Computer is built

Posted on by hcetech

Happy Christmas to one and all. To celebrate the eminent arrival of the annual festivities, I just finished building my new PC… sort of. Thanks to the snow that’s making home such a winter wonderland, the processor (Intel i7-860 if you’re interested) is somewhere in the great and occasionally somewhat suspect workings of Royal Mail. While I wait for it, this huge display works a treat plugged into the MacBook Pro.

Oh, and keep an eye out for a winter website – there’s no fun in Christmas without jokes. Keep your eyes peeled.

Best wishes for a fun and festive holiday season and see you in a few days.

Home-built computer arrives

Posted on by hcetech

At last, it’s here! The components for my new computer have arrived today (thanks Amazon) ready for me to get building. Looks like it’s going to be fun.

For the record, the specs are:

Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E
Processor: Intel Core i7-860 (2.8GHz)
Graphics card: AXLE NVidia 9500GT
RAM: Corsair 8GB DDR3
HD: WD Caviar 1TB x2
Monitor: Samsung BX2450

Will keep you posted on the build! Friday can’t come too soon…

Components boxMotherboard and GPU

URL Saving

Posted on by hcetech

It’s not hard to see why Instapaper exists. All too often, someone sends us a URL which looks interesting but is invariably too time-consuming to distract us from mass email deletion. And yet hours are wasted sitting on trains or buses on the way to work. Instapaper is the natural solution: save what you want, for when you want it.

But what if someone else finds something for you? Why should you have to bother saving their URL? Watch this space.

iPhone Development Ideas

Posted on by hcetech

Time goes on, and I realise I haven’t done a new app for ages. But rest assured, ideas have been blossoming.

The basic idea is this: transform the iPhone and iPad into real educational tools. Sites like Schoology and Moodle are pushing technology this way – but nothing has yet arrived that makes people think, “Wow, this could change the way we learn”.

Revolutionising education isn’t going to be easy, and I’d be the first to say that forcing schools to jump on every bandwagon that goes rolling by is sheer lunacy. But I can’t help thinking that education is one of the key markets for something like an iPad. It’s just basically a blank canvas on which you can draw with your finger, anyway.

So, education is the market. Sadly, I have no idea what the app is. Damn.

Creating a home-built computer…

Posted on by hcetech

And so, the saga begins…

Not long ago I had the idea of building my own computer, from scratch. This was naturally greeted with a derisory look from the powers that be. Nevertheless, I delved further into the world of computer design to see what I could make. The result is this:

Motherboard: ASUS P6T SE
Processor: Intel Core i7-930 (2.8GHz)
Graphics card: NVidia GTX 430/460
RAM: Corsair 6GB triple-channel DDR3
HD: Seagate Caviar 1TB x2
Monitor: ASUS VH242H x2

Financial situations dictate that I may not buy this until Christmas, but rest assured, Santa will have a hell of a hard time getting this lot down the chimney.

The more astute of you may also have noticed that this combination is supposedly supported for something called OSx86 – I have been urged to take a look, and may (for those of you who care, take a look at InsanelyMac.com).

Take care and will blog again soon. (I love WordPress :D )

SearchSquares v2

Posted on by hcetech

It’s been a busy week at hcetech – SearchSquares is about to top 1000 hits and we’ve had a load of feedback about the site. With that in mind, we’re pleased to unveil a new and improved version of the site. You now search by category – Top Searches, Content Searches, Media Searches and All Searches – so you no longer have to see irrelevant results when you know what category of results you’re looking for.

Check out searchsquares.com and keep the feedback coming!