Category Archives: PCs/Laptops

PCs, laptops and hardware

It’s Screen Time!

Too much screen time?
Camera: SONY DSC-RX100M7 | Date: 28-07-2021 06:25 | Resolution: 4939 x 2469 | ISO: 400 | Exp. bias: -1 EV | Exp. Time: 1/30s | Aperture: 2.8 | Focal Length: 9.0mm (~24.0mm)

Is this what they mean by “too much screen time”?

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Posted in Humour, PCs/Laptops | 1 Comment

"This is Bloody Dangerous!"

More MacBook battery woes – this time it’s serious. The title is a quote from arguably the greatest of Hollywood Musicals, Paint Your Wagon. The words are uttered by Mad Jack Duncan, a gold miner engaged in digging a shallow Continue reading

Saturday, July 24, 2021 in PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World

Death of an Alien

An Upgrade Too Far, OR: Don’t Count Your Aliens Before They Explode Out Of Your Thorax! Prior to 2009, I regularly upgraded our desktop PC / server, changing the entire hardware and/or rebuilding from scratch every year or two. There Continue reading

Wednesday, November 20, 2019 in PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World

Why I Like My MacBook, But I’m Beginning To Really Hate Apple

Battery Replacement on a 2015 MacBook I realised a couple of weeks ago, much to my horror and chagrin, that I had been walking around with a potential incendiary bomb. Not that I had done anything wrong – this is Continue reading

Monday, December 17, 2018 in PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World

Form vs Function – a Tail :) of Three Mice

Just in case you think some of my recent posts have been a bit anti-Microsoft, here’s one in which (spoiler alert!) they win! Call me old-fashioned, but I very much prefer using a mouse to a trackpad or its relatives, Continue reading

Friday, September 30, 2016 in Agile & Architecture, PCs/Laptops

The Colour Nazis

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a movement obsessed with removing colour, especially those whose skin colour or religious preference was different to their own. This went to great extremes, caused the greatest of all wars, Continue reading

Wednesday, September 21, 2016 in Agile & Architecture, PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World

Microsoft : Busy Fixing What Ain’t Broke

There’s an interesting, but intensely annoying, behaviour by the big software companies, which as far as I’m aware has no parallel in other areas of production for consumer consumption. We’ve all been used, since the mid-20th century, to the concept Continue reading

Monday, August 29, 2016 in Agile & Architecture, PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World

Backing Up

Coming up with a reliable backup policy is a challenge as data volumes grow. My approach is as follows. On a weekly basis I do a full backup of the system disk of the more "volatile" PCs in our collection, Continue reading

Thursday, February 4, 2016 in PCs/Laptops, Photography, Santorini, Thoughts on the World

Weinberg’s New Law, and the Upgrade Cascade

When I started the experiment of running Windows on a MacBook (continued here and here), I really expected it to just be a "travel" laptop, continuing with something like my Alienware R17X as primary machine. That changed rapidly when I Continue reading

Friday, January 22, 2016 in PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World

Standardising the Mac Keyboard

My MacBook Pro is, ironically, the best portable PC I’ve owned. The Big Old Alien is slightly faster and more powerful, but you’d never use the word "portable" about it without gritted teeth, and since the PC world went to Continue reading

Wednesday, May 27, 2015 in PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World

The Experiment Continues

The MacBook Pro has arrived, and for a nearly four year old PC it’s in very good nick. There’s one unfortunate scratch on the top lid, but otherwise it’s very clean and works well. The 8GB RAM I switched out Continue reading

Wednesday, December 3, 2014 in PCs/Laptops

An Experiment

Readers of longer standing may remember the agonising when I had to replace my 2009 Toshiba laptop, as there had been yet another shift in screen aspect ratio standards, and in order to preserve a decent vertical screen size, I Continue reading

Sunday, November 23, 2014 in PCs/Laptops, Thoughts on the World