Building the Ultimate Budget PC
Building a GeForce 880 card, 2GB of RAM, and a 3GHz dual-core CPU with windows vista for less than £450
PC Case
Cooler Master RC-330 V2
Price £25.79
Scan.co.uk
Power Supply
500W FSP Blue Storm II
Price £58.62
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L
Price £46.93
Processor
Intel Pentium Dual-Core, E2180, Socket 775, Allendale Core, 2×2.0 GHz, 1MB Cache, Retail
Price £43.35
Scan.co.uk
Memory
2GB(2×1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2
DDR2 PC2-6400
Price £34.08
Cooling Bit
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Price £15.26
Graphics Card
256MB XFX GeForce 8800GT
Price £117.36
Hard Drive
160GB Hitachi 7K160
Price £31.36
Scan.co.uk
DVD Writer
Optiarc
Windows Vista Home Premium
Price £59.68
CustomPC Mag lists the cheapest way to get a kick ass PC. These are UK prices and suppliers.
Which Social Network Has the Most Weirdos?
I suppose you have to start by defining weirdos. The best way to do this is if you all agree with my definition and then we have a common base point. My definition covers anyone who makes a comment on a blog pointing out the misuse of the apostrophe. Which if taken alone would mean that digg has the most hairy palmed weirdos. Have you ever read the comments on digg? Phew! Read more
‘Microtrends’ Book Says Techies No Longer The Geeks
If small is still the new big, then the biggest book of the moment is “Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes” by Mark Penn, CEO of public-relations powerhouse Burson-Marsteller.
Penn divines the future from the niche-ification of the present. For us tech types, one observation rises to the top: As the Internet becomes ever more dominant, geeks are now welcome at the lunch table with the cool kids.
Penn’s books is essentially a modern take on the popular predictions of the late twentieth century, notably Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and John Naisbitt’s Megatrends.
However, where those tomes trafficked in bombast, Penn sifts the sociological sands to come up with a fine-grained view of where we’re headed.
The 70+ microtrends he’s identified included the observation that people are continuing to work after retirement, tattoos are going upscale, and women are increasingly dating men size years or more younger than them.
For me Penn’s most salient observations arise in his chapter “Social Geeks”:
A funny thing happened on the way to the Star Trek convention. Technology crossed over from being a thing for introverts to being a thing for extroverts. While the cliche still hands on that devotees of technology are social “losers,” the truth is that the most enthusiastic users of technology in America are also the most social people in America.
Geeks as we know them have all but disappeared. . .Once upon a time, working with technology provided an outlet for brilliant but anti-social people who found comfort in machines that responded to them in ways that people did not.
Being tech savvy was once socially disdained. Now it is at the center of organizing friends, parties, and the social life of the family.
I guess this means I no longer have to secret my copy of Maximum PC inside an issue of People magazine. Apparently, it’s the non-iPod people who’re missing the party. Penn continues:
It’s the reluctant users – the ones who buy and use technology only when they have to –who turn out to be the introverts. These people are not only less interested in technology, they are also less interested in sports, news, magazines, and fashion. And then tend to be more conservative and cautious all around.
While I’m not sure that I totally buy Penn’s thesis — he seems to be saying that people are either interested in the world around them or they’re not.
I certainly welcome his observations as a useful antidote to the typical pocket-protector representation of tech types.
In Search Of Airborne Jr. Grape Flavor
It’s not that often that I call out to my loyal Geek With Laptop readers but today I need your help.
I’m in search of Airborne Jr. grape flavor and I can’t seem to find it at any local area store. They have every flavor except grape.
Here is what the box looks like:
After a little Google searching, I can purchase it directly from the Airborne website but I would need to get 6 tubes for approximately $41.94 USD and I only want one or two.
If you can find two boxes at a local store near you, I would be happy to pay your actual cost plus shipping to me.
My goal is to try and keep the entire deal under $25.00 USD otherwise I would just order directly from the manufacturer.
Let me know if you can or want to help me. Thanks in advance.
Why can’t SSL VPNs include NAC?
When it comes to network protection, popular wisdom has it that Secure Sockets Layer virtual private networks are the best of the current breed.
That’s why it’s alarming that most SSL VPNs can’t really protect the overall enterprise network from all kinds of infected computers.
The current buzzword is Network Access Control or NAC. This is an entirely new branch of enterprise security that tries to finesse the fact that SSL VPNs are really good at authenticating users, but when those users type on infected machines, they have less control and offer a false sense of protection.
NAC is focused on what’s running on the endpoint, not just authenticating users. It’s a great idea, and it would be even better if NAC was built into SSL VPNs to begin with.
While some of the leading vendors such as Aventail (now part of Sonicwall), F5 and Juniper have rudimentary endpoint scanning routines included in their products, other SSL vendors could do a better job of marrying these two technologies.
Still, this isn’t enough to protect the entire corporate network from a virus-laden laptop that walks into the headquarters and doesn’t use the VPN and laptops aren’t the sole issue.
What happens when more users begin to make use of smartphones and other PDAs that can carry malware and be another source of infection?
Leading vendors such as Aventail have Windows smartphone SSL clients, so that enterprise networks aren’t invaded by PDA viruses.
But not every vendor offers this kind of protection yet and some infection vectors aren’t covered, either: What happens when someone tries to compromise a network print server, for example?
Therein lies the dirty secret of endpoint security: If you want complete endpoint protection, you need to upgrade your network infrastructure. If you upgrade your infrastructure, chances are you’ll need to add software to each of your endpoints, too. It’s messy and far from ideal.
And while we’re complaining about VPNs, the most popular VPN client from Cisco can break so many other things on the average desktop that it’s often useless.
Why can’t Cisco write better VPN client software that can get along better with the standard suite of corporate applications?
Michael Moore’s latest film Sicko
Michael Moore’s latest film Sicko has appeared online.
I watched it in its entirety on Google Video last night.
It has been removed since then, though it’s no doubt still available on various file sharing networks.
I’m tempted to send Mr. Moore a check for the $20.00 USD I won’t be spending at the movie theater this summer but to do so would be to shortchange him.
Sicko is a profoundly compelling film and if it has the effect on the rest of America that it had on me, Mr. Moore will have done this country a far greater service than can be paid back in dollars.
Whether you lean right or left or off the charts, you will be moved by the grotesque inequity in the U.S health system that Mr. Moore documents.
You may not agree with Mr. Moore’s argument that the U.S. should nationalize health care. You may not agree with the rhetorical techniques he uses to make his points. You may find his personal politics contrary to yours.
However, if you see Sicko, I suspect you will find it hard to deny that the U.S. heath-care system needs to change.
Writing about the unauthorized release of Sicko, The New York Times said, “Moore, 53, has been vocal in his support of downloading pirated movies as long as movie pirates don’t profit.”
If only the health care industry shared Mr. Moore’s willingness to think of something other than profit, fewer U.S. citizens would die for the sake of some insurance executive’s bonus.