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Austerity for what?

I am confused as to why the ordinary people have to pay for the Bank bailouts?

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

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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