CompuBlab

If it's computer related, we'll blab about it!

Category: Buyer’s Guide

How to Contact Amazon.com Customer Service via Telephone

It has rarely been the case that I have ever needed to speak to Amazon.com’s technical support staff via telephone, but I have to say, the few times I’ve needed to do so it has not always been a breeze to locate their telephone number. Since my wife just recently needed to do exactly that, here is the number that she used:

866-216-1072

Of course, this number is only known to be valid as of yesterday: October 4, 2014. Hopefully it will continue to be valid, but we all know how quickly telephone numbers can change.

Quality News On Your Kindle for 99 cents Per Month

Greetings all,

My wife and I each own an Amazon Kindle and many times I’ve wished I could use it to read the daily news. I work on a computer all day, and it would be nice to relax on the couch with my wife and not have to have a laptop out to see what was going on in the world.

Since getting the Kindle, I have looked at the offered news publications available for it and they have always left me wanting because:

  • some have lousy formatting for a Kindle
  • some have images that do not show up well on a black-and-white device
  • the pricing on many of these publications is ridiculous (some have the audacity to charge MORE for the digital version of their journal than they do for the one that is printed and delivered to your door)
  • of the publications that ARE priced reasonably, many times the quality of the content is very poor (I don’t care to read a series of “editorials” trying to be passed off as “news”…I like factual reporting and I’ll draw my own conclusions)
  • Well, I finally found a good solution to this little dilemma: Reuter’s News Blogs.

    These news blogs consist of a selection of the top stories from the Reuters news site and are updated daily (sometimes more). The blogs are grouped by topic, and each blog only costs 99 cents per month. I currently subscribe to three of these blogs (meaning I am paying roughly $3 per month to read all of this on my Kindle):

  • Reuters Top News
  • Reuters Technology
  • Reuters Business
  • If you poke around the Kindle store you will find that there are other Reuters blogs available as well, but I do hasten to point out that there is some overlap between the different blogs. How much overlap depends on the news of the day. When technology news is breaking, it is not uncommon for a number of the Reuters Top News articles to be the same as the articles in the Reuters Technology blog. You will need to try each blog (you get a free 14-day trial for each) and see if you like the mix.

    There are, of course, many, many options when it comes to reading news on your Kindle. However, I find that I am more than willing to pay $3 per month so that each morning I can read the major news articles of the day. If you have a Kindle, be sure to give this a try. As previously mentioned, the price is right, and you even get a 14 day free trial up front.

    Black Friday 1/2 off Web Hosting!

    Want to get 1/2 off web hosting for a year? Go to this link to get a Black Friday deal on web hosting that is unbelievable.

    We at CompuBlab.com use this same hosting provider for ALL of our hosting needs. They are large, technically sound, and competitively priced. We just found out that they are offering up to a full year of hosting at HALF PRICE during this Black Friday sale event.

    If you are looking for web hosting, now is your time to get a great hosting company at a very sweet deal price. Remember, you have a 45-day money back guarantee…

     

     

    “Throw The Third Switch!”

    Greetings to all!

    Some time ago I mentioned that my desktop computer had “blown up” without any (seeming) provocation by me. I also indicated that I was looking to put another computer together and that I would let you know my thought process as I did so. This may be of use to those of you who are on the fence about assembling your own computer.

    The first thing I discovered was that not having bought a computer in nearly 10 years meant I was way behind the times as to where technology had progressed. Perish the thought! So I spent some lunch hours at work and some evenings at home looking into advances in the technology. Tom’s Hardware Page has been around for a very long time and is still a great resource for learning all about computing technology. I highly recommend it.

    I found it necessary to look up several specific technologies:

    1. CPUs
    2. Graphics/Video cards
    3. Motherboards (including bus speeds)
    4. Power supplies & case
    5. Memory
    6. Hard Drive technology
    7. Operating Systems

    For your benefit, I’d like to give you a brief overview of what i found:

    CPUs

    Oh my have CPUs advanced since I bought the Pentium 4 that bought the farm in my last desktop! Since I typically buy one generation behind the leading edge of technology (due to the fact that it is usually the most cost effective), I took a close look at the Core i3, i5, and i7 chips from Intel. Now, AMD has some formidable chips as well, and they are usually cheaper, but I had my sites set on intel because years ago (many years ago) I recall that AMD chips were not quite as well optimized for video editing as Intel chips were. Now that was so long ago it may not be relevant any longer, but based upon that I looked only at intel chips.

    After having had a conversation with my brother-in-law (a hardware guru) and reading a number of reviews, including those on Tom’s Hardware pages, I decided that for the cost, I preferred the core i5 chip. The core i3 seemed to be a bit too watered down for the money you would save over an i5 or i7, and the i7 seemed to me to be a bit more money over the i5 for what it lacked. I won’t go into the gory details here…I leave that as an exercise to my readers. However, I would point out that when considering the processing power of a CPU you need to look at the features you are most likely to use…not just the features that a CPU offers. I found it highly unlikely that the features for the i7 would ever impact my computing needs enough to justify the higher cost. In the end, I went with an i5-2500 quad-core processor ($190 on sale at NewEgg.com). It’s four cores would give me all of the computing power I needed to crunch through video applications as well as power virtual machines I plan to run (don’t worry if you are unfamiliar with virtual machines…they will be the subject of another post).

    One thing you *do* have to be careful about when picking up a core i5 is that there are TWO generations of the chip. You want the SECOND generation (sandy-bridge) of the chip. For the money it is a far better value.

    Graphics

    Here is where I made the biggest move that was driven by the desire to save money.

    My research on the core i5 CPU turned up the fact that it has impressive graphics capability built right into the chip. However, to take advantage of this capability you have to pair it with a motherboard that supports the graphics part of the processor.

    There are basically two classes of motherboards for i5 chips, one that supports the graphics capabilities of the i5 chip (usually an H67 series motherboard), and one that supports “overclocking” of the processor (usually a P67 series motherboard). Since I wasn’t really interested in overclocking (see the section on motherboards for a discussion on overclocking), I looked primarily for a H67 series motherboard in order to use the onboard graphics. Ultimately, I did find a board I was happy with…but it turned out to be neither a H67 nor a P67 board. However, it did support the onboard graphics capability of the core i5 chip, so I did not buy a separate graphics card.

    I play some older games occasionally and I have had no complaints about the graphics capability of my system.

    Motherboards

    This is where things really got interesting. What I learned about motherboards for the core i5 CPU is that they generally fall into one of two classes:

    • Motherboards focused on allowing overclocking of the CPU chip (generally a P67 series board)
    • Motherboards focused on allowing the use of the graphics capability of the CPU chip (generally a H67 series board)

    If you are unfamiliar with overclocking, it means setting up your motherboard such that you can run your processor at a higher speed than the CPU was designed to run by the manufacturer. There is an entire “black art” surrounding the best ways to overclock a CPU chip, but I for one have never really gone in for overclocking. True, if you know what you are doing you can often eek out greater number-crunching performance from your computer than you otherwise could. However, by running the CPU chip at a higher speed and temperature than it was originally designed, you risk damaging or shortening the life of the CPU. That being said, many people overclock their CPUs without any issues whatsoever.

    Overclocking also requires that you understand your computing needs. For most casual users, their computers usually are bogging down on things OTHER than the CPU/number crunching ability of their computer. More often than not, a slow hard drive, a slow data bus (on the motherboard), or a lack of memory (Windows is a memory HOG) impacts their computer’s performance long before the CPU does. However, one place it does seem to really help out is if you are one who loves to play the latest and greatest computer games.

    Anyway, overclocking has never been for me…but others (like my brother-in-law) both enjoy it and get pretty good mileage out of it.

    In my case, what I really wanted was a motherboard that would allow me to utilize the graphics capability of the CPU chip AND one that had FOUR slots for memory DIMMs. The reason being that in nearly all cases, my computing needs benefit from more memory…not from a greater processor…and four memory slots would allow me to drop two 4 gigabyte DIMMs into the machine while still being able to place two more DIMMS (taking me up to 16 gigabytes) in the future. With only two memory slots, I’d have to pull out the original memory I put into the machine and replace them with larger (and more expensive) memory DIMMs to move up to 16 gigabytes of RAM.

    As it turned out I stumbled across a new class of motherboard, the Z68 series, that combined BOTH the benefits of the H67 boards for using the CPU’s graphics capability AND the P67 boards that allowed overclocking. Again, I didn’t care about the overclocking features of the board, but what I DID care about was the fact that the board supported FOUR memory slots. Ultimately I chose the Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 motherboard (cost of $115 at NewEgg.com).

    My only concerns about the board were that reading reviews showed that a higher number than normal of reviewers were complaining about either boards that were “dead on arrival” from the manufacturer (DOA), or boards that were “blowing up” within 30 days of use. It made me a bit nervous, but I decided to try my luck with it anyway as I did not like any of the alternatives. So far I have been overjoyed with the board.

    Power Supplies & Case

    There is nothing really “magic” about the power supply…but you’d be surprised at just how problematic they can be. Some of the problems in picking a power supply are:

    1. having enough wattage to power everything in your case
    2. having the proper form factor to fit easily within your case
    3. reliability

    I read about many pre-assembled systems whose power supplies looked like they were right on the edge of supplying enough power for everything in the box. Add a power-sucking graphics card to the mix and the power supply would give out. Also, if you read reviews of power supplies (you can find buyer reviews at amazon.com) you will find that many times a power supply doesn’t quite fit the way it should into a particular case (it can be the fault of the power supply or the case). Finally, there are simply a lot of low-cost garbage power supplies out their on the market that don’t provide smooth power, don’t provide the power they are rated for, have cooling fans that give our or make horrible noises, or that simply burn out quickly.

    I did not find any rule of thumb where I could point you to “this” brand or “that” maker of power supplies and know that you would always get a quality product. I had to read a lot of reviews on different models. Also, I found that reading reviews of people who had both a particular model of power supply AND the case I wanted to buy let me know ahead of time if the two would work together correctly. Don’t get me wrong…in most cases a power supply and a computer case will work just fine…but there ARE exceptions, and I didn’t want Murphy rearing his ugly head in this endeavor!

    Ultimately I went with the Cougar A-Series 560 Watt power supply ($49 on sale at NewEgg.com).  I teamed it up with a Cooler Master Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 case ($39 again on sale at NewEgg.com). I am VERY happy with BOTH of these purchases.

    Memory

    You have to be careful when buying memory that you get the correct form factor and a speed that makes sense. The motherboard will determine what form factor of memory you need (you don’t want to buy laptop memory for a desktop computer!), so just follow the specifications on the motherboard for your memory (in my case I needed 240-pin DDR3 SDRAM). Next up, you must decide the speed of the memory. As you might imagine, the faster the memory, the more you are going to pay for it. In my case, my motherboard (as most do) supported multiple speeds, so I chose a speed near the top of the spectrum, but not the very top. I went with 1333 memory and it has performed wonderfully.

    Another thing you need to do is make sure you have ENOUGH memory for your system. As I have mentioned previously, Microsoft Operating Systems (a.k.a. Windows) are notorious memory hogs. You CAN NOT trust Microsoft’s recommendations for the amount of memory you need to have a good user experience. Many times in the past, Microsoft has recommended a “minimum amount of memory” you should use for one of their operating systems, but that minimum was barely enough to boot the system. Running a program after bootup (with the possible exception of the minesweeper game) was a painful proposition.

    Personally, I would not run Windows 7 64-bit in anything LESS than 8 gigabytes of memory. In fact, I ordered the system with 8 gigabytes of PNY memory (two DIMMS of 4 gigabytes each) of SDRAM DDR3 1333 memory ($42).

    Follow up note: I have since purchased another 8 gigabytes of ram for an additional $42. This is one reason why I was so careful to get a motherboard with FOUR memory slots. At $42, the additional 8 gigabytes of memory will be invaluable to me as I run virtual machines on this system. I’ll talk about virtual machines in a future post.

    Hard Drive Technology

    There are actually a number of decisions you have to make regarding a hard drive today…and I’ll show you a few of things things I had to consider.

    Today, solid state hard drives (SSD’s) are all the rage. In fact, I used a SSD in a build for a low power fanless server that runs in my home 24×7 (and was the subject of this post: http://compublab.com/2011/07/14/low-power-fanless-computer/). They are wonderful because:

    • they are VERY fast when compared to disk drives with a spinning platter
    • they use very little power
    • they are quiet

    However, their biggest drawback right now is that they are much more expensive than a standard hard drive. It was an excellent choice for my 24×7 server that I built during the summer, but it was not a good choice for this machine as I was going to need a fairly large drive for all of the software and data I planned to store on it.

    So now that I knew that I did not want an SSD, I had to make some decisions that would determine the performance. When buying a hard drive, here are some of the things you need to consider:

    1. Amount of storage space
    2. The spinning speed of the platter (7200 rpm and 5400 rpm are popular speeds)
    3. The size of the memory cache on the drive
    4. The interface to the drive (IDE, SATA, SATA2, etc.)

    The cost of hard drives versus the size (storage capability) of the drive is always some graph where there exists a “sweet spot”; the point where you get the most storage for your buck. Speed and other factors certainly apply, but size is one of the first things you must look at. For me, I was trying not to spend too much on the drive, so I opted to get a smaller drive (1 Terrabyte in size) that was faster than most (7200 rpms plus a large 64 megabyte cache).

    For a desktop system, unless you have some specific reason to do otherwise, I would NEVER buy a 5400 rpm hard drive. There is simply no good reason to do so. A slower spinning drive is going to take longer to read your data, and the cost difference between 5400 rpm drives and 7200 rpm drives is slight. BEWARE OF COMPLETE COMPUTERS THAT YOU BUY THAT HAVE A 5400 RPM DRIVE IN THEM! I found many manufacturers were selling complete systems and slid into the mix was a very slow 5400 rpm disk drive.

    Memory caches are memory built into the electronics of the hard drive. I won’t go into all of the details of how they work, but just understand that statistically, if a drive is asked for a particular piece of information during the course of running a program, the probability of being asked for that information again in the near future is high. Disk Drive manufacturers therefore incorporate a memory cache, a block of fast solid-state memory where data is copied when retrieved from the hard drive. Over time the cache fills up and data is discarded from the cache in favor of new data being requested. However, if during the time the data is in the cache another request comes for that same data (and remember, I said that it is statistically likely that data that has been asked for already will be asked for again), the data is read out of  the fast memory cache instead of the slow-spinning platter of the hard drive, making the response VERY fast. It turns out that adding a cache to a hard drive can dramatically increase the effective retrieval speed of a drive. Having a large cache means data stays in the cache longer, and thus it increases the chance that the next request for data will be present in the cache.

    If you did not follow that last paragraph, let me just say that a bigger memory cache on a hard drive is better. I therefore spent a little more money on a hard drive that had a bigger memory cache than most (most hard drives have 32 megabytes of memory…the one I bought has 64 megabytes of memory).

    Regarding the interface, no new motherboards that I know of use the older IDE hard drive interface. You can still get IDE drives, but they won’t work on the newer SATA motherboards. That is good since the SATA interface is much faster than the old IDE. Just make sure you buy the correct drive type! IDE drives are still made as replacements for older systems. This also means that if you are upgrading from one computer to another, and your old computer has a hard disk, you won’t be able to physically move that drive from your old computer to your new one. You will have to buy a new SATA drive AND you will have to figure out a way to transfer the data on your existing IDE drive to your new SATA drive (remembering that you cannot just put it into your new computer as a “second hard drive”…the new computer cannot talk to it).

    There are different classes of SATA (SATA1, SATA2, etc.). Which class you get is going to depend on when you read this post. You will have to look at the different interfaces, see where the price point falls, and decide from there. It changes very quickly. However, you DO want to make certain that if you spend additional money for the latest and greatest hard disk interface, that your motherboard supports it!

    Reliability is of course an issue as well. I cannot really advise you on this because different people have different ideas about which brands are reliable and which brands are not. I have had very good luck with both Maxtor and Western Digital brand hard drives…though I know others who curse those brand names. The quality of the brands also wax and wane over time, so the best thing to do is read recent reviews (I prefer to read both Toms Hardware pages and customer reviews at some place such as amazon.com) to see what is hot and what is not.

    Finally, this is less of an issue these days, but make certain that you have an available bay in your case for the size of your hard drive! There are few things worse than buying a second 3.5 inch hard drive only to find out that you have no 3.5 inch bays open (though in such a case you can find small enclosures that will allow you to safely install a 3.5 inch drive into a 5.25 inch bay)!

    For my part, I picked up a Western Digital Caviar WD1002FAEX 1 Terrabyte 7200 RPM 64 Megabyte Cache SATA (6 gb/sec) drive ($80 at NewEgg.com).

    Operating Systems

    Here I could say A LOT…but this post has already become quite long. I’ll tell you simply that after much debate, I went with Windows 7  Home Premium 64-bit (on sale at newegg.com for $85).

    First off, in general I am NOT a great fan of Microsoft operating systems for many reasons. I am a computer professional with many decades of experience, and I grew up at the same time that Microsoft was making a name for itself in the computing world. Their products, in short, have been mediocre over the years. Sadly, there have rarely been alternatives.

    Nowadays there are some real alternatives, including both Apple computers and the Linux operating system. Linux is one I am very happy with, but I don’t think it is for everyone…yet. It is getting better, and you cannot complain about the price (it is free).

    However, I did finally decide on Windows 7 Home Premium because of just a couple of applications that I have that ONLY run on Windows. But I have left room on the hard drive to install another bootable operating system…and in this case that other operating system will be one of the Linux distributions (I have not yet decided which…but Ubuntu will likely be my choice).

    With that being said, having installed and used Windows 7, I have found it to be one of the best operating systems Microsoft has ever produced. I like the way it works, I am fine with its performance, and it doesn’t get in the way of what I am trying to do. What I don’t like about it are the price, and the utter ridiculousness of the end user license agreement (EULA). If you haven’t read the EULA, you should spend some time doing so. Yes, it is written by lawyers FOR lawyers, but you will discover that Microsoft has given themselves legal access to nearly any and all things you do on your computer running Windows 7. I find that distressing…but that is for another post some day.

    With regards to the different versions of Windows, if you think the many choices are confusing, then we are in agreement. Here would be my reccomendations:

    1. If you can, get a 64-bit version of Windows 7
    2. I really wanted to get Windows 7 Professional, but I thought it was way over priced…and Home Premium was on sale.
    3. For the casual user (and I am not a casual user), I think Windows 7 Home Premium will give you all of what you want. However, if there is something specific you know you want to do on your computer, do check the different capabilities between versions to be certain you are buying the correct version. The differences are confusing and the pricing, in my opinion, could only have been determine by someone who had a monopoly on the market. About the only bright side I see in this is that Microsoft does make it possible to upgrade the Windows 7 Home Premium edition to Windows 7 Professional (for a fee, of course).

    So there you have it. The system I built is from the pieces I described here, and it rang in at just over $600 (call it $650 due to the extra 8 gig of RAM I added after the fact). The assembly was straight forward and other than one issue I had with the CPU cooling fan’s blades hitting its own power wires (I clamped them out of the way with a twisty tie), all went smoothly. The very first time I threw the switch the beast came to life!

    I would like to point out something that totally boggles my mind: there are no “cards” in my system. What I mean by this is that in the past I would have the motherboard, then a card for graphics, a card for I/O, a card for sound, etc. Not any more. My system consists of a motherboard, the processor, the memory (on the motherboard), AND THAT’S IT!

    It is truly amazing what has been integrated into the motherboards of today. In the past, an integrated motherboard usually meant lousy sound, lousy graphics, etc. But not any longer. The sound and graphics that are integrated on my motherboard so blow away the dedicated cards I used to run I can hardly believe it.

    I hold on to my computers until they just cannot run any more (I’m cheap in that regard, though I would call it “thrifty”). However, if you do have to replace a computer anytime soon, I think with a little care and planning, you can come up with a computer that will blow your socks off without breaking the bank.

    I hope this information will be of help to you. If not, well it was fun to write anyway!

    Oh, and if you do not understand the title of this post, you need to watch more 1970’s movies…

    Victory Over Email Services!

    I am happy to report that after quite a lot of time trying various email solutions, I have FINALLY been able to get email services (in this case “out-bound only” email capability) running on my linux solid state server that I wrote about a while back (click here for the original post). You would think that this would be a rather simple thing to accomplish…but due to the current state of older software and spam protection mechanisms, it turns out to be more involved than you might think.

    This story begins back when I began running automated scripts each night on my server. One thing I wanted to do was have my nightly scripts, which do things like back up data to a NAS device (network attached storage), email me if there are any problems encountered. Obviously, I don’t want to have a system crash and THEN discover that my nightly backups have not been “backing up” for the last year!

    Well, in the scripting world on Linux (sorry this is going to get a bit technical), a program called “sendmail” is the old workhorse for whenever you need to send an email from a program or script. Sendmail was my first attempt at setting up out-bound email…and it gave me nothing but headaches.

    Sendmail is not the most simple piece of software to configure. However, it has been around for a long time, so I had the benefit of other people’s experience (by looking up the escapades of other people like myself on the web). It turns out that one of the “protections” that my internet service provider has in place to prevent people from sending massive amounts of spam email from their homes is that they block outbound traffic on TCP port 25.  Note that when you connect to a standard email server to send mail (an SMTP server), you usually connect on port 25. With this outbound port blocked by my ISP, I had to use a different port.

    Sidenote: I had decided to use the email server of my web hosting company (which happens to be Hostgator…a company I have been with for years and can highly recommend) rather than my ISP’s email server because of problems I have had with my ISP’s mail server in the past.

    It turns out that my web hosting company also provides a mail server connection on port 26, so all I had to do was get sendmail to send to port 26 rather than port 25 and all would be set. After many hours of research, I came to the conclusion that sendmail, being as old as it is, HAS NO WAY TO CONNECT TO A PORT OTHER THAN TCP PORT 25! Thus, I had to scrap my plans to use the sendmail package.

    Next up was a full featured mail server called Exim. I installed Exim, and while I knew it was gross overkill to use a full email server for my sparse needs, I had heard that Exim was a solid piece of software and well documented. I thought that for sure Exim would be able to solve myproblem…even if it WAS overkill.

    As it turned out, after many hours of tinkering with Exim…I gave up on it. Could it solve my problem? Most definitely! Was it well documented? I’d have to say “yes.” Was it royally over-the-top overkill? You betcha!

    The problem with Exim *is* the fact that it is so full featured. It has so many gizmos and such to handle the most demanding of emailing needs that it requires a significant investment in time just to learn how to set it up. Now keep in mind, computers are not new to me. I hold both a bachelors and a masters degree in computer science and I have dealt with email servers before…but nothing on this level of completeness/complexity. I decided that I would have to study for weeks (maybe an exaggeration) before I would know enough to properly configure that beast…so I gave it up as a bad idea as well.

    Then I found the most wonderful piece of software for my needs that I could possibly stumble upon. I came across a software package called ssmtp. It was written by folks that were trying to solve exactly the same problem that I was working on. They just wanted to send out-bound email from scripts running on a server. This package, which is available directly from the package management system on Ubuntu Linux (and probably all other distributions of Linux) installs in seconds. You configure it by setting some obvious fields in its rather small config file (like “address of outbound mail server/smarthost”, user name for the outbound mail server, password for the outbound mail server, etc.) and you are off and running!

    I had the mail services up and running within 10 minutes once I started working with ssmtp!

    I would like to point out that I found a really good write-up online regarding how to configure ssmtp. You can find that writeup by clicking here.

    So now I have the ability to send emails via my solid state server. So what else can I do with this? Well, my next trick will be to download weather information from the National Weather Service and put together a short “summary” to email to my cell phone. I don’t own a “smart phone,” but with just a little bit of coding, I intend to turn my “Plain Jane” cell phone into a “smarter” phone by having weather reports sent to it at key times during the day.

    Yes, I know, there are probably existing ways of doing this already, but it is good practice for the geek in me! I’ll let you know how that goes as well…when I get around to it.

    Until that time…live well!

    How Times and Technology Have Changed!

    So last week I switched on my desktop computer, a machine I have had for over 10 years, and during the boot-up process there was a big “BANG”, followed by a blank screen. I powered everything off…counted to sixty…then tried again. The system powered up, which is to say I saw power to the drives, but there was no video, no power on self-test (POST), no “beep”, and no sound of the hard drive seeking to the boot sector. In short, my computer got toasted!

    I am guessing it is either a problem with the motherboard (highest probability in my mind) or perhaps the processor itself. Either way, it is time for me to get a new computer.

    Now understand, my (now dearly departed) computer was a Pentium 4 computer running Windows 2000. A quick check of online computer stores taught me that I am VERY behind the times with respect to understanding the technology of today. There have been no less than SIX new processor architecture advances, and at least as many graphics card enhancements. In fact, buying the cheapest, least powerful machine today would probably outclass my old computer ten-fold in pure processing power. My how the times have changed!

    After spending some time looking at everything from “off the shelf” computers to “bare-bones” kits, I think I have decided to simply build the computer from components myself. Why? Well, I was hoping to find a barebones kit that would fit my needs. A barebones kit typically includes the computer case, the power supply, the motherboard, and the processor. These components often are already assembled upon delivery. From there you just drop in a hard drive, a graphics card (or use the on-board graphics chipset of the motherboard…if it has one) and some memory and you are ready to rock and roll.

    Sadly, every kit and preconfigured computer that I found always had at least ONE item in it that I would classify, in technical terms,  as just plain stupid

    Case 1: One kit I found had a fast processor, lots of memory, a good motherboard…and then one of the slowest hard drives you can get these days. WHY? A reasonably fast hard drive was available for just $20 more!

    Case 2: One kit had just about everything I wanted…except that the power supply included in the kit could just BARELY handle all that was in the kit. If you so much as plugged in the slightest additional device, the system would shut off or reboot due to overtaxing of the power supply. Again I ask “WHY”? Good power supplies are available for $50 or less!

    In the end, I decided that I would just get the parts and build my own…selecting the parts based upon my own wants and needs. I should also point out that the strategy I have always followed regarding new computers is to look “one generation behind the current leading technology.” This usually produces the best computing power for the amount of money spent (also known as the best “bang for the buck!”).

    I’ll chronicle my adventures in this adventure (hopefully not “misadventure) so that you, the reader, can get an idea of what goes through my mind as I put together a system.

    Until next time: Have a great day!

    Low Power Fanless Computer

    Greetings all!

    The blog has been silent the last week or so due to the fact that yours truly has been out of town. However, since returning to the homestead I have had a chance to play with some new computer hardware that I thought you might find interesting…

    For some time now I have been looking for a computer capable of running the Linux operating system (as opposed to say Windows) that I could set up to run services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While I had an older computer that was set up for this type of work, I had a few problems with keeping it running all day and night:

    • The computer is in my office and generates a lot of heat
    • The computer was making an impact on my electric bill
    • The cooling fans in the computer used very cheap bearings…which were wearing out. Thus, the computer was frequently generating annoyingly loud screeches due to the fans.

    As I looked for a solution to this problem, I began to search the web for a low power computer (in this case, “low power” means a computer that does not consume a lot of electricity). Further investigation yielded that a number of manufacturers were just beginning to offer low power computers, with the best of them having no moving parts! I decided to investigate this hardware and spent approximately two months in the effort.

    So with what I had learned, I set my goal to find a computer that:

    1. Cost under $300
    2. Had no moving parts (no spinning drives, no rotating fans, etc.)
    3. Used very little power
    4. Generated very little heat
    5. Could survive running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
    6. Had enough power to run the Linux operating system along with one or more web servers and other services.

    I found that there were a host of “fanless” computers on the market that came close to fulfilling these requirements, but sadly most of those were very expensive because the computers were designed to be used in applications where the computer had to live in a very hostile environment (for example, as an entertainment system in a vehicle, where it would be subject to both dirt and frequent vibration from the vehicle). Since I didn’t require such ruggedness (it would just be sitting on my desk), I continued to search for a system that would meet my needs and wasn’t so expensive.

    Ultimately, I did find such a system, which I want to share with you at this time. I have had the system together for a little over a week and thus far I have been absolutely thrilled with how it has worked out. The system had to be assembled from three different components, all of which were available from Amazon.com.

    The components of the system include the main computer, a solid state hard drive, and a memory chip as listed below with links to where you can buy them if so interested:

    The grand total for all of these components was approximately $280 (but I had a $50 gift certificate to use, so my price was $50 less).

    Assembly was a snap, as all I had to do was open the computer case (remove one screw and slide a panel back), install the hard drive (insert a few screws and pop the unit in), pop in the memory chip, and in less than 30 minutes I was ready to rock and roll.

    Now some important things you need to know about this system:

    1. The prices above do not include a keyboard, mouse or monitor. I already had those. In my case I had a USB keyboard, which is the only kind of keyboard this computer will accept (it doesn’t have a jack/port for a PS/2 style keyboard), a USB mouse (again, to use a mouse you MUST have a USB mouse as no other mouse port is available), and a simple monitor.
    2. This unit DOES NOT COME WITH AN OPERATING SYSTEM! That means if you want to run windows on this computer, you must buy a copy of Windows. Since I was interested in using Linux, Linux is available for free so there was no problem. However, I saw several reviews where people successfully and happily ran Windows XP, Windows Vista, and at least one version of Windows 7 (just make certain you have enough disk space on the solid state hard drive to run Windows 7…you may need a bigger drive).
    3. This unit does not come with an optical drive (DVD or CD drive). In my case I knew that I could install linux from a memory stick onto the hard disk, so I did not get an optical drive. The computer CAN take an optical drive, but it has to be a slim factor laptop drive, which can be had on the cheap ($25 or less). Since I didn’t have need of such a drive, I skipped it.
    4. If like me you wish to run Linux on this computer, you should know that running 64-bit Ubuntu server ran into a minor problem where the network card was not recognized during installation (apparently the desktop version of Ubuntu Linux recognizes the network card just fine, as does several of the other flavors of Linux). The fix for this was about two lines typed into a config file, and feel free to leave a comment here if you need that specific information and I’ll respond with the info.
    5. The computer comes with a wireless network adapter as well. At the current time I have not managed to get the wireless card working under Ubuntu Server, however, I have located some online directions where a user of this same computer and also running Ubuntu server has managed to get it running. I will be testing out that process in the coming days, but no problems are expected.

    Now, I would also like to point out that my purpose for this computer DOES NOT include having it run a home theater system. I found during my investigation that many people were looking for fanless, low-power computers to run their entertainment systems at home. The problem you would have with this computer is that it does not have an HDMI video output port. If you want a fanless computer for use in your home entertainment system you can look to the upgraded model of this computer that DOES have an HDMI port (the Shuttle XS35GTV2 Intel Atom D510 1.66GHz, Intel Socket BGA559 Intel NM10 NVIDIA ION, but shop around…the price I saw at Amazon.com was NOT the cheapest …NewEgg.com had it cheaper at the time of this writing).

    Another thing I should point out is that this computer will NOT be able to play the latest and greatest computer games. Reviews I read said it could play most of the older games, but if hard-core gaming is your desire, this is not the computer for you. If you are a moderate gamer and don’t have to play the latest games, this may work for you. Since gaming was not one of my planned uses for this machine, this was not an issue.

    I would also like to point out that the form factor/footprint of this machine on your desk is very small! The system comes with a stand and you really do need to stand the computer on its end for ventilation purposes. The form factor is approximately the same size as a large format paperback book (approx 10 inches by 1.5 inches wide, but the oval base sticks out a bit wider than the 1.5 inches in the middle where it attaches).

    Finally, I think I should give you, in an easily readable format, the specifications for this setup:

    • Dual core Atom processor running at 1.8 gigahertz (this is a 64-bit processor!)
    • 4 gigabytes of RAM
    • 30 gigabytes of Solid State Disk storage (like a hard drive but no spinning platter or moving parts)
    • 1 network card for wired networks
    • 1 wireless network card
    • Audio in and out
    • VGA graphics out
    • 5 USB ports (all are USB 2.0)
    • 1 SD Memory card slot
    • Intel graphics media Accelerator 3150 chipset (will NOT run the latest graphics intensive computer games)

    For my purposes, this machine has proven to be absolutely what I was looking for both in price and performance. Your mileage will vary, depending on your intended use.

    More RAM is Better

    A quick note for those of you who are contemplating buying a new computer…

    Many times we are entranced by a salesman or a spiffy advertisement to spend a little extra money to go for that slightly faster processor than we originally planned. Well guess what? A computer’s performance can be degraded by many things…not all of which have anything to do with the processor.

    In technical terms, we describe these different bottlenecks as “I/O bound” or “CPU bound”. What do these mean? The layman’s description for these terms has to do with what part of your computer is “standing around waiting for something to do.”

    An I/O bound process means that your input/output hardware (things like your networking, hard disk drive access, etc.) is going as fast as it can (being utilized 100%) while your processor is standing around waiting for your I/O subsystems to fetch what it needs so it can do its work. In cases like this, that extra money spent on the faster processor is pretty much wasted.

    A CPU bound process means that your CPU is working as fast as it can (being utilized at 100%) while your I/O subsystems are waiting for your CPU to give them more work to do. In THESE cases, the shelling out of more money for a faster CPU would make a difference.

    But here is the kicker: More often than not, processes are I/O bound…NOT CPU bound! That is, more often than not, your processor is more than fast enough to do what you want…it is the rest of the Input/Output subsystems that cannot keep up!

    So what’s a guy or gal to do to get the biggest computing “bang” for his or her computing “buck?” Well, it turns out that MOST of the time, adding additional memory (RAM) decreases I/O bottlenecks…and fortunately for you, RAM memory is a cheap component to increase.

    So why would memory (RAM) help with Input/Output intense programs? Well, it has to do with how your computer uses RAM memory.

    You see, RAM memory is the “fast” electronic memory your computer uses to hold running programs and their data. This is some of the fastest memory on your computer, and so it is a vital resource when it comes to your system’s performance. Due to some advanced memory techniques (known as virtual memory), when your computer runs short on this fast RAM memory, it starts to use your hard disk (in the form of a “swap file”) as additional RAM memory. The good news about this is that it lets you run more programs that you otherwise could. The bad news is that when your computer begins to use the hard disk in place of RAM memory, things slow WAY down (because a hard drive is MUCH slower than electronic memory).

    The solution, you see, is to add more RAM!

    Sadly, it has been my experience that most computer vendors today sell computers with far too little RAM. They will sell you a computer with FOUR processors (a quad-core computer) and not enough memory to hold just the operating system (like Windows) plus a complex program (like some of today’s newest games). Fortunately, adding memory today is pretty cheap, and is something with just a small amount of care you can do yourself.

    This information that I have presented here holds true for most computing uses. However, there is one field of home computer use that needs more information, and that is the field of hard-core gaming.

    Today’s latest computer games (the really graphics-intensive games) rely very heavily on the ability of the graphics card to perform countless computations in order to create a visual experience that rivals real life. If you are a person that is in to such games, then performance problems can also be related to your graphics card (for the non-gamer…the graphics card is rarely a problem). Even here, you have to be careful about buying a suped-up high-performance graphics card and then not giving your computer enough RAM memory to keep from getting bogging down.

    I’m not going to go into a detailed discussion of video cards and gaming in this post, as it has already become rather lengthy. I may take that up in another post. But for now, just know that many times you can get better computer performance by adding one or two additional gigabytes of RAM than by spending the money for a faster processor.

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