Quote from Kristi :

I'm already at 200/50 connection. It will be an upgrade to 1000/100Mbit coming in ~2 days.

Quote from Bose321 :

Holy shit. How is that always possible in other countries?

Quote from MandulAA :

What the... 11-12€/month for a 30/3 Mbit here!

I don't want to turn this into an inverse bragging thread, but I'm paying the equivalent of £22 (€28) for my phoneline + broadband, and for that I'm getting 8/0.5mbit. And even then that's actually pretty good going compared to how bad it could be!

I made a Chess engine. It wasn't very good.

I think next time I move I'll try to do something about all the wires under my desk - it's not as bad as it used to be but it should be so much better.

A Focus with a boot?!

PS I like your dog.

Quote from Sueycide_FD :

Quick question. Anyone have decent experience with a SMG trans? I'm really thinking about getting a E46 M3 Vert and i kinda made it apart of my "5 years from now" goal.

I'm not going to daily it (although it'll be tempting), and i'm looking to drive it only on the weekends or a really nice weekday. Also if you have experience with anything i should know, speak up!

Why not a daily? Surely something like an M3 is the ultimate daily driver?

Quote from Omar1 :

lets play guess the price!

£595, if it came with a decent MOT.

£300 otherwise...

Do you have any programming experience?

I would personally say that while web-based stuff is the "hip" thing at the moment, you don't need all that overhead and something more traditional might be easier.

The best language for any quick project is the one you already know - I'd use Java (using the Eclipse RCP framework if I felt really fancy) or MFC / C++ if I wanted to enter a world of pain.

But I think Excel might be easier (for basic calculations).

I've got a generic mini keyboard - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-4G ... eName=ADME:X:eRTM:GB:1123 - which I've had for about 8 months.

It has some media keys (volume up / down, play, pause etc) which used to work on another PC but don't on it's successor. No drivers came with it (and Google says "no drivers required") so I can't

Had it working on an older PC running Windows 7 x64. Wiped the PC, re-installed Windows 7 x64, again worked fine. - I've now replaced the PC with something else, and re-installed Windows and it's not working.

I'm a bit stumped. Ideas?

Not strictly speaking an "LFS Rig"...

Last year I set up an HTPC / Home Server build using an HP Microserver, running Windows 7 and DriveBender to pool all my hard drives.

Unfortunately, DriveBender wasn't as stable as I hoped, and the CPU on the Microserver (only a little dual core Turion) wasn't realy ideal either.

With this in mind, I planned on building a new PC to replace it (still using DriveBender) but things didn't quite go to plan.

Ended up with 2 PC's...

Microserver:
8GB RAM,
5x4TB drives (14TB usable in RAID-Z1),
FreeNAS,
Ghetto PSU as the standard one is very noisy,
Intel NIC.





HTPC / Server:
Xeon L5638 hex-core CPU (60w TDP!),
8GB RAM,
Intel motherboard (DX58OG - not bad actually),
Xonar DX,
Intel NIC,
CCL Corsair 200R (CCL version comes with a terrible CCL logo replacing the Corsair one - avoid!),
OCZ Vertex 2 128GB SSD.

Connects up to a 50" Panasonic TV / Logitech Z5500 speakers (not great for home cinema stuff - but they were cheap).



I've put these in a converted cabinet under the TV - lined with some sound-absorbent carpet underlay with a couple of fans installed in the back.







All I need next is to upgrade both boxes to 16GB RAM (FreeNAS *eats* RAM), and maybe I could get a life

I've had some problems with data loss recently, so when my backup strategy has started getting iffy I've realised I need to rethink what I currently do.

Anyone want to share their plan?

To start the ball rolling:

My PC's music / documents / pictures / videos are synced with my Microserver every hour using SyncToy.

My PC's SSD has a system image (using Windows backup) every week copied to the Microserver

The documents on my laptop (Windows partition) are synced with the my Microserever every hour, when in Windows (Windows <-> Mac file synchronisation software suggestions appreciated) using SyncToy.

My laptop (OSX partition) backs up using Time Machine to my Microserver.

My Microsever's SSD has a system image (using Windows backup) every week.

All pictures / documents / videos / music on the Microserver are backed up off-site using cloud storage (LiveDrive - but been having problems with this recently).

The Microserver has 4x HDD's (merged into one using DriveBender) with the documents being duplicated across all 4 HDD's.

Films and TV Shows on my Microserver are not backed up.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

http://www.techrepublic.com/bl ... -to-your-exchange-server/

It's not free but does work. If you need your work emails availible anywhere just use exchanges imap feature. You should be able to get them on any android or apple phone with very little effort. Includes your calender etc....

I don't yet know the IMAP details (company setting it up have no clue...) and I can't yet put the account on my phone (one of the Exchange policies is "must have passcode" which I don't want (and the company can't work out how to turn it off!).

A full year on I'm back here again...

I've ditched Thunderbird on my home PC for Outlook.

At work I used Thunderbird, but we've now ditched Google Apps for Exchange email and Thunderbird doesn't appear to support Exchange. Any free alternative? Or do I have to start using my own copy?

There are a couple of CPU's that are 64-bit, 2.8 GHz, Single Core, 800 MHz FSB

I would imagine it's a motherboard limit (but obviously look the specs up and check).

The 915 is a budget chipset, and they wouldn't of imagined someone would fit 4GB all the years ago when the board was made.

If you want a low-power server, what about something like an HP Microserver?

Ok, it's not as cheap (>£100 after cashback) or as low power (20w) but it's still a good proposition.

Quote from Fabri91 :

What's your opinion on the H100 (and H100i) all-in-one solutions regarding cooling ability and noise/vibrations?

Performance - good

I had an H100 and was happy (...once I fixed the mounting bracket with some washers - without that it's rubbish). It broke (not happy), got a Coolermaster 240M - not as good. Then got an H100i - better still.

Noise of a cooler *should* be down to fans - but unfortunately both the H100 & H100i make a "humming" or "rattling" noise the 240M didn't. Not pleasant, but not annoying enough to make me go out and buy a new one.

I would of preferred to of gotten a Swiftech H220 / H320 though - but these are much much cheaper.

That looks fantastic!

EDIT - Any excuse for a (terrible) picture... now with added H100i after my H100 died. Shame I can't compete on the cable management front!

Last edited by Jakg, Tue, 4 Feb 2014 22:42.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Yes, a knowledge of theory is important, far more important is 'knowing how s#!* works, how to make it work, and how to fix it when it doesn't. You don't get that from a course, you get that in the real world, constantly learning, and, TBH, being conservative in the choices you make to ensure things work, and keep working.

A degree isn't (or at least shouldn't be) a vocational qualification - it should give you an understanding of the subject, but a degree on it's own does not give you the tools to do it (I'm not saying that's a bad thing).

I probably shouldn't post much more being someone who's job title is "software engineer" *and* having just graduated...

About Time.

I love time travel films, but it's one of those areas that has to be perfect - a single plot hole will eat away at the rest of the film.

Somehow a film that does it perfectly, and it's not even sci-fi. Best of all, it's not advertised anywhere, I doubt many have seen the trailer so you won't even already know half the plot (not that it'd matter).

Quote from Boris Lozac :

There are infantry only servers, what you on about.

Whenever I've tried to play it I've never found a populated Infantry Only server?

BF3 has no "infantry only" mode than anyone uses (by comparison to BF2).

Quote from pik_d :

I'm curious to see if the Xbox 360 controller will have the triggers on different axes without using 3rd party drivers.

I really don't see how that would be related to the DirectX version? Were just talking about the graphics engine here.

Quote from Bmxtwins :

You clearly are a piece of work. NSA really isnt that bad. They only scan suspects or targets. Not every day civilians.

You'll have to define "suspects" and "targets".

Quote from Töki (HUN) :

Yeah, but as far as I know you have to pay for uni. We don't, state pays 12 semesters, above that we have to pay. Which is good, yet a lot of students need loan. Only for rent/food/transport.

Ah ok - in the UK you pay the first £x* the state pays the rest. You also get a loan to cover maintenance costs (rent, food etc).

* was ~£3k for a while, over the last year or two this has risen to £9k. Most degrees actually cost £10k a year, with some (medicine for example) costing around £20k.

Different Universities tend to be roughly the same cost, but of course as your only paying the first £x the cost is the same anyway, which is much nicer (from a students point of view) than the US system where a top-tier University may be just too expensive.

Quote from Töki (HUN) :

College students over here can hardly afford an E36 either. Most of them are happy if they can get along without student loan (those who are not supported by parents). But yeah this is crappy Hungary, comparing it to western countries makes no sense.

Whereas in the UK having a student loan is considered "no big deal" - I only know of one person (of those who went to University, obviously) who doesn't have a student loan, and that's because her parents are very rich / her immigration status would of made it difficult to get a student loan.

Mines something like £25k...