Computer thoughts

My Dell XPS 700 lies dead in the trunk of my del Sol as I sip Sumatra coffee at Barnes & Noble.

I’m resigned to using laptops until I can decide on a desktop computer purchase, so I bought a Thermaltake BlacX Duet dual hard drive docking station for the two SATA drives I’ve pulled from the massive XPS case. It will give me access to much if not all of the data I had at my disposal when the XPS was still working when I link them with the Sony VAIO laptop.

The 7GB solid state hard drive in my Mini 9 is running out of space, thanks to constant use and frequent Microsoft updates to Windows
XP. Consequently, I’m on the cusp of replacing it with a 32GB SSD. That should serve my netbook computing needs until the next drop in SSD prices when I can crank it up to 64GB or beyond.

(Moore’s Law, promulgated in 1965 by Gordon Moore of Intel, holds that technology advances at a consistent pace, making it possible to double the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months. This is often paraphrased to read: The processing power per unit cost doubles every 18 months.)

Applying Moore’s Law, the money I spent in December, 2006 on my XPS system, should buy four times the computing power today. Or, conversely, the same computing power for one-fourth the cost. I’m about to find out where I want to be on that continuum, since I don’t plan to spend so much this time.