We can build it better, faster, stronger for under 6 million dollars

What we are building here is the drive layout for a PC containing 2 equal speed equal size hard drives.

We want speed for applications that need it such as gaming and video encoding as well as web cache. We want to secure our data on a partition other than the partition holding the main OS. This space will also be used to load applications that may contain user data and settings that we might want to preserve in the event we have to blow away the OS partition. Finally we need raw storage for video mostly that is not on a raid in the event we need to recover it. We could create a raid array for recover purposes but it has always been my opinion that home or novice users need to maintain good backups as opposed to trying to recover data from a failed hard drive in a Raid 5 array.

The partitions needed will be from each drive in Gigabytes:

100
100
5
(final partition containing the remaining space)

You will have 100 on one drive for the OS. You do it this way because we are creating the Raid arrays using Microsoft Disk Management.

Then 2 100gig partitions will be used to create a Gaming or High speed stripped partition. If you want a bigger gaming array you can allocate more space or simply add another array later with the left over space being used for mass storage.

The 10gig array will be used for internet cache and for a very fast page file for both speed and privacy. It is very easy to wipe a small partition that might contain personal data that could be used to steal your identity or create profiles on your surfing habits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID














Click on the image below for more details:

Send and receive text SMS messages from the PC for free.

Google has a option in gmail where you can put a phone number into your chat box and send a text message to any phone in the US.

This is how you get it set up:

In GMAIL click:
Settings,
then Labs,
then scroll down to SMS chat which is fairly far down the list.
Select enable
Then back to the top to save settings.

Now you can simply type a phone number in the chat contact box. It will offer to save the number with a name associated.

Then simply type a message and wait for a reply.

These messages are not free to the person receiving the message.

Suck a golfball through a hose?

Well emailing a large file or movie to friends and family can be hard if not impassible, no I didn't mean impossible because I have a solution.

http://files2you.com/

This is a free service from the people who created the commercial product file catalyst.

Registered Max Filesize 200.00 MB - this is a little weak but not bad.

File types - All type allowed
Multiple uploads - 5 (not sure what this means)

Support for resuming downloads
Support for download-accelerators
100kb/s
Unlimited

You can use a service like file front and upload just about any size file as well as maintain a neat little web space if you do alot of this kind of thing. There are other faster and simpler solutions if you want to share passwords with friends or family you can just simply share free online storage space.

I recommend encrypting personal files that you might share using true crypt but your family will need to have true crypt and the password to decrypt the resulting file. This method you can encrypt a whole folder and move it as a file. You can do this with zipped archives as well. 7-Zip is a great free solution for this.

Smoke and Mirrors - 4870 vs 4850

Comparing the 4850 vs the 4870, which card is best for you.

If you look at the stream processors you see 800 for both cards. So you begin to ask yourself what am I paying 50% or more for?

Lets look at some NewEgg specs:

GIGABYTE GV-R485OC-1GH Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

• Chipset Manufacturer: ATI
• Core clock: 700MHz
• Stream Processors: 800 Stream Processing Units
• Memory Clock: 1920MHz
• DirectX: DirectX 10.1
• OpenGL: OpenGL 2.1
• HDMI: 1 via Adapter
• DVI: 2
• Model #: GV-R485OC-1GH

GIGABYTE GV-R487D5-1GD Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

• Chipset Manufacturer: ATI
• Core clock: 750MHz
• Stream Processors: 800 Stream Processing Units
• Memory Clock: 3600MHz
• DirectX: DirectX 10.1
• OpenGL: OpenGL 2.1
• HDMI: 1
• DisplayPort: 1
• Model #: GV-R487D5-1GD

The only real difference here is the memory clock. In actuality both are clocking at 900Mhz. The DDR3 is double data rate which translates to 1800Mhz and the DDR5 is quad data rate at 3600Mhz. The 4870 core clock is slightly higher as well. All of this translates into about a 25% performance boost at most.

Finally we have to consider the power consumption which translates into heat. Can your case handle the extra heat? Is the 12v rail on your power supply rated to match the power consumption of the card. I recommend 25amps on that rail minimum. If your using 2 separate rails you can add them together. The 4870 uses much more power to operate.

If you're looking for stability (MMO gaming for example) you're going to want to go with the 4850.
If you're looking to get a bit more performance then pay the extra money but in most cases you will never see the difference even at higher resolutions. If you wanted to get the best of both worlds you might be able to put together a 4850 x2 crossfire system for slightly more than a 4870 but you will see huge performance gains by comparison.

The Mythical and Elusive PhysX

Look, I'm not going to pretend this is a straight forward and easy process. I play around quite a bit with hardware and software and with something like PhysX you can't just check a box in the display panel and assume it is working or better yet is your PhysX setup providing any benefit?

http://www.slizone.com/object/sli_cuda_learn.html

Your going to need:
Cuda Driver
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_get.html

PhysX Software
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_9.09.0203_whql.html

NVIDIA PhysX System Software WHQL Version: 9.09.0203 Release Date: February 10, 2009 Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit) Language: U.S. English File Size: 39.2 MB

Installer update only from 9.09.0121 to resolve some installation issues on non-English operating systems. Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory. Experience GPU PhysX acceleration in many games and demos, some of which are highlighted in PowerPack downloads on http://www.geforce.com/. Resolves PhysX SDK runtime issues with multi-GPU configurations in Hybrid environments. Improves performance of some PhysX enabled games on GeForce GTX 285 and GTX 295 products. Resolves occasional system crashes when PhysX is enabled on some systems when running on EA’s Mirrors Edge. Runtime upgrade ONLY for AGEIA PhysX processors users. (New installations should install older PhysX system software such as version 8.09.04 – prior to installing this update). Includes the latest PhysX runtimes used in the latest game titles. Supports NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on GeForce via CUDA 2.0 for SDK versions 2.7.3, 2.7.2, 2.7.5, 2.8.0 and 2.8.1 (requires graphics driver v177.81 or later). Includes all the latest PhysX SDK Runtimes. Supports control of your GPU PhysX configuration from the NVIDIA display driver control panel. GeForce 200-series, 9-series, and 8-series GPUs AGEIA PhysX Processors (All)

Then to prove this is working your going to need:
http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia-physx-quick-test/

PowerPack download
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_physx.htmlhttp://www.nvidia.com/content/graphicsplus/us/download.asp

I found Physx to be of little or no benefit. and in my weak hybrid SLI setup I found this did more harm than good with respect to performance in games that don't support Physx. I wouldn't make any purchase decisions based on this technology. Besides ATI will have their answer to this very soon as well. The ATI chipsets support 800 Stream Processing Units compared to 128 on a 9800 nvidia. This will likely yield spectacular results.

Feeling diabolical? But your the good guy? Your ISP won't think so.

http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools

MLAB is attempting to provide users with the tools to test their broadband connections by briefly communicating with a server elsewhere on the Internet.

I could have a lab like Dexter if it wasn't for the high cost of maintenance and power. Besides I don't have a basement.


Ping testing doesn't really tell you that much about your connection. You get your response time and whether your packets made it or not. The ISP world treats ICMP packets (PING) with very low priority. Also routers do more than route these days. High speed routers forward packets in hardware with very little processing required allowing them to handle more data faster.

Your packets are queued, buffered, and prioritized based on many factors. In many ways its like a first class ticket on a plane. The more you pay the better your treated. But imagine if the plane was loosing fuel and they needed to loose weight or they will crash. Imagine if they decided to throw third class passengers out the door.

The plane analogy doesn't describe the Internet very well. Its more like a highway with a HOV lane for the rich, When traffic is flowing good everyone is treated the same. When traffic is congested the HOV cars get through. The reason I like the plane analogy because in the HOV analogy all cars make it to the destination. In reality on the Internet your packets get tossed out to prevent the situation from getting worse for everyone.

Now you have the tools to see if your being treated like a customer or a criminal.

Network Diagnostic Tool
Test your connection speed and receive sophisticated diagnosis of problems limiting speed.
Glasnost
Test whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled.
Network Path and Application Diagnosis
Diagnose common problems that impact last-mile broadband networks.
DiffProbe (coming soon)
Determine whether an ISP is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic.
NANO (coming soon)
Determine whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations.


The PlanetLab Consortium joins Google and the Open Technology Institute in creating Measurement Lab (M-Lab), a distributed server platform for deploying Internet measurement tools. M-Lab is designed to empower the public with useful information about their broadband connections.

Don't let the ISPs run away with your re-concatenator/assembler high speed compression port adaptor.

What is in a number?

Free Voicemail and Web Based Fax

http://www.k7.net/

K7 offers users of the service a free phone in the 206 area code through which they can receive faxes and voicemails. Any faxes/voicemails received on the number are forwarded as email attachments or can be accessed via their website.

So, how can they afford to provide this service? Well, because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, CLECs get paid by other providers for the termination (answering) of a phone call. Thus, every time you pickup the phone, your phone company gets a small amount of money from the carrier that originated a call. Normally, carriers are constantly making calls that terminate at other carriers and vice versa. But, K7 is a service that only receives calls and does not generate calls to other carriers, so all those termination fees, which would usually flow both ways end up flowing only into K7’s bank account and not out! This one way flow of money was distressing enough to most carriers that they protested strongly and got the law rewritten somewhat, but there is a grandfather clause for companies like K7 that were already in operation.

Anyways, sign up for an account (a very simple process that won't require you to divulge any personally identifiable information)

206-203-1661