The new computer
Every 3-4 years I’ll buy a new computer. Here’s the latest, a reconditioned (with warranty) HP Pavilion a6760a, to be called “Haddock”.
For the record (because often years later I come back and compare what I got for how much) the specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, 2Gb RAM, 500 Gb hard disk, NVidia GeForce 9300 GE (256 Mb video memory), DVB TV tuner, and a bunch of other stuff. All up $750 from GraysOnline ($609 plus some strange 15% fee called a buyer’s premium, plus delivery, but at least you know all that up-front).
Unfortunately it came with Windows Vista, so I’m taking the opportunity to upgrade it and the older computer (”Tintin”, which got an upgrade last year) I’m keeping for desktop use to Windows 7. The new one will do the games and video stuff, the old one I’ll chop back to basics: email and web and stuff.
Now I just have to work out what to do with “Snowy”. (Perhaps it’s time for it to upgrade the server, “Nestor”.)
Tags: computers, HP, Windows 7, Windows Vista
11 comments
ISP shopping part 2
An update on my ISP shopping post from a couple of weeks ago:
Netspace rang me up to discuss my concerns (they found the post themselves), and to let me know there was some progress on resolving them:
Advice of network outages — they said there is already a project underway to advise of outages via SMS direct to customers. Sounds pretty good. Whether or not they’d open up their network status page was unclear — sounds like not. But at least SMS alerts would make it easy to know what’s going on without being online.
Revision of plans without telling anybody — apparently this is being discussed with Netspace management, and it is recognised that this isn’t great customer service. No promises, but at least they’re looking at it.
And they said that they recognised I was a loyal customer (since about 2003 I think), and wanted to keep me, and made me a very good offer to upgrade me. Combined with the fact that there’d be no hassles with switching ISPs, and no outage, it was an offer to good to refuse.
So I’ve upgraded and am sticking with Netspace, on a 75 Gb plan (30 Gb peak, 45 Gb off-peak; about double what I had before) for $59.95/month (the same as I was paying before).
So far it’s been good, the speed difference is noticeable. In fact, they switched me to the faster speed before the modem arrived, so almost instantly my speed went up from 1500 kbps to about 8000 kbps (the fastest possible ADSL1 speed). And the ADSL2+ speed is about double that.
And of course because there’s no contract, I can jump ship anytime if I want (though in the fine print there is a $65 “network termination fee”). But for now, I’m happy again, and provided Netspace are true to their word and fix the outage notifications, I’m more than happy to recommend them.
Another lesson here: I’m not sure if this is universal, but it would seem that people on ADSL1, using ADSL1 modems, are able to get a speed upgrade from 1500 kbps to 8000 kbps fairly painlessly just by switching to an ADSL2+ plan. Because for many ISPs, ADSL1 uses others’ facilities (eg it’s reselling) and ADSL uses their own, the pricing is likely to be comparable — in my case it was identical. In fact, why Netspace (and other ISPs) don’t encourage this?
Tags: ISPs, Netspace
5 comments
ABC web site useable again
I noticed the other day that the ABC Local web sites were down for maintenance.
They got a revamp in mid-2008 that left it incredibly messy. Apart from the garish green and black colours, it was impossible to find things.
It’s like they forgot that they’re most often promoted via the ABC Local Radio stations; finding programme information and clips was really difficult, lost in a sea of links.
Happily they’ve given it another facelift, and not only are the colours a bit easier on the eyes, it’s a easier to find things again.
Progress, definitely progress.
Tags: ABC, radio, web sites
7 comments
Laptop vs USB stick for school
Was chatting a while back to a colleague about his kids in high school. One of them ends up carrying an enormous amount of stuff to and from school, including books and sports equipment, but also a notebook (laptop) computer costing a couple of thousand dollars.
Giving students laptops makes no sense to me. Compared to desktops, they’re damaged more easily, they’re more expensive to buy (or less well specified), they depreciate in value much faster, and they’re Yet Another Thing for kids to have to carry around (which means more weight, and risk of theft).
I’m also wary of their portability, and the need to keep computers at home in a “public” area of the house.
My kids get given USB drives instead, so they can easily transfer their work from home to school and back again.
Admittedly you can’t put a laptop through the wash, as happened with one of our USB drives, though the data was recovered without problems.
I’d have thought in general having desktop computers both at home and school was a better solution than lugging laptops around the place.
Unless perhaps the laptop support contract comes with free chiropractor sessions.
Tags: computers, laptops, school, USB drives
15 comments
Chickens for phones
Dunno about you, but I’ve got a spare useless mobile phone sitting at home doing nothing. It’s a Nokia 6100 that I got in 2004, then donated to Isaac when I got the 6230i, and he’s just recently upgraded to my less-old 6230i now I’ve got an N95.
The 6100’s buttons are hopeless these days, and it’s time to say goodbye.
Happily, until the end of December, the MobileMuster people will donate a chicken to Oxfam for each old phone recycled, if you print the special Reply Paid label off their web site.
Anybody else got old phones to get rid of?
Tags: chickens, Oxfam, phones
3 comments
Media Centre PC vs PVR
My main requirements for my next move into digital TV, and doing away with the VCR:
- Watch and record digital TV, record two channels at once
- HD not essential (apart from ABC1 HD offering Sydney news, there’s no unique programming on HD at this stage)
- Transfer recordings off to the PC for keeping
- Quiet and compact and low power consumption while on standby
I had thought I might go buy a Topfield PVR. The 7100 model looks quite good, and meets all the other requirements above, including dual HD tuners. Best price I can see is $599. A Topfield 5000 is similar but in SD, for about $250 less, though a little harder to find these days. Other brands out there include the TviX, Beyonwiz and Panasonic (pricey but probably very reliable).
Some people I know swear by Windows Media Centre on a PC.
One forum discussion I read estimated the price for building a decent Media Centre PC is about $750. Buying one would be more expensive, possibly double that or more. One alternative might be a Mac Mini running EyeTV, which I assume would be a little more expensive (looks like about $780 for the Mac, $200 for the EyeTV).
My thinking at the moment is that although the PC option is more configurable and will do more things, it’s also going to be more expensive, space may be an issue, it’s going to take some work setting it up, and I’ve been bitten a few too many times by the perils of TV tuner cards, to the point where I’m sick of dealing with them.
But I’m willing to be convinced. (Cue Tony and Nathan and others…)
Platform 7 is rebooting…
Here’s what the new platform Passenger Information Display Screens (PIDS in transport lingo) at the inner-city stations look like:
They show much the same information as the old screens, but now it’s widescreen, and clearer. (I haven’t checked to see if they still abbreviate Greensborough to “GREENSBORO” when it’s the destination.)
If only I could work out how to unscrew one of these screens and take it home to watch DVDs on…
However, here’s what one at Richmond looked like the other week:
It was booting over and over when we saw it. Whoops.
There is another glitch: the displays above the central stairwell at Richmond have a list of the next few direct Flinders Street and City Loop trains, for people changing trains. Unfortunately they display V/Line trains on them, which suburban passengers can’t use.
Hopefully that’ll be fixed soon.
Up and down like a yoyo
Back in uni, we had a Unix server which (unlike the faculty machines) was available for use by any student. Its name was yoyo, and it was invaluable back when internet access was hard to come by, and official university access was only granted to students studying IT subjects.
Why “yoyo”? There was a hope that it wouldn’t be up and down like a yoyo.
Looks like it’s still around: yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
Unfortunately, my web hosting has been up and down like a yoyo for the last 30 hours or so. Apparently this was due to a DDOS attack on the web host. The ISP moved accounts over to another host, but delays in the DNS propagation meant for a while some people would see an image of a Lamborghini Wank-5000 (or something) that the server was named after. Most inappropriate, at least for me. They’ve now changed this.
Anyway, this is why my various web sites have been very unreliable for the last day or so. Hopefully things have settled down now.
Update Wednesday night: Turns out this was part of a religious war, a distributed denial-of-service attack on the Athiest Foundation of Australia, which was hosted on the same server, run by Netlogistics.
Up until now, Netlogistics have been pretty good, and the price is good for an Australian-based host. As far as I can tell, NetLogistics did reasonably well with the DDOS attack, with a couple of caveats: the information provided was minimal (I never saw anything on their Network Status page when I looked, though they were quick to reply to enquiries, and their discussion forum was kept up-to-date) and that car image instead of a proper outage message made it looked like the site had been hacked.
