COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[PanBiker]

NAS - Network Attached Storage

SSD - Solid State Disk - (misnomer)

[Pluggy]

Since business has been good lately I think I'll buy myself an SSD and see if the difference is worthwhile. Just a small one for the OS and I'll use my big ugly HDD for the user area. The one machine with an SSD I briefly played with didn't seem anything special. I know how my machine runs with an HDD so I'll have a comparison. From a cold start, including logging in I can be on the internet in around 50 seconds. The BIOS takes 15 seconds to do its thing, so the saving will have to come out of the 35 seconds the rest of it takes.

[Steven Chorkley]

Since business has been good lately I think I'll buy myself an SSD and see if the difference is worthwhile. Just a small one for the OS and I'll use my big ugly HDD for the user area. The one machine with an SSD I briefly played with didn't seem anything special. I know how my machine runs with an HDD so I'll have a comparison. From a cold start, including logging in I can be on the internet in around 50 seconds.

Ok, seems sensible. It is worth knowing the 250-256GB SSD's have the highest performance but they are the most expensive!

I can promise you a very big improvement. I bet you can login and be online within 10 seconds with a 60-80GB SSD!

Good luck!

[Pluggy]

Since the machine doesn't look at anything resembling storage for between 15 and 16 seconds from power on, its not going to do the whole lot in 10. It takes me around 4 seconds to put my password in. We'll see.

http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/produc ... -834M.html

On its way. Yes I know its only a 3GB/S one but the computer is only 3GB/S. Ill post the results here

[Stanley]

Oh dear! I see you are assessing the time from switching the box on.... The FMIII takes 33 seconds so I obviously have a painfully slow machine.

(Note to self: Get Real Stanley!)

[Steven Chorkley]

Since the machine doesn't look at anything resembling storage for between 15 and 16 seconds from power on, its not going to do the whole lot in 10. It takes me around 4 seconds to put my password in. We'll see.

http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/produc ... -834M.html

On its way. Yes I know its only a 3GB/S one but the computer is only 3GB/S. Ill post the results here

That'd be great! The drive seems to be advertising 260MB/s read speeds, I think that is very optimistic although the controller seems to handle it!

My Samsung 840 is advertised to achieve 500MB/s read, but it only reaches half of that on a 6Gb/s link.

Oh dear! I see you are assessing the time from switching the box on.... The FMIII takes 33 seconds so I obviously have a painfully slow machine.

(Note to self: Get Real Stanley!)

Yeah, that's how it is timed. On from a cold boot! My laptop doesn't even finish showing the windows boot-up logo! On an Ubuntu machine it should seem faster. It is amazing at the difference it makes!

[Tizer]

I haven't timed it but the modest PC that Pluggy built for me certainly boots up faster than anything I've had before and I can't imagine it being much faster - if it was made faster I couldn't do anything with the time, except blink perhaps!

[Steven Chorkley]

I haven't timed it but the modest PC that Pluggy built for me certainly boots up faster than anything I've had before and I can't imagine it being much faster - if it was made faster I couldn't do anything with the time, except blink perhaps!

But to most people time is money, so speed is the way to go. I feel if my computer is slow something is seriously wrong, I call chrome loading in 5 seconds slow!

[PanBiker]

I feel if my computer is slow something is seriously wrong, I call chrome loading in 5 seconds slow!

Ahh the impetuousness of youth, you seriously need to get a reality check there Steven.

[Pluggy]

You wouldn't like some of the machines that come to me to be cleaned up. I've had ones that took 10 minutes to get to the point where you could view a web page. They generally leave me a lot quicker than that. I don't like slow machines, but its not the thing that defines my life.....

[Steven Chorkley]

I feel if my computer is slow something is seriously wrong, I call chrome loading in 5 seconds slow!

Ahh the impetuousness of youth, you seriously need to get a reality check there Steven.

You wouldn't like some of the machines that come to me to be cleaned up. I've had ones that took 10 minutes to get to the point where you could view a web page. They generally leave me a lot quicker than that. I don't like slow machines, but its not the thing that defines my life.....

Don't get me wrong.... It doesn't define my life, but it does define the way I work with computers.

In my eyes computers work for you! So why put up with a slow machine.... For example, my Mum (a whiz at using Word and Excel but no interest whatsoever in PC's) trawls through folders in her Start menu to find apps like Internet Explorer or the Calculator, this takes time, pointless time.

I use a launcher called Launchy. She noticed how fast it was and she commented asking how I did it. I then showed it to her, she has now never turned back!

Same with the general speed of my computer. Of course she wasn't interested with spending money on a SSD but she allowed me to play with it and replace the 5400RPM for 7200 with a spare HDD I had, and again she loved the increase in speed.

The point is, people don't want to be waiting for a computer to work. They want to work "it".

That's now what the computing industry is about for the general consumer, they don't care how they use it or what it can do they want it to work on demand and cater for their needs and in my eyes this is what their aim should have been from the start. The iPad is the best example of this!

[Stanley]

I'm reminded of the days when my wagon and trailer was limited on the governor to 52mph and anyone could overtake me. Point is I was doing over 100,000 miles a year. I often wondered what they did? I don't know what S would have done in the old days when you had to wait for the valves to warm up....

[Stanley]

The lads have been busy. New Firefox version arrived this morning. Can't get over the quality of the service.

[Stanley]

Blackberry announce enormous losses in last three months and are shedding staff. Amazing how a lead company can lose its way! (LINK)

[Steven Chorkley]

Blackberry announce enormous losses in last three months and are shedding staff. Amazing how a lead company can lose its way! (LINK)

It's really not good.

Although BBM has been released on Android today and iOS tomorrow. I dont know what this means, but time will tell!

I also heard about Microsoft. They want to build a platform that runs on ARM Tablet and Phones. I don't know what that means for Windows 8 but I hope they decide against Metro, although I can't see that happening any time soon

[Pluggy]

Since the machine doesn't look at anything resembling storage for between 15 and 16 seconds from power on, its not going to do the whole lot in 10. It takes me around 4 seconds to put my password in. We'll see.

http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/produc ... -834M.html

On its way. Yes I know its only a 3GB/S one but the computer is only 3GB/S. Ill post the results here

Took a bit longer to arrive than I anticipated but its now in and running. I guess this old dinosaur has learnt a new trick, its blisteringly fast. I tweaked the BIOS to get the BIOS time down to 12 seconds from 15. With the SSD in place I can start Ubuntu from cold, login (still about 4 seconds), go on the Internet with chrome, display a web page, shut chrome down and shut Ubuntu down again in 42 seconds start to finish. It can start Libreoffice Writer in about a second and a half.

[Steven Chorkley]

Since the machine doesn't look at anything resembling storage for between 15 and 16 seconds from power on, its not going to do the whole lot in 10. It takes me around 4 seconds to put my password in. We'll see.

http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/produc ... -834M.html

On its way. Yes I know its only a 3GB/S one but the computer is only 3GB/S. Ill post the results here

Took a bit longer to arrive than I anticipated but its now in and running. I guess this old dinosaur has learnt a new trick, its blisteringly fast. I tweaked the BIOS to get the BIOS time down to 12 seconds from 15. With the SSD in place I can start Ubuntu from cold, login (still about 4 seconds), go on the Internet with chrome, display a web page, shut chrome down and shut Ubuntu down again in 42 seconds start to finish. It can start Libreoffice Writer in about a second and a half.

Fantastic results right!!! Most people when their computers are getting slow just buy another, but this solves most issues!

I'm glad your impressed with the results!

[Tizer]

Come on guys, surely you can get it down to microseconds!

[Stanley]

Blackberry have accepted an offer of $4.8 billion for the company that was Canada's biggest corporation in 2008 with a market value of over $80 billion. (LINK)

[Stanley]

The flow of updates and improvements for Ubuntu is impressive. My thanks to the lads out there working pro-bona for the public good. Wonderful free service.

[Steven Chorkley]

The flow of updates and improvements for Ubuntu is impressive. My thanks to the lads out there working pro-bona for the public good. Wonderful free service.

What do Calonical get out of it?

[Tizer]

They get nothing directly from the likes of me, Stanley and Pluggy but Canonical can make money by providing tech support for companies or individuals who prefer to have some paid back-up.

[Steven Chorkley]

They get nothing directly from the likes of me, Stanley and Pluggy but Canonical can make money by providing tech support for companies or individuals who prefer to have some paid back-up.

Yeah I guess that's true.... But they must have more funding than that, they are a business after all. I also understand that they don't only back Ubuntu but they are also majorly involved in a few other projects too....

I don't have all my facts but I am really interested to know how it all works.

Cynogenmod also becoming a business really intrigues me.... I think I need to hit Google this weekend!

[Steven Chorkley]

Ubuntu 13.10 Beta released. Anyone tried it out?

[Tripps]

Is it me? I've been having difficulties with the site for a couple of days now. I can sometimes access recent posts, but not always, and older ones always time out. I note that others mentioned this yesterday. Has it resolved for the rest of you?. Everything else is working OK for me.