Glo Networks Technical Blog (Glo Blog)

It seems what was left of Microsoft’s diminishing lead in market capitalisation has finally been eaten up by Apple (or at least by one measure of market capitalization). While this probably will not come as a surprise to those who are interested in such things; when looking at the history of both companies it does mark an important milestone.

With both companies founded in 1975 this has been no short journey for either. However since that time Microsoft has maintained its dominance pretty much consistently, and it has only really been in the last 10 years (which has seen the release of such iconic Apple products as the iPod, iPhone and the Macbook) that Apple providing a challenge to Microsoft’s market supremacy.

Through out the ’00′s Apple  created several iconic, genre leading products with which Microsoft have seemed to struggled to compete . Business products aside, we would challenge you to offer a Microsoft product in the last 5 years that rivals Apples innovation. One possible exception worth considering is the Xbox 360, which was  ground breaking in terms of online connectivity when released in 2005. That said Apple have yet to enter the console gaming market!

More information and figures can be found in the following articles: Engadget, Financial Times, TGDaily

Tweet

Share

Save

Posted by James in Desktop Hardware, Desktops and Laptops, Laptop Hardware, Operating Systems, Software | No Comments »

So there’s now quite an uptake of SSDs in all manor of devices. And a few of us in the office have them in our devices. Every now and then the SSDs need firmware updating and the OS / image re-applying. More interesting though is the Windows 7 TRIM support offered by most current SSDs. TRIM support is needed to keep your SSD running as it’s optimum performance (which of course is why you bought it in the first place), however does anyone actualy know if it’s working ? Apparently running this from a command prompt will tell you -

fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

If it returns 0 then it is on in Windows.

However that test really isn’t any use as run it on any Windows 7 / Windows 2008 R2 server and you get 0 returned. So apparently it’s on and working on standard HDs also ? ! ? Also spotted this on the internet -

1. Right click on a disk drive, go to properties.
2. Select the Tools tab and click on Defragment now…
3. Click on Configure schedule…
4. Click on Select disks…
5. The SSD should not show up in the list of disks if Windows recognizes it as an SSD.

Amazes me that there’s obviously a lot of money being invested into SSD and rightly so as they do have obvious benifits. However if having TRIM support on your SSD is really that important then there should be some real way to check it’s working. Or is TRIM support just marketing hype and doing nothing ?

Anyone have the real answer ?

PS. Could all end user devices be exclusively SSD powered in the next few years with all bulk storage only done in the cloud or on your corperate servers ?

Tweet

Share

Save

Posted by Chris in Desktop Hardware, Desktops and Laptops | No Comments »

Accidents in the workplace happen all the time. In our world it’s usually limbs getting caught in racks, cases and clips. Unfortunately every now and then something really bad will happen and a bit of kit gets dropped.

In this case one of our staff dropped a PC (an IBM ThinkCentre) directly onto a Macbook Pro (3,1). Fearing the worst the PC was brushed aside[1] and we hurriedly opened the Macbook Pro. Surprisingly everything was still working. The screen isn’t broken. The keyboard is fine. Infact, it woke up from sleep seconds after the incident with no issues at all.

Similar things have happened in the office in the past, and invariably the laptop/phone/hand/foot has been completely destroyed, with a nerdy missle sticking comically out of it.

So there you go, another reason to buy Apple laptops. Other than looking cool in coffee shops and meetings.

Naturally the member of staff involved was immediately put to death for such carelessness.

[1] IBM/Lenovo ThinkCentre’s are built like tanks, which is why we still love IBM and Lenovo PCs.

Tweet

Share

Save

Posted by Karl in Desktop Hardware, Desktops and Laptops, General, Laptop Hardware | No Comments »

So firstly what’s an SSD. In your computer you have a HD (hard disk drive) that is effectively some mini CDs spinning very quickly. These mini CDs store all your data and run your OS (Windows or OS X for the majority of us). They’ve been around for over 10 years and today you can pick up a 1Tb drive for under £60 delivered. Those spinning HDs run noisy, hot, slow and really don’t like to be bumped. SSDs however solve all those problems.

RAM in your computer runs a lot quicker than your HD and has a very different job. Over the last few years people have been in effect making HDs out of RAM. Think of HD technology as the steam age and SSDs are the oil age of cars.

We’ve recently put a 64Gb Corsair Extreme SSD in a PC and popped the OS on it (about £150 delivered). Loading programs and booting the OS are so much quicker. What caught us by surprise though was that when you load something you’re used to the whiring and clicking of the HD in the machine sitting next to you. This is completely done and actualy quite disconcerting to start with. We can see this obviously being of a huge benefit to laptop users and as such are keeping our eyes open for when the 300Gb SSDs are the right price.

Here are a few basic speed tests for storage in a PC -
1Tb Samsung 5400rpm HD
64Gb Corsair Extreme SSD
8Gb Sony USB Memory Stick
2 x 500Gb Samsung 7200rpm HD (RAID 0)
3 x 500Gb Samsung 7200rpm HD (RAID 5)

HDs will always have their place for mass storage but running your OS and programs on an SSD (or an array of SSDs) really does make a differnce. It’s as clear as walking 400 miles or flying 400 miles !

Tweet

Share

Save

Posted by Chris in Desktop Hardware, Desktops and Laptops, Laptop Hardware | No Comments »