I’m usually favoring the “second-best” part or device over the best, e.g. not the latest and greatest video card for $600+ but one for $300 that is not super fast but still fast enough for everything.

Usage:

I need the PC for blogging and research on the Internet mainly. I want to view movies and listen to music. I also want to work with Visual Studio and play some games with friends every now and then.

Components:

CPU: Intel I7 9xx or 8xx. If you have other suggestions or favor a specific processor let me know
Computer Memory: 8GB or more
Motherboard: No favorite yet. Do not need a lot of extras like firewire, bluetooth, infrared connections on the board. Should have a fast network connection build in.
Video Card: No idea. Do not want to pay more than $300 for the video card. I currently have a ATI 4870. Are there any DirectX 11 cards out there yet? Video card should not make a lot of noise.
Hard Drives: I need at least 2 Terabyte. No more than two hard drives. Currently thinking about getting two 1.5 Terabyte drives. Hard drives should not make lots of noise. More important than speed to me. I do not need Raid but I though about having a faster boot hard drive and two slower data drives. Would you favor a fast hard drive (or two in Raid) or SSD drive for that task?
SSD Drives: I’m not sure if I want an SSD drive. Are there any next gen SSD drives out there that do not get slower over time?
Sound Card: Not necessarily needed but if there is a good one for little money I take it. Otherwise it should be onboard sound.
Case: Mid-tower is fine. I do not care about color but it should have a few connectors on the front (e.g. USB)
Power Unit: It has to be quiet. Should supply enough power though for the computer system.
Computer Monitor: Do not need one

Did I leave anything out? I’m keen to read your suggestions. I also do not have a problem waiting another few months before I build the system in case some ubercool hardware comes out in that time that is worth waiting for.

Related posts

• Power Supply Calculator (13)
• Building a PC March Progress (5)
• Zombie City Tactics (0)
• WinShake Adds Aero Peek And Share To Windows Vista and XP (1)
• Windows Media Player Light (2)

To combat this problem, I’ve decided its time for me to buy an external hard drive. I figure 500 GB is more than enough for me right now. What’s confusing me though is choosing which hard drive to buy. I’ve settled on a 2.5″ drive that draws power from the USB port so I won’t have to worry about an external power source. After a fair amount of research and considering my budget, I’ve narrowed my choice down to these two:

Seagate FreeAgent Go
Transcend StoreJet 25M

I’m getting a lot of conflicting reviews about both drives which is why I’m asking the Ghacks readers to help me make my decision. Here are some of my queries:

Multiple OS support: My primary computer runs Windows XP but I also own a laptop that’s running Ubuntu. I’d prefer something that works out of the box with both but I’m not averse to a little tweaking if necessary.

Partitioning: Would I need to partition my drive? I’m planning to segregate the data according to its format but can I just copy everything on it or should I create dedicated partitions? Should I leave some space free in case I want to install a portable version of an OS?

Durability: What’s the point in spending all that cash if my HD’s going to conk out after a while? Is build quality a factor and how long can I expect the drive to last?

What do you think of my choices? Have I missed anything out? What are you using for external storage and are you happy with it? Let me know in the comments.

Related posts

• Got My SSD, Any Questions Or Suggestions? (5)
• Your keyboard is more dirty than your toilet (1)
• Xbox 360 HD can be connected to your pc (3)
• Why QWERTY was invented ! (0)
• What you should do before bringing the PC in for repair (11)

The current configuration of the laptop is a little slow though so I’ve decided to put in some cash and increase the RAM. Now, all that’s left is to figure out what to actually do with it. The first thing that popped into my mind was to use it to learn Linux. I’ve been a Windows user my entire life and although Linux appeals to me, I’ve never actually tried it out. My desktop is used by other people besides me and I wasn’t allowed to install Linux on it.

I have a vague idea of what Linux is and its running but I’m still pretty unsure about other things so I decided to ask the Ghacks readers for their advice. Here re some of the questions I’m searching for answers to:

Should I consider dual-booting?
I’ve heard stories of Linux not being able to recognize drivers and such so I don’t want to have to find that my system won’t work without having some way of going back and fixing it. My graphics card is a NVidia GeForce 4 420 and I also have a Linksys WPC11 Network Adaptor card.

Can my laptop handle it?
Even after upgrading, my laptop will have a configuration of 1.8 GHz with 1 GB of DDR RAM. Also, my hard disk has a capacity of 40 GB. Assuming I leave about 10 GB for the Windows partition, is 30 GB enough to run Linux comfortably?

What distribution should I choose?
If I do go ahead and install Linux, I’m tending towards Ubuntu. It seems to be the most popular distribution and has a lot of support available for it. Another distro that appealed to me was OpenSuse but I’m not too sure about it.

How important is it to have an internet connection?
My laptop won’t really be connected to the internet (unless I can figure out a way to get a connection). Is this a drawback to using Linux?

For now, that’s about it. I’m looking forward to all your answers. Have I missed out any other important questions that need to be addressed? Let me know.

Update: Thanks for all your suggestions. I’ve decided to try Ubuntu as a LiveCD for some time and see how I feel before I install it. Wish me luck.

Related posts

• With Ubuntu 9.10 Arrives Wubi 9.10 (1)
• Why you should switch your parents pc to ubuntu (19)
• Which Ubuntu Derivative Is Right For You? (15)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)
• Use SoundJuicer to rip mp3 directly in Linux (4)

The question now is if there is a way to lock the DVD drive in Windows Explorer. Locking meaning that it will not be accessed in any way when a user opens Windows Explorer, a file browser or any other means of accessing files on his computer system. Ideally the program should be able to determine direct DVD access and allow that from happening.

The only viable solution so far is to create a disk image of the DVD in the drive and mount it using a software that emulates CD drives. This is however not a perfect solution. It would be much easier to have a on and off button for the DVD drive or a program running that would automatically perform the operation. Actually there is one additional solution which would involve removing the DVD from the drive whenever it is not needed and putting it back in whenever it is needed.

Question is: Do you know of a program that can lock the DVD drive so that the DVD will not be accessed when accessing Windows Explorer?

Related posts

• Add Names To DVD Drives (13)
• Why DRM is not consumer friendly (3)
• Virtual CD Drive Software (14)
• Riaa is sueing Allofmp3 (0)
• Print Covers using Undercover XP (4)

The design should lay more emphasize on the various categories and provide RSS feeds for single categories or tags so that users could pick what they want to read. Before I give the start signal for the redesign I would like to ask you about your opinion once again. Not so much if the site should be redesigned but about what you would like to see when the new design goes online. Just add anything that you might want to see. Please keep in mind that the ads have to be there as this is how I make my living.

So, let me know about colors, new features and functions, design choices, fonts and everything else that comes to your mind. I cannot promise that it is possible to add everything there is a very good chance that the popular suggestions will be added to the site.

This is also a nice idea to link to example designs of sites that you like so that we can take a look at them. Fire away!

Related posts

• Ask The Readers: Moving Articles To New Blog (36)
• Wordpress 2.6 (9)
• Wordpress 2.5 released (5)
• Win Domain and 1 Year free hosting (7)
• Who is hosting ghacks ? (1)

I still have not come to a decision and I thought it would probably be best to ask the ones that are affected by the decision (that would be you). Two blogs would make it easier to concentrate topics for a certain user base with the option to visit both if both types of content would be interesting to you.

The main question is whether the content should be separated and if that is the opinion of the majority which content should be moved to another blog.

My initial thoughts were to move the web development topics to a new blog and also some of the advanced Linux topics. The new blog would be some sort of uberGhacks for advanced users.

Please vote and let us know which content should be moved to a separate blog if you select Yes.

Related posts

• Wordpress 2.6 (9)
• Wordpress 2.5 released (5)
• Upgrading to Wordpress 2.3 (3)
• Translators wanted for Ghacks (45)
• This weeks poll, next weeks poll (1)

It would not be Ghacks if we would not ask you to contribute to that list. The only requirements are that the software has to be free. It does not matter if they are Open Source, freeware or donation ware. If they are free they have a chance to make it on the list.

Asking for names for any kind of software program would make it very hard for us to turn the information into a list. We have therefor decided to divide the process into different articles which will only accept programs of one specific category.

We start with security applications. This can be anything from antivirus programs to antispyware, firewall or process monitors. Yes, some applications fit in more than one category. Name them whenever they fit in so that they can be included in the list.

Please include at least the name of the application. A link to the program’s website would be great and helpful as well. The results will be published at the Computer Software Recommendations article.

So come on. Let us create the best recommended software article ever.

Related posts

• Software Update Monitoring With SUMO (14)
• Run Software With Parameters In Windows (3)
• Portable Computer Software Collection Liberkey (10)
• PC Software (2)
• PC Decrapifier 2 released (0)

Could also be interesting for product comparisons, shopping or watching videos in one half while doing something else in the other half of the screen.

A quick check on the Mozilla Firefox website did not bring up the desired Firefox extension that would copy that behavior. The extensions that I found where either outdated or crashing my Firefox. That’s when I decided to ask you if you knew of an extension that would mimic the behavior of the Dual View plugin.

All I need is a way to display two websites in one Firefox windows next to each other instead of in their separate tabs. I could open two instances of Firefox and run them next to each other but I would prefer an extension that would enable the functionality so that only one instance of Firefox needs to be running.

So let me know if you are using or remember a Firefox extension that does that. Opera users could also weight in and let me know if Opera supports such a feature as well.

Related posts

• Youtube: Enhance Youtube Experience (11)
• You better stop using Internet Explorer for now (18)
• Xenocode Web Browser Sandbox (0)
• Why you should restrict Cookie Access (4)
• Which will it be ? Opera ? Firefox ? IE ? (38)

I was not able to come up with an application that would recursively scan all folders and subfolders that I point it to and unpack all files found inside those folders. It should be able to handle the most common formats like zip and rar and have no problems with multi-volumes.

What could work – was to lazy to figure that out yet – would be to create a batch script that would process the folders one by one. My question however is if there is an application that is capable of extracting archives in different folders in one go. If you know of an application or have another tip let me know please.

Related posts

• PeaZip an alternative to IZarc ? (3)
• Freeware Packer Muzip (3)
• Extract archives from multiple folders at once (0)
• Ask the Readers: Single Key Shortcuts (9)
• Zip Repair (3)

I know that I can create keyboard shortcuts in Windows using program shortcuts. The problem that I have with this solution is that I have to use a key plus at least two of the following three keys: Shift, Alt or Ctrl.

I performed some tests on keyboard shortcut managers that would allow me to set keyboard shortcuts more easily. They all had the same restrictions though. What I wanted was a way to add a shortcut to a single key, say the keys F6 to F12 without running a program in the background all the time.

I discovered key demon which would add this functionality to the F6-F12 keys but only if it was running in the background. The second limitation of Key Demon was that it only made available keyboard shortcuts for those seven keys and no other key in Windows, say the Caps Lock key.

Is there a way to set permanent keyboard shortcuts to single keys ? What’s the best general keyword managing software anyway ?

Related posts

• Set Global Shortcuts in Windows (4)
• Quicklaunch for Tools with keyboard shortcuts (0)
• Ask the Readers: Software to extract archives in multiple folders (13)
• Zip Repair (3)
• Zen Key An All Purpose Application Manager (3)