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

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

If you have one of the new macBook Pros from Apple. The ones with the dual nvidia GT 330M cards in then you really should pop this great bit of software onto your mac. Without this software on there you don’t know which card is currently running your mac. The fancy nvidia one isn’t needed for most tasks as it warms the macbook up and sucks the battery. But interestingly it appears that Parallels and VLC both switch it on ! Parallels does even with 3D turned off on it’s VMs.

Not any more they don’t !

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Posted by Chris in Desktops and Laptops, Laptop Hardware | 4 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.

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

Spotted this on Engadget the other day. Using your macBook’s large mouse pad (trackpad) as a tablet ! Looks like a great idea though is it really big enough and more than just a gimic ?

Made by Ten1Design.

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Posted by Chris in Desktops and Laptops, Laptop Hardware, Software | 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 !

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