I'm on Twitter now

As is no doubt apparent I have signed up for twitter. I have decided to do this for a couple of reasons: -

1. I want to send out links to people that follow me that I think are of interest with out having to write any huge essays.
2. I was fed up hearing about it on podcasts and wanted to see for myself what the fuss was about.

That second reason is a bit of a lame one I grant you, but it did get to the point each we where I was listening to Twit (This week in tech) and over half the shows seemed to twitter related even Dvorak was getting in on it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who laughingly refers to the podcast as "this week in twitter" at the moment.

The main reason is to get links and stuff out to people that like what I like quickly. So if you like the content of this blog, then you'll probably want to follow me on http://twitter.com/sacs

The Back-up fashion

It seems to me that in the last 6 to 12 months there has been a real increase in the talk in various podcasts about taking proper back ups. It's not really surprising, just think of how much data we rely upon in our personal lives these days. All those pictures of our kids, our music, financial information and much more.

So I've decided to follow this fashion and I have purchased two 500GB external drives. One for drive images and the other for data.

I think I'll be using syncback for data files and Acronis for drive images since this is able to do incremental imaging the drive images. Though Arconis may be able do the data back up as well I have yet to find out if it has the same advantage of creating data back up profiles. I've decided to avoid symantec's Ghost, as with many symantec products it seems to be getting bloated these days.

Anyway... though I am still trying to decide what software to use and how to schedule it, for now its safe to say I am getting serious about making sure my data is backed up and being a dedicated follower of this fashion.

Building the beast - Part 2

So I was going through the joy of building my own PC again, something I promised myself I would not do again although I don't remember why until now...

I check everything is set as it should be and yup its all good... push the big button and nothing :-(

Essentially the system would not post and if your system doesn't post then its usually one of four things. CPU, Graphics Card, PSU or Memory. So Checked the CPU and Gfx card a seated well and removed a stick of Ram and got the system top post. After more testing and even taking the rig up to Kevs house where he generously allowed me to swap stuff around, it seemed that both sticks of ram had given up. So I went through the joys of the RMA process (more on that in a future post).

Once I got the new ram I got the PC up and running and everything installed and it runs sweet as a nut... I even got some help installing XP.

See... even a child can install XP!

This took the best part of 2 weeks to get sorted and THAT is why when I get any more PC's... I'm buying from dell (so I can have different problems).

Building the beast - The Core 2 Duo (Part 1)

I recently decided to build a new PC and with some money that I had been saving for a good while I decided to take the plunge and build a new PC. So here's what I got for nine hundred sheets: -

• Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz
• 2GB DDR2 PC6400 Ram
• Zalman CNSP9700LED Cooler
• GeForce 7900 GS 256MB
• 250GB Samsung Sata drive
• Asus P5B Deluxe Wifi Motherboard
• Antec P180 Case
• Corsair HX 520W PSU
• Pioneer DVR-111DBK DVD writer

Check the size of the heatsink !

On this I'm running XP SP2 and it absolutley flies !!! :-)

Took a while to get it working mind (more on that in another post)

Quick tip: Email accounts from your ISP

Okay, so you've got yourself a lovely connection to the internet. Good for you, welcome etc. etc.

Your new ISP has been a dear and given you email too! You are the lucky one aren't you. Now obviously this email address should be given to all your friends because this email will be with you for all your life and they will always be able to get you on this email address... right?

Well no. This is something someone that I know has just been bitten with (as are many people). You've signed up for lovely-ISP.com and got your lovely-email and given this to your friends, family and anyone else you feel should be able to email you. All is well in lovely-land... and then you decide to move.

Now you are faced with the task of making sure everyone you would wish to have the ability to contact you aware of this change. In my opinion this is worse than a phone number because: -

1. People tend to pay attention to a phone number change... not an email one.
2. If anyone has emailed your old address it's not like a phone where they'll know straight away so you'll miss email.
3. You don't tend to use your phone number for online shopping usernames or contact with companies, that's the job of your email address.

So what should you do? Two options: -

1. Get a free online account that is not bound in any way to your current ISP. In my personal opinion, Google's Gmail is the only choice for this.
2. Buy your own domain and get email set up to use this.

I'd say most personal users should go for option 1. Business users should always go for number 2 (and you would not believe the amount that don't).

So what do you use the ISP based account for? Well, I'd use it for emailing folks you dont really care about getting in touch with again becasue you are never going to have the need to.

Now go email and be happy!