computer tips | J.D. Hodges

Category Archives: computer tips

i5-470UM vs i3-380UM, differences? [SOLVED]

Tuesday, 2011.05.31 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Question. Hello. I am looking at a new Dell Vostro V130. I see that they are now shipping with either of the following two Intel® Core™ Series Processors: i3-380UM (3M Cache,1.33GHz,800 MHz FSB) -or- i5-470UM (3M Cache, 1.33GHz, 800 MHz FSB) They are both already ULV (ultra low voltage) processors, so what is the difference?! Answer. Great question! Basically, the i5-470UM has turboboost enabled while the i3 does not. This means that the i5 CPU can dynamically overclock one of

My Dell M6500 and Performance Upgrades

Friday, 2011.05.27 J.D. H. 2 comments

This month I’ll be switching over from a Dell M4400 to a Dell M6500. Samantha is rocking it out with a Dell Vostro V130. They are all three excellent machines, but for my purposes the M6500 is nearly perfect. Specifically, it is: bargain priced (since the M6600 is out now) especially if refurbished via Dell Outlet (w/3 year warranty) high-enough performance (dual core 4 threads HT is enough and should minimize heat compared to quad core 8 threads) up to

Can I buy an Android App and use it on multiple devices? [SOLVED]

Thursday, 2011.05.12 J.D. H. One comment

Question. Hello, I am used to the Apple App Store where one apple account can buy an app and then it can be used on any iOS iDevice that is tied to that apple account. How does this work on Android? Answer. Good question! It should work very similarly. Instead of an apple account, your apps will be tied to your Google Account. You should be able to install and re-install on any device that you own. This is particularly

Create Shortcut on Desktop from FireFox? [SOLVED]

Monday, 2011.05.09 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Question. One of my favorite features from Internet Explorer is the option to right-click to “Create Shortcut” on desktop. I find this handy when I am working on a project. I can just save shortcuts to the desktop and then move them to folders, so I can keep the web page URL link in a directory WITH other related documents. Whereas in FireFox I tend to just add the link to an ever-expanding bookmarks file. 🙁 It would be great

Google Refine: a Few Sample Transformations and Helpful URLs

Wednesday, 2011.05.04 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Google Refine is a powerful tool to help cleanup data from a variety of sources. I’m gradually becoming more familiar with it and the powerful transformation tools that it offers. Here are: a few sample transformation expressions, and… sample data the result “=” after the transformation is applied The first example provides labels and explanations, the rest of the examples omit the labels and explanations but follow the same syntax. I hope these are helpful to you! NOTE: there are

Plugin: Regenerate Thumbnails ERROR undefined [SOLVED!]

Sunday, 2011.05.01 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Question: I’m a big fan of the Regenerate Thumbnails WordPress plugin, howeve, recently some of my photos aren’t able to have their thumbnails regenerated! All I get is the following error 🙁 Regenerate Thumbnails All done! 0 image(s) were successfully resized in 2 seconds and there were 1 failure(s). To try regenerating the failed images again, click here. To go back to the previous page, click here. Please be patient while the thumbnails are regenerated. This can take a while

HOW TO do a (relatively) clean install using Windows 7 Upgrade DVD

Saturday, 2011.04.23 J.D. H. Leave a comment

In the past it seemed like you could do a straight-up clean Windows 7 install using an upgrade DVD on a new PC. Last night we tried a clean install on my buddy’s new PC, using just such a Win7 x64 “Family Pack” upgrade DVD, and everything installed just fine (selecting “custom install” instead of upgrade install). BUT, after booting the Windows product key wasn’t accepted… So, the solution was #1 to go ahead into Windows (by not entering the

Installing VMWware ESX Server 3i (ESXi) on an Intel Atom & USB stick

Wednesday, 2011.04.20 J.D. H. Leave a comment

I have a couple Supermicro X7SPA-HF-O Atom boards that I’m planning on putting IPCop on. #1 is an Atom motherboard as the primary firewall (for Weblogs.us) #2 is another identical Atom board as a secondary backup firewall. Here’s the motherboard in question: X7SPA-HF-O Supermicro X7SPA-HF-O Atom Dual-Core D510/ Intel 945GC/ RAID/ V&2GbE/ Mini-ITX Motherboard, Retail – Motherboards SuperBiiz.comhttp://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-X7SPAHF&title=Supermicro-X7SPA-HF-O-Atom-Dual-Core-D510-Intel-945GC-RAID-V-2GbE-Mini-ITX-Motherboard-RetailSpecifications Mfr Part Number: X7SPA-HF-O CPU: Intel Dual-Core Atom D510 processor (1.66GHz, 1MB L2 Cache) Chipset: Intel 945GC & Intel ICH9R Memory: 2x