Hits and misses of 2012

Looking back on this year there have been a number of success stories and a couple of real blunders. On a personal level the birth of my first grand-daughter and the 1st birthday of my grandson stand out as really momentous occasions. A great family holiday in Spain will also be remembered with fondness.

In technology, the rise of the tablet to the detriment of desktops, laptops and the complete decimation of netbooks is a major change in the way people want to access the Internet and their data. Tablets are for the future and Apple and Android-based devices reflect a new effective IT force. The experience I've had with my own Google Nexus 7 tablet has shown me the way and I've been so impressed with it especially at just a relatively low cost. You can even play some great, addictive games on it!

The recent improvement in my broadband speed by Virgin Media must also go as plus for 2012. Playing multiplayer games benefit hugely from this as well as the increasingly frequent large downloads.

One of those large downloads was the software disaster of Windows 8, which I'm now being forced to sell from DELL in collaboration with Microsoft. It will surely be viewed as the turning point in Windows operating systems. I do have a system running Windows 8 for testing and support purposes but I'm still not happy with it and neither are my customers.

My own computers have not been upgraded at all this year, not even my gaming system. I suppose the economic downturn has contributed to this as well as the level of existing performance is sufficient for my purposes. My reaction times are also getting slower!

Thank you Virgin Media

My broadband download speed has tripled! Virgin Media upgraded my connection last month and improved by 10Mbps connection to 30Mbps. This greatly reduces download times, games pings and latency. What a bonus! And it didn't cost me a penny more.

Also, they sent me a Virgin Media Super Hub for free as well. This is a quality bit of kit manufactured by Netgear with Wireless N networking and a Gigabit Ethernet switch included. This will boost any LAN. It is an elegant device which only need one mains power connection and integrates all the home networking requirements. It was easy to install and really works well. Thorougly recommended.

Being responsive

I'd acquired a four year old DELL Vostro 200s desktop with an Intel Core 2 E4600 2.4Ghz processor, 2Gb DDR2 memory, 80Gb hard disk drive and integrated graphics running Vista Home Premium. A nice little system that unfortunately was one of those that whatever and whenever you clicked on something it took an age to respond with a new window or application starting up, etc. It obviously needed a mid-life upgrade to save it being disassembled for spares.

As it was a branded system, overclocking the CPU was not an option, so I tried replacing the memory with 4Gb faster memory. No difference was perceived or benchmarked. Adding a relatively new graphics card also had similar non-results. Then I saw an offer last weekend for a relatively cheap but slow SanDisk 128Gb SSD for just £50. Not an Extreme or Ultra just a basic SSD.

A quick clone of the hard disk to the SSD and the system rebooted a lot quicker. Now this is to be expected and is often used as an example of why you should buy an SSD. For me it is not so important as I typically only start a PC once a day and a few seconds here or there doesn't seem that important. What is important is when you click on an icon, I expect to see the system respond with a new window filled with information, an application splash screen, a positive message, etc. Click on another icon and the same should happen immediately. Put the cursor somewhere and type and I expect to see the letters appear as I type not a few seconds later. That is being responsive.

Needless to say, that is what this humble little system did. Yes, I benchmarked the file data bandwidth to be over four times faster, and the overall PCmark shows more that a 50% increase, but the responsiveness improvement was fantastic. And the system was an awful lot quieter too! Also, if you turned off automatic defragmentation the little disk light doesn't keep flashing.

I've decided to keep this little system and upgrade it to Windows 8 when it's released later this month to see if it finally is any good at all on the desktop.

Windows 8 Second Edition

October 2013. Following the most disastrous release of any Windows version, Microsoft have announced its Windows 8 Second Edition. The Windows 8 operating system has been a total failure for Microsoft and has led to one of the most complete corporate declines in US history.

Zebedee Dipstick the new Microsoft CEO and former janitor at the Redmond campus said 'with the new features such as Start button, Control panel and Aero user interface we expect Windows 8 Second Edition to become the world's premier desktop and laptop operating system again.' The present Windows 8 will be renamed Windows 8 PhoTab for touch sensitive phone and tablet devices. Following abysmal sales, the Microsoft Slate devices will be immediately discontinued.

Since Microsoft introduced their Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy and the remaining workforce brought Apple iOS and Android-based mobile phones and tablets the writing has been on the wall for any Windows-based personal devices. This follows the market's rejection of Windows 8 on desktop PCs and laptops. Following some initial favourable press and reviews of the year old operating system. Indeed Microsoft is announcing a free upgrade to Second Edition for those devices in a bid to stimulate a return to Microsoft Windows software architecture. Microsoft Office 2013 Second Edition will also see a makeover shortly to be consistent with the operating platform.

Zebedee Dipstick also said that Microsoft is concentrating its development efforts on convergence with Apple and Google's software architecture in the future and considers innovation completely finished for them.

There were no further comments as the Microsoft marketing and press departments no longer exist.

What an upgrade!

I recently acquired a DELL Dimension E520. This must have been the cheapest possible configuration with an Intel 'Prescott' Celeron D 346 CPU running at 3GHz, 512Mb of PC4200 memory, 80Gb hard disk drive and Windows XP Home.

However, as I was in the process of dismantling a system with an Intel Core Quad Q6600 CPU using the same Socket 775 I wondered about upgrading the DELL with it.

Even though DELL claimed that this processor was not supported in the E520 others had tried successfully. So, I upgraded to the latest 2.4 version BIOS and dropped it into the E520 and it booted.

To make the most of this better CPU, I was able to load Windows Vista Home on to the system. However this required upgrading the memory to 2Gb. I only had a couple of PC6400 DIMMs which again DELL said it didn't support. However, in they went and worked at the faster speed. Swapping the 80Gb drive for a 200Gb was the next step, followed by adding an old Radeon HD4550 graphics card.

Now the performance test using PCmark05. The original system struggled to 2,217 yet the same test gave 7,667 on the upgraded system. Quite a difference and well worth the double asking price. A really successful mid-life upgrade to a quality system.

THE BIG PC

The trend seems to be for smaller, power efficient, highly integrated PC cases these days. Even the 'old-style' micro ATX desktop cases are considered big by the buying public. Yes , it makes sense that compact cases can be used in a lot of situations for desktop, desk-side or media centres. However I'm particularly fond of midi desk-side or larger cases.

There seems to be skill in configuring a computer in a bigger case with powerful over-clocked CPUs with efficient cooling, plus a graphics card that allows you to view 3D games on on large, high resolution monitor(s), multiple hard disks and optical drives and extra sound or controller expansion cards. All with quiet, low speed fans that waft cooling air effectively through the case. Add a dedicated, energy efficient power supply and neat cabling gives a pride in design and construction.

It's an art that is declining from the major PC vendors and boutique builders. Left up to the individual to select components and build computers for a particular job.

Google's Nexus 7

I've just purchased a Google Nexus 7 tablet and I'm very impressed. My wife wanted a Kindle but the prices for the better versions are well over £100. So the Nexus 7 tablet at £160 seemed to be a better buy as it offered a larger 7" colour screen with high resolution, touch screen, internet access for web surfing, email, etc. and the latest version of Android with voice input and a camera.

When it arrived it seemed an impressive, well-made device that was easy to use. I only bought the 8Gb version and quickly loaded Dropbox to give me shared cloud access to other files, documents, photos, etc. I couldn't get Photo Gallery to swap the screen orientation automatically, then the electronic manual mentioned to orientation lock in the notification swipe area and this 'fixed' this problem. Interestingly this is not available in the 'Settings' section.

It is a really great device and I'm sure will get a lot of use when we travel and at home. This is another nail in Microsoft's coffin as who needs Windows when you can do almost everything you want for on a tablet device which costs less than the typical retail price of Windows software.

Windows 8

Microsoft is rearranging deck chairs on its latest version of Windows code-named 'Titanic'. It is suffering from alternate disaster release version syndrome with Windows 8 which is already being called Windows 2, ME 2 and Vista 2.

I tried the latest Release Preview and was not impressed at all on the desktop and laptop hardware platforms. Admittedly, it might work better on a tablet or smartphone but I'm already happy to use Android on mine as are billions of Apple iPhone and iPad users with their devices. It just works well and doesn't need to be Windows. I understand that Microsoft are going to flatten the desktop user interface in the final version to be even more consistent with the new, simple Metro user interface.

Microsoft can't even get simple things right like automatically correcting when you are tying into an application or window that has lost keyboard focus or typing sentences with the caps lock inadvertently left on. In fact when I started in the IT industry over 40 years ago the primary way of inputting data was the QWERTY keyboard and still is. Nothing has changed. We still don't have natural language speech recognition or even thought input. Now that would be a huge improvement for Windows!

Come on Microsoft, wake up and smell the coffee!

Legalising software

I've been playing a pirated copy of the game Anno 1404 sporadically ever since it was released. Returning to try to complete a scenario earlier this week after a six month gap, I felt guilty enough to see what it would cost to buy a copy. Amazon had the Gold version (which includes the expansion pack Venice) for only £7.70, so it was an easy decision to buy it and basically legalise my playing of the game and give something back to the developers and publisher.

Having started my IT career as a programmer, I feel it is important to purchase legal software whenever possible. I purchased the latest Adobe Photoshop Elements recently to upgrade my five year old version and it was a small price to pay for a fantastic piece of software which is well used. You can also legally install it on two computers which is even better value.

I do however admit to recycling software sometimes, especially Windows XP and Vista which you cannot purchase anymore. If I scrap an old system, I occasionally retype the licence key into an installation of a new system. Legally the OEM version should die with the original machine but I'm basically giving it a second life and not really copying it.

Getting the balance right

I've always thought that the components of a PC should be in balance whether you configure, build or buy it. Have a fast, overclocked quad core processor with just 2Gb of memory or a slow hard disk are examples of configurations being out of balance. This was brought back to me recently with a Compaq Presario computer that I was trying to fix.


It had a AMD Sempron 2100 dual core CPU (I'd not come across one of these before) 2Gb memory and 160Gb hard disk drive running Windows Vista Home Premium. The system response was really slow even for these entry-level components. A quick run of Windows Experience Index showed that the basic CPU, memory and hard disk were all running at optimal performance. What was bringing down the overall score was the nVidia 6150 integrated graphics, not only for the gaming score but also the basic Aero user interface.

It had a PCI-E x16 slot so I dropped a cheap (£25) MSi AMD HD5450 graphics card into it, downloaded and installed the latest drivers and tried again. What a difference! Not only in the WEI scores, but also in the response feel of the system. It was back in balance again.

So a small, cheap addition can make a slow system appear fast. A result for the balance theory.

Chillblast Fusion Shadow

I had to supply a value gaming system for one of my customers and set about selecting and pricing components. Then I came across the Chillblast Fusion shadow which appeared to save me about £58 on the price of the individual components. Plus it was built for me, Windows installed and offered a two year warranty for additional customer satisfaction.
The system consists of:

• Intel Core i5 2500K processor overclocked to 4.6GHz
• Asus P8Z68-V LE motherboard
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU cooler
• 4GB DDR3 1,333MHz memory
• 1Tb 7,200rpm hard disk drive
• DVD-RW optical disk drive
• AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR3 graphics card
• EZcool case and 500W power supply
• Cherry keyboard and mouse
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Apart from the generic power supply and memory there is little that I would change in this configuration. It would have been nice if the was the possibility to squeeze an AMD Radeon HD6770 GDDR5 card in there but anything bigger and faster would require a different case and higher specification power supply. This would have totally exceeded the customer's budget.

The system was well assembled with all the cables neatly tucked away. And it certainly performed well. As it stands, it is a great value gaming system with plenty of power and upgrade potential.