Bought any computing stuff today?

[Kim]

Why do these things still not have dual DVI connectors?  *boggle*

[Afasoas]

We tend to order the Saphire Radeon HD6450's for work desktops cos they have dual DVI and HDMI (IIRC)

I'm deliberating on buying some 64-bit capable hardware for the firewall as 32-bit pfSense seems to harbour more issues than it's 64-bit sibbling. Namely that IPSec connections cause kernel panic and reboot in the current version. 64 bit atom boards with dual Intel NICs are quite spendy aren't they?

[Biggsy]

Why do these things still not have dual DVI connectors?  *boggle*

Not enough room for a second DVI while supporting VGA + HDMI + low profile cases (via alternative brackets).  The HDMI can be used for a second screen (a television in my case), adapted to DVI if needed.

[Kim]

Why have a VGA connector at all?  You can dongle the analogue signal out of a DVI port just fine, and they all seem to come with that dongle.  Two VGA monitors is expected, but not two DVI?

I suppose HDMI is effectively DVI-D thobut... It hadn't made it to sensible graphics cards last time I was in the market for one.

[Biggsy]

I don't think there'd be enough room for dual DVI even without the VGA, while supporting low profile, that is, but a second HDMI in place of the VGA would be better for the modern user.  I suppose they want to save old farts the bother of adapting to VGA.

[davelodwig]

The big graphics cards we order for our developers have dual display port on them, and then you chuck the dongle of choice in the display port or just hook them up to display port capable monitors.

it is funny watching folks trying to plug a hdmi lead into them though, they are almost similar, but slightly not.

D.

[Kim]

The big graphics cards we order for our developers have dual display port on them, and then you chuck the dongle of choice in the display port or just hook them up to display port capable monitors.

That sounds like a good solution.  Presumably they fail on one of 'cheap' 'fanless' or 'decent Linux driver available'.

[Biggsy]

I've just realised that the Asus graphics card could easily provide two DVI sockets if it had a double bracket (the chunky heatsink makes it occupy two slots anyway), but that'd be more expensive.  It supports dual (and triple) display anyway, and one DVI + one HDMI happens to be what I need.

There are even cheaper versions with the same Nvidia chip from Gainward and Palit, just with less fancy heatsinks (that I bet work nearly as well).

[tiermat]

One of these cute little chappies - just look at that ridiculous bezel!:



Always carried around huge Dell Precision workstation laptops, but more and more I do most of my commissioning work from home rather than having to be onsite (a little Intel NUC sat on site during commissioning phase with RDP).  I have a excellent workstation desktop - so it seemed daft to have to carry a heavy laptop (and I cycle everywhere, so a 3kg laptop/psu is not a good thing!).  I'd rather be sat at home with two massive monitors, a warm, comfy chair and a decent stereo. 

It's a bit of a risk - but I think it'll work out.  I've never had such a cheap laptop! 

Should arrive early next week - it left China last weekend.

Excited.

Let me know how you get on with it. I am in the market for a new laptop and that (or the even rarer 15" variant) are at the top of my very short list.

[David Martin]

The big graphics cards we order for our developers have dual display port on them, and then you chuck the dongle of choice in the display port or just hook them up to display port capable monitors.

it is funny watching folks trying to plug a hdmi lead into them though, they are almost similar, but slightly not.

D.

Which cards would those be? I have the need of an upgrade

[davelodwig]

I'll find out for you, Dell fit them for us.

In a bizarre roundabout way Dell and HP sell hardware accredited for our software, which we buy for our development teams.

Occasionally the department of insane personal computing at HP will send a tiny form factor 14 core workstation with terrabytes of ram for free to see how it gets on with our software, usually as they send only one they ended up in systems as our personal workstations, I miss being in systems now I'm in the website team.

D.

[marcusjb]

One of these cute little chappies - just look at that ridiculous bezel!:



Always carried around huge Dell Precision workstation laptops, but more and more I do most of my commissioning work from home rather than having to be onsite (a little Intel NUC sat on site during commissioning phase with RDP).  I have a excellent workstation desktop - so it seemed daft to have to carry a heavy laptop (and I cycle everywhere, so a 3kg laptop/psu is not a good thing!).  I'd rather be sat at home with two massive monitors, a warm, comfy chair and a decent stereo. 

It's a bit of a risk - but I think it'll work out.  I've never had such a cheap laptop! 

Should arrive early next week - it left China last weekend.

Excited.

Let me know how you get on with it. I am in the market for a new laptop and that (or the even rarer 15" variant) are at the top of my very short list.

Will do.

Should arrive tomorrow.  When I am not here.

No way of changing the date with their courier. 

Hopefully have it soon though.

There will apparently be a 15 inch with Infinity screen later in the year - I could have waited, but I am not that patient.

It'll be an interesting experiment for me - I've not had a little screen for a long time (since the days of all laptop screens being little!), but as I said, I do less and less coding and commissioning on-site these days - and with an Asus MB168+ this laptop still weighs less than my old Precision if I do want some more real estate for site work.

[Afasoas]

New Firewall Mobo - allegedly brand new (damaged box) from fleabay for nearly half the next cheapest price I can find it for. Really I'd have liked a board with a mobile version of the atom processor but they seem near impossible to find in Blighty, unless settling for non-Intel NICs.

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=AD2550R/U3S3#Specifications

[marcusjb]

One of these cute little chappies - just look at that ridiculous bezel!:



Always carried around huge Dell Precision workstation laptops, but more and more I do most of my commissioning work from home rather than having to be onsite (a little Intel NUC sat on site during commissioning phase with RDP).  I have a excellent workstation desktop - so it seemed daft to have to carry a heavy laptop (and I cycle everywhere, so a 3kg laptop/psu is not a good thing!).  I'd rather be sat at home with two massive monitors, a warm, comfy chair and a decent stereo. 

It's a bit of a risk - but I think it'll work out.  I've never had such a cheap laptop! 

Should arrive early next week - it left China last weekend.

Excited.

Let me know how you get on with it. I am in the market for a new laptop and that (or the even rarer 15" variant) are at the top of my very short list.

It arrived and I've had a brief go at it - been in an exam for the past couple of days, so not really driven it too much.

It's beautifully made - looks so slick.  And that screen. 

Keyboard is a bit weird - it's like a mac with lots of space between keys, I am sure I will get used to it soon enough.

Plenty enough grunt for compiling stuff.  Some of my software suffers from the lack of DPI awareness in Windows 8.1 - toolbars with tiny, tiny, tiny icons along the top!  I believe Windows 10 addresses this better, but I will have a fiddle next week to see if I can get icons I can see!

It is very good looking though.  And should see me setting lots of PBs on the commute with a couple of Kg lost!

[Biggsy]

Wi-fi USB dongle for an ancient Pakard Bell laptop with no wireless built in.  I thought about seeing if it could take an internal wi-fi card instead, but I don't suppose it has an antenna for it anyway, like I think modern laptops have in the screen, or besides the screen.

£3.75 well spent: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221693218853

[Mr Larrington]

Dang!  Only on Saturday was I saying to myself "What should I do with this Netgear Wi-fi USB dongle which has lain unused for the three and a half years since my desktop PC was last switched on".

Since my desktop PC has a Pentium 4, half a gig of RAM, an 80 GB disk and XP Crap Edition, and is thus a mere abacus compared with the Asus X102BA netbook, I do not think it is worth resurrecting.

[Feanor]

Whilst rummaging through the IT cupboard at work, I came across what must be a 1st generation USB WiFi dongle.

It's about the size of a 4-port Ethernet switch, but with little fold-up antennas on it, has ye olde USB square connectors as found on printers, and a jack for an external power brick.

[Mr Larrington]

I've just pressed my old Belkin USB hub back into service.  It can act as an unpowered 4-port job or, by plugging this bit into a base station, a powered 7-port one.  The base station has a handy tray in which to store paper clips, while the power wossname is the size of a Range Rover.  In 4-port mode it sits snugly against the case of the Asus.

Which is nice.

[Wombat]

Plenty enough grunt for compiling stuff.  Some of my software suffers from the lack of DPI awareness in Windows 8.1 - toolbars with tiny, tiny, tiny icons along the top!  I believe Windows 10 addresses this better, but I will have a fiddle next week to see if I can get icons I can see!


[/quote]

Ah, thats news to me, and interesting.  Is this why the Adobe reader on my 13" Sony Viao laptoppy/tabletty wonder device has effing great toolbars that I can't seem to change? I can't recall its screen resolution offhand, but its got a lovely screen (apart from being glossy and suffering from touchscreen mucky finger syndrome)

[tiermat]

I couldn't stretch to the Dell, so have, today, bought a 17.3" HP laptop, with i7 2.5Ghz, 12G RAM and 1Tb/8Gb SSHD.

It is, currently, in the boot of the car awaiting time, tonight, when I can rebuild it.

[CommuteTooFar]

I instructed my buyer to acquire a processor, and a motherboard to fit it in, that supports AES-NI instructions. I am currently trying to debug some AES-NI code on a processor that does not support it. Tricky.

[Biggsy]

Asus GeForce GT 730 - one of the most powerful fanless graphics cards.  Only fifty quid from Amazon.

I'll have to get into a bit of gaming to justify the 2 GB RAM and 384 cores!  Wonder what's suitable for middle-aged hand-to-eye coordination?

I'm going to try Euro Truck Simulator 2.  I could be some time.



Incidentally, the Asus GT 730 is only a PCIe x8 job (which happens to be the number of lanes available for the GPU in my system anyway, thanks to a PCIe SSD nicking bandwidth).  You might prefer a x16 card if pushing limits.

[Afasoas]

That screen cap looks detailed.

Just picked up a cheap 6" Windows tablet and first impressions are surprisingly good. The build quality is okay. It's a nice size to hold and the display/touch sensitivity seem more than adequate. It does seem to be full blown Windows, which is both good and bad. Good in that any Windows apps will run on it. Bad in that it's only really metro apps that are designed for the touch interface.

It's almost completely devoid of any skunkware. And I was able to get it set up without using a Microsoft account.

It's a pity that of the 32 GB of storage, only 20 GB is available to use. That said, I can add a Micro SD card.
It's a nice notion having a such portable/fully fledged PC available to use.

[Dibdib]

That screen cap looks detailed.

Too true. My first thought was "shit, I used to have one of those Nokias."

[Kim]

I believe gerwinium OTP is the resident Euro Truck Simulator addict.