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PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 1:22 pm 
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Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2004 10:04 am
Posts: 173
Location: Canton, MI USA
What is the tech merry go round?

It is the process or lifestyle that is pushed by companies that have us continuously spending money on digital equipment or devices even though we already have something that still works.

Here is how it goes:

-cool new device (let's call it i-thingie 1.0) is released to much fanfare. It claims it can do all these great things. So you get it after paying your 500 bucks or whatever. Well, then you use it and you start to find out it does a lot, but not all the things you expected. Sometimes the vendor says they are working on the fix. Meantime, you have already paid for it and can't do all the stuff with it that you expected.

-well, now the vendor releases i-thingie version 2.0. It's way cool and all the hip people are now buying it. It makes your i-thingie 1.0 look like yesterday's garbage. You now feel the need to get the new thingie. What to do with the old thingie that still works?


-you get a great computer and it's fast as heck. It works perfectly fine, but is limited to 2Gb of memory. Who could need more? It runs XP fantastic and can play all the latest games. It has the industry standard AGP slot. Now you learn that Vista is the way to go (because MS says so) and that it needs more memory. Now 2GB is not enough if you want to run Vista (and you need to if you want, um DX10-whatever). So much for upgrading what you need on the PC one part at a time. Since you bought that nice small Shuttle system, you now need to get another Shuttle that has PCI express slots. And a new video card. And new memory (probably), and a new SATA disk...etc...etc. Oh, and a copy of that turd, Vista. But your old computer works perfectly fine. You see, external forces are trying to steer you into buying more stuff, even though the stuff you have is working perfectly fine.

-you get a large screen TV in 2000 that is HDTV capable (meaning, no tuner). It has the latest inputs (Component). Since then, how many different types of digital inputs were created? HDMI (what version) DVI, etc. See, you now need a new TV because the CONNECTORS on your TV are obsolete.

-you get HD_DVD and now you learn that you should have gotten Blu-Ray! the only good Blu-Ray player is a gaming system and is 400 bucks!

-you buy a movie from Best Buy and find out that it is in Blue-Ray format! What the heck is that (happened to my sister-in-law).

-You get a game console and then buy some downloadable content. The box then breaks, so you use your Best Buy replacement policy. You get a brand new (but old) console to replace it. You then find out that all the downloadable content you had previously was tied to the hardware you just returned and there is no good way to untie it from the old one and tie it to the new box, forcing you to have an internet connection so that you can use the full content. (After a year, this was fixed by MS, but this issue plus the fact the console I had broke just 13 days after the original warranty failed forced me to PAY to get it repaired for a design flaw). I got the repair money back, and the DRM issue got resolved, but along the way there was much frustration! Time for a new hobby!

-you get a new laptop for cheap but are forced to accept Vista. OK, fine, I'll load XP. Whoops, the install CD does not detect the hard disk controller. Can't load. You go to toshiba's site but you cannot find any hint of a driver disk for XP so that you can detect the drive. Well, through the power of google, you locate the drivers. You then learn you can use Nlite to respin the XP cd and include the SATA drivers. Fine, you get this all working to the point of a generic XP install. You then go back to toshiba to get drivers for XP, but low and behold, on the page for your laptop, it only shows Vista drivers. Through luck and determination, you figure out that a different model has the drivers you need, so you get them from there and move on with your life.

-you want to be a good guy and buy music legally. You load the player on the pc, pay our money and download the digital tracks. Later on the company decides it does not want to do business, so your music is locked to the current pc build.

All these examples I have are things that bug me about the digital life we live in. It promises a lot, then under delivers, requires more money, doesn't work as advertised, obsoletes itself, or changes the rules after you get on board. It sucks. It's a waste of time and money and you need to be careful not to get into it too far unless you like flogging yourself.


/rant!

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:58 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2005 4:16 pm
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Location: Ft. Worth TX
I always buy 'thingie 0.25' off ebay and run it 'til it dies....... :lol:


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:22 pm 
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Joined: Fri May 21, 2004 11:55 pm
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Location: Silicon Valley, CA
I agree with pretty much everything you said. My solution: Run it 'till it dies or isn't supported anymore (e.g. HDMI supplanting Component video). Then just toss it and read books instead. All this entertainment stuff is just a huge waste of time anyway.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:49 pm 
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Posts: 353
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Firstly, my solution to the technology chase was to get really infatuated by speakers. I bought a really nice 5 speaker set. I was really happy with them. I realised that they will be great for the next 20 years. I also realised that no other technology will hold like this, at that moment i was released from the "technology early adopter" grasp. I no longer care about i-thingie 1.0 nor 2.0, as N-thingie is usually cheaper and better anyway, I don't buy N-thingie because Cheap-N-Nasty 3.12 usually plays everything under the sun. I am no longer cursed by the envy bug because when i get home the speakers i bought sound way better than i-Thingie ever will. Perhaps the only analogy i can come up with is buying the latest model of a car, there will always be a new model coming out, but then you discover vintage cars.

Now, with your comments about a particular OS. Since moving to Linux, I think Vista is the best thing ever. Since coming out, there has been a major flood of perfectly good, high powered, PC hardware available on E-Bay. All because they aren't meeting the minimum spec of Vista.

I understand your annoyance, and i guess my advice would be to don't buy brand name electronics. Most have a big name, not a good name.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:56 pm 
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Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2005 11:33 am
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Location: Kitsap Peninsula, Wa., United States
I always buy i-thingie (just when it drops) if I really need it.

on this expensive entertainment stuff. Like the wife says when they get to where they can control everything and track what you do, then it is time to go off the grid.

arrrrggghhh! Matey's!


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 7:49 pm 
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Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:51 am
Posts: 173
Location: Uniontown, PA
Very interesting thread.... ;)

The key to this merry-go-round is when (not where) you DECIDE to get off.

The alluding to the 'auto' situation...is very similar. I will NOT buy a new car, and pretty much decided that any vehicle I may purchase in the future will be 1990 or older. Who really needs GPS, ABS, etc? The computers control the car, not you, the driver?

Audio: I still have my 8-tracks, and vinyl LP's. I haven't purchased a CD in years. The new music??? That's music? Surround Sound? I have TWO ears. Stereo is just fine.

Technology: I use Linux, have since 1993, and I do have a system at home that runs Windows 2000. That's as far as I'll go with MS. A similar situation is Flash. I refuse to use Flash. If KM includes it, that's ok, but I'll NEVER install it on ANY Linux system until it's open source.

If folks get caught up in the merry-go-round, like lemmings...let them enjoy. If they 'wake up,' they'll realize that there are limits, unless money isn't an issue. I get to keep lots more $$$'s in my wallet.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 10:41 pm 
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
larrybpsu wrote:
Who really needs GPS, ABS, etc? The computers control the car, not you, the driver?

Audio: I still have my 8-tracks, and vinyl LP's. I haven't purchased a CD in years. The new music??? That's music? Surround Sound? I have TWO ears. Stereo is just fine.



I wouldn't buy a car because of the features, but because of the reliability issues. Updating your car because of gadgets would be madness, but I got rid of my 1980 Merc (electric everything) because it was horrible to keep everything working in it. Got a nice new (2002) VW Golf and although the fuel economy is crap, it's still quite reliable. I would have spent at leat as much in repairs to the merc as I'd paid for the VW.

With the audio, 5.1 is a lot cheaper than really good speakers that allow the 3D effect to come through in stereo. Also, the DVDs you get today have 5.1 sound built-in and stereo won't give you the correct surround.

Mike

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 2:16 pm 
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Location: South New Jersey, USA
My ride on the merry go round is spinning quote fast right now. I had been running a home built (my first one) Knoppmyth box for about two years. I had a Biostar MB with a AMD 2600 processor and a couple of 120GB drives. Had everthing working real smooth. Keep in mind that I am not a computer techie by any means ... just some one who reads the forums and hacks away.
About two weeks ago we got hit by a bad lightning storm that killed my box. My first thought was it was the power supply so I ordered a new one from Newegg for about $30. I popped that in and the system came up for about 10 seconds, complained about CPU temp and shut off never to return. Oh well time to get a new MB and CPU. Ordered a new MSI MB and AMD X2 4600+ ($110).
Next pulled the old system apart and went to install the old memory...dosent fit. Two year old memory is apperantly no good anymore. $35 later I had a new DDR2 1GB memory installed.
Install the old AGP video card... you guessed it. $40 later I have a new PCI Express video card.
Time to connect up the DVD and the two hard drives. Only one IDE plug??? Double UGH!

Well that brings me to today where I am shopping for SATA drives. I can either spend $20 on a SATA DVD drive and keep the two IDE hard drives or $55 on a 250GB SATA hard drive. It is probably crazy not to spend the extra $35 for the hard drive but the cheap skate in me has really been pushed to the extream right now and it irks me to put a perfectly good 120GB drive on the shelf.

At this point I think the only item not upgrade was the tuner cards (2xPVR150) and that is the one item that I wanted to upgrade to handle HD. Oh well, at least I will have a nice modern box when I am done but then again for how long?

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:31 pm 
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
I'm surprised that your two year old mobo had an AGP slot, actually.

It is totally ridiculous that you had to replace the entire system. The lack of backward compatability is maddening, and the manufacturers seem to never think more than 18 months ahead.

Mike

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:31 pm 
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Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
A cheap option to enable you to use your current Hard Drives is a SATA to IDE adapter. I don't know what they cost in your part of the world, but that may be an option until you have the funds for a new Hard Drive.

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 Post subject: SATA to IDE
PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:44 pm 
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I tried a couple of these SATA to IDE adaptors the other day (one that fits flush onto the drive and one that plugs into the ide port on the motherboard). But the reason I decided not to use them was the big reduction in the read-write speed compared to a good ide drive (about 35-45MBps with the adaptor compared about 60MBps with an ide drive). I think it is due to the chip on these adaptors. So if you go for one make sure it doesn't impact on your read/write performance!

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:42 pm 
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That's not as big a problem as you might at first think. The actual sustained speed of a hard disk is pretty far south of 45M bytes/sec in most cases. Even recording FOUR high-def sources, I only need about 8M bytes/sec sustained write speed (about 16M bits/sec for one stream = 2M bytes/sec, times four).

I don't think you'd notice the difference between PATA vs. SATA adapters.

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PostPosted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 4:45 am 
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Liv2Cod wrote:
The actual sustained speed of a hard disk is pretty far south of 45M bytes/sec in most cases. Even recording FOUR high-def sources, I only need about 8M bytes/sec sustained write speed (about 16M bits/sec for one stream = 2M bytes/sec, times four).

I hadn't realised this, hmmmm maybe I might consider SATA in the future then. Thanks for the advice!

Going back to original theme of this thread I just run my hardware to the ground: for instance my laptop is a 'top of range' ThinkPad 240 which came out back in the year 1999 :D !!! I got it second hand off a friend who didn't use it very much. It still runs XP well at the lightning speed of 300MHz (or 150MHz on battery!) and 192MB of RAM. With a 10.2" screen it is original netbook of the day! I've been advised to put a Linux distro on it as this might speed it up further, but there is a big problem of getting stuff onto it as it does not have a CD or DVD drive built in but instead I use a PCMCIA CD drive which it cannot boot from (it only boots off floppy and HDD!). If anyone knows a lightweight distro that can be installed from floppy then I might give it a go when i have the time! The reason I've kept using it is that the extended battery when word processing is a good 3-4 hours which is plenty for me! So so such for upgrading!

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