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  • How do I know what hardware to buy to meet my needs?

    - by Darth Android
    While Stack Exchange does not permit shopping recommendations, it doesn't provide any general advice to consider when buying hardware. So, instead of just telling those that ask what to buy that it's not allowed, let's tell them how to figure out what they need. When looking forward to build a computer, how do I know what to buy? How do I find out if a given CPU will be enough for a certain game or application that I want to run? How do I find out if a given graphics card will be enough for a certain game or application? What is important when looking at motherboards? How much memory do I need? How do I know how much wattage I need for a power supply? What size case do I need? What relevant standards do I need to read up on and be aware of? PCI, PCIe, SATA, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, etc... What "gotchas" do I need to be on the lookout for? Please keep responses generation-agnostic to ensure they will be helpful to our future users. :)

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  • PC power supply & normal range for voltages reported in BIOS hardware monitor?

    - by Chris W. Rea
    I'm trying to diagnose whether my computer has an ample power supply. Sometimes when I play a video-intensive game, both monitors lose the video signal, even though the computer remains on and sound playing. A theory I have is: the video card isn't getting sufficient power. I can't imagine it's overheating because the machine is well-ventilated and the video card isn't hot to touch when this happens. Anyway, in my PC's BIOS there's a Hardware Monitor page, and among other voltages reported (such as CPU, DRAM, South Bridge, etc.) I can see the following values: 3.3V 3.152V 5V 4.944V 12V 11.872V Are those the voltages used by peripherals? What voltage should I be referencing if I want to know what my video card (PCI Express) is consuming? What is the normal range of values reported for those? My values above appear to be under by approximately 4.5%, 1.1%, and 1.1% respectively. Is that cause for concern? How else should I be determining if my power supply is "right-sized" for my PC and video card, or am I perhaps barking up the wrong tree?

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  • Important hardware components to avoid bottlenecks/improve speed on a laptop?

    - by joelhaus
    Looking for a powerful general use (including web development) laptop running Windows. Price points seem to be all over the place. Many less powerful machines are priced much higher than machines with better specs. How does one navigate this market? Are there any unpublished/under-publicized specs/bottlenecks you look for? Understanding that hardware improves over time, is there an efficient ratio that can be used (or something similar, like Windows Experience Index?) which will indicate how powerful a system is? Thanks in advance! P.S. Here is an example from a laptop released on September 17, 2010. Can anyone pick apart these specs? Is there missing information you would be looking for? OS: Win 7 Display: 16.4" LED backlit Processor: Intel Core i7-740QM, 6MB L3 Cache RAM: 6GB DDR3 1333MHz (8GB max.) Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M (1 GB of dedicated DDR3) HDD: 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive Removable Disc: Blue-ray with DVD±R/RW Misc: webcam/mic/speakers/bluetooth (via Sony Vaio VPC-F137FX/B)

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  • What hardware would I need (approx) to run ESXi server?

    - by mr.b
    Hi, I am considering to purchase off-the-shelf commodity hardware in order to build server that will host virtual machines using ESXi server. Intended purpose for this server is NOT mission critical tasks. It will have to run perhaps 20-50 Windows XP/Vista/7 virtual machines (in total, but closer to 20 figure). Each guest would have to have 1-2 GB of ram, and probably two-three times more disk space than guest OS needs with clean install and all updates applied (that would be around 6-8 GB for XP, and i believe closer to 10-15 for win7). Those guests will act as a test ground for a new product that is network management software, thus guests will idle most of their time once initially loaded, but if I give them some task to complete, they should be able to perform reasonably well. Now, from what I have learned... CPU is usually not much of an issue (6 cores would do it), memory should not be lacking, but doesn't have to be sum of all guests, because of overcommitment... That leads me to IO, which is, as it seems, the bottleneck. Since I have very little experience with ESXi (and ESX, too) server, I'd like to ask: How much memory could I save by overcommitment, and how does it affect performance? Is 6-core cpu enough to run above described system? Would it be possible to run entire server off two (or even one) SSD drives (to host system virtual disks, with few additional HDDs (2-3) in RAID 0 to be used as secondary storage? I read somewhere that ESXi allows having something like "master image", essentially virtual machine that is "deployed" many times, so that disk space can be saved by having only differences stored by specific guests, instead of copying around whole virtual disks. Is this true, and how can this help me? Are there any other things I need to take into consideration when building this off-the-shelf solution? I should probably mention here that I'm fully aware of issues like SPOF regarding power supply, raid 0, etc, but since it's only a testing ground and not a production system, it's not so important for me. Thanks, B.

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  • When buying hardware, what sites do you trust for information? [closed]

    - by Matt Dawdy
    I won't ask "what laptop should I buy" since the information is likely to change very quickly. However, I am about to buy a laptop, and I honestly don't know where to begin researching this based on my needs. I am hoping that asking about specific sites that do reviews/recommendations that this will still be on topic. I read the 6 guidelines for subjective questions and believe that this question scores favorably. I'm starting a new job in a few weeks, and they want to know what specific laptop to purchase. I'd like to get the most for their money and get a machine that will not need to be replaced in a year. When looking at a site like Dell, it's hard to get a full picture of the performance of a laptop. Does it work with a docking station, and if so, what kinds of video outs are on it? Will it work well when compiling several large projects in .Net? Has anyone had any issues with the machine getting flaky when dragging it from work to home and back all the time? etc. So, if people would enter in their preferred sites they use when researching hardware, and why they prefer that site (x is great for laptop comparisons, y is great for gaming machine reviews, etc) the I hope that this can be a question with valuable answers to others than just myself.

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  • Is anyone else using OpenBSD as a router in the enterprise? What hardware are you running it on?

    - by Kamil Kisiel
    We have an OpenBSD router at each of our locations, currently running on generic "homebrew" PC hardware in a 4U server case. Due to reliability concerns and space considerations we're looking at upgrading them to some proper server-grade hardware with support etc. These boxes serve as the routers, gateways, and firewalls at each site. At this point we're quite familiar with OpenBSD and Pf, so hesitant at moving away from the system to something else such as dedicated Cisco hardware. I'm currently thinking of moving the systems to some HP DL-series 1U machines (model yet to be determined). I'm curious to hear if other people use a setup like this in their business, or have migrated to or away from one.

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  • XP Mode (Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7) no longer requires hardware virtualisation - hurrah !

    - by Liam Westley
    Windows Virtual PC (aka XP Mode) When XP Mode was released, it insisted on hardware virtualisation being present on your CPU and enabled in the BIOS.  Given that Windows Virtual PC was based on an improved Virtual PC 2007, which provided hardware virtualisation as a user selectable option, I did wonder why on earth Microsoft thought this was a good idea.  Not only do many people not have a CPU with hardware virtualisation support, some manufacturers don't provide a BIOS option to enable this setting, especially on laptops - yes Sony, Toshiba and Acer, I'm looking at you. Dumb and dumber This issue became a double whammy; not only was Microsoft a bit dumb on not supporting Windows Virtual PC without hardware virtualisation, your hardware manufacturer was also dumb in not supporting the option in the BIOS. Microsoft update to Windows Virtual PC Belatedly, Microsoft has seen the problem with this hardware virtualisation requirement and has now released a new version of Windows Virtual PC that works without hardware virtualisation.  This is really good news for those with older (or limited) CPUs and rubbish BIOS firmware. You can details of how to download the new versions of XP Mode here, http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2010/03/18/windows-virtual-pc-no-hardware-virtualization-update-now-available-for-download.aspx And there is also an explanation of why the hardware virtualisation requirement was in place for previous releases, http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2010/03/18/windows-virtual-pc-now-without-the-need-for-hardware-virtualization.aspx

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  • How can I troubleshoot flash player/hardware conflict?

    - by sparthikas
    OBJECTIVE: Have a web browser on my Ubuntu install that can play youtube and hulu videos. Also would like to understand problem so that I can fix it again if I change software. Workarounds welcome, technical understanding and solution preferable. SYMPTOMS: Flash does not run - cannot make the right-click menu appear, an empty box is where video should be, changes to black box when hovering over other links. The "The Adobe Flash plugin has crashed" message does not appear with its sad lego face. cannot activate proprietary graphics driver - causes system to reboot to a prompt. SOLUTIONS TRIED: Replaced OS (tried slackware 13.37, fedora 17, linuxmint 13 maya, gentoo, lubuntu, and even winXP. lubuntu confirmed to work, don't remember how much tweaking, if any, this required. Slack, fedora, mint, and gentoo all failed to run flash just like ubuntu) many reinstalls of flash player via different methods, including cleaning up old installs first, also tried gnash and lightspark. replaced graphics card (replaced HIS IceQ Radeon HD 4670 AGP with older GeForce 5700 LE no change in problem) flash does successfully work on winXP installation with Catalyst AGP hotfix driver applied, however I consider windows wholly unacceptable for web browsing due to lack of security. Lubuntu install also works, however I do not want to be tied down to just using Lubuntu on this computer. SYSINFO: Have latest versions of Ubuntu, Firefox, and Flash on fresh Ubuntu install. Using Gigabyte 7s748 motherboard with Athlon XP 2800+ and 3 GB of RAM with Radeon HD 4670 AGP card, also a Dell soundblaster live series sound card (due to malfunction of onboard sound on motherboard) Wired internet connection, Maxtor 6Y120L3 HDD, Sony DVD RW AW-Q170A, Dell M993s monitor. NOTES: I do not know if the graphics driver issue and the flash troubles are linked. Substitution of older graphics card having same flash troubles seems to suggest they aren't. My troubleshooting method is rather reductionist, consisting mainly of "replace things until you find out what was causing the error by process of elimination" only it seems that this must be a conflict which arises when software decides how to configure itself on my hardware. That is, I know the hardware can run Flash, and I know that on other systems the same software can too, but somehow the combination fails. Consequently I feel out of my depth. I will keep trying things off and on, but I have spent probably about 30 man-hours in the last 4 months working on this problem with no joy other than the lubuntu workaround. Any help will be appreciated, I will be checking back and posting updates. Any pertinent questions regarding me or my computer will be answered, outputs from config files can be accessed and posted (IDK which ones or what parts to post).

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  • Virtual PC and hardware-assisted virtualization (VT-x) problem

    - by Vesa Huovi
    I've installed Microsoft's Virtual PC on Windows 7, but when I try to start a virtual machine I get the following error message: '<Virtual machine name' could not be started because hardware-assisted virtualization is disabled. Please enable hardware virtualization in the BIOS settings and try again. If hardware virtualization settings is already enabled, you may have to disable Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) setting in BIOS or update the system BIOS. However, if I download and run the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool, it gives the following positive message: This computer is configured with hardware-assisted virtualization. This computer meets the processor requirements to run Windows Virtual PC. If this computer runs a supported edition of Windows® 7, you can install Windows Virtual PC. I've also used the MSR Walker in the third-party utility CrystalCPUID to examine MSR 0x3a on both processors on my system, and it's 0x5 (0x4 = VT enabled, 0x1 = VT lock), as expected. Does anyone have any ideas of what else to check? Thanks.

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  • REGISTER NOW! Oracle Hardware Sales Training: Hardware and Software - Engineered to Be Sold Together

    - by Cinzia Mascanzoni
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} You can now register for Oracle’s EMEA Hardware Sales Training Roadshow: "Hardware and Software - Engineered to be Sold Together!" The objective of this one-day, face-to-face, free of charge training session is to share with you and your Oracle peers the latest information on Oracle’s products and solutions and to ensure that you are fully equipped to position and sell Oracle’s integrated stack. Please find agenda, schedule, details and registration information here. The EMEA Hardware Sales Training Roadshow is intended for Oracle Partners and Oracle Sales working together. Limited seats are available on a first-come-first-serve basis, so kindly register as early as possible to reserve your seat.

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  • hardware addressing and configurable addressing scheme

    - by Zia ur Rahman
    basically i want to ask question about configurable addressing scheme for LAN interface hardware. i have read about it from a book, some main points are given by a configurable addressing scheme provides a mechanism that a customer can use to set a physical address.The mechanism can be manual (the switches that must be set when the interface is first installed).or an electronic memory such as an EPROM that can be downloded from the computer(what does this means). Most hardware needs to be configured only once- configuration is usually done when the hardware is first installed. Question:Suppose a network administrator configures the LAN interface hardware (assigns the address) when he installs it. Now later on if he needs to change the physical address of the device can he change it? Or in this addressing scheme the hardware can only be configured once and we can not reconfigure it later on.

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  • High end mobile workstations with pointer stick

    - by Elijah Lynn
    I am looking for a list of higher end mobile workstations that run Ubuntu/Kubuntu well and also have a hardware pointer stick. Here's an illustration of one (from sciencesurvivalblog): I wouldn't mind getting a Macbook Pro and wiping it but they refuse to use pointer sticks and to me, they are extremely efficient. I see a lot of potential for Lenovo thinkpads as well. System 76 said they have no plans to implement a hardware pointer stick so that leaves them out as well. Any ideas?

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  • How to enable bluetooth when there is no hardware switch

    - by Robert Mutke
    My laptop Thinkpad Edge e320 got out of standby with bluetooth and wireless disabled. WiFi got enabled normally in unity but bluetooth says that "bluetooth is disabled by hardware switch". There is no hw switch on my laptop. I tried: # echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/bluetooth_enable bash: echo: write error: Operation not permitted but as you see no results. Fn-F9, which is radio control, does not work. Any help?

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  • Wireless is disabled by hardware switch on Dell Inspiron 1750

    - by lowerkey
    I have a problem where Ubuntu (12.04) says there is a wireless network card, but it is disabled by a hardware switch. How do I turn it on? I checked the BIOS, and the wireless card is enabled there. Fn + F2 was also no success. The results of rfkill list: 0: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: yes 1: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: yes sudo rfkill unblock wifi did nothing to the Wireless Status.

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  • Can this USB3 behaviour be anything else than a hardware failure?

    - by Jonas Wielicki
    While my motherboard is half a year old now (ASUS M5A99X EVO), I only recently made use of the USB3 boards (after purchase of USB3 external harddrive). However, I am encountering issues. I am running linux 3.6.7-4.fc16.x86_64. Initially, the harddrive worked fine with USB3 (amazing ˜160MB/s), but I had some problems after putting after putting the harddrive to sleep manually after use (backup) with hdparm -Y. After some time, the device disappears from lsusb and i see the following in dmesg: [ 1924.091107] xhci_hcd 0000:05:00.0: xHCI host not responding to stop endpoint command. [ 1924.091114] xhci_hcd 0000:05:00.0: Assuming host is dying, halting host. [ 1924.091147] xhci_hcd 0000:05:00.0: HC died; cleaning up [ 1924.091233] usb 11-1: USB disconnect, device number 2 [ 1924.091272] sd 6:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery Testing with my (USB3 capable) notebook, I could not immediately reproduce the behaivour. I put the drive to sleep with hdparm -Y and waited for like an hour, but it was still listed in lsusb and responded after a few seconds delay when I tried after the hour of waiting. After an hour, on the desktop, the device would've usually vanished. Googling for this issue, I came across hints that playing around with IOMMU settings and upgrading the BIOS might help. I upgraded the BIOS and tried both with and without IOMMU enabled, got similar results. Most disturbing is, that one of the two USB 3.0 hubs sometimes also disappears from lsusb (or does not show up after boot at all). I've also heard that there are some hardware issues with ASUS USB3 ports. Applying mechanic force to the capble doesn't push the issue to one side or the other. Also, udev seems to reenumerate all devices if I plug the HDD into the USB 3.0 port without success (I can notice from my keyboard layout being changed to the default, which I do not use normally). The drive is externally powered and the external power supply is plugged in (it also stays powered when unplugging from USB, although it will spin down then). So before I try to return the board, I wanted to find out whether this can be anything else than a failure on the motherboard?

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  • Brute Force Hardware versus Tuning

    - by jchang
    Every now and then, the question is asked “When will servers be powerful enough that performance tuning will not be necessary.” Sometimes I get the impression this was posed not on technical grounds, but rather that ISVs and CIOs don’t like performance specialists. Fortunately (for me) it does not appear that this will ever happen for two principal reasons: 1) hardware and tuning contribute in such completely different aspects that neither can be ignored, and 2) multi-core processors actually introduce...(read more)

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  • Getting know a hardware of your Linux box

    <b>Linuxconfig:</b> "Here is a list of commands which should help you to troubleshoot your hardware and find some information about it. This is not a ultimate troubleshooting guide but certainly will serve as a good starting point."

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  • OneNote 2007 - recommendation(s) of a good place/tutorials to learn features

    - by studiohack23
    I'm pretty familiar with Office 2007, however, I have just recently acquired OneNote 2007. It is such a big and powerful tool, that I'm pretty much lost on the features and how to use it. I don't really know where to start. I'm looking for some recommendation(s) on a good place to learn more about OneNote and its features and what it does...for what it's worth, I'm a student, so student perspectives on how to use/learn OneNote would be awesome! Thanks!

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  • Software and/(x)or Hardware Projects for Pre-School Kids

    - by haylem
    I offered to participate at my kid's pre-school for various activities (yes, I'm crazy like that), and one of them is to help them discover extra-curricular (big word for a pre-school, but by lack of a better one... :)) hobbies, which may or may not relate to a professional activity. At first I thought that it wouldn't be really easy to have pre-schoolers relate to programming or the internal workings of a computer system in general (and I'm more used to teaching middle-school to university-level students), but then I thought there must be a way. So I'm trying to figure out ways to introduce very young kids (3yo) to computer systems in a fun and preferably educational way. Of course, I don't expect them to start smashing the stack for fun and profit right away (or at least not voluntarily, though I could use the occasion for some toddler tests...), but I'm confident there must be ways to get them interested in both: using the systems, becoming curious about understanding what they do, interacting with the systems to modify them. I guess this setting is not really relevant after all, it's pretty much the same as if you were aiming to achieve the same for your own kids at home. Ideas Considering we're talking 3yo pre-schoolers here, and that at this age some kids are already quite confident using a mouse (some even a keyboard, if not for typing, at least to press some buttons they've come to associate with actions) while others have not yet had any interaction with computers of any kind, it needs to be: rather basic, demonstrated and played with in less then 5 or 10 minutes, doable in in groups or alone, scalable and extendable in complexity to accommodate their varying abilities. The obvious options are: basic smallish games to play with, interactive systems like LOGO, Kojo, Squeak and clones (possibly even simpler than that), or thngs like Lego Systems. I guess it can be a thing to reflect on both at the software and the hardware levels: it could be done with a desktop or laptop machine, a tablet, a smartphone (or a crap-phone, for that matter, as long as you can modify it), or even get down to building something from scratch (Raspberry Pi and Arduino being popular options at the moment). I can probably be in the form of games, funny visualizations (which are pretty much games) w/ Prototype, virtual worlds to explore. I also thought on the moment (and I hope this won't offend anyone) that some approaches to teaching pets could work (reward systems, haptic feedback and such things could quickly point a kid in the right direction to understanding how things work, in a similar fashion - I'm not suggesting to shock the kids!). Hmm, Is There an Actual Question in There? What type of systems do you think might be a good fit, both in terms of hardware and software? Do you have seen such systems, or have anything in mind to work on? Are you aware of some research in this domain, with tangible results? Any input is welcome. It's not that I don't see options: there are tons, but I have a harder time pinpointing a more concrete and definite type of project/activity, so I figure some have valuable ideas or existing ones. Note: I am not advocating that every kid should learn to program, be interested in computer systems, or that all of them in a class would even care enough to follow such an introduction with more than a blank stare. I don't buy into the "everybody would benefit from learning to program" thing. Wouldn't hurt, but not necessary in any way. But if I can walk out of there with a few of them having smiled using the thing (or heck, cried because others took them away from them), that'd be good enough. Related Questions I've seen and that seem to complement what I'm looking for, but not exactly for the same age groups or with the same goals: Teaching Programming to Kids Recommendations for teaching kids math concepts & skills for programming?

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  • Diagnose PC Hardware Problems with an Ubuntu Live CD

    - by Trevor Bekolay
    So your PC randomly shuts down or gives you the blue screen of death, but you can’t figure out what’s wrong. The problem could be bad memory or hardware related, and thankfully the Ubuntu Live CD has some tools to help you figure it out. Test your RAM with memtest86+ RAM problems are difficult to diagnose—they can range from annoying program crashes, or crippling reboot loops. Even if you’re not having problems, when you install new RAM it’s a good idea to thoroughly test it. The Ubuntu Live CD includes a tool called Memtest86+ that will do just that—test your computer’s RAM! Unlike many of the Live CD tools that we’ve looked at so far, Memtest86+ has to be run outside of a graphical Ubuntu session. Fortunately, it only takes a few keystrokes. Note: If you used UNetbootin to create an Ubuntu flash drive, then memtest86+ will not be available. We recommend using the Universal USB Installer from Pendrivelinux instead (persistence is possible with Universal USB Installer, but not mandatory). Boot up your computer with a Ubuntu Live CD or USB drive. You will be greeted with this screen: Use the down arrow key to select the Test memory option and hit Enter. Memtest86+ will immediately start testing your RAM. If you suspect that a certain part of memory is the problem, you can select certain portions of memory by pressing “c” and changing that option. You can also select specific tests to run. However, the default settings of Memtest86+ will exhaustively test your memory, so we recommend leaving the settings alone. Memtest86+ will run a variety of tests that can take some time to complete, so start it running before you go to bed to give it adequate time. Test your CPU with cpuburn Random shutdowns – especially when doing computationally intensive tasks – can be a sign of a faulty CPU, power supply, or cooling system. A utility called cpuburn can help you determine if one of these pieces of hardware is the problem. Note: cpuburn is designed to stress test your computer – it will run it fast and cause the CPU to heat up, which may exacerbate small problems that otherwise would be minor. It is a powerful diagnostic tool, but should be used with caution. Boot up your computer with a Ubuntu Live CD or USB drive, and choose to run Ubuntu from the CD or USB drive. When the desktop environment loads up, open the Synaptic Package Manager by clicking on the System menu in the top-left of the screen, then selecting Administration, and then Synaptic Package Manager. Cpuburn is in the universe repository. To enable the universe repository, click on Settings in the menu at the top, and then Repositories. Add a checkmark in the box labeled “Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)”. Click close. In the main Synaptic window, click the Reload button. After the package list has reloaded and the search index has been rebuilt, enter “cpuburn” in the Quick search text box. Click the checkbox in the left column, and select Mark for Installation. Click the Apply button near the top of the window. As cpuburn installs, it will caution you about the possible dangers of its use. Assuming you wish to take the risk (and if your computer is randomly restarting constantly, it’s probably worth it), open a terminal window by clicking on the Applications menu in the top-left of the screen and then selection Applications > Terminal. Cpuburn includes a number of tools to test different types of CPUs. If your CPU is more than six years old, see the full list; for modern AMD CPUs, use the terminal command burnK7 and for modern Intel processors, use the terminal command burnP6 Our processor is an Intel, so we ran burnP6. Once it started up, it immediately pushed the CPU up to 99.7% total usage, according to the Linux utility “top”. If your computer is having a CPU, power supply, or cooling problem, then your computer is likely to shutdown within ten or fifteen minutes. Because of the strain this program puts on your computer, we don’t recommend leaving it running overnight – if there’s a problem, it should crop up relatively quickly. Cpuburn’s tools, including burnP6, have no interface; once they start running, they will start driving your CPU until you stop them. To stop a program like burnP6, press Ctrl+C in the terminal window that is running the program. Conclusion The Ubuntu Live CD provides two great testing tools to diagnose a tricky computer problem, or to stress test a new computer. While they are advanced tools that should be used with caution, they’re extremely useful and easy enough that anyone can use them. 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