Microsoft Security Essentials Rated Top Free Anti-Malware Solution
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UK magazine Computer Shopper have rated Microsoft’s new Security Essentials 1.0 anti-malware package as top-of-the-class with regard to free antivirus solutions. In the February 2010 edition of the magazine, which brings product news, computer help, tests and analyses new technologies, and runs competitions, Microsoft’s offering was awarded the Budget Buy award and rated with four stars; the same score as AVG 9.0. As we’ll go on to see further down, Microsoft’s product has a smaller footprint and is much more environment-friendly than AVG.
(You may wonder why it was given a budget buy award when it is free: Well free appears to me to be a decent budget!) Computer Shopper claim that their specialised anti-virus testing lab is one of the best in the world, and a member of AMTSO. (Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organisation.) They use viruses downloaded live from the internet as malware samples, rather than having a cumulative collection of virus-samples that may have mutated considerably since the sample was collected. In short; they test using XP Professional with the SP2 service-pack applied, and ensure that the anti-malware solution under test is updated with the very latest available malware definitions. The anti-malware solutions tested were both free and paid products. In the category of free products were: -
The lowest-scoring of these was Avira AntiVir Personal. In summary the magazine said that although it was easy to use, they were very disappointed at its poor web-threat-detection, as well as its unreliable automatic updates. Second from bottom, but yet in third place, came Alwil’s Avast! Home Edition, which has loads of features and provides a good all-round malware defence. – However others did a better job. AVG 9.0 was released while CS were testing, and despite having an unfair advantage in a number of ways, the product continued to hold its own among the best free security software available, coming in second-place out of the four. In first-place amongst the free-category was Microsoft’s Security Essentials 1.0. Computer Shopper’s summary verdict was that it was lightweight, easy-to-use, and accurate. They said that Security Essentials was the perfect choice if you’d rather not shell-out on a paid-for security suite. So although AVG had an herein-unspecified ‘unfair advantage’, it was nevertheless beaten back to second-place by the cream-of-the-crop from Microsoft. Why was this? Taking a look at the stated minimum hardware specifications required to run the 2 solutions might give us a clue as to at least a part of the reason: -
Unlike its resource-hungry rival, Security Essentials requires lower specs to operate, indicating that it has a much smaller footprint: It only needs a 500MHz processor, for instance, it only requires a minimum 250MB RAM, and will operate comfortably within 150MB disk-space.
Another thing CS stated about Security Essentials that gave it the edge was that it “rivalled the best of the paid-for anti-malware suites.” : It ended up with an overall-score of 18/19, having failed to protect against live-malware on just one occasion out of 19 attacks. The software didn’t interfere with or delay the running of any other software either.
Microsoft’s previous attempt at anti-malware; namely Windows Live One-Care, was rather lame; but this time round, the softies have done themselves proud. I myself have written a number of positive comments about Microsoft Security Essentials; one or two of them on this blog itself. Apparently it appears that everyone else is doing the same; which can only mean that Microsoft have yet again excelled themselves with an excellent product, worthy of the accolades bestowed upon it. |
Guest-Postings Requested: I’ll be Scaling-Back a Bit
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As you’ve probably noticed, the number of posts being produced has increased in the last couple of months to between 5 and 8 a week. This has been quite a heavy load on me, as it hasn’t really allowed me to concentrate fully on other things related to this blog, such as implementation of other features related to increased delivery of service, etc. As a result of this I’ve made the decision that I’m going to have to scale back on the number of posts that I produce. I do, of course, encourage people to submit guest-posts: - How do I go about sending in a guest-post? Submitting guest posts isn’t as simple as jotting down the post on a text file or Word document and emailing it “as is”. You see I, and any other blogger for that matter, would ask that if you want me to publish your work on my blog, you make things as easy as possible for me: - That entails setting your article out as a web-page, as you’d like to see it published on this blog. When you’ve done that, save the web – page in html format, in an htm or html file, and send it, along with any images (.gif, .jpg, .png) and a text-only copy also, plus a very short 150-or-less-word-biography of the author, to guestpost at kustomkomputa dot co dot uk. I don’t promise to publish it, and even if I do I don’t promise to publish it exactly as you’ve laid it out; but I’ll keep it as true to the original as I can.
The benefits of guest-posting The last time I asked for guest-posts I did so by making the matter into a form of competition: The result of that was that I initially had a few guest-posts submitted, about half were published, and then the whole idea fell flat on its face, and nobody bothered sending in any more. People; guest-posting is a great way of getting recognised and being heard: It goes toward becoming established as an authority in your field of expertise, and not only that but you’ll also get a link back to your own blog plus some free internet real-estate. – So if you’re a techie-type with your own particular tech-page or blog it’s an unbelievably good way of spreading the word, increasing your blog-traffic, and promoting your brand. In other words you’re not just helping me out by writing content for my blog, but you’re also helping yourself out by advertising yourself, your brand, and your blog. So the immediate future is that I’ll be producing less free-content for the time-being. Of course I’ll still produce some, but not as much as I have recently been producing. I’m not going to be sitting on my bum playing games or doing any less than I was before. I’ll be doing more work behind the scenes and less actually free-content-wise. On my tod I’m only a single person: I don’t have an entire team dedicated to running and maintaining this blog. Apart from the odd guest-post that I publish, I do everything single-handedly: The coding, maintenance, design, production, publication, the lot; it’s all done by Yours Truly. When I finally get the resources I’ll start outsourcing; but in the meantime I’m all on my tod. Bearing that in mind I need to get to a point where this blog becomes a self-financing operation. I’ve been running at a loss to this point in time, and that’s something that can’t continue indefinitely. In fact it’s something that can’t continue period. I’m going to have to spend a lot of time behind the scenes to generate revenue from this blog. if you thought my banner-ads pay for it then you’re very much mistaken: At best they assist towards financing it. I’m currently on David Risley’s BlogMasters Club course, (Click the BlogMasters Club banner in the footer of this and all other pages and posts for more.) on which I’m learning from square 1 how to generate an income from blogging, rather than running at a loss as I have been doing during my first year of blogging. I am learning, and I have so much to implement, but if I put all of my efforts to creation of free content then I’ll lag behind and continue running at a loss. Conclusion So while I’m easing off the posting, you have an increased opportunity to get yourself heard, to promote your brand and image, to become known as an authority, to advertise your blog and increase your traffic; all by guest-posting. I currently have between one and two-hundred visitors a day, and, at the time of writing, this blog ranks 560,261 out of X-billion on Quantcast. So get with it: I look forward to reading and publishing your tech-postings. If you don’t send any in then don’t be at all surprised if you see the number of new free-posts published drop from this point onwards. ‘Any questions, points, whatever? – Please comment.
Let David Risley teach you the basics of a six-figure problogger business in only 3 days. The course includes 14 videos, and has a 92 page transcript, checklist, and audio podcasts of all modules included. Download my FREE 5-page .pdf report on 3-Day Money |
Beyond: The Public Newsletter – 6th November 2009
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The Friday Moan It’s great to see that you lot are so rich. I thought there was meant to be a recession on; but obviously that was just negative-media-hype. I’m still looking for the destitute impoverished homeless masses sleeping in the park, but all I’ve seen is a couple of winos. – Should I add that I smelled them first: Aroma d’vagrant et l’alcohol. I also fail to see the long queues for mostly–empty shelves at the local supermarket. – So much for recession. This one is meant to be as bad as the one in the 1930’s; yet all the evidence seems to point to it being fairly superficial. Both the British and American economies have started to show signs of growth incidentally. The reason I started off in this way is because, a few weeks back, I launched a small competition that had a small cash-prize associated with it. In the first week 2 people submitted 4 entries between them, and I published one from each person. The first one went straight to Number 10 in the kkomp Top 10 and then sank. The second went straight to Number 9 and floated around between Number 8 and 16 for a week before also sinking. The object of the exercise was to write a post that would get to Number 1 and stay there over the Xmas Holiday Season. – Impossible? – No; I’ve already written a post that stayed at No 1 for over 6 months. I imagined that my 150+ original visitors per day might like to write something, get published, grab a free piece of internet real-estate, partake in a bit of link-love, and maybe win a small cash prize too. I was wrong, so you lot miss out: However, since the Season of Goodwill to all Gluttonous Temporary-Alcoholics looms in the not-too-distant future, I’m going to offer a prize to anyone who can get their post to the Number 1 spot in the kkomp Top 10 on Christmas Day and stay there all day, or longer than any other post can on that day. I don’t quite know why I’m offering to do this, as it appears obvious that you lot are all wealthy and happily well-off thank you very much. However, since I’ve scrapped the original competition due to lack of support, there’s the part of the prize-fund that I haven’t spent on eBay, namely £10UKP still up for grabs. - If you want it then get submitting your guest posts now to drafts at kustomkomputa dot co dot uk. Whoever is at Number 1 with their post in the kkomp.com Top 10 on Xmas day and stays there the longest wins the tenner. – And yes, if it’s me with any of my posts at Number 1 on that day, I will donate the £10UKP to the Overworked Female Blogger’s Benevolent Fund, of which I am the proprietor and sole benefactor. – So if you want it, rather than allow me to have it, then get writing. Furthermore… Furthermore, on a totally different topic, Windows 7 is fantastic: If you don’t have a copy yet then get one: Home Premium is good enough for most people, including myself. If you don’t have a computer capable of running it then get one or build one and run it. I encourage everyone to use the 64-bit version, which requires around 2GBs of RAM minimum. Pretty much all computers built in the last 3 years are capable of running the 64-bit version; except for netbooks, which might find it rather heavy-going, don’t have 2 GB RAM as a rule, and would be better off with the 32-bit version. RC Running Out of Time On that note I will remind all of you skinflints and freeloaders who are determined to stick with the Release Candidate of Windows 7 because it costs zilch, nothing; that your free Windows operating system will shut down every 2 hours starting on March 1st 2010. – There really is no point staying in the Freeloader’s Legs all winter in a pokey little room with a packet of extra-strong mints for warmth and an ancient laptop with Windows 7 RC on it ‘til shutdown do you part. – Splash out: The RTM version is more stable than the RC anyway. Seasoned Suddenly it’s Autumn / Fall; well it is in the UK anyway: No sooner do the clocks go back than the balmy Indian summer turns into a facsimile of a monsoon, temperatures drop, deciduous trees shed their leaves… Actually it’s not all that bad so far: Despite the early darkness I’ve seen a bumblebee hard at work on my still-blooming lavender on October 25th, and the following day I saw a black ladybird with red spots on a bush…No the red spots were on the ladybird, not the bush, silly. Enjoy this mild weather in the UK; because I predict that it’ll stay mild with a few exceptions right into early December, and then it’ll unexpectedly turn bitterly cold – I mean arctic cold – for a couple or a few weeks. I predict that there is a 50/50 chance of a traditional Victorian Christmas Day being entirely possible this year due to the natural weather. What makes me predict this? – The way that nature’s behaving, that’s what. I’m a Witch: I could well be right: Then again, the last time I made a massive and well-publicised weather prediction, that time a prediction of a blazing June and a tropical July, we had one of the worst and wettest summers on record. (1997 if I remember rightly.)
Blog Matters I’ve recently done some work on improving the design of this blog. – As you will appreciate, although I’m not a designer by trade, I am learning more about aspects of blog design and the science behind it. You’ll notice that a few months ago I’ve changed the colour-scheme to blue and black with a smattering of red, from pink and red with a smattering of everything else. This blog actually started off fairly aimlessly and directionless back in June 2008 with a not-very-good pink theme. – I never changed the theme since; I just hacked and customised the heck out of it. What you see today is still using the original basic theme framework called “Serenity Pink”. The logo started life as a pink line that was part of the original theme, would you believe. On the subject of the logo; you’ll notice that at long last it’s relatively decent: It’s actually a brand, rather than a brand confusion. There is a reason why it’s been so crappy for so long until now: That reason is because I was trying to minimise the work involved by enhancement and recycling of the older crappy logos – aka laziness at its most sneaky. They say that lazy people always end up doing the most work; and in this case that was true. At the end of the day I had to scrap the multiply-re-enhanced design; if one can actually call it a design, and start again from scratch: Something which I should have done in the case of the logo some time ago, like a year ago. Please understand that when I started this blog I was totally inexperienced with regard to blogging. – Yes really 100% inexperienced and completely without a clue: I’d heard of a blog before, although I wasn’t sure what a blog was; even though I’d read quite a few blogs and didn’t even realise that they were blogs. – That was my total knowledge of blogging at the time. I knew how to use html, was clueless about php, knew a bit about javascript, and was a corporate addict who avoided open-source software as I perceived it as dodgy stuff. An online acquaintance, namely David Risley, who is now a top problogger, and was rising to that status at the time, suggested that I started a blog and recommended that I do so using WordPress. After further talking with him and mulling the issue over in my mind I decided to give it a go. Installing WordPress was something that actually made me freak. – Honestly; I unzipped the files, downloaded them to the server, looked again, and screamed! - I’m a trained and qualified electronics technician. I was never trained in blogging. I’d self-trained in software-maintenance plus basic-peripheral devices-setup-and-maintenance, and made a living from it for a short-time. I learned about hardware initially from sitting in on lectures at college for the computer course, and realised how actually simplistic it was to me on the basis of my electronics background. (I’d actually been studying and practicing practical electronics (Mainly analogue electronics.) as a hobby since age 7. – I only actually qualified in it later in life when I took the initiative to enhance my hobby at an academic level.) - So I’ve learned and gained experience of computing at both a software and a hardware level, having an electronics background. I’m still learning and gaining experience of blogging right now. I’ve done Yaro Starak’s BecomeaBlogger course, which competently teaches the basics of blogging, and I’m currently undergoing David Risley’s BlogMasters course, which teaches how to blog professionally and properly, as well as how to generate an income from one’s blog as a problogger. Time is a great hurdle to me currently, as I don’t have oodles of time to spend blogging: However, having said that, when I decide to fully throw my oar into the problogger pond I’ll be devoting most if not all of my time to this blog on a full-time professional basis, and hopefully generating a living from it too. Does that mean I’m a problogger? Give me a chance; I haven’t even finished the course yet. Could I currently live on the earnings I’m making from this blog? Only if I were a nun with a vow of poverty and all my living expenses paid for by the church and/or state. Do I intend to become a problogger? Eventually, yes: Hopefully in the not-too-distant future. Do I intend to make a living from this blog? Eventually yes; though maybe not just from this blog. Can I start making a living from and/or monetising this blog now? Well, in a way I am starting to monetise it in line with the BlogMasters training; although there’s a long way to go yet. I’m not knowledgeable enough or in a position to tell you a lot about problogging at this time: However, when I’ve finished the BlogMasters course I’ll be trained in a lot of the aspects of problogging and will have more to say on the matter, as well as more to practice and implement too. If you’re interested in problogging as a means of generating a living, then I’ll be advertising the BlogMasters course at some point in early 2010, when I’ve finished it and the doors open again to allow in more students. What I can tell you now is that it’s a six-month course spread out over 19 modules; each with multiple training videos downloadable online, along with transcripts and to-do lists. During the course you’ll get direct access to David Risley himself, to ask questions, make suggestions for enhancing the course material, say what you’d like to learn about, and generally gain the benefit of his expertise in the realm of problogging. David Risley been blogging, initially as a hobby. since before blogging was called blogging, and he’s gained a wealth of experience over the years by buying lots and lots of training materials from a variety of other bloggers and interacting with them. Also he’s what you might describe as a born-problogger, so he’s used a lot of common-sense and integrated his natural abilities into his rise to success. On another thread; I currently have a survey running on this blog, and I’d appreciate it if all my readers would complete it for me. It’s a fairly short survey which is conducted via Survey Monkey on behalf of kkomp.com. I forget when it closes; either today or in a week I think. Nobody who takes the survey will be personally identified in any way. The answers that you give to the survey will assist me to enhance this blog further and in a way that you readers would like to see happening. To take part in the survey please click here.
Back to technology I do like to have a decent working pair of computers at all times: Why a pair? Well, if one should fail then I can always use the other while I’m repairing the failed one. Also I can try out new software on one of them and use the other for more mundane office work. It is with this in mind that I once again encourage everyone to upgrade to Windows 7: With possibly a few exceptions for the time being. Read the article Windows 7 is Out There: Should You Upgrade? for more on this matter. Other posts on the subject of Windows 7 recently include: -
How to Create a Task Manager Desktop Icon in Windows 7 Windows 7 has made using your computer much easier –except for one aspect: Calling up the task manager. In this article we learn how to very simply create a Task Manager icon on your Windows 7 Desktop to simplify the process of calling up the Task Manager. Can I Run Windows 7 64-bit on the XP Machine I Ran 32-bit on? In which we look at running Windows 7 64-bit on your existing box.
There is a particular post which I feel will be very valuable to anybody running an online business. In fact it will be beneficial also to anyone who runs a physical corporate business also: - Expert Help to Boost Your Business – For Free! Seriously–this "Group Think Tank" process has the capability to increase your profits by up to 1,000%–or more–before the year is over. A number of top-business experts have got together to share their valuable experience with you at no cost. – Yes that’s right; it’s free of charge expertise from top businesspeople. Can you really afford to miss it? The next session is this coming Thursday. I know I’ll be listening in. On the subject of business; you might find this post useful also: - You could be leaving money on the table if you’re not making the most of monetising your RSS feed. Yaro Starak’s had the doors open to another of his courses this last week. Oh you didn’t take advantage of it? Well you’ll have to wait until the doors open again in 2010 then. – I did publicise it rather much. – I even had an advert on Google for it: - Doors Closing Soon … Oops; too late.
Lisa Jackson’s been video-making again: See her Halloween production here: - - Totally off-topic for this blog; but what the heck? A little laughter never hurt anyone.
… And finally; here’s a rundown of the rest of the articles published since the last Public Newsletter: - Benefits of Doing Your Own Upgrades All you need is some basic electronics knowledge, general software knowledge,… a steady hand and relatively good hand-eye-coordination, and you’re away. To help get optimum performance from your computer, you should keep your drivers up to date. How to Back-up Social Media – Bonus Article Social media has no built-in backup; but there are applications out there which can do the job as far as Facebook and Twitter are concerned. In this post I project my predictions, based upon my impressions of quickly-advancing technology, of how a computer could be in the year 2020. An Introduction to Wireless Computer Speakers Andy Zain tells us a bit about wireless computer speakers in this article: I don’t think this idea will ever go mainstream; but I’m sure that it has its uses. Fake Antivirus Software is Infecting on a Massive Scale Partly due to the corporate greed of the kosher affiliate networks, there are now criminal affiliate networks peddling malware. Criminals are making a fortune! - That’s it for this Public Newsletter then: Enjoy your weekend, and if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere then remember, it’s getting cold outside lately; so why not stay in more, sit in front of the computer, and among other things, read kkomp.com.
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Doors Closing Soon
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I feel like doing something unusual today; so what I’ve decided to do is to post a (slightly edited) copy of an email that I sent to people on my mailing list. It’s regarding a free report along with a course that Yaro Starak is launching next week; the Membership Site Mastermind course. Perhaps you’ve already heard some of the chatter with regard to this; maybe not. Whatever the case, this course could - and I speak quite sincerely here – be the answer to all of your financial worries at the end of the day. Why? Read more |
Beyond – The Public Newsletter: 23rd October 2009
| Hello to all my readers. Welcome to the latest of the bi-weekly Public Newsletters. – At least, it’s the latest until the next one’s published.
Getting a good-looking date The first thing I’m going to tell you in this Newsletter is why I always write the date, online, as above in the title: - It’s all because of Americans. who make up around 1/4 to 1/3rd (0.25 to 0.34) of my readership. As you probably already know; Americans write the date differently compared to we Brits: Where an American would write the date above as 10.23.2009 Brits would write it as 23.10.2009 From the above it seems fairly obvious, provided that you are aware that they’re both the same day, that one is the date written by an American, and one is the date written by a Brit; particularly if you know that it’s the date related to an article published on 23rd October: There’s really no issue there; until it comes to a date like 08.09.2009, or 10.11.2010: One of those dates was written by an American, but which one? - So rather than cause any confusion by writing the date as 08.09.2009; which to an American is 9th August, yet to a Brit is 8th September, I write it out so that it can be understood whichever way round you do it in your part of the world. “Surely everybody knows what month it is!” You retort. Currently yes; but imagine you’re an American digging through archives, finding the post you’re looking for by date, loading it onto a USB stuck, driving to your next destination, and then finding that the post was written by a Brit and that you got the wrong post because you read the date in American format rather than British format. Blog Contents Page Next; I’ve automated the Blog Contents page: In doing so I’ve lost a number of the listings. Everything related to that is explained near the top of that page itself; but I’ll reproduce the important parts here also: - “Previously I was hard-coding each post into the list manually. I actually devised a way of doing it fairly quickly and with little effort. – I just wasn’t happy with doing things that way though: It was something else that had to be done, costing more time, and I also didn’t always remember to do it after every post’s publication. It is in the light of the above that I’ve configured an existing script to handle the matter of posting and updating this Blog Contents page. While the operation is almost perfect, the script is unable to handle [all the previously viewable entries in the list.] …I’ve just done the best I can for now. …Approximately 7 months of posts are currently listed, in total. I’m seeking a solution that will allow me to list more posts: Please bear with me until that time.”
Changes to the Welcome Page As you may have noticed, I’ve partially automated the Welcome Page by adding a display of a snippet of my latest post to the page, as well as adding a clickable listings link to any of the latest 20 posts. I’ve also amended and partially rewritten the “Objective of This Blog” text section, in addition to which I’ve made all fonts on the page Trebuchet MS, and all linked text is now standard-link-blue (0000FF hex value.). Reduced input As I stated in the last Public Newsletter, I might yet have to reign back on the frequency with which I post articles at some point. It’s not that I don’t like writing; it’s just that I don’t have a lot of time some days or weeks. If there’s no content added to this blog one day, don’t instantly assume that it’s died. – Anyway, I currently announce future content on the welcome Page, previous to publication, so I’ll announce any gaps too, or simply won’t announce when there’ll be no new material. – If it’s not announced then it won’t happen. Yes I do hand-code that announcement; although if anybody knows of a plugin which will list articles scheduled for publication then I’d be most happy to know about it myself. – With WordPress there’s normally a plugin for it, whatever it is. – It’s just a matter of finding it. I’m going to be producing a different type of content as well as free articles from this coming Monday onwards; that being paid-for premium content, which will be on sale in due course: Yes I’m beginning to step up a gear with monetising this blog. – Well something’s got to pay the rent. As a result I’ll be unable to produce as many articles as I have recently been doing – I just don’t have an unlimited amount of time on my hands. I can probably still produce a few per week for the forseeable future; but if you have something technical and factual that you’d like to post on this blog; be my guest, literally: Submit your prospective guest-posts in line with the contest Can Your Post Make it to The Number One Slot? You never know; you might win.
Are you lot all rolling in money? If you’re not then I suggest that you enter my competition that I launched back in September: - September 28, 2009 Can Your Post Make it to The Number One Slot? - I’ve had 4 entries from 2 people so far: 2 were published and both made it into the kkomp Top 10, but sadly dropped out again without even making it to the No1 slot. Can you do better; or are you so stinking rich that you just turn your nose up at the cash prize? Just imagine if people like David Risley or John Chow entered the competition and your post beat theirs! Speaking of John Chow, whilst on the subject of “rolling in money”: I thought I’d share this video he made with you. – You see blogging’s not actually as difficult as it may sound, and the common reason why people don’t blog is because they can’t be bothered. There is money to be made blogging; does that suddenly make it more appealing to you? John Chow is such a success story, and in this video he tells of why he blogs.
Not all blogs make money, however. Indeed some aren’t intended to make money; they’re just personal or hobby blogs. Others are intended to make money but don’t do so. – Unfortunately gone are the days when you could just start up a blog, throw up a load of banner advertising, and become rich overnight. These days a professional blog has to be run much more like any business would be run. I’ll be dealing further with this subject around the turn of the year, when I’ll be advertising and talking about David Risley’s Blog Masters Club when the doors open again. I’m currently on the course myself, and I can assure you that it’s well worth the cost, and some more. It’s not just a course that teaches you how to set up and run a blog like many of the others. On this course it’s assumed that you know the root basics, such as how to set up WordPress, etc. (If you don’t then there is a third-party instructional video available on the course’s site, and, if need be, David Risley himself will help you out too if you’re a paid-up member.) – More on that in due course. In the meantime, if you’d like more information on monetising your blog and making some money with it then click this link. If you don’t currently blog but would be prepared to give it a go, then entering this competition by posting a guest-post could be the start of a new career moving in a new direction for you. – Whether or not you win the cash prize. Membership Sites If you’re not yet convinced about membership sites, despite my extra article with regard to the subject on Tuesday, then may I suggest that you click here and take a look at free video with regard to how Daniel Scocco built up his $10,000 membership site. – You could do just the same, or maybe better? The Postings So without further ado; let’s take a look at the posts since the last Public Newsletter: - Some people are still viewing this blog using Internet Explorer 6: In fact someone emailed me and asked me why this blog was all weird-looking and spread-out all over the page. Naturally I asked the enquirer which browser they were using, to which they replied Internet Explorer 6. I’ve seen this blog through IE6 on a non-updated-computer before, and it’s not pretty to say the least. I reminded this person that if they use a crappy browser to view this blog then they’ll get a crappy view of this blog. Although it’s the default browser that ships with XP, it’s over 8 years old and it sucks. If you use IE6 then update it to something newer; even if you do stick with Internet Explorer, like IE7 or, preferably, IE8. – Better still use FireFox or even Safari. Your SATA drives may find that AHCI is beneficial to them under Windows Vista or 7 October 5, 2009 - Death-Call of a Hard-Drive
Yes this is actually a link to a page where you can play actual recordings of the sounds of dying and dead hard-drives Are the softies after another lot of EU fines? Will using a 64-bit Windows operating system as opposed to a 32-bit operating system make your computer safer? I do suggest that you give this security suite a try: It’s very effective and very free. – In fact it’s a lot better than a lot of paid-for solutions I could mention. On October 9th I did a Public Newsletter; but I’m ignoring that for the purposes of this one. There are graphics cards and there’s this graphics card. – If you can afford it. While System Restore does this along with other things; here’s how to take a dedicated registry backup and store it to file. If you use XP then you may have noticed that when you click your Start button the Start Menu takes a fraction of a second to respond. This article tells you how to remove that delay. Will your shiny new 64-bit installation run on your ancient hardware? You have a DC supply several volts higher than you need it to be: This article will sow you how to change that to the correct voltage with a simple inexpensive circuit. ‘Problems seeing text on your screen in XP? Read this article before an optician drains your bank-balance. What’s the difference between the chkdsk in XP and the chkdsk in Windows 7? …And if you’re running Windows you need those patches! This is the extra article I spoke of in the membership sites section above.
Microsoft actually caused one of the security vulnerabilities that they patched in October’s Patch Tuesday. There are other types of RAID; and it might be an idea to use another type than zero. No boys; this isn’t member-measuring software, despite my rattling on about membership sites; but you might find it a very useful add-on for FireFox nevertheless.
Finally: - I almost had goner-ear A short break from tech & blogging; and the reason why I’m now rushing to catch up and get things back on schedule: - On Tuesday, as I was getting ready for the day, I was cleaning out my ears with a cotton-bud, pulled it out, and the cotton head remained in my ear. I tried to hook it out with the rest of the thing, and just pushed it deeper. For those who would like a glimpse of the efficiency of the UK’s National Health Service; read on: - I phoned the Accident & Emergency department at the hospital, who advised me to visit the local health clinic who’d remove it for me. I turned up at the clinic to be told that the necessary equipment had gone off for a service, and I should see my doctor, who’d be able to do it at the surgery. I managed to get an appointment at 5PM same day. The doc looked in my ear and said it was too deep and in a risky position up against my ear-drum; so she advised me to go to the hospital to have it removed. I went to the hospital, and after a 2 1/2 hour wait I was told that the Accident & Emergency Department were unable to take the risk of attempting to remove it for the same reason as my doctor said. The department with the equipment to do the job was now closed, and wouldn’t be open until tomorrow. (Yesterday) Round in a circle and a dead-end: Day wasted! – So much for the NHS. The blockage up against my ear-drum was starting to hurt big time too. Yesterday I attended the hospital again; the Ear, Nose, and Throat clinic. A&E had sent my notes down, and they were waiting. The receptionist said that they wouldn’t be able to see me that day, and that I should come back tomorrow. I hit the roof: - “I was told by A&E to come here today at this time; they’ve even sent my notes down. I’m in pain, I’ve just had to travel again and take time out when I should be working. Please see if someone can slot me in.” The receptionist vanished into a back corridor for a few minutes, and returned with the news that they could see me after all; but I’d have to wait an hour. By Midday I’d been in and had the two-minute procedure to remove the cotton-bud end. Due to inefficiency and incompetence the whole thing cost me somewhere approaching £100 UKP, and cost the NHS as much too I suspect. That’s it then: ‘Nothing else currently to add as far as I’m aware. – I’ll now do the final edit and queue this post for publication. Have a great weekend.
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EU’s Latest Antitrust-Stab at Microsoft: Furthermore -
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Whilst I agree that there must be fair legislation with regard to anticompetitive practices, it may appear that the European Union has gone over the top in its latest antitrust probe against Microsoft: - From Computer Buyer Magazine’s website: - “The European Commission has told Microsoft that it believes the tying of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser with its Windows operating system infringes EU antitrust laws. The Commission has sent a Statement of Objections (SO) to Microsoft which outlines its view that the tying of IE to Windows provides Internet Explorer with an artificial distribution advantage which other web browsers are unable to match. This “harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice”. It EU executive is also concerned that “the ubiquity of IE creates artificial incentives for content providers and software developers to design websites or software primarily for Internet Explorer which ultimately risks undermining competition and innovation in the provision of services to consumers”. Microsoft has eight weeks to reply the SO and will then have the right to an Oral Hearing. If SO findings confirmed, the Commission may impose a fine and require Microsoft to make changes to Windows that would ameliorate the Commission’s concerns. In a short statement, Microsoft said it was still examining the SO. “We are committed to conducting our business in full compliance with European law. We are studying the Statement of Objections now.” The decision to issue the SO is based on legal principles established in the 2007 ruling by the European Court of First Instance, which upheld the Commission’s 2004 finding that Microsoft had abused its dominant position in the PC operating system market by tying Windows Media Player to its operating system. That judgement saw Microsoft release a special N version of Windows XP without Media Player, which remained available as a free download. The company was also fined and has to date been ordered to pay fines totalling €1.68 billion for this and other antitrust violations.” This is just too much: It’s no secret that the EU is a corrupt powerbase of political subterfuge and scam-mongering. This appears to be just another attempt to swell the EU coffers even further. Not content in just charging Britain millions of Euros in membership fees so that European politicians can hire call-girls and throw lush parties, the Eurocrats like to have a stab at Microsoft from time to time; as Microsoft is where the money is. In early 2008, Microsoft was fined 899m Euros by the European Commission for anti-competitive behaviour over bundling in the Windows Media Player and browser into Windows. As if that wasn’t enough loot for them, they’ve decided to have a second snipe and see if they can get some more out of the software giant. Now this is rather ancient news from Computer Buyer; as on the 16th June I reported on this in the article “Europe Doesn’t want IE8”, and I also reported Microsoft’s solution to the problem: - “In order to comply with European competition law, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 will be removed from the European versions of Windows 7. Microsoft made the decision to drop the web browser in order to stay on the right side of the European Commission and avoid further possible fines. Versions of Windows 7 released in Europe will have an E suffix to show that they are European versions that don’t include Internet Explorer.” - So if they don’t include IE then what browser do they include? Internet Explorer is a fundamental software component of the Windows operating system; and it goes a lot deeper than just the browser GUI that IE users see. Without IE, there is, in all reality, no Windows as such. Without IE there are just a number of disjointed codes resembling an incomplete operating system. Conversely, Windows Media Player is more an app than an integral part of Windows. This becomes puzzling now: How, if there’s no browser, does the customer add a browser so that they can download anything? ‘Beats me! According to the BBC Website, in an article from 12th June 2009: - "In terms of potential remedies, if the Commission were to find that Microsoft had committed an abuse, the Commission has suggested that consumers should be offered a choice of browser not that Windows should be supplied without a browser at all," said the Commission in a statement responding to Microsoft’s announcement. It said Microsoft’s approach of offering the program to computer manufacturers "may potentially be more positive" in terms of remedying its alleged abusive behaviour.” -Which still doesn’t really answer the question. – I mean if I were to buy a copy of Windows 7 E, post RTM, to install on a computer that I just built: OK I’ve installed it. How do I get a browser onto it? There is no browser. – No wait; I have a choice of browser? – If the EU have their way then yes. OK; I’ll install FireFox. Is that how it’s going to be? That would actually be rather good.
- The Eurocrats are targeting the IE GUI itself perhaps; and maybe they have a point: If the IE GUI is supplied along with Windows then it gives the IE browser an unfair advantage in a way; because many computer users aren’t geeks. - In fact many (European) computer users are rather clueless when it comes to computers. – Other than instant messaging, browsing to find their family tree, and email, they really don’t have much idea of anything else that the internet has to offer. (I know, it’s a bit of a wild assertion; but if a lot of British users are anything to go by then it’s true.) – Therefore, when they buy the Windows operating system from Microsoft they stick it on their computer as is, if it isn’t preinstalled, and they use it as is: Sucky browser, the lot. Possibly half of them aren’t even aware that there’s an alternative to IE. The other half may have heard of FireFox, Opera, Safari… But are of the attitude: “If it works; why fix it?” …But Microsoft have even included a function in Windows 7 to deactivate IE – The GUI bit, that is, for people who don’t want IE on their computer at all, even though they run Windows, as a primary or secondary OS. (Linux users come to mind.) Nevertheless the non-nerdy users probably won’t bother to deactivate IE and choose an alternative browser. So what are the choices? Supply Windows with another browser? That’ll give the new browser an unfair advantage no matter which browser they use; although the Eurocrats may have problems getting any money out of Microsoft for promoting another company’s browser. – But Microsoft themselves probably wouldn’t be too happy about promoting someone else’s product. What if they supplied Windows with no browser and let the customer make up their own mind which one to install? – The problem then would be that the customer has absolutely no way of downloading any software whatsoever: No browser = no browsing = no downloads. Email a browser to the customer. – Yeah right. As soon as the malware distributors hear of that they’ll spoof the email and get everyone to download tons of malware into a blind operating system. Forget that straight away: It’s a definite non-starter. The only option left, then, is to include a copy of every browser available that works with Windows on the installation disc, and let the customer choose which one is to be used from the offing as the operating system installs. As I said before; that appears to be how it’s going to work; but we might have to wait until the RTM to know for certain. What do you think? P.S. The next EU antitrust suite against Microsoft will probably be targeting Windows Live Mail, or maybe even Windows itself: - “The European Commission has told Microsoft that it believes the tying of Microsoft’s Windows operating system with its range of Windows operating systems infringes EU antitrust laws.” – The Eurocrats have got to find enough money to continue to live in the lap of luxury somehow. – Those call-girls cost quite a bit! |
Europe Doesn’t Want IE8?
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In order to comply with European competition law, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 will be removed from the European versions of Windows 7. Microsoft made the decision to drop the web browser in order to stay on the right side of the European Commission and avoid further possible fines. Versions of Windows 7 released in Europe will have an E suffix to show that they are European versions that don’t include Internet Explorer. Despite this fiasco, computer manufacturers will still be able to pre-install any browser that they wish to install on computers that come with Windows 7 pre-installed; and the betting is that they’ll install IE8; which makes the whole exercise rather self-defeating. nevertheless, it keeps the Eurocrats happy, and it prevents Microsoft from getting fined further, so at the end of the day nobody loses, despite another bit of mindless bureaucracy from Brussels. According to vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, Dave Heiner. "The worldwide launch of Windows 7 is fast approaching, but a pending legal case raises concerns about the sufficiency of competition among the web browsers that are available to Windows users in Europe. In January the European Commission provided its preliminary view that Microsoft’s ‘bundling’ of Internet Explorer in Windows violated European competition law." Every operating system needs a browser of some kind. It’ll be interesting to make a note of how many manufacturers include browsers such as FireFox instead or supplementally to Internet Explorer along with Windows 7: It’ll serve as an additional indication of who’s ahead in the browser wars. |
No New Office for 2009
His decision appears to be based upon current economic trends in the main: "Desktop productivity [is] very affected by PC sales," he said. "And on the corporate side, it’s also affected by enterprise IT spend." As for the competition, such as OpenOffice and the various Google apps; he said: "We have the superior offering." To tell you the truth I think he’s right about delaying the roll-out this year; but not solely for the reasons he stated. There’s Office 97, which some people still use today, and also Office 2000, Office XP – which I use on 1 of my comps – despite it being no longer supported AFAIK, Office 2003, and Office 2007. That’s a lot of Office; bearing in mind the various flavours of each. Do we really need an Office 2009? I don’t think so honestly. 2007 is still a perfectly adequate and fully-functional version for today’s needs. What they could do; and I’ve hinted at this before, but not on this blog yet, is to design a partially-cloud-oriented version of Office, based upon Office 2007 but with a lot more online interaction:- Zipping + encrypting copies of documents and spreadsheets and keeping them in protected server databases online may be an idea, as would a departure from the CD or DVD to a more centrally-based suite, downloadable from Microsoft’s servers, on maybe a subscription-based system in addition to a pay-once-only fee? I also think that some of the old apps in office should be downloadable online, for use with the new Office suite: Microsoft Photo Editor, for one. That app is something that I find invaluable; yet it’s not present in Office 2007. OK there’s Paint.net available as a download and totally separate from Office; but it’s just not the same. With the new forthcoming operating system, Windows 7, Microsoft are at last concentrating on what their customers want rather than what they think is best for their customers: If they also did likewise with Office 14 I feel it would be a good move on their part. There’s no mad rush for a new version of Office at the time being, and to all intents and purposes I feel that OpenOffice and the like have a lot of catching up to do for the time being. When Microsoft release their next Office suite I hope it’s going to be something sensational and on a parallel with Windows 7. At the moment they’re giving their all to 7. When that’s released they can start putting equal efforts into Office 14. For the time being I’m sure nobody wants to rush out to buy another Office version. It’s just too soon, and Microsoft do tend to try and rush things too much if they feel pressured. As it is though, they have plenty of time on their hands in my opinion. What do you think? – Agree? Disagree? – Do comment.
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AMD Launch 45nm Chips
It also has a forthcoming range of desktop processors built on 45nm technology codenamed "Deneb". Both of these ranges are constructed using a process called "immersion lithography". AMD claim that this fabrication technique will lead to ‘dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains.’ The new Opterons will have an increased clock speed due to this fabrication process; rising from 2.3 GHz with the current Barcelona-cored Opterons, to 2.7 GHz with the Shanghai-cored chips. The current Phenom range, which run at up to 2.6GHz, may also benefit from this upward-clocking in their next incarnation. The new Shanghai-cores also benefit from increased cache-size, as well as from HyperTransport 3.0, which increases bandwidth considerably. Let’s hope they vastly outperform the Intel competition as well as the previous/current Phenom CPUs, or AMD is going to have a hard time on its hands and will probably end up cutting retail prices to offer a cheaper though lesser alternative to the Intel developments.
AMD also plan to introduce a new six-cored range of chips called "Istanbul" sometime next year (2009). As for Deneb; AMD will probably be launching them before the end of 2008. The Question is can AMD ever get ahead of Intel again? Can they even catch up; and if so is this their chance? What’s your opinion?
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It May Be Fall But Apple Continues Growing in the US
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Despite a strong wind from the NASDAQ with the potential to dislodge Apple and send it tumbling as an economic drop-out; the company has had its own windfall in the States recently according to figures released by US market watcher NPD: The figures indicate that Apple made an impressive 20% of all retail notebook computer sales during July and August of this year, 2008. The MacBook range of laptops appear to have gone down well with parents buying for their kids for the new school year, as well as with students. I perceive the dollar-signs lighting up so bright in the eyes of Jobsweh; god of all things Apple, that they nearly cause a fire as he curls his talons around his increasing capital assets:- The 20% figure is for stock turnover. The revenue percentage of market share is 35%: Whoever suggested that Jobsweh had priced himself out of the market? Of course, as I mentioned in another article, the MacBook line is due to be refreshed about now or in the very near future – Yet even just clearing the old stock has set the cash-registers ringing merrily across America. The “anti-Vista lobby”; IOW a large percentage of (ex-)Windows users, must have helped account for the unexpected fortune of the company – switching from Windows notebooks now mainly only available pre-installed with Vista, to MacBooks with OSX installed. Despite the relatively high-costs involved it seems the American public on the whole feel that it’s a price worth paying.
Can this boom continue or is it merely a lucky blip? Despite the economic misfortune that now bites the world economy, it appears that Apple have had such an effective marketing campaign that consumers will still buy MacBooks despite the extra price tag and the cheaper Linux-bearing alternatives. It would be wise for Apple to drop their profit-margin somewhat on the upcoming ranges though, as competition is still rife and economic future trends would appear to favour lower-cost devices. If the price of the new lines are right then Apple have the chance to make another massive windfall, rather than breaking where their growth is stemmed, and dropping from the money-tree to become fodder for the foragers and scavengers of recession. Do you think Steve Jobs (Jobsweh) can resist overpricing his wares?
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Apple At Last Improve Their Act
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After my continuing opposition to Apple’s products; in particular the iPhone; you’ll probably be surprised to hear that I’m glad that Apple have at last brought out a platform-update in the form of iPhone 2.1.
Apple have not only fixed most of the bugs that came with 2.0 but also have added a number of features. I’m not an Apple user myself; so I’ll not go into all the tech details here; rather I’ll link you to this site for more on that. But despite this all my previous commentaries still stand with regard to Apple. If you haven’t seen my previous commentaries in this blog you can find them by using the search facility, by clicking on “Apple” in the tag cloud, or through Google/Yahoo by inputting kkomp.com Apple into the search bar. Apple are becoming the image of Microsoft in my opinion: They produce buggy unfinished software in their rush to get the product onto the market; after which they fix the bugs with an upgrade – Exactly what M$ did with Vista. (My blog stats show that, despite Windows being the most-used operating system(s); the number of XP users who visit this blog is almost seven times the number of Vista users. (After Vista comes Linux in third place, followed by Mac OSX, and then Windows 98.))
Back in June 2008 I commented in a scoop that Apple had rushed the 2,0 platform through in order to get out ahead of the LG Viewty; which they saw as the major competition at the time. Well that tactic; while being more Microsofty than anything other than Microsoft themselves, worked; and the Viewty didn’t make it as major competition to the iPhone. It wasn’t only that though; the fact is that the Viewty is an excellent camera-phone; and in that respect alone is many times better than the iPhone. However what the Viewty doesn’t have is the ability to run Apps, and neither does it have an App store. So in the light of the above; was it worth the rush? Was it worth it for Apple to produce a buggy product ahead of time just to beat a partially-competitive product from a rival to market? Maybe; maybe not: But the proof of the pudding is in the eating – Jobsweh (Steve Jobs) gambled on it and it worked. I can’t knock it. I wouldn’t have done that myself – But that’s probably why Steve Jobs is CEO of Apple and I’m a blogger. No more need be said on that. Apple have seemingly at last saved face: Good on them; kudos to them. It’s going to boost the Apple image, and no doubt sales figures will be affected in some positive way. BUT why follow the Microsoft route? Because it works? It does; but there must be a better way; because it’ll end in being tarred with the Microsofty-brush; if that hasn’t started to happen already. What do you think this move will bring for Apple? Do you agree that Apple are going the Microsofty route? How would you run Apple if you were Steve Jobs? Feel free to leave a comment. |
Rotten Apple
Latest reports appear to indicate that Apple aren’t quite as bad as it seems; in fact it might appear at first sight that they had a windfall. That’s not exactly the case though: Despite news of their taking top customer-satisfaction honours among personal computer manufacturers, as released on Tuesday of this week, there are two things you should note before assuming that Apple are the tops and that this blog is heavily biased against them: Firstly nobody even thought to ask Kustom Komputa if they even wanted to be included in this award; probably because they knew Kustom Komputa would trounce Apple into second place. On a more serious note, though, the index measures results only for the three-month period ended in June – Before the crap began to hit the fan for Apple, starting with the release of the iPhone. Also on Tuesday; Apple admitted that a software update for their much troubled iPhone only partly fixes the connection problems it has had in connecting to 3G networks: In other words; honestly this time: “FAIL: We scratched again.” It has been reported that it isn’t only Apple’s buggy software that’s to blame: There have been reports that the Infineon Technologies 3G chipsets used in the iPhone are faulty. That could mean that no matter how good the software, the hardware issue might cause the problem to never totally go away. |
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It has been reported that it isn’t only Apple’s buggy software that’s to blame: There have been reports that the Infineon Technologies 3G chipsets used in the iPhone are faulty. That could mean that no matter how good the software, the hardware issue might cause the problem to never totally go away. The crap certainly has been hitting the fan lately for Apple; and maybe rightly so too: It seems that Steve Jobs has always been a bit of a dreamer; As reported here on kkomp.com; Apple were recently forced to extend the free trial of MobileMe in a face-saving operation. “We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make.” Said Apple. To me that sounds like: “We did it again by releasing a service well ahead of schedule in order to market before the competition: It wasn’t actually ready to be released; but we did so out of a case of having to. We hope we can eventually get it to work.” If they don’t it’ll end up costing them a few dollars more; which could incur the wrath of Jobsweh! In the same email Apple stated “We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour.” ROFLMAO – You’re telling me! What exactly has been Apple’s finest hour during the past two months? Steve Jobs seems to think he’s Apple’s answer to Bill Gates of late. The question is; is Jobsweh, the god with the bottomless pockets, fit to run Apple any longer? Should someone more competent and less greedy take over? |
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Fire Your Computer Technician!A computer technician spills the beans and makes available the knowledge he has charged clients hundreds in service fees for. |
One Bad Apple Spoils the Whole DNS
On August 1, 2008 Apple Inc. issued patches for 17 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X, including one meant to fix a critical bug in the DNSThe DNS patch doesn’t seem to be very effective though; according to Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security Inc. “The difficult news this morning is that we thought we were getting a patch, but we haven’t gotten anything”
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Last week after the technical details of the DNS vulnerability were revealed exploit code appeared; this week attacks began against unpatched servers. Apple’s boob, a patch that doesn’t patch, isn’t going to stop further attacks. Tests revealed that systems running Mac OS X weren’t randomising ports as they should have been doing if the supposed fix was working.
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One would have thought that after Apples recent history of poor performances; such as releasing a buggy firmware platform early in order to beat the competition to market, http://kkomp.com/archives/214 and producing an auto-disintegrating case for the iPhone itself, http://kkomp.com/archives/664 they’d have made a special determined effort to get things precise and spot-on from that point. Apparently not though: It appears that Apple’s catalogue of disaster is continuing to be revealed. Perhaps Steve Jobs should make way for a better candidate – But if Microsoft is anything to go by then the same power-struggle will happen with Apple too. |
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Are Intel Really the Tops?
| The pro-Intel lobby is becoming fairly massive: With Intel most likely paying backhanders to media publishers to promote their products at basically any cost, you’ll see adverts for Intel processors everywhere. There are many reviews of the huge variety of different Intel products in many accredited media outlets, such as constructor magazines and commercial guide publications, online and on paper as sold in High Street newsagents. You see very few reviews of AMD products though; and most if not all that I have managed to find hidden amongst the reams and pages of Intel-glorifying glossy advertising pages are fairly demeaning and give AMD much lower ratings than their Intel rivals. I’m trying not to get all technical in this article; so without explaining everything in vast technical detail I’m going to attempt to continue and write a post than can be understood by most people with a basic understanding of the insides of a computer. I want to communicate with my readers rather than blind them with science. I want to write an article based on the title rather than a textbook based upon trying to prove how clever or otherwise I am: I’ll leave the techno-rants to the egotists for now. |
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| Product Superiority?A lot of people would say that Intel processors are superior and more functional compared to AMD’s offerings, also that they are faster and more efficient: My reply to that is yes and no: Intel’s recent processors are definitely much better for overclocking than AMD’s; and quite vastly so – Which is fine if you have enough money to produce a super-douper machine worthy of running at such a pace with enhanced multi-SLI graphics, latest motherboard, etc, including case mod and even gold-plated start button if you like. Also if you’re prepared for a limited processor lifetime because you’re running the CPU faster than it was ever designed to go.AMD’s CPUs are also less adaptable due to their having more circuit components actually built into the processor itself rather than being deployed on the motherboard in updated form with each motherboard revision or different model. AMD’s processors work like “x” and you know that they’re always going to work like “x”: Intel’s are more flexible.In my case I usually build low-to-middle-end computers for the average user and/or for an office, and I find AMD’s chips to be perfectly satisfactory for that purpose. If I were trying to equal the record for the fastest and best PC ever designed I would definitely go for an Intel CPU for its speed and overclockability. Saying that Intel products are superior to AMD products is to my mind like saying duck eggs are superior to goose eggs: Eggs is eggs; and each has its preferred usages.
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| A Brief History of CompetitionBack in time a few years to 2004 and AMD were market leaders with their single-cored Athlon 64: (One of which I have working away happily in an Exel computer in the office.) The first proper 64-bit capable processor, which blew away anything that Intel had to offer at the time. Then came the Athlon 64×2 dual-cored 64-bit capable processor from AMD; which was well developed using AMD’s developing technologies to provide a good and efficient internal architecture on a single silicon wafer. At or around the same time Intel brought their own 64-bit-capable dual-cored processor putting them on a par with AMD. It turned out that the Intel offering was more overclockable than AMD’s equivalent; therefore the power-users and super-geeks started using Intel processors along with water-cooling. AMD were at the same time developing the Phenom series of quad and triple-core processors; but at that point the game became very cut-throat when Intel “cheated” in bringing out a quad-core by stapling two dual-cored wafers together before AMD had had a chance to fully develop their Phenom architecture which had been beset by a situation caused by a bug in the hardware. Both AMD and Intel have brought out 65nm technologies which reduce the power consumption and increase the individual transistor’s switching times considerably. It turns out that Intel have been working on 45nm technology for over 11 years and have perfected it to the point that the first CPUs based on this further miniaturisation are starting to appear …And so for at least the last year or so Intel has been recognised as market leader simply because its products are far more overclockable than AMD’s and therefore are endorsed by the geeks. – Any product endorsed by geeks tends to get rated highly. Now to add to that they will gain an endorsement from the green environmentalist faction for their 45nm and smaller technology’s lower power consumption: They’ve completely and utterly leapfrogged AMD with regard to market domination. |
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| The Big Question Is… Are the geeks being led blindly by market forces? Reality and actual statistics would appear to indicate that there’s no massive performance gap between the respective competitors’ products after all; despite all the bad press AMD may have been getting. OK so company performance, a separate issue to company product, may well be vastly superior in the case of Intel, As we saw with Apple, however, in an earlier post, ( http://kkomp.com/archives/214 ) it’s not necessarily always product superiority that sells product.Addendum:
Another thing is that Intel will soon be facing antitrust charges for allegedly using unlawful methods to keep ahead of AMD in the marketplace. European regulators could bring the charges forward according to the Wall Street Journal. “We are continuing to cooperate and really don’t know what the commission will do,” Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloytold the Journal. “We believe we operate within the law.” Intel was accused by the Europen Comission of illegal practices last year; selling chips below cost and offering huge rebates to customers. The company is also facing a formal investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission. Intel has already been fined over £12 million by the Korean Fair Trade Commission. Intel are set to appeal; but all this litigation can’t be all that good for the chipmaker.
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Get Rich Quick
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If you were attracted to this post because you thought you’d find a scheme to make you an instant millionaire/ss overnight you’re out of luck: There is no such scheme; not from kkomp.com, nor from anywhere else. There are many schemes that claim to be such; but that’s utter piffle to get you and a few thousand others to part with your money so that the person who runs the scheme can vanish with it eventually: Yes it’s a one-person get-rich-quick scheme; and that one person aint you. So why call this post “Get Rich Quick”? Is it a plan to attack Rich Menga of PC Mech? Is it a conspiracy to commit the ultimate cyber-crime? What is the point? Options The point is that you have 2 main “get-rich” options: The slowest of those being to work for someone else for less than 1% of their nett income whilst giving your complete mind, body, and soul to them for up to 8 hours or maybe more, at least 5 days a week, ad infinitum – aka “Get a job.”. How slow is that as a “get-rich” option? Very slow; and incredibly so: In fact it’ll most likely never happen. It pays the bills for as long as it lasts, yes. It’ll keep you ticking over, maybe it’ll even get you the occasional luxury, possibly you might even manage to save some of it up, but you’ll never get rich doing it: Your employer or your employer’s boss probably might well do so though; at least to a greater extent than you ever will. That’s a complete non-starter then – But I did say there was another option. No there isn’t a guarantee with it – There’s not even a guarantee that you’ll be better off than with the first option initially; but if you’re prepared to stick at it in a positive and self-motivated way then the sky’s the limit – Allow me to restate that in a different light: You’re the limit: If you put only a little in you’ll get even less out of it – But if you put a lot in you’ll probably get even more out of it. (Notice I did say “probably”: There is no guarantee as I said; and there are losers – There have to be losers for there to be winners: Fact of life; yin and yang, swings and roundabouts, call it what you will, whatever, but the thing is with this method you have to be in it to win it.) What am I on about? Self-employment. No Streets Paved With Gold Here So all self-employed people are rich? No; but show me an employed person who is rich. Yes they might well be comfortably off and living well as long as they do their job and make someone else rich, but could they stop what they’re doing and stay that way? Can they decide when and for how long they take a break from the job? In short no – So they’re under the boss’ thumb and they’ll have problems if they don’t keep working to the boss’ dictates or they lose their comfortable salary: They’re not rich then. What benefits will self-employment bring? You want the honest answer to that? Good; because that’s what you’re going to get, and I’m not going to give you any bull: If you’re totally serious about the self-employed venture and are wanting to go for it in a big way then the initial benefits are nothing, nil, zero, zilch, sweet FA: There aren’t any. In fact at first the opposite will be the effect: More going out than coming in, expenses appearing from places you maybe didn’t even know existed, and all the possible demotivating influences imaginable in your face. You’ll be seemingly investing all your time and money and reaping no result whatsoever other than losses at first: that’s the truth and that’s the major make-or-break time – Probably the biggest drain on your resources that you’ll ever experience; and pretty it is not. If you’re going to go under then that’s when it’s most likely to occur. If you’re serious about the venture then you’ll want to put all your resources into it; so before doing so you need to know that you have sufficient resources to weather the storm that you’re about to create for yourself. You’ll need: 1) Investment capital. This can be generated by either making (a) part-time, “on-the-side” venture(s) previous to going for the “big-one”; by working for someone else whilst living frugally, and saving every available penny over a period of time; by building up your assets from nothing gradually by investment and/or by partial enterprise over time, or by any combination of those. 2) Self-motivation, positive attitude, and determination. You’re lacking on any or all of these? Stay with the smaller side of enterprise for now in that case. In the meantime build up these personal qualities to a point where you’re confident that you can and you know you can. Self-doubt and a lack of motivation will kill your efforts off from the start otherwise. Believe in yourself: To do so you must grow self-confidence, you must like yourself, you must become your own best-friend: You must believe totally in yourself and in your own abilities. Don’t bullshit yourself though: If you don’t have the necessary abilities first then you need to develop them before you go ahead and make an investment in them; otherwise you’d do far better giving your hard-earned investment capital to a charity. 3) A plan. I once needed an audio amplifier in a hurry when I was at college; so I switched on my soldering iron and I built one. It worked and it got me out of a tight spot. In doing so I wasted a large number of resources, mainly physical components, and I dismantled it afterwards; as it was, to be honest, an abomination to my eyes: Had I tried to get anyone else to buy it I’d have wasted my time – I probably couldn’t have even paid someone else to take it off me. Why? Am I that awful a technician? Not at all: The thing was I had no plans to build it to; and yes it worked for what I needed it to do right then and there, but other than that it was virtually useless. I later built a very similar amplifier to a plan as part of my City and Guilds exams and it helped me to pass them. The moral of this story: No plans = no good. Draw up your business plans from day one and adjust them with the passage of time to accommodate current trends. 4) Goals. Especially good if your business is a soccer team, but realistically you must sit down and contemplate exactly what it is that you want to achieve. Example: Your ultimate goal is a million dollars/pounds. Your current status is what you have now. Define every stage between now and your ultimate goal and write it down in proposed chronological order. Having done that set yourself realistic targets of achievement leading up to and including the ultimate goal. Be positive, stick to the schedule, make sure you do it exactly as planned: Write your goals down: eg. I will make another $4000 by next Monday by such-and-such a method – Note the “I will” and make sure you do; by the deadline, to the plan with any necessary minor adjustments: Setting a goal involves knowing what you wish to achieve and when you wish to achieve it – Anything less just doesn’t work: “I will make another $4000″ without setting a deadline means you’ll still be making it for the rest of your life. It’s hard, it’s tough, it’s mean, it’s a lifetime’s work, and it doesn’t always either go as you planned or work as well as you’d hoped, and sometimes both. At least it does (normally) make some kind of progress, towards not only enriching the individual’s character and resolve, but also enhancing one’s personal financial position, with varying results from case to case – Which is a hell of a lot further than a 9 to 5 job can ever get anyone. And Finally… Back to the title – Get Rich Quick: You might get temporarily wealthy quickly if you’re running a get-rich-quick scheme and you happen to attract enough gullible individuals. Let’s just hope you can vanish into exile even faster when the authorities pick up your scent. Other than that you can’t: As we’ve seen though, you can probably get somewhere or you can definitely get nowhere,depending upon which option you choose. Strangely most people would rather choose the latter; which is good for those who choose the former as it does reduce the level of competition to some extent, making it a bit easier to be a winner because there are people who are determined to lose, as well as those who don’t make it anyway try as they might. Me? I haven’t made it yet; and I’m seemingly making steady, though not as fast as I’d like to, progress forwards… But I’m still alive so I’m still getting there. Can I make it? Yes. Will I make it? If I can – And if I can then what’s stopping you? Like me you were hopefully born with 2 arms, 2 legs, and 24 hours in each day. If so then you were born with everything I was born with: We started from the same starting line – In fact you were born with everything Bill Gates was born with too: Use it wisely.
To Bill Gates…Born like most of us with 2 arms, 2 legs, and 24 hours in each day…Who made it. ©KKomp 2008
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What a Difference a Day Makes (Condensed)
Twenty-four little hours – With the sun and the showers, where there used to be rain.
OK it’s an old song and you probably know the lyrics. The song is about how someone else has changed her life for the better: It’s Looove; and that great “new love” feeling has set her heart on fire. She’s walking on cloud nine and flying through the universe on a breeze…
Of course we all actually realise that that sort of thing is only temporary…At least I hope we all do: While it’s a great feeling and good for overall emotional and physical health, it only lasts as long as it lasts; then it’s gone, and reality bites again: The bills continue to come in, the problems that were there before are still there, and have got worse through neglect – And now freedom’s limited too: There’s someone else in her life, and there is life outside the bedroom:-
What has it all accomplished? The answer is, on average, sweet Fanny Adams at the end of the day: that’s not to say that being in love is bad for anyone, but a beter song IMO would be “Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves” – Without the unintentional double entendre’ it is a fact that what someone else does for one is, in most cases, only temporary; whereas when one accomplishes acheivments on their own behalf, one has not only a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, but also one can make the accomplishment last a lifetime and build upon that/those accomplishment/s with further accomplishments. When one has stacked accomplishment upon accomplishment upon accomplishment one has a wall: The Wall of Success, and nobody can demolish it fully no matter how hard they try. It becomes one’s personal sheild against the negativities of life.
This is true not only in a physical sense: In a personal psychological sense the same holds true; but the psychological is the forerunner of the physical: When one has a wall of Positive Mental Attitude (‘Good ol’ PMA!) built from blocks of positivity, confidence, happiness, and productive efficient proactive thinking; one then has what it takes to screen out the crap that life pushes at everyone – No the crap doesn’t bounce off or take evasive action: The crap hits as hard as ever; but since the wall of PMA is more positive than the crap is negative then the wall dissolves the crap because the positive personality of the person in question; and let’s hope that person is you, deals with it and neutralises it.
What happens when a mind full of positivity and ingenuity, of creativity and abundant goodness communicates with or works with anything? The positivity and the goodness comes out too and dissolves crap; making the objects or situations it’s working with cleaner, brighter, and more positive; more desirable. A mind full of crap, on the other hand, has the opposite effect. If the wall of PMA isn’t there the crap gets in unchallenged. There is a saying that is very true, but for a different reason than originally intended: “Shit sticks” – If crap gets into one’s mind, life, being, it’ll stay there and it’s difficult to clean it out afterward; so powerful is the negative. Negativity can be empowered very easily: Positivity also but only by means of PMA. Negativity appears to be the default pattern – Positivity takes that little bit of extra effort.
Once one’s thinking pattern and one’s entire world view are positive then one has inner contentment: That is the first step by means of which one can start to self-motivatedly build the wall of acheivement. Nobody’s going to do it for you mind: Even if they try it’ll only be temporary. As soon as they take a break or turn their back the wall comes tumbling down and the crap sees a line of attack and bam! The only person who can make ‘you’ a success is you by means of your own acheivement; and that’ll only happen through a combination of, not just all aspects of PMA, but also determination, motivation, self-discipline, persistance, and continuity.
The ladder of success has many rungs; and surprisingly most of those rungs are made of failure: Every step of failure is a positive step of experience, and is a step closer to success. That can be paraphrased as “If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again”; remembering of course that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly in exactly the same way and expecting different results”. Therefore “If at first you don’t succeed; try, try again using a different method to acheive the same ends. I cite the example of Thomas Alva Edison, a 19th century American inventor, who, along with a couple of associates set out on a quest to bring light to everyone – Literally: Between 1850 and 1892, (Yes that is 42 years: Your calculation was correct.) he, Joseph Swan, Charles Brush, and others, developed, by trying and testing many methods, sometimes in competition and sometimes in collaberation with one another, the electric light bulb. I can just imagine that failure must have followed failure after failure in the case of each of them; but by sheer persistance and determination they succeeded, and their invention is still in use worldwide to a certain extent at the time of writing this article some 116 years after the initial project’s completion. See http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/lightbulb.htm
Maybe you won’t be remembered in 116 years time, and maybe you won’t invent anything as major as Edison and Co did: Then again perhaps you will; but not if you give up and allow the crap in.
That’s all: Lecture over. What are you waiting for? Get out there; do it, and win! Start building your internal wall of PMA at the very least, and as you become stronger as a person and gain in self-confidence you might like to try your hand at laying a few physical blocks of success as foundations for the forthcoming Wall of Acheivement? Set its completion as your goal, divide up the ensuing process into sub-goals, make a chart and plot your progress why not? – Only the losers will laugh at you; and at the end of the day they’ll still be losers so who cares? Today could be your lucky day; and what a difference a day would make then eh?!
Are you still here? -Well I suppose you deserve a break after reading all this lot: Treat yourself to a coffee or whatever you prefer, and pretend it’s on me. Thanks for reading; now make something out of it that you can use to further yourself.
©KKomp 2008
