Hardware

SSDs and pricing

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

Mainstream SSDs cost around $2 per GB to buy right now. I was curious, so I decided to try to relate historical SSD pricing to the historical pricing of conventional hard drives.

It didn’t take long for me to find a correlation.
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They still make hard drives?

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

I try not to pay much attention to hard drives these days, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. And two things have happened this week on that front.
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Intel and the SSD, 2011

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

I saw and heard a couple of interesting bits about Intel and SSDs today.
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Color laser vs. inkjet: The hidden factor

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Saving money
Color laser vs. inkjet: The hidden factor

Ars Technica did a quick and dirty study on whether inkjets or lasers are more cost effective for color printing  and came down in favor of the inkjet. The math works in their color laser vs. inkjet battle, but it misses something non-trivial. Ink cartridges dry out. Toner cartridges don’t.

Here’s why I use and recommend laser printers for color printing.
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State of the SSD, 1Q 2011

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

It’s no secret that I loves me some SSDs. And 2011 looks to be a good year for SSDs. Anandtech has a preview of what promises to be the fastest available drive on the market, once it’s released. It may not be at the very top of the heap for really long, but it represents the state of the art for now.

I’d rather not spoil the whole article, but there are two key takeaways from it.
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Depending on how you look at it, a free upgrade. Or bloatware.

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

Here’s a tip for those of you who own HP or Compaq laptops and netbooks. Most of these machines ship with HP Wireless Assistant, which basically does two things: display a popup telling you if your wireless network is on or off, and in some cases, enable a wi-fi on/off button on the keyboard.

But some versions of it moonlight by causing WMIPrVSE chew up 20% of available CPU power. People sometimes pay hundreds of dollars to get 20% more CPU power, so that’s not exactly welcome.
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On troubleshooting

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , ,

My Windows 7 upgrade was supposed to be a one-hour project on a Saturday afternoon. It dragged on until Wednesday. I’m at the point now where I probably have an hour’s work left on the machine–it’s Thursday now–but it’s late and I’m not sure I feel like it.

The answers–loading the BIOS defaults and changing the parallel port settings–seem obvious. Now. But when I look for my keys, where I finally find them seems obvious too, even though it sometimes takes a long time to find them.

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How I fixed an infuriating printer problem

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Troubleshooting, Windows , , ,

Windows 7 and my HP Laserjet 4100 weren’t getting along. And I was pretty livid about it. I paid $125 for my Windows 7 upgrade, and for that money, I got to mess around for 4 days trying to get better-than-1997 functionality out of what’s supposed to be the latest and greatest. I was about ready to trade it even up for a copy of Windows ME and Microsoft Bob. Because at least then I’d be able to print.

I finally fixed the problem, but finding the solution wasn’t easy. So I’ll present the symptoms and the ultimate solution here.

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I sure hope Windows 7 SP1 gets here fast

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Windows , , , , , ,

So I’ve been running Windows 7 for about a day on an Intel motherboard. And I don’t know for certain if it’s the shoddy Intel hardware, or Windows 7, but I don’t think I’ve been this un-impressed since the first time I laid eyes on Windows ME.

Yeah, it’s that bad. I’m sure the Microsoft fanboys will jump in and chew me up, but let’s see if they can explain this away.

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Yep, I think I’ve just about had it with Intel

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Personal , ,

I’ve been messing all weekend with this stupid Intel motherboard, trying to get the video working in Windows 7. All I can see is that I have some kind of conflict. Code 43, whatever that means. Thanks loads, Microsoft.

Except this is an integrated board, with nothing plugged into it. Can’t Intel manage to make a motherboard (using its own chips, no less) where the integrated peripherals don’t conflict with each other?

I’ve upgraded the drivers, upgraded the BIOS to the newest version, everything.

Since Intel can’t get the simplest of things right, it’s Asus or nothing for me, from now on.