Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

Why Computers from Box Stores Don’t Save You Money

Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Why should you pay $600-$1200 for a computer we quoted, when you can go into (Best Buy/BJ’s/Walmart/Staples) and purchase a “fully loaded” computer for $350-$500?
Here are a few reasons: (more…)

Hardware Review: Logitech diNovo Mini

Monday, March 1st, 2010

I’ve been using a Logitech diNovo Mini keyboard to control my home entertainment system, a Mac Mini, for the last few weeks, and I love it. (more…)

Hardware Review: Astaro Security Gateway ASG110/120

Friday, September 18th, 2009

The Astaro Security Gateway is a product we have been using for a few years with various clients as a UTM (Unified Threat Management) device. It offers a number of features that they require, including network security, email security, and web surfing security. (more…)

Reasons to Keep Your Hardware Current

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Too often, we come across clients whose systems are out-dated. A general rule of thumb that we try to follow is replacing desktop systems every 3 years, servers every 5 years. These are general rules, and they don’t always apply. Here are some reasons you may need a hardware replacement now.

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You Can Never Have Too Much Memory

Friday, June 12th, 2009

This will be a short post on the virtues of keeping your computer hardware current. Even today, I still see older computers which would be perfectly capable of doing their job, but because of a lack of enough memory, they grind along at a glacial pace, causing significant employee productivity loss.task_manager

How can you tell if your machine could benefit from a memory upgrade? First off, if you hear your computer’s hard drive running hard, or see the hard drive indicator light on a lot, particularly if you have multiple applications running, that’s  a good sign. Another is to use the Task Manager, a utility included with all versions of Windows, to see how much memory your computer is using. The best time to do this is to during the middle of your work day, when you have the most applications running. In Windows, simply press Ctrl-Shift-Esc and you should see something like the image to the right. Pay attention to the “Available” number under “Physical Memory.” If this number is lower than, say, 256,000, your machine could probably benefit from a memory upgrade.

Techspeak alert! Note that if you have a standard, 32-bit version of Windows (2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, or 7), the maximum memory that your system can use is 4GB, minus the amount of memory used by your video card. So if you have a fancy video card for gaming or CAD or some other applicaiton which requires a high-end card, however much memory is on that card counts against the total amount in your system. If you find that you need more than 4GB of memory in your system, then you need to run a 64-bit version of Windows to use it, otherwise your computer will simply see 4GB as the maximum available, unless your computer supports Address Window Extensions to do some backflips to allow it to see more than 4GB of memory.