gotta stop for now, the other people are back..
I'll be back on in an hour and a half.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Second rig
This is becoming quite interesting.
As it stands now (quick specs), my second rig is going to be:
Ultra Aluminus case
ASUS P5N-E motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 CPU at 2.53GHz
Stock cooling
Antec 480W PSU
2GB G.Skill RAM
80GB HDD
Geforce 8400GS
Woohoo.
As it stands now (quick specs), my second rig is going to be:
Ultra Aluminus case
ASUS P5N-E motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 CPU at 2.53GHz
Stock cooling
Antec 480W PSU
2GB G.Skill RAM
80GB HDD
Geforce 8400GS
Woohoo.
What I'm up to now -- please comment!
Ah, the thrills, perils, and pitfalls of building a custom PC. I've decided to stray away from the Mac for a while and see if I have what it takes to get into the rig-building scene.
As it stands now, I've got two systems in formation. One of them is gonna be my main 'puter, and the other, well, I don't know what I'll do with it yet.
System one is built inside an Antec Twelve Hundred case.... here's what it looks like. Newegg just got some a few weeks ago, they're newly released and the successor to the Nine Hundred.
Enough with the pictures, Google Images needs a break. Next is the motherboard.
I'm using an ASUS P5K-E. I figure I'm too poor for SLI, which, luckily enough, this board doesn't support. However, it does support crossfire... maybe I'll pick up a couple 4850s when they come out.
For my CPU, I'm using the tried-and-true Core 2 Quad Q6600. I think it's actually the most popular CPU on Newegg, and for good reason. In fact, it's only $10 more than the E8400!
To cool it, I'm using a Zerotherm Butterfly. In all honesty, I didn't give much thought to choosing a cooler. Overclocking isn't really going to give me any real-world performance benefits, anyway.
For my power supply, I'm using a snazzy black Ultra 650-watt. Not much to say about it, it seems to work well. Cheap too.
As far as RAM goes, I'm using 3GB of Corsair RAM. Not a bad brand, and it was only $45.
I found a nice pair of 120GB Seagate disks, which shall be RAIDified. Hoo-ray. At least I don't have to buy a Raptor.
For video, I'm rockin' an XFX 8600GT Alpha Dog Edition. Can you tell I don't play games?
As it stands now, I've got two systems in formation. One of them is gonna be my main 'puter, and the other, well, I don't know what I'll do with it yet.
System one is built inside an Antec Twelve Hundred case.... here's what it looks like. Newegg just got some a few weeks ago, they're newly released and the successor to the Nine Hundred.
Enough with the pictures, Google Images needs a break. Next is the motherboard.I'm using an ASUS P5K-E. I figure I'm too poor for SLI, which, luckily enough, this board doesn't support. However, it does support crossfire... maybe I'll pick up a couple 4850s when they come out.
For my CPU, I'm using the tried-and-true Core 2 Quad Q6600. I think it's actually the most popular CPU on Newegg, and for good reason. In fact, it's only $10 more than the E8400!
To cool it, I'm using a Zerotherm Butterfly. In all honesty, I didn't give much thought to choosing a cooler. Overclocking isn't really going to give me any real-world performance benefits, anyway.
For my power supply, I'm using a snazzy black Ultra 650-watt. Not much to say about it, it seems to work well. Cheap too.
As far as RAM goes, I'm using 3GB of Corsair RAM. Not a bad brand, and it was only $45.
I found a nice pair of 120GB Seagate disks, which shall be RAIDified. Hoo-ray. At least I don't have to buy a Raptor.
For video, I'm rockin' an XFX 8600GT Alpha Dog Edition. Can you tell I don't play games?
WWDC Pretty Much Live coverage 2008
Just for you people, I'm going to be spending the afternoon blogging about WWDC today.
Nothing to report as of yet -- I'm sure y'all know the rumors.
Anyway, it's now 7:14AM PST. Coverage starts in two hours or so.
To pass the time, there will be other posts form the "dark side" for you to read.
Nothing to report as of yet -- I'm sure y'all know the rumors.
Anyway, it's now 7:14AM PST. Coverage starts in two hours or so.
To pass the time, there will be other posts form the "dark side" for you to read.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Computers I've had since September 30 (excluding iBook G4)
Since July 2007... These are going to be in a roughly
chronological order.... "*" indicates I still have it.
--MAIN COMPUTERS--
iBook G4 1.33GHz* (mom's house, almost never used)
PowerMac G4 867MH
Powerbook G4 667MHz
PowerMac G4 dual 800MHz, 1GB RAM
got the Powerbook back
Another dual 800MHz Power Mac, this time w/ 1.5GBRAM*
Thinkpad T41....
Mac mini 1.83GHz Core Duo
Powerbook G4 867MHz
Thinkpad T60
MacBook 2.2GHz black C2D
Powerbook G4 15" 1.67GHz, 1.5GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, blah
blah blah
--SECONDARY COMPUTERS--
iBook 500MHz G3
two 300MHz clamshell iBooks with AirPort (one donated
to kids in Uguanda)
450MHz Power Mac G4
box of iBook G4 1.2GHz.... in disrepair...
iMac G4 700MHz 15" LCD
two Power Mac G4s, 400MHz and 500MHz
another clamshell iBook
Yet another clamshell iBook
Power Mac G3 350MHz, upgraded to 500MHz G4*, donating
a hard drive to.....
the Power Mac G4 dual 800MHz from November, the second
one
Interwebz laptop- TP X41, 1.5GHz, 1.5GB RAM
This doesn't include all of the systems I just got to
resell. If I did, there'd be more than 50 or so here.
All this in nine months...
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Stuff for Sale right now.....
It's time again for my monthly cleaning sale. Everything must go!
First, a list of all the items.
Fujitsu Lifebook- $160
Dell Latitude C600- $100
Power Macintosh G4 with upgrades, custom case- $175
eMachines barebones Celeron 2.66GHz- $50
1st generation iPod- RARE!!!!!!- $125
Macintosh 128k- $75
PS/2 keyboard- $5
PS/2 mouse- $7
The Fujitsu:
I have a Fujitsu Lifebook multimedia laptop.
It has great speakers, a DVD player/CD burner, and a Pentium 3 at 850MHz. It has a small screen on the front edge that gives you information about things like battery charge and volume. It has media buttons on the front, as well, and a kill switch. I don't know why, it just does.
The ports- Wow. It has 4 USB ports, for hooking up flash drives, cameras, printers, and iPods, all at the same time! Half the laptops you can buy brand new only have three! It has an S-Video port for connecting to your TV for use as a monitor, and it has FireWire for incredibly fast transfers to/from your external hard drive or video camera. It has Ethernet, a modem, VGA out, and a serial port. It also has a floppy drive.
It has a 14" screen with 1024x768 resolution, just fine for viewing movies or surfing the web. It has 128MB of RAM, more than enough for running the included Windows ME operating system. Of course, it also has a 20GB hard drive.
I have installed a wireless card on it, so you can go online at Starbucks or just surf from your couch.
It comes with the power adapter and the battery holds a small charge.
The G4:
Here it is hooked up to two monitors, not even breaking a sweat. This is because of the ATI video card I installed.
It is actually a Power Mac G3, but with the clear handles of a G4 and a CPU upgrade running at 500MHz, roughly equivalent to a Pentium 4. It has 512MB RAM and a 40GB Western Digital 7200RPM hard drive, for fast boot times. The video card in it is an ATI Radeon 7000 Mac edition, which retails for $125 here:
http://www.gmscomputersales.com/ati-radeon-7000-64mb-for-mac-pci-p-43.html
It also has a SCSI card, and a DVD drive. It's running OS 10.3.9 Panther with all updates, iLife, and Microsoft Office.
The Dell Latitude C600:
This is really a gem of a notebook. Here it is booting into the BIOS:
It has an 850MHz Pentium III processor. Yes, this is the same model of laptop you've seen for $250 on Craigslist. It is better than most of them, because it has a battery that will give you approximately three hours of life. It has 128MB RAM, expandable to 1GB. There is no hard drive, but pop one in and you're ready to go! This is a small laptop. It doesn't have a CD drive, but you can buy one for around $20. There are lots of multimedia ports.
Next we have the eMachines.
It’s basically the case, CD drive, power supply, and motherboard. Nothing much to say here. About 3 years old.
Next is the 1st generation iPod.
Front:
Back: (notice the mirrorlike back, no scratches at all)
So, what I have here is essentially an original Apple iPod. It's the first one ever, made in 2001. It has no scratches whatsoever, because it's never been taken out of the case except to take pictures of it, and has a brand new battery, which costs approximately $75. I'm selling it because I don't really use it or pay it any attention anymore. Needless to say, this iPod is a collector's item, and will most certainly rise in value. As the pictures show you, it's immaculate. No scratches, scuffs, dings, nothing. It comes with a sync cable, a wall charger, and a pair of nice Phillips headphones.
Next is the Macintosh 128k.
There it is. This was the first widely available computer that used a keyboard and a mouse. Before this was introduced in 1984, computers were just text on a screen. The Macintosh introduced desktop icons and the mouse on the screen. Windows would not exist if Microsoft had not used a lot of the Macintosh’s operating system.
History lesson aside, this is a large chunk of Apple history and is extremely rare. It turns on, but can’t load the operating system.
And, a PS/2 keyboard and mouse. They are Gateway brand and work fine. The mouse has a scroll wheel and the keyboard has multimedia and application buttons. Both look like new.
First, a list of all the items.
Fujitsu Lifebook- $160
Dell Latitude C600- $100
Power Macintosh G4 with upgrades, custom case- $175
eMachines barebones Celeron 2.66GHz- $50
1st generation iPod- RARE!!!!!!- $125
Macintosh 128k- $75
PS/2 keyboard- $5
PS/2 mouse- $7
The Fujitsu:
I have a Fujitsu Lifebook multimedia laptop.
It has great speakers, a DVD player/CD burner, and a Pentium 3 at 850MHz. It has a small screen on the front edge that gives you information about things like battery charge and volume. It has media buttons on the front, as well, and a kill switch. I don't know why, it just does.
The ports- Wow. It has 4 USB ports, for hooking up flash drives, cameras, printers, and iPods, all at the same time! Half the laptops you can buy brand new only have three! It has an S-Video port for connecting to your TV for use as a monitor, and it has FireWire for incredibly fast transfers to/from your external hard drive or video camera. It has Ethernet, a modem, VGA out, and a serial port. It also has a floppy drive.
It has a 14" screen with 1024x768 resolution, just fine for viewing movies or surfing the web. It has 128MB of RAM, more than enough for running the included Windows ME operating system. Of course, it also has a 20GB hard drive.
I have installed a wireless card on it, so you can go online at Starbucks or just surf from your couch.
It comes with the power adapter and the battery holds a small charge.
The G4:
Here it is hooked up to two monitors, not even breaking a sweat. This is because of the ATI video card I installed.
It is actually a Power Mac G3, but with the clear handles of a G4 and a CPU upgrade running at 500MHz, roughly equivalent to a Pentium 4. It has 512MB RAM and a 40GB Western Digital 7200RPM hard drive, for fast boot times. The video card in it is an ATI Radeon 7000 Mac edition, which retails for $125 here:
http://www.gmscomputersales.com/ati-radeon-7000-64mb-for-mac-pci-p-43.html
It also has a SCSI card, and a DVD drive. It's running OS 10.3.9 Panther with all updates, iLife, and Microsoft Office.
The Dell Latitude C600:
This is really a gem of a notebook. Here it is booting into the BIOS:
It has an 850MHz Pentium III processor. Yes, this is the same model of laptop you've seen for $250 on Craigslist. It is better than most of them, because it has a battery that will give you approximately three hours of life. It has 128MB RAM, expandable to 1GB. There is no hard drive, but pop one in and you're ready to go! This is a small laptop. It doesn't have a CD drive, but you can buy one for around $20. There are lots of multimedia ports.
Next we have the eMachines.
It’s basically the case, CD drive, power supply, and motherboard. Nothing much to say here. About 3 years old.
Next is the 1st generation iPod.
Front:
Back: (notice the mirrorlike back, no scratches at all)
So, what I have here is essentially an original Apple iPod. It's the first one ever, made in 2001. It has no scratches whatsoever, because it's never been taken out of the case except to take pictures of it, and has a brand new battery, which costs approximately $75. I'm selling it because I don't really use it or pay it any attention anymore. Needless to say, this iPod is a collector's item, and will most certainly rise in value. As the pictures show you, it's immaculate. No scratches, scuffs, dings, nothing. It comes with a sync cable, a wall charger, and a pair of nice Phillips headphones.
Next is the Macintosh 128k.
There it is. This was the first widely available computer that used a keyboard and a mouse. Before this was introduced in 1984, computers were just text on a screen. The Macintosh introduced desktop icons and the mouse on the screen. Windows would not exist if Microsoft had not used a lot of the Macintosh’s operating system.
History lesson aside, this is a large chunk of Apple history and is extremely rare. It turns on, but can’t load the operating system.
And, a PS/2 keyboard and mouse. They are Gateway brand and work fine. The mouse has a scroll wheel and the keyboard has multimedia and application buttons. Both look like new.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Long-Awaited and Fantastically Wonderful Setup post!!!
w00t! here is the long-promised setup post that I have been talking about ever since I rediscovered this blog. To start with:
Here is my Lenovo ThinkPad T60. it's a pretty nice box, with a 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 1GB of RAM, and a 100GB hard drive. It has a 128MB ATI Radeon X1400 video card, and a 15' 1400x1050 LCD. The 9-cell battery lets it hold around a 4 hour charge.
Here is my Sony Vaio PCG-TR3AP. As you can see, it's really, really small. It's got a 1GHz intel Pentium M, with 1GB RAM and a 40GB hard drive. it manages to squeeze in a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, also. It has a 10.6" 1280x768 glossy widescreen display, with a webcam and Intel Extreme graphics.
Here is my first Mac ever, my iBook G4. It's a 1.33GHz G4 with 1GB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, a slot-loading Combo drive, and a 12" 1024x768 display powered by the ATI Radeon 9550.
Here is my Lenovo ThinkPad T60. it's a pretty nice box, with a 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 1GB of RAM, and a 100GB hard drive. It has a 128MB ATI Radeon X1400 video card, and a 15' 1400x1050 LCD. The 9-cell battery lets it hold around a 4 hour charge.
Here is my Sony Vaio PCG-TR3AP. As you can see, it's really, really small. It's got a 1GHz intel Pentium M, with 1GB RAM and a 40GB hard drive. it manages to squeeze in a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, also. It has a 10.6" 1280x768 glossy widescreen display, with a webcam and Intel Extreme graphics.
Here is my first Mac ever, my iBook G4. It's a 1.33GHz G4 with 1GB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, a slot-loading Combo drive, and a 12" 1024x768 display powered by the ATI Radeon 9550.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
$100 price drop on iPod touch and iPhone?????? Oh geez.
Mac Rumors states that a $100 price drop on the iPhone and iPod touch is likely within the next two months. This would also discontinue the 8GB touch and the 8GB iPhone.
As some of you readers may remember, there was a lot of whining about the last price drop, on September 5, 2007.
A lot of the time it seems like Armeggadon when Apple drops prices. There are always crybabies who get pissed off because they bought a product right before the price drop.
Seriously, guys, just deal with it. At some point, someone will buy a product right before it is improved/made cheaper. The natural human instinct is to WHINE!!! However, please, don't whine about it on teh tubez. It doesn't make anything better. In fact, the $100 of store credit that Apple offered is overkill. Don't get me wrong, it's very nice of Apple to offer compensation to people, but it's really not necessary. Apple, in the field of consumer electronics, tends to release products first aimed at fanboys and people who will pay almost any price. Four months later it's released for sane people.
So, Apple, bring on the price drops. I won't whine, I promise. Internet, I advise you to do the same.
As some of you readers may remember, there was a lot of whining about the last price drop, on September 5, 2007.
A lot of the time it seems like Armeggadon when Apple drops prices. There are always crybabies who get pissed off because they bought a product right before the price drop.
Seriously, guys, just deal with it. At some point, someone will buy a product right before it is improved/made cheaper. The natural human instinct is to WHINE!!! However, please, don't whine about it on teh tubez. It doesn't make anything better. In fact, the $100 of store credit that Apple offered is overkill. Don't get me wrong, it's very nice of Apple to offer compensation to people, but it's really not necessary. Apple, in the field of consumer electronics, tends to release products first aimed at fanboys and people who will pay almost any price. Four months later it's released for sane people.
So, Apple, bring on the price drops. I won't whine, I promise. Internet, I advise you to do the same.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
What's been going on
So, guys. What's been up with me lately? Many things. I am going to leave out computer acquisitions, but otherwise, I will give it to you in timeline form.
December 20-ish: I switch to Leopard, which I won in a drawing at my local Macintosh user group, TMUG
December 25: I get an iPod touch 8GB, which has come in very, very handy lately.
January 21: Dan Knight and I reach an agreement for me to be published on Low End Mac.
January 29: My first column appears. I have been published on Low End Mac before, but that one was a volunteer guest column.
February 5: I switch back to PC partially. Don't worry, I'm still an Apple fanboy. :-)
February 9: I decide to start a new blog. I realize there is a password recovery service at Blogger. Now, I'm back!
Next posts: Pics of my current computer-- all pretty and set up.
December 20-ish: I switch to Leopard, which I won in a drawing at my local Macintosh user group, TMUG
December 25: I get an iPod touch 8GB, which has come in very, very handy lately.
January 21: Dan Knight and I reach an agreement for me to be published on Low End Mac.
January 29: My first column appears. I have been published on Low End Mac before, but that one was a volunteer guest column.
February 5: I switch back to PC partially. Don't worry, I'm still an Apple fanboy. :-)
February 9: I decide to start a new blog. I realize there is a password recovery service at Blogger. Now, I'm back!
Next posts: Pics of my current computer-- all pretty and set up.
Finally!!!!
OK guys. I have not posted in about two months. I forgot how to sign in (how pathetic is that!!) so, yeah.
Anyway, next post will give you a ton of catch-up on what's been happening with me computer-wise.
Anyway, next post will give you a ton of catch-up on what's been happening with me computer-wise.
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