noel alanguilan

i purchased a 2.5″ usb 2.0 sata drive enclosure a couple of months back. it was cool and smooth to the touch. it was thin. it was sleek black. and, mostly, it was cheap at php 250.00 (about us$ 5.00). i plugged in a new 120 gig sata drive. and watched as i transfer data at a blazingly disappointing rate of  1000 kb/sec (give or take a few bits). that’s less than 1 megabits per second. the usb 2.0 specs say it should go up to 480 megabits per second. this thing is even slower than usb 1.0.

bullocks.

okay. it may be a fluke. i connected the drive to a computer running windows. same thing. 1000 kb/sec. okay. scratch that idea. maybe there’s something wrong with the hard disk. i replaced the hard drive with one that i know is working properly. same thing on both ubuntu and windows. 1000 kb/sec.

this sucks. big time. and the stupid thing carries a warranty shorter than the lifespan of a common house fly.

the lesson of the story: when it concerns computer hardware, cheaper is not always better.

and if you are truly and madly decided on getting something cheap, do yourself a favor and have it tested first, if that is at all possible. if not, then you either move on or be prepared to use a lemon.

i’ve thought about a handful of ways for technology to maybe help businesses (and maybe homes) to save a little money.

• use what you have. do not upgrade your software to anything unless its free. if you’re using windows xp then stay with it. there’s no point in switching to linux when you already have the license for xp. same goes with whatever version of microsoft office you have installed — if you have it installed at all. there’s also no point in pirating ms office when there are a bunch free alternatives already just waiting to be downloaded.
• standardize on the  basic file formats to adopt within the workplace especially with documents and spreadsheets. choose the common “denominator” — the file format that all word processing or spreadsheet program can save as.  this way, you can use different versions of the word processing or spreadsheet programs and not have to worry about compatibility or forced to pay to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of that program.
• make use of old computers. if possible, max out the memory or plug in at least 1 gig then install linux. you probably should use at least a 1 ghz pentium 4 or equivalent for desktops. mind the type of memory modules needed by the computer. older computers need older memory modules.
• you can possibly use these old computers as print or file servers. just max the memory, put in a really large hard drive and you’re in business. install a server-specific linux distribution and you’ll save a lot from server licensing especially if you have a large population of users.
• if your company is buying new computers, try purchasing them with linux installed. it should come out a little cheaper compared to when windows xp or vista is installed. if it isn’t cheaper then tell the vendor that windows is not free and when you woke up that morning it still isn’t free and that you’re just buying the hardware and not the software. for office applications you can always download and use open office.
• not buying new hardware? give a little speed to your old computer by increasing its memory to 2 gig. 4 gig would be nice but 2 seems to be the sweet spot. this is certainly cheaper than buying a new computer.

this is my eight-year old desktop computer. overclocked, i used to use it a lot back when electricity was less expensive. the last time i turned it on was october/november 2007. a need for another computer came up and i decided to take it out of storage, disassemble and clean it up component by component and put it all neatly back together. that chore took about three days — well, it has plenty of components .

it refused to boot when i finally turned it on. grrr. the fans were running, the cdroms and hard drives were doing their thing but nothing’s coming out of the screen. there were no error beep(s). heck it didn’t beep at all. this is not good.

i think the motherboard has gone to heaven.

dang. i just can’t leave it at that and relegate the whole computer to being an oversized doorstop. i don’t want to throw it out and add more pollutants to the planet. i don’t believe that a computer, even one that’s two or three generations old, would be completely useless if just one of its components dies. the rest of the components are still in pretty good shape — only the mobo is kaput. the truth is, its really impractical to replace the motherboard with a completely new and up to date one simply because — aside from getting a new mobo — i’d have to get a new cpu and memory modules to match. ugh. my pockets are not exactly overflowing with money here. the practical (and cheaper) choice would be to get a motherboard that supports the current cpu and memory that i have. the only hurdle is where to get a brand new, old motherboard. worse case is i have scoure tipidpc for a second hand mobo.

i’ve always thought that old technology can still be useful. i have  a pentium 3 300mhz running a linux firewall and a pentium 4 1.6ghz running a linux file server. this one is no different, it can be my son’s desktop for his studies (and games of course) or another linux file server.

it started about a couple of months ago. my electricity bill went down by almost a thousand pesos per month. that is pretty big. you can buy lots of stuff with 1k. and the only thing that i did was stop using my desktop computer. seriously.

for the record, my desktop is an athlon xp 2 ghz (slightly overclocked) with three hard drives (1 is scsi), a cdr/rw, a cdr, six fans plus two for the power supply, three expansion cards and a 17″ crt (read as power hogging) monitor. it seems that this setup can really pull some decent current.

these days, i’m working off a pentium m 1.6ghz laptop with a 15″ screen running on linux. i can still do my work thing (with the exception of my games) at essentially the same pace while drawing less power — 1k pesos less.

this got me thinking. considering the rising prices of fuel and electricity and the growing availability of smaller, less power-hungry (but faster) computers, it would be beneficial to get a smaller, energy-efficient computer. better if one gets a laptop so you can add mobility to the list of pluses. and of course, there’s that “wow” factor of possessing a laptop.

although the prices of reasonable laptops has gone down, they are still up there compared to the currently available desktops but not by much. the cheapest laptop in rising sun is the msi vr320-p2 (intel dual core 1.8ghz, 2 gig ram, 80 gig hd, 13.3″ lcd) at almost 30k pesos and a pc package with the equivalent configuration would run to about 25k pesos.

do the numbers and then add in the cost of running the thing (electricity) and you’ll find that getting an energy-efficient computer or a laptop is actually cheaper in the medium to long term.