Random Geek Guys

That was the question posed at Geeks!, one that has been popping up a lot recently. When I first read this I was quick to think that it was going to be filled with a long question as to "are they worth it", but it was just a general question, so I thought it would be no better time to write a blog post on the matter.

One of the people at Geeks! said:

Quad cores will be worth it, in about 2 years. As I've said many times before, the reason they aren't worth it not is that parallel support isn't where it needs to be. This is rapidly changing, and quad core processors will be worth more as time goes by simply by virtue of better code. That said, buy core i7. - Kitty

A more neutral comment was:

Quad cores are extremely useful... If you enjoy playing games. Unless a program that you use will utilize all four cores, it's useless. Just get a Dual and OC it, you'll do fine. I was going to get a Quad, but then my friend told me that Duals can still be used and they do really well. He was right. Dual cores still have a while to go before they become obsolete. Heck, even Pentiums can still be used without too much hassle.

Or to go with a simpler and broad comment that is still to the point and damn entertaining:

To answer your question simply...YES! -Stormy

For me, this quote says it all. From the basic idea that they will be worth it in time, to the whole argument that the i7 is better than the quad due to the Quad Core's not being as good as they could be. This proves to be true as the i7 which has eight cores in it and can outperform just about every single processor that is out, whereas the Quad Core is sometimes better sometimes worse than the dual core. The reason I love this quote is because it gets right to the point and gets across the point, which is what I hope to do in this blog post.

The reason that I'd suggest Quad Cores opposed to Dual Cores is simply because of the amount of work I've been able to complete and the ease in which I've done it with, also the general fact that I've had a worse experience with Dual Cores in the past than with Quad Cores, put simply Quad Cores have worked better and have been more reliable in all the years I've used them both and I come from a variety of computer backgrounds, from Pentium II all the way to the Core i7. I've just found the Quad Core to be more practical to use and more reliable, I cannot stress this enough, of the three dual cores I've owned, they've all become slow and struggled in a short period of time, even though the system running on them had hardly anything installed of them, so be it just general crap or a problem with what I've done with them, I feel that it was the processor that let them down.

In my experience I've found that the pro's and con's of Quad Core to be left up to speed, cost and the fun factor. I found the pro's to be

• Speed of the processor, which was remarkable when being compared to Dual Core. If you'd have to ask me it's a major win in the speed section.
  
• Fun factor of Quad Cores, I mean really, something about saying that I've got more processors than somebody else is enough to make me feel good and secure about my computer, even if that does suggest that I have somewhat of a superiority complex (Joking)
  

Some Con's however

• Cost can sometimes be against you, the more expensive you go, the more powerful you get, but it most often results in Dual Cores becoming better for the price they're offering.
  

By Matthew Willison

For a while now I have been listening to an Aussie technology podcast, one that has always been a source of entertainment rather than a source of information. Since I started downloading it, I've only listened to it for the pure hilarity that goes on. Of course this hilarity is not intentionally done at all, in fact, quite the opposite. For this is the reason that has kept me listening intently, not to bask in the knowledge of the people on the podcast but rather laugh at the thoughts perceptions that the people on the podcast have.

Far from the world of tech, in some misbegotten podcast is where the true comedians of tech are found. Glen, the only one who is not on Skype, plays the role of "Ring Leader of the Zoo" brilliantly. The way he goes out of his way to keep peace amongst the "tech" enthusiasts, even if it's the means of going against his own beliefs and opinion. I believe that is a kind of special person who is able to keep peace at the cost of his own beliefs, and for that I give him a small round of applause, if it wasn't for him I'm sure that the comedy that is so regularly spewed out would just turn into nothingness and lose all forms of comedy.

Mark, now here is a guy, knows a little about what he's talking about but acts as though "His word is law" and carries on as though he is the local expert on the matter at hand. So many times have I heard about his experience with a product that has been so bad that not only does everybody else on the podcast who thinks (and I use this word "thinks" loosely) has their opinion ridiculed but he sometimes even goes so far to insult massive amounts of innocent listeners.

Reg, yes I saved the "best" for last, this man has become somewhat infamous in my circle of friends, we refer to him not by the name of Reg but "Tetris Man" because in one of the podcasts he carelessly described the iconic and most certainty historic game of Tetris as nothing more and mundane as "The game were the blocks fall down" which definitely caused us to think of Aussie Tech Head as a "hick" or lower class humour podcast rather than something of a valued source of information. Reg has dove into some absurd (yet entertaining) topics, it's a joy to listen in and hear about how the Asian companies are ripping us off (even though he doesn't pre-research these things) posing questions that go along the lines of "do they have to save money at the Australians expense?". This man is the proverbial glue that holds a podcast of Jesters together.

Glen, the ring leader of the zoo, the one who tries to keep order amongst the chaos. Mark, the stubborn one who loves the sound of his voice and can't think of people who may be insulted. And finally Reg the behind the times awesome entertainer who more times than most doesn't know he's being entertaining at all. Together they all make up Aussie Tech Head the best "non-satirical" (yeah right...) tech podcast out there!

For all the Aussie Tech Heads reading, have a good one! I seriously can't wait for your comments!

By Matthew Willison

This blog post wasn't anything more than MY honest opinion of this podcast, and while I'm sure that they are all wonderful people, from my experience of them on this podcast, I can only come to the assumption that they are nothing more than lower class humour and are definitely not a tech podcast.

Vista has been labelled as a failed OS from the moment that it was released; it has been the focus of much ridicule from users (and non-users) across the world, it has been subjected to reviews where it has been the sole cause of many problems and also the underpinning reason for people to buy Mac's over PC's. As I have said before, I do not believe that Vista is the sole problem in anything these days; there must be some other problem that you've over looked or maybe something wrong that has caused Vista to have this error. With that said, I do admit that while I do hold the opinion that Vista doesn't have major problems now I do admit that in the past it did have some major problems.

What I've been thinking of lately is what would happen if you could get Windows Vista from today and take it back to before Vista SP1 came out. Would Vista still face problems? Or would Vista continue to run completely normal as it was before you had it in a pre SP1 world. I don't have many ideas of how to get this to happen and get this scenario up and running, so if anybody does have a good idea on how to do this, you can e-mail me at my e-mail address (aussiematu648@gmail.com) or just simply leave a comment below for people to read.

If the results of the test come back showing that Vista is running the same as it was before I chucked it into this time paradox experiment then it will prove that despite it being in the same environment that it was when it was facing its most immense problems, Vista was the problem. This is because the internet and driver support that was available did not account and make the OS run slower or worse at all, it would've been the OS itself, but in this paradox because there is no errors that are similar in this time period, Vista must have been the problem way back.

But if the test results come back showing is running different to it was before it was in this paradox, then it would show that it wasn't Vista's problem and it was the environment that lead to Vista's problems. This is because all the support available on the net didn't compliment Vista and led to some of its problems.

Now I know that some people that are reading this may be confused to what I am saying, and again I ask you to e-mail me at aussiematu648@gmail.com so that you can ask me questions and maybe even solve my question in the first place. I think that this experiment would be one of the most enjoyable things I could do with Vista, rather than the mundane benchmarking comparisons.

By Matthew Willison

This is a very handy tool if you do a lot of google searches and don't have the time to be looking at sites filled with things you don't need at all. With a click of a button you can turn the web page into an easy to read page with all the text and images laid out easy to read and understand. When you've gathered up all the information you now can print the file to a printer and have the webpage on a piece of paper, and all this in about two clicks of the mouse opposed to having to copy and paste the entire site into a word program and then have to wait to sort it all out and then print. With "readability" you've also got the option to send the page in the same format to somebody via e-mail, so if you've got to send some work into the boss or a teacher you can just by clicking one of the buttons on the side of the webpage.

By Matthew Willison

BumpTop is a new aged app that changes your desktop to emulate a real world desk, where you can drag your items around, stack them, make them bigger, stick them to walls, upload them and more. This app has had glowing reviews from a lot of people from a lot of places around the world and around the internet.

"This program is a real looker. When I showed it to friends, they immediately wanted to play with it, dragging pictures to pin on virtual walls and drawing circles around several icons at once to stack them into piles like magic. BumpTop is a pleasure to use and for no cost, the free version is certainly worth a try. If you like what you see and you're willing to change the way you use your desktop, the Pro version might be worthwhile." — Katherine Boehret, the Mossberg Solution, Wall Street Journal

"BumpTop replaces your desktop with a visual environment unlike any you've used. It's a bit like a futuristic gesture-based interface." — Seth Rosenblatt, Editor, download.cnet.com

This app adds a brand new look and feel for the ageing desktop, and it has brought the whole desktop up to date with features that allow you to act more productively. With BumpTop you can also now personalise your own desktop with features that will allow you to move around all your icons and arrange them in a pile, and also by size which was before unheard of.

BumpTop uses next gen UI 3d and physics to give the user a feeling as though they are using a powerful machine; I recommend this to anybody who has a cluttered desktop because this has made my daily life a lot easier now that I've got this app installed.

You can get your hands of this app and try it all out for yourself for FREE at BumpTop.com

By Matthew Willison

Recently I moved houses and due to that I lost a lot of videos and DVD's that we thought we wouldn't need in the new house, how wrong we were. Now we don't have those videos that we may've wanted to watch at a point so what I've done is used the weekend to my advantage and found a neat little tool that allows you to get all of the files from a DVD and convert them into a .mpeg which you can then use to watch the file and move it about and such. I found this tool handy because I don't like clutter on my desk nor do I like to have a big folder with all my movies in them I would rather have one folder on my hard drive which I can access them when I want.

The program is called "VOB2MPG" and you can download it here and use it for yourself, I truly recommend it. I asked for a comment from Phillip who also uses this program, he said

"I'm used to the idea of converting VOB to mpeg since I've done it b4 in other programs, but not as simple. This is very simple and straight forward, simply converts the selection of VOB files into one continuous mpeg file"

I hope that you enjoy using this program, and I also hope that you enjoyed reading this blog post. Feel more than free to leave you comment below and tell me what you think about the program or the blog post itself.

By Matthew Willison