Friday, January 10, 2020
Thursday, January 9, 2020
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Monday, December 30, 2019
Worst Console Launch Ever: Google Stadia -
Almost 30 years ago, one of my coworkers thought that the internet would get so advanced that we would be able to stream videogames, and we wouldn't need consoles. I didn't think that this was realistic. I still don't. There is a huge advantage to having local hardware. For $400 or $500, you can get a pretty good gaming experience from a box in your home. It is going to be significantly better in 2020 with the next generation of consoles which are predicted to have about the same cost.
My 2017 iMac has slightly more powerful graphics than a Sony Playstation 4 Pro. The latest tablets and phones are also powerful enough to make good gaming devices.
AMD has plans to introduce new APUs in 2020 and 2021. This will make building a decent gaming computer cheaper, maybe costing $700 to $800.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Thursday, December 26, 2019
The best way to clean a keyboard is… the DISHWASHER?
I don't bother to clean my keyboards. They are next to impossible to clean well. Instead, I buy like $11 keyboards and just buy a new one every year or two.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Friday, December 13, 2019
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Rampage
On this table it is a bit too high. I plan on buying the riser which costs $45, but it is frequently available cheaper, so I'll be looking for a sale after Christmas.
I use the Walmart app to check the prices on Arcade1up products. The prices change frequently and items tend to be heavily discounted when Walmart decides to close them out at a particular store.
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Friday, November 29, 2019
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Re: 2017 iMac freezes up
Multicore Benchmark on my laptop: ~3000
This is really good for a refurbished laptop that I paid $89 for.
Multicore Benchmark on my old iMac: ~5000
The latest $150 Amazon tablet also benchmarks at this. It is an amazing world we live in.
I still use this machine to analyze chess games and openings. Because the display tends to quit, I access the machine remotely.
Multicore Benchmark on my new iMac: ~8100
Ideally I would have built a new AMD machine and gotten up to 20000. However, I needed a Mac to do the work that I am now doing.
I am suspicious of the combo drive using an SSD as a buffer to the hard drive. If something went wrong there then it would definitely freeze the computer.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
This is really good for a refurbished laptop that I paid $89 for.
Multicore Benchmark on my old iMac: ~5000
The latest $150 Amazon tablet also benchmarks at this. It is an amazing world we live in.
I still use this machine to analyze chess games and openings. Because the display tends to quit, I access the machine remotely.
Multicore Benchmark on my new iMac: ~8100
Ideally I would have built a new AMD machine and gotten up to 20000. However, I needed a Mac to do the work that I am now doing.
I am suspicious of the combo drive using an SSD as a buffer to the hard drive. If something went wrong there then it would definitely freeze the computer.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
Monday, November 18, 2019
2017 iMac freezes up
A few months ago I purchased a used 2017 iMac and installed Windows 10 on it. For the most part, this has been a great machine. However, there is now a problem. The computer will appear to run slow and then eventually freeze. This usually happens while using Google Chrome.
I am normally good at dealing with any kind of software problem that comes up, but this could be something going wrong with the hardware, like the RAM, the SSD, or some controller board. Hardware is mostly outside my area of expertise, although I did buy some new RAM chips that I have not yet installed. I could try taking out the old RAM chips and put in the new RAM chips and see if the problem persists.
On the software side maybe there is a virus, which seems unlikely because I have Norton which normally takes care of these things. It is possible there is a driver issue, but that also seems unlikely. I would not expect Google Chrome to be the problem, but I would not rule it out either. I could try a different web browser.
I need to reboot the computer into McIntosh mode and see if the problem happens again. If it does, then it is a hardware problem. However, if the problem goes away, then something is wrong in the Windows 10 world and I would consider erasing the Windows 10 partition and reinstalling the operating system, which is a time-consuming task.
Saturday, November 9, 2019
All-New Fire HD 10 Tablet “2019” Review - The New Budget King? - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-pCIRHxt4
I'm impressed with the benchmarks. We are seeing a bunch of low-end devices with powerful processors.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Every other phone is dead to me.
I'm skeptical, but long term this might be the future of phones.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Crazy Black Friday 2019 Deals Leak! Cheap Nintendo Switch Lite? Is This ...
Nintendo Switch for $200? For me, that would be a must have. If true, it might mean that Nintendo is planning a new system.
https://youtu.be/lA1CchWCb3o
https://youtu.be/lA1CchWCb3o
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Thursday, October 17, 2019
The $89 Gamestop Premium Refurbished Nintendo Wii U is a steal | Plus Gamestop Black Friday Deals.
This offer might be interesting for some gamers. I'm don't particularly trust GameStop on their refurbished items. They have a reputation for doing a bad job on some refurbished (repaired) items. However, they do have a return policy.
However, in the last couple of years, Gamestop has had some killer deals on Black Friday or Gray Thursday, like a $60 XBOX 360 with a $60 rebate. I got one of these. (I had to wait in line for like an hour.) However, I found out that the XBox 360 has a high failure rate, especially the ones from Gamestop, so I sold the system. I was also not thrilled about how bulky the system was and the fan in it was a bit noisy.
I make this point because in another month we will be looking at Black Friday Gamestop deals. I would enjoy some of the Mario games on the Wii U, so this might be a worthwhile purchase, especially if the system is heavily discounted for Black Friday. In terms of power, The Wii U is about 50% more than the Xbox 360 and has the advantage of being able to run many Nintendo titles, which according to the video are cheap for the Wii U. (However, the Wii U is only about 40% of the power of the Nintendo Switch, which itself is much less powerful than the current consoles from Microsoft and Sony.)
Last year Gamestop had a killer Black Friday deal on the Nintendo Switch, which is a system that I want. Instead of charging $300 just for the console, you could get the system with a game for that price, plus a $50 or $60 credit that you could use to buy a 2nd game. I would have taken advantage of this deal, except that I had heard rumors that Nintendo was going to come out with a new Switch this year. Nintendo did come out with a new Switch this year, but the only difference was a doubling of battery life. These new Switches sell in a red box.
I don't know what is going to happen for sure, but there could be some interesting Black Friday deals.
For anyone wondering, both Sony and Microsoft are coming out with killer game systems 3rd quarter next year using AMD chips that aren't even released yet. These have been described as extremely powerful game systems rivaling the best gamer PC's.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Unboxing a SEALED iMac G3 with MKBHD!
I think that some people will assume that older machines have more value than they have. They might have some value as a collector's item, but as a computer, my out of date Raspberry PI 3 exceeds it in every way.
With a speed of 350 MHZ, 64 megabytes of RAM and 6 gigs of storage, the iMac G3 would be capable of only the most basic web browsing. Many, if not most, websites would not work. If it comes with some useful software, like word processing, then it would have some value.
Twenty years ago I remember trying to get some value out of an old 400 MHZ PC. It was useful for playing old games, but I seriously needed an upgrade, which I did. I went through about a five-year upgrade cycle, first getting a 2.4 GHz computer, which at the time seemed very impressive, and then a dual-core 2.4 GHz computer, and then a quad-core 2.8 GHz iMac. I still have the iMac, and I got a whopping 9 years of use out of it, but this year I have upgraded to a better iMac.
I have learned through experience that older computers have a high failure rate. Stuff just breaks, and the old machines aren't just worth fixing.
John Coffey
Friday, October 11, 2019
Sunday, October 6, 2019
DVD-RAM: The Disc that Behaved like a Flash Drive - YouTube
I remember around 2001-2002 my company gave me a 1 GB flash drive and I felt privileged. In the stores, these were around $100, which seemed like a lot of money at the time.
Today you would have a hard time buying a 1 GB drive. It is the kind of thing they would give away in promotional offers, assuming you could find any. I would like to see them in cereal boxes, say for videogame promotions.
I was working for a company in 1992 when one of the programmers wanted to purchase a 2 GB HD for $2,000. Our reaction was like, "A dollar per megabyte! That's amazing!."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecH3OU0R4ls
Today you would have a hard time buying a 1 GB drive. It is the kind of thing they would give away in promotional offers, assuming you could find any. I would like to see them in cereal boxes, say for videogame promotions.
I was working for a company in 1992 when one of the programmers wanted to purchase a 2 GB HD for $2,000. Our reaction was like, "A dollar per megabyte! That's amazing!."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecH3OU0R4ls
Friday, September 27, 2019
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