Windows 10, PCs 4

In my world, today is August 6  August 14. My last post was on the 24th of July, and much has happened since then... more in a following post!

For starters, on the very last day that the free Windows upgrade was available (July 29), I upgraded one of our PCs in the SUL. I might have upgraded more, but only one of the PCs we tried actually worked.

I'm very happy with the upgrade.As it was a workday for me, Mr. T had the privilege of babysitting the install process. It  was very smooth, according to him, and seemingly unlike every other new OS install, the HDD was untouched save for the OS. Had I the slightest clue it would be this easy, I would have installed it on at least one other machine. Alas, that time has passed.

So,how is performance?

The machine in question is an HP/Compaq DC7600 Pentium 4 3.4 GHz with 4GB (max, I believe) and a 1TB HDD.  

From a cold start, I think I get a login screen in 10 seconds or less. This is a 50% or better improvement. The interface is very nice- Win 7/8 users should have no problem transitioning to this OS.

On the minus side, MY experience with the new Edge browser has not been good. It is no better than the last iteration of IE, which is VASTLY inferior (that's the polite way of saying it absolutely SUCKS) to Chrome, Pale Moon or Vivaldi. As a side note- if you've never tried the Pale Moon or Vivaldi browsers, give them a try.

That's it for now- just a few notes on Win10.

AS always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Dude, you're getting a Dell, or, Resistance is futile.

We don't have many Dell computers in our home. Longtime readers may nod in agreement at this statement, but for the benefit of the uninitiated, we have many computers in our home. And while not all are in service, all ARE serviceable; that is, with just a bit of TLC, I believe we could have no fewer than thirteen PCs online simultaneously.

Granted, I would NOT do this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, most of these boxes were "designed for Windows XP". Now, I have nothing against XP- I have one machine that is an XP machine- and it's physically OFFLINE.

Next, most do not have green power supplies. Although all of the monitors in the SUL are now energy-efficient flat panels, the power supplies aren't really worth upgrading, as most of the PCs that are not in service are pretty much waiting to be cannibalized.

Finally, it's just not practical. Four individuals running 13 PCs in a SOHO environment?

The reason Dell came up is that a certain Dell PC crashed one of my external HDDs recently. I know for certain that it's a particular Dell because every time I plug the external drive into this Dell, it asks if I want to repair the drive. Mind you, this drive normally is hooked up to another Dell or a Lenovo or an HP or Compaq machine with no problems. This particular Dell has issues, though, and the last time I use the drive, I ignored the repair message, and in turn it made the drive unusable. I don't know why or how, but this machine is now persona non grata.

End of story.

Lego data news-

I'd been using Peeron's database for some time, but recently it came to my attention that BrickLink has a more complete database. Not only does it seem more complete, but the part numbers are properly formatted, they are already in a separate column and the descriptions do not succinct and do not seem to require editing. The data will still require a bit of formatting to fit my particular usage. That's the good news.

The bad news is that unlike Peeron's single page text file format, BrickLink displays its data on webpages. Not bad, as its still copy-and-paste. What's really from my perspective is that each page displays fifty part numbers.

There are 837 pages... a relatively small price to pay for superior data.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Like Data, we are- in an I.T. sense- fully functional.




Three PC's

 

Today was a severely and serenely eventful day. I actually had to search for Lt. Cmdr. Data's quote- I thought it was from the movie "Insurrection," but it was actually from "Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1 episode 3, in which Tasha Yar sexually assaults Data.

I'l bet ya never thought of it that way!

Anyway, in recognition of the contribution that Star Trek has made to what passes for a geek "community" (I used quotation marks because the naturee of the geek comunity often reminds me more of Sandra Bullock in "The Net" rather than an actual community), I have for the tme being named our "fully-functional" PC's that have found their home in our secret underground lair. PC #1 is named LANDRU, and PC #2 is named VEE-JER, of course. These are definitely Nimoy, and not Shatner, PC's. Captain Kirk just has a way of hosing things up... well, when he's directing the movie, at least.



So anyway, two (relatively) new PC's have been added to the network. One is an XP machine; the other is a 7 box. There is a third which will eventually be a Linux box (we think). All are HP boxes- top one is a DC7600 (Win7, 1TB HDD, 4GB), under it is the "new" DC7800 (Win XP, 500GB HDD, 4GB), and the one to the right (with the K&N decal) is an XW4200 workstation (OS TBD- probably Ubuntu and some iteration(s) of Windows; I don't remember what HDD is in there, 4GB) The display is a Gateway FPD 1730, which has been around for some time. Very highy rated when it was young, it still gets the job done. Tying the PC's together is a Trendnet 2 port TK-209K KVM. I bought the KVM (keyboard/video/mouse switch- electronic) a year or so ago, but never got around to installing it. Lava Lamp® is on top of the PC stack, but not in the picture. Lastly, in the upper right of the photo there's an A-10 Warthog, most likely keeping Soviet-era T72's at bay.





Now that there are a plethora of PC's to use, I may be able to finally get back to more development work on the database, and start doing some programming, although #2 son noticed that both PC's were online, and reminded me thst this IS the Secret Underground Lair, and he might need to install Steam on one (or 3-4 PC's- there's another one waiting in the wings... another KVM might be warranted) of them. I'm starting to think maybe we can do some experimentation with 64-bit systems- probably on the workstation.

Right now the database is very music focused. As I write this, I have Windows Media Player running, and I have the entire thing sorted by number of plays, most to least. Tonight's featured cutoff date is Dec 5, 2012- any song that has a Last Played Date that falls on or before that date gets played. Right now, Barry Manilow is crooning "This One's For You". Tonight was the first time I think I truly realized how much a part of the 70's music scene Barry was.  

Okay, hard data. Between the last time I took a count (12.04.12) and the most recent count (01.14.13), the number of tables remained constant at eleven, and 161 records were added. Somewhat impressive, especially since I'm very definitely not the swiftest on the keyboard, but that only comes out to a .2961% increase.

Lastly, I started a temp day assignment this past Monday. It's an association, non-profit, which is a first for me. I'm helping to put together year end reports, and so far it's been a blast. The culture of this organization is fairly mind-blowing: it is not top-down management and directives (at least, it isn't in the area I'm in), and my input is valued and sought after, not only because they're fairly good, but because I'm an outsider looking in with a fresh set of eyes.