Random Geek Guys

While I was looking though the files of the Dual Core running Windows 7 I started to think about the performance I had gotten out of using it for about a month and started to wonder if it was even beating my Quad Core that is running Vista, if so this would truly illustrate the power of windows 7 over Vista. So early in the morning I set out to find a program that would scan my computer and give it a bench mark and also give me some feedback and specs onto the hardware that was running on the computer and I came across a program that does just that.

The site you can get your hands on it is here. Download a free trial or purchase it and use it for more than 30 days.

After I installed it onto both PC's I made sure that they were both running the same programs before I ran the benchmarks so I could get a more accurate look at how much of a difference there was between Windows 7 Dual Core on a Machine with less RAM and a lesser CPU and a Windows Vista Quad Core with more RAM and a bigger CPU.

The Quad Core was first to run the benchmarks; the Quad Core scored 1142.0 in the benchmark test

The Dual Core came in second running the beta of Windows 7 scored only a 521.0 which is less than 50% of the Quad Core's result.

After I ran these I could see that the Quad Core had out preformed the Dual Core in everything but the CD reading. From these results I now had my answer. Though my Dual Core is running Windows 7 beta it does not outperform the Quad Core at all, I can only speculate that the Dual Core seems to run smoother is because the OS itself is just a lot more smooth and co-ordinated than Vista is which is sad to say because Vista isn't a beta.

Thanks for reading the blog post all, have a good one!

By Matthew Willison

Before I blogged "In love with Windows 7" where I talked about all the features of Windows 7 that I really loved, but now that I've been using it for a long time now I've found three things that have really come to annoy me a lot with the OS. The first one is the fact that they're going to release it in more than three versions, another is that they dumped the sidebar, and the last thing is to do with games that I'm not sure if it's got to do with the beta or if it's going to be a problem with the OS.

Ready for the game "Wheel of 7!"
Recently I read a magazine which talked about the 5 editions of Windows 7, and this blew my mind because for all this time I had been thinking that Microsoft would've learned from its mistake with Vista bringing out all those unnecessary versions that made it confusing for people who just wanted the "wow" to start now, not the "wow" to start in a choice of one to six versions each comprised of different abilities and different features ect... when the beta of W7 was released the first thing I can remember everybody was saying was "I hope that Microsoft doesn't go with more than 3 versions of Windows 7" and now that they've released it with 5 editions it makes me wonder if they listened to us at all, and maybe just kind of felt vibes and made small movements just to keep us happy with what they were making.

The 5 versions of Windows 7 are; starter, home premium, professional, Business, enterprise & Ultimate, I can see why Microsoft would want to make these versions and why they expect them to be snatched up fast but unfortunately this isn't going to be the case at all. I think that Microsoft made all those editions for people who didn't have the money for Ultimate but still wanted all of the "bang" of the new OS, and I can see why they would make them like this way, but still the fact that they didn't listen to what we were saying (rather meet us half way) really bothers me.

I think that they should've only made about 3 editions for Windows 7 instead of 5. I would've made; Starter, Professional & Ultimate. Starter would've been for net books and very low spec PC's whereas Home Premium would have been the bench mark for the market for those people who have good machines but don't have the money to get the Ultimate. I think that this is the move that most people wanted Microsoft to make, instead of just appeasing us with their "You'll just have to wait until we get it right next time" attitude.

Who took my sidebar? This is one of the things that have made me rant people ears off in the past. How could you remove the sidebar?! Now I've got no way to see how much CPU/RAM I'm using, how much I've downloaded, change a song, see how the economy's going, check the weather, see who's online ect. I've got a 22" screen with so much room that I want to be able to have the option to use some of the abundant space up with something useful, but instead I've got to hover over a little rectangle down the bottom of the screen and wait to see it, and if I need to do something with one of the gadgets then god help me because I'm going to have to click the square and move about then bring all the windows back to how I wanted them taking away about one minute from what could've been a few clicks with a sidebar. I hope that they decide to bring back the sidebar because I'm defiantly a man of the sidebar.

Laaa... gging it! Not crazy about the fact that some of my old games either don't work at all or are lagging so bad that they cannot be played at all. All the brand new games I've been using are working great and with a good card and specs, the ones that are lower should be working but instead are lagging and not booting up at all. Now for the time being I'm going to say that it's just the beta's fault because let's face it though Windows 7 beta feels finished it's still just a beta.

Thanks for reading my blog post all, have a good one!

By Matthew Willison

A long time ago I done a post on 32 and 64 bit systems with a few small with the pros and cons, I just that that seeing that I done so little on a subject so wide that I'd do it again and hopefully shed some more light on 32x and 64 bit OS's.

Now first things first, you may be asking me "What the hell is the difference between a 32x and a 64x OS?" which is fair enough because when it comes down to it there are only a few amount of differences between them. The main differences between them would be the amount of RAM each can hold how well one can run an app and the compatibility between the two.

like with a 64x OS you've got a larger address space which means instead of being limited to having only 3.5gb of RAM you can now have up to 128GB of RAM, this is perhaps the main reason that people using the 64x OS are on it now, they may need the extra address space to have more RAM.

Another aspect of a 64x OS is that the 32x programs that you may be using are going to work better on a 64x OS because each 32x app gets its own 2GB of protected memory space, which basically means that whatever you're using is going to have more space available for it to work with, in a crappy example it kind of like instead of trying to shoot the side of a barn with a handgun it's like using a missile. Another good thing about it is that it will run future 64 apps and the app's that are out today unlike 32 which will not run those programs.

Now that I've gone into depth about some of the facets of 32 and 64, I'll explain what I believe to be the main reason that people may have/want to go to 64.

One reason somebody may want to go to the 64x edition of Windows maybe because of the amount of RAM the person needs, I found this was the reason that I moved from 32x to 64x as Vista 32x would only recognize 3.5 GB of RAM and not the 4 GB I had installed in the PC itself, so I was forced to move but once I was there I didn't have any problems and found the experience quite present and noticed that the 64x apps I was using weren't crashing as much as they did previously on the 32x system. I think that most people on the 64x edition of Windows would consider themselves to be power users, which means most of them should be on a computer most hours of the day because I don't think somebody spending thirty minutes of a computer really needs 8 GB of RAM.

Hopefully this helped you with what you needed, for any further questions on the subject of 32x 64x I would be happy for you to e-mail me. Be sure to leave a comment down below.

Thanks for reading all, Have a good one!

By Matthew Willison

For about one or two years now I've been using a free service called Zamzar which allows me to convert image files, music files & video files to other formats. Just say that you wanted to convert a song from the format ".aac" to the format ".mp3" I would just visit Zamzar and upload the file and select the format I would like the file to be converted to (In this case it would be ".mp3") and leave my e-mail address so it can send me the link for me to download the converted file from. All you have to do is wait to receive an e-mail from Zamzar and you'll soon have a converted file.

This is a very good site to use if you need a file converted and converted fast, rather than use converters that you've got to download and install you can now do it on a computer with internet access. If you give Zamzar your e-mail it will not send any spam at all in case you're worried about that happening.

So happy converting all, have a good one!

By Matthew Willison

Computing

1. "Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container."

– Nathan Myhrvold

2. "A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing."

– Emo Philips

3. "The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before."

– Bill Gates"

4. "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

– Edsger W. Dijkstra

5. "Software is like entropy: It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics; i.e., it always increases."

– Norman Augustine

6. "All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer."

– IBM Manual, 1925

7. "I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them."

– Isaac Asimov

8. "Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards."

– Alan Bennett

9. "It's hardware that makes a machine fast. It's software that makes a fast machine slow."

– Craig Bruce

10. "Physics is the universe's operating system."

– Steven R Garman

Thanks for reading my special list of quotes. Have a good one all!

By Matthew Willison

The app is called "ZoomIt" and you can zoom into your desktop by pressing your choice of buttons. I find this app very good in comparison to the OS X zoom, it allows you to zoom in, zoom in live, write something on your desktop and allows you to draw on your desktop. You can choose what the shortcut keys are so you get use it extra fast. But if you do run this on a lower end PC it may slow it down just a little.

Comments are always welcome, thanks for reading

By Matthew Willison

If you would like to use switcher make sure that you've got a computer with Vista and the aero feature so that you can use it, if you've got Vista home basic then you won't be able to use this but if you've got any OS with the aero feature then you can use this app.

Download Switcher Here

Comments are more than welcome!

By Matthew Willison