Month: August 2011

A couple of days ago, I set up an iMac A1311 for a local client of mine. All three components were very sleek, more pieces of art than computer. There were no wires other than the power and Ethernet cable, and it all looked good on the desk. Apple supply a small manual (small in dimensions) which I needed to read before I could find the power button for the main part and the keyboard, and the mouse also has a power button in the same style as a Microsoft mobile mouse. The ‘Welcome’ was graphical, extremely noisy, and seemingly … Continue reading Setting up an iMac A1311 – It was.. different

Before you rush out and buy a USB 3.0 enabled motherboard and, if you have a bunch of USB 2.0 devices, there is no real need, consider the option of a USB 3.0 PCIe card. It will save your hard earned cash It uses the ‘to date’ useless tiny PCIe port at the side of the full length video card slot Pictured here is Gigabyte’s contribution. Because it uses the PCIe silly slot, it will not impede airflow into and out of 3rd party video card fans. There are a couple of Molex power cables which when connected should give … Continue reading USB 3.0

This is just the beginning.. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/outage-hits-microsoft-crm-online-office-365-customers/10359?tag=mantle_skin;content Today it is Microsoft, tomorrow an entire continent or maybe the world. Even if we as individuals do NOT subscribe to the cloud, there will be a background service upon which we rely that is cloud based. The only problem is that we may not realize that we rely on any cloud service until we get a ‘normal service will be resumed as soon as possible’. High pressure will take on an entirely new meaning after you have missed the connection at the airport or railroad station, arrived at the meeting late only to … Continue reading The forecast.. Today will be cloudless

This is the blurb.. “Monitor the status of up to 60 devices on your network or internet by pinging them and testing for a response with this Windows Desktop gadget. Various options available including variable ping timeout, option to display alert and play sound when devices go offline or come online, writing of log file and color scheme options.” There is a version 3.1.3 in the Online Gadget Gallery, but you can get 4.0.1 from here.. http://samwtucker.com/NetworkMonitor I use it on my home network to see what is online. It would be particularly useful in a home network spread over … Continue reading Network monitor gadget

I recently replaced a lost cellphone with an LG Madison (GB255G). It is a retro style flip phone, simple, easy to use and works generally quite well. I didn’t pay too much for it , and I was quite pleased. The cellphone has Bluetooth capability and can hook up to a PC. It can also hook up with the supplied USB cable at least to enable simple file transfers, but if you want to use the LG PC Suite, 64-bit is an impenetrable barrier. I find it hard to believe that any or all software supplied for new LG cellphones … Continue reading Newly released LG ‘retro’ phone requires a retro computer.. Grrrrrrrr

It is 23°C in the computer area, courtesy of a 12000BTU air conditioner unit. The oversize heat-sink and fan are keeping the CPU below 40°C even under load, core and hard drives too. As you can see from Speedfan, the three fans connected to the motherboard are not exactly spinning out of control. Core temperature is steady at 28°C, as are the two internal drives, the highest being the external drive in it’s USB housing at 38°C. So, on the cooling and noise front, all is well. I can’t actually hear the computer at all. What I can hear is … Continue reading The new system – an update..