What's the biggest bottleneck in your system? I'm willing to stake money on it being your hard drive. It's a curious fact that, while the performance of CPUs, memory, graphics cards etc. skyrocket every year, the trusty old mechanical disc...

Posted at 12:41 PM in Technology

My ASUS UL30A arrived first thing yesterday morning and I wasted no time in getting it up and running, which didn't take long, as I didn't have to install much - just OpenOffice, Google Chrome and a handful of...

Posted at 11:43 PM in Technology

When I bought my Sony VAIO VGN-FZ11Z back in Autumn 2007, I thought it was the bee's knees. It was actually the first laptop I ever owned, and it was a far cry from the variety of clunky old rustbuckets...

Posted at 10:46 PM in Technology

I've been a Microsoft Office user for as long as I can remember. I started out on Word for DOS back in the late 80s and moved over to the Windows version (Word 2.0 at the time) when I got...

Posted at 9:35 PM in Technology

Probably the most significant change Microsoft made with Windows 7, at least from the perspective of day-to-day interaction with the operating system, is the newfangled taskbar, which acts like an odd hybrid of the old Windows taskbar (used from Windows...

Posted at 1:07 PM in Technology

One of the greatest irritants about Windows as an operating system is what I call "the grind" - i.e. the process by which, once the system has booted, it crunches away for a while, continually accessing the hard drive and...

Posted at 5:13 PM in Technology

Particularly hilarious if you've seen the original Microsoft-sanctioned advertisement of which this is a parody....

Posted at 3:52 PM in Technology

...which was released today. I received my download link first thing this morning and was ready to begin the install process within about 20 minutes. Because I was going from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional (a pox...

Posted at 5:58 PM in Technology

I've only myself to blame, really. For some time now, I've run a dual boot Windows XP/Windows Vista system, keeping XP around mainly for compatibility purposes, should the need ever arise. In the last year or so, though, I don't...

Posted at 11:11 PM in Technology

CNET is reporting that, for a limited period of time, students will be able to purchase copies of the upcoming Windows 7 operating system at a greatly reduced price. For a measly $30 US (or a less measly but still...

Posted at 3:52 PM in Technology

Experience has taught me that, with anything computer-related, it's a bad idea to assume that everything will work out just hunky-dory first time. Even if you think you've prepared for every eventuality, there's a strong chance some unpredictable problem will...

Posted at 4:50 PM in Technology

Well, this is a bit of a pain: my PC's Blu-ray/HD DVD combo drive, an LG GGC-H20L, is having problems reading certain BD titles. It simply doesn't recognise them, acting as if there is no disc in the drive. So...

Posted at 1:38 PM in Technology

I haven't used my camera in what seems like years, and in point of fact I'm really not much of a photographer. I am, however, rather interested in techniques for making digital photographs seem a bit less, well, digital. Some...

Posted at 6:43 PM in Technology