Techie Talk

(This is the page for techies who like to know all the gory details.)
Updated January 2004

Main Computer:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-81875, Award BIOS, on-board sound, LAN, Firewire port, 8 USB ports.
Processor: Pentium 4 - 2.6 GHz
Memory: 1 GB DDRam 400 MHz. OS: Windows XP pro
Video Card: Gainward GeForce 4 TI4200 128 MB RAM
Monitor: Panasonic 19 inch monitor SL90i at 1280 x 960.
Drives: 120 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm SATA
Asus DVD-ROM drive 8x. Pioneer DVD burner DVR-A06

USB Peripherals: Epson Perfection 2450 flatbed scanner. Epson Stylus Photo 1290.
Peripherals: An elderly HP Laserjet 4MP.

Network name: Milly. This computer is loaded with heavy programs for video editing, graphics and DTP. I use Photoshop7 to receive scans and process them. CorelDraw9 for graphics. Ventura8 for DTP. I also have Pagemaker, Illustrator, InDesign etc

Internet Box:

Motherboard: DFI C565-ECwith Intel 815E chipset, Award BIOS, on-board sound.
Processor: Celeron 850 MHz. FSB: 100 MHz
Memory: 512 MB 133 MHz SDRam. OS: Windows XP Pro
Video Card: (temporary) NVidia GeForce 2
Monitor: 17 inch AOC Spectrum 7Glr monitor at 1024 x 768.
Drives: 40 GB Seagate Barracuda ATA III 7200 rpm, and 2 GB Quantum Fireball slave for swap file and drive images.
40 x CDRom drive. Zip100 ATAPI internal drive. Floppy drive
Network card: PheeNet Realtek RTL8029 PCI equivalent.
Modems: Nokia M1122 ADSL modem-router with four RJ45 Ethernet outlets. Dynalink 56K modem (for backup dial-in).

Network name: Sissy (from celeron). Sissy does all the Internet surfing, email etc; and has a selection of games for the grandchildren. They love Age of Empires II, Baldur's Gate, and Crimson Skies. I occasionally fliddle with MS Flight Sim 2002.

Backup & Linux Playbox:

Motherboard: FIC FS35T - socket 370 and Intel 815E chipset, AGP 4x, onboard sound
Processor: Celeron 566 MHz
Memory:128 Meg 100 MHz SDRam. OS: Windows 98SE.
Video Card: MS-Starforce NVidia GeForce2 MX 32 meg video card.
Monitor: Viewsonic 17 inch E70 at 1024 x 768.
Drives: Seagate Barracuda ST310212A 10.2 GB 5400 rpm Ultra ATA/66, and Seagate Barracuda ST340810A 40 GB Ultra ATA II/100 5600 rpm. Zip100 ATAPI internal drive. BTC CD-RW burner, model BCE1610IM 16x-10x-40x internal ATAPI. Floppy drive.
Network card: Realtek RTL8029 PCI equivalent.
Modem: 1456VQH-R1 internal -- for emergencies <g>

Network Name: Linley (from Linux). Linley's main job is to backup data from Milly and Sissy through the network. There are, at the moment, three primary partitions: MSDOS 6.22, Win98SE, and Mandrake Linux V8.1. All accessed by BootMagic on startup. The 40 GB drive is partitioned in two to take the backup files.

Laptop:

Toshiba Tecra S1 with Mobile Pentium M 1.4 GHz processor, 512 MB memory, 30 GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive
Network Name:

Macintosh:

Yes, I trafficked with the devil and acquired a Mac Powerbook G3 from my son in London. As our business is web and graphic design, we sometimes get Mac-originated Zips and CDRoms from design houses in the Big Smoke (Auckland for us). This Powerbook solves that problem -- I just open the offending CD or Zip and transfer files over the network in PC format. Another use is to check our web site designs to see how they appear in a Mac using Internet Explorer and Netscape/Mozilla

And of course, it gives me something else to play with... I've managed to get it updated to OS 9.2.1

Pocket PC:

I've now replaced my Psion5 with an iPAQ 3870 Bluetooth (which links to an Ericsson T35m GSM phone). I've installed a 64 MB SD card, and have the expansion sleeve for compact flash cards, with a 128 MB card installed. This can be used for email while away from home without my laptop. Also, at a pinch, I can access the Internet through either GPRS at 54 kbps or GSM at 14.4 kbps.

If there's anything that you would like to comment on, your contributions -- or just a hello email -- are welcome. Click here to start email.