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Location:The Blind Geek is moving to http://www.adxnetwerkz.com, see you there!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
GWConnect, Client Or Crap?
Because I got tired of the twitter inquiries and whatnot, I decided
to post my spiel about the GWConnect program here. So here goes:
I was immediately displeased with both the program’s
controls and it’s audio quality (or lack thereof). I was further irritated by
the rude, intrusive ads that constantly interrupted my conversations. These
feelings were shared with the developer to no avail. You can, apparently,
remove the irritating ads by purchasing the program from GW Micro. Now, my
question there is:
Why in the 9 hells would I pay one company to use another
company’s service that is offered free of charge?
Answer:
I wouldn’t and I won’t. Period.
When GW Connect 2.0 was released, I decided, against my
better judgment, to give it another shot. Man, was that a mistake!
Not only is it a heap of ad-ridden crapware, but if
anything, the audio quality was worse than before.
I really wanted to keep this short and sweet, so in closing
I’ll just say that it seems foolish to me to pay for a program that does the
same thing as Skype for Windows when it isn’t any more accessible or useful.
But then again, this is what I should expect from a company that charges $900
for a screen reader
that is so inferior to the free screen reader NVDA (Non-Visual Desktop Access) that
it isn’t even funny.
Well, as we say over at Geeks On A Leash, I look forward to
your hate mail. :p
Saturday, August 4, 2012
The $100 Component #DIYPC
Greetings my little geeklings!
As some of you know, I recently
challenged myself to design a robust, Windows 7 based PC with the stipulation
that no individual component could cost over $100. After a couple rough drafts
of the design, I feel I have put together a fairly impressive system
considering the limitations I set for myself in this endeavor.
So, without any further gilding the lily,
and without any ado whatsoever, I give you the $100 DIY PC:
Since it is the backbone all other
components are dependent on, I will start off with the motherboard:
The choice to go with this model was
simple. It fit my desire to use AMD’s FM1 socket.
It has plenty of SATA 6G ports.
It supports up to 32GB of DDR3.
It sports a dedicated USB 3.0 controller
and plenty of ports.
·
The
available PCI-X slots leave plenty of upgrade room.
Motherboard cost: $89.99 before $10
rebate.
On to the CPU behind this machine:
After deciding on AMD’s FM1 line, I chose
the AMD
A6-3670K Unlocked Llano 2.7GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU +
GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6530D AD3670WNGXBOX.
Simply put, this is the best socket FM1
proc that $100 can buy. ‘Nuff said!
Cost: $89.99.
On to a product near and dear to my
heart, RAM!
For this build, I chose CORSAIR
Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) memory.
Sporting 16GB in dual channel setup, and
coming under budget for this caliber of gaming memory, I couldn’t resist using it
in the build.
Cost: $94.99.
Next up: Storage!
I went with one of my favorite setups for
storage on this build.
Handling the OS and programs is a ADATA
Premier Pro SP900 ASP900S3-128GM-C 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid
State Drive (SSD) both for it’s Gig per dollar ratio and it’s impressive
read/write speeds at its price point.
Cost: $99.99.
Media storage is handled by a Seagate
Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive.
This is one of the best 1TB 7200RPM
drives out there and an easy choice to serve our media storage needs.
Cost: $89.99.
Even in our world of high capacity, high
speed flash media, a solid and reliable optical drive is still essential.
It was, therefore an easy choice to
include the LITE-ON
24X DVD Writer.
This drive offers excellent read/write
speeds, solid performance and comes in well under our $100 limit.
Cost: $22.99.
This system is built for power on a
budget, but don’t think for a minute that we’ve skimped on power. Why build a
custom Corvette and then put an old Chevy Cavalier engine in it? Not happening
here brother!
Powering this mofo is a Rosewill Xtreme
Series RX750-S-B 750W Continuous @40°C ,80 PLUS Certified, ATX12V v2.2 &
EPS12V v2.91,.
This little beauty really gets the job
done. It sports plenty of power for this build, multiple 12V rails and is SLI
and Crossfire-X ready. All this and under budget too!
Cost: $94.99.
All these glorius guts need an equally
impressive chassis, right?
I chose to pack all this goodness into a Thermaltake
V9 BlacX Edition Gaming Chassis Mid Tower Steel Computer Case.
This sexy beast sports plenty of internal
room, 2 SATA HDD docks, bottom-mounted PSU area and plenty of fans to keep all
that hotness running cool.
Cost: $99.99.
Of course, we’ll be running Microsoft
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit.
It’s the standard, what can I say? :p
Cost: $99.99.
This being the Blind Geek, I also must
recommend a screen reader, shouldn’t I?
This choice was never even in doubt. The
only real choice here is NVDA
(Non-Visual Desktop Access).
Cost: $0!
This system comes in right at $800 for
parts and shipping from our friends at Newegg.
So, if you’re looking for a new rig, this
could very well be a very viable option for you. Whether you piece this rig
together yourself, or let us here at the Blind Geek do it for you, I encourage
you to take a serious look at these components for building on a budget.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to
your barrage of suggestions to tweak the build.
Happy building!
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