OK, so after much deliberation after seeing these guys on the Gadget Show a while ago, I’ve decided I’d like a Pleo - a robotic dinosaur supposedly capable of evolving the longer you have one. There are also plans to develop different personalities to download onto the little guys, as well as tricks you can teach them etc. I’m thinking after the initial novelty has worn off a bit, Paul and I can set about hacking the little dude to within an inch of his life ;). I reckon there’s plenty of fun to be had!

Tis just a wee shame he costs £200….however,  Pleo owners in the Staters have made little collars and jumpers for them, so the expense is worth it for the cuteness factor!

I’ve been watching a lot of Frasier again and thought I’d share the billiance of David Hyde Pierce and his ‘Therapy Song’ with you. This is from the ‘Just for Laughs’ Comedy Festival.

This morning, my colleague came to switch on her computer and was greeted with a rather ominous sounding constant beeping. She tired the old ‘turn it off and on again’ trick to no avail. A quick call to IT later, and after swapping out ram and hard drives etc, and moving her hard drive into another pc, a reboot yields the beeping again. The IT guy is getting a bit confused by this point and it’s not until we look on the desk we realise the problem.

There’s a book resting on the escape key.

Cue much hilarity :).

(OK, so I found it funny anyway…)

That was pretty much what my boss was saying everyone that met me when I started my new job. The uninitated amongst you might think ‘wow - she must be some sort of technological genius!’. Alas, the initiated will be asking what all the fuss is about - ‘building a pc is pretty commonplace nowadays!’.

When most people comment on me being able to put together a pc, my immediate reaction is ‘its cheaper and I know what I’m getting’; to me thats the key issue with shop bought PC’s - you don’t know what you are getting half the time, and might well end up with a horrendously expensive and high end machine just to send emails to your family. The idea behind this little article is the highlight some of the pitfalls of shopping for a pc and to introduce you to the concept of building your own.

I don’t understand all this jargon!!

I’m often asked to go with friends to choose a new computer as I ‘understand what all the jargon means’. Here’s a brief breakdown of what you are likely to come across when viewing the specs of a computer;

• Processor; This is essentially the ’muscle’ of the computer that does all the work. There are a vast number of different processors around now, although the ones you will come across most frequently in shops are Dual Core, essentially meaning that the processor has twice as much oomph and can deal with two intensive tasks at once. Don’t let this worry you too much - all you really need to know is higher number = faster processor i.e. 1.8ghz < 3.0ghz
•  RAM/Memory; The memory stores regularly used information to facilitate quick movement between applications. The clearest example of this is swapping between windows and how the pc copes with this. Generally, the more windows you have open, the slower the pc can change between them. The more RAM (Random Access Memory) you have, the faster these changes will be. Memory is measured in Megabytes or (more commonly nowadays) Gigabytes. I would recommend a minimum of 2gb of RAM to ensure optimum performance in the most modern machines.
• Hard Drive; This provides the storage for all the usual gubbins that end up on people’s computers (Music, pictures, documents, video etc). This is again measured in Gigabytes and the bigger the better. I’ve always maintained that it doesn’t matter how much space you have, you will use it all, so make sure you get the most you can. A lot of shop bought pc’s today come with upwards of 250gb of storage, with 500gb becoming increasingly common.
• Graphics; If you are looking to play modern games on your new toy, graphics capabilities are arguuably the most important factor when choosing a machine. Graphics come in two flavours if you like; Intergrated and Dedicated (to use laptop specific terminology). Integrated means that the graphics are built into the motherboard of the computer and will use up some of the systems RAM to operate. Dedicated refers to the fact that there is a seperate graphics card in the machine that has its own RAM. This is the better option if you are looking for optimum graphics performance as it will not be using up any of the system RAM, therefore preventing slowdown. As a (very!) general rule of thumb, when looking at the descroption of a graphics cards, the higher the number,. the better it is when looking at cards made by the same manufacturer, eg. an NVidia 8800 is better than an 8600. 

That covers the basic specs that you’re going to come across looking in a shop and should make buying something a little easier! There’s more to come when I’ve got the time covering building a computer from scratch.

Fingers crossed all the above made sense!

I commute into London every day for work, and was sitting on the train this morning when a couple of things occurred to me.

1. London Underground staff are mean and seem to enjoy closing off access to the escalators as soon as you get there.
2. The human race (or at least those who use the tube) seem to have evolved to the point where they don’t have to breathe whilst on the train - they certainly don’t leave room for the standard expansion of the lungs required for breathing… 

Life drives me mad sometimes.

Here’s what a computer desk looks like when you spend the afternoon tinkering with a new website and ripping DVD’s into .avi files…bonkers.

OK, so I recently purchased a EEE PC 901, Linux version, having previously owned its little brother, the 701. I’ve always been adamant that I wanted to learn how to use linux and to experience something of the open source phenomenon. Alas, it would appear that world is conspiring against me and my shiny hew 901 complete with Xandros wasn’t shutting down cleanly, updating properly or able to run some apps I wanted without a bit of hassle.

After several days of trying to fix the problems, and coming up pretty empty, I decided I was going to bite the bullet and install XP on it and be done with it. Here’s what I did.

1. Download NLite (this will shrink your install down so it fits better on the eee)
2. Download all the relevant windows drivers for the 901 and pop them on a USB stick
3. Install Nlite
4. Follow these instructions (remembering to tick the box under Components > Hardware Support “Multi Processor Support”. This is required speciifcally for the 901 but NOT for other models)
5. Completely wipe ALL partitions on your drives (including the one that says BIOS!)
6. Reboot eee, having altered the boot sequence to boot external drive first.
7. Install windows
8. Install all asus windows drivers from usb stick prepared earlier.
9. Reboot and Voila!

Now, this is by no means a comprehensive guide, but those who are familiar with OS installs should get the idea. I should stress that this is what worked for me, but it may not work for everyone. Any problems, go to the EEE User Forums, where someone (possibly me!) will be able to help.

I’ve uploaded a couple of wallpapers that I like in the sidebar for you to enjoy. I didn’t make any of these, and I don’t know who owns them, so if anyone knows and wants credit, let me know! The gallery thing is being a bit of a pain, but I’m hoping to have a proper collection up soon.

Currently with nothing on it and in need of some design tweaking, but fingers crossed they’ll be some content up asap. I’m hoping this can just be a bit of a dumping ground for everything I’m upto at the moment, but to be honest, I’m still not really sure!