Give Your Intel Or PPC Mac A New Lease Of Life

By | September 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment

give-your-ppc-mac-a-new-life-icon1PowerPC Macs have been discontinued by Apple but they’re still capable of basic computing tasks such as word processing, emailing and web browsing, the latter particularly true if not surfing with the resource-heavy Adobe Flash.

Most of the tips covered here will be applicable to Intel Macs too – after all, the first couple of iterations of Intel Macs are now beginning to look underpowered, but whichever your model of Mac, you may be able to get many more years use from it still.
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Hardware CPU Guide Part II: Differences Between Intel and AMD CPU

By | August 4, 2010 |

This is the second part of the Hardware CPU Guide series. If you have missed the first part, you still can read the article factors that affect a CPU’s performance.

intel-amd-mainWhen it comes to CPU, there are only two main players in the market: Intel and AMD. You may have seen reports saying that Intel is better, and on the next day, another report saying AMD is better.

You are confused…which one is better? AMD or Intel?

Both AMD and Intel CPUs are built on different circuitry and for that, it is impossible to compare apple to apple. If you were to ask me which one is better, I can only say that both are equally good and whether you choose an Intel or AMD CPU depends entirely on your needs and preferences.

Below we will discuss the unique features of each CPU brand.
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Hardware CPU Guide Part I: Factors That Affects a CPU’s Performance

By | August 3, 2010 |

cpu-mainBeing the brain of the computer, the CPU plays a very important role in determining the performance of the system. Unfortunately, when it comes to choosing the best CPU, you will probably feel like a lost sheep. With different brands, models, speeds and specifications to choose from, it can really be a difficult task to decide which CPU is the right one for you.

In this three part guide, we will give you a good overview of “the factors that affect a CPU’s performance”, the differences between an Intel and AMD CPU and how you should go about choosing the the CPU that is best suited to your needs.

This is the first part of the CPU guide.
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A Review Of MeeGo v1.0: Is It Good Enough For Your Netbook?

By | June 17, 2010 |

Creature with laptop saying MeeGo RocksMeeGo is a new Linux-based mobile operating system designed through the collaboration of Intel and Nokia developers. The name MeeGo is meant to convey a merging of Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin. While Maemo was primarily geared toward handheld devices, such as the Nokia N800, N810, and N900 and Moblin was primarily geared toward netbooks, MeeGo aims to touch both markets and more. Among the other markets they hope to reach are in-car consoles, commercial devices for businesses, and tablets.

When I first set out to try MeeGo, I had hoped to boot up the live USB image on my netbook. What I soon discovered, however, is that it would not work. My netbook (an EeePC 1201n) has an Nvidia Ion graphics chipset, which is not supported by MeeGo (along with ATI and Intel GMA 500 chipsets). I further found that my other netbook (EeePC 900) was also not supported because it was a pre-Atom model, and MeeGo only supports Intel Atom processors.
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Solving the “Can’t boot from Ubuntu 9.10 LiveCD, Showing Black Screen” Issue

By | December 29, 2009 |

black holeUbuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala was released two months ago. Until last week, I have not been able to get it running on my computer. Whenever I boot up from the LiveCD, it will load up a black screen and remain there. There is no chance of me getting into the desktop. The same incident occurred for the upgrade from Jaunty to Karmic via the Update Manager. There seems to be some conflicts between the Karmic kernel and the Intel video driver that I am using. After some googling around, I realize that many people are having this problem as well and it occurs mainly for Intel drivers.

To solve this issue, the trick is actually very simple (though it took me two months to find out). Simply append “nomodeset” to the grub entry. Here’s the whole procedure.

(Note: The following procedure only applies to those who have Intel driver and have the black screen issue. Do not follow this tutorial if you do not have the issue. You are asking for trouble.)
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How To Setup Dual Monitors With XRandR

By | June 1, 2009 |

xrandr-screens-scaled

Dual monitor setup in Linux has never been easier. While methods such as the xinerama extension sometimes drive people insane, using RandR (Resize and Rotate) is quick and painless. This will allow you to use both monitors as one big screen instead of two identical ones (cloning). Follow these simple steps to get started.

Note: This HOWTO assumes that you are using the opensource drivers for your video card (ATI or Intel). Nvidia and AMD proprietary drivers come with their dual screen components. [Read more...]