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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 02/27/2008 Non-productivity gains and other
slowdowns with my new computer ... Summing
up my experience with my new Dell computer – from benchmarks it’s
supposed to be 5 times faster than my old one, but those are theoretical. In a lot of things it’s about
the same, but in some things it’s faster. My
biggest slowdown was burning dvd’s, and on uploading movie files to
websites, and that’s where I probably go the most bang for my buck. My
new Dell is about 5 times faster in Real Time creating dvd’s
and movies, and I can use it at the same time and multi-task. My not very
older other computer took 5 times as long, and I couldn’t use it while
it was doing that task. But in
other things there’s a learning curve which slows you down, including
learning Windows Vistas and all its intricacies, and on learning Microsoft
Office 2007 with its completely different User Interface which can make you
feel like a total computer rookie at first glance, unable even to open a
file. Today’s
pc’s are the standard multimedia platform for
creating movies and slideshows to be used in business presentations and on
websites. And it’s related to high
speed internet activities that you need to understand some principles. When we hear a vendor, say Qwest
– advertising high speed dsl in different configurations, the speeds
they advertise are always theoretical. This goes back to dial up modems. But you
never get the theoretical speed, you just come close. How
do you know how fast your high speed connection really is? There’s many internet speedometers all over the web,
and I have one on my Top10 Programs
Page you can go to and see
how fast you actually are surfing the web, as opposed to the theoretical
speed. My theoretical speed is
High Speed DSL at 1.5 megs, but I actually come in at about 1.2 megs on the
average, and at times it’s been as low as in the 900’s.
And today
at 1.5 megs things are beginning to seem a little slow to me. Screens used to
draw instantly, and now they don’t. That’s because the web follows
the basic rule of all computing – “eat up all the resources that
are available.” And a
higher speed internet thru Qwest is not available in my area, so I’m
stuck. But the absolutely critical fact I
want you to understand is that while your download speed is very fast, your upload speed is
very slow !! I think
my upload speed with my connection is only about 256K, and that’s
theoretical. So when I go to upload a 100 Mb movie, that still takes a very long
time. I read
recently that the new Blue-Ray dvd format is not supposed to be such a big
deal, because people aren’t going to be viewing movies on dvd’s
much longer. You’ll
be downloading movies direct to your computer or tv .
And this is why high speed internet connections have to improve. Many
colleges are at 100 – 200
megs and I read about a satellite system that provides speed of 1.2 Gigs per
second, and that’s the speeds they’re going to need for you to
download movies. And
I’m hoping upload speeds get that bump too. |
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For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2008 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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