Built in obsolescence

When I specced out the upgrade of my home computer I decided on the Intel DG41RQ mainboard, which is nearly the same as the DG41TX mainboard that my new (at start of this year) work computer has. The DG41RQ is specced for DDR2-800 RAM with two slots and a maximum supported level of 8 GB. However, DDR2-800 RAM is economically available only to a maximum of 2 GB per DIMM unless you want to quadruple the price to get a 4 GB DIMM. I don’t know if this situation will change for DDR2 memory. If it doesn’t then this board is effectively limited to 4 GB maximum, of which only 3 GB is effectively useful in 32-bit editions of Windows. I could install Windows x64 on my home computer and get a boost of 800 MB of extra memory available, but most apps I use at home are 32 bit and due to the emulation layer for x86 code, they actually run slightly slower on a 64-bit OS. As well, the 64-bit edition uses up more memory when loading the 32 bit applications than the 32-bit edition does. The result is, that I just can’t see the point of going up to x64 Windows at the moment. On the face of it the DG41TX is more up to date because it can use DDR3 RAM which comes in up to 4GB sizes at present. However this board is limited to 4 GB maximum.

The bigger concern is that the DG41RQ board does have this effective limit of only 4 GB of RAM. When I got my previous system 5-6 years ago it came with 512 MB, which in the course of its life got upgraded to 1.5 GB, partly easier to do because it had four slots, but also because the previous edition of DDR came up to at least 1 GB per DIMM. As such going to DDR2 and finding there is an effective limit of 2 GB per DIMM is a pretty poor advance, considering boards with DDR2 were being installed in new computers only a year ago. It means this board can’t really have any more memory put in it. Ideally I would like to go up to that 8 GB and put in x64 Windows, but I can’t do that without replacing the board and CPU. When I specced the board, I knew as LGA775 it was pretty much the last of the line; the newer generation LGA1156 was available, but more expensive. This is just something you have to be careful about. What it means is that I probably will have to upgrade this computer in three years’ time instead of five.

These are the annoying tricks that manufacturers like Intel pull on consumers all the time. The technology gets obsolescent faster and faster these days.

Windows 7 Folder Redirection

One of the more useful features for server admins on Windows is folder redirection. Basically this is a feature in which the user’s key folders such as Documents, Music and Videos can be redirected out of their user profile and into a fixed server based location. Taking the data out of the user profile speeds up login/logout times significantly.

The Application Data or AppData folder is one that can also be redirected and in previous versions of Windows this was a useful feature to have. However, in Windows 7, Microsoft made a bizarre and stupid decision to take the user’s start menu and other shortcuts out of their dedicated folders within the main part of the user profile (for example C:\Users\username\Start Menu would be the equivalent of the XP folder path for their start menu) and put this into the AppData folder’s Roaming subdirectory. The result of this is that what was a previously functional capability of having application data (which for the most part is invisible to the user) has turned into having the start menu (which is quite important and visible) redirected as well.

Whilst I haven’t investigated what this means, the fact that on my computer I frequently have problems with Taskbar icons that disappear (or rather the message is displayed “Can’t display this item, it must have been removed”) is most likely, in my view, related to the Start Menu redirection stupidity implemented by this design change in Windows 7. Redirecting plain old AppData is useful because a lot of this data does build up to a significant size over time and therefore is best taken out of the user profile. Redirecting the start menu, which doesn’t take up a lot of room, and is going to be affected by network disruptions, or perhaps a server going offline, isn’t a good idea. It’s another one of the changes in Windows 7 that Microsoft has foisted onto users without fully considering the implications.

In order to get rid of the impact of this decision (the disappearing taskbar shortcuts) I am going to have to stop redirecting AppData and therefore ending up with a larger profile and slower login/logout times as a result.

Are major peripherals becoming disposable?

Here’s a conundrum. I can buy a new printer from the likes of Brother for around $99. The official Brother drum for this printer costs $150. Maybe instead of buying that new drum I should just throw the printer away each time the drum wears out. The same goes for projectors which now typically have a very long bulb life up to 5000 hours. The issue there isn’t the cost of a new bulb, but rather the fact that after 5000 hours of use the projector could be considered worn out, or near to it, or uneconomic to justify the expense of the bulb.

When we get into more expensive printers, the cost of consumables is less proportionate to the cost of the printer, so it is more worthwhile to replace the items like a drum with new ones. Especially where you can buy third party consumables for a printer, as you can for most Brothers, since they are one of the few printer manufacturers who have not chipped and patented their consumables. This is all driven by cutthroat competition between printer manufacturers, to the extent that new printer prices are so low the manufacturers are selling at a loss. But we are the losers because we go out and buy a whole new printer instead of a new consumable and therefore are throwing away a large bulky printer which is bad for the environment.

At our school we buy Brother and the important reason for that is that their consumables are much cheaper. So are the printers. That is provided you can get a good performance from them. Lately I’ve had a lot of trouble with Brother’s drivers. I solved that by using HP drivers with the PCL5 compatibility. This works only as long as PCL5 adequately reflects all the printer’s features. And the printer is misidentified as to its capabilities. So it is a bit of a mixed bag all round.