Continuing with the series of posts of the best value components you can buy for your computer, this section is all about RAM. RAM is a component of the PC which is essential to performance and depending on a number of factors, the ideal amount of RAM can differ from person to person. RAM also has one wonderful quality, it is dirt cheap! This gives you little excuse for skimping on it but there is a point where you will be spending a significant amount of money for very little gain in performance.

For choosing the amount of RAM, there is a few things you need to consider. Firstly, the amount you need. Many computers you buy ship with 4GB of RAM standard and very few cheap computers will come with 2GB. Regardless of your budget, I recommend going with a minimum of 4GB of RAM but to ensure that your computer runs smoothly for many years to come, 8GB is probably going to be a better choice. I would also buy the minimum number of sticks of RAM you need to as this allows you to upgrade your computer in the future (so, instead of getting 4 2GB sticks, get 2 4GB sticks instead - this will often be cheaper). 2 4GB sticks is a good amount and can be bought for under $50 if you try to get the cheapest price.

Next, you need to look at the speed. Often this will not severely affect your computers performance but the goal here is to avoid bottlenecks. The latest processors all work fine with 1066 or 1333MHz DDR3. Faster memory than this will be useless for most people. Where it will come in handy is for overclockers since as you overclock your CPU, the FSB speed increases meaning you need faster memory to stop bottlenecks from occurring and negating the performance benefit of overclocking.

Taking all this into consideration, at the moment it looks like the best value RAM for everyday use is the Kingston KVR 4GBx2 kit which is rated at 1333MHz. At the time of writing it costs $48 which is essentially the cheapest you can get this type of RAM. Kingston is also a well known brand with good quality products so despite its low price, the RAM should be top notch.

If you have an old computer which only supports DDR2 or DDR then you may have a harder time locating RAM. On top of this it will be quite expensive due to a lower supply. 1GB of Kingston DDR RAM will cost the same amount as 8GB of DDR3 RAM. If your computer is this old, you may want to consider upgrading it as it will be cheaper in the long run rather than replacing parts with legacy hardware which is difficult to find and technologically inferior for a premium price.

In the fast moving world of technology, it can become impossible to keep up with the ever changing landscape. This is why I have introduced this new series of posts to give you guys an idea of what is upcoming in the world of computers and whether it is worth the wait or better to just buy what is currently on offer. New technology also leads to price drops in the older (but not outdated) technology. For example, when Sandy Bridge processors from Intel came out, they offered a large jump in processing power as well as efficiency but laptops with the older generation of i5 and i7 could be found for $500-700, a far cry from the $1700 they were available for 6 months before. If you're willing to buy slightly older technology, the newer components can lead to massive savings for you especially as manufacturers and shops try to clear out their stocks. So what's new in the world of CPUs?

Intel

Intel is on the verge of releasing its new Ivy Bridge processors built on the 22nm architecture. They should by unveiled early next year and released soon after. It promises processors with more cores, more power and more efficiency than the previous generation as well as bringing 6 core processes to a more mainstream level (although still at the higher end). Obviously the high end will be well above $1000 but it should bring prices of existing Sandy Bridge processors down significantly. Sandy Bridge should be fine for the majority of people and is perfectly adequate for gaming as well. The potential cost savings are huge for those who want to build a cheap desktop or buy a new laptop. The advantages of upgrading to Ivy Bridge would be significant mainly for laptop users. The 22nm manufacturing process means less heat generated with more power. It should also be good news for overclockers especially due to the already high clock speeds and availability of multiplier unlocked processors.

AMD

AMD has already released their Bulldozer processors which includes the highest clock speed processor currently available however benchmarks have been disappointing. An interesting direction AMD seems to be taking is in launching Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) which aim to combine the roles of CPUs and graphics cards into one. This has the advantage of utilising the power of often unused graphics cards for everyday tasks. This also provides the benefit of lower power usage and less components in the system. This new concept will be of particular importance to laptops due to these key aspects. AMD is expected to replace its Bulldozer processors with the new Piledriver architecture in mid-late 2012. One key point about AMD processors is they are also significantly cheaper than Intel ones but offer similar performance. These soon to be released processors are capable of competing directly with both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors from Intel and can be an excellent choice for those with a tight budget not looking to skimp on performance.

This is a brief summary of things to come in 2012. If you are considering building or buying a new computer, you might want to wait a few months for these new technologies to be released, either to have the latest and greatest or save a few bucks on the previous generation products. Please note that this information is based on leaked roadmaps and may not be 100% accurate, it is just meant to be used as a rough guide. The next post will cover motherboards.

UPDATE: I found this link to some tweaking software for the Developer Preview which fixes a few of these problems. You can add shutdown, restart and sleep buttons to the start menu now and also completely remove the Metro Start screen. Here is a link to the download

By now we've all had a chance to play around with the Windows 8 Developer Preview. Now, I know this isn't the final version but there are several things which Microsoft has done which annoy me to no end.

Firstly, there is the placement of the shutdown button. One of the most known commands on every single computer is usually kept in the most conspicuous place possible. What puzzles me to no end is why Microsoft chose to put it in the Settings menu. It makes no sense and to most people who think logically, it is the last place they would look. Clicking on the username gives the user the option to log off but not to shutdown. Obviously tablet users will not be bothered by this since most will just put their tablet to sleep but since this is meant to be a full blown desktop OS, many users will want to shutdown at the end of the day. It seems like a bit of an oversight to me.

The new Metro interface seems pretty cool when you first try it out but it's only when the fun is over and you need to do actual work that you realize how useless it is for productivity. First, it is not very clear what applications are currently running in the background. If you have 2 apps open you can easily switch between them by dragging from the left side of the screen but when there is more than this, it just becomes annoying. You have no idea what you are doing and having to keep returning to the Start screen to open new apps and search just adds an extra click to every process. A feature similar to Expose (but not a copy) on Mac OS X would be awesome for this purpose so I could have a birds-eye view of everything which is happening.

As well as this, Windows 8 offers both a Desktop mode and Metro mode. The Desktop mode is for compatibility applications but ends up being used quite often anyway. But what bothers me is that there seems to be absolutely no integration between the two. An app which I open on desktop mode cannot be dragged over to Metro and made full screen, it will just change that monitor to desktop mode as well. If I wanted to take a Metro app out of full screen and make it windowed, there is no way for me to do this either. To add insult to injury, there are TWO versions of Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer, one for each interface. Neither has any connection with one another and they seem completely different. Essentially this means that anyone who is new to computers is going to have to learn how to do the same thing on both modes in two different ways. Something which is honestly just stupid. It seems kind of like using two different operating systems at once and I don't think this is the way to go. It adds confusion and basically shows that Microsoft isn't really sure what they're doing. Finally, there is the lack of a list with all of your programs in it. You only have a choice of manually pinning it to the Start screen or searching for it. All this again requires an extra click or an extra two clicks if you are on Desktop mode.

So, quite obviously, the Metro interface is almost specifically designed to be used with touch screens. But since it is meant to also be a full blown desktop OS, it should also be keyboard and mouse friendly. Unfortunately, I often find that the mouse isn't two suited to Metro. It feels very out of place with all the random gestures and flicking, scrolling etc. Maybe there should be a few more options about how the OS handles the mouse, making it more mouse friendly when someone prefers to use that rather than an awkwardly placed touchscreen. I mean, let's face it, How many people actually have touch screen computers?

I feel that the new Metro interface is nice to look at but productivity is where it falls short. Everything you are used to doing takes an extra click. It feels more suited to tablets and phones rather than proper computers. I think there are quite a few improvements which can be made to improve the OS and it isn't a total lost cause. There are still plenty of aspects which I like about it but obviously those don't really fit with the title.

So what do you think about the new developer preview? Is it something you would like to use on a daily basis?

Stocks

A new stocks app. Looks pretty nice with good graphs. No ASX stocks available yet though

Windows Developer Build Windows Explorer

The new windows explorer is only available in the desktop mode. It does have the ribbon interface which isn't too bad but it should be better integrated

Windows Developer Build App Store

The marketplace is full of apps as you can see!

Connect 5 game

A kind of boring connect 5 game

Windows Developer Build Paint

I'm not actually sure whether this is the official pain app but it looks pretty good

Windows Developer Build Podcasts

A new podcast app integrated into the OS. The interface is good with podcasts able to be sorted into groups. It is similar to Windows Media Centre

Internet Explorer 10

A new version of Internet explorer. It opens websites full screen with the address bar at the bottom and tabs at the top. These pop up when you hover near them. Not so sure about the address bar at the bottom though. It seems a bit strange and unintuitive

Measure

Kind of like the measuring app on iOS where you take a photo, set a scale and can semi-accurately measure objects as king as you have no need for depth measurements

Search menu

A nice layout for the new search menu

Piano app splashscreen

Here is an example of the app full screen splash screens

Piano app

A nice piano app for touch screens, not so for mice and keyboards

RSS reader

An RSS reader with a similar layout to the podcast app

RSS reader gesture

If you look on the left side of the screen you can see a pop up of another app. You can just drag another open app from the left side of the screen and bring it up as full screen. Supposedly there's a way of making them split a screen but I haven't figured it out yet

Here is a quick overview of some of the apps included in the developer build of Windows. Most have pretty good concepts but need a bit more work to make them useful. Overall, it gives you an idea of how the OS works and the power of the system.

More pictures will come soon as I discover new features

Windows Developer Build Installation

The initial screen once the computer is started and files are loaded. Pretty similar to Windows 7

Windows Developer Build T&Cs

Again, this screen is pretty similar to the Windows 7 install

Windows Developer Build Installation

This first part of the installation is extremely similar to Vista and 7

Windows Developer Build Installation

20 minutes later...

Windows Developer Build opening screen

One of the first hints that you're installing a new version of Windows

Windows Developer Build Personalise

Finally, something new. The personalise screen is pretty easy to read and nice to look at

Windows Developer Build Settings

A convenient option for express settings is provided which keeps the installation moving along quickly

Windows Developer Build Login details

The login screen. Pretty standard

Windows Developer Build Welcome

Again, pretty standard stuff.

The new start screen

The awesome new start screen. It looks pretty similar to Windows Phone 7 but a bit bigger. There's a scroll bar down the bottom to go across to more apps

Start screen menu thingy

There is a menu which pops up which allows you to access settings for the home screen. It also pops up will you're in apps so you can press the start button to exit the app. I found it a bit difficult to get it to pop up with a mouse pointer as it wouldn't work if I let the mouse hover in the area, only if I moved the mouse to the bottom of the screen quickly. I guess it could work for tablets but not so sure about desktops

The new control panel

Although it looks nice and is easy to use, a lot of the time it would need to go to the desktop version (Windows 7esque) to get to more advanced settings such as changing the screen resolution. i found this a bit unintuitive and clunky

Windows Developer Build Desktop Mode

Desktop mode opens like a regular app. It basically looks the same as Windows 7 with a few slight changes. Everything works the same way and you can access everything as normal. It's a good idea for backwards compatibility but honestly, the new stuff should probably all go into the Metro interface so you don't have to keep switching between the modes to get to more advanced settings

Windows Developer Build Lock Screen

You drag the picture up with your mouse (or finger) to get to the actual logon area. It has the capability to show information from apps but none are available yet. The dragging gesture is awesome for tablets but not so good with mouse. The layout is very touch oriented and doesn't work as effectively with mouse and keyboard

Windows Developer Build Weather App

This is the new weather app. It looks really nice with a video playing in the background depending on the type of video. It can get a bit bogged down if you have too many cities added though. Overall it's nice and easy to read and quite good to look at as well. This also shows the new right click menu along the bottom. Pretty awesome, I'm confused about how you would access this with a touch screen. Maybe I should buy a touch screen computer to find out....

So the new developer build of Windows looks pretty cool. It is pretty similar to what you've been reading in the news lately. There are a few bugs for example, after leaving it on for a while, the screen goes black and the computer freezes. It also sometimes randomly crashes while in any app so it isn't something you want to use permanently. Overall, its a pretty good idea but needs a few improvements. There are a few preinstalled apps which I still have to look at and I'll make another post with more information on that stuff. For now, enjoy the slideshow!

UPDATE: Another small flaw is how difficult it is to access the shutdown button. It is hidden away in the most difficult to find spot. It probably should be located somewhere on the home screen

UPDATE: Here is the download link if you want to install it yourself. I used virtualbox to install it but beware that it will probably run a lot slower than what it should

With more and more manufacturers updating their products to include SSDs you might be wondering if it is time to make the move.

SSD stands for solid state disk. It is essentially the same as a hard drive except instead of using magnetic storage and moving parts, it uses flash memory which has no moving parts. Less moving parts means less mechanical components to fail as well as significantly faster read and write speeds. This makes SSDs highly shock proof since there is nothing mechanical to break inside. Although SSDs have been out for quite a while, for the most part they have been eye-wateringly expensive and, depending on how you look at it, they still can be. The reason for the high price is that flash memory is quite expensive but is slowly becoming cheaper. This is why RAM is coming in large quantities on computers now. 5 years ago it would have cost a lot of money to have 12GB of RAM, today it is considerably less and fast becoming the norm. As time goes on, capacities such as 128GB and 256GB will come down in price which should allow SSDs to replace the hard drive.

One of the benefits of SSDs is the speed. In many systems, the hard drive is the bottleneck of the system meaning that your computer can have the best and fastest of everything but it will be held up by the slow transfer speeds of your hard drive. For example, if you think about old hard drive based iPods, you would remember them being okay to use but sometimes they got laggy and certain items took ages to load. Then, when you make the transition to an all flash iPod it would have been a lot snappier and overall a better experience. This is because of the flash memory. SSDs should bring a similar feeling to PCs which is why manufacturers are starting to use them more and more.

One of the biggest turn-offs though is the incredibly high price when compared to the amount of storage on offer. A 320GB Western Digital hard drive for notebooks costs around $50 while a 60GB Corsair SSD costs around $115. You can already see that the price per gigabyte is quite a bit higher than the regular hard drive. Then, sticking to the same product line, the largest SSD you can buy is 240GB which comes in at a whopping $560. For the same amount you could buy 3 or 4 regular 1TB hard drives. Clearly SSDs are not ideal for those with large file libraries.

One way of getting the performance of an SSD without spending a fortune is to consider getting two drives. One small (around 80-100GB) to install windows on as well as put your install files for programs on. These are the files your computer uses regularly and having them on an SSD will give you the most benefit. The other disk should be a large regular hard disk to put all of you other files on (videos, photos, music etc.) as you don't access these files regularly and are unlikely to see a huge performance boost if you put them on an SSD anyway.

Another solution is to consider a hybrid hard drive. These are regular hard drives with a small flash storage cache (around 4GB on Seagates). Files can be temporarily put in the cache to be accessed and you will get significant performance improvements over a regular hard drive. Manufacturers claim that you can get SSD-like performance from these drives. The Seagate 2.5" Momentus XT with 500GB of storage and a 4GB SSD cache costs$116. You do pay a price premium for them but you get huge performance increases for a fraction of the cost of an equivalently sized SSD so you can't argue with that.

The final obstacle is, what if you want to put an SSD in your desktop? Since SSDs are mostly available in 2.5" sizes there are two options. One is to buy an adaptor like this one to allow a normal 2.5" SSD to fit inside a regular ATX case which usually only houses 3.5" disks. The other option is to buy a PCI Express SSD. These are SSDs which fit into the PCI-express slot on your desktop (x4 or greater). They are currently only made by OCZ but they are a pretty novel idea. Unfortunately these are significantly more expensive than a normal SSD, costing $400 for the base 100GB model.

The OCZ Revodrive - PCIe SSD

SSDs are here to stay but it's going to take a while for them to catch on. Most people who use them are enthusiasts or people who can afford expensive(ish) laptops. As time goes on storage capacities will increase and prices will come down bringing them into the main stream.

Recently, I had to come up with the task of choosing a new laptop to buy. It seems like an easy task until you actually try it. Everywhere you go, every brand, every model - nothing is perfect! You start off with a good idea of what type of laptop you want, the amount of power, the battery life and you find that this laptop you've been picturing in your head simply doesn't exist.

Personally, I wanted a laptop which had a decent graphics card, at least an i5 processor and an anti glare screen for around $1700. The problem being that no one who wanted an anti glare screen had any need for a powerful laptop so you either had to go for an under powered laptop with the screen you want or a laptop with all the power you could need but a screen you can never see unless you close all the curtains and turn off the lights. Anything which looked to be perfect ended up costing around $3000 because it had all these other features which i had no need for.

I'm sure other people have had similar dilemmas when trying to buy a computer, there is nothing which quite fits everything you require for. This means that your purchase ends up being a series of trade offs. For me, I valued power so I got something which was not very expensive, had heaps of grunt and had a full HD screen (still glary). It seemed like an almost perfect laptop, until when I brought it home. I realised it only had a 1.5 hour battery life!

Pros

• Excellent interface
• Easy to use
• Good detection rate

Cons

• Ambiguous on how to configure automatic firewall
• Password setup is annoying with interactive firewall
• Not as many extra features as competitors

Review

After sticking with Avira Security Suite for almost a year a decided it was time for a change. ESET has released a free public beta version of their Smart Security suite and I thought I would give it a whirl. Once downloaded, installation was a breeze. The one thing I didn't get was that it made me set a password for going into setup. It makes sense since it stops random people messing around with your settings but after a while it got REALLY annoying (more on that later).

ESET has incuded quite a few features in the security suite but none of the extras which other companies have put in. For instance, Avira included a backup utility with their security suite, others include online backup. ESET includes none of these bells and whistles.

Starting up the program, the interface looked incredibly appealing and a huge leap forward from the appearance of Avira. Everything was organised and easy to understand so anyone can instantly see what's going on with their computer's security. But along with this simple interface, good for non-tech savvy people, was a hidden jungle of advanced options. Once you click advanced options you notice that there are millions of ways you can customise this program to suit your needs.

This makes the program accessible to everyone while not leaving out those who need a bit more customisation. Scheduling and setting up tasks is also another thing which is incredibly intuitive and simple to do. Since the software is also connected to the cloud, this means it will be able to be up to date and able to protect your computer against the latest threats. As well as this, the software turns out very few false positives while still maintaining a high detection rate.

One irritating thing was the firewall. Although it was set to "Automatic with User-exceptions", I couldn't find a way to add a single program to the trusted section, only certain IP ranges. One of my programs was blocked from working and the only way I could get it to work was by turning off the firewall. Eventually, I changed the firewall to "Interactive mode", which isn't as fun as you think it would be. This means I have to manually click allow or deny which is okay since that's what I did with Avira as well. The only problem with this was, once the mode was changed, I had to allow every single service that wanted to get to the internet. On top of this, by setting up a setup password, every time I clicked allow, I need to type the password in to verify it. I had to do this well over 20 times and it was getting really frustrating. Eventually, i just turned the password off. Nothing was worth that much frustration.

Conclusion

Despite a few minor flaws with the firewall configuration (I could have just missed something obvious), ESET Smart Security is an awesome piece of software with an really good amount of customisability, an excellent interface and amazing protection. They have made the software accessible to everyone and I think that should be commended. The suite is still in beta but it is fairly stable, it hasn't crashed on me yet. You can download it for free from their website and the license will last until the 23 of August. It is worth downloading, especially if you are feeling stingy and need a free security suite.

Most people when they hear the name Telstra, they run. Not only have Telstra got a bad reputation from past customers but their plans are notorious for being over-expensive and not even remotely competitive with other mobile carriers. Up until now I believed the same thing, that was until I tried Telstra's mobile broadband offering.

First, the plan i chose was the 7GB Liberty which I got for $39.95 a month (a $20 discount because of having other services with Telstra). Seeing as the normal price is $59.95, this plan is incredibly expensive compared to what you're getting. The $39.95 price makes it slightly more reasonable. Other carriers like 3/Vodafone and Optus give you between 8 and 12GB for $39.95 a month. The biggest problem with all these carriers is their data services are unreliable and not upto scratch. Using a mobile phone as a modem with 3, I got a maximum speed of around 1mbps but it was usually around 400kpbs. This barely qualifies as broadband and it is painfully slow. So despite the extra data you get, it really isn't worth the trouble. Another issue is the coverage. Both Vodafone and Optus are notorious for having poor signal in amny areas and lots of blackspots, most likely due to their overloaded networks. 3 has decent coverage in metropolitan areas but you get hit with roaming charges if you wander out of their coverage area which is anywhere outside major cities and towns.

With Telstra, they give you a free "Ultimate" wireless modem depending on the plan you get. This modem gives you a theoretical maximum speed of 21mbps. In the real world, this is practically impossible but in practice, my internet speed is at 13mbps and has gone as high as 15mbps. Although you have to be living fairly close to the CBD to get these speeds, outside these areas you will still get upto 8mpbs theoretically. The main difference is that these speeds are much faster than any other networks and you can have internet access almost anywhere in Australia with fairly decent signal and speed. So, is it worth the extra cost? Personally, I think it is since with the other carriers you will end up being frustrated trying to get decent signal and the high data allowance will be useless. The other advantage is that with Telstra there are no excess usage charges as with other carriers, once you reach your monthly allowance it is shaped to 64kpbs.

Pros

• Feels faster than OS 5
• Better UI
• Social Feeds is awesome
• Improved Camera application
• Less Loading Times
• New Browser

Cons

• The new home screen works better on a touch screen
• Uses too much application memory

Review

After hearing that the new OS for Blackberry was out, I really wanted to try it out but unfortunately it hadn't come out on the Bold 9700. After a few months wait, a carrier in the US released it for their customers and I found a way to download and install the new OS regardless of what carrier you have. This is especially useful for those in Australia where OS 6 will probably never be released to the Bold 9700. Continue reading after the break.

The installation was easy but it took about 1 hour to do completely. Here is a link with instructions for those outside the US or UK who want to install OS 6 on their Bold. When I started the OS, the first thing I noticed was that it everything looked much cleaner. The UI had better graphics and the transparency and new icons really made everything look slick. It was noticeably faster than the old OS. For example, before when locking the phone, it used to show the hour glass and take a few seconds to lock. now it locks instantly. The new menu also opens much more quickly than before and everything feels a lot smoother.

The new Social Feeds application allows you to have all your feeds from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and all the IM clients in one place. This makes it easy to quickly see updates from your friends and also allows you to update your status on all the clients at once which is pretty handy. The new browser is a huge improvement over the old one. I actually got sick of using the old one as pages were slow to load and it would randomly not respond sometimes. The new browser has a speed dial function to quickly launch your most visited sites and has tabs so you can open multiple pages at once. Zooming into a page is now much easier and when you try to scroll around a webpage, there is inertia scrolling so it doesn't take forever to get from the top to the bottom of the page if you want to do it quickly.

The new settings menu is a big step up from the previous one. It has become a lot more user friendly as there are no categories and icons to make it much easier to use. Previously there was just a list and it was daunting to those unfamiliar with the Blackberry OS.

The universal search function is very handy and you can search almost anything and it will search contacts,calendar, applications and the web to find things for you. It is launched when you start typing. One major gripe I have with this is that when I try to dial a number by just typing like I did on the old OS, it launches the search function but still shows the number below it. However, when i type a number out like this, it doesn't let me add it to the contacts so I have to press the call accept button in order to go to the phone application so that I can type a number and add it to the contacts. This is a bit of a pain but you get used to it after a while.

Another problem with the new OS is that although the new home screen has a lot more functionality, it doesn't work as well on non-touchscreen phones. For example, on a touch screen you can just swipe to go from one menu to the other (e.g. from All to Media) but on a non-touchscreen you have to scroll up and then swipe to change menus. Also, there is a lot of scrolling involved to go to connections and check the notification bar. You can tell that the home screen is much more suited to touch screens.

All the new programs which come with the new OS are amazing but one thing it really does impact on is the limited application memory of Blackberrys'. The Bold 9700 has 128MB of memory to use on applications which is not expandable. Before upgrading, I had 80MB free. After upgrading I only had 20MB free. The fact that I can't install apps on the media card makes this a severe limitation but the new Blackberry Bold 9780 comes with even more application memory so for those looking at a Blackberry, I would recommend upgrading to this phone.

Conclusion

Overall, the new OS has a much better interface and is significantly faster than the old OS. Despite the tiny gripes, All the new features make OS 6 a worthwhile upgrade for Bold owners.