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Upgrading a Compaq Evo D510 for Windows 10 and beyond

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 13, 2015December 10, 2015compaq, compaq evo d510, IBM, intel, Intel Core, model m, pcie, Windows 10, Windows XP

I had an old Compaq Evo D510 full-size tower/desktop convertible PC, from the Pentium 4/Windows XP era, that I wanted to upgrade. The machine long ago outlived its usefulness–its Pentium 4 CPU is less powerful than the average smartphone CPU while consuming enough power to be a space heater–but the case is rugged, professional looking, and long since paid for. So I thought it was worth dropping something more modern into it.

I chose the Asrock Q1800, which sports a quad-core Celeron that uses less than 10 watts of power and runs so cool it doesn’t need a fan. It’s on par with an early Intel Core 2 Duo when it comes to speed, which won’t turn any heads but is plenty fast to be useful, and the board can take up to 16 GB of DDR3 RAM and it’s cheap. I put 16 GB in this one of course. I loves me some memory, and DDR3 is cheap right now.

I miss the sound of a modem carrier

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, War Stories August 12, 2015June 17, 2024amiga, AOL, bbs, bulletin board, commodore, lionel

“I know this will sound crazy,” my boss said. “But I miss the sound of a modem connecting.”

I don’t think it’s crazy at all. That chirping was the sound of a hard-won victory, at least if you’re of a certain age.

The best e-book site I’ve found

Dave Farquhar Copyright, Design, e-readers August 11, 2015October 11, 2019Australia, kindle, public domain

The best ebooks site I’ve found, by far, is the archive at the University of Adelaide in Australia. The selection is outstanding, but the presentation is even better.

Steve Thomas, the curator, takes tremendous care to ensure Adelaide’s e-books display their best on any device. Most e-books, even commercial books, pay little to no attention to formatting, and the result all too often is books that are difficult to read.

Building DOS gaming PCs

Dave Farquhar DOS, Retro Computing August 10, 2015May 1, 20251980s, 1990s, amiga, atari, atari st, compaq, IBM, intel, macintosh, micron, Packard Bell, Tandy, tandy 1000, VGA, XT

The ultimate DOS gaming PC is a topic that I’ve seen come up in forums frequently, and that I’ve been asked directly a number of times. I guess since I published advice on running DOS games on Windows PCs on two continents, people figured I knew something about that. I guess I fooled them!

The trouble is that no single PC can really be the “ultimate” DOS game machine. Well, not if your goal is to be able to optimally run everything from early 1980s titles designed for the original IBM PC up to the last DOS version of Quake. I learned that the hard way in 1995 or 1996, even before Quake existed. Read more

What you can learn about corporate networks from the Jeep hack

Dave Farquhar security August 8, 2015August 1, 2015Charlie Miller, firewall, Jeep

I’ve talked before about the infamous Jeep hack, but there’s more to learn from it than just that cars are vulnerable. The way Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek hacked the Jeep has implications for any computer network.

A guide for safe and private web browsing

Dave Farquhar security August 7, 2015August 1, 2015chrome, Linux Mint, passwords, recycling, Windows 10

Continuing in the theme I’ve been following for the last couple of days, here’s a guide to security and privacy with web browsers. Like the guide I linked to yesterday, I’m not sure I agree with it 100%–I think saying never use Internet Explorer is too absolute–but I do agree with the overwhelming majority of it, and if everyone did all of this instead of what they’re doing now, we’d be in a much better state.

And, on a somewhat related note, here’s a rundown of what Windows 10 changes in the way of privacy, and some recommendations, but here’s a hint: You’re going to want to type privacy into your Windows search bar, pull up everything related, and start shutting stuff off. Use your discretion, but chances are there will be several things. If nothing else, there are things that are appropriate for a Windows tablet that aren’t appropriate for a desktop PC.

Let’s get back to privacy and safety in general, whatever OS you’re running. Here are some highlights.

How I fixed a hacked website

Dave Farquhar security August 6, 2015October 15, 2023

Back in August 2015, my website started alerting. Investigation showed the site had been hacked. Here’s how I fixed my hacked website, in diary form.

Mechbgon’s guide to safe computing on Windows

Dave Farquhar security, Windows August 6, 2015August 1, 2015UEFI, Whitelist, Windows 10

Mechbgon.com, the same place that published the outstanding guide to application whitelisting I mentioned last week, also has a guide to general security when building Windows PCs.

I think he overvalues UEFI and Internet Explorer 10, but if everyone followed his advice, there’s no doubt in my mind we’d be much more secure than we are right now. Although I mildly disagree on a couple of points, he has some outstanding advice in there.

The guide hasn’t been updated for Windows 10 yet, but most of what he says, if not all of it, will still apply and won’t be all that different to set up.

Application whitelisting on Windows, even home editions

Dave Farquhar security August 5, 2015November 29, 2015antivirus, Australia, malware, Microsoft Office, NSA, spyware, Whitelist

One of the very best things security measures you can take is application whitelisting–limiting the apps that are allowed to run on your computer.

The Australian Signals Directorate–the Australian counterpart to the NSA–says doing four things cuts security incidents by a whopping 85 percent. You probably do three of the things. The fourth is application whitelisting.

use application whitelisting to help prevent malicious software and unapproved programs from running
patch applications such as Java, PDF viewers, Flash, web browsers and Microsoft Office
patch operating system vulnerabilities
restrict administrative privileges to operating systems and applications based on user duties.

Advantages of Windows 10

Dave Farquhar security, Windows August 4, 2015August 3, 2017netflix, Windows 10, windows 7, windows 8

Now that Windows 10 is out, the questions I see most frequently are why someone should upgrade, or what benefits they get if they upgrade, or if there indeed is such thing as advantages to Windows 10.

While I understand the skepticism, and I think most people probably should wait a few months before upgrading a Windows 7 machine that’s working well, there are a number of compelling things Windows 10 has to offer.