September 23, 2010 Personal 9 comments
My new Dell Studio XPS 16 (1647) laptop
So I finally bought high performance machine for my blogging :).
I probably should mention that I do NOT have desktop computer located somewhere at home*. I heard that many people like to have those at home and one small laptop for travel or whatever else. I’m supporter of the idea that nowadays the gap between desktop computers and laptops is much much smaller and I do not see any reason why I should use few computers and play around synchronizing them, administrating, etc. I have one entry point for everything and I like this.
Why I was not satisfied with my previous laptop?
Top number one reason is screen resolution! I often like to remotely connect to my work machine. But resolution there is much higher than my old (1280×800) so it was unpleasant to work that way. Also having a lot of applications opened doesn’t work very well.
Second reason is performance. I simply wanted to be able to open few VS2010 instances without any delays.
Third and also valuable reason is that I as a kid wanted a new toy to play with.
Comparison of Dell Studio 1535 and Dell Studio XPS 1647
So here is comparison of what I had and what I have now:
|
Dell Studio 1535  |
Dell Studio XPS 1647  |
| Processor Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5850 2.16GHz |
Processor Intel® Core™ i7-620M Processor 2.66GHz (3.33GHz Turbo Mode, 4MB Cache) |
| Display LCD(1280×800) |
LCD Panel Edge-to-Edge FHD Widescreen 15.6 inch WLED LCD (1920×1080) W/2.0 MP |
| CD ROM/DVD ROM DVD Super Multi |
CD ROM/DVD ROM 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive) |
| Memory 2GB DDR2-667 |
Memory 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz |
| Hard Drive 320GB 5400 |
Hard Drive |
| Video Card
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3450 |
Video Card ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5730 – 1GB |
| Sound High Definition Audio |
Sound High Definition Audio 2.0 with SRS Premium Sound |
| Wireless Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card |
Wireless Intel® 5300 WLAN Wireless-N (3×3) Mini Card |
| Battery 56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell) |
Battery 85 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery |
Windows Experience Comparison
Dell Studio 1535:
Dell Studio XPS 1647:
So looking at the pictures above it is seen that bottleneck of my new laptop is hard disk and memory speed. This means that when something will require accessing hard disk (loading something into memory, working with svn, etc) I will not gain performance. Sadly, but I can do nothing about this.
My personal comparison
Wow! That is exactly what I wanted. This laptop is just sexy. You cannot imagine how everything is loading quickly. Everything is flying.
Appearance is amazing. Perfect for those guys who like style toys. It has genuine leather accents at the edge, which looks very cute.
I do see much more with full HD screen. Yeah, some fonts are very tiny, especially when you are taking a look on the 8pt fonts on the screen of resolution 1920×1080 but with the same physical size as screen 1280×800 difference is evident. I do not have any complains about my eye vision so this is something I even like. If that could be the problem for you, you can easily increase font sizes and have much smoother looking symbols. And very interesting fact I opened some site, and they have text alignment to the left. Of course this is bad idea, but what is interesting I was able to see many lines of “You have perfect monitor” on the most right :)
Also I experienced that one of old games that I used to play now easily can be switched to higher resolution, so all textures are very smooth.
Getting everything up and running
You know what is the sad about this? – I got Home Premium version of Windows 7 and I’m not completely sure if this is something that is enough for software developer.
Copying everything from was as much as easy as copying from logical disk D to disk E. I plugged Ethernet crossover cable into both of them and ensured that they have different IP addresses and that’s it! High speed computer-to-computer network is ready.
At the moment I feel that movement to brand new computer happened momentarily without any stress for me.
Latest cents
Having a good quality computer for person who is interested in developing software is very important. So if you are now considering of buying something expensive – do not hesitate, because you deserve it. (If you are not Ukrainian – laptop which costs 1500$ is near average software developer month salary (2-6 years of experience).)
(*) Ok, I have it, but I gave up using it.
Why do I use twitter
August 1, 2010 Opinion, Personal No comments
Follow me on Twitter!
I saw guys, who bought T-shirts with inscription like “Follow me on twitter @andriybuday”. These weekend I’ve been on Rock Fest in Slavske and I did something more original. Take a look:
Not so long ago I created my twitter account. Indeed it brings me some value and I get fun with it. But many people get interested how that rubbish could bring any value for me or either someone else. Couple of my friends are really concerned about it and even laugh.
Which kind of value does it bring?
I decide whom to follow, this way I consequently decide which kind of information I will get. So if I’m following some programming guys, I obviously get bombarded with information on programming. The more information I get – the more information I process – the more value it brings. The only one important restriction is that information have to be useful.
So whom do I follow?
I follow lot of MVPs on .NET(C#) and other geeks, this way I get information about new technologies and opinion on them provided directly from best professionals around the world.
Also I follow twitter accounts of different interesting sites/organizations on programming. This way I instantly get information when new podcast is ready and I can immediately start downloading it for my listening. Also I’m informed if some new versions of some products are available. For example I get information that NHibernate 3.0 Preview is available. Please notice that since I’m following those, whom I chose, I do not get information about new version of Photoshop or something like that.
I follow friends and local programmers. Actually most of my friends are developers, but anyway following them keeps me informed about their interests and allows me know what do they do.
Also I follow just few News accounts to be informed about events from real non-virtual world.
Whom do I not follow?
Different bullshit first of all, then accounts that post advertisements, those who posts on not interested for me themes. I do not follow or start unfollowing accounts, from which I get twits too often or who mix good stuff and advertisements.
How do I decide whom to follow?
Decision if I should follow someone I make taking into consideration his/her/its top 10-20 posts, if there is no more than 50-60% information on tech or something I’m interested to get from that account I do not follow that account.
What do I tweet?
Of course information that is similar to information that I would like to hear from others. It is different links on programming, my opinions on some technologies or my thoughts on stuff I use right in the moment of tweeting. I also share my personal success notes like passing some MS exam or like fixing ugly bug related to some technology.
Reasons why I do use twitter
- I get valuable information from known professional around the world
- I get technology news and instantly can respond to them
- I share my opinions, thoughts and could get response
- I get introduced to famous developers
- I make my blog known using twitter
- My tweets are across other social networking (like LinkedIn), so people who do not have twitter also know what do I do
- Simply getting more closer to my goal of being known community developer
Concern about the time it takes
Yes, indeed twitter takes some time on responses and tweeting and it could even take away your concentration on work. So where from do I take this time? I would say: I do not IM others uselessly and I do not spent my time on youtube or other entertainments during the work, so I think that having few tweets per day is ok, taking into account the value it brings to me.
You decide your own if twitter is something for you or not.
Few bestowals
July 17, 2010 LvivNetUserGroup, Personal 4 comments
Being software developer is often pleasure, except of money it sometimes could even bring gifts.
VS 2010 Bag I’ve got at 3rd Lviv .Net User Group meeting. This bag isn’t really of good quality, but it brings me pleasure to use it, since now Visual Studio 2010 covers my back :)
Working Effectively with Legacy Code came to me from USA and I’m really looking forward to read it soon. It looks that this is going to be my first non-electronic book in English that I will read full-length.
Book on Silverlight 4 (also got at Lviv .Net UG) isn’t something that I hurry to read, because I’m sure that I will start with articles on Silverlight when I’ll get to it.
How I taught my sister to accumulate some money
June 27, 2010 InfluenceOnPeople, Personal No comments
Yesterday I’ve been in parents home and I had conversation with my youngest sister. I have two of them. She was complaining about her MP3 player, she said that I have much better one and her is completely out of battery and she could not listen to music even longer than hour. Also she continued saying that it was cheap player and that is the reason why it is useless.
She always gets some money from me. I do not say that give her much money. Sometimes 20, sometimes 50, rarely 100 (those are Ukrainian hryvnias). And I do not like how she spends it, so I’ve decided to have a test with her. I asked her following: “How much money do you have now?” “60 hryvnia” – she said. Then I asked how she wants to spend them. She said that she wants roller-skates. Ok, then I followed with questions that brought to her mind and if she will not spend money this month she will get 120 next month or much more. Finally we went to the 1400 next year, but ONLY if she will not spend them on different useless things and if she will not buy rollers. She admitted that if she will stop spending money on crap she will get “rich” in her understanding .
After that I asked question: “Decide now, you either give me your 60 hryvnias and my MP3 is yours, or either you keep them for future!” She tried to avoid direct answer, but I gave her firm offer. Finally she came to me and said, that she will keep money. I praised her and with words “Keep in mind that sometimes right decisions bring your much more than you expect” I gifted her with MP3.
She was so surprised and with shining face ran to my parents saying that she gained MP3 and that is because she is smart girl. I’m sure that if we had no have that conversation before she most likely chose MP3 instead of keeping money.
I think this is simple example how you could show others that some things are good. So you basically change her mind, then you examine her and if she admits your ideas praise her (This will happen most likely, because now she thinks that this is part of her thoughts). In this way you will keep lesson in her mind for some evident time.
P/S Why have I posted this? With my future career growth I will have to be good on managing people. That is why time-to-time you will see such blog posts. But be calm, my blog is still tech blog unless I’m manager.
Happy Birthday to you, Natali!
March 24, 2010 Personal 2 comments
Today is the birthday of my girlfriend.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, NATALI!
Her friends made her a present – nice T-Shirt where she is with me. Take a look:
Not sure if it is possible to see me there on picture, but believe I’m there.
I wasn’t so much original, so I gave her flowers:
Currently she is most often reader of my blog than others, not sure if blog itself make any sense to her, but truth is truth.
