Be Excellent To Each Other

Good grief. Apparantly my new job[*] involves rather less software development than I expected, and rather more Supreme Commander and Crysis. I just got an email from my friend at the new firm with the PC spec they've ordered for me:



On top of that I pitched hard for either a Macbook or a Dell XPS 1330 for my laptop, so fingers crossed on that front. Woohoo!

[*] which I start Monday, so you won't see as much of me during the workdays I'm afraid.

Bit light on disk space but pretty much what I'm looking at for my next PC. Not quite convinced about the 64 bit edition of Windows mind in case of compatbility problems.

Remember that, aside from my joking, this is a work PC. Any files of value will be in the Team Suite repository and the 64bitness won't be a problem as it'll spend most of it's life running Visual Studio and Office. I've run XP64 on my workstation in my current workplace for six months now, which is hell on toast from a driver point of view, and the only problem I've had is that iTunes won't import CDs (which does work on Vista64, for no good technical reason as they are the same actual driver. Grrr, bad Apple.)

Anyway, you need the 64bit OS to utilise the 4Gb of RAM. This machine would only get about 3.25Gb under a 32bit Windows.

It's not hard and fast though, is it? It depends on how the various bits and bobs in the chipsets reserve RAM holes. You're certainly down a half-gig for the graphics, plus a variable amount of other stuff.

Also, 18 year old me (who still lives inside my head) is scandalised that THREE QUARTERS OF A TERABYTE can be considered "light on disk space". While we're at it, 13 year old me is equally scandalised that MARIO AND SONIC ARE IN A GAME TOGETHER.

4 fucking gig of ram? we've had to get a business case done to upgrade from 504meg. local council powerhouse computers!

Yeah, I've got 4gig in my current workstation too (hence it's running XP64). It's awesome. Even Firefox2 can't eat all that RAM. I've had Firefox, IE, Visual Studio, Eclipse, Word, Excel, Outlook and iTunes open at once before now.

It's not utterly, utterly hard and fast, no - but the graphics memory is a massively bigger factor than almost anything else. I didn't spot the 512Mb card - so in fact you're likely to not see anything over 3Gb visible as I was thinking of a 256Mb card for some reason.

PAE fixes the problem (kinda) on Win2K and Win2K3 by allowing a 36bit addressable memory space, but I don't think it does a damned thing on XP or Vista.

We got a Dell with a very similar spec, minus monitors, from PC World for £800 last week. And of course we'll be claiming the VAT back on that.

It's outrageous - and stupid, because it came with 32bit Vista.

We're using it as our build PC, although the bossman just commandeered it to run some intensive processing (that takes 48 hours per run, of which he usually has to do multiple, on his current machine) so we'll probably not see it much ever again.

I run XP x64 on my main home PC (the one I'm typing this on) and have done since it came out. It's aces, and to be honest I have nothing that doesn't have a workable driver, and have bought nothing that couldn't be persuaded to work.

Also, based on Server 2003, it's stable and fast as hell.

So. Where do you work, Rich? Lots of security, is there?


Just curious.

Well yes. I remember when I got a 3.5 inch external drive for my CPC that allowed me 800k a disk. This twice as much as a standard 3 inch disc allowed so was cause for excitement.

However my needs in those days were for 18k files from Art Studio, Protext files that were usually less than 50k and games so 800k seemed alot.

Meanwhile I'm typing this on my new £150 Dell powerhouse. Well 2.8Ghz and half a gig of RAM is a luxury compared to the knackared Athlon 1800 that failed last week. This PC is only a convinience and not used for anything power hungry.

Well, if you INSIST, Alisha.

Also, as from last night, ph33r people in my work having FIVE monitors.

Gihh.

My boss used to work for one of the main UK banks in their trading arm. For stock traders, eight monitors isn't an unusual setup, for the same reason (and these would have been 8 CRTS back then, so quite a commitment of space and heat compared to eight LCDs).

How are they arranged? I've got a 'slot' for another monitor that I haven't used yet.

Pentagon set up for 360 view?

My work computer, which I have to set up and modify excel spreadsheets for the music scores I lend out, play departmental music on over the speakers, use the internet for ordering and workflows for cataloguing and issuing, has only 256mb of ram. It keeps crashing as a result. I've tried to get another stick of ram, but the council have been dragging their feet for the last six months over it. Despite the fact it would only be about £10 tops.

And yet they're happy to buy train tickets for distant corporate meetings and spend huge amounts on rebranded stationary. Curious. AGGH AAAGHGAAAHHH AGH!

Council for the windows inferior desktop system!

Five is too many to have in a row, I think. You have to start thinking about building up as well as out.

I know your game. You'll be spending my tax to play Harrier Attack with your new RAM. I'm going to write to the Daily Mail......

Actually when I used to work in IT the company I worked for had run out of money so I had to juggle resources. This basically meant taking RAM out of managements machines in putting it in the machines of the people who took part in our daily Half Life sessions. This also extended to things like video cards, processors and anything else that would benefit our games playing.

I already do

I know the feeling; our particular branch of civil service is happy to spunk away money on branded mugs and cups, and mouse promoting our corporate values (even though optical mice are standard equipment), but when a colleague requested a USB hub, he was told that as it's classed as IT equipment he'd have to ask his manager's manager's manager's manager (ie. his Grade 7 officer) to put forward a business case...

Next to each other, in a big row.

Hmm, no - my desk isn't big enough for that.

They don't have this logo on them, do they?



Worth every penny, that.

Them paying for that logo brought happiness to millions, which is more than anything else they've ever done