So just in case you were wondering exactly what fancy equipment I use to produce this blog on I’ll give you a quick rundown:-

None of it is in fact that ultra-hot as in “Wow look at that!” It’s pretty bog-standard run-of-the-mill stuff:

My Computer

The computer that I’m editing this post on is in fact a Kustom Komputa INXPense which is one of the older models from the days when Kustom Komputa did baseline ranges. (OK there is currently the g1RL-p0W3R range: but that’s a limited promotional range.) What Kustom Komputa used to do is to offer several stet designs which were then “Kustomised” – Which means exactly the same as customised; the same word spelled with a “C” – to the individual customer’s specifications and their requirements based upon their usage data supplied on the Quotation Request form. These days Kustom Komputa gain only a preliminary basic set of data from that form, and follow that information up by communication with the customer by email to gain a more specific idea of the customer’s requirements and required specifications.

So the INXPense model that I built for myself (I actually run Kustom Komputa : http://www.kustomkomputa.co.uk) has a SATA 40GB Hitachi HDD containing the C: drive; a SATA 160GB Seagate HDD containing the removable D: drive in a plastic caddy, and also has a 500GB LaCie external HDD connected via USB. If you look at the picture you can see the INXPense computer in the background with the beige-coloured locking-caddy; which was what I had in stock at the time – It’s all built from new components but I cleared a bit of old stock by using it in the construction of this machine. The DVD drive I used was an IDE Samsung SH-S183A. These are in fact very nice drives and Samsung constantly upgrade the firmware and supply a program which automatically upgrades it for you as they release a new update. Moving inside to the guts of the box: It’s running a dual-core AMD Athlon 64 x 2 4200+ 2.2GHz CPU, utilising the standard AMD cooler supplied with the CPU, with 2GB 533MHz DDR2 RAM and a 256MB Asus nVidia graphics card driving a 17″ CRT from a VGA port. (I still prefer CRT monitors no matter what anyone says.) ‘ Not forgetting a fitted floppy drive: I still find a use for floppies to this day. It has 2 NICs; a gigabit ethernet NIC on the Asus motherboard and a second 10/100 card in a PCI slot. The keyboard is an older PS2 Microsoft Natural Keyboard and the mouse is an optical mouse run from USB. I’m using the onboard sound which is Realtek High definition Audio in 4 channel mode fed from the Front channel into a pair of stereo speakers and from the back channel into a 2.1 surround sound setup with a pair of stereo speakers and a very heavy bass speaker. (Music; when I ever get time to play it, sounds absolutely fantastic, as the speakers, despite being cheap, have really good performance.) I also have 2 webcams, a desk microphone, a bluetooth dongle, a  rather old Canoscan FB620U scanner, and a Samsung ML-2010 laser printer; all running from USB.

BT Home Hub – A VOIP Ripoff

What you see in the foreground is my BT Home Hub router complete with BT VOIP phone, which is good to use after work as it’s free between 6PM and Midnight, but the savings over and above a BT landline made during working hours are so negligible as to be ignored: Therefore for normal purposes I have a BT line routed through an external carrier that charges me a 5p connection fee for every UK landline call and nothing else no matter how long I stay on the line; therefore I can be on the phone for 2 hours and it’ll cost me only 5p: That’s about 11 cents US.

Money-Saver

I am going to tell you who this carrier is so that you too can make huge savings if you live in the UK: What you do is you go to

 http://www.18185.co.uk

in your browser, sign up using your Credit Card, Debit Card, or Direct Debiting mandate, specify the number(s) you want to register with the service, and as soon as you’ve been verified you’re away – It really is that simple. What you do after you’re registered is dial 18185 before every call you make to a landline or a mobile and benefit from zero pence a minute with a 5p connection charge for landline calls, and currently 4.5p a minute for calls to mobiles.

UPS

For business purposes I have a dedicated non-BT line…But that’s another matter. The router is sitting on top of one of my two UPS units: Basically this UPS feeds this computer box and the other (spare) computer box. The other UPS feeds everything else, such as router. monitor, external HDD, desk-light – Oh you’d be surprised how few people think to wire a light into a post-UPS circuit. My desk-light consists of an 11Watt PL-11 fluorescent, which uses so little current (4mA at 240V) it’ll even work after the UPS starts beeping out that it’s empty.

US UPS

(I often wonder about American UPS units: It follows that since the voltage used is half that used in the UK then the current drawn by a computer running on 120V would be twice that used by an identical computer running on 240V: Which means that an American UPS has to handle twice the current of an equivalent UK UPS and therefore must by necessity have double the rating; making it larger, bulkier, and hotter-running.)

The Other Comp

The next piccy is my “spare” or second comp: this is an even older baseline model; namely the first baseline model ever built by Kustom Komputa and known as “Exel”: Now this is so dated it actually has a single-core Athlon 64 3500+ CPU running at 2.2GHz, has a 10/100 NIC on the Shuttle motherboard; but all the same it still has 2GB 533MHz DDR2 RAM and also a 512MB Asus nVidia graphics card. It has a single 160GB HDD partitioned into 2 drives, it has a 2 DVD-RW drives; one is a Samsung SH-S182D, the other is some generic heap salvaged from the spares box. It also has a 7 drive card-reader. Also there’s an external floppy drive too. Currently I don’t even have a monitor connected to it; if I do use it I connect through the network and use the CRT screen to view it via my usual comp.

I Still Love CRTs

Finally here’s the old Orion CRT monitor: Which has a better picture than any TFT/LED screen I’ve ever seen, even in its 9th year of life. – No word if a lie; it was built December 1999 and has been working fully efficiently ever since. Beat that if you like/can. Oh sorry; there’s no picture of that, so instead here’s my Sony Ericsson z750i flip phone. (Below).

I’ll eventually try to get some better pics; but these will have to do for now.