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3D XPoint Hyperbole?

Intel and Micron, in July 2015, announced a revolutionary memory technology, called 3D XPoint [Pronounced CrossPoint, XPoint from now on here.] and they have recently made further announcements regarding the first introduction of products employing this technology.

I’ve seen discussions that talk about how XPoint is going to “Revolutionize” our thinking about computing. I’m thinking, er…. No. It will make things better and faster, but I don’t see a “Revolution”. I’m not suggesting that I’m pessimistic about XPoint. I’m suggesting that XPoint does not really create any new ways to Organize, Share or Distribute data, so what I think we are going to see is an Evolution where XPoint is used with methods we already have to Organize, Share and Distribute data.

Data Organization Methods

There are three major ways we organize data in and between computers. I’m sure you know about these, but let’s review. Continue reading “3D XPoint Hyperbole?”

Move to Linux

Screenshot from 2016-08-13 07-12-48.png — Linux Mint 18

As you can tell from previous posts, I’m having trouble with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update on one of my machines. It’s an older machine and I suspect that Windows has broken a driver for the old motherboard. The latest version that worked properly was Version 1511 / 10586.545 and each time I restored to the last Restore Point, it went back to that. So apparently, the Anniversary Update 1607 / 14393.51 is the problem.

After going back to a Restore Point on two successive days, I turned off the Windows Update service and the machine was ok for a day, but I decided that this was too risky a state to leave the system. I have decided to move the system to Linux Mint 18, and this post is being typed into that system. It took about 2 hours to do the update, including installing a new system HD, and another couple of hours to set up Thunderbird email.

I have used Linux Mint for many years, and the latest is version 18. I prefer the Cinnamon version, but you may prefer another of the several window managers. For my choice, Cinnamon looks the most like Windows.

This machine is used for email, online shopping and document creation. It has two 1080×1200 monitors driven by an older GTX 270 card. Not the best for gaming, but just fine for it’s uses. Continue reading “Move to Linux”

Windows 10 Anniversary Update a Mess

I had my Alienware Area 51 since about 2007 – since right before DELL bought Alienware – and about a year ago I upgraded to Windows 10. No problem. Here are the specs.

But the Anniversary Update fails miserably on this machine. It keeps waking up dead, if you see what I mean. A couple of days ago it was running, right after the update but without the 2 additional SATA hard drives. The drives were obviously still in the system, but Windows 10 did not see them. And Disk Manager did not see them either. So I did a RESTART with the start menu and got into a world of hurt. The system never finished restarting. After 10 minutes it was still doing an animation on the screen saying Restarting. So I used the power button, it failed to boot, and then finally I got it back by going back to the previous restore point using essentially the same process you see below, but it looked different that time. No application windows just blue screen dialogs.

Now it’s happened again, but differently. Continue reading “Windows 10 Anniversary Update a Mess”

Better Product to Clean Pellet Stove Glass

Here’s what it looks like with the new cleaner.

When I bought the stove I got some cleaner in bottles that looked like this:

The original bottle that I bought a year before looked the same, but contained Muratic Acid. The newer formulation contains Isopropanol. Clearly dangerous based on the labeling.

But this product works just as well, has a much better odor and no scary warnings.

Also it is much cheaper.

Basically this is a natural soap formulation and it works fine to clean off creosote and other deposits from my stove. You might like to try products like this to clean your stove.

:ww

GTX 1060 – OMG It’s Cool

Just got my GTX 1060 Founder’s Edition. BTW, I couldn’t buy it using FireFox. Oddly the Buy Now buttons were dead on the site with Firefox. Finally I bought it using Windows 10 Edge.

The card comes packed like a fine watch. Here is the packaging.

High Quality Box

Clean lines and lift off Top

No Extra Nonsense

High Density Foam Packaging

No sales clutter on box

Glow In Case

Enjoy yours too,

:ww

GTX 1060 – Time for a New Graphics Card

Time for a new graphics card.

Now that I have a new 2K Monitor, it’s time to upgrade my 3gen old graphics card to the newest one out there.

My new ASUS PB258Q 25″ 2560×1440 monitor doesn’t run all the time at 60hz on my current GTX 760 graphics card. So after 3 generations it’s time to upgrade to the brand spanking new GTX 1060 Founders edition.

In the past I have gotten ASUS graphics cards and they have always looked very nice. But the non-founders edition cards, while $50 cheaper, are all pretty dorky looking.

There was a glitch though while I was trying to order the Founder’s card from Nvidia, which is the only place you will ever be able to get the Founder’s Editions. The Firefox browser did not work. The Buy Now buttons were all dead.

I eventually fired up the EDGE browser on my Windows 10 system and that worked just fine. For several days I thought it was Nvidia’s problem, either the site was broken or they were out of stock. But they are in stock, as of 25 July, and all is well. It’s on it’s way with free shipping.

:ww

Wow Legion Prepatch is Up

Wow_2016_07_22_12_39_00_701 — Legion Prepatch is Live

The prepatch is out and we can expect Legion to go live in August. At this point I’m playing starter with my other account on hold. Some day I may go back to it and continue with the dozen or so characters I have at level 85 and above.

While the actual Legion patch is not up, there are many class changes. Those are all covered elsewhere, so I’ll just summarize some of my first impressions here. One of the notable things about Legion is the addition of Hunter as a class for Gnome. When you start a Gnome hunter, you get a mechanical rabbit. Who can pass that up?

Here is my Gnome Hunter outside the inn in Kharanos. Notice all the motorcycles.

Continue reading “Wow Legion Prepatch is Up”

Plagiarism – Free and Easy to Check

So let’s check how hard it would be to find out if you were, consciously, or unconsciously, plagiarizing someone’s words.

Continue reading “Plagiarism – Free and Easy to Check”

Tera – 20 > 60 Dungeons Only

Can you level a character from 20 > 65 using dungeons only? And is that better or easier than using Story quests?

Since a recent update, story quests were given much more XP, and zone quests XP rewards were dramatically reduced. As of that update, it was easily possible to level a character from 1 > 65 using only Story quests. I’ve done that many times with all except Sorcerer and Archer.

More recently I found that it is easier to level any class from 60 > 65 using almost only dungeons. In this pattern, the story quest chain is stopped after doing the quests in Highwatch.

I just completed leveling a Mystic character from 22 to 60 using only dungeons. Starting with Bastion of Lok at level 20, and completing in the Ebon Tower reaching level 60 after two runs. You can find a list of all the dungeons here.

There are a few Caveats with this method of leveling.

Continue reading “Tera – 20 > 60 Dungeons Only”

Tera – Ninja and Other Changes

The Ninja class has finally arrived as of the May 17, 2016 Patch. Another race / gender locked class and the second one for the Elin lovers out there. And the forth in a series of Over Powered classes.

In spite of the cloth armor she wears, she’s a bad-ass DPS dealer. Mostly this is because, like the brawler, once she gets started, it’s easy to keep the target[s] from getting a spell in edgewise or any other wise. Like the Brawler before her, many Ninja spells elevate and silence the target[s] doing very effective crowd control on all but the bosses.

After being away for almost two months, I came back to Tera about a week after Ninja was released, and things calmed down a little, to she how she plays and to see how other things level, so I have almost finished leveling a Zerker as well as finishing the Ninja and a Brawler who was at about 40 to 65. Here are my thoughts on the current state of Tera.

Update at bottom: How to level 60 – 65.

Continue reading “Tera – Ninja and Other Changes”