Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Windows Vista boots up quickly—but seeing the desktop is hardly a sign that the OS is ready for use. When your familiar wallpaper and icons appear, you better not start clicking, because in the background the OS is still finishing up its startup process. Sometimes it seems like you have ...
Posted in Windows | No Comments
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
It happens to all of us: You turn on your system and see the stomach-churning "disk not found" error.
It's really not surprising considering hard drives fail--more often than you might think. You don't believe me, I know, so look at Study: Hard Drive Failure Rates Much Higher Than Makers Estimate.
Some ...
Posted in Hardware | No Comments
Monday, April 14th, 2008
The first thing is to isolate the computer (no more trading floppies until you're done) and then begin to disinfect it.
One of my favorite tools is Knoppix. The great thing about this Linux distribution is that you don't have to know anything about Linux in order to be able to ...
Posted in Internet, Security | No Comments
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
Intel has quietly begun shipping its hottest quad core desktop processor ever, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770. We built a PC, to see just how fast the 3.2-GHz, 45-nm chip, complete with a 1600-MHz front-side bus, really is.
Our previous project, where we put together a system last fall with Intel's ...
Posted in Gaming, Hardware | No Comments
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
It happens to us all: You put together your latest home-built PC masterpiece and before you've even downloaded your first Windows XP patch, some new technology comes along, or the price of an existing one drops, and you find yourself wishing you'd waited just another few days, weeks, or months. ...
Posted in Hardware | No Comments
