Robert Cathles

28 February 2013

Comparing CPU performance on low-medium end computers

Benchmarks provided by: www.passmark.com
Prices/specs provided by: www.ebuyer.com

Soluto New Reports Feedback

Review on the Soluto Activity Reports being introduced, for survey/feedback.

Attached is a sample of our upcoming PC activity reports. The report lists the various events that happened on the PCs you're supporting in the past week.

The report will be sent via email on a weekly basis.

Feedback

I like the idea but don't know how often I would be concerned about reading them. If I know there is an issue and want to resolve it, then yes, I would want to see these kind of history reports to see what was going on and perhaps even what the user was doing at the time. So these reports would have to be available from a central place with date filters etc. rather than emailed out.

Biggest concerns for me on other user's computers are not necessarily power consumption or time wasted, Windows is updated so often that it doesn't make a massive difference overall really. My worries would be, has the user been installing potentially malicious software, have they had trouble using any piece of software or issues connecting to the internet etc, and what have they tried to resolve it. Then I'd also want to keep track of information like has the computer gotten particularly hot lately, if so, perhaps it needs cleaning. Then all the other stuff like are the latest versions of programs installed, esp security updates, Windows updates, virus updates etc. In the long term it would be good to be warned of hard disk failure as well.

With the boot times, it would be good to see some kind of overall trend, rather than just raw values for every day. If, over time, boot time is getting slower, then maybe it's a cause for concern to maybe do a system cleanup, defrag and check the startup apps etc. So say, in the last month, boot time has gone up 10%, it would be good to know what caused it.

11 January 2013

How to improve your credit rating

How you could increase your borrowing options - A good credit rating could make it easier to borrow extra money when you need to. So if you're thinking about applying for credit, the tips below could help with your financial planning.

What not to do

Regularly exceed your agreed overdraft limit - Unauthorised overdrafts and excesses could be seen by lenders as financial stress and abuse of credit.
Borrow excessively - Over-exposure to debt can place pressure on income and meeting your everyday living costs and repayments.
Make too many late payments - Lenders will be able to see missed or late payments, defaults and County Court Judgements on Direct Debits, credit cards and bills.
Make multiple credit searches and applications at once - Applications will appear on your credit report as searches, and too many in a short time could be seen as financial distress.
Change address too frequently - Frequent changes of address can show less stability and be viewed negatively by lenders.

What to do

Make sure you are on the electoral roll - This allows lenders to make sure you are who you say you are.
Show you can use credit sensibly - Manageable debt can help you to establish a good credit history, which can help with future borrowing.
Make sure your outgoings don't exceed your income - This will help you avoid getting into unnecessary debt.
Ensure you make regular salary payments into your primary current account - A visible regular source of income will mean you appear more credit-worthy.
Demonstrate money management skills - Pay off existing debt, make credit card repayments on time, and pay your bills via Direct Debit. This shows you are more likely to meet future credit repayments.
Keep current accounts in credit - Accounts kept in credit show less sign of financial pressure and build lenders' confidence.
Reduce or remove overdrafts - An overdraft is a form of lending, so if you're not using yours, removing or reducing it can have a positive impact.
Close dormant current accounts and cancel unused credit cards - Closing any dormant accounts you have will help prevent them potentially harming your credit profile.
Ensure information on your credit report is correct - Mistakes can happen but don't let them harm your credit profile.

Source: Barclays

2 November 2012

Best mobile phone deals: iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S3

[To be updated for more Galaxy S3 deals, prices correct as of date of posting]

iPhone 5

iPhone 4S

Samsung Galaxy S3

Some companies provide a discount with Vodafone hence the blue and 20% off entries ;)

20 October 2012

Teh Noms

I've only met 2 people in my life who are as fussy as me about food. Thought I would share some details. I've narrowed it down not to issues with taste, but usually texture. The black bullet points identify things I am not very fond of at all.

Potatoes - mushiness

Roast potato - hot and/or crunchy is OK
Chips - salty and/or crunchy and/or hot is OK

Peas - mushy
Onion slices

In burgers/tuna melt - OK - because they baguette is also crunchy
In tuna mayo sandwich - not OK - because they are crunchy, when sandwiches aren't crunchy
In lasagne/bolognese - not OK - because it is meant to be smooth

Sweetcorn - only on its own, not in/with anything - because it is both crunchy and smooth
Peppers, chillis, cherries - texture of the skin

Cherry flavour is OK
Anything moderately spicy is not OK

Egg mayo - texture of egg pieces
Banana - mushiness

Banana-flavoured foam sweets are OK
Not a fan of banana milkshake or ice cream

Chocolate ice cream (e.g. Ben & Jerry's)

Normal chocolate is OK
Melted chocolate is OK
Chocolate anything else is OK

Coffee, tea and any other hot drinks - can't handle hotness

Hot chocolate is okay when mild
Coffee flavour is not OK

Breakfast cereal with milk - soggyness

Separate milk in a glass, sipped with a spoon of cereal is OK

Apple crumble

Crumble is okay, but apple isn't right

More to come...

Compare Mac and PC: being realistic

PC: Dell, Alienware, HP, etc.
Mac: Air, MacBook, iMac

Pricing
Features
Stability
Protection & Backup
Ease of use
Design
Performance (graphics)
Third party support for applications/compatibility e.g. gaming, apps
Portability
Energy consumption
Recycling
Repair: Costs
Technical Support (availability/quality)

Would anyone like to contribute? ;)

Phone Signal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_of_Europe#United_Kingdom

Mobile transmission bands belong to these groupings in the UK:

Everything Everywhere (Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile)
O2 (Tesco, giffgaff)
3
Vodafone (TalkTalk, BT)

Test: which is the best mobile phone provider, based upon greatest mobile phone signal coverage detected, given a normal transit from home to work.

Results (measured in percentage of coverage available):

Data:

Hardware used:

Nokia C1 (Vodafone)
HTC Wildfire (3, Orange)
Nokia 1110 (Tesco)

14 October 2012

Yogscast Favourite Clips

https://youtu.be/gzW_69mvfCU?si=x0JukrQmwLt1TfiY

Jack and Uncle Brian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1VKnru93GU&t=660
This is why Ridge is in charge of the Voxel box, and Duncan is a member of the Yogscast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLGuf7UTns0&list=UUH-_hzb2ILSCo9ftVSnrCIQ&index=1&feature=plcp&t=3m0s
There are no circles in Minecraft!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUA4pnGtuaY&t=9m30s
Spaceship crash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwFiZaUkOaE&t=21m
Valentines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjFLKc0Y__c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR95oYkfcIc
Trucking Tuesday

27 September 2012

Cure for the common cold?

Had a very bad cold yesterday but wasn't troubled by my runny nose today hardly at all (very minor sniffles and slight sore throat at times and tiny bit of a headache but nothing that interfered).
Here's a list of what I did yesterday to combat it:

Plenty of tissues to hand
No breakfast or lunch
Dinner: 'grab bag' pack of Doritos Hot, 1/2 Rubicon Mango 1 litre juice carton, Fry's Peppermint Cream, Tolberone (small), Muller Corner yoghurt (Toffee Hoops)
Trebor mints whenever I got a runny nose
Boots Cold & Flu powder blackcurrant with 1 large glass of water (I hate this stuff the same as I do Lemsip powder though! >.<)
2 Paracetemol (not same time as the Cold & Flu)
Rested for 6 hours (but not sleeping, just lying down working)
Normal sleep

Other methods I've tried which have been unsuccessful:

Sleep
Soup (e.g. chicken)
Garlic bread

Other things which probably do help:

Vapo-cream
Breathe steam under a towel

What's your remedies for a nasty cold?

4 June 2012

Best antimalware solutions: quick experiment

Here are some results of the 'best' antimalware solutions based on their ability to detect a new virus that entered the world wide web on 1st June 2012. So yes, this isn't an accurate method, but from the results you can clearly tell which companies may be faster at getting out definitions.

20120601

F-Prot - W32/FakeAlert.MC2.gen!Eldorado
NOD32 - a variant of Win32/Adware.WintionalityChecker.AF

20120602

AhnLab-V3 - Trojan/Win32.FakeAV
AntiVir - TR/Fraud.Gen8
AVG - Suspicion: unknown virus
ClamAV - PUA.Packed.ASPack
Commtouch - W32/FakeAlert.MC2.gen!Eldorado
Kaspersky - HEUR:Trojan.Win32.Generic
McAfee - FakeAlert-PJ.gen.aw
Panda - Suspicious file
Symantec - VirusDoctor!gen11
VIPRE - Trojan.Win32.Generic.pak!cobra

20120603

Norman - W32/Troj_Generic.BZWOM

20120604

Avast - Win32:Malware-gen

BitDefender - Trojan.Generic.KDV.638540

DrWeb - Trojan.Siggen4.2452

F-Secure - Trojan.Generic.KDV.638540

GData - Trojan.Generic.KDV.638540

McAfee-GW-Edition - Artemis!FF21268DF387

nProtect - Trojan.Generic.KDV.638540

TrendMicro-HouseCall - TROJ_GEN.R4AB1F2

Undetected as of time of this post

Antiy-AVL -

ByteHero -

CAT-QuickHeal -

Comodo -

Emsisoft -

eSafe -

Fortinet -

Ikarus -

Jiangmin -

K7AntiVirus -

Microsoft -

PCTools -

Rising -

Sophos -

SUPERAntiSpyware -

TheHacker -

TotalDefense -

TrendMicro -

VBA32 -

ViRobot -

VirusBuster -

https://www.virustotal.com/file/729675ab9460d7e07d294156ae3ae367eb3c07047ab7b87021e158e7c69bfdae/analysis/1338636214/

https://www.virustotal.com/file/729675ab9460d7e07d294156ae3ae367eb3c07047ab7b87021e158e7c69bfdae/analysis/1338811003/

Robert Cathles

28 February 2013

Comparing CPU performance on low-medium end computers

Soluto New Reports Feedback

11 January 2013

How to improve your credit rating

2 November 2012

Best mobile phone deals: iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S3

20 October 2012

Teh Noms

Compare Mac and PC: being realistic

Phone Signal

14 October 2012

Yogscast Favourite Clips

27 September 2012

Cure for the common cold?

4 June 2012

Best antimalware solutions: quick experiment

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