Why Roku?

Why you should care that Intel is getting into Internet TV?

Intel is developing an Internet TV set-top box.  There are already dozens of set-tops from other manufacturers.  Why should I care?  Because it is not so much about the box but the content they promise to deliver.  Intel is in the process of partnering with the content creators.  This will potentially give consumers the ability to purchase 'cable like' TV packages that will completely bypass the traditional cable and satellite networks giving consumers a 3rd choice for cable TV.  However, there is low expectation this offering will save the consumer a significant amount of money.  But I see it as a start of good things to come.  Once the model is established, other competitors will flood the market bringing down prices over a more cost effective network called "the internet".  Click here for more information.

Make your computer a rock star with SSD!

 My first PC build was a Pentium ii 266mhz machine back in 1997.  The motivation to build a PC from scratch was the savings of piecing one together rather than buying one from the store.  But there was also the satisfaction of the learning process and being to repair it in the future.  I carefully picked out the ram, motherboard, power supply, case, video card, sound card, hard drive, modem, and CD drive.  Even the floppy drive came in 3 different colors (beige, white, or black) and 3 different manufacturers to choose from.  Wow pretty exciting yes?  Rock Star?  Most Definitely!

At the time, the 3 most important components of the computer that would determine its speed were the CPU, amount of memory, and the video card in that order.  The bottleneck in most applications or games were the number of cycles that the CPU could churn out.  Today, this is no longer the case. 

First, building a computer from scratch to save money is difficult to achieve unless you are building a high end computer.  A basic PC can be purchased for under $200 today.  Also, CPU's and memory have far exceeded a typical users needs.  They simply are not the bottleneck in entry to mid level machines.  A typical CPU exceeded 3ghz years ago and now the number of cores are doubling to 2, 4, 6, and 8+.  Memory is cheap and the speed of the chips have greatly increased.  DDR1, DDR2, DDR3 at speeds up to 2800mhz across the bus with super low latency.  Again, no bottlenecks.

So exactly where are the bottlenecks in today's modern computer?  Windows has created a tool to determine just that.  It's called Windows Experience Index or WEI for short.  It can be found under Control Panel > System > Rating.  There are far better benchmarking tools for each of your computer's components but WEI is quick and easy assessment test for novice users looking to upgrade their computer.  Plus, it is built right into Windows 7 & 8.

WEI measures 4 areas of your computer's performance: CPU, Memory, Graphics, and Hard Drive.  Graphics are split between Aero graphics (Windows) and Gaming graphics for a total of 5 scores ranging from 1 - 7.9 in Windows 7 and 9.9 in Windows 8.

You need to see how your computer scores but chances are your low score is going to be graphics or hard disk.  Memory is likely to be the highest and processor next.  Again, the bottleneck is not likely to be CPU or memory in a modern computer.

So the question becomes how can I boost my graphics and hard disk scores?  First, make sure your video card driver is up to date which is likely to be a Nvidia or ATI based card or on-board. A graphics card upgrade can be purchased for as little as $50.  If you are not a gamer or your hard drive score is the lowest, I'd move on to it. 

In my case, I had all very high scores (6.8+) except the hard drive which was a 5.9 giving me a base score of 5.9 as the base score is the low score.   A traditional hard drive is a mechanical hard drive with spinning platters which read/write information onto a physical disk.  Think of it like an old record player.  A SSD hard drive is a solid state drive in which information is read/write into memory.  Think of it as a MP3 player.  Becomes there are no moving parts, it is faster and requires less energy to operate.  A SSD in a laptop helps conserve battery power allowing you to operate cordless longer.

At any rate, a SSD will boost your computer's performance greatly!  In fact, of all the computer upgrades I've done over the years, the addition of a SSD drive made the biggest difference I could feel.  For example, boot ups went from 1 minutes to 20 seconds.  Launching programs is instantaneous.  The SSD drive upgraded my 5.9 score to 7.9 in Windows 7 and 8.4 in Windows 8.  Huge gains and a much improved computing experience!  Check out SSD drives here. and more information on SSD drives here.

Super Bowl 2013 - Hulu AdZone

So people only watch for the commercials right?  Hulu has a channel for Super Bowl ads and previews to what we'll see on game day.  Check it out here.