Use Your Assets as a Tool
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Yes there probably is a lot of unintended double-entendre’ that can be pulled from that title. – That’s not what this article’s about though. If you’re a long-time or previous reader then things may be seeming a little different with regard to Kkomp.com – Beyond at present: - You’ll notice that this blog is turning out much less in the way of free content recently; and that’s something that I’d ask you to bear with me on for the time being. As I’ve already said a number of times in previous articles; there is just I, me, and myself running it, and what with so much happening in my life as a whole right now, I’m having to reign back on free-content-creation for the time being. Despite that fact, I am still running promotional campaigns, sometimes at full tilt, with regard to great offers from mainly people I know and/or respect for their quality creative skills and great products. – This is for a number of reasons; too numerous to list here: The main ones are for the purpose of continued financing of this blog’s operation, as well as to provide you, the readers, with something of value, and an opportunity to enhance your skills and move ever forwards with the changing and progressive face of the internet and technology. I’ve just been checking my figures against records, and talking to other people, including at least one person whose product I have recently been promoting. Considering that this blog, until very recently, has been basically about the actual physical technology that goes into computers and electronic items only; it seems that the general consensus is that this blog appears to be doing satisfactorily and as well as can be expected at this stage with regard to marketing and product turnover. Don’t get me wrong here though: I’m not proposing for one second that I aim this blog solely at marketing only in the future; despite the fact that marketing and sales are a necessary factor in this blog’s survival. This is, and will remain, a technically-oriented blog, but also a blog aimed not just at the technical issues involved in keeping your computer running optimally; but also at the technologies, physical and social, of using the computer that you optimise for great performance, with the help of this blog, to produce results for you of a financially and socially beneficial nature, on addition to actually optimising the tool that you use to do it with. Another way of looking at this is with using a car as an example: You can have the best car in your neighbourhood, you can keep it spotlessly clean too, and keep the engine always running at optimum performance with the latest and greatest engine components installed, to give it the edge over all other cars of s similar type. You can tweak and tune all day every day, making it give the best fuel-efficiency, be the fastest and hottest car of its class. – But if you never take it out of the garage then all this effort is totally futile. – A total waste of time and money. Even if you do take it out of the garage and use it only to drive to the store to buy groceries etc, plus for the odd leisure cruise, that’s not really bringing you any benefits other than enhanced mobility. You invested a lot of time and money in that car, so when the opportunity arrives to use that car to reclaim some or all of the financial resources you invested in it, would you turn your nose up at it? Not unless you were very very rich, no. In the same way; if you spend a small fortune and a lot of time optimising your computer and making it look great, maybe case modding etc, then if you had the chance to reclaim some or all of the money you’ve invested in it by using it you’d jump at the chance; right? – OK maybe not in some cases, such as if the machine is built for a competition, or modded to keep at the forefront of technology as part of or one of your hobbies; but generally, other than that, you would yes? If you answered yes then that’s great – because what I’m planning to do, in addition to adding more “me” on an interactive level with you readers to this blog, is to assist you in the future not only with the physical technologies involved in keeping your machine optimised, but also in the non-physical technologies of utilising your optimised machine to at least pay for its operation and maintenance. – I mean; who wants to have to pay out of their own pocket for a useful extra that could pay for itself, or more, eh? …And yes you old-school people reading this: It does involve using social media, in addition to building up and maintaining a blog. Social media is a huge and inevitable part of it, and its usage is vital in making the overall operation of your marketing work optimally. Social media isn’t just a fad, a kiddies/teens plaything that will fade away after a few years just like all the other crazes do. – Social media is set in stone on the internet and is here to stay, to expand, and to be used, utilised. – Not doing so just leaves money on the table that somebody will take if you don’t – so make sure it is you who gets the best out of it. If you’ve got it, flaunt it! – It’s not really rocket-science! On that note; that’s all for this article: Enjoy your weekend. |
Great Deals on Technology
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As you may know, or may have gathered by now; I’m a computer builder and an AMD fan. Yes I’m aware that Intel are the market leaders in chip design and that they produce some extremely top-class processors that are pretty much unbeatable at the time they’re released. – There are 2 negatives with new top-end processor technologies, though: - The first is that the new designs/technologies haven’t been tried, tested, and trusted. Intel geeks will ask; “So what? If you’re truly a geek you’ll be the first to try out anything new.” I disagree – You see if I try out any new device I want to make sure that it works well and in the way that I want it to work.
I don’t play computer games; so having the latest and fastest multi-processor chip and the biggest and hottest graphics processor would do absolutely nothing for me. – On top of that there’s the fact that anything that’s a brand new concept is going to cost a fortune, and may initially be full of bugs. That brings me on to the second point – That being price: What is the point of trying out some new device when I have to pay thousands for it? I’d rather wait a month – If I particularly like the device, for whatever reason. – and only pay hundreds for it; by which time it might also have a new version out in which any gremlins that found their way into the first line have been ironed out. Result = better product for less. Alternatively I could wait a while longer until the product is being produced en-masse and pay even less for it. Three months ago I built my triple-core Phenom powered box and installed Windows 7 (Beta, then RC.) on it. I could have built almost exactly the same box a year earlier for a greater financial outlay using a buggy Phenom. As it was, had I waited another month until May 2009, the processor would have cost £10 less and the motherboard would have cost me £20 less. – All in all the entire thing lost over £5 value while I was waiting for delivery of the parts and then building it! Personally I’m not into throwing £5 notes away as a rule. You may or may not agree with my angle on it all. Your personal opinion is, of course, completely up to you, and I have no intention nor right to try to change that opinion. – The purpose of this post, however, is to alert you to some amazing deals that are currently out on some of the tried and tested technologies at this moment, in addition to a few of the newer products on today’s market in the realm of computers and computer construction: - If, like me, you’re a computer builder and/or someone who likes to upgrade their existing box(es) from time to time, then you’ll always try to keep abreast of the current products, their latest developments, product news, and where you can get some great deals on existing and new technologies. – Both tried and tested, as well as recently released. I’ve been browsing around lately through some of the online retailers; both my usual suppliers as well as others, and overall I think that some of the best deals available right now can be found at dabs.com.
dabs.com currently have some amazing deals on Phenom processors, in addition to which their flat-screen TV sets are going through a recession-busting price-knockdown too.
I mean things such as an LG Electronics 37LH7000 Full HD 100mhz Freeview set for under £700 inc VAT for example, some great deals on processors, Crucial RAM, even whole pre-built computers! Seeing is believing; so hurry along and see for yourself. Now is an amazing time to grab a bargain at dabs.com; but hurry while current offers last! Click on this link and your browser will take you straight there. Happy shopping. |
Beyond- The Newsletter: 26.06.2009
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Hello, and welcome to another newsletter here on kkomp.com. In the last week I’ve produced some pretty good articles; although I say so myself. If you haven’t had a chance to read them yet I suggest that you click some links in the list below and have a look at anything that takes your fancy for a short to medium read: -
The above post was more of a link than anything else. Quite obviously WP 2.8 has already been released, and it’s most likely that most WordPress-user-bloggers have already upgraded, even by the time the article was written,and sampled it for themselves. The thing is that not everyone will be aware of exactly what’s been changed straight away, unless it’s staring them straight in the face. – Therefore I thought it a good idea to do a little piece about it and link to the WordPress blog for further details; even if only to somewhat enhance the traffic to the WordPress blog as a thank you.
Something that carries a lot more weight is a computer’s PSU. It supplies quite a vast amount of wattage at low regulated voltages for its size. Only 30 years or so before it was invented and prototyped you’d have been looking at a box at least twice the size of your computer, if not bigger, just to perform the same function and supply the same output. That huge box would have also probably heated your entire house as a side product. Due to significant advantages in manufacturing technology since then, a lot of miniaturisation has been made possible through component integration and also further advances in technology. Voltage regulators no longer require a set of differential amplifiers built from individual large aluminium-canned power-transistors. (2N3055 keeps appearing in my mind’s eye.) These days the differential amplifiers, multiple-output-stages, everything, is all integrated into a single hi-current regulator package about the size of a matchbox or thereabouts, making the unit cheaper, saving resources, producing less in the way of heat and outputting more in the way of power. -But, despite higher tolerances and vastly better performance, things still fail eventually: Nothing lasts forever. – When a computer power supply fails the result can be quite catastrophic in some cases; with damage occurring to other sensitive CMOS-based parts. If you know and understand the warning signs of impending PSU-failure then you can avoid this scenario happening in the case of your machine: Saving you you time, money, and resources. This article will give you some ideas about what to look for: -
Perhaps I’m a bit intolerant, or maybe I just don’t have a high-threshold when it comes to the thoughtless acts of others. – Now when people are thoughtless towards others then that’s just plain wrong, and those people need an attitude adjustment along with having their brain switched on and their thought-processes enhanced in my opinion. However, when a person’s thoughtless actions are detrimental to themselves and/or to the company that they work for, then the expression “thoughtless” takes on an entire new meaning: Brain-dead might be a better description? OK maybe that’s a bit harsh. I have to take into account that not everybody’s a geeky-type; but it should come as no surprise to anybody that if a computer remembers their data it must be stored somewhere. – When the power’s switched off and switched back on it still remembers the data that’s been inputted into it, so it must be filed somewhere inside the computer; it’s just obvious logic. - So when someone puts their old computer in a public place for disposal because they don’t want to use the dinosaur any more, you’d think that they’d remove their sensitive personal data from it wouldn’t you? …But no; many times people don’t bother: They just trust to luck or have too much faith in human nature and hand their identities over to all and sundry to do as they wish with. Likewise when someone sells their old hard-drive on eBay. – Do they bother to clean their data off of it? Do they even attempt to conceal it? In my experience not always, no. If I was a criminal I could now be operating under at least two identities other than my own and have some sort of racket going on with at least one business because of this. – All without even trying! Read this article: -
The following post was one that I pushed out in a bit of a hurry as an extra article, firstly to explain how I seemingly managed to miss the Summer Solstice; or at least I certainly missed posting about it, and secondly to warn about an unpatched security hole that Microsoft don’t appear to be that bothered about; even though exploit code has been written and released to the wild with regard to it.
Above is a brief article in which I basically share my opinion, for what it’s worth, on the idea of using RAID on servers and also on workstations.
In further marketing language; don’t just take my word for it: Read this: -
I’m just about to link you to a video that shows you, step-by-step, how to optimize your YouTube videos to help you drive an insane amount of traffic back to your website.Gideon, the guy who is not only a half of the Become A Blogger course that this article advertises, but who also created the video, tells me that he tried these exact same strategies on one of his own YouTube channels, and got like 67,400 views in just 8 weeks! At first I thought he was just kidding me but then I saw his channel, and my jaw dropped at the - So, yeah… if you want to get more traffic from YouTube, you’ll like this stuff… But that’s only a part of it: Read the actual blog post itself for more links, on to an instructional video that actually features in the Become A Blogger course. – At absolutely no cost to yourself. – and another to a page where you can get another 10 instructional videos to do with the course. Now that’s value in just the advertising alone…
Wednesday 24th June 2009 was this blog’s official first birthday: -
Lastly; when Microsoft launch Windows 7 on October 22nd 2009, they’ll be charging more for the Professional and Enterprise versions that have XP Mode included with them. – But why should you pay Microsoft more for the pleasure when there’s a way to scrub round it using free software? Read this article to find out how you could save yourself a few dollars more: -
That about sums up the week that was here on kkomp.com/Beyond since the last newsletter. Enjoy your weekend. ‘Next publication is scheduled for Monday; but you never can tell; I might get the bug like I did last weekend and publish something impromptu before then, and maybe I might not – ? Namaste’ Peace. |
How Do I Tell if a Drive is SATA or PATA?
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With advancement of technology, SATA (Serial – ATA) drives are becoming ever more popular. The SATA controllers that operate them are smaller and cheaper to build; therefore giving motherboard manufacturers the advantage. But it’s not only the motherboard manufacturers that get something from it: The user also benefits from faster transfer times to and from the drive, thus reducing any data – bottlenecks, and also the connecting lead can be longer than that of a PATA ( Parallel – ATA) setup. (See this article.) For the novice constructor, or even the casual observer/user seeking to upgrade their hard-drive for the first time, the difference may not be immediately apparent; hence this article. (I noticed that someone Googled this blog with this very enquiry yesterday.) In this article I’ll show you how to identify a PATA and a SATA drive visually. PATA (Also known as ATA or IDE.) A PATA drive has connectors like this on it:
On the left in the picture is the 4-pin Molex power connector’s socket. To the right in the picture is the parallel data connector, to which the ribbon-cable attaches. Between the two in the picture is the jumper connector: the position of the jumper(s) will determine whether the drive is seen by the PATA controller a master or slave drive. The ribbon-cable has connectors that look like this:
SATA SATA drives have connectors on the drive itself that look something like this:
On the left in the picture you’ll see a 4-pin Molex connector’s socket. Some SATA drives have one, some don’t. On the right in the picture you’ll see the larger SATA connector, which is the SATA power connector. This supplies the drive with a number of voltages. You can buy an adaptor which allows a 4-pin Molex connector to be used to power a SATA drive by adapting the SATA power connector, which will work in most cases. The smaller connector in the middle in the picture is the SATA-data connector. The lead that connects to it is pictured below. (The colour of a SATA lead is usually red, but I’ve seen yellow (Gigabyte Technologies) also, and in this case, blue. (Shuttle Inc.)) (There is no jumper connector on a SATA drive.)
So that’s how you can visually tell the difference. I hope that helps someone.
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The BT Syndrome
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British Telecommunications (BT) appear to have a good and fairly reliable standard of service with respect to their technology and technological services; such as internet, telephone, and the other technologies that they cover. I find that it’s pretty solid, made of sturdy stuff, and things rarely go wrong. When they do go wrong, though, the flaws start to show. I’ve mentioned this a few times before, and I feel that it’s a subject that I should cover again, as despite my earlier posts, as well as the public’s experiences with their appalling customer-services regarding their foreign call-centres, combined with my reporting them for dodgy advertising practices and awful customer relations practices, nothing seems to have changed: They just nonchalantly carry on regardless.
Whenever I ring BT for whatever reason I get stress. They usually pass me around departments; each one of which interrogates me with the same stet spiel before passing me on to the next. Most are in India and I have to say everything in triplicate before they understand me anyway. As a bonus they appear to have been trained to think that no BT customer is intelligent enough to use a word of more than 2 syllables or to have any idea whatsoever of using a computer. When I do finally get through to the right department, I usually find that I’m talking to a fairly young Indian girl with an extremely strong Indian accent who appears to think she knows everything there is to know about everything, talks down to me in a patronising manner – slowly as if I was retarded – avoiding using technical terms, and despite my indicating that I build computers and install software + have qualifications in analogue and digital electronics, treating me as if I was a technophobe with an IQ of 10. If I ask to talk to her supervisor it takes about 10 minutes to get her supervisor on the line after 5 minutes of requesting; only for the supervisor to read from the same script that was earlier read to me, and tell me that she can’t help me any further than she already has, but if I’d like to pursue the matter further I should ring another of BT’s trillions of departments, (Probably in a room next door, or at the back of the call-centre in India.) on such-and-such a number. (When I do I find that I’m told that I’m speaking to the wrong department, and after being transferred through another X departments – undergoing identification interrogation at each of them, I find I end up speaking to the same Indian girl who offers to put me on hold while she transfers me yet again; after which the line goes dead. Right BT: I’ve had enough. – As have millions of others who’ve switched their telephone service and/or ISP to another provider. - They’re crafty bleeders too: Every time I phone them to get a better deal from them, (I must admit that they can be bargained and bartered with, and that’s a good thing. – But they’ll only drop a certain amount: If you push them too far they’ll just end the call.) I end up signing a 12 or 18-month contract in order to get what I want. That means that I spend over half the time tied to them. A bit more on bartering with BT: If you feel that you’re not getting a fair deal, and/or you know that you can get a better deal elsewhere as regards price; ring their sales department – Which is at least partially located in the UK, ask to speak to someone in authority, and tell them exactly why you think you’re not getting a good deal from them. Don’t lie: They may be incompetent but they’re not stupid. If you lie they’ll just politely tell you that they are unable to help you and end the call. Be honest with them and they’ll hopefully be fair with you. I can almost guarantee that they’ll tie you into a contract; but don’t be put off by that: If you’re properly self-aware then you’ll be able to negotiate further deals whilst under contract on the basis that you renew your contract for a full-term. Snide Ba—rds! OK back to the point: BT; you are getting to a point where you are going to shoot yourself in the foot if you squeeze any harder: That thing which you’re squeezing has become a trigger which will lead to your eventual self-destruction in the present economic climate. Either get your act together or prepare to slowly and tortuously go under. I feel that the only reason why anyone would use BT’s internet services is because they’re less fault-prone than anyone else’s: That’s the positive side to them. They work and they work properly 99.99% of the time. – However, aside from their abysmal PR efforts, BT are rather expensive, also they’re neither the fastest ISP in the UK, nor are they future-proofed at the present moment. In fact Virgin Media are beginning to appear a nicer and nicer alternative as time goes by. Virgin Media aren’t quite as reliable as BT in my opinion: They have got a lot better in this respect though, and they continue to do so. To anyone in a cabled area who’s thinking of changing ISP; I suggest Virgin Media as one of the best options. As for those in a non-cabled area; I suggest Virgin Media or BT – BT being the most reliable of the two for now, as two of the best options; whereas Virgin Media will probably have more chance of being the better of the two in the future. The choice is yours out of the two. There is a single lower-cost provider who I would recommend to the same, even in some cases to a greater, extent than either of these two, though. More on that further down. Other ISPs? Other ISPs? Well I’m not too bothered about most other ISPs as far as landline communications are concerned. Mobile communications are a different matter and are outside the scope of this article. Most other ISPs probably use BT or Virgin Media’s equipment to carry their data, and probably buy up spare capacity in wholesale amounts; hence their pricing policies being discounted in some way. When something goes wrong, though, they have to check their own equipment first -The delay caused at this point can be anything between immediately and eternally. Following that, if they can’t find a fault, they have to ask their providers to check if there are any faults on the carrier equipment, which is requested but usually goes to the back of the queue. Some parts of some cheaper networks have been known to be down for weeks at a time in the past. – If you pay peanuts you get the services of monkeys.
BUT… There is one that is cheap-er than BT, but is pretty reliable: That being the Utility Warehouse, who actually own a percentage of the network that they use, in addition to purchasing spare-capacity from other carriers. – Which is why I advertise them on this site. A FTSE-listed company that can win an award from Which? magazine must be worth considering as an option. I’ll say no more; but why not click on the ad and find out more about them? They’re a UK-only service currently, so I hope I haven’t wasted your time if you live outside the UK. If there’s anything you’d like to add, contradict, or express an opinion on, then please do comment.
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A Threat to HumanITy?
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The experts from the scientific institutions such as Oxford Uni and NASA recently convened a gathering aimed at devising ways to prevent information technologies threatening human dominance and possibly bringing about the end of civilisation as we know it. (Personally I think it might be a good idea if done right – I mean look at planet Earth right now: Humans are trying to self-destruct as a species as it is by the looks of it. Maybe it’s time for a change brought about by the cyber-gods we create? Jobsweh and his ilk aren’t doing very well after all; Gates has retired; and a conflict between Redmond, Jobsweh, and “cyber-terrorists” from the open-source community – The dark side in jackets – appears to have kicked off in a small way anyway.)
Is the Matrix to become a reality? I suggest pre-empting it by rewriting Smith if so. Will we become slaves to vast armies of terminators following a nuclear war started by our computers? I think not – That scenario appears a bit too far-fetched to me; considering the fact that such a war would obliterate most of the worlds computers, internet communications, and server units, anyway. |
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The lightning pace of information technology may be of concern to some; but would it be so bad to be controlled to some extent by a higher, if non-human, intelligence? Once again I really don’t see what’s so terrible about that. Humans replaced Neanderthals because they were more adept at survival, so what if some technologically-enhanced race of humans superceded humans as we know them today? OK ignoring thoughts of the Borg that are now running through the heads of Trekkies reading this blog – Forget the Borg collective consciousness and forget cruising the universe in a cube looking for vulnerable civilisations to turn into more of the collective – I really can’t see what’s so bad about having unobtrusive implants attached to increase the sensitivity of the human senses, in addition to being a replacement for worn out parts. OK maybe it might change humanity totally; but is that so bad after all? We already have the capability to self-annihilate within minutes and it only takes some set of power-crazy halfwits with access to the right button to make it happen: What if technology could prevent it from ever happening? What if some implant could correct the chemical imbalances in people’s deranged minds: No Hitlers, Stalins, no warmongering Bush hearing voices from “god” telling him to nuke his enemies.
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The experts say that the reason humans are the dominant species on this planet is because of our intelligence – Pah! – What intelligence? – We’re just clever monkeys having bigger inter-tribal wars with each other and using rocket-propelled sticks and stones that explode and kill more of the enemy; otherwise we’re no better than Neanderthals as a whole, apart from being better suited to today’s environment physically. If technology threatens that position due to having greater intelligence then good: Isn’t evolution wonderful? Isn’t it just engineered evolution taking its natural course? – Or do we fight it and carry on blowing each other up until there’s nobody left to kill? They think that they could create a super-computer with recursive artificial intelligence that could become more intelligent than humans. I say do it: You can’t get more stupid than some humans in some regards; and those stupid humans usually end up leading an army of followers…You know the story – Look at Osama Bin-Laden as one example.
“Anything that has more brains than us, can develop more technology, more quickly – including powerful weapons technologies. It could also come up with strategies and plots much more quickly and would therefore be extremely powerful.” said Bostrom; one of the so-called experts in question. If that were the case then surely it would soon see how the way humans have turned out is only going to lead to oblivion; therefore it might even ensure a future for humanity- rather than the 50/50 chance of self-elimination. The mind boggles! – Aided of course by the latest multi-cored processing technologies. If only…
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Advertisment:Fire Your Computer Guy or Girl!A computer technician spills the beans and makes available the knowledge he has charged clients hundreds in service fees for.
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