Tilted Tech Support

For what it's worth, Martian et al., I went with a refurbished 21.5-inch iMac 2.7GHz quad-core i5, saving me $200 on the sticker price.

I figured that the point regarding the graphics card was pretty valid, considering that I don't think I'll max the load on the i5 too much, if at all, but I could very well give the HD 4000 a run for its money on a number of occasions. I started thinking about how visually rich the Internet is becoming, and figured that GPUs will become more important in terms of handling such environments.

I guess having the better GPU would give me more peace of mind if I want to use the machine for the next three to five years. And it really doesn't come at such a greater cost when you weigh all the differences.

I was going to wait until the anticipated iMac update in mid-October, but then I got thinking that the update probably won't give me a noticeable performance difference over the 2012 model. Plus, I'd be paying full price. Plus, availability might be an issue at first. Plus, I should have bought one of these last year anyway. I really need to replace my machine soon. Also, I picked up a new Time Capsule (my current one is also six years old), and I can't really set it up right for backups on my current machine because it can't run the most recent version of AirPort Utility. In other words, this is yet another sign of aging hardware. I've gotten so used to the slow performance of this iMac. My SO doesn't know how I deal with it, but then I remember that I spent years working on aging Power Mac G4s before going to my MacBook in 2006.

The other issue is that the iMac is a true all-in-one solution. I started thinking about things such as what I was going to do regarding a webcam. I didn't really want to drop $30 or $50 on a cam for the Mac mini, especially when compatibility (and continuing compatibility) is an issue for third-party multimedia devices such as those in OS X. Video meetings are going to be a regular thing for me.

Finally, I think I really will appreciate going back to a dual-monitor workspace. I haven't done it in a while, but once I fire it up again, I'll likely think, "Man, why didn't I just replace that damn cable?"

And it will be a bit improved. My last setup was 22" x 20"; this one will be 22" x 21.5". It doesn't seem like much of a difference, but I'm sure I'll notice it.

Anyway, I guess I should thank you, Martian, for planting that seed in my brain regarding the GPU. I'm sure I made the right choice.

 

Thanks to financial aid, I'll be getting a little more money this fall. I'd like to build myself a new desktop computer. My current desktop is essentially nonfunctional because HP stopped supporting the BIOS and it has a 20-minute boot time. Given that I paid $50 for a computer that served me well for a couple years, I'm not really bothered by its death, and it does have some parts I can reuse in other builds should I choose to.

I'm looking to spend around $500, and I do need a case. I'd like to buy a case that will last me a few builds at the minimum. I'm an Intel girl. I do play games, but I don't playing anything too intense, so I probably don't need some super-spendy graphics card. However, I would like my games to be pretty, so there is a balance to be struck. I'd like this build to last me at least 2 years at the minimum. I probably don't need an HDD, as I have a 500GB SATA drive in the old computer, but I will need a motherboard with ATA connections, as I still have several HDDs with ATA connections that I'd like to be able to hook up. I have a copy of Windows 7 to install on it.

Thanks in advance for suggestions.

 

In my readings about GPUs, I came across ample information demonstrating that differences between GPUs can have much greater variances on performance than differences between CPUs. In other words, you can have, say, an i3 vs. an i7. If the i3 has even a slightly better GPU, it could easily perform better for games than the i7.

In other words, rather than reach as high as you can for a better, beefier CPU, perhaps lean more towards a balance between the CPU and GPU.

I've also read that the more recent advances in chip architecture has had diminishing performance improvements compared to previous periods.

So, I guess if I were you, if I could get a decent i5 chip for pretty cheap, there probably isn't anything wrong with that. No need to go out of your way for a higher-end i7 chip.

Special computing requirements notwithstanding, but it doesn't sound like you're doing anything crazy computationwise.

 

I'm either enough of a nerd or an old enough nerd to know these numbers off-hand (take your pick). USB 3 has a throughput of 5 Gb/s whereas IDE maxed out around 1 Gb/s. So yes, there's a bit of headroom there.

$500 is a pretty tight budget for a machine that will be used for gaming, but it's doable. You'll probably want something like a GTX 650 and an i5 of some description. 8 GB RAM is also an excellent idea but the last time I was looking at it RAM was cheap enough that this shouldn't be much of an obstacle.

There are a couple of possibilities here. If I get this kind of wonky behaviour and I can't pinpoint the cause a factory reset is usually my go-to solution. It could also potentially be a hardware problem, in which case the Nexus 4 is available from the Play store for $199 currently. But try the factory reset and see if that helps.

 

Well, I can probably skip the video card for now--the one in the desktop I'm replacing was still pretty new 2 years ago, and it make Skyrim look pretty enough. I've priced out a build on Newegg that comes to about $550 with everything but a graphics card. We'll see if hubby agrees to my selections once the money comes in.

 

I'm flip-flopping on this a bit.

At first, I was all interested in just wiping the machine and running basic programs on Linux.

Now I'm toying with the idea of using it as a Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) box.

A bit of background: I loved playing LOTRO. I'm a fantasy nerd, and I had grown tired of the smorgasbord that was World of Warcraft. I certainly was tired of paying $15/month for it.

The problem? The downloader/launcher for LOTRO online crapped out on me. There is a well-known issue in Vista, where the program has a conflict with the stupid UAC (user account control) feature. With certain setups, it won't launch even if you run it as an administrator. One of the updates for the game must have changed something. I redownloaded the whole game and reinstalled it to no avail. I was pissed off because I was out a perfectly good free game.

I noticed that they now have a Mac client, but I don't want to use my iMac for gaming, as it's for work.

I also noticed that there are some folks who have developed some things that allow Linux to run the game. I know there are no guarantees, but I was thinking of still going for the Ubuntu install and perhaps using it to run LOTRO. I have much of Middle-earth I haven't seen yet. I have barely left the Shire (I made it to Bree).

Is this a project that's doable?

 

Success!

To Middle-earth!

For the record, I found this to be the single most helpful page: Installing LOTRO in Wine - Lee's Linux Blog

However, I did rely on some troubleshooting through various Google searches.

EDIT: Also, I'm trying out the stability with the four 1 GB RAM chips I have. They were crashing the system when I was running Vista. I'm not sure if this is more of a hardware issue or an OS issue, but I'm going to see if Ubuntu is more stable with them installed. So I'm running 4 GB instead of my usual 2 GB right now.

 

Uhhh... sounds like an OS issue.

 

Antivirus... on server?

Sorry, you need a Windows dude for that. I hear Avast is good for personal use but how that works on a server is beyond me. I mostly just wanted to comment that as a certified Linux Dude I find the concept of installing antivirus software on my servers to be deeply puzzling.

 

It must be the motherboard or something. It was running fine for a few hours. When I tried to boot up again, it was giving me errors. When I switched back to the original RAM, everything was fine again.

 

DNSBLs don't list domains, they list IP addresses.

There are a few different methodologies used to determine spam. Some track backscatter, some track honeypot addresses. Knowing what the originating IP address and which list(s) you were on would be helpful for diagnostics.

Your Exchange server should not be sharing an outgoing IP address with anything else. It needs to have it's own IP, with correct forward and reverse DNS configured. You also need to make sure the HELO is correct and valid. And of course the obvious thing, make sure you're not acting as an open relay.

One of the services my company provides is managed email, so this is something I deal with pretty regularly, but my servers are all Postfix/Dovecot so I can't offer Exchange-specific help.