Computing Wish Lists

[mandru]

I'll start a wish list for things or concepts that would be very nice to have access to.  After a little bit of set up here of course.  ;)

Is there anything you've come across or thought at some point "Wow, that would be really helpful/useful/desirable/cool?  Something that would drastically improve or maybe ever reshape the nature of your computing experience?

It doesn't have to be a physical thing like hardware or a program.  For me hardware and software come and go and at each step I try to anticipate and project the durability and longevity of each purchase so that by the time it needs to be replaced it can be done so that 'the upgrade' is a seriously substantial improvement.  Typically the replacement will cost about the same if not less than what it is replacing.

OK I've been lucky and that approach for deciding when to pounce on new equipment has been kind to me so far.  :)

Right now I'm freshly resituated with a new comp system that I will do my best to maintain hopefully over the next four of five years if not longer and anxiously awaiting the release of AC3 and FC3.  So my hardware and software wish list is pretty well sated for the time being.  However throughout the timeline of my MS operating systems (95, 98, XP, Vista and now Win7) squeezing every possible CPU cycle out of my systems to avoid lag while gaming or for general use has been an ideal.  Faster CPUs, GPUs and high powered ram has not always been an option so focusing on tweaks that would affect has kind of been an obsession for me.

As an example when it takes ten seconds to load MS Word I see no sense of having Word in the Startup menu slowing down my launch time and then sitting in the background as a latent Process chewing up precious CPU time all for the minimal trade off of a 3 second quick start.  Especially considering that it may only be one session in twenty that I actually access word.  ???

How many other genuinely nonessential processes are running in the background of our systems?  I would like to be able to tag these dead weights on my system resources with a silver bullet to be opened only when I want to access the program they are associated with then slam off again when I no longer need them.  I don't think I'm the only User (gamer or otherwise) who feels that way.

There were a few Tweak programs that I came across back for Win95 & Win98 that were helpful in this direction but still short of the ideal.

For each and every OS I've used something I really wanted was a comprehensive list of "Essential Processes" so that like a prestigious upscale nightclub I can interrupt their start up saying "If you're not down on the list - You're out on the curb!"


Now it's your turn.  What's on your Wish List?

[PZ]

I personally uninstall anything that had the names "Apple", "Quicktime", or "Real player".  I've never had any of those installed on any PC I have ever owned where one or more didn't cause some kind of problem.  Apple has lots of nerve calling their product "Quicktime".  To avoid being called liars, they should have called it "Slowtime".

I avoid all Norton products like they are the plague.

There is an application called CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) that I periodically run to keep the machine cleaned a bit.

Occasionally I'll check the "Run" section in the registry to see what is running in the background; you'd be surprised what programs will sneak in there.  However, the registry is not for the faint of heart; one can easily render the OS inoperable.

As to a wish list, I need to upgrade much like you have done, and one of the more exciting things I'm anticipating is a large capacity SSD

[Art Blade]

I have a PC that is now about four years old and after I switch it on it is operable in less than a minute.  The boot time is partly dependent on the motherboard; some boot quickly while others don't. My tip: don't install software that you're not going to keep; i.e. demos and trial versions. Don't uninstall software unless it is absolutely necessary. Like that, your windows registry will stay clean.

I too buy a complete system that is supposed to last at least two years. I don't upgrade, I buy a new one. I only buy a new one when I desperately want to play a new game that won't run on my current system because of insufficient specs. Replacing a rig indeed usually costs me about just as much as the old one used to cost. When I buy a new system it is just slightly below the current state of the art which would cost significantly more for an insignificant advantage in performance.

Currently I'd only consider replacing the graphics card (which would mean an upgrade for the first time in my life) because there are some that would fit my current rig which has a CPU that still hasn't been pushed to its limits yet.

[mandru]

Art, after reading your post I was knocking around over at the NVIDIA site and thought you might find this page interesting.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-680/performance

The third graph/chart on the page has a side by side comparison of all of the GeForce GPUs running back through even the GTX 295 I just upgraded from.  That graph also shows which cards are DirectX 11 compatible as well as how rapidly my bloody expensive 295 went out of vogue after I bought it.  ::)

[Art Blade]

 :-() that's how things are, you buy it today for twice as much as tomorrow. Thanks for the link, old chap  :) :-X

[Binnatics]

My rig is upgraded last year and everything runs just nice. The only desire I have to my computing life is a new audio set up for it. I currently have a Logitech 3.1 system which is a bit too plastic and too taped together already :-D

The problem is that I can't really make serious noise at home, so it should be something that can give me great immersive sound at low Db. I have been thinking of Bose 3.1 PC speakers, but I have my doubts. I've seen great so called DJ-speakers though. Small and compact stereo speakers that give good sound for close range.
I fell in love with these:

KEF LS50
[smg id=5697]

http://www.electronichouse.com/article/kef_celebrates_50_years_with_ls50_loudspeaker/

Of course, devices like that deserve good hardware inside the case, so I would also need a soundcard upgrade I guess
And so I keep on dreaming (:)

[Art Blade]

(are you sure about 3 .1 ?  ???  :) )

There is only one rule: You need to actually physically be there and listen to those speakers. Generally speaking, you don't need a soundcard -- the typical realtec onboard soundcard is usually sufficient. The speakers, however.. best if you can test a variety of speakers and switch through them while one sound source continues playing. I did that and focussed on natural sound. What I acquired was

Creative Labs Inspire S2 2.1 speakers

The stereo satellites are about the size of a fist and the subwoofer cube is roughly the size that could hide a handball.

Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please Register or Login


http://us.store.creative.com/Inspire-S2-2.1-Speaker-System/M/B002NFVE8W.htm

[Binnatics]

 :D Indeed, 2.1

I agree on the listening part, I just fell in love with the design and I know the quality of those speakers. I have their bigger brothers in my living room and am very happy with it. Together with the reviews I found on these LS50's, I just couldn't get those out of my mind anymore ::)

[mandru]

Titled: A Day Made of Glass 2

This is a Corning Glass promo that I came across that I found interesting and yes it does tie into this threads topic of computing wishes.  I particularly liked that it shows potential rather that talk about it.

http://www.dump.com/glasstechnologies/


The automotive dashboard that can be custom remapped or skinned by the user is an answer to most of the complaints I've encountered from reviews of new car that are trying to implement touchscreens into their design but end up with stacked menus that need to be drill down through for simple functions like "turn off the seat warmer".

The surgery where a consulting physician can observe from the side of the room during an operation from many miles away via a wall screen that allows him to see and manipulate data being gathered by the principal surgeon and their team even to the point of a virtual 3D representation of the patient upon the operating table available to the consulting physician where he can (through virtual hands on) do a walk around or view slice by slice the patient's scan results in relationship to their position within the patient on the virtual 3D display before him.  I think this video shows a well polished representation of 2-way telepresence.

Data and application sharing by placing two devices in close proximity to one another and making a sweeping physical touch gesture that throws it to the target device plus many other cool concepts to wish for.

And if all school girls are that cute in their future glass houses...  Well, it's a place I sure want to be.  :)  :-X

[Art Blade]

what a great, fantastic presentation. I'm stunned and amazed.  :) :-X

And the product itself is really cool, too. All those implementations and ways of integrating that technology. Whoa :)

What worries me a little is the bandwidth they're talking about is needed for all that to operate as smoothly as was shown in that vid.. thinking about fragger's current situation compared with what he could have if they implemented in his neck of the woods what others already have access to. There will be loads of fraggers all around the world who won't be able to access that kind of technology simply because investing in sparsely populated areas isn't lucrative enough. Which means, only major cities and densely populated areas may have access to stuff like that. Which basically means: already developed areas (countries) will develop even more while so called third world countries will fall behind even more. We might end up with a few concentrated prospering high tech areas (thinking about Dubai) and.. the rest of the world.

[Art Blade]

I just found the source

http://www.corning.com/news_center/videos/ADayMadeofGlass2.aspx

and more vids, mandru (and all)  :)

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL363989F7BCF53A36

[Binnatics]

I think we are more and more disappearing in screens and digital, virtual worlds.
Something else; why drive to school in a car when you can have such digital ease of communicating?

...sorry, I'm spoiling the fun I guess :-\\

[mandru]

Cool find on locating the source of that material Art.  :-X

Hopefully Binn as a species we won't be stupid enough to trade our legs for faster bandwidth and at the same time maybe bring about the usage of some of the advanced fiber optic technology or satellite relays to get even areas like fragger's up to optimal connection speeds.

[nexor]

My only concern, imagine what the public screens will look like from all the grubby finger marks        :-D      >:D

[Art Blade]

 :-D

I was just imagining a nice, hot and humid summer day with loads of bugs and other insects landing and crawling on those massive screens.. and me, armed with an impressive fly swatter, about to muster an enormous blood rage.  >:D

[Binnatics]

  :-X

You guys are crazy ^-^ :-X :-X

[fragger]

Hopefully Binn as a species we won't be stupid enough to trade our legs for faster bandwidth and at the same time maybe bring about the usage of some of the advanced fiber optic technology or satellite relays to get even areas like fragger's up to optimal connection speeds.

Things are sort of looking up on that score. The good news is that a roll-out of a new fibre-optic National Broadband Network has been underway for a year or two now, starting with, for once, rural areas. The bad news is there's no telling at this stage when it will get to my area. When they get a strand of fibre-optic cable that's long enough to reach here, I guess :-()

A ten-year roll-out time frame for completion of the network is being bandied about - just in time to become obsolete...


P.S. My connection went belly-up while I was trying to send this very post and even locked up my whole Windows session, forcing me to do a manual reboot. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound ::)

[mandru]

You know fragger I'm sure there's got to be more than a few people where you live who would love to upgrade their bandwidths.

In the late 40's one of my uncles with the use of a Dodge 4WD panel Power Wagon with winches front and back (and not much else) cut not much more than a goat track through one of the previously unaccessed Utahn Southern mountain passes to bring a cable TV feed into the South West of our state.  It was his idea, his initiative and yes his sweat and money but the fact that his kids are still receiving dividends for every cable hookup in that corner of the state shows the value of his risk.

Hearing him describe his efforts to make the transit and how it became routine to string a series of taut steel cables between secured points and switching to tireless rims to hold onto the supporting cable for one side of the truck while inching forward with the other side's two rubber wheels still touching the mountain side to skirt over deep ravines, and other obstacles as well as the details of climbing under the suspended truck to use a crowbar to switch the rims from one span of cable to another (as the contour of the mountain side changed) kept me as a kid on the edge of my seat.

Kind of like the 1977 movie Sorcerer with Roy Scheider but admittedly my uncle's situation was a smaller truck, less explosives and there wasn't anyone overtly trying to kill him besides the rough terrain.

I've yet to hear of a town or city that doesn't like new sources of tax revenues.  ;)

Maybe you could propose at a local town meeting something along the lines of how sad it is that the city is missing out on possible moneys for things like improving schools, dirt road maintenance, cultural enrichment etc... etc... by pushing a fiber-optic line out or obtaining a dedicated high band satellite relay rather than waiting for the internet companies to come to you.

It kills two birds with one stone if they go for it.  The good mayor's office gets a skim for providing an additional utility and our fragger gets a century "21" internet connection.  :-X

So I'll ask.  How good are you with a 4WD?  :-D

[Art Blade]

So I'll ask.  How good are you with a 4WD?  :-D

Nice speech and an excellent extro  :) :-X

[nexor]

Excellent and very interesting story mandru, one thing the old folk had plenty of is guts and determination   :-X

Telkom started replacing the copper cables with optic fibre about a year ago, the whole country will eventually have, they started our area first and I got my upgrade three months ago, makes a huge difference.
One of the reasons for changing is due to cable theft, tonight your phone and internet connection is working, tomorrow morning it's not, then it's discovered the cables had been stolen during the night, the thieves go to two street corner mini exchange boxes, cut the wires between the two boxes, tie the cable at one of the boxes to the back of a truck and drive down the road pulling the cable out. A 300 meter cable can be pulled out, rolled up, stashed on the back of a truck within ten minutes.

[Art Blade]

that's horrible.. and sad. It reminds me of the great imbalance between the haves and the have-nots :(

[Binnatics]

So true. Or, like in our country, between the wanna-works and the don't-wanna-works. The latter cause great problems for the railway company and other copper networks. Usually causing a x100 of damage compared to the money they get for their dirty job :-\\

[fragger]

So I'll ask.  How good are you with a 4WD?  :-D

:-D :-D :-D :-X

That story of your uncle is an inspiring tale to be sure and I certainly can't help but admire the bloke, but dare I say he belongs to a bygone age. The gumption and drive (pardon the pun) displayed by him probably wouldn't cut much mustard with the current crop of bureaucratic main-chancers that constitute our local council these days. In fact they'd probably be miffed at being shown up by someone doing what they're supposed to be doing without benefit of a six-figure salary, an expense account and an office full of taxpayer-funded ficuses.

Your idea has a great deal of merit, and I would consider acting on it, except for two things:

Firstly, the new National Broadband Network is a Federal Government project which is being implemented independently of the privately-owned Telcos, and without going into the Gordian Knot that is Aussie politics, the Federal Government and our State Government are like the twain that never meets (they're still arguing over which of them should be responsible for funding major upgrades to the main coastal highway in the area). The State Government that encompasses our regional government isn't allowed to usurp any part of The Project, it all has to be managed from Canberra. If they undertook any part of it on their own initiative they'd get into hot water, or just flat wouldn't be allowed to do it. The bureaucracy must flow...

Secondly, I'd be dealing with the last of the great unkilled dinosaurs, the Aussie local council. Ours is staffed by folks who assign a greater priority to prettying up the riverside walk, repairing the town hockey field and providing a skate park for grungy teenagers to deface with graffiti before the cement is dry to providing financial support for lesser priorities such as the hospital, road maintenance and properly equipping the local branch of the State Emergency Service, let alone laying any kind of cable, no matter how beneficial it may be. A bushfire or flood can wreck the joint and the roads can develop potholes big enough for a hippo to hide in, but as long as bored teens can make a racket with skateboards and loud dirty talk and the high school hockey team can have a nice new field to churn up, everything's hunky dory. If I were to try to persuade them about taking the lead and getting the fibre-optic in place before the government gets around to it, even if they were allowed to do so they'd cite half a dozen reasons why it isn't cost-effective at this time, castigate me for being a naive dreamer and then invite me to an expensive ratepayer-supplied lunch with all the fixings at the local boat club.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't see anything coming of it here. However, I have heard that there is a new microwave tower in the works nearby (provided not by the government but by one of the big Telcos), so maybe that'll provide a bit of meantime relief. If they do in fact ever get around to building the bloody thing...

[mandru]

 ???

Uhh...   It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?

Anyway fragger we're at least thinking of ya.  ;)

[Art Blade]

"shoot first, ask later" springs to mind..  :-D