THE BEST?

This is a question all persons in IT get at some point or another. What’s the best hard drive? Monitor? Laptop? PC? The truth is – there is no best. While you can find a particular brand that works nicely there are many factors that determine “best”.

DISCLAIMER

This post was originally done in 2015. While the concepts are the same, what would be classed as “the best” then would be different now. This post was also unfinished, but I decided to publish since it would still be good info.

Laptop Brands

If you were to go into technical details there are brands that you may not have heard of that have excellent specs. The more popular brands like HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asus would be what come to mind. Take a look at this laptop – the AORUS X3Plusv3-CF1.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S9AIDRU/ref=asc_df_B00S9AIDRU3956740/?tag=hawk-future-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B00S9AIDRU&linkCode=df0&ascsubtag=hawk-752282098-20

That laptop is BEASTLY. It will do just about all you need with a whopping USD$2,000+ price tag. That link on Amazon actually has it marked down from USD$4,000+ which is probably much more than the average user is willing to pay.

For persons who own desktops other brands such as MSI and Gigabyte may come to mind for motherboards – these companies make gaming laptops as well as can be seen in the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SQGAV7C/ref=asc_df_B00SQGAV7C3953261/?tag=hawk-future-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B00SQGAV7C&linkCode=df0&ascsubtag=hawk-1890380132-20

For a brand that you may be more familiar with here is an HP Omen.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O0M750W/ref=asc_df_B00O0M750W3957416/?tag=hawk-future-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B00O0M750W&linkCode=df0&ascsubtag=hawk-1251150049-20

If you want to look at some of the “best” laptops for 2015 you can head over to TechRadar and look at their list.

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-gaming-laptops-top-5-gaming-notebooks-reviewed-1258471

Durability

All laptops are about the same when it comes to durability. Really, as an example – you can’t look at an old Dell and compare it to a new one. Matter of fact – almost all older hardware was “better” than the newer ones on the market. While standards such as RoHS are good for the environment it has caused PC/laptop durability to be challenged. Manufacturers have scrambled to find ways to get their hardware to last longer within the limitations given, all vendors have made strides and any laptop you get will last if proper care is given.

Caveat

With all of that said – there are some things that should be checked prior to any purchase. I (personally) wouldn’t recommend the older HP DV series to anyone. They’re known to have GPU overheating issues which will lead to requiring reflow/reball – something that users really shouldn’t have to contend with.

Summary – So What To Get?

A statement that has been said – the best one is: the one that suits your needs.  Any laptop that will do what you need to get done is fine for you. Do some checking into the model line before purchase so you know if there are problems. Check online stores such as Amazon beforehand since they usually have reviews of the product.

If you want a laptop for office or general use then anything will do.

If you want a laptop for gaming or editing then expect to spend USD$500 or more.

If you’re concerned about speed then avoid the low-end processors – don’t do Celeron or others like that.

Some persons may remember in 2013 that Winamp had shut down.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/20/after-15-years-of-whipping-the-llamas-ass-winamp-shuts-down/

Since then the days of easily, quickly (and freely) skinning your audio player went out the window. Personally I never used Winamp to organize music – just play, but it did have some very nice features. I even had some skins that exactly matched my wallpapers or fit into certain sections of the screen.

While some functions in Winamp are replaced by functions in your OS, there are persons that would still love to go back to their familiar player that had excellent functions. On that note I have good news: Winamp seems to be making a comeback.

http://www.winamp.com/

The new site looks good but they are working on it. Things moved quickly and while this may be old news it’s not known by some. So – here is a quote from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winamp#Acquisition_by_Radionomy

On November 20, 2013, AOL announced that on December 20, 2013, it would shut down Winamp.com, and the software would no longer be available for download, nor supported by the company after that date. The following day, an unofficial report surfaced that Microsoft was in talks with AOL to acquire Nullsoft. Despite AOL’s announcement, the Winamp site was not shut down as planned, and on January 14, 2014, it was officially announced that Belgian online radio aggregator Radionomy had bought the Nullsoft brand, which includes Winamp and Shoutcast. No financial details were publicly announced.However, TechCrunch has reported that the sale of Winamp and Shoutcast is worth between $5 and $10 million, with AOL taking a 12% stake (a financial, not strategic, investment) in Radionomy in the process.

The program is still being worked on, but you can still get their application to download from within their forums.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=374929

Personally I’m looking forward to the finished product, but so far it brings me back to a time when music was easier to play – playlists were easier to manage and skinning my player was a piece of cake.

https://carlosthomas.net/blog/2015/09/command-conquer-free-on-origin/

As we said before Origin was giving away the game for free. It’s back up again and seems much more stable now. Have fun!

https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/c-c-the-ultimate-collection/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition

As we said before the game is available for free on Origin. The problem is that EVERYONE knew about it and stormed it. Was difficult to get a download going.

Due to this they had to take it down. They said it’ll be back soon but they realize that the demand for that game is much higher than they thought.Quote from the site:

https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/c-c-the-ultimate-collection/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition

Earlier today one of our friends alerted us to this deal. Check it out while it lasts!

It has come to my attention that recently the ISPs locally have been making changes. One change results in all persons no longer having public addresses – this means that the access to view DVRs using other services such as DynDNS will no longer work. In order to fix this customers will have to call FLOW directly and request public addresses. While this should not be very hard to do it is an inconvenience. Please also note that persons with less than a 15Mb service will be required to pay an additional fee for a public IP address.

The game publisher known as 2K is having a 10th anniversary sale on STEAM. Most titles are 50%-80% off. Check it out and save!

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/2k_publisher_weekend/

For all the old school UT fans – this is a revamped version of the game. Looks VERY pretty! Will be downloading this to test!

http://www.unrealtournament.com/blog/

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/kr9kst/unreal-tournament–2015–gdc-2015–outpost-23-gameplay-trailer

http://store.steampowered.com/steamos

This is something that gamers have been talking about for a while now. Gaming on Linux.

Worldwide there’s an issue with software piracy – while games are pirated too the OS (Windows) is one software package that’s pirated the most. Even people that legitimately own Windows crack it at times due to Microsoft’s activation and licensing model. While games are also pirated there are a lot of gamers that buy their games but not their OS.

Valve Corporation is probably most known for their Half-Life game series. They are also the makers of STEAM which is a content delivery platform for games. What this allows is reinstallation of all your purchased games at any time with all your serials and installation files held in the cloud on your account. This means no need to worry about writing down serials or making multiple copies of installation discs – just remember your STEAM ID and password.

While Linux users have been using tools like WINE and CEDEGA (now under the GameTree Linux umbrella) persons that are not very Linux savvy would have issues getting things working properly.

Why would you want to switch to Linux? Well – for one thing – Linux is FREE SOFTWARE. There’s no need to purchase the OS and since it’s community driven it’s got drivers for almost everything. Support is in the community. And (mostly) Linux just works.

Valve has taken a huge leap into developing on Linux and has now released STEAM-OS. This is a Linux-based OS that gives you the freedom to play games without worrying about your Windows license. This means less crashes and more stability overall – but since this is new and still in beta, don’t expect miracles. Some things may not work the way you expect.

Head over to their site and get the necessary tools to test it out. Please bear in mind that the installation of Linux will require some computer know-how and may erase all the things on your current system. My recommendation is to have another machine to test this. If you have some computer knowledge or repair knowledge then use a different hard drive – disconnect your primary drive(s) – then do the installation. Remember to check the requirements for the installation as there are two options available. One will require a 1TB drive while the other will be setup just like a regular Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) installation.

Personally I’m glad that Valve/STEAM did this – more power to the gamer!