Legalising software

I've been playing a pirated copy of the game Anno 1404 sporadically ever since it was released. Returning to try to complete a scenario earlier this week after a six month gap, I felt guilty enough to see what it would cost to buy a copy. Amazon had the Gold version (which includes the expansion pack Venice) for only £7.70, so it was an easy decision to buy it and basically legalise my playing of the game and give something back to the developers and publisher.

Having started my IT career as a programmer, I feel it is important to purchase legal software whenever possible. I purchased the latest Adobe Photoshop Elements recently to upgrade my five year old version and it was a small price to pay for a fantastic piece of software which is well used. You can also legally install it on two computers which is even better value.

I do however admit to recycling software sometimes, especially Windows XP and Vista which you cannot purchase anymore. If I scrap an old system, I occasionally retype the licence key into an installation of a new system. Legally the OEM version should die with the original machine but I'm basically giving it a second life and not really copying it.

Getting the balance right

I've always thought that the components of a PC should be in balance whether you configure, build or buy it. Have a fast, overclocked quad core processor with just 2Gb of memory or a slow hard disk are examples of configurations being out of balance. This was brought back to me recently with a Compaq Presario computer that I was trying to fix.


It had a AMD Sempron 2100 dual core CPU (I'd not come across one of these before) 2Gb memory and 160Gb hard disk drive running Windows Vista Home Premium. The system response was really slow even for these entry-level components. A quick run of Windows Experience Index showed that the basic CPU, memory and hard disk were all running at optimal performance. What was bringing down the overall score was the nVidia 6150 integrated graphics, not only for the gaming score but also the basic Aero user interface.

It had a PCI-E x16 slot so I dropped a cheap (£25) MSi AMD HD5450 graphics card into it, downloaded and installed the latest drivers and tried again. What a difference! Not only in the WEI scores, but also in the response feel of the system. It was back in balance again.

So a small, cheap addition can make a slow system appear fast. A result for the balance theory.

Chillblast Fusion Shadow

I had to supply a value gaming system for one of my customers and set about selecting and pricing components. Then I came across the Chillblast Fusion shadow which appeared to save me about £58 on the price of the individual components. Plus it was built for me, Windows installed and offered a two year warranty for additional customer satisfaction.
The system consists of:

• Intel Core i5 2500K processor overclocked to 4.6GHz
• Asus P8Z68-V LE motherboard
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU cooler
• 4GB DDR3 1,333MHz memory
• 1Tb 7,200rpm hard disk drive
• DVD-RW optical disk drive
• AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR3 graphics card
• EZcool case and 500W power supply
• Cherry keyboard and mouse
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Apart from the generic power supply and memory there is little that I would change in this configuration. It would have been nice if the was the possibility to squeeze an AMD Radeon HD6770 GDDR5 card in there but anything bigger and faster would require a different case and higher specification power supply. This would have totally exceeded the customer's budget.

The system was well assembled with all the cables neatly tucked away. And it certainly performed well. As it stands, it is a great value gaming system with plenty of power and upgrade potential.

Joining the smartphone set

My Christmas present to myself was a smartphone. All year I've been configuring and connecting peoples Apple iPhones and Android smartphones. It was time that I got one myself. I didn't want to spend too much money on something that I might not like and use. That put iPhones out of my choice and budget.


There are now a number of budget Android-based with varying amount of facilities, screen size and resolution. I wanted one with a reasonable sized screen so that I could see it and with as many of the gizmos that would fit into my £150 budget. I reviewed and examined models from manufacturers such as HTC, LG and Samsung. My son has a Samsung Galaxy S2 and I was impressed with that, though not its price.

Together we settled on a Samsung Galaxy Ace for £140 from Phones4U. It has a 3.5" screen, 5MP camera with LED flash and GPS, Bluetooth, 3G and wireless connectivity. I seemed to get on with it straight away. I configured the wallpaper, ringtone, transferred my SIM card plus contacts, email and downloaded a couple of news reader apps. Plus Angry Birds game of course. I did have problems in connecting it to any PC even after I downloaded the Samsung Kies desktop application and USB drivers. Only by turning off the USB debug (Settings -> Applications -> Development) then restarting the phone did this connection work correctly. Not mentioned in the manual or FAQs.

I'm impressed by the size, quality and ease-of-use of this smartphone and it will definitely have a place in my pocket from now on.

Going solid state

I finally decide to invest in a Solid State Hard Drive or SSD and evaluate this technology and its prospects. As regular magnetic hard disk drive (HDD) prices have increased dramatically over the last couple of months, now seemed a good time to do so. I chose a relatively new Kingston 64GB V200 which closely approaches the £1 per Gigabyte limit. This has a modern controller that supports the future-proofing SATA III 6Gbps transfer speed and higher bandwidths for both read and write operations at an affordable and relatively low capacity level.

I considered testing it in three different environments; as a boot drive for a previous generation, fast quad core system; as a replacement drive for my DELL Vostro i5 Core laptop; and as a data drive for my gaming system. I installed Windows 7 on it in the first environment and though it improved boot times dramatically, though installing applications seemed a lot slower and general use about the same. This meant that I didn't replace the already fast 7,200rpm hard disk drive in my laptop because I didn't really see the point. It was fast enough and worked well already. Not worth the effort.

My gaming system already has 190GB used of the 500Gb system hard drive so the SSD wasn't going to replace that easily. I decided to add it as a game drive that I can fill at my leisure and will improve game start-up an level loading times. I'll report back on my findings.

My cloud concerns

I'm worried about all this excitement about cloud computing. It seems to be returning to the bad old days of the IT industry when dumb terminals were connected to a big mainframe computer. This held all your data and there were strict rules on how you accesses it and used it.

I agree connectivity is different now but still some issues remain:

- Who owns your data? What happens when the cloud wants to increase their charges for data storage and application use.
- The software companies want to charge a monthly subscription which eases their cash flow problems, but costs you a lot more in the long run.
- Web browsers and applications seem unreliable, inconsistent and downright fallible.
- Uploads speeds are often a large factor slower than download speeds. Try backing up a single Gigabyte to the cloud on a typical domestic broadband connection.
- Extra levels of data vulnerability and security. Another password/PIN/memorable phrase to remember.

I'm typing this in a Chrome browser window because with Internet Explorer the Publish button does not work. It used to and I've reset the browser but it is still broken. And what if I'd been two hours typing this document or creating a killer presentation. Giving control away is not always the answer.

A neat and affordable Home Server

I recently bought a Fujitsu Primergy MX130 small server. It only cost £250 from serversdirect.co.uk that came already loaded with an AMD Athlon II dual core CPU, 2Gb of ECC memory and two 250Gb hard disk drives. With disk drive prices as they are now if I don't sell the unit shortly, I could always use the hard disk drives as spares. I tried loading a cheap (£35) copy of Microsoft's Windows Home Server 2011 to see what it looked like. Installation went well and I configured the two disk drives as RAID 1 (mirror) without any problems.

Microsoft has really 'thrown the baby out with the bath water' with this latest version of WHS. Not only do you have no Drive Extender but also shared folders cannot be replicated like they used to. This is what saved me earlier in the year when one of the drives failed on my own DELL Home Server. I suppose for just £35, it is good value in software terms as it basically includes Windows Server 2008 R2 with client PC and server backup.

The Fujitsu server hardware is superb for the price. It is small and quiet yet surprisingly powerful. Also worth noting is the 85% efficient power supply unit. There is not much expansion room for more disk drives though. So, if I do sell the 250Gb drives separately, I will replace them with much bigger ones when the prices become more reasonable again.

Anyway, if you want a neat and proper Windows Home or Small Business Essentials Server for under £300, I'd recommend this configuration.