GuruNews, Volume 8 Number 24, 7-10-08

Thu Jul 10 22:14:51 EDT 2008

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Vol. 8, No. 24                 

7-10-08

1 Technology marches on         

2 DO you know what you're doing?    

3 That was quick, RIAA shenanigans, infrastructure threat, WHOA!

4 Track your usage

5 Free security

Ten years ago computer processors averaged about 300 MHz, sending data at 100 MHz through the motherboard circuitry to the RAM.  Today's systems average around 3.6 GHz with the latest chips running at 6 GHz and faster.

Communication with the rest of the system now moves around 533 MHz with the high end running at 800 MHz.

Video has improved phenomenally, going from a glorified device that simply passed the signal from your motherboard through to the monitor to one that is all but a computer within a computer, with far more processor power that usually found in five year old CPUs.

And the sheer size of things has exploded.  That 128 MB of RAM that was more than enough has become 2 GB, and that 20 GB hard drive that you couldn't possibly fill up now averages 250 GB.  Hard drive transfer speed has shot through the roof as well.

Back in the day data plodded along at 100 Mb/sec, but the latest SATA II (second generation Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) transfers at a blistering 3 Gb/sec.  That 30-fold increase is probably the largest in PC hardware but it comes nowhere near the speed increases seen on the Internet.

Ten years ago we were all content with our dial-up 40 Kbps, but today the speeds range from 6 Mbps for DSL to an astonishing 30 Mbps for business class cable.  That's an astonishing 750-fold increase!  And true fiber networks running end to end are breaking in the Gbps range, meaning ten years from now worldwide network access will make today's speed look like a snail's pace.

Hardware speeds may slow development in the near term, since it's rapidly approaching the first wall in Moore's Law.  That Law, which was coined by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, states that the number of transistors imbedded in an integrated circuit with double every two years.  Up until now that has proven essentially true.

But that wall is fast approaching and that wall is heat.  As more electrons move through more molecule-sized transistors at faster speeds they generate more waste heat, which we all know makes computers unstable.  The introduction of multi-core chips, which feature two or more processors running at slower speeds but giving higher performance, delayed the crash for a while but at this point even they are starting to tip.

Researchers are looking for solutions and the team at Purdue University has developed a tiny cooling unit that operates on a fluid-cooled system (http://www.overclockersclub.com/news/22673/) as opposed to air cooled and may soon be incorporated into laptops and desktops.  This will allow much higher rates of heat dissipation.

That gives us some breathing room, but the second wall is not so easily scaled.

That one is the size of the transistors, which can eventually go beyond the molecular level to the atomic level, but that one will be all but impossible for now.  You can't exactly make smaller atoms, and going to the particle level but really, it just ain't gonna happen.  You can't move an electron through something the size of an electron.

Maybe ten years will become 10,000 years for that breakthrough, but who knows.  I know I won't wait around for it ;)

Believe it or not, I started this little instructional article due to a notice from Insight that they are beginning a 3-4 week phase of upgrades to their systems in the Louisville area that could lead to some periodic outages.  Basically they're even now working to make things faster.

If you are an Insight customer and suddenly lose connectivity in the next month don't panic.  Just give it 10-30 minutes and then remove power from your cable modem and router, if you use one.  Then plug the modem back in and wait until you have a solid Cable light (I'm not an Insight customer so I could be off here, it could be labeled Internet or Link or something similar) then plug the router back in.

Reboot the PC after saving all open files and once you're back to the Desktop you'll likely be online again.  Believe me, a few days of annoyance will have large payoffs in stability and speed.

Now go download something!

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

Tech News of the Week

Just hours after iPhone 2.0 hit stores it was unlocked and ready to be configured for any phone network:

http://gizmodo.com/5023971/iphone-os-20-unlocked-yes

The RIAA caught in a lie?  Unpossible!

http://tinyurl.com/63mzej 

You didn't really think the backbone of the Internet was safe, did you?

http://tinyurl.com/5dpl4e

One of the greatest photos I've ever seen.  Three things you'd never expect to see together (warning, it's huge so you will have to scroll horizontally):

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080705.html

Copy us on the good stuff

Matthew Dattilo

thepcgurus at gmail.com 

www.mattstodayinhistory.com

Download of the Week

Here's a simple, easy way to check on your current bandwidth use -- both upload and download -- and also to track your usage over time. This freebie displays your bandwidth use in a constantly changing chart, so that you can see it in real time. It also shows you the current bandwidth use in a text display. Bandwidth Monitor Lite is very customizable --- you can, for example, skin it, change the time span in which it measures bandwidth, and so on by right-clicking in the main window. Also very useful is that it will keep logs of your bandwidth use, so that you can compare it over time.  Get it here: http://www.rokario.com/ 

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

Email Question of the Week

Q:  What do you guys recommend for PC virus protection, antispyware? Is there a free quality down load program?

A:  For Anti-virus, we suggest either AVG http://free.grisoft.com or Avast http://www.avast.com .  I personally use Avast for any machine I work on.  Both products are free.  Always remember to uninstall your current anti-virus program before you install a new one.  Two on the same machine rarely play well together.

For spyware, I personally use and install Spybot Search and Destroy http://www.spybot.info .  Kevin has recently recommended Malwarebytes Anti-Malware http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware.shtml  as well.  For both remember to keep these updated and run scans every week or so.  For Spybot, during the installation, uncheck the box for the TeaTimer feature, because it can cause more frustration than help in some cases.

Hope this helps, and be sure to e-mail back if you have any questions of comments!

Daniel A. Williams
daniel at thepcgurus.com

Contact info and legal stuff

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