J . M A I L

SSD for Me

Yesterday I bit the bullet and went out and got myself an Intel SSD hard drive. I was able to get an 80 gig drive for around $20 under cost and even still it wasn’t cheap, costing almost half the price of my current laptop (Gateway EC1803h).

I posted my windows experience index above and as you can see the score for the hard disk is incredibly high. As for real work noticeable differences, faster boot times, slightly faster hibernate times, faster app loading (eg. word loads almost instantly). However, after I get Word, Firefox, Tweetdeck, and Digsby loaded up the laptop runs about the same as it would with a regular hard drive.

The SD drive itself was noticeably lighter than the old hard drive it was replacing. My current laptop is a bit over 3 pounds so at this weight every gram counts.

I hope to get marginal improvements in battery life as well.

I bought the drive because I figured if I do get a new system in the near future I can just move the HD over and if I don’t get a new system at least my current setup will be a bit faster and hopefully more usable due to the speed increase.

So far I can’t say if the SSD was worth the price. The reviews of SSD drives on the web are crazy positive but I am gonna hold off on deciding how worthwhile they are a bit longer. So far so good though…

Tablets, Netbooks, Nooks, Galore

I am trying to decide if I should pick up a new laptop or tablet. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Here is some internal dialogue:

1. Do I need a new tablet, netbook, or ereader

Answer: No.

2. Should I get an ereader for reading papers?

Answer: No, I can’t annotate them with any kind of stylus. I also like physical paper and books.

3: Should I get a tablet?

Answer: For what I do, word, firefox, and digsby ~ maybe.

4. Should I get an iPad?

Answer: Not when things like this are coming out.

5. What about a laptop?

I am thinking about this one:

Thin, light (3 pounds), 8 + hours of battery, i3 culv processor and then I would add an 80 gig intel ssd hd (specs/link)

Price would come out to about $850 cad

…

To be honest I shouldn’t really buy any of these but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about all the new toys out there. My current laptop is fine cpu wise, the only thing that might be nice is better battery and an ssd drive.

I could buy an ssd drive and add it to the current laptop to see how I like it.

Another thought I have had is that if I am gonna upgrade then maybe I should get a 13” model but feel that 11.6” might be the perfect size.

Now the things about the toys is that none of them would break the bank. If I didn’t already have an 11.6” laptop I would get either a table or new laptop for sure. The question is whether to upgrade to a whole new machine when I don’t really need to, wait and then upgrade, get a new ssd drive and stick with the current machine, or buy nothing and save the cash.

What do you think blog-o-sphere?

Calibri

Calibri is a humanist sans-serif typeface family under the Microsoft ClearType Font Collection.

In Microsoft Office 2007, it replaced Times New Roman as the default typeface in Word and replaced Arial as the default in PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.

Calibri was designed by Lucas de Groot for Microsoft to take advantage of Microsoft’s ClearType rendering technology.

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FROM WIKI : Calibri

Availability

The typeface is distributed with Windows Vista, Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2007, and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.

This typeface, along with Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, and Corbel, is also distributed with the free Powerpoint 2007 Viewer^[2] and the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

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If you don’t have any of these products then have fun will arial or helvetica on this blog. Everyone else enjoy the clear type font :)

Temperature Affects on the Transmission of the Common Cold Virus

Hearing someone say they don’t want to catch cold as they bundle up to go outdoors bothers me all the time. It’s like saying, “Hey I am going outside, better wear a hat to avoid illiteracy.” It makes no sense!

Molecular surface of one variant of human rhinovirus.

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From the FBHC

“Does cold weather cause a cold?

Although many people are convinced that a cold results from exposure to cold weather, or from getting chilled or overheated, NIAID grantees have found that these conditions have little or no effect on the development or severity of a cold. Nor is susceptibility apparently related to factors such as exercise, diet, or enlarged tonsils or adenoids. On the other hand, research suggests that psychological stress, allergic disorders affecting the nasal passages or pharynx (throat), and menstrual cycles may have an impact on a person’s susceptibility to colds.”

END FREAKOUT