Computer related questions

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

Windows 8 is trying to be a tablet interface.

[Spica75]

Windows 2000 was Windows XP with some features stripped out, and a lot less eye candy in my opinion.

Other way around pretty much. Win2K replaced Win NT, after that, WinXP was made to use the backend of Win NT with a more userfriendly not quite Win98 style frontend.
Basically, 2K was made for corporate use first, XP was made for homeusers first. Which is why i have a 2K install disc with about 48 or so valid activations left. Or was it 148? I forget...

Whatever you do, don't buy a computer running Windows 8 -- first, try using a friend's Win8 computer for a while to see how you get along with it. If you like it, fine; if you don't, at least they're still selling Windows 7.

Totally agreed. Some DO like Win8, but by now, even my "ooh bling!" friend has come to the conclusion that while it is just barely acceptable on his portable, he would never want it on his main PC, and he´s become gradually less and less happy with it on the portable as well.

Microsoft has a tendency to turn out blooper OSs every other time. Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows 8 as far as I'm concerned. (On that theory, Windows 2000 should have been crud, and it didn't seem to be. Perhaps I wasn't trying to do anything complicated.)

I wish they hadn´t rushed Win ME so badly, it could have been the ultimate DOS based Windows... And once you managed to get it running correctly, it was even damn good. It was just such a horror to get it to that point that it was often not worth even trying(especially when the much better working XP was released not all that much later).
Win8 is the worst of the bloopers in my strongly held opinion, the others had issues, bad problems, TECHNICAL problems... Win8 is considerably better technically, but instead its the most annoying OS i´ve ever had the misfortune to use. I mean, i´m a person who has the old VAX/VMS OS manuals in my bookcase just for fun! I´ve played around with TOO many OSs since early -80s, and Win8 stands out distinctly as the one and only that i truly detest.

A good example is how you can´t freely resize or move windows around, i mean WHY NOT? There´s just no sane reason to impose a limit for such a useful function...

Sorry for the rant but it´s just so freaking stupid i cant get over it.

I want to buy a new PC. Usually ALDI (a discounter) sells good computers. They'll have a new model available this week-end for 500 €. Here's a link. Is it a good deal for that price?

http://aldi.medion.com/md8823_01/lu_fr/ ... sign_anker

Sort of, kinda, not quite... I would NOT recommend it. It´s a classic bait box. A fairly powerful graphics card combined with decently fast but not enough RAM and a somewhat lackluster cpu. 2TB HDD sounds nice, but i cant find what type of drive it is, which usually means it´s a lowend of some sort, WD Green or Seagate LP most likely, the former i wouldn´t touch with a 10ft pole(infamous for high fail rates) and the latter, well it´s not a good choice for the only harddrive in a system.

The pricetag is pretty good for what it gives, but primarily it´s a system for someone using highly graphics intense games on a very low budget.
And one thing i´ve learnt over the last 15 years, don´t be too cheap when buying a computer. I generally go for cheap stuff but i found too many drawbacks with that, then i overcompensated with a dual socket system before this one, just a year before AMD released the first dual CORE, greatly to my annoyance(when i did my purchase, i expected dual core to take another 2-4 years, but AMD raced off and made decent ones early).

Anyway, this system is without doubt the best i´ve bought so far, ever. Started with minimal gfx card, very decent cpu and RAM, to maximize cpu crunching. And unless you´re into gfx intensive gaming, this is a FAR better direction to take than the opposite, which is what the link does, except it has decently fast RAM.


How much storage room do you need? If possible, consider using an SSD as your boot drive, their cost per GB is high, but their performance is just marvellous. If you need lots of storage space and still want the speed of an SSD, add a data disk, my suggestion would be a WD Red, they´re almost as fast as previous generation faster HDDs, very quiet and made to be reliable despite kept running all the time.
So, if you can get away with little storage space, an SSD only. If you need more, smaller SSD, 60-120GB and a WD Red 2TB.

The link offers 4GB of RAM, that is very suboptimal today. Get 8 or 16GB, 8 is the low optimal level for Win7. The link gives 1600Mhz RAM, that´s GOOD. Watch it though, DDR3 prices are going up, probably not drastically, but hard to say for certain.

If sticking with a Core i3, then that 3220 is probably about the lowest end you want to look at. The 3240 isn´t a huge upgrade but sadly about as high as you can go with i3 currently. Personally i would prefer an i5.
However, AMD is also a valid option, primarily if you want to pay less, get more cores but less performance per core. It´s also good if what you need is more raw clockspeed rather than high IPC. They also fully support slightly faster RAM.
There´s also the option of their APUs, if you dont need highend gfx, the AMD A-series has the best integrated gfx you can find, good enough for halfdecent FPS gaming together with a fairly well balanced though not highend cpu.

However, Intel will be releasing it´s next generation cpu, "Haswell", in mid June, and frankly, it looks like it might be one of their better attempts at improving a core. Either way, it will push at least some prices downards, so unless you cant wait the month and a half, it´s probably a good idea to wait.

And then, gfx card... Do you NEED a GTX650? Unless it´s a gaming system or work system that uses gfx intensive software, i suggest either using integrated gfx or a lowend separate card. Despite me being a gamer even running some high gfx games, i made do quite well with a lousy HD3450 on this computer for over 3 years, just by using low gfx settings and resolution in those games.

One important thing, if it´s a computer you sit a lot at, strongly consider getting a gfx card which is fanless.
For example, the AMD HD7750 can be found fanless and is a very decent midrange card(i chose between that and the HD6770 i have now). For gfx in general, i currently recommend AMD, although it seems the pricing in USA makes them more even(here, almost no matter what level i look at, i can find an equal AMD card for less cash), and aside from pricing, AMD is doing a bit better with drivers for a while.


Hmm, ooops? Maybe i should start introducing myself as "Hello, i´m mr Nerd."? Or possibly just go sleep? Yes, sleep is good, very good...

[Dumbledork]

Thx for the information. HD spae is not an issue since I save all my stuff on external drives (two copies on different drives). I have about 16 of those now. I only use WD Elements hard drives since I've never had any problems with those.

[camk4evr]

My brother and I were looking at some Win8 machines (he's thinking of getting a new laptop and that was all they had) and we determined that if you have to get a Win8 computer then you'd better have a touch screen 'cause it's crap if you use a touchpad and only somewhat better than that if you're using a mouse.

That said, I can't really say much more than that as we only spent about 5-10 minutes looking at about 5 or 6 different computers.

[Spica75]

Thx for the information. HD spae is not an issue since I save all my stuff on external drives (two copies on different drives). I have about 16 of those now. I only use WD Elements hard drives since I've never had any problems with those.

Well in that case, definitely go for a system with only a SSD then.

My current WD Red is the ONLY WD i´ve ever had that i was pleased with, back in the 90s especially i had a bundle that failed and was really annoyed at how obnoxiously noisy they were. Fortunately, nowadays, except for the Green series, they´re good enough. Although i would be cautious about their Blue series as well, but their Black and Red series are both GOOD.
Just extremely sad that WD and Seagate bought the HDD divisions of Hitachi(formerly IBMs HDD division) and Samsung respectively, because those two used to be my preferred brands. My last 3 drives from them, even with the side of the case off you can barely hear them when working. My current 2 Seagates in comparison, i can hear them even just running idle from halfway across the room with the case shut.

[Dumbledork]

What's with the color names? I've never seen a WD drive named red, blue, or green.

[Spica75]

What's with the color names? I've never seen a WD drive named red, blue, or green.

Ehm? Those are models that WD are currently KNOWN for? Let me guess, you have also never heard of their Raptor series HDDs?

http://techreport.com/review/24487/wd-b ... e-reviewed
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1460910/wd-re ... ive-speeds
And so on... Or just look at their own site:
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp just search for them.

WD has been selling their performance desktop HDDs under the brandname "Black" for i don´t even recall how long back they started to use it. 10 years? IIRC it was their "JB" Special Edition that later became/evolved into the Black series(the ones that started out as different from the usual "BB" model by having 8MB cache instead of the normal 2MB), and the JB SE were introduced 2001 so sometime between 2001 and X? years ahead.

Blue is their "standard" desktop brand. Think they added it to their lineup shortly after the Green´s but its enough years ago that i don´t really remember. Basically cheaper parts and performance settings tuned down to keep stress lower. Their reliability isn´t poor per se, but a lot of people tend to be vary about buying stuff that is deliberately lower quality, when the price difference up to the Black series tends to be small.

Green are their low power/heat low RPM drives, low price. Been around for years as well, maybe half as long as the Black(since 2007?). Very cheap, but they had at least one of their factories being really shoddy with assembly for a long while, and many of them are made using platters that weren´t good enough to make the other drives. Hence their partially dreadful reputation(partially, because if you get a good one, they can keep running for forever without any problems).

Red is more of a newcomer, designed for NAS (network attached storage) systems that are running 24/7, they´re basically Green´s but with different firmware, settings and higher quality parts, since running at lower RPM means less stress, they´re comparatively cheap despite being made to last. And aside from seektime(which simply can´t be improved much since it depends mostly on RPM), their performance is surprisingly good(transfer rates similar to two generations earlier 7200RPM drives, very much not bad ). And to me, it´s their first drive i can truly say that it doesn´t retain the "traditional" WD trait of being bloody damned noisy, in fact it´s the 3rd most quiet drive i´ve had.

And their Raptor/Velociraptor series, have for a VERY long time been the cheapest way to get 10k RPM drives for desktop computers(without being forced to use SCSI interface or buying enterprise level drives that cost twice as much(of course, it´s pricetag is still several times that of a normal high performance 7200RPM drive, so "cheap" is in this case an extremely relative thing)). Selling since 2003.

[Dumbledork]

No. Those I've seen are called WD 'Elements', WD 'My Book', and WD 'My Passport'

[Spica75]

No. Those I've seen are called WD 'Elements', WD 'My Book', and WD 'My Passport'

Those are not HDD brands, those are the brands of the "wrapping" so to speak.

For example, in the My Book Essential you will usually find a WD "Green" HDD, while in the Studio Edition, you will find a Hitachi 5400RPM drive(which for some very odd reason is apparently marked as Raptor?), and IIRC there´s one model of those using the Blue.

Also, those products are not just the HDD, they´re also HDD controllers and ATA to USB, FIrewire or E-SATA(or similar) interface. Sometimes also cooling of some sort.

Example:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3981/west ... s-reviewed

This, is a hard DRIVE:
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_imag ... isks/2.jpg
Found by google image search for "hard drive".

And this is a HDD enclosure or external mounting/cabinet:
http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/el ... s-1-lg.jpg
Found by google image search for "my book".

[Dumbledork]

Can anyone tell me how to make a backup copy of my Firefox bookmarks? It's very easy with Internet Explorer.

[camk4evr]

Go to the Bookmarks menu and lick on Show All Bookmarks. When the new window opens go to the Import and Backup menu and click on Backup.

[Cheb]

WD Green x non-windows OS = rapid disk destruction
Don't touch wd-greens with a pole of any length. When you use them in Linux, they begin to self-destruct! To tame these beasts, I hat to resort to truly masochistic tricks... And the one that is in use is failing anyway, after less than 2 years of continuous operation.
If you want more horror stories, just google for "LCC" or "Load Cycle Count".

For a good computer... I fell in love with this. The most badass 11.6 inch machine in the world! Ideal for both work and reading/writing fics, and can even run 6-8 years old games! intel core i3/i5/i7, and yet can run 5+ hours from battery. A handy hatch to replace the stupid, fragile hard drive with SSD (no disassembling needed), up to 8Gb RAM... I'm practically salivating.

Currently, I'm using its little brother, eeePC. And used and another, earlier eeePC before that. But it's... weak. Especially annoying when you try to debug heavy server scripts on it.
I notice often that I use my desktop mostly as a glorified NAS + web server (for example, to run http://ranmafics.ru/ as I'm still too lazy to search for real hosting).

[Té Rowan]

Aside: Pre-packaged portable hard disks (like 'Elements' and 'My Passport') got the nickname 'flakkari' (sing.) soon after coming on sale up here. One could likely translate it as 'migrant' or 'rambler'.

[Spica75]

Don't touch wd-greens with a pole of any length.

Well, they have at least gotten better than they were... But yeah, I still wouldn´t recommend them to anyone.
I don´t really like the Seagate LP drives either, but they´re at least much more reliable.

So no, WD Red is definitely my choice for a cheaper drive, even if it´s not nearly as cheap as those Green´s.

Hadn´t heard they were that awful with Linux, really bad...

[Dumbledork]

I have a problem with my USB mouse. The damn thing stops working periodically, but when I unplug and replug it it works again for a while.

Somehow this only happens when World of Warcraft is running.