully capable Vista version in the next week or so. Of course if you are still working with xp your good to go.

If you would like to review or try the program go here PC Registry Cleaner.