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The mainstream places a bet on SSDs

Dave Farquhar Hardware October 27, 2011intel, jmicron, marvell, ocz, samsung, toshiba

I just saw that LSI Corporation bought Sandforce, maker of high-performance SSD controllers, earlier this week for $400 million.

LSI makes a lot of things. I’ve owned a couple of SCSI controllers over the years with their chips on them. I’ve administered servers with their RAID controllers in them. They also make system-on-a-chip solutions.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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RIP, Dennis Ritchie

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing October 14, 2011October 13, 20111960s, DEC, intel, mac os x, motorola, os x, unix

Dennis Ritchie died this weekend, aged 70. You may not know who he is, but if you’re reading this, you’re using something he invented.

Dennis Ritchie was, among other things, co-creator of Unix and the C programming language. Even if you run Windows, Windows was heavily influenced by Unix, and a lot of programs you run were written, if not in C, in its successor, C++.
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Dave Farquhar

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Don’t use software firewalls: Good advice or bad?

Dave Farquhar security October 10, 2011October 9, 2011amd, extra money, firewall, intel, linksys, malware, netgear, prison, vista, vulnerability, Windows XP, x86

A common piece of good-meaning advice you’ll hear is that you should never use software firewalls. But is that good advice, or bad?

On the surface, it’s good advice. It’s much better to use the firewall built into a cable/DSL router. But the software firewall built into Windows XP, Vista, 7, and (presumably) 8 makes for a good second line of defense, so I don’t recommend disabling it.

I’ll explain further.

Dave Farquhar

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Giving Windows 7’s power management more options

Dave Farquhar Windows October 2, 2011October 1, 2011amd, asus, intel, windows 7

I installed Asus’ CPU/fan monitor on my new AMD64 system, and I discovered that the system frequently changed speeds from 3.3 GHz down to 2.2 GHz. Very frequently. In fact, it spent most of its time running at 2.2 GHz. I decided to investigate, and found the setting was in Windows 7’s power management settings.

If you have a newer AMD or Intel CPU and Windows 7, you may find its power management settings aren’t quite as aggressive as they could be.

Dave Farquhar

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Bargain SSD? Maybe more like hard bargain SSD

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 21, 2011November 22, 2018intel, kingston, ocz

Dealnews had a shocking deal today: An OCZ Vertex Plus 60 GB drive for $45. That’s an after-rebate price, but even writing off the $10 rebate, at $55 the drive is still priced historically low.

I didn’t buy one. And I didn’t buy three. Here’s why.
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Dave Farquhar

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Microsoft: No x86 apps for ARM

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 19, 2011April 2, 20251990s, acer, amd, ancestor, android, apple, DEC, IBM, intel, Intel Atom, IOS, power savings, Token Ring, unix, vista, windows 2000, windows 7, windows 8, windows me, windows nt, x86

So, The Register reports that Windows on ARM will not have compatibility with apps compiled for x86. Intel has been saying this for a while, while Microsoft has been mum. So now we know.

There are arguments both for and against having an x86 emulation layer.
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Dave Farquhar

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Intel isn’t interested in buying HP’s PC business

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 15, 2011amd, asus, hp, intel

This week, Paul Otellini told journalists he isn’t interested in buying HP’s PC business, elaborating by saying he doesn’t want to compete with his customers.

It makes sense.
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Dave Farquhar

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PC Magazine’s sub-$200 PC

Dave Farquhar Hardware September 5, 2011January 31, 20221990s, amd, asus, firefox, intel, kingston, Micro Center, Open Office, pc magazine, phenom, recycling, ubuntu, Ubuntu Linux, Western Digital

PC Magazine has reprised its sub-$200 PC. I think it’s a good guide, and a savvy shopper can potentially do a little bit better with some care and some luck. At that price, it’s running Linux, but it also serves as a good guide for upgraders looking to upgrade an existing PC inexpensively. If you have a case and hard drive you can reuse, you can either buy better parts, or just pocket the savings.

Here’s my take on their selections.

Dave Farquhar

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And now it’s Apple’s turn

Dave Farquhar Macintosh August 25, 2011January 3, 20251980s, 1990s, Andy Grove, apple, Bill Gates, erector, intel, mac os x, macintosh, os x, pixar, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney

It’s been a weird month for technology. And as always, Apple had a way to get people to stop talking about anything else, though it’s not the news Apple wanted do deliver this week. I can only think of one bit of news Apple would want to deliver less.

Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO. He’s becoming chairman, but perception is everything. Especially with Apple. I don’t think any company in recent memory has leveraged perception the way Apple has.

Dave Farquhar

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Intel fixes a major issue with its 320-series SSDs

Dave Farquhar Hardware August 20, 2011April 17, 2017intel

Intel 320-series SSDs have an obscure bug in their firmware that can cause them to change from a multi-gigabyte SSD to an 8 MB pumpkin. Intel finally found the issue and posted a fix.

This might explain why supplies of Intel 320s have been a bit sporadic lately. If you have an Intel 320, get ready to download and install the update. You may want to wait just a few days to make sure there are no issues with it, as SSD updates in general tend to be, shall I say, rushed.

Dave Farquhar

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