Long time no blog, but no matter, I’m here now.
Over the last week or so I have been slotting into place a plan I have had for some time to upgrade some of the core hardware on my computer. Last night this plan culminated in me sitting down to put it all together. 4 Hours later it was done and below are the photos to prove it.
First the new case, all closed and read to go. For those interested this case is huge and detailed here: http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=212&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61
Opened up there is a lot more space for cables and disks. It also has space for the PSU at the bottom which was a big part of my plan to keep good airflow around the CPU.
New PSU, CPU cooler, DVD drive and a few cables to go with it all.
This new PSU is modular (also a part of the plan to improve airflow).
PSU installed.
Front panel being done.
Front panel complete.
Old case with machine squashed inside.
Side panels removed and motherboard tray being removed. Starting to clear out the way some of the cables.
The lounge with the rebuild just starting to step up a gear as I move onto the CPU cooler.
All the bits out of the old case, CPU cooler off and CPU cleaned. Just about to put the new cooler on.
Turns out the new cooler was a tight fit to say the least. Note where I have had to cut away at some of the plastic on the fan to get the heatsinks to sit next to each other. Thankfully plastic was not important.
Harddrives mounted in new case.
Motherboard tray clipped in, as is the DVD drive. Just starting to do the power cables and alike.
All cabling complete. Not a very neat job and there is a lot of room for improvement, but at this point I just wanted to get it all and working.
Its new home (note lifted off the floor to reduce carpet dust).
It seems myself and Google are at odds over the best alternative route…
(click to view a bigger version)
This is a subject I am always ranting and raving about, and this week is no different. I present two cartoon/workflows which make my point rather well me thinks.
I live in hope that one day the entertainment industry will come to the conclusion that to get people to pay they have to offer more, not irritating paying customers into not staying paying any more.
Originally from: http://lifehacker.com/5475113/remains-of-the-day-why-piracy-works-edition
Originally from: http://www.bradcolbow.com/archive.php/?p=205
I consider this to be quite impressive given I have a sync speed of a little over 8Meg…
For reference, the reason I am running the speed test is to gather more information as I am n the process of bitching to Virgin Media that my connection is too slow (getting around 300k if I’m lucky during normal “peak” times and not much more than 2.3Meg off peak)
As many people know, I know a thing or two about computers. If anyone asks my industry or my field I normally say computing. I say that for simplicities sake, because otherwise it leads to too many questions. However, of late I have come to realise that is akin to calling a shelf stacker at a supermarket part of the food industry.
While technically correct, it avoids the detail that makes the difference.
As soon as someone hears that I do web development and “build websites” as I put it, they want to know if I can help them with their computer. While as it happens I often can, in reality the computer is just a tool to me in my industry the same as it is to a secretary in an office. While you would expect them to be able to use the machine, you would not expect them to fix it when it went wrong.
People seem to think that everything to do with computers is all the same and that if you can do one thing in computing you can do them all. If only it was as simple as this.
To illustrate my point I’m going to explain something I was asked to explain the other day. I was asked how websites work. Remember to keep in mind as I explain what a tiny tiny fraction of computing this is.
Most websites begin with a database where all the data in the system is stored. This is accessed through SQL (1 language) which I then connect to with in my case PHP (2 languages) which then does all the processing of that data. In my environment I use CodeIgniter (1 framework) to do the main calls, process and validate the data and then pass it to Smarty (1 mark-up) to be displayed.
From there the Smarty template contains the HTML (2 mark-ups) which describes all the components of the page and what order they are in. That HTML is sent to the browser along with the CSS (3 mark-ups) which describes to the browser how all that HTML should look. The page might also contain graphics which need to be made in a graphics package of my choice (Photoshop for me). Once on the page there is then one final layer which is the Javascript (3 languages) which sits on top of the data, the HTML and the CSS and allows direct manipulation of that data including sending things back and forth to the server. As an added twist I write all my Javascript using jQuery (2 frameworks).
So all in all to create a simple website for me it requires knowing 2 Languages (PHP, SQL and Javascript), 2 Frameworks (CodeIgniter and jQuery) and 3 Mark-ups (HTML, Smarty and CSS) as well as one graphics programme on top of that.
Then for good measure I need to understand some Unix (operating system), some Apache (a web-server) and all the other techs that go with each of those. Oh, and having a good understanding of XML, JSON, IMAP, POP etc all help day to day too.
Now consider that each of these sections could be several years of learning and trial and error in their own right to truly master
So all this covers a small part of web development and all of this is evolving and changing on a quite literally daily basis and people wonder why sometimes I can’t be bothered to fix their computer.
I have been using on-line banking for not much less the time it has been around. It is more than just a useful tool, for many it is almost their only contact with their money
I understand people still have some security issues, but really, with a little common sense applied and the current tech that goes into banking like key generators you should be fine.
There is one thing however that I don’t understand. It feels like it is being held back for no good reason. For something that has been with us on the web for some time, it feels no different.
I admit my main experience of this is NationWide, however from what I have seen, others are no better.
For example:
- Why do we not have nice shiny interfaces?
- Why can I not tag payments by type and draw graphs of them?
- Why Can I not put in regular payments and forecast savings?
- Hell, why are the views so cryptic and the interface so clunky?
I know there are a number of these tools on-line which address most of my issues, however they require you to give them your sign-in details which not only breaks the TOS with the bank, it also just feels wrong and breaks my common sense rule.
Where is the Gmail of on-line banking?
Take a classic track such as Fleetwood Mac’s "The Chain". A priceless track which has never gets old.
You have it on CD which has a bitrate of 1411.2 kbit/s
This is a nice quality recording. OK, not the quality it was recorded at, but the best you will get.
Actually, to be fair this is the two channels for stereo, so really it is 705.6kbit/s.
But you can’t play a CD on your iPod or better MP3 player so you have to import it onto the computer first.
This gives you maybe a 128 kbit/s or 192 kbit/s file in something like MP3, AAC or WMA. These apps can be set higher, but they are default settings, it is always best to go with those… right?
Then you add it to your iPod or better MP3 player through something like a USB cable (no fear, data can’t leak out of the cable).
You could play it at this point, but if you want to hear it you are going to have to connect it to some speakers or earphones.
Are you still using the earphones that came with your player? Were they nice and white and did they look pretty and stylish? Did you ever think about the audio quality on them? No, you were just too busy standing out from the crowd with the same earphones as everyone else.
Maybe you want to listen to your music at home too. These speakers with iPod docks seem to be everywhere and don’t cost too much, I mean, they are a little steep, but they look good right?
Of course you never notice that the cones on this stylish player are about 10cm’s across and have about the same output range as a dead rat.
So, what have you paid for the privilege of listening to sub standard music?Next time you want to listen to some music, do yourself a favour, consider a cheap CD player, cheap AMP and a couple of bookshelf speakers, if only for the sake of the music!
(Blog inspired by: some video on the BBC site that I now can’t find…)
I have just had one of those days. You know the type, where everything that can go wrong not only does, but likes to break everything else with it.
What follows are a couple of screenshots from my browser at work. Note I am running a plug-in at the bottom of each window called FireBug which allows you to edit the page live. Anyone who does any decent form of web development will be more than aware of this plug-in and should be using it everyday.
What is it not meant to be able to do is change parts of the browser itself… and thus i present evidence to the contrary.
Today in a description for a Bluetooth headset I read the following line:
"Intuitive, single-button control"
To me this reads as something of an oxymoron. How can something with multiple functions and only a single button to achieve them with ever be called intuitive?
Intuitive is a word that gets thrown around rather a lot in IT. Normally it is used to describe something people can just pick up and use with no training or instruction. Apple likes to use the word a lot in in relation to its devices and software. But tell me this, on the iPod, does the idea of moving your thumb round and round a dial ever equate to an up and down motion? Does three diagonal lines in the bottom corner of a window on any OS suggest to you that this is where you click to change its size? Does a circle with a line breaking it in the vertical suggest on and off or power?
The simple answer and conclusion from this is that there is no such thing as an intuitive interface or control mechanism. An easy to use interface is simply one that builds upon knowledge you already have.
To return to my Bluetooth headset, the one I was looking at was a few models up from the one I have now. It has the same one button structure as my current headset. Although I would not describe this interface as intuitive, if I ever was to use this new device I would assume double tapping that single button will call the last dialled number, pushing and holding for 6 seconds will change to pair mode.
These are not intuitive interactions, but they do come from knowledge I already have.
There is a certain irony to how I feel about computers at the moment.
Today started with the sync partnership between my phone and Outlook on my computer getting lost broken or stolen from me one way or another. The net effect of this was all my contacts, tasks, notes and calendar entries vanished from the phone. While this was not a catastrophic loss as all the data is in Outlook too, a phone with no contacts is like a car with no wheels.
So I set about restoring the flaky connection between the two devices and forced them to kiss and make-up. All in all this lost me about 3 hours of this morning with other distractions and tasks occurring in-between. You would have thought that now I would be generally annoyed at technology, but in actual fact the exact opposite is true. This successful patching of the morning spurred me on to sort out a couple of other things on my phone and general organizational system in the in-between times of the day.
Specifically I re-discovered MS OneNote.
In a way there is nothing that special about OneNote, it is a note taking application for the computer which is part of the Microsoft Office suite. All you do is keep notes in it, that is all. Yet it is how elegantly that this all works that makes me feel I can appreciate computers for that they are again, tools to get the job done.
I dragged bits from websites including text and images and they just appeared in the note along with date time and where they came from as a block ready to be moved about. I can just pick up any element and move it round like publisher. I can also just start writing wherever I want and use all the nice powerful formatting tools from Word. I have workbooks, tabs, pages, folders. I can tag items, draw things in, highlight text, search for anything (including text inside images). In short, it is an application that makes collating and storing little notes and bits of information for projects and alike really really simple.
The best part of all of this… I knew I could set this up to work with my phone. I found the option to install to my phone. Up on my phones screen popped the installation, I clicked through and 30 seconds later I had all my notes on my phone so I have them with me.
I like it when things just work!