OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[Tony G]

So many apps have memory leaks,

I did not know my brain was an app!

[Topweasel]

Only 4GB of RAM? As cheap as RAM is, I'd always go with 8GB. If it's a high markup on a new PC, you can add it aftermarket on the cheap.

So many apps have memory leaks, especially web browsing.

It was the list of programs that he mentioned. A single app still can only use 2GB of memory for the most part (unless you specifically install a 64bit program) and any standard program that would come close to it (lets say Firefox after a memory leak), your minutes from an App crash anyways. Windows 7 has a great memory manager to begin with and Win 8 kicks that up a notch with little overhead. So really anything more then 4 GB is just helping with super fetching.

That said Memory is cheap. The more the merrier. But when buying prepackaged PC's, the higher the memory, the uselessly higher the specs of everything, the higher the price. So yeah upgrading later is the smarter move and it usually ridiculously easy on most desktops and a good portion of laptop (though you go much father outside those two it gets much harder or impossible). But the major point is 4 GB is good enough for what he is looking for so he doesn't need to shoot for something that has more then that out of the box.

[Coop]

Only 4GB of RAM? As cheap as RAM is, I'd always go with 8GB. If it's a high markup on a new PC, you can add it aftermarket on the cheap.

So many apps have memory leaks, especially web browsing.

agree with your take ULF - to clarify for those who don't know, make sure you go with Windows x64 as x32 won't recognize more than 4 GB of RAM.

[LionsFanInJapan]

Life on Mars? This is pretty geeky stuff right here!

Curiosity Rover’s Secret Historic Breakthrough? Speculation Centers on Organic Molecules



Much of the internet is buzzing over upcoming “big news” from NASA’s Curiosity rover, but the space agency’s scientists are keeping quiet about the details.

The report comes by way of the rover’s principal investigator, geologist John Grotzinger of Caltech, who said that Curiosity has uncovered exciting new results from a sample of Martian soil recently scooped up and placed in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument.

“This data is gonna be one for the history books. It’s looking really good,” Grotzinger told NPR in an segment published Nov. 20. Curiosity’s SAM instrument contains a vast array of tools that can vaporize soil and rocks to analyze them and measure the abundances of certain light elements such as carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen – chemicals typically associated with life.

The mystery will be revealed shortly, though. Grotzinger told Wired through e-mail that NASA would hold a press conference about the results during the 2012 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco from Dec. 3 to 7. Because it’s so potentially earth-shaking, Grotzinger said the team remains cautious and is checking and double-checking their results. But while NASA is refusing to discuss the findings with anyone outside the team, especially reporters, other scientists are free to speculate.

“If it’s going in the history books, organic material is what I expect,” says planetary scientist Peter Smith from the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Smith is formerly the principal investigator on a previous Mars mission, the Phoenix lander, which touched down at the Martian North Pole in 2008. “It may be just a hint, but even a hint would be exciting.”

Smith added that he is not in contact with anyone from the Curiosity team about their results and offered his assessment as an informed outside researcher.

Organic molecules are those that contain carbon and are potential indicators of life. During its mission, Phoenix heated a sample of soil to search for organics but these efforts were stymied by the presence of perchlorates, chemical salts that sit in the Martian soil. Perchlorates react to heat and destroy any complex organic molecules, leaving only carbon dioxide, which is abundant in the Martian atmosphere.

The Viking landers, which explored opposite sides of Mars in the late 1970s, also conducted a search for organic molecules and came up empty. For decades afterward, astronomers considered Mars to be a dead planet, with conditions not very conducive to life. After the results from Phoenix, scientists realized that perchlorates were probably messing with those earlier findings as well, and could account for their negative outcome.

Curiosity’s suite of laboratory instruments are able to slowly heat a sample in a way that doesn’t trigger the perchlorates. They can also weigh any molecules present, determining how much carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen they are made from. Simple organic compounds wouldn’t be completely shocking, said Smith, since these probably come from meteorites originating in the asteroid belt and probably are around on present-day Mars. But they would indicate that the building blocks for life are present on Mars and might only need the addition of water, which Mars had in the past, in order to produce organisms.

“If they found signatures of a very complex organic type, that would be astounding,” said Smith, since they would likely be leftovers from complex life forms that once roamed Mars. But the odds of finding such a startling result in a sample of sand scooped from a random dune are “very, very low,” Smith said.

Smith cautioned against speculating too much, since rumors have a way of spreading rapidly when it comes to any discussion of potential life on Mars. During his tenure on the Phoenix mission, his team was evaluating the interesting perchlorate results, which they kept secret during analysis. Rumors got out and then became worse and worse when some unsubstantiated report claimed a member of his team meeting was meeting with the White House.

“When you keep things secret, people start thinking all kinds of crazy things,” he said.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/curiosity-historic-news-organics/

[CaptainBlue]

My smart phone upgraded to ICS Android 4.0.4 this morning. It seems to be draining my battery very quickly. Also some of my apps don't work properly. Anybody know how to fix these issues.

[The Ken]

My smart phone upgraded to ICS Android 4.0.4 this morning. It seems to be draining my battery very quickly. Also some of my apps don't work properly. Anybody know how to fix these issues.

turn off location services, auto updates, check your brightness factor, make sure bluetooth wifi are off (at least bluetooth).

of course do a hard power down and bring it back up.

Then look at settings and battery to see what is using the battery.

Update your launcher if you have one to the latest compatible version if you haven 't already.

[Tony G]

get the app named CARAT. It will tell you what's draining your battery and memory

[Fraquar]

Only 4GB of RAM? As cheap as RAM is, I'd always go with 8GB. If it's a high markup on a new PC, you can add it aftermarket on the cheap.

So many apps have memory leaks, especially web browsing.

People need to use that additional memory though. Best use of it is to make a Ram drive and point your browsers cache and temp file directories there. If we are talking about someone that just wants to point and click, they are going to need a little help setting that up.

[The Ken]

People need to use that additional memory though. Best use of it is to make a Ram drive and point your browsers cache and temp file directories there. If we are talking about someone that just wants to point and click, they are going to need a little help setting that up.

Just put a newer style SSD drive in for Windows, the swap file, applications and current application data. Leave the 500 GB - 3TB for Archive or pure storage.

I have an Ivy Bridge I5 notebook that only came with 4GB of RAM, I added the Cherryville 520 240GB and have not missed the 4GB I should have added at all. I really can't tell when I am disk thrashing, of course I am putting extra wear on the drive.

From BIOS post to GINA is 6 seconds.

My recommendation is the Intel Cherryville 520 Series, they are 6GB and the Intel toolbox is incredible. It will tune your drive so you don't wear it out (prefetch, making sure Trim is working, disabling defrag etc.

For those of you who just added a SSD drive and haven't tuned it, I know SAMSUNG and INTEL both have toolboxes to tune the drive. If your MFG doesn't have a toolbox then goolge tuning SSD drives, otherwise you are not maximizing performance and you are wearing out the drive.

[Tony G]

should anything that comes with the SSD installed from the factory be setup already? I'm looking at Dell and Asus

[The Ken]

should anything that comes with the SSD installed from the factory be setup already? I'm looking at Dell and Asus

they don't at all. Dell uses crucial for consumer and lite-on or Samsung for enterprise. While Samsung has a toolbox Dell doesn't load it. Lite-on has Nothing nor does crucial (who is micron).

all this means is you will wear the drive out quicker and your performance isn't at optimum.

the below is an updated article

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-2/

[Fraquar]

Reading that article, where on earth do they get the 1 minute and 45 seconds SAVED from starting a non-SSD computer info from? Misinformation of the highest order.

The only computers I've ever used that took anywhere near that long to start were at work, where they are loading the network profile, loading the shit to monitor your ass and allow access to network resources.

[nhwbrooklyn]

This is pretty cool.

The transition to all monitors being touch monitors is continuing.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/03/sharp-ll-s201a-big-pad/

[Masspartan]

let me know if you find or see anything like that Sony Vaio Tap 20. I've already ordered one from Amazon though. I'd need to cancel soon which might not make Deb happy.

[nhwbrooklyn]

More options like that are probably coming. Again I'd wait just a tad longer to wait till the tech and interfaces mature and someone executes a really good one. (I know you don't want to wait for ever).