Sam-K.net

One of the most common computer questions I get is probably “what can I do to make my PC faster?”

There are a number of things that can cause a computer to slow down over time:

• Hard Drive Fragmentation – the more a hard drive is used, the more likely it is for files to become fragmented on the hard drive.  As files are deleted, copied and added to the drive, the free space becomes less contiguous and more scattered throughout the drive.   Your hard drive has to do more work to read files that are fragmented, slowing down the system.
• Advances in technology: As the years go by, your computer stays the same, while other technology advances.   Web pages hog more memory and new software demands much more of your computer.
• General software bloat: Lots of little add-ons for browsers, printer software, virus scanners and other apps that you install on your computer often run in the background, taking up valuable memory and processor time.

There are lots of things you can do to speed up your computer.  Easy upgrades, like adding memory can reduce the amount of time your computer spends accessing the slower hard drive.  More difficult upgrades (installing windows on a faster hard drive or completely reinstalling windows) offer temporary speed increases, but the old problems will eventually return.

Aside from building an entirely new system, I haven’t found many single upgrades that really speed up a system until now.  Adding a Solid State Drive is the single biggest improvement you can make.

A Solid State Drive (SSD) replaces the traditional hard drive, which is usually the slowest frequently-used component in your system (not counting CD/DVD drives).   SSDs are similar to flash drives only much, much faster.   SSDs have a few advantages over regular hard drives:

• Low power usage
• No moving parts
• Low heat generation
• Extremely fast data access rates

Currently, SSDs are much more expensive than hard drives, but the speed increase is worth the extra cost — and the prices are already starting to fall.

I recently reinstalled Windows on a solid state drive on my desktop computer, and just yesterday moved my work laptop to a SSD.  The difference is night and day.  Since SSDs are a relatively new type of drive, the jury’s still out on how reliable they are long term.  But the increased speed would make transferring data to a newer drive much less of a hassle.

I still have a couple of regular hard drives in my system for files, but having Windows and most programs on a solid state drive has been a very gratifying improvement.

We installed our Nest Learning Thermostat in December of 2011, so it has been running for 8 months, almost three full seasons.   I can’t yet say whether or not the Nest has saved us money, but I can say that the device has made managing the temperature of our house easier.

Earlier this year, the Nest software was updated to version 2.0, which included a few important new features:

• Temperature Range: Now it’s possible to set an upper and lower temperature range.  The Nest will automatically turn on the heat or air conditioning to keep the house within that range.  This feature is essential during a typical North Carolina spring, when a day can start in the 50s, but hit 80 degrees in the afternoon.  Before this feature was implemented, you had to manually set the device to heating or cooling.
• Airwave: The Nest can now use cooling more efficiently by turning off the air conditioner’s compressor a few minutes before the optimum temperature is reached, allowing the fan to push the cool air that remains in the air ducts through the system.  Nest claims this feature can reduce the AC run time by as much as 30%.
• Web and Mobile App updates: The Android, iPhone and web apps have been improved.  Now, you have much more information available remotely, and can even see a detailed energy history.

Nest also sends an Energy Report via e-mail every month, which includes stats such as a comparison of HVAC runtimes versus the previous month, total number of times the system used Auto-Away or was set to Away mode manually, and the total number of “Leafs” earned (A Leaf denotes energy savings of at least an hour in a single day).

But the most important feature I’ve used with the Nest is the ability to control the temperature remotely.  More than once, I’ve forgotten to set the temperature lower (in the winter) or higher (in the summer) when away from home, and the ability to set temps from my phone has come in handy.

At some point, we’ll sit down and compare our energy bills to last year’s bills.  It will be hard to determine the actual savings, since this summer has been much hotter than last year.  But on the whole, the Nest has been a very sound investment.

Don’t ask.

Cary and I were at the Carolina Theater in Durham last night to watch Cinematic Titanic Live.

For fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), the cast of Cinematic Titanic is instantly recognizable.  The show stars comedians Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, and Frank Conniff, who were all cast members/creators of MST3K.

MST3K fans will also be familiar with the premise of the show: making fun of bad movies. Hodgson and the rest are present on stage and supply joke after joke, live,  in response to the very, very bad film playing on the screen in center stage.

All of CT’s bad films are B-grade or worse. With names like War of the Insects, Alien Factor, The Oozing Skull and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (a movie also featured on MST3K), the quality of these films is not surprising.  Most of them have been rescued from obscurity by MST3K and Cinematic Titanic.

The film featured in last night’s performance was War of the Insects, a Japanese film from 1968 which was originally called Genocide (not hard to see why they changed the name for the western release) involving an H-Bomb, infidelity and, of course, insects.  Truth be told, the plot of the film was really difficult to follow, but that would have been the case even without the hilarious jokes from the CT crew.

Cinematic Titanic began as a catalog of pre-filmed episodes, available as DVDs or as downloadable files.  Each episode features one bad film, flanked on either side by the CT cast, in silhouette (not unlike MST3K), hurling joke after joke at the movie.    Soon after making the DVDs available, the crew began taking their show on the road and selling recorded versions of their live shows.

So for the most part, I knew what to expect from the live performance, having purchased all of their live shows.  But as it turns out, there was about 1/3 of the show I wasn’t expecting.

I should mention at this point that there was actually another member of the Cinematic Titanic cast that I didn’t mention above.   Dave “Gruber” Allen — known to most as just “Gruber” and formerly of the comedy show The Higgins Boys and Gruber, was on stage 30 mintues before showtime, helping to warm up the crowd.  Before the show starts, a series of slides are shown on the movie screen.  The slides vary from trivia about the CT cast to early cinema pre-show slides (like the ones discouraging cell phone use and talking during the film).   While the slides are showing, Gruber would dance out on stage and lead the audience in a brief sing-along, or just generally act pleasantly goofy to the delight of the crowd.

Before starting the film, each member of the Cinematic Titanic cast came out on stage to perform.  Each performance was different:

Mary Jo Pehl awkwardly (and hilariously) read from written notes handed to her by Gruber at the last minute, introducing the show.  Frank Conniff performed some blue comedy.  Josh Weinstein and Gruber did a couple of songs, and Trace Beaulieu read a couple of poems from his book Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children (with accompanying illustrations).   So I wasn’t expecting an additional 45 minutes of entertainment before the movie began, and was pleasantly surprised by the extra helping of laughs.

After the show, a large portion of the audience remained in the theater to meet the cast and get autographs.   It was a real pleasure meeting the CT gang.  They were all genuinely nice folks.  They thanked each fan for coming and for waiting in line, and they were all just a lot of fun.

Joel Hodgson signs my poster

A hastily-taken photo of me with Joel Hodgson

Cinematic Titanic poster signed by the entire CT cast

If you get a chance to see Cinematic Titanic Live, you won’t regret it.

Installing the Nest Thermostat is fairly simple.

The first step is, of course, turning off the main breaker for the HVAC system.

The included tape flags can be used to identify the wires.  Once the wires are labeled, the old base can be removed.

Since there were some blemishes on the wall left by the old thermostat, I decided to mount the Nest base on one of the mounting plates.  The Nest

includes drywall mounting hardware.  The Nest base clicks into the mounting plate.  The spirit level on the base can help to mount the Nest.  Two screws keep the base and the mounting plate securely fastened to the wall.

Once the base is fixed to the wall, the last step is to connect the wires by pushing down on the connectors and slipping the wires into the holes.  Once all of the wires are connected securely, the Nest is ready to be plugged in.

Here’s a short video I threw together showing the basic setup of the Nest Thermostat:

I strapped a video camera to the handlebars of my bike as an experiment to capture video of the bike ride this past weekend.  I think it worked pretty well, though there are lots of shaky parts I still need to edit out.  The music doesn’t really fit, either, but since YouTube strips out copyrighted music, I needed to go with something free.

The ride itself is a 17-mile leisurely tour through downtown Durham.  Riders can opt for a shorter 8-mile route.   The latter half of the longer ride also goes through the Durham Tobacco Trail greenway.   The ride starts at 8:30pm, so most of it takes place in the dark.  This was apparently the first time in the ride’s short history that there was actually a full moon on the night of the ride.

This was the first time in a long time that most of NC had a white Christmas.  Cary and I decided to take advantage of the snow and make a snowman.

Click the image below to view more images on my Flickr site.