A New Era - The Terabyte Age

Back in 1988 I remember reading an article in Practical Electronics about guys in Cambridge had developed a new memory cell that would see the possibility of 1 Gb of data stored on a small chip.
Fast forward to today.....Anyone can have 2+ TERABYTES (2000Gb+) on their home computer! Think of it like this......if you had 1 Tb of music is equivalent to 300,000 tunes, which if you started to play now.....would still be playing well over 2 years later without repeating!!!!
Today, my good colleague Drax and I entered the Terabyte era.
We took 2x 500gb drives, 1 x Terabyte Drive, + several 100gb + drives and hooked them all up to my laptop which was running Windows 7 RC1.....then started archiving 1000's of tunes and data to the 1 TB drive. To stand back and see this advance in storage technology and the awesome speed and performance of Windows 7 RC1 was simply legendary!
Welcome to an era of endless storage poptential. Today we really are "in the future". Today there has been a milestone in our personal computing history....the night of the terabytes!!

Watch the video here

Windows 7 RC1 - Review Part1 - Install

Well Windows 7 RC1 is available for download, so in true geek fashion I was off to the Windows 7 download page on Microsoft's website.

RC1 is the full blown Windows 7 Ultimate. This version will stop working on March 1 2010. So we get plenty of time to test and try it out.

When you click on the download link, you will have to use your Live ID and tick a few boxes on a form. The download manager will download and you will be given a product code key for your Windows 7.

The download is a 2.3gb "ISO" file (disc image) so make sure you have plenty of free hard disk space and a blank DVD!

After burning the DVD image to disc, I proceeded to install on my old laptop (Turion- 1gb Ram, 100gb HDD, Radeon Mobility x700 PCIE graphics). The install screen was pleasing to the eye and I had virtualy nothing to enter on screen to get it running.I did have to wait for 50mins for the install but was totally surprised at the results - Windows 7 found virtually every driver - except the Radeon Video driver.

The graphics were impressive even with out the proper drivers.

I proceeded with the ATI Catalyst drivers for Windows 7 from their website - several versions- to no avail. Amazingly I then tried the Windows Driver update feature....which instantly found and installed the correct drivers.

After a restart.......up come the smart new desktop. I really was expecting the OS to run very slowly on my old Turion but it just worked, fast and great response to clicks, key presses etc. I was VERY impressed. The new taskbar features, window shaking, see through windows etc...all perfect!

Driven by an immediate thought of "perhaps Microsoft have redeemed themselves and made a DECENT OS", I started adding msn, Skype, Office 2003, AVG Antivirus and Nero Ultra 7.

AVG 8.5 immediately caused the system to run like syrup, so I uninstalled and installed Avast Home Edition. This worked perfect with minimum effect on system speed.

Again, no problems on install, with everything running smoothly.

I opened IE8 and opened several tabs and windows, everything ran perfect. I proceeded to download a few Vista utilities from the Acer website - again all installed perfect.

This all seemed to good to be true so I downloaded Vista drivers for mywebcam, a Playstation Eye Toy (Ver 003). Surely if anything will break this....it will?
Well sure enough I tried to install and successfully BLUE SCREENED Windows 7!

Undeterred, I rebooted and this time I let windows discover the extracted drivers and voila! The PS Eyetoy was now working perfect!

To date, I have been using Windows 7 for all sorts of activity online and have been more than impressed. I have even run a Vista Ultimate Laptop side by side with the Acer laptop (4yrs old) and the Acer has been quicker and more responsive than the HP Vista Laptop when it comes to opening windows and programs. 

All in all I would say that this OS is running amazingly well for such an old laptop. Even Windows Media centre runs smoothly. Well done MS, you have impressed me so far......now the real test begins.....how long will I have this stabilty, what programs will break it? I will post my findings in Part 3.

In part 2, I will be covering some of the new features such as Libraries, Snipping Tool, Control panel features etc.

Mikm

Listen in to the Live Radio Stream from Facebook using this chat! Just enter the chat...and enjoy.

Send requests direct to me using chat also!!!

M.G.R.B, Win Irish Youth Music Award 2009!

• 15,000 kids
• 1,000 musicians
• 600 youth clubs
• 52 gigs
• 1 winner!

Monaghan is rocking to the news today that Music Guvenors Radio Bottle have won this year's Irish Youth Music Award. The judging panel at the IYMA’s 2009 included Willie Kavanagh MD of EMI Music, Jackie Hayden Hot Press Magazine, Brian Daly, Marketing Manager at Phantom, Liam McCormack from RTE’s Den TV, Aileen Galvin from Entertainment Architects PR and Dermot Doran, manager of Republic of Loose.

After a day of mentoring, the guys had reviews from Willie Kavanagh of EMI and Hot Press. The guys just rocked the place, leaving no doubt as to their talents! They won vouchers and a interview with hot press magazine, a tv interview, a radio interview and get to record a new cd in a studio in Dublin.

Well done lads!!







The Irish Youth Music Awards

A Priest in Hell

My good friend, author Randall Radic has released his latest book "A Priest In Hell".............


“Living in jail is like living in a foreign country. The customs and culture are different, almost alien, and so is the language.”

A Priest in Hell is the compelling true story of life in the U.S. prison system. The book takes fodder for popular reality shows (like Cops) to a new level, giving the reader a frighteningly real sense of the tastes, sounds, smells, culture and lifestyle of jail.

On November 5, 2005, Randall Radic was arrested and charged with ten felonies. Desperation for a monied lifestyle led Radic, a pastor in the northern California community of Ripon, to first mortgage the home provided to him by his church, before selling off the church itself. His crime is exposed when a large bank deposit catches the attention of the authorities. Radic is subsequently convicted of embezzlement, forgery, and fraud, and he spends six months in a California jail before a plea bargain facilitates his release.

At 54, Radic is well above the average age of the prison population, and his background as a priest makes him both a target and a confidante within the prison walls. Through the book, Radic introduces the stories of several of his fellow inmates, detailing their crimes, cases, and struggles. He eventually earns his plea bargain by sharing confessions of a fellow inmate with the district attorney.

Radic considers his time in jail Dante’s version of Hell. This is the gritty, painful reality of crime and consequence.

This is an great read, a great insight to the prison system from the prisoners viewpoint. get it now!

details

ISBN-10: 1-55022-869-2

ISBN-13: 978-1-55022-869-4

6 x 9 in, 288pp, paperback

$19.95 CAD

April 2009

buy @ Amazon

Magick Guvnors Radio Bottle

Magick Guvnors Radio Bottle are an exciting new indie/alternatie band. They reign their glory from Glaslough Co.Monaghan. M.G.R.B all began back in the late 21st centuary..... A young boy by the name of Conor Bellew had just started secondary school. Here he studied music.Within a matter of weeks of school begining he bought a guitar.He started to strum but he wasnt very good.Although he did still manage to impress two of his friends, who then bought guitars, Daniel Donnelly and Ciaran Curley.
The 3 practiced and practiced,until 1 day Jonathan Fahy (drums) came over and seen them play.He became very jealous of their playin and wanted to go 1 step futher. So he bought a drumkit. This then led to the creation of "Any Objections". A 3 piece band. They played and played but soon discovered they were crap. So the boys gave up the dream. Minutes went by, then a new band was formed "Disarmed" which consisted of bass player Daniel Doherty. They bashed and battered and they still weren’t great and Doherty stole stuff so he was kicked out.iymamonaghan's Video

The music world was grim for the 3 boys until the summer of 07. Jonathan played a few songs with Conor(randomly) and quickly discovered a new found talent....then a new band formed....M.G.R.B and they still rule today!!!
Their influences range from Slipknot to the Libertines....generally each of them bring their own style and taste to the music, and the noise you hear them play is da mixture of each of their individual styles.....some of their more popular influencs are “Kings of leon”, “Metallica”, “Snow Patrol”, “MGMT”, “Guns ‘n’ Roses” and the “Artic monkeys”.
Their EP is available in local shops all around Monaghan, or drop them a line on their Bebo or myspace pages!!

Top Cork Models launch first ever Cork Fashion Week

Top models Sarah O'Connell and Etaoin Ni hAilpin launch Cork Fashion Week

Miss Cork Etaoin Ni HAilpin joined forces with top model and former Miss Cork Sarah O’Connell last weekend to launch the highly anticipated Cork Fashion Week.

View Cork Fashion Week launch

Picture courtesy: www.barlokphoto.com. Miki Barlok

Facebook - The Next Big Thing?

It have now been using Facebook for 3 months now and I have to say this is the future of the web.

It has captured peoples attention worldwide, from business to individual. The potential for viral networking is awesome using the tools provided.

I decided to try out the viral potential of a fun appliction. I created "A Piece Of Ireland" as a fun gift app. I has 25 friends at the time (209 at present) I sent them gifts. After 2 weeks I began to see a sudden surge in usage. Up to 4,000 users in 2 weeks! Hmm, I didn't have to promote this app. It just went viral. 6 weeks on and there are 79,675 users!! It has had 385,000 items sent to people around the world!

I think this proved that viral apps will gather the momentum to push a message for a product or business easily with minimum investment.

I then tried a simple 10 question quiz. 3 weeks later - 9,964 people have used it!

Again, the message is clear. _ Facebook has serious marketing potential.

I am now working on virtual PR via Facebook. Already clients are seeing amazing changes in direct contact and return on a minimum investment. In bad economic times, Facebook has so much to offer marketers.

The Facebook Year

Well 2009 has already started pretty crap. Time for me to do something to different....hey presto - Facebook!
Well this is turning out to be an addictive little website. I now have many "friends" new and old. Interesting as an alternative social life, thars for sure. I have even found a "relationship".......I should know better - the ex wife was met online!!!

I think I can handle this. I have loads of experience in relationships online!! hehe

www.facebook.com