Posted 08/24/2008 at 02:00:08am

There are thousands of DVD movies and music CDs that I cannot afford, and basically refuse to budget for in the future.  People get wrapped up in the stories -- the writers, not the hi-def pictures.  Compared to today, Star Wars (the first film) looks almost like an amateur film.  It was the story that sold millions of tickets.

So do you invest in more old media you would like to have, or new tech?  People still watch the 3 stooges, so I'm betting on the writers.  The only way to mass produce Blue Ray is to make it the same price as current media.  And it was not until stores were practically giving away DVD players that the prices finally came down on DVD movies. 

Drugs don't hurt, they kill, dreams, families, careers etc.  Be all you can be.

Posted 08/24/2008 at 01:49:35am

There really isn't any reason for them to die.  I think the DVD was too ambitious, we could have lived with a double capacity CD, 1.5 gigabyte, it might have been a better combination of size and speed.  DVD's in the past, at least in my case, were prone to error making, and were certainly slow.

CD's are still one of the fastest optical medium out there today.  And if you need computer code that fills up over 700mb, I'm not sure that is called progress.  While I've probably got stacks of DVD coasters, I've probably got less than 10 CD coasters.  That's what you get when you buy the cheapest hardware?

DVD's are nice, but we are not seeing 52x DVD read speeds (would your machine catch on fire?).  Denser formats are for people with money to burn?  Hi-Def and Blue Ray seem to be more of a fashion, although I would not watch a big screen tv without hi-def enabled -- seems to defeat the purpose.  Of course that costs more, but I'm straying from the article.

Long live the CD -- the Luke Skywalker of Microsoft?  In a galaxy far away, a long time ago......

Back up your terrabyte storage with hard drives, but for communication, nothing can beat a CD sometimes. 

Drugs don't hurt, they kill, dreams, families, careers etc.  Be all you can be.

Posted 12/03/2007 at 07:38:18pm

Pros: Direct-x 10, enhanced dos (new network toy commands), enhanced system info reporting tools, improved media player. Cons: Claims RAM can benefit from "boost feature" of using a USB flash drive. Leary of anybody making that claim when compared to hard disk access times (dedicated IDE channel with faster access times). 2 gig ram chips are still questionable purchases for those on a budget? Many hardware devices (such as phone cards) are not supported (ditto for XP64bit?)? New and updated software will depend on adoption of Visual Studio 2008, which will cost the average software shop several thousand dollars in training, new hardware for testing, etc? Conclusion: If you are new to computing, what you don't know won't hurt you (lol)? If you have invested a lot of time in software and hardware, then you probably want to stick to XP 32bit and play with Vista if you can afford it? Sure, the "activation virus" is perhaps bothersome for some, but the automated phone activation system is not only sweet, but free? And on the otherhand, Microsoft is going back to the Lotus marketing scheme by letting people test drive their operating systems for free (demos, etc)? I think Microsoft deserves a thank you (Thanks)! I'm not fond of the high prices or the "versions", but that's not my call to make. I would like to see one version for a product and lower prices, I'm hoping market expansion will make it possible. Do the high prices of the software make it a target of the EU for fines? Perhaps if the software was dirt cheap, they would not have sued Microsoft out of fear of putting it out of business? Also Will never mentioned testing installing Vista on a clean hard disk without using your activation code, and then activating it with your key when the clean install is performed (does not work for upgrades)? I think it would have been too expensive to pay someone in India to lookup your XP installation ID, over the phone to perform an upgrade? Do we want to pay for that? Would setting one lower price and no upgrade options woo back those who left for MAC OS, or Linux? I think a lot of speculation helps some, and confuses others. I still see W2000, and apparently it works for those folks. In other words, software never dies, it just multiplies! Signature: Drugs don't hurt, they kill (lives, dreams, opportunities, etc?)? Sex is designed to be more powerful than greed (use with extreme caution)!? Have a great day:)

Posted 12/01/2007 at 07:50:46pm

Worth every penny, system is twice as fast, and you do not need a benchmark program to see the difference. It's like moving from dial up phone modem to broadband. Running 44-50 C without polishing (cleaning with solvent, ((2 lazy to donn the respirator)) the heatsink or chip out of the box (stock cooler) running at idle. Did some reading and saw that Intel chips can run without a heatsink without frying (would not recommend though, do not attempt with AMD) LOL. Seriously, dropped the chip down to 100 Mhz and the temps dropped to 38-40 C. Not that paranoid though and set the voltage back to "auto", anything under 60 C is cool enough? I will end up spending more for the (good) power supply and case than the chip? I'll upgrade the case to an aluminum one as the budget permits, since the motherboard is basically sitting on a steel "baking plate" (LOL)? Thanks Intel! Seal the packages with Argon to preserve the surfaces from atmospheric interaction before installation? (Signature) Thoughts for the day: Drugs don't hurt, they kill (life, dreams, relationships, moods, etc.). Sex is designed to be more powerful than greed, use with extreme caution!