Don’t Believe The Hype…. Actually This Time… YOU SHOULD!!!

As time has moved on, I have bought a range of iMac computers with the latest one being the I7 27” model with 16GB of RAM installed in it. This was done as more and more of my client’s are buying Apple equipment, and like anyone serious about supporting their clients, they too have to use the equipment that they use, to know what issues may arise, so their client’s can be helped out quickly and efficiently.

Through the years, I have never felt the need to look into virtualisation of an operating system, as quite frankly, my business is Windows-based PC’s and Servers, and when I need a PC to do something, or to test out anything, I usually have plenty of spare gear to hand.

On the Windows side of things, as the new operating systems have come out, the hardware specifications have increased, so the standard bench kit I use to test and evaluate has had to be upgraded as well.

Microsoft releases Small Business Server 2011 and the likes, the specifications went up on the equipment you had to install it on, and quite frankly, kit wise, I did not have anything around that would make a suitable system to evaluate this operating system on, so that meant it was that time again to buy in some new equipment.

With what I had in mind, the equipment I was looking at, was nearly a thousand pounds for a system, and yes, I could buy cheaper components, but when I buy stuff I try to get something that will last! I was finding it hard to justify that sort of outlay for a system that really was only going to be used for the occasional testing rig, so I kept putting it off and the months rolled on…

One morning while going through my various Twitter feeds, I read a post from @JohnPAtkinson who was using Parallels 6, for running Windows on his Macbook Pro, and he raved about how good it was. As one of the main systems here used is a new I7 16GB iMac, this caught my attention and I went over to the company web site to read up more about this software.

From what I read, it seemed (in theory) that the software would allow me to install just about any operating system I wanted, onto my iMac… but my initial thought was the experience would have to be terrible, as everything would be virtual, rather than dedicated hardware, the path I have always taken… so to say I was sceptical was a bit of an understatement.

So, I downloaded Parallels 7 Desktop, (talk about luck – new release just out) ran the installer, and then proceeded to install Windows 7 Professional to see how things went.

To say I was stunned after the installation is an understatement! The operating system installed perfectly, and ran quickly; so much so that I then installed 3D Studio Max 2010 to see about pushing the whole system’s processors and memory as it rendered some footage… and it was blisteringly quick, even while working away on my Mac applications!

After hammering the operating stem and applications further, I installed Office 2010 and then brought the virtual Windows 7 Professional onto the Small Business Server 2008 domain here in the office, and everything ran (and is still running) flawlessly! No matter what I seem to throw at the virtual operating system, it handles it as though it was on it’s own PC hardware, and the Mac side just continues to work away as though the other operating system was not there!

So, not only have I save myself nearly £1000.00 in hardware, I am now running the I7 iMac in a way that I never intended it to, and the outlay I had on the I7 iMac actually seems more justified now that I am running such a variety of operating systems at the same time!!

If you are a sceptic (like me) about any application that seems to been hyped up by the tech people online, gushing praise just to get themselves attention, do yourself a favour and download the trial, and install it for yourself. Honestly, you will be impressed at just how well this virtualised system works on your iMac (specifications permitting of course).

Also, the guys at Parallels are easy to reach and interact with via their website, or even better, on Twitter @ParallelsMac. Don’t be shy and say hello to them!

As it stands, my main PC system is no longer switched on in the morning and all my PC related work is down on the iMac here running under Parallels Desktop 7. That to me says it all. My trust in the whole “experience” really is one I am more than happy to shout about to my client’s, and who knows, maybe in time they will upgrade to Mac equipment rather than Windows PC’s… Only time will tell!

If you want to see the rendering speed of 3D Studio Max 2010 running under Windows7 on Parallels 7 Desktop pop over here and watch!

DON’T WORRY…. BE HAPPY! (at a price…)

Why on earth do people get so worked up about an advert of television, more so one from Apple? The point of any advert is to push a brand across to the general public, and tell them that this product is the best product, and all the other products are inferior. So you must buy theirs!

Heck, pity the poor women who are subjected daily on television with skin care products that claim to make them look younger, when in fact everyone knows they do not, even the people who buy the stuff know they do not, but they buy into the product because of what the advertisers do, and do very well… they are selling an illusion that says we wants it and need it, when in fact the reality is completely the opposite.

Most people can live without an Apple product of any kind, and the same goes for any Microsoft software solution or hardware that is used to run it on. It’s products like these that we are manipulated into buying, more so as they are interesting, entertaining and of course, got to be affordable…

Like everything in the world of technology advertising, you have to offer an entry-level product and of course offer the ultimate/premium product that the more cash rich person will wish to have. The consumer gets drawn into buying the affordable item, but deep down most people would like to have the premium product, but cash will always be the deciding factor on what they end up with.

How many car adverts do you watch on television and you drool over the car shown on TV, They show you the cheap price for buying this car, but in ultra small print they point out that the car on the screen advertising the product costs about another £10,000 to buy, and when you see the car at the promoted price, it usually looks like the inside of an empty match box!

Apple has taken the approach with technology as has the likes of Bang & Olufsen has with audio, and decided to bypass the lower end of the market and only focus on consumers who have money available to spend on a premium product.  They do not need to show a cheap price to entice you in; the entry-level is usually beyond the average consumers price reach anyway, and the same goes for the likes of Bang & Olufsen as well, that’s just the way these brands are!

Most of the people who bitch and complain loudly about the likes of Apple, and other brands that charge a premium price for products that can be obtained at a cheaper price, are usually the very same ones who deep down would love to have these products, but either cannot afford to buy them, refuse to buy them on principle, or just live in hope that they will win or be given the products for nothing., and if that was to happen, their tune would probably change.

Just accept the fact that there are products out there that some of us can afford, and that others cannot, and even though you feel that you are in the right on what is good or bad technology wise. Why not allow people to make their own mistakes or experience their own delights and allow your blood pressure a moment to rest, your spleen to heal and your venom to dilute a little and maybe take the time of rest to worry about more important things in life.

Operating System Security? Who Cares!!

We have Apple about to release their latest operating system “Lion” very soon, and we also have Microsoft starting to throw out the hype about Windows 8. Both of these operating systems all appear to focus on the main GUI and how easy it will be to operate and of course, how pretty it all looks.

For me, while appreciating these new operating systems, I cannot understand why Microsoft and sadly now, Apple don’t focus more attention into making their operating systems more secure for daily usage, rather than focussing on triviality such as the way their operating systems look and feel.

I can already hear the gnashing of teeth from some people as they start ranting about how we cannot make any operating system completely secure, and what I am writing is complete nonsense, as it’s something that cannot be done…

Sorry to say, it’s that same tired attitude that really hacks me off. If decent coders, and people with vision could get Microsoft and Apple to listen to them, then maybe we might see a chance of there being a major change in operating system security, something that we desperately need now more than ever.

When you have to conform to a company programming structure, then the chance for creativity and the chance for revolutionary techniques don’t have the same chance to evolve, unless of course my own ignorance in these matters is being shown somewhat.

Are the negative people out there being serious when they say that there is nothing that can be done to make the current operating systems more secure? If that were the case, then I would hope there would be at least one single person out there with real vision and talent who could turn around and put these people in their place, and put themselves onto the map as being the person who changed the face of securing operating systems in the world.

And here is the problem… Where is this person?

Maybe there really is nobody out there at all who has any real progressive and revolutionary ideas on how to create a more secure operating system, and maybe the negative people out there are right, and I am delusional?

If that is the case, are we really now just expected to see Microsoft and Apple release new operating systems with nothing more than a fancy look and a new version number? Seriously? Is that it? You are willing to just accept that?

If that is the case then sadly things really can only get worse, and complete apathy rules the world of operating systems…

Unless of course… you know better?

Have a read at THIS very interesting post and I think this shows you what I mean regarding the company culture that exists. You may think you have coding freedom, when in fact it does appear to be an illusion.

Oh look! What a nice icon! What a nice desktop background….

PAH!

LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN… well for the first time actually!

I’m going to get this out in the open, get it out-of-the-way and no longer hide the fact that even though I warn everyone to backup their data all the time, I am a lazy swine when it comes to the “home side” of things for backing up data.

The business side is a different matter, with daily backups done, reports checked for issues, and anything that appears worrying, dealt with straight away!

But, for the iMac equipment that I do use for work purposes, but non-essential stuff, I have been very lazy in backing up stuff that I know I should, but recently with my wife now using a MacBook Pro to assist her in completing her HNC course, I realised that she could not be trusted to backup all of her stuff, and I cannot get near her MBP to check things over, so something had to be done!

The logical choice for me was to get the Apple Time Capsule 2TB model, a device that I could set up easily and then connect in all of the Mac equipment here to backup itself, with next to no user intervention required!

So that’s what I did, and if you are curious you can watch the unboxing video of this device over at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE8K8QvgrAY

I have to say that the weight of the device was the first thing that got to me, and after using it for a while, the next thing was the extreme heat that come from the unit itself. My wooden floor is very hot to touch when I have the unit on this directly, so I have had to add a small set of runners underneath it to raise it up off the floor so that there is better airflow around it. These runners are in fact the Crucial Memory packaging sleeves that are absolutely perfect for this job!

Apart from that though, the unit was simple to set up, once I decided to link it into my current network via CAT5 and use my current ADSL wireless router for the MBP’s to connect wirelessly. I found that when I was using the Time Capsule unit wirelessly, my Internet connection would drop off quite regularly, and I can only assume that this was down to the amount of wireless data being transferred across, and somehow the system was getting bogged down and rebooting things. But, this configuration I am using now is working 100% of the time, rock solid and so far no issues are being reported.

The first backup to be done did take a few days to complete as I was hitting it from every angle, but once I forgot about the unit, and went back to it after a week, I found that it has all of the Mac computer data backed up, nice and safe!

An interesting thing I found from some people when they found I had bought this device was how they reacted to the news. I was told that I had bough something at a rip-off price, how I could have bought another product cheaper etc. yet “typically” these sort of people fail to understand the following things which are:

1)   I am well aware that the price is high, and that there are cheaper things out there that I could have used. Everything Apple related is overpriced, so already having a Mac and saying this to me is rather weird to say the least!

2)   The reason I paid the inflated price for the device is that it just links in and works seamlessly with the Apple equipment I have, no brain power from other users is required and it JUST WORKS. This alone is worth the cost to me, to have no hassle, no setup issue and it just works.

3)   I am then told about reports of how these units fail, and how these people would not trust their data to this device, really does leave me scratching my head a bit. Firstly, they do not have the device, they have never used the device, they are basing their view on reviews that other people have written online (and I too have read these and worked out who the drama queens are, who the unlucky people are and who have just had bad luck!) so I am expected to listen to their words of advice and made to feel that I have somehow bought a potentially defective device? Can I at least give the device the opportunity to function for a while, stress test it, evaluate it before I have to post online just how right they have been and how crap this overpriced device has been? Some people!

4)   People have told me that “they” would not pay this amount of money for just a wireless hard drive…. Can I point them back to points 1 & 2.

Isn’t it sad that a product that I have spent considerable time researching (and it is old in Apple time) and then purchasing, and now using, seems to have solved all of the points I wanted to deal with… is attacked, and treated as though it should have just been left on the shelf at the Apple store?

But bottom line, this unit may fail like all technology fails, and I’ll deal with that as it happens, but I’m certainly not going to stay awake all the time worrying.

If you only have a single Mac, or maybe a couple of devices, then the cheaper option would be to go for external USB/Firewire hard drives. But then the units need to be attached and the backups run manually, unless you leave them plugged in all the time… sounds like we should start reading this from the beginning again!

Once again, I have a product that I think is very good, pricey, and any defects experienced will be reported, if any happen. As it is, I am more than delighted with this backup solution, no matter what anyone else thinks, and at the end of the day for any purchase that anyone makes… that’s all that matters!

THE END OF THE ROAD… iMac i7 comes at a price…

I’m at a very interesting point in my technology purchasing after buying the latest Apple 2011 i7 iMac . Why? Well, as far as I can see, there is no need for me to purchase any other iMac for some considerable time, nor do I see any real need to purchase any new Windows PC components, as my current PC does all that I ask of it.

But… my current 24” iMac still did everything I need, so why on earth would I spend such a considerable amount of money on something that really offers me nothing more than the ability to get things done slightly faster?

Well, that like any tech purchase is hard to explain, but I want more screen area to work with, plus I want to be able to work with video faster, and I also want to have what I consider to be the best hardware that I am willing to spend money on at the moment… now…. And sit back and take a break from the technology race.

With this sort of power at my disposal, at the moment I cannot see there being anything else I need to do what it is I do with computers, but the temptation of having the latest and greatest always tends to rear its head, but where else is there to go now with the iMac range?

So the new iMac i7 has arrived, been unboxed and I am in the process of re-installing all my software fresh rather than using time machine backups. I suppose the legacy of my PC years has made me work that way, but it’s also therapeutic in a way.

The first thing I am aware of over my previous 24” iMac is that the internal hard drive is audible, whereas the drive in my previous iMac was pretty silent. There is also more of a vibration felt on the desk that I have my equipment sitting on, but this is nit picking more than anything else.

The overall speed of the new system was initially disappointing I’d say. Certainly thing felt a little more slick, but for the difference in cost, I was starting to regret the purchase! It was only when I started to push the machine that the change really did become clear. I decided to test HANDBRAKE and rip a DVD movie for display on my Apple TV2. The i7 system ripped the movie in 30 minutes, and I sat there thinking this should be faster, but when I decided to test the same movie on the dual-core iMac it took, nearly two hours to do! GULP!

Needless to say that the rest of the time spent initially on the new system was downloading and running benchmark software to re-affirm that the purchase was worth it, the performance justified the cost…. But still, I’m now finished installing all of the software I use on a daily basis, and I have to say that the new system just feels great!

Would I advise other people who have a dual-core iMac to upgrade to the new i7 beast? The answer would be yes, but probably no! That’s right, I said NO!

Unless you really need the power to rip movies, generate video quickly and the likes, then what you currently have is doing all that you need, though slowly ONLY if you compare it to the likes of this i7 machine. If you are happy with the equipment you have, stay happy and save some money and continue to use the equipment you have and wait till 2012 as I think we may start to see something really worthwhile coming along and making us all drool.

As it is, I am happy with the new system, I know it’s going to be with me for three years at least, so I know that in that time I will not be splashing out another few thousand pounds on new technology… but with technology… you just never know what is around the corner to tempt you to get into more debt!

If you have any questions about this system, please feel free to get in touch and I’ll answer them as honestly as I can, and if you want any particular tests done, let me know and I’ll see what I can do for you.

It’s on order…. but is it OUT OF ORDER??

I have recently taken the step of purchasing one of the new 27″ iMac’s from Apple, and I have done it in a particular way so that I can see first hand how the process works, and how this information can be passed on to any of my clients.

I consider this 27” i7 iMac to be my last purchase in this line for at least the next 3 – 5 years, so I have went for components that I know will last, and also at a grade that will do everything that I need now and in the foreseeable future.

So, this time around I move away from my current 24″ iMac and have ordered up the following specification:

3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x2GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD
Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5
Magic Trackpad
Apple Wireless Keyboard
AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac/eMac

Now, you will see that I went for the standard serial ATA hard drive, over an SSD drive, and if you read tech reviews and listen to many other people, they will say that by buying the standard SATA drive I am going to have a slow system.

While SSD drives are good, and slick, and I use them in Windows based PC’s that I have here, the real-world difference for the average user is non-existent in a decent specked PC such as this iMac. You will find things a few seconds quicker to starts up, a few seconds….

So, anyone contemplating getting a system without the SSD, please don’t feel you are somehow buying something substandard, slow or old, what you are buying is tried and tested technology that works, and works extremely well.

Memory wise I will upgrade the system to 16GB, but I will buy the memory from crucial (http://www.crucial.com/uk/) as it’s considerably cheaper than buying the memory from Apple… err.. VASTLY CHEAPER!!!

One interesting thing that I did come up against, after announcing my purchase on Twitter, was the general excitement from a lot of folk, who all wished me good luck with the new equipment etc., and a few snide remarks from some people as though I was ramming this information down their throats as though I was bragging…. and some of these people are not the type to purchase stuff with their own money… so talk about double standards!

Like a lot of people, I enjoy technology, I get excited with technology, so I like to tell the world about getting new equipment… more so when it’s a major purchased, worked for with blood sweat and tears. Anyone out there who feels that I am being elitist and shoving this down their throats, in some way to make them feel I am better than them, have more than them etc., are quite pathetic, sad and delusional.

We are all on different incomes, some people have excellent salaries, and some people just save up and buy once they have saved up enough money. Others will buy their equipment on finance, and some just have limited incomes and will never really be able to afford the equipment that they would like. That is just the way the world works!

To anyone who cannot afford equipment, be happy with what you currently have, and don’t go getting upset over something that really is trivial, after all it’s only computer equipment! If it really does get you down, then maybe you need to use what you have to try to generate money, save up and get what you want? Sure, it will take time, and require effort, but for most of us, that’s how manage to get what we want… through blood sweat and tears!

So, is it “Out of Order” to promote my new equipment online? Is this something that everyone now has to take on board, that by buying some new piece of hardware that is costly, we may be offending some people by daring to tell the world about it?

So, the order has been placed and in the next few days my new system will arrive, and of course I will bore people with a new un-boxing video….

YOU ARE JUST SO MUCH BETTER THAN ME!

Ever since I purchased an iMac, the world of creating movies and being able to upload them to YouTube has been a regular occurrence for me. For some reason I never bothered much with uploading video on the PC side of things, simply because I had to work out what was the bet application to use, best screen size etc, but the iMac with iMovie just worked out of the box, and I have stuck with it ever since.

The downside to this ability for some people is that I took the route of releasing a series of unboxing video’s, mainly as a bit of fun, and for something to do with my time, but they really seem to annoy or bore people to a degree that they have to contact me and tell me how I am wasting my time, and how boring they are to watch!

While any feedback is appreciated on any work I release to the masses online, I like to have criticism presented in a way that I can think it over and learn from any potential mistakes that I may have made. The complainers, when asked about the work that they have released, dry up at that point and tell me that either they are too busy to release anything of their own, don’t waste their time in creating silly movies, nor do they waste time writing blogs or twitter texts as it’s all stupid and a complete waste of their time.

So, I sit back, take all of this onboard, but think to myself… They have no time to create, no time to participate, but clearly have a lot of time to sit and watch, read and then complain about something they have taken the time to observe themselves! So maybe if they actually took the time to create material that IS INTERESTING, then people like myself could learnt the right way to create interesting and informative material to share online, rather than annoy and bore the people out there.

As an example, the weird craze of “Unboxing Video’s” is something that I never could understand myself initially until I realised that there are a lot of people out there who would like to buy a product, but wan’t to see the way the contents are before they buy it, or the other people who would like to buy the product but cannot afford it, so like to share the delight and the experience of someone else who has been able to buy the item in question.

Sounds weird does it not? But I find now that if I am in the market to buy a product I too look at YouTube to see what experiences other people have had, and then try to follow that up with other material of people using the goods at a later time. And it can be very rewarding, informative and at times funny! But the boring material (to me) I at least give a major thumbs up for effort and at least creating something, no matter what I think.

For me, creating the stuff that I do is done for one person… ME! I do it to learn, to see how bad I really sound when recorded, and take on board just how good the work out there is when compared to my own offerings. Being able to combine audio and video in a manner that is a pleasant experience really is a gift, but you can only get better at it be doing it yourself! So that’s one of the main reason’s that I will continue to record and write so that I can progress in learning new skills.

There are too many people out there who think they are better than other people, for whatever reason they believe in. These same people are usually the ones who bitch, snipe and create a pool of negativity around other people in the real world. These people when in your company, are tiring, drain the life-force out of any occasion, and usually have no long-term real friends in the world, and their online experiences are usually pretty much the same. So their cycle of bitching, complaining and Trolling continues, showing the world just how sad and pathetic an existence they really have, but in their own mind, they are something special…

So the next time you have someone go on the attack against you about anything you have created follow these simple rules:

1. Ask for details on why the person concerned has become upset about your work, or why they feel they need to be so negative about the work you have created.
2. Ask them for advise on how to improve the work you have released, so that future work can be made better to their exacting standards.
3. Ask them for a list of the work they have created so that you can learn from their vast experience of creativity.
4. Ask them for information on how they can help you create better material, as clearly they have a better idea on what is good and what is bad.
5. Lastly, do not get worked up about what anyone writes about anything you create. Comments such as YOU SUCK, DIE, DROP DEAD, YOUR VIDEO IS CRAP, I KNOW YOUR SISTER, IS THAT REALLY A MARSHMALLOW ON YOUR BED, should just be ignored as the people who leave comments like that are still in nursery school and their education is still at a level where they are around their brother or sister while they are online and these poor kids are only picking up the sad habits of their more “educated” family members.

Be happy knowing that by releasing something into the world, you have created another scale that will tip forwards and backwards depending on who views it, and no matter what way it goes, at least you did it, and nobody can take that away from you.

We have a Yeti In The House!

While I still debate on the route I am going to take on replacing my PC hardware here, I have also been looking into improving the quality of audio presentations that I do while doing YouTube video’s or just general Skype calls.

The standard microphone that is inside the iMac and the microphone that is inside the Logitech C910 web camera that I use are ok for what they do, but clearer and less distorted audio is something I felt I had to sort out, but I was not too sure on the right way to go about this.

I did know that I was only doing this sort of thing now and again, so the idea of a mixing desk and the like was ruled out straight away, though a lot of that train of thought was also down to how complicated it all appeared to be to me! So, scouring the Internet and reading as many reviews as I could, I decided that the best device for me would be the “Blue Yeti USB Microphone”. It appeared to offer all the functionality that I would ever need, and at a later date if I needed something better,  I’m sure I could re-sell it for a reasonable price.

I decided to buy the microphone from Amazon.co.uk as they had it in stock, could deliver it next day and for just under £100.00 felt that it was a reasonable price to pay for something that appeared to be well reviewed by everyone and every site I had visited.

So, Saturday morning 15/1/11 at 10:00am and the beast arrives!

I then decide to do an unboxing video of the event that you can view * HERE * and after that, I plugged the device into my iMac and it found is immediately! I followed the instructions for setting up the audio input and output, but found that I could not hear anything through the headphones I had plugged into the Yet. I checked, and then double checked the settings, but nothing would come through. So, I did a reset of the iMac and brought it all back up again, only to discover that the iMac could not even detect the Yeti any more! Doing some quick searches online for technical support, I removed all attached USB devices on the iMac and started the system again, but the Yeti was no longer being detected.

So, ignoring the iMac, I moved across to the Windows 7 PC here, plugged the Yet in and proceeded to get a message telling me that an unknown device was attached! No amount of re-inserting would make any difference here, the yet was in fact DEAD by all accounts!

Now I did video a small sticker on the bottom of the yeti box that indicated that this was a NEW device, and to be honest, the box was extremely dusty as well, so based on what has happened I just have the feeling that this model has been a refurbished/repaired device and I suppose it should have just work, but with the luck I seem to have, that was not the case!

Maybe this is the “Tech God” telling me to either go the Switcher Route or not to bother with a Microphone at all, but either way, at least I have arranged to get a full refund on the device from Amazon and will use the time to ponder and reflect on the next route open to me.

A Late Night Reflection…

So I ordered up a new Logitech C910 Web Camera and after having it in its box for a few days, I did the usual unboxing video (still to be uploaded and worked on) and then proceeded to install it onto my iMac. Everything seemed to be OK, but very quickly the speed of the iMac began to drop incredibly fast, and even when I restarted the machine it took around 6 minutes for it to restart and load all the usual applications!

So, I removed the software, removed the camera and I’m left with an iMac that still takes around 5 minutes to load, even after doing all the repairs and goodness know what else you do to fix a Mac, but the bottom line is that I’m going to flatten the iMac tomorrow once I backup all my data, and re-install fresh.

So I decided to install the Logitech C910 onto my Windows 7 system here, and after the initial installation was done, the whole system ran as though treacle was running through every fibre of the system! A reboot, and a software update later the PC is now operational, but still seems to have some speed issues, but these will be examined tomorrow as I attempt to do a LIVE STREAMING of the iMac getting wiped and redone using the Logitech C910 as the camera!

We have the potential here for some gripping boredom of a new scale! But it will be an interesting test for me as it covers a whole range of things new to me, and will be a learning experience all around!

Touch wood after the iMac is done fresh, the speed will be back once more!!!

New Computer System Thoughts…

At some points through the year I go through a phase of thinking…. and that in itself is a scary thought, but I think that maybe it’s time I gave serious thought to upgrading the main computer system I have here.
Now, let me say that the gear I have here is perfectly fine for everything I need a computer to do,  but as someone who is “into” technology there becomes a point where you just get and itch that means you want to upgrade, even though you know you really do not have to!

So, In my searching around, it has become clear to me that the market is full of interesting things, crap things, and overpriced things, and trying to work out what way to go has been quite an uphill struggle!

Still, I present my current thoughts on the system I am thinking of putting together and would be interested in hearing from others on the pro’s and con’s of the equipment I have chosen.
Rather than just a simple, “that’s crap” statement, it would be interesting to have a structured comment on where you feel the hardware is not something that should be purchased, and what would be considered a better option.

The one thing to point out here is that I am in no way interested in Games in any shape or form. So a gaming rig means nothing to me. What I am interested in though is SILENCE, SPEED, LIGHTNING FAST RESPONSE TIMES and something that is just TECH-SEXY!

Currently I am debating buying the following equipment to bring myself up to date on the technology front.

Monitor: X2 new iiyama ProLite B2712HDS-B1 monitors (details here)
Tower Case: Coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced Black Mid Tower Computer Case (details here) – (£69.00)
Power Supply: Corsair 750 Watt (details here) (£132.00)
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth TUF X58 Motherboard, USB 3.0, SATA III – (details here) (£159.00)
Processor: BX80601950 - Intel Core i7 950 Bloomfield 45nm, 3.06 GHz, QPI 4.8GT/s, 8MB Cache, 23x Ratio, 130W, Retail –  (details here) -(£223.00)
Memory: 12GB – Corsair Memory Dominator GT 12GB DDR3 2000 Mhz CAS 9 DHX XMP Triple Channel Desktop (details here) – £290.00
Video Card: GV-N98TSL-1GI - 1GB Gigabyte 9800 GT, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 1800MHz GDDR3, GPU 600MHz, 112 Cores, D-Sub/HDMI/DVI, Passive – (details here) – £90.00
Main Hard Drive: OCZ 120GB Vertex 2E SSD – Solid State Drive (details here) –  (£176.00)
DVD Writer: Samsung Blu-Ray Combo, SH-B123L/RSBP, SATA, Retail (details here) – £47.00

Considering that these components are what are available near the end of 2010, it will be interesting to see the price differences that occur in 2011 when all the new tech bits are being released to the masses!