Simon: The decision saved your life. Zoe: Won't happen again, sir. Mal: Good. And thanks. I'm grateful. Zoe: It was my pleasure, sir.

'Out Of Gas'


Buffistechnology 3: "Press Some Buttons, See What Happens."

Got a question about technology? Ask it here. Discussion of hardware, software, TiVos, multi-region DVDs, Windows, Macs, LINUX, hand-helds, iPods, anything tech related. Better than any helpdesk!


Gudanov - Jan 26, 2011 9:01:08 am PST #15966 of 25501
Coding and Sleeping

My home computer has 8 GB of Ram and my work computer has 4 GB of Ram and once applications open (my home computer has a SSD so comparisons are unfair) I don't notice any particular speed difference despite my home computer having a faster processor as well as double the memory (excepting things like big compiles and transcoding that really tax the processor). Typically I have 4 - 6 applications open.


Typo Boy - Jan 26, 2011 9:11:10 am PST #15967 of 25501
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

In terms of memory, what I see on the Internet is a lot on these lines:

[link]

What is seems is not so much absolute performance, as avoiding some of those occasional annoying pauses where you open one mor window or do a spell check and everything stops for a bit while the computer thinks. That you experience is different is an important data point though.


megan walker - Jan 26, 2011 9:13:41 am PST #15968 of 25501
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

Hah! Apparently I have 2 GB of RAM at work, god only knows what at home.


Typo Boy - Jan 26, 2011 9:18:08 am PST #15969 of 25501
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

Do you have windows 7. G Gig is plenty for XP. In fact 1 Gig works well for XP.


megan walker - Jan 26, 2011 9:25:16 am PST #15970 of 25501
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

I think I have XP in both places. I also still have Office 2003 here at work so that's why I'm less concerned about upgrading that at home.


tommyrot - Jan 26, 2011 11:17:34 am PST #15971 of 25501
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

Random question: Anyone ever pay attention to the archive bit? (Not sure what that's called in OS X and other *nix systems.)

Back in olden days, the archive bit would get turned on if a file was modified. Then when the file was backed up, the archive bit would be turned back off.

I just noticed that on one of our client's servers, the archive bit is never turned off, but on another, similar server it gets turned off every night during the backup. So apparently some backup programs still use it.

You can see the archive bit in Windows Explorer if you have it set to show file attributes.


megan walker - Jan 26, 2011 5:46:36 pm PST #15972 of 25501
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

I'm typing on my new computer AIFG (well, not yet great since I'm not used to these new-fangled keyboards, but there wasn't much choice about that)!


Typo Boy - Jan 26, 2011 8:03:30 pm PST #15973 of 25501
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

The reason I mention W7 requirements is that all PCs and even most netbooks will come with W7. So if you buy a new computer you need hardware sufficient for W7 - not XP. Unless you have a legal or semi-legal XP disk and key you can use.


javachik - Jan 26, 2011 9:27:06 pm PST #15974 of 25501
Our wings are not tired.

Cool megan, what did you end up getting?


Typo Boy - Jan 26, 2011 9:47:47 pm PST #15975 of 25501
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.

Ohh missed that Megan had a new computer. I 2nd Java: what did you get?