Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur
Nerdiness
Remember Remember what Seagate did Last November
3386 days
There was a story of a gasoline shortage in a small town, and the owner of one of the gas station found that he was completely full, and would not be affected by the short term lack of supply. He promptly decided to jack up the price to ten times what he usually charged. Some people had no choice but to gas up at his prices, and he made in profit in a few days what he made in a few months… until the shortage was over and priced went back down… The forced buyers didn’t picket, or complain at his questionably unethical, (but certainly opportunistic), behavior. He can charge whatever he wants, this is a free country, at least in theory. The buyers just did what they were suppose to: they voted with their dollars. The people remembered what he did, and they purposely drove across town to other gas stations, until the man was completely out of business.
It’s not really odd that in today’s economy, the storage of 0′s and 1′s are as inelastic as they are, but countless millions just NEEDED certain amount of hard drive storage the past six months. In life is absolutely requisite sometimes. Seagate is in a similar situation as the gas station owner; you may not know this, but – due to the higher physical elevation of Seagate’s factory in Thailand, Seagate was not affected by the floods. And they have other manufacturing facilities around the world. So instead of gobbling up market share, becoming the hero, they lowered the warranty length (from 5 years to 1), and raised prices. I’m not talking 20-30% increase. I’m talking 200%-300%. Two years ago I defended Seagate before, but now…. that’s what I call corporate rape.
Pricing history from Newegg:
Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB – up 328%
Seagate SV35 Series ST2000VX002 2TB – up 263%
Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB – up 255%
Seagate Constellation ES 2TB – up 195%
And Seagate and (Western Digital too) are making RECORD profits in this “dramatic downturn.”
So, when a company forcabley rapes you, just because the opportunity arises, is not a company you should do business with in the future, in my opinion. As hard drive prices continue to lower, remember what Seagate did, just because they found you bend over and tied down. Remember to vote with your dollars.
News is now floating around that it was fake , and I bet you a few months or even years down the road their will be price fixing allegations and settlements, of which you will see pennies from after the lawyers get through with their share. Alas, there is nothing that can be done but VOTE!
Ps. Graphs were made with an excellent Chrome Extension called “The Camelizer” which tracks prices on Newegg and Amazon.com and others.
Get a RAMDrive
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Using a RAMDrive for some of my applications, has been the most unbelievable speed increase I’ve ever experienced, more so than going to SSDs. You can also increase your web browsing experience by 20%. Reduce writes to SSDs and all around speed up windows installs, and programs that use the temp folders.
I’ve written up a nifty guide on how to install a RamDrive and get the most our of your system.
How to make HDR Photos with non-SLR Canon Cameras
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High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is all the rage. Here are some examples of before and after HDR photography. But you don’t need an expensive SLR do to it. Here is how you can do it with most of Canon’s Point and shoot cameras. The guides that I found were terrible so I’ve made a guide for all you Canon owners out there. Send me some shots when you are done. Next up is tilt shift photography.
Join in the Fight Against Nothing; To Not Fight Against The Unwanted – Facebook Group
21095 days
For those self-acclaimed enlightened among you, please join in the non-battle against unwanted things. 
We all have some unenlightened friends who often send us an invitation to join a Facebook group to fight against something. So I wanted to make a group I could send them to, to attempt to try to teach how things are truly defeated.
To understand that pushing against unwanted things only creates more of them (war on drugs, terrorism, crime, teen pregnancy, poverty, cancer, anything unwanted, etc.) To teach that emotionalized attention to a subject gives it energy and continues to perpetuate them in our experience. Whatever you resist, persists.
This is not a group who pushes against those pushing against unwanted things; this is more a statement that there are a group of enlighten beings who quietly are making the world better by our attention to wanted things. Peace, Freedom, Abundance, Health, Happiness and Love.
We understand what Jesus taught when he said “Resist not Evil & Turn the other Cheek” meaning don’t give attention to unwanted things, turn away from them.
Next time your friend invites you to join a group “against” something, free free to send them an invite this way.
How to never loose your Digital Camera
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I’ve written a nifty guide I though up after I found someone’s digital camera. The first thing people do when they find a digital camera is look at the pictures. Partly out of pure curiosity, partly out of a legitimate desire to see if they know anyone in the pictures, or will recognize the owner if they see them. This guide shows you how to lock your contact information on the memory card, so if you do loose it, it can easily be returned.
Why I still choose Seagate Hard Drives
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A little history: When the hard drive industry, uniformly stepped back their three year warranty’s to one year, one company did the opposite: Seagate; they went to FIVE Years. And boy did they gobble up market share! Thus after a year or two the other hard drive manufacturers started to wake up, and moved it back to 3 years. Thanks Seagate. A year or so later Seagate stepped back to 3 years. Then Seagate started to have all kinds of firmware issues, of which I was affected too, and yes this was annoying. Luckily I am smart enough to have Raid 1, so I never lost 1 single bit or byte of data. Anyways, this is why I still stick with them:
When you return a WD, Samsung, or a Hitachi (even Seagate) you get a refurbished drive, which is the industry standard – no surprises here. But here’s the difference, Seagate transfers your original warranty over to the drive. So if you have a DOA drive, and buy a WD, Samsung or Hitachi drive, you actually got a drive with a 90 day warranty on it. Oops, it turns out 3 years was actually 3 months. Lucky you. But when you buy Seagate, you are basically paying to guaranteed have the drive of your choosing for the full warranty period no matter how many times it fails.
For example, if you have the unfortunate luck of having a hard drive fail every 3 months and 1 day, your original single Seagate purchase will get you though the 3 year period, while you would have to pay Western Digital, Samsung or Hitachi for ABOUT 10 more hard drives. When all hard drive fail, are you still willing to pay several times more for the same storage? If so, I applaud your loyalty.
Oh yeah, and another thing, Raid 1 your drives if you haven’t already!
The best backup system in the world: Raid 1 – Get it!
11160 days
If you are like most people, and use your computer daily, and use it to store photos, documents, media, Raid 1 is the greatest and best backup system, that protects against hard drive failure AND downtime. Raid is the cheapest solutions that ensures zero downtime, minimal hassles, minimal price and piece of mind 24/7. Raid 1 basically has two identical hard drives, and mirrors each hard drive to each other constantly. So it one fails, you get a notice to replace it, and you just keep clicking along just like nothing happened. You send back the bad hard drive, pop-it in, and it re-synchronizes up, and you’re back to being backed up again. The chances both hard drives will fail at the exact same time or within a few days of each other are infinitesimally small, while the chances one or the other hard drive will fail “sometime” between this instant and anytime in the future, is the dreaded and unsatisfying probability of 100%.
So that’s all you need to know, build or ask that your next computer have “Raid 1″ installed. If you want all the nerdy details, and why it’s the best solution there is for most people, you can click here.