Looking at doing an upgrade and a downgrade of the home pc's this year.

I intend to upgrade the home theater pc to a slightly more gruntier and quieter model by aiming for one of those motherboards with a decent onboard video with a HDMI port, a bigger hard drive (not Seagate ), and a blue ray DVD player

Get the right case with nice quiet fans and I shall be laughing.

As for the downgrade option I am looking at one of those cheapish Compaq laptops simply for email, internet and office type of shite.

Anyone else making plans for 2009?

Sign up for Boxee for Windows (http://www.boxee.tv)

Basically its HTPC software with social and web elements. i.e. Youtube, revision3, FlickR etc built in. Social elements being friends, can see what they've watched and what they recommend etc.

Also shows episode info and cover art for any TV shows or movies you've got stored
But, currently no DVR capability yet. Still an alpha mode but looking very promising

Anyway that advertisement aside 2009 projects... Hmm I have projects but no timeframe as of yet. Among the list are
- Install structured cabling in all the rooms
- Build a file server and implement PXE, Imaging and software toolkit software as well as being a file server for all my episodes.
- Look into purchasing Wireless X10 devices and hooking them into the Intranet

For me it depends on when MS gets FS11 out. I'll most likely build a Intel Core i7 940 Quad
Core based PC. By then the 940 should be affordable.

CK

You are always building every year. In fact I swear you must be on first name basis with the crew at NCIX by now.

For a quiet pc you think I should go with AMD or Intel? AMD runs hotter than Intel right?

For a home theatre system I believe I don't need the latest model of cpu (but aiming for blue ray may have some input in that decision)

I am with a couple of them. Especially a Auzzi guy who gives me an extra % off when I
manage to get his number. Yes, the place is so freakin' busy you have to take a number at the door.


I think AMD is still winning the Watt game. Although for media applications the new i7 Core
Intel just SCREAM! The 920 will be affordable as Intel is about to cut some prices 10%-14%.

CK

Have started updating the home system

This Netgear wireless router arrived yesterday and has made a difference.

One power plug instead of 3 (ADSL modem, Wireless router and a hub) has made a huge difference to the multiplug adapter already.

This was overdue especially after both my sons got their own pc and are heavily into gaming.

Once I upgrade the HTPC I might just move this router down to the lounge.

SS, was this the one you recommended a while back?

Was what the one? The router?
Dunno, never tried netgear

Okay I remember you recommending one that looked very similar to this one (no aerials etc) that you got for your parents probably going back a while back now but this is obviously not the case so carry on...

I think SS was talking about a Linksys.

CK

Well I'm glad someone's memory is still functioning you old fart

Who the hell are again?

CK

*blows the cobwebs out to the thread*

Well so much for upgrades on the pc front. The shift to Aussie has put some of that into the backburner but it did bring out how "old" the OS felt after playing with Vista on the Dell laptop for the past 4 months.

Not to mention that since the kids are no longer attending their old school in NZ we are not suppose to have the old school copy of XP Pro on our 3 desktops (I was never 100% sure about the legalities of that one but it came at the right price at the time).

Anyhow it was brought to my attention that good ol' MS have brought out a family pack of Windows7 for 3 pcs at your home for $250 (thats in Aussie $) so hey hey I thought it was time for an upgrade in that area at least.

Yes I know SS has been singing its praises for a while and I felt like pooh poohing it because of MS being such global wankers when they first brought out Vista etc but I have to say I like it.

Installing caused some minor trepidation as the scan for compatibility program showed there will be some issues with a driver for the network adapter, which at first was definitely the case. It looked like it was all going to end in tears but I inserted the motherboard disc and pointed the OS to the folder for the driver, which at first brought up another no go message, but then the OS prompted if I wanted to install as in a previous format (thats probably not the exact wording) and whalla! it worked!

Nice one MS

I take my hat off and have to say that MS has definitely gots it software and marketing right this time.

On a side note is anyone else getting the feeling that Apple with all their I-gadgets are starting to replace MS as the tech company that is trying to take over the world. Never gave this much thought til the other day when a mate brought it up in a conversation.

Not sure if I mentioned this on another forum here but....

We had 2 students come attend with exactly the same laptops....same brand...same model
with the same specs exactly. The only difference being one was bought with Vista installed
and the other with Windows7. The lady with Vista had never bothered to take the free Win7
upgrade. I started the boot on both laptops at the same time one day. I used task manager
to watch for the System Idle CPU usage to settle at 99%.

The Vista laptop took just under a full minute LONGER to boot. No software had been
loaded on either laptop. Opening EI or Windows Mail was faster on the W7 machine also.
Everything about the W7 laptop was faster.

After having lived with Windows7 on students laptops I'm looking forward to building my
next PC and loading W7.

CK

Is it true that W7 is really just a slimmed down version of Vista?

Not trimmed just tuned.
It will start quicker than Vista but that's due to some services sitting on a delayed start now.

You'll notice it on slower PCs such as netbooks as the sound card doesn't kick in until a bit later. In the meantime you see an icon displaying "no sound present" before goes "oh look, nevermind!"

I have noticed how the Dell laptop (Vista) always seeming to choke at first when started up but quickly "clears it throat" and moves on...

We (the seniors computer classes) just bought two 24" monitors so we now have 2 Acer
desktops running Vista. We were supposed to get the Windows7 upgrade but the outside
company Acer hired to distribute W7 is being a bit of a pain with us. We may have to go
back to the company we bought the PCs from and get them to stick their nose into the
fight.

CK

Sounds like that company has been snowed under with all the "upgrades" of Vista to W7.