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What I'm seeing at this point is very little interest in actual computer classes that I need to TEACH but instead a great deal of interest in projects that happen to involve a computer. People for the most part have just given up on the idea that they should know how to work a computer because...

I have a two hour meeting scheduled this morning wherein I get to explain to managers at a fairly large company that the IT project they're trying to bid out is in fact 100% part of Windows and has been since 1993. yay

I'm fairly certain Microsoft will be picking up Blackberry, too. And all of that is to get it back to a level of credibility it never should have lost in the smartphone marketplace. Based on my limited interactions with current Windows Mobile products, they're a better choice for "simple"...

BeyondPod has native support for playback speed control but Presto might be what you're looking for.

Last time I moved, the box that had all my actually-valuable comic books and my DSLR both magically did not make it to my new place. I can only hope the mover who took them is enjoying what he got. I have shit-tons of moving people karma though. I joke about it how often I help other people...

It's a Gigabyte Z77n-WIFI. It has a pretty serious heat sink on the north bridge. I'm going to try the PicoPSU route next and see what that gets me before I start cutting in to the case to add more fans.

The stock fan is in place. The RAM is 1.5V Kingston something-or-other. One 8GB module.The machine is completely fine without the discrete GPU. In Q3A, at least. It's the graphics card. I don't really want to cut out the side of the panel to add a 120mm fan to push air out, but that's the only...

The stock fan is in place. The RAM is 1.5V Kingston something-or-other. One 8GB module.The machine is completely fine without the discrete GPU. In Q3A, at least. It's the graphics card. I don't really want to cut out the side of the panel to add a 120mm fan to push air out, but that's the only...

I'm trying to build a mid-range-ish living room game system because of reasons. I modded a USB hub and notebook DVD drive in to the 5.25" bay for extra-easy gamepad and flash drive plug-ins. It's kind of ugly but it's a nice feel for something that's meant to be console-like. I have a Cooler...

That's probably a perfect use for it, since they're big files that don't change very often. I put it to work syncing web sites and home directories and for the most part I can say that it's fast and efficient at least for small projects.

Nothing at all to do with gaming: I was explaining the Humble Bundle to a couple people today in the context of a unique internet-based distribution system for "stuff" like games and books. I brought it up and right now they're offering recordings of comedians. And some of them are pretty...

Speaking of almost-babysitters... Ladyfriend wants me to go out to drunken college parties this weekend. I haven't actually said no yet but since I'm technically old enough to be the father of college aged human beings it's weird to even contemplate.

Hope you have an understanding babysitter for the evening. ;)

Is anyone using BTSync, perhaps as an alternative to rsync for replicating a directory structure across the Internet? I was able to copy around 45GB of .jpgs from my apartment to a file server in my office overnight, which as a proof of concept suggests that that it would work very well as an...

I had a full height PCIe SAS expander on a 16x right-angle card in my FreeNAS box. It worked fine. No, that's not the same thing as a high end graphics card but to the best of my knowledge PCIe is remarkably un-fussy about such things.

There's quite a lot of "moving shit around just to move it around" in Server 2012, but some tasks are definitely streamlined for new releases vs. old, like setting up VDI, sometihng that was absolutely horrific on Server 2008.

Dubstep is not something I'd choose to listen to but it's not rap and it doesn't rely on recycling recognizable chunks of work by other musicians, so it's already a big step up from certain other genres. Anyway, if I believe the retail box for this Asrock N68C-GS FX, it has special powers for...

I'm not sure how offended to be about this. Yes, it's stupid. Frankly, I don't know why .NET assemblies aren't a mandatory part of the OS install in the first place, especially since out-of-order installations can seriously hose them. But on the other hand, given that a lot of Windows...

Overall I still think Avast is the best free option. Newer versions insist on themselves more than old ones did; "Hey, look at me! I'm doing stuff for you! And I'm free! But you can buy me!" And I appreciate some of the not-strictly-AV functionality even if I don't use it. I normally disable...

Stand alone sound cards are getting a bit hard to come by but I think Via Envy 24DT based hardware is a step up from Realtek. Then again, a USB DAC might be a better long term investment.

Well it's not like I've been keeping a detailed log, but I definitely have to clean up machines that had up to date MSE on a fairly regular basis, and the couple customer sites where it's still in use are also customer sites where I still have to deal with malware-related issues that I don't see...

That doesn't align with any way that I've heard of audio hardware breaking, but I suspect that it is a hardware issue, particularly since the problem can be addressed by manually fixing the volume on the speakers. The cheapest fix is almost certainly to purchase a different sound card.

Absolutely not. MSE is abysmal at actually detecting much of anything. It's not worth the CPU cycles to run it. I'll put it on a little old lady's computer so that she can have some peace of mind but it doesn't belong on any machine that actually needs security software.

I kind of want to know more about the processes involved and how they would fit in to current methods of energy production.

The following thoughts have occurred to me: 1. Why do we CARE about who is running the show? Microsoft has never been a company that's near and dear to anyone's heart. If it takes a tumble because of shitty management, it was well-deserved. 2. The things that Microsoft does right are largely...

Maybe they'll let an accountant take the reins so Microsoft can REALLY soar!

Lay's Chicken and Waffles flavor potato chips are quite possibly the perfect distillation of junk food. The platonic ideal of a chip: Salty, crunchy, maple-sweet. I do not know if other places have these things but if you are a person who has been known to enjoy the mighty potato in all its...

Conversely, the Note 2 has an enormous screen, but because of different expectations of its form factor, it also has an even more enormous battery.

I can ask a park ranger that very question. She knows many things about a wide variety of scat. Scats? Whichever.

In a substantial minority of US states, publicly indicating that you support peer-reviewed scientific research will cost you an election, as will being in favor of low cost health care, strong regulation for industry and human rights for homosexuals and Muslims. That said, there just aren't...

The Samsung Note II is as far as I know the only smartphone with a genuine two-days-of-normal-use battery. But I have no idea what that translates to in terms of your needs. I've heard tales of Blackberry devices with very good battery life but as I understand it BB's GPS/navigation options...

Personally I'm looking forward to autonomous vehicle navigation so that the amount of driving I actually do will be minimal.

Zikk allows people to do some remote administration of Android devices. It's kind of limited - you can make it install free apps from the Play Store or set up ring tones or add wireless passwords, but that can still be a big help for the helpless.

Driving on legitimately urban streets is a decided edge case that only impacts a small subset of the drivers at any given time, but you're suggesting a globally applicable punishment because there are a few places where there are too goddamned many stupid people, whether they're on foot, on...

Disabling the technology that enables phones to communicate inside a vehicle could also potentially disrupt other telecomm services the phone might be using, such as traffic information systems. Also, that's a pretty severe restriction to place on passengers. I don't like people who drive and...

So Microsoft's online games authorization service for Windows is shutting down next year. That's a big deal because: 1. It's run by one of the biggest and best-funded companies on the planet. 2. It hoses software that was purchased in a retail box, not just titles delivered online. 3. It also...

Actually, I think it's the well done character animations and setting. It's more charming than challenging, much like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.

Sagethumbs is a handy-dandy Windows add-on that enables previews in Windows Explorer for a wider array of file types than the stock picture viewing tool. In particular, it can make thumbnails of .PDF and .EPS files. It's also agnostic of your underlying default viewer, which means that you can...

There's also no appreciable price difference between the 430 and the 630, at least not for cards with the same amount of RAM.

GT630s are about $65 and have respectable specs and purportedly good Linux drives. And also fans that will fail at the drop of a hat, but you already know that.

I've been playing a lot of Rougelike games lately. Spelunky is a lot of fun. It has kind of bad console-portitis in that the Windows version only works with Xbox 360 controllers for gamepad input and the game only supports a half-dozen fixed-size screen resolutions, but each games is typically...

Avast no longer runs acceptably on single-core systems. Spybot 2 chokes and kills low-end Core 2 and C2D Celeron CPUs. For Spybot, the main value is in the Immunizations, and the Immunization definitions are the same for 1.6 as they are for 2.0, but it's tough to tell people that they have to...

I do not have a problem adding a mapped path to my Plex Server. I have paths on Windows and on FreeNAS. Is it possible you're running the Server as a User that doesn't have that mapped drive in its profile (i.e. running the server as the Admin account instead of a regular username)? At any rate...

I've had that happen when a manufacturer is out of something. The first time I ordered a set of Cards Against Humanity, most recently.

Axe Cop is awesome. There's a webcomic and a irregularly-published-by-Dark Horse comic book as well. I've mentioned my appreciation before and so did Handy. :)

I think CPU spec might be a silly criteria for purchasing a laptop at this point. There's really very little difference between a modest C2D and an i7. The issue here is how the device will be used, but assuming adequate RAM and a fast storage device, they aren't that far apart for the vast...

They're doing Return of the King next year.

I got to do something amazing last night. The Chicago Symphony, Symphony Chorus and Children's Chorus performed the complete score to "The Two Towers" at the Ravinia festival. I never thought I'd see a live performance of it. It was - and this is not hyperbole - breathtaking.

People building monsters might want to look at this. I'd like the source article but it's in Japanese.

Not yet. I only have one non-virtual Linux machine now and it's a small form factor machine.