Hardware

SSD write endurance (aka longevity) vindicated

Dave Farquhar Hardware ,

I found this chart earlier this week regarding SSD write endurance. Basically, it plots out how long an SSD would last if you set out to deliberately destroy it by writing to it continuously.

You could expect a mainstream 128-GB drive to last 4.7 years under those conditions, which is longer than a platter hard drive would last if subjected to the same kind of abuse. Other studies have similar results.

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The benefits of doing IT at home, too

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , ,

Earlier this week, The Register touted the benefits of having a home lab.

That lab doesn’t necessarily have to be elaborate. But there is definitely something to be said for having some equipment that you can learn and experiment on, and that can break without the world ending. Read more

New Raspberry Pi this week

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

The Raspberry Pi Model A (the cheaper, stripped-down version) was just released for $25.

How is this news? Well, I thought the Model A was already available.

It has half the memory of a Model B, and no Ethernet, and only a single USB port.

If you’d like to be able to mess around with microcontrollers but prefer a self-contained environment, a Model A has potential, and the price isn’t all that high. I’d still probably develop on the $35 Model B so I can connect to it remotely, then swap the SD card into the Model A and put the Model A into use. But in a pinch, just plug the Model B in to a USB keyboard and the nearest LCD TV.

OCZ is in trouble

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,
OCZ is in trouble

You know it’s bad when a story about a company ends with the words, “OCZ’s survival is still possible.”

Survival is supposed to be a given.
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HP Elitebook won’t turn on? Fix it in a minute flat

Dave Farquhar Hardware
HP Elitebook won’t turn on? Fix it in a minute flat

If your HP Elitebook or other HP laptop won’t turn on, I have an easy fix. We used them at a previous job and I taught this trick to all of my coworkers who had difficulty getting their laptops to power up in the morning. It’s easy, and takes less time than calling the helpdesk, and less time than going direct to desktop support too.

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My phone’s micro SD card made Windows Disk Manager hang, but I fixed it

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , ,

The micro SD card in my Android phone (a Samsung Galaxy S 4G, if that helps) quit working suddenly, and I finally got around to investigating it on Friday. I ended up having to solve two problems to do it, though.

Let’s start with Windows 7’s Disk Manager hanging at the message that says “Connecting to Virtual Disk Service.”

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How the previous week’s headlines flow together

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , ,

Here are some headlines I read this past week: Dell is trying to take itself private. Microsoft is investing in Dell. Intel is pulling out of the motherboard market. AMD is considering ARM CPUs. And the PC is dead.

It’s all related.
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Follow-up on the Insignia NS20EM50A13 monitor

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

After about a month with an Insignia NS20EM50A13 monitor, I still mostly like it, but can note one annoyance. When booting up a system, the monitor sometimes likes to switch from the DVI input to VGA, without warning. If you happen to be sitting there when it happens, you notice it and can switch it back. But more than once I’ve rebooted, walked away, come back a few minutes later and wondered why I have a weird black screen in front of me instead of a logon screen. Read more

How to calculate what a screen’s specs don’t tell you

Dave Farquhar Hardware
How to calculate what a screen’s specs don’t tell you

If you want to quickly and easily calculate the pixels per inch of a display, here’s a useful tool:

http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html

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Asus gets into the sub-$200 tablet fray

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , , , , ,

Now Asus is jumping into the sub-$150 tablet range too, but with a device that’s much more subdued than what Polaroid and Archos are offering.

It appears to me that Asus is trying to remain mid-tier, and hope that name recognition and reliability advantages (whether perceived or real) keep their tablet in the game.
Their $149 Memo Pad has a 7-inch 1024×600 display and a single-core VIA WM8950 CPU, running at 1 GHz. It will be running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and has the precious microSD card slot, which accepts up to a 32 GB card. Read more