Showing tag results for Other

Nov 7, 2006
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There's going to be an awful lot more overclocking out there

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Last year, I told the story of overclocking being the source of a lot of mysterious crashes and that some of those overclocked machines were overclocked at the store. These machines came from small, independent shops rather than the major manufacturers. Well it looks like that's about to change. Gateway's FX530 Desktop can be ordered overclocke...

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Nov 6, 2006
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On the importance of backwards compatibility for large corporations

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Representatives from the IT department of a major worldwide corporation came to Redmond and took time out of their busy schedule to give a talk on how their operations are set up. I was phenomenally impressed. These people know their stuff. Definitely a world-class operation. One of the tidbits of information they shared with us is some numbers ab...

Other
Nov 1, 2006
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I bet somebody got a really nice bonus for that feature

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

I often find myself saying, "I bet somebody got a really nice bonus for that feature." "That feature" is something aggressively user-hostile, like forcing a shortcut into the Quick Launch bar or the Favorites menu, like automatically turning on a taskbar toolbar, like adding an icon to the notification area that conveys no useful information but ...

Other
Oct 27, 2006
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Now it looks like I speak far more languages than I actually do

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

The folks over at TechNet Magazine have done something really cool: They've started translating all their articles into Spanish, French, German, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Simplified Chinese. (But no Swedish.) You can change your language on the fly with the combo box in the corner. (MSDN Magazine is doing the same thing. It's an epi...

Other
Oct 26, 2006
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Let the dead computer scavenging commence!

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Now that my old computer is up on bricks in the virtual front yard, the scavenging has begun. I got a piece of email from one of my colleagues saying, "Say, you aren't using that PC-2100 memory any more are you?" Why no, in fact, I wasn't. Christmas comes early. (He offered to buy the memory off of me, but since I had already written the old comp...

OtherDead computers
Oct 25, 2006
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Non-resolution of the dead home desktop problem

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Last time, I told of attempting to upgrade my home computer and failing. I ultimately gave up and returned the parts to the store, telling them that I thought the IDE controller on the motherboard was dead. They refunded my money after a false step where they refunded me more than I paid for the components in the first place! (I bought the motherb...

OtherDead computers
Oct 24, 2006
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More tales of dead computers: My home desktop

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Yes, I said that my next dead computer story would be the AlphaServer, but late-breaking news has forced me to shuffle the order a bit. My home computer has been circling the drain for several months. (The Northbridge fan would buzz and sometimes spin really slowly.) When the motherboard finally stopped powering on, I knew its time was up. Being...

OtherDead computers
Oct 18, 2006
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Don't require your users to have a degree in philosophy

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Help text is not the place to put logic puzzles. In Windows Vista, when you go to the System control panel, you are shown a number that describes your computer's rating. But are higher numbers better or worse? If I had a choice, would it be better to have a 1 rating or a 5 rating? In earlier betas of Windows Vista, you had to ...

Other
Oct 16, 2006
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640 x 480 is still not dead

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Windows still has to worry about displays running at 640×480 resolution. Even though the default minimum resolution was bumped up to 800×600 for Windows XP, there are still 640×480 devices out there, typically tiny monitors on servers. One common set-up is to have a bank of tiny little monitors, each corresponding to one serv...

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