McPhee
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Everything posted by McPhee
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I've never owned a Mac. Never avoided them either though, they've just never been convenient for me to buy. Either they're too low spec, too highly priced or come available at a decent price/performance balance when i've got no money. I was maybe a little harsh on the new MacBook though, thinking on it the price is competitive to the market. It's just the age old case of the pre-Christmas price hike
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It's all very nice... but a little too expensive imo. A few months ago you could pick a MBP up off Laskys for less than the price of the new Macbook (they had em as low as £750, i didn't have the cash at the time though). Nearer £700 would be more in line with what i'd be willing to shell out, and that's still allowing for a good £150 "Apple Tax".
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Combine with this; http://gizmodo.com/5368149/microsoft-getting-cleverer-and-cleverer-with-new-multitouch-screen-keyboard And we have an interesting new product, something that could replace both the mouse and the keyboard with a smaller, more compact and more flexible alternative. What he's saying certainly makes sense, the downside of touchscreens has always been that your workspace and display unit overlap and obscure each other. It'd also make a damn good laptop, especially if both screens were touch
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You should be able to sell it, yes. There's a niggling feeling that I have that says they might be "not for resale" but I've definitely seen upgrade copies being sold on some sites.
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Is it a Windows 7 upgrade or the full retail. If it's full retail then i think you're allowed to sell the upgrade on. If it's an upgrade then no, you can't legally do it and Microsoft may well have found some way to block in being used on another system (time will tell).
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Thinking on it, there's an easier way around this; http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/ Crucial's System Scanner will find out what RAM you need and give you a buy link, much less hassle and there's no chance of it going wrong
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w00p! I'm back biatches! Internet connection fixed I'd like to dedicate this miracle to the wonders of the BT iPlate, cost me about £7.50 and it's upped my speed to 8 times what it was and dropped my ping from 800+ to ~60! http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=7256 Now to catch up on 9 months of missed Team Fortress 2 playing!
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You've got 3 choices then; 1) Add another two 512MB sticks - which is stupid because it means replacing all the RAM if you want to go to 4GB 2) Add a 1GB stick - which will result in a small performance loss (RAM works best in matched pairs, i.e. multiples of two identical sticks) 3) Haul out both 512MB sticks are replace with 2 1GB sticks - the best option given the relatively low price of RAM And yeah, you need 266MHz DDR2 or faster (no harm in buying faster sticks, they'll underclock if your board can't support the full speed).
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They used to do this thing where they'd guarantee mobile signal at three post codes per contract. If the coverage wasn't as advertised in these zones or it dropped considerably during the course of the contract they'd let you walk with no further charges. That was back in the day when T-Mob were good though. I'd agree that they're a pile of crap these days, had trouble with them myself over the past year. Their call-centre staff are incompetent, rude and for the most part only speak Indglish. I've had 9 months of dealing with staff who are rude, hang up on you as soon as you ask their name and (on the rare occasion that i find someone willing to do their job) staff who never call back despite promising to. All this to sort out their inability to process a contract cancellation. I can't even leave their damn network! I'm currently taking legal advice on this case, with the number of call logs, recordings and copies of emails/letters I've got I'm considering taking them to court. I've even got a log of one woman admitting there's something on my account saying it's been cancelled but for some reason the account is still active (she then gave me a phone number that... does not exist). Anyhow, rambling a bit there. Basically you'll find no love for T-Mobile from me. I'm happy with Vodafone at the moment, good signal, good tariff and good customer service from the eforum team
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Intel E5300 Dual Core Processor Intel E7400 Dual Core Processor Intel Q8200 Quad Core Processor Those would be the competing Intel CPUs. Not too sure on Motherboards but I know they usually work out more expensive for the same spec due to them needing a memory controller on-board. The AMD ones also tend to include an on-board GPU which is handy if your graphics card blows and you want to carry on using your system. For graphics cards it makes little difference whether you go for ATi or NVidia, the ATi 4770 and 4850 and the NVidia 9800GT and GTS250 are all pretty similar in price and performance. The 4770 is the odd one out in that it's the slowest, but by a marginal amount. It's selling point is that it draws less power and produces less heat than the other three, which IMO makes up for the marginal performance loss. Woops I never even bothered to check, i thought all AM3 boards were supposed to be DDR3? I'm a bit behind on my info, not really kept up since I built my new PC in May. A quick look though and it seems the price on the Biostar TA790GX has crashed at Scan, making it a very good buy at the moment. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biostar-TA790GX-128-AMD-790GX-SAM2plus-PCI-E-20(x16)-DDR2-1066-SATA-3Gbps-SATA-RAID-OnBoard-VGA Cheers dude
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This is what i'd go for; CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 620" Mobo: Asus M4A785D-M Pro GPU: Powercolor Radeon 4770 512MB RAM: Crucial 4GB DDR3 HDD: Western Digital 500GB AAKS DVD: Anything really, can't go far wrong here. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164449 It'll set you back about £365 for that lot. I'd use the rest to upgrade your keyboard, mouse and speakers to half decent kit, no point in having a good PC if your display and input devices suck.
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HTC Hero? Toshiba TG01? They're probably the other two worth considering that Orange have at the moment. The Hero is supposedly really good, especially after the recent firmware updates. The TG01 not so good, it's only really worth considering if you're prepared to do a bit of work to sort the software out.
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How on earth did i miss this!?!?!? Wicked! :D:D:D:D:D I've certainly not got any problem with it being a new game as long as there's new game mechanics in there. If it plays just like SFIV but with new characters i'll be disappointed, but i doubt it will.
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Hate to sound like i'm hopping on a band-waggon here but no AV software for me either. Might try MS's new one though just to see if it's any good. I'll leave it until about a week before the W7 release.
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O2? I know you work for them Sooj, but to say their coverage is good is a bit of a joke. They've been in trouble with Ofcom for years over dragging their heels with the roll out of a 3G service, the latest report putting them far and beyond the worst network for data. I would stay put Flame, Orange and T-Mobile are set to merge, making them the biggest mobile phone operator in the country. Nobody will be able to compete with their level of coverage in a year's time. If you are desperate to move then try looking at the coverage maps for your area; http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=template11&pageID=BS_0174&wt_oss=coverage http://web.orange.co.uk/coverage/?channel=direct/ http://www.webmap.o2.co.uk/ http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/broadband-check/ http://www.three.co.uk/Help_Support/Coverage Coverage varies between them all. I wasn't completely satisfied with my coverage with T-Mobile (bad signal in work) so I jumped ship to Vodafone last year. They cover everywhere in my local area well including good coverage surrounding the rail network (i don't encounter many dead spots moving up and down the west coast main line). To compare this to the others Orange had bad coverage in my home and O2 didn't have ANY 3G coverage in my local area. Three had just as good coverage as Vodafone, but Vodafone's handset selection was better and their network has a higher max speed (7.2Mbps, going up to 14.4Mbps soon).
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The "you" bit clearly wasn't specifically referring to you, was it? You are upgrading your copy of Vista, right? It was aimed at those people who are buying it and installing it as if it were a retail OS (through various exploits, like the Vista one where you could instal it without a license key and then upgrade it to Vista afterwards by entering your "legit" Vista upgrade key). That sort of thing annoys me, people may as well go the full-fat illegal route instead of messing around with silly exploits just so they can justify it to their own moral compass. £36? I explained where the £6 came from, I'd need the disk version (an extra £9) because my internet is crap. Obviously to you it'd be £15 extra. Don't do this. Burn the ISO to a disk. Installing inside the OS is unstable. You'd also need to remember to back up the file otherwise next time you come to do an install you might be stuffed, the download is timed, right?
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Nope, but i'm happy to spend the extra £6 to actually keep to the EULA. If it was a significant amount then that'd be different. You can also legally sell retail copies on afterwards which is nice, means i can get rid of it on AVForums or Hexus.net if i sell my PC. The way i see it is if you're gonna brake the EULA anyway why not just torrent + crack it? Then you save yourself £30 and are still running an install that's classed as illegal. The only real difference is that £30 donation you gave to Microsoft to make you feel better (not specifically 'you', the kind of 'you' that applies to the people that this applies to).
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You should be able to cancel your O2 contract straight away and get your PAC code, all you'll need to do is cough up what you would have paid for the final month's line rental.
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Well not really, cause y'know, this student offer thing is only an upgrade. If you were to stick to the license agreement then it'd suck compared to the £45 full retail copy. Obviously if it's anything like Vista then it shouldn't be hard to exploit the functionality so that it's like a retail copy, but that's kinda illegal. I thought about getting this upgrade but figured for an extra £15 (or £6 really because i'd need the disk) it's more than worth keeping a full retail copy. This way i can legally run both my copy of Win7 and my copy of Vista.
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I'd stick with the on-board graphics for now, the latest AMD IGPs are pretty decent and you can always add in a dedicated card at a later date (note: ATi's 5*** series GPUs are hitting the market at the moment, not a good time to be buying a dedicated card anyway). If it was me i'd probably grab this board along with the Phenom II X4 620; http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-am3-amd-785g-ddr3-matx-a-l-63XY.html Add in 4GB DDR3, a mid-range Case/PSU combo, a 1TB HDD and a DVD drive and you've got a pretty good machine for ~£300 with great upgrade potential!
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I'm sticking with Voda, they've been fantastic in the 10 months or so that i've been with them. Only another 6 til I can upgrade, hopefully they have some good handsets available at the time (HTC Leo would be awesome!).
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It depends which version of Linux the netbook ships with. Ubuntu is very capable, the only real disadvantage it has is incompatibility with some programs like iTunes. A lot of the other distros that ship with netbooks are pretty useless though. I've not heard any announcements concerning new Samsung machines but Lenovo, Asus, HP, Acer, Sony, MSI, Nokia, Archos and Toshiba all have new machines announced. Dell are also predicted to release a new machine (probably an ION-powered replacement to the Mini 10) before Christmas along with adding a Windows 7 option to their existing product line. On the hardware front AMD's Congo platform is due to hit the market before Christmas with the launch of the Acer Ferrari One and Intel will release their Pinetrail platform (though it's unlikely that any manufacturers will get a Pinetrail-powered machine out this year). There's also whispers of Tegra and Snapdragon powered machines coming, but i've not seen any release dates mentioned other than "before the end of the year". So as I said, bad time to buy
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The only reason i'm finding i have to play differently is because Stamina is critical, with health not recharging and med stations being scarce i'm finding i really can't afford to let my stamina run down. I play Halo in a very rambo-like way normally but i'm having to slow down a bit here and plan my route through Mombasa so i don't wind up in a huge fire fight with no cover. It's not a radical change, the actual fighting plays out the same way, but coming out of a few fights badly has definitely left me a bit more cautious. Having said that though, what difficulty are you playing?
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Not really, paying EA for exclusivity might not be all that beneficial in the long-term. It adds nothing of value to the company other than shifting a few more Xbox 360s. As for the quote, it doesn't mean there isn't some truth in the story. Microsoft are always looking at buying up other companies to expand. In all likelihood it was talked about and they decided not to go down that route (for now). Stories like this don't usually appear out of thin air, but it doesn't mean there's much cance of a buyout either.
