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  1. sechs

    Crap selection of laptops

    Based on my poking around, T-series would be my choice, but I think that it's going to be well out of budget once we throw in the bells and whistles we want. The S-series are Ideapads. Not very customizable, and I'm afraid not reliable enough. Do you have experience with them?
  2. sechs

    Crap selection of laptops

    I need to spec out a laptop for a college student. Normally, I just pick out a nice midddle-to-high end Thinkpad, but, while I wasn't looking, Lenovo fragmented the crap out of their lines. What models should I be looking at now to last four years of university life?
  3. sechs

    Cool train video.

    My complaint is that he used Union Pacific engines and Norfolk Southern gondola cars.
  4. sechs

    XP computers in a business environment

    Get an American Express card. Their return policy is very good. So is the warranty.
  5. sechs

    ZFS Checksum Errors

    I haven't noticed any issues. The only signs that I've found of any problem are these checksum errors. This sounds like a wait and watch situation. Not my favourite.
  6. sechs

    ZFS Checksum Errors

    Twice now, I've had one of the drives in a RAIDZ produce about fifty recoverable checksum errors during the weekly scrub. Both times, I cleared the error and ran a new scrub with no problems. There are no apparent issues reporting via SMART. No problems were found upon inspecting the...
  7. sechs

    Sanyo Eneloop batteries - charging and analyzing questions

    I never found that doing analysis of apparently fine cells did anything for me. If you buy good quality batteries, you should get 90% of the stated capacity without issue.
  8. sechs

    Newegg Premier

    If that situation ever came up, I suppose that might matter. The only reason I ever buy from Newegg is price. And their competitors have been doing a pretty good job of matching them on that.
  9. sechs

    Proposal for a tipbot system using cryptocurreny

    Paradise lost....
  10. sechs

    Newegg Premier

    I signed up for the free Shoprunner thinking that it might make Newegg more competitive with Amazon. It doesn't. Especially now that Amazon has set up here in California, and I get some items in one day and Sunday Prime deliveries. Amazon customer service has always been better, even when...
  11. sechs

    Caching software for SSD

    I guess that would just make me even more down on the Macintosh.
  12. sechs

    This is the thread for the discussion of interesting apps.

    Tried this out for a while and noticed problems, particularly with Instagram. Some of my ad-supported apps got barfy, and I couldn't get updates to install. Also, didn't notice any fewer ads when browsing. I'd say that it's not ready for prime time.
  13. sechs

    Proposal for a tipbot system using cryptocurreny

    I don't see how this would add to the site. We already have a communist utopia.
  14. sechs

    Caching software for SSD

    Using an SSD "for caching" in a desktop setup seems dubious to me.
  15. sechs

    Helium filled hard drives

    Is there a 4TB drive with less than four platters?
  16. sechs

    Helium filled hard drives

    So, what's up with the 1TB per platter limit, and why are manufacturers doing such a crappy job producing them? This behemoth requires seven platters to his 6TB. I recently replaced a stack of single platter 1TB drives, old enough to be out of warranty, with two platter 2TB drives. That's...
  17. sechs

    3.5 to 2.5" drive adapter bracket

    I have one of the Silverstone adapters. My main complaint was with the difficulty of getting a screw driver to the inner flange to attach the drives. I also have some cheap plastic one, Bytecc I think. Except for heat rejection, not any better or worse.
  18. sechs

    LED flashlights

    I have a Mag LED flashlight. They're a known good manufacturer. Frankly, I'd put more faith in a company that focuses on making rugged flashlights than one that concentrates on a nice bulb.
  19. sechs

    Which 2TB Drive?

    I'll agree that Seagate seems cheapest. Have there been any improvements, or are they literally just slapping their label on the old models? Has anything changed in the last few years except the number of manufacturers?
  20. sechs

    This is the thread for the discussion of interesting apps.

    If they optimized their PDFs it would probably help enormously. But why bother when you can just dump it to file and charge money?
  21. sechs

    Which 2TB Drive?

    What 3.5" 2TB drive do folks here suggest? It's about time to upgrade the 1TB drives in my NAS, and now that we're down to 2.5 manufacturers, they all seem like shit.
  22. sechs

    MS's Nokia acquisition

    Microsoft tried this before with Danger, and look how well that went. This kind of feels like trying to save a sinking boat by putting another sinking boat in it.
  23. sechs

    Sound Volume Changes

    My only real requirement is that it has the coax digital out, which generally puts me out of the lowest-end cards. And, for the record, after some fiddling around because the mixer hides the digital out, Knoppix gives the same results as ever. Perhaps worse.
  24. sechs

    Carbon Dioxide into rock.

    A note on flyash to cement... An average sized coal-powered plant near where I used to live in PA produced an approximately ten by ten foot cube of compacted ash every hour of every day. The world is not consuming enough cement for this to be anything but a way to make it cheaper. So, CO2 into...
  25. sechs

    Carbon Dioxide into rock.

    Or, you could just replace the plant with one or more using renewable energy. Then you wouldn't have to deal with the CO2 problem at all....
  26. sechs

    Carbon Dioxide into rock.

    Frankly, it makes running your smokestack through some bottles of algae that turn your CO2 (along with some sunlight) into biomass sound a lot smarter.
  27. sechs

    Sound Volume Changes

    They've been doing some construction work nearby, so I've actually had the windows closed and the A/C on for the last month. Doesn't seem to make any difference.
  28. sechs

    Sound Volume Changes

    I'm pretty much of the same mind of this, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense. I have a Rosewill card based on a C-Media chip. If it comes to that, are there any better options?
  29. sechs

    Sound Volume Changes

    I guess this is as good as any reason to update my Koppix disk....
  30. sechs

    Sound Volume Changes

    I'm having a strange issue where the volume on my desktop will suddenly drop and then some seemingly random period of time later, return to the previous level. This is problematic because I use it to listen to music. I'm using the Realtek ALC889 sound on my motherboard and my now 10+ year-old...
  31. sechs

    Carbon Dioxide into rock.

    Presumably, they're just fixing carbon as carbonates. Coral does it every day. I'd be more worried about how much energy it takes....
  32. sechs

    Paid antivirus

    I've been telling home users with desktops that sit behind a router with a firewall to use MSE. Is that not sufficient on your mind?
  33. sechs

    Crap selection of laptops

    Actually... most of the same companies are behind both DP and HDMI. The key difference in my opinion is that HDMI is closed and requires fees; DP is open and free. Do not doubt the power of the almighty dollar.
  34. sechs

    Pagefile and SSDs

    Thirded.
  35. sechs

    Pagefile and SSDs

    Or you can just get a 64-bit operating system. If I understand how that software works, it won't access any of the memory that you can't get to without PAE; you're still wasting RAM.
  36. sechs

    Pagefile and SSDs

    Unless there's been an architectural change, if you don't set a permanent page file, Windows will just create a temporary one. And, if it's not big enough, you can take a performance hit. Frankly, if you have to worry about allocating space to a page file that you may not use, either you've...
  37. sechs

    Samsung/Seagate RMA?

    One of my Samsung HD103SJ crapped out on me. Thanks to ZFS, I didn't notice that it has been out of my raidz array for weeks. It appears that Seagate is continuing to make this drive with the model number ST1000DM005. Any experience on RMAing Samsung drives to Seagate, and any thoughts on...
  38. sechs

    Windows 8

    They have an activation scheme. You just need to deactivate before installing on a different machine.
  39. sechs

    Hitachi 5k3000 3TB 5400RPM Drive

    Hitachi Deskstar HDS5C3030ALA630, 3.5 inch, 3TB, 5400RPM, SATA 6Gb/s Harddrive I only used the drive during my NAS switch as a back-up. It sat in its box until the new device was backed-up to the cloud. It has about two years left on the warranty. #$^% Western Digital has left the checker...
  40. sechs

    PC Gaming = World of Suck

    If the back story on a game is more than few sentences, my eyes glaze over.
  41. sechs

    Happy St Jean-Baptiste Day

    I thought that was just for moving day.
  42. sechs

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    As I understand it, most SSDs draw more power when idle than a spun-down rotating disk drive. They also use considerably less when under load. What differing power states do SSDs support, and what savings is there in them?
  43. sechs

    Happy St Jean-Baptiste Day

    Coug, what do you do for Fête du Canada? Throw something at it?
  44. sechs

    SoHo Gigabit Router?

    Sure, but it's not that much of a stretch to go from G/N to A/B/G/N.
  45. sechs

    media players, a questioneer.

    I haven't upgraded since WinAmp 2.95.
  46. sechs

    Nichia Develops 60 Lumen Per Watt White LED

    They're listed as daylight, but, like other LED products I've gotten, they seem to be a bit bluer than they should be. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0072QM7OC
  47. sechs

    Samsung Drive

    Western Digital is fucking them up, too. The warranty tool has been down for over a week.
  48. sechs

    SSDs - State of the Product?

    I'd like to point out the Internet.
  49. sechs

    Nichia Develops 60 Lumen Per Watt White LED

    It doesn't seems like there's that much area to cover in your toilet.
  50. sechs

    Nichia Develops 60 Lumen Per Watt White LED

    What is this in reply to?
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