What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

  • Thread starter tlowr4
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Slowly but surely getting parts for a computer. My brother currently has an Nvidia GTX 660 and a nice ASUS motherboard, just waiting for the processor, then we can start using it. After that, it's up to him to procure the extra parts.
 
No, how did you get that?

Well, hate is a strong word. So, dislike is more like it. I remember you regretted buying your iMac and it's a waste of money. Sort of something like that but it was in a thread somewhere around in this forum
 
My G2X is kinda old now and I want a more device. A buddy of mine recently bought a Nexus 7 to use along with his Galaxy Nexus which has terrible battery life. Should I do the same and buy a Nexus 7 and keep my phone, or just buy a new phone?
 
Leicht
Well, hate is a strong word. So, dislike is more like it. I remember you regretted buying your iMac and it's a waste of money. Sort of something like that but it was in a thread somewhere around in this forum

I dislike the high price of all apple products and hate how their iphone has so much control over it, but they still make good stuff. I definitely wouldn't of regretted buying my imac since it was literally the best purchase of my life so far lol. Maybe you confused my name or read how I'm upset I was forced to buy a new one.
 
NissanSkylineN1
My G2X is kinda old now and I want a more device. A buddy of mine recently bought a Nexus 7 to use along with his Galaxy Nexus which has terrible battery life. Should I do the same and buy a Nexus 7 and keep my phone, or just buy a new phone?

Read this after I posted already however I suggest new phone. The new nexus 7 is only 7 inches in size. Most phones now are 5 inches. That's pretty big and they do more than a tablet. I had this problem a while ago and got a large phone and a 10 inch tablet. I figure it makes more sense to get a large yet still portable phone and when I'm at the house to have a much much larger screen.
 
The new trend of "phablets" are very good indeed. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 LTE and I couldn't really imagine having a tablet since this does everything they do and it's pretty much the perfect size for me.
 
My G2X is kinda old now and I want a more device. A buddy of mine recently bought a Nexus 7 to use along with his Galaxy Nexus which has terrible battery life. Should I do the same and buy a Nexus 7 and keep my phone, or just buy a new phone?

New phone time. The newer Android OS has definitively been freshened up since you've owned your phone. I own a Galaxy Nexus and I usually see as little as 8 hours to a full day of battery life depending on the use and if I'm making use of a battery saver app along with an app that shuts down unnecessary background apps.

Then again you might want to wait until they release new phones with new processors that are 25% more efficient in battery life.
 
Ok, so I'll stay with a phone. The question is, what phone? I want a phone that:

-Is AWS (1700/2100) compatible
-Will be useful and updated/developers in a few years
-Under $400
-Am willing to wait for a phone to come out

The local Wind store has a GS3 for $300. Not sure about the development part of it though...
 
Installing new windows updates on all of the windows computers me and my parents own(total of 4 computers!).
 
NissanSkylineN1
Ok, so I'll stay with a phone. The question is, what phone? I want a phone that:

-Is AWS (1700/2100) compatible
-Will be useful and updated/developers in a few years
-Under $400
-Am willing to wait for a phone to come out

The local Wind store has a GS3 for $300. Not sure about the development part of it though...

Do you live in Canada? I have a s3 on wind. Best move I ever made. Save so much money on wind and the phone itself is great. It is also super popular so samsung will update for a long time and developers put more time for it. Best part is the s2, note, note 2, s4, and a few others all have the same style of specs so developers are really making a apps etc for many phones by choosing to make things for the s3.
 
Yes I do live in Canada. The issue is that the phone is already a year old. I'm not sure how much longer it will last.
 
NissanSkylineN1
Yes I do live in Canada. The issue is that the phone is already a year old. I'm not sure how much longer it will last.

Lol don't get wrapped up in this newest phone always hype. The chance you are gonna use a phone to its full power is slim. Obviously it depends what your plan is but I highly doubt an s3 will be slow any time soon. I have mine on power savings mode all the time which cuts the cpu power a lot and rarely ever need more power. It handles all the apps etc I can chuck at it with ease. I also build homescreens and have them coated in hungry cpu and battery killing widgets and still I never have any problems. You could get the s4 as it's the same thing just slightly better everywhere however it's gonna be more than your price range. Since you said a fairly low price the s3 is the only choice here.

Also wind now has 2 yr tab "contracts". What that means is before you would pay let's say $400 for your phone and the remaining $300 they would take 10% off each bill and the math worked out to where the rest of the phone would be paid off in 3yrs. Now all the prices of phones are the same however they take a higher percentage off each time making the phone paid off in 2yrs. So an s3 for only 2 more years is not that long. Of course like I said you could get the s4 which is very new and it would only be for 2yrs now. Note 3 is also coming out super soon so you could wait for that. It's gonna be amazing but overly large for a phone.
 
Hmm... you're right about the power part. I'll think a bit more about it. The phone is a refurbished one that the local store has, and I have to pay it upfront, since I only pay $5 a month.
 
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I dislike the high price of all apple products and hate how their iphone has so much control over it, but they still make good stuff. I definitely wouldn't of regretted buying my imac since it was literally the best purchase of my life so far lol. Maybe you confused my name or read how I'm upset I was forced to buy a new one.

I'm just basing what you post at the iPhone thread. But it's ok :) Sorry though :)
 
Leicht
I'm just basing what you post at the iPhone thread. But it's ok :) Sorry though :)

IPhone is different from the imac. It's a great phone but expensive and you can't do anything you want with it since apple has full control. I don't like that at all and is why I no longer have an iPhone as my main phone. I don't like buying items and having the manufacturer tell me what I'm allowed to do. Computers however you can do anything so I like apple for those. Just to clarify lol.
 
Computers however you can do anything so I like apple for those. Just to clarify lol.

For now... I, and many others, fully expect Apple to make the walled garden OS palatable, whilst Microsoft will just screw it up entirely and make everyone angry (like they did with Vista). I guess MS have the disadvantage of hosting the PC gamer user base who complain about everything, whilst Apple has the casual 'I just want a computer for internetting and word processing' user base, as well as creative professionals who just want a tool that works. I guess neither of them would mind the walled garden too much if it allowed them to do what they wanted with even less hassle than before. Apple are good at removing hassle and also removing user control at the same time, but not everyone cares about that second part because the less they have to interact with the OS itself, the better.

Personally I'm sort of part of four user groups; PC gamer, tech head, ex-creative professional and I'd say 80% of the time I'm not gaming I just want my computers for internetting and general work (mostly word processing, some spreadsheets and presentations). To that end I have my gaming PC which is purely for gaming and internetting, as I am now, and my Mac Pro which has Adobe CS5, iWork '09, Processing/Arduino/whatever and OpenOffice installed; it used to have a Windows 7 partition and then an XP partition, but buying a PC made the W7 partition pointless then I worked out how to get the XP software I needed working on 7 so the XP partition also became redundant.

They're both great OSes but at the same time they both suck. Both of my computers are awesome but they have their drawbacks. One thing I can say for sure, though, is the day gaming on Linux becomes viable, I might not have a Windows installation any more, but I'd go through the hassle of working out Hackintosh to save me from having to buy another ludicrously expensive Mac - Unless, of course, I ever need a laptop!
 
So basically what you're saying is use the right tool for the job. :)

I agree with you on your points. From a programmers perspective, however, many of my friends like the M$ Platform because that's what they know. They can get in there and make the M$ OS act and perform the way they want to. They have that flexibility because they know how to do it. The rest of us are stuck with what is given to us for the most part.

I like my Mac's for their utilitarian purposes, and like my M$ boxes for daily grinds and games, and my Linux boxes for everything else. Sure would be nice to have all my needs met on the same platform, but I just don't see that happening any time soon.

So, started redesigning my water loop on my PC. Adding a second pump for better water flow and also considering a different MOBO, currently looking at the Z87 chipset in EVGA's Classified model.
 
For me mac does everything since it has boot camp so you can easily install windows too. It's like 2 computers in one. People always tell me pc is mandatory for games but I never play any so it's never been an issue.

Today was crazy I had photoshop, lightroom, and Google Chrome open and it worked great. Blew my mind. I'm so used to closing every app and still having it be slow. What a difference 7yrs in the future of computers has made lol.

I do however have a big issue. I want to transfer the entire external hard drive to my new usb 3.0 hard drive. I have heard just dragging and dropping everything at once can go horribly wrong and will also take forever since it's almost 2tb of data. Are there programs or built in to the system to handle this?
 
Spent yesterday afternoon picking up a bunch of stuff for free, building a computer holder with castors(2 hours and it looks nice!), and working on a old Dell for resale. Just deleted the old accounts and all it needs is an ethernet card(Yes it used dial up! I'm not kidding. It has a AOL browser!).
 
Finally found a video converter last night and funny enough, its the same one that stopped working for me a year ago. Holy crap it looks so different from the last time I used it and it works much better. Now my videos from my HD-PVR can be converted and best of all, it now has the ability to convert to formats for Android Smartphones and Tablets (though I'm not sure if that includes my Le Pan TC970).
 
Yesterday I re-made my own mic and extended my sim rig once more. My old mic was a normal passive electret on a tiny square of stripboard on the end of a piece of wire coathanger mounted on my also home-made headphones (which consist of a set of re-homed Sony studio-style 'phone drivers in a set of Army surplus ear defenders). I rarely used it, but when I played CS:GO it would work by itself and play over my own headphones, so that was when I was first made aware that they picked up the sound inside the headphones as well as my voice... And the sound of the fans in my Mac Pro from across the room, the neighbours arguing and plants photosynthesising in the next county. So last night I took an old preamp'd electret prototyping board and hooked it up using USB power and just left it under my monitors. It's sensitive enough to pick up any normal voices in the room so I think it's finished.

As for the sim rig, I cut two pieces of MDF, both 300x270mm, for my X52 Pro stick and throttle. The throttle stays in a fixed position on the left of me (also to the left of the G27 shifter) and although I haven't mounted it yet, the stick will swivel so when I don't want to use it I have more mousing area.

Next up: some sort of padding for the arm rests and a proper keyboard tray. Oh, and the base I've been talking about for the last two years...
 
DVI Adaptor came in.

1102550_10152145225859097_1330164374_o.jpg


Hooked up an old unused monitor so now I can access iTunes without having to flip back and forth in spaces. Obviously it wasn't hooked up solely for that job. There will be other secondary background-running programs that will be helpful in times where I need two screens, but for now, it's just iTunes.

Now you may be wondering why I put it all the way up there to my left instead of just putting it side by side and the reason is to emphasize its "secondary" use; nice to have more pixels, but not definitely needed for everyday use. I wouldn't want to turn my head to look at the screen for a prolonged period of time which would mean I won't be relying on a second screen very often. The hipster/artist in me said so.

...But when it comes time to actually needing it... I'm screwed. My neck anyway. :lol:
 
DVI Adaptor came in.

1102550_10152145225859097_1330164374_o.jpg


Hooked up an old unused monitor so now I can access iTunes without having to flip back and forth in spaces. Obviously it wasn't hooked up solely for that job. There will be other secondary background-running programs that will be helpful in times where I need two screens, but for now, it's just iTunes.

Now you may be wondering why I put it all the way up there to my left instead of just putting it side by side and the reason is to emphasize its "secondary" use; nice to have more pixels, but not definitely needed for everyday use. I wouldn't want to turn my head to look at the screen for a prolonged period of time which would mean I won't be relying on a second screen very often. The hipster/artist in me said so.

...But when it comes time to actually needing it... I'm screwed. My neck anyway. :lol:

LOL @ Dollarama rubbing alcohol.
 
I think I have the same monitor. Very nice to look at for TV viewing considering I got mine used at $35 a year ago.
 
Since my beloved old MacBook crapped itself, I've been using a PC. The first installment was free because it was just parts I had lying around. The second one cost me $300 for the CPU, Motherboard, Hard Drive, case and RAM.

Old Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600 @ 2.9GHz
Crap stock HP motherboard that I flashed the BIOS on so I could OC the CPU a little (Socket AM2)
4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 RAM @ 800MHz (only ran at 300MHz for god knows what reason)
Thermaltake 430W PSU
Zotac 9600GT 512MB Graphics Card
80GB IDE Boot and 320GB IDE Storage HDDs

New Specs:

AMD Phenom II 840 @ 3.2GHz
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI (Socket AM2+)
8GB (4x2GB) DDR2 RAM @ 800MHz (actually runs at full speed, yay!)
Thermaltake 430W PSU
MSI R7770 1GB Power Edition Graphics Card
120GB IDE Boot and 500GB SATA Storage HDDs

Both using old crappy cases so cable management dosn't exist. The new one looks pretty ugly, but hey, it does the job. Can run Crysis at 1280 x 1024 completely maxed out at a good 40fps+. I'll get hold of and post some proper benchmarks once I get a 1080p monitor. I'm assuming it's going to struggle a bit at such a high res but I'll live with it.
 
Got my computers prepped for moving and university. Cleaned out my desktop of both unused software and a decent amount of dust. Put my computer in the box that came with the case, and my monitor back in its box ready for moving. Still have some cords to gather up but I've pretty much packed my desktop away for now.

Did a thorough purge on my laptop, I haven't used it since early May, but I used it all last year at school so it was rather bloated. Deleted all my games except for Starcraft 2, Warcraft 3, and Dota 2, saved me a lot of hard drive space. Ran CCleaner and uninstalled a bunch of applications I don't need or use anymore. Trimmed the fat from the startup list, and now my 3 year old Thinkpad is running like new again. Might look into adding an SSD to it, would make it feasibly last the rest of my undergrad in the capacity it gets used (MS Office and tooling around).
 
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