Personal computing discussed

Search found 37 matches

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by jensend
Fri Jul 26, 2019 6:07 pm
Forum: General Hardware
Topic: Budget build advice: displayport motherboards, cases
Replies: 4
Views: 3073

Re: Budget build advice: displayport motherboards, cases

K-L: yeah, that sounds like a pretty accurate summary of the unfortunate overall trends. The one case I've found that seems to do everything I'd be interested in - mATX SFF, 5.25" optical, etc - is the Silverstone SG12. Unfortunately stock is low and prices are high - cheapest I see is $152 , w...
by jensend
Thu Jul 18, 2019 2:51 pm
Forum: General Hardware
Topic: Budget build advice: displayport motherboards, cases
Replies: 4
Views: 3073

Budget build advice: displayport motherboards, cases

TL;DR: mobos with DP are rare, I've been planning on SFF but don't know which case and am reconsidering after finding an ATX mobo with DP for half the price. Looking for tips on motherboard and either mITX cases or small ATX cases and reasons to go with one or the other. What advice can other gerbil...
by jensend
Mon Jul 08, 2019 7:06 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: Something's different...
Replies: 1628
Views: 331005

Re: Something's different...

I'm terribly sorry. Having a fresh high-quality review of a highly anticipated product was a wonderful chance to win back eyeballs and help keep the lights on, and then the site swap snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The old site really seemed superior in every single way, especially informa...
by jensend
Mon May 06, 2019 11:31 am
Forum: General Hardware
Topic: Bricked mini-pc - what to try?
Replies: 2
Views: 3625

Bricked mini-pc - what to try?

One of my systems has been a ZOTAC passively cooled mini-PC . A few weeks ago it refused to respond at all when I hit the power button to turn it on, so I opened it up, used the CMOS reset button, closed it back up, and it booted just fine. Then a couple days later it happened again, and this time r...
by jensend
Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:53 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: A trick for your tired eyes
Replies: 30
Views: 4420

Re: A trick for your tired eyes

The real trick here is that if you have been used to modern monitors and go back to using a CRT - or even a terribly low refresh rate on an LCD - it may annoy you enough that you stop staring at your screen and go focus your eyes on objects outdoors, thus relieving eye strain. That and the placebo e...
by jensend
Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:03 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: What's a good vacuum?
Replies: 49
Views: 7832

Re: What's a good vacuum?

Clearly you should try to find one that really sucks! (thank you, I'll be here all week...) My first reaction when I saw the title in the 'hot forum threads' on the homepage was along the lines of "well, it depends on what you need it for, but I'd say around 1 Pascal is a rather good vacuum .&...
by jensend
Wed Dec 26, 2018 6:11 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: Best place to Cross the rocky mountains in january?
Replies: 42
Views: 7348

Re: Best place to Cross the rocky mountains in january?

I-15 seems by far the simplest to me. Any other route will be a couple more hours of driving time and extraneous difficult mountain crossings. (There's no need to cross the Pacific Crest at a pass like Donner Summit or Snoqualmie Pass when you can just bypass the whole thing to the south.) Zero snow...
by jensend
Mon Dec 03, 2018 3:35 pm
Forum: Networking
Topic: 10 Gbps switch for a condo
Replies: 40
Views: 13414

Re: 10 Gbps switch for a condo

10Gbps Ethernet and beyond are still prosumer/professional-tier. 10Gbps will never be as cheap as 1Gigabit and legacy Ethernet because the available mediums and equipment for it have to built to higher standards for reliable data transmission. Cheap UTP and older switching designs don't cut it. Tha...
by jensend
Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:50 am
Forum: Gaming
Topic: High or low fps?
Replies: 37
Views: 8741

Soapbox moment

First, before we even start into human perception, FPS is the wrong measure because frame times are what matters and inverting that leads to misleading conclusions about the relative importance of different improvements. (A similar situation leads people to underestimate the relative importance of '...
by jensend
Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:33 pm
Forum: General Software
Topic: AV1 Video Codec
Replies: 25
Views: 8406

Re: AV1 Video Codec

The h.265 licensing situation is nothing like that for h.264. For h.264, there is a single patent cartel selling licenses (MPEG LA), their prices for most uses are well within many companies' ability to pay, and many uses no longer require royalties at all. For h.265, you have to pay expensive royal...
by jensend
Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:04 pm
Forum: General Software
Topic: Backup software as gift - both PC and Mac?
Replies: 14
Views: 4094

Backup software as gift - both PC and Mac?

A couple years ago I gave a sibling a couple of external drives and said "now you can back up all your creative work! it's not off-site backups, but it's a lot safer than just relying on your laptop not getting stolen and your hard drive not failing." I recently found out that she didn't e...
by jensend
Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:58 pm
Forum: Echo Vale
Topic: .flac to .mp3 conversion?
Replies: 63
Views: 20366

Re: .flac to .mp3 conversion?

The problem with Jon's command line is that it's CBR 128kbps. That really isn't enough for LAME to work with. But versions of LAME from the last ten years can do a very decent job with -V5 (variable bit rate 130kbps) and should be practically transparent at -V3 (VBR 175kbps), though the antiquated d...
by jensend
Fri May 05, 2017 1:21 am
Forum: Processors
Topic: Looks like RyZen got caught cheating on benchmarks
Replies: 64
Views: 10469

Re: Looks like RyZen got caught cheating on benchmarks

There's literally zero incentive for them to do so, and they run the risk of making particular code paths unstable if it really is a "cheat". I'm not sure why you're saying that. The Itanium engineers were purposefully cheating to present super rosy results to their bosses. Yet you say th...
by jensend
Fri Oct 31, 2014 1:10 pm
Forum: General Hardware
Topic: Scanner software - Epson
Replies: 11
Views: 2792

Re: Scanner software - Epson

http://www.epson.jp/dl_soft/list/1596.htm appears to be your only other option.

For many scanners, epson and otherwise, VueScan or SilverFast supply their own driver. But neither of them do so for that scanner.
by jensend
Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:13 am
Forum: Storage
Topic: Worst the can happen from using an SSD without TRIM/AHCI?
Replies: 15
Views: 7827

Re: Worst the can happen from using an SSD without TRIM/AHCI

The question is what's the worst that could happen if I go ahead and use an SSD anyway? Man, that's incredibly dangerous . Any of the following could happen: ⋅ Spontaneous incineration ⋅ Plague, pestilence, and famine ⋅ Birth defects ⋅ Sour milk ⋅ G...
by jensend
Wed Jul 17, 2013 1:59 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: I have to buy a push lawn mower... what should I get?
Replies: 44
Views: 13592

Re: I have to buy a push lawn mower... what should I get?

Star Brood, that lawn looks quite easy to mow with a manual mower. For reference, my lawn has a fairly steep ~4' hillside, a somewhat more gradual ~2' hill, and an area with a rather gradual ~3' slope to it, and the only time when any of these are inconvenient is if I try to mow directly up the 4-fo...
by jensend
Wed Jul 17, 2013 11:09 am
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: I have to buy a push lawn mower... what should I get?
Replies: 44
Views: 13592

Re: I have to buy a push lawn mower... what should I get?

Oh good, maybe you can explain why reel mowers do such a terrible looking job? On the contrary, reel mowers do a better-looking job than rotary ones if you do it right. All the professional turf/greens managers use riding reel mowers, not rotary mowers, because of the superior cut. The cut is healt...
by jensend
Tue Jul 16, 2013 11:35 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: I have to buy a push lawn mower... what should I get?
Replies: 44
Views: 13592

Re: I have to buy a push lawn mower... what should I get?

I strongly recommend a push reel manual mower . I've been mowing lawns with human power rather than gas ever since I was 6 or so. I've only used gas mowers on a couple of occasions, and I find them to be a tremendously unnecessary hassle. A manual mower is almost silent, requires no fuel, produces n...
by jensend
Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:15 pm
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls
Replies: 27
Views: 11531

Re: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls

I'll reply to individual suggestions in the next post, but first I'll say I've been rethinking this. I figure I have three roads to choose from: 1) Forget internal expansion, get something small like the ISK300 and rely on external gear for card reading and everything else. Maybe my desire to be abl...
by jensend
Sat Apr 20, 2013 12:12 am
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls
Replies: 27
Views: 11531

Re: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls

BTW just wanted to add my thanks for everybody's input so far. I'm going to bed; maybe by morning I'll have given up my insistence on the card reader. (I only use SD and its variants, and it just seems silly given the prevalence of those and the ubiquity of slots on laptops and nettops that so few c...
by jensend
Fri Apr 19, 2013 11:54 pm
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls
Replies: 27
Views: 11531

Re: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls

JAE: from what I can tell the Rosewill is, like the MI-110, basically just a facelift of the Apex MI-008. (Same crappy Apex/ALLIED AL8250SFX PSU but with a Rosewill sticker on it.) I may yet grab something like that, in which case a 3.5" bay device can also take care of the USB3 port (e.g. this...
by jensend
Fri Apr 19, 2013 11:43 pm
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls
Replies: 27
Views: 11531

Re: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls

JAE and Kumori, I don't have any need for full-length graphics cards or high TDP processors. I'll be just using integrated graphics in the near term, though perhaps someday down the road I might grab a low-midrange card (e.g. the future equivalent of today's 7750). FT03 seemed like an awkward form f...
by jensend
Fri Apr 19, 2013 11:14 pm
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls
Replies: 27
Views: 11531

Re: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls

Auxy- Well, what do you think? I'd looked at that case before (well, the black version); I remember I went to the trouble of inspecting pictures and comparing with standards spec sheets to deduce what PSU form factor it used, but I can't remember what it was. I was too worried about the possibilitie...
by jensend
Fri Apr 19, 2013 9:41 pm
Forum: Cases and Power Supplies
Topic: Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls
Replies: 27
Views: 11531

Mini-ITX case market driving me insane, advice pls

I'm having a hard time finding a case I'd be happy with. This is frustrating. For about two years now you've been able to find tiny nettops with USB3+audio front ports and an integrated card reader and purchase everything but the RAM and HDD for well under $200. But if you want that plus a faster pr...
by jensend
Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:19 pm
Forum: Gaming
Topic: Games like Grim Fandango
Replies: 39
Views: 14554

Re: Games like Grim Fandango

Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE! On a more serious note, the ResidualVM project, an offshoot project of ScummVM made to support Grim Fandango and other GrimE engine games, just announced their first stab...
by jensend
Thu Dec 06, 2012 2:34 pm
Forum: Hot Deals
Topic: Pay what you want for Weird Worlds (indie space game)
Replies: 3
Views: 2095

Re: Pay what you want for Weird Worlds (indie space game)

No, it's not very much like SPAZ at all. For one thing, Weird Worlds is much faster paced and not so expansive. A single game of Weird Worlds can be played through in 10 to 30 minutes (depending on the size option at the start of the game and on how many battles you take on when you're evenly matche...
by jensend
Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:12 am
Forum: Hot Deals
Topic: Pay what you want for Weird Worlds (indie space game)
Replies: 3
Views: 2095

Pay what you want for Weird Worlds (indie space game)

At indiegamestand there's a pay what you want deal for Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space . It's quite an addictive little game. Yeah, it's rather old at this point, but this is the first time it's been available on Steam and Desura, and until recently the rights to the PC version were still wit...
by jensend
Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:06 pm
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: running a 5k?
Replies: 26
Views: 7187

Re: running a 5k?

that sounds like what I'll do. We dont' have a plethora of free tracks around town, and I don't want to drop the cost of a gym membership to get a track. But we usually use one city park that's got a 3/4 mile path around it; I can choose what section to sprint on and use google maps to get some dis...
by jensend
Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:26 am
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: running a 5k?
Replies: 26
Views: 7187

Re: running a 5k?

I cannot self regulate pace worth a damn. I just don't know how fast I'm going. . . My first mile took between 7 and 8 minutes, the next 2.1 miles took 30-31 minutes Ouch! To get used to regulating your pace a little, find a track, wear a watch, and check your pace every 200m (or whatever an easy m...
by jensend
Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:25 am
Forum: The Back Porch
Topic: running a 5k?
Replies: 26
Views: 7187

Re: running a 5k?

My $.02: If your 5k time is above half an hour, you aren't running. You need to focus on actually running. If you're trying to jog and you slow down beyond a 10 minute mile pace, try just walking for a bit until you have enough breath/energy/moxie/whatever to get back to a quicker pace. There's no s...
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