New Moderator

Congratulations Mr.Scott Ashton on becoming a moderator......So will you as the moderator of this forum answer all of my questions, be prompt, accurate, and be at my beckon call 24 hours a day............LMAO Congrats Sir.....

Thank you and no.

Way to go Scott. Congratulations!

Thanks Dennis.

I'm hoping I can get folks to post here more than once a month!

Scott I'm glad you took the helm here, I am of the older genearation and always need help with computer questions, so you're a real treasure.
BTW you have an interesting screen name.

Originally Posted by lucille

Scott I'm glad you took the helm here, I am of the older genearation and always need help with computer questions, so you're a real treasure.
BTW you have an interesting screen name.

Thanks Lucille.

My screen name actually comes from a Family Guy episode:

[after Brian walks in on Stewie shaving himself] Umm, feel free to say no to this but... would you mind shaving my coin purse? (from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385690/quotes)

Great movie, in a sick sort of way....

Well, I'm sure I am going to be needing a new computer come this Fall. Mine is holding up well, but it's 3 or 4 years old, and technology just marches on.

So what is the hottest technology out right now? By that I mean motherboards, new processors, LARGE hard drives, video cards and sound cards.

I'm also thinking hard about getting some sort of digicam for video, but am pretty clueless about what is available in the way of editing software and compatible formats. Some cameras claim Mini-DV and others DVD. I assume one is smaller then the other, but what about the formats used in them? Or is this way outside the realm of this forum?

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Well, I'm sure I am going to be needing a new computer come this Fall. Mine is holding up well, but it's 3 or 4 years old, and technology just marches on.

So what is the hottest technology out right now? By that I mean motherboards, new processors, LARGE hard drives, video cards and sound cards

Well, I'm not Scott and I'm definitely not going to shave any parts of him, but some of my info may be worthwhile, somebody let me know if my info is outdated.

Processors; nothing major this year, as far as I know. Speed has stagnated, and the only thing really different is dual core processors.

Hard Drives; 500GB are becoming somewhat common, and I've seen Terabyte? HD's mentioned.

Video cards; If you're into gaming/video editing you gotta get a board that supports PCIe (e=enhanced) they are 16x (twice as fast as AGP slot cards) and I'd get an ATI Radeon x800xt platinum edition. It uses the power provided by the PCIe slot, and supports 2 monitors. There is another card comperable power wise, but it needs and extra hookup to the power supply, and may cover another slot.

Sound Card; I've been deaf in my right ear since at least 4 years old, so I don't expend a lot of money hear (misspelling intended) so not much help for you.
Hope that helps, and anyone else have better info, please let us know, I'll also be upgrading..............some day.

Indeed dual core is the industry's answer to the clock speed conundrum.

The sad news is one of the best processor platforms - PowerPC was scrapped by Apple in favor of the Intel Core-Duo.

Talking about mobos and CPUs is like talking about religion.

There are the AMD zealots, the Intel zealots, and me.

I am the use what ya got zealot. To quote famous CPU design engineer Dan Hopta "cheap is good - free is better". Right now I am typing this reply on a circa 2001 laptop running a Pentium 3 450 Mhz CPU with 394 MB RAM, and yes it was free. My other PC's are two Dells one running 256 MB RAM with a P3 667 Mhz CPU running Windows 98 and the other is a Dell Pentium 3 450 Mhz with 512 MB RAM running Solaris 8.

But when it comes to work buying my PC I follow this basic principal:

Buy the fastest CPU, the most memory, and the biggest hard drive(s) your boss will sign-off on.

I definitely have preferences which I will share in future posts as its time to go feed the menagerie.