Public Trackers?

[Sid Elbow]

So now that KAT is resting in peace (or perhaps not so much peace) at
least for now ..... what (decent) non-membership public trackers are left?

[~misfit~]

Post by Sid Elbow
So now that KAT is resting in peace (or perhaps not so much peace) at
least for now ..... what (decent) non-membership public trackers are left?

I would like to know this too. I've used TPB a couple of times in the last
few days but it doesn't have the range of torrents that KAT had.

KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm going to
have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that I'm adverse to
having to upload - just that I can never seems to get on to the torrents
fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

[Sid Elbow]

Post by ~misfit~
KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm going to
have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that I'm adverse to
having to upload - just that I can never seems to get on to the torrents
fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

Torrenting has F1 torrents. It's a ratio site but one of those where you
get a bonus just for seeding which can help.

My biggest gripe with Torrenting is that they insist on having all their
torrents in RARs. Apart from the nuisance of having to extract them,
it's an all-or-nothing thing. If you get 99% of a torrent and the seeds
disappear, you ain't got nothing.

(As an example I currently have a torrent of old book scans sitting at
around 70% for weeks. There are perhaps 100 books total .... all old
~1950s stuff. Unavailable elsewhere. It's all in a RAR. If it wasn't,
the chances are at least 50% of the books would actually be complete.)

[my name]

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by ~misfit~
KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm
going to have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that I'm
adverse to having to upload - just that I can never seems to get on
to the torrents fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

Torrenting has F1 torrents. It's a ratio site but one of those where
you get a bonus just for seeding which can help.
My biggest gripe with Torrenting is that they insist on having all
their torrents in RARs. Apart from the nuisance of having to extract
them, it's an all-or-nothing thing. If you get 99% of a torrent and
the seeds disappear, you ain't got nothing.
(As an example I currently have a torrent of old book scans sitting at
around 70% for weeks. There are perhaps 100 books total .... all old
~1950s stuff. Unavailable elsewhere. It's all in a RAR. If it wasn't,
the chances are at least 50% of the books would actually be complete.)

Putting ebooks into one RAR is asinine. I'd be pissed at that too. That's
bullshit and not user friendly.

As for TV, movies, sports, etc. being broken into rar files, it all goes
back to usenet, which we're on right now and the scene groups.

The binary groups have (maybe had now?) a 15mb limit for uploads. So the
files were broken into pieces and uploaded. It's been going on for at
least 25 years and it's a requirement for the way scene groups release
stuff.

A person encodes the show, then breaks it up into rar files, which makes
it easier and faster to move to another server where it is shared. If one
piece is broken, you only download another small section instead of
redownloading the entire part. That continues to make sense today as
there are still places in the world that have data caps. It's much easier
to redownload a 15mb file than a 350mb file when you've got caps.

[Hop-Frog]

Post by my name
The binary groups have (maybe had now?) a 15mb limit for uploads.

It's "had"--very much so. You can post most any size binary you want to
Usenet now, and very few decent servers will choke. In fact, with the
advent of PAR2 recovery files, RARs don't make sense on Usenet anymore.

Better just to create the parity files from the video file directly, then
split the file with a file cutter. (Splitting isn't even strictly
necessary, but it does have benefits for some servers.) That way, if the
post is too fragmented for recovery, you can still stitch the (broken)
pieces back together into a broken file. Load that into a torrent
client, and the torrent client will download just the parts that were
corrupted on Usenet.

You can't do that with a split RAR archive, since extraction can't
progress past the first broken volume. And even if someone else has the
same original file, they can't recreate the one RAR volume you need a
repost of. (The *.SRR files posted by the "scene" attempt to fix that
issue, but there'd be no issue in the first place if they didn't use
RARs!)

On the other hand, suppose the file was posted directly without RARs. If
I downloaded the file through bittorrent, and I see that the Usenet post
is broken beyond repair, I can create additional PAR2s and post them.
They'll work right alongside the original PAR2 set. This would be
especially useful since the "scene" doesn't check it's posts to Usenet or
respond to requests for more PAR2 files--and those on Usenet who DO read
such requests aren't likely to have the original RARs.

Post by my name
A person encodes the show, then breaks it up into rar files, which
makes it easier and faster to move to another server where it is
shared. If one piece is broken, you only download another small
section instead of redownloading the entire part. That continues to
make sense today as there are still places in the world that have data
caps. It's much easier to redownload a 15mb file than a 350mb file
when you've got caps.

This is true, but PAR2 recovery files make it even easier. Instead of
15MB, you might only need to download 500KB, or whatever the parity block
size is. And you wouldn't have to store the parity files; they can be
recreated by anyone with the intact file, whenever they're needed.

Really, since PAR2 became available, RAR only makes sense as a way of
bundling many small files together. For transferring single large media
files, RAR should have long since been abandoned.

But good luck getting the "scene" to accept that. Their L337 5K1LLZ
probably aren't going to listen to something as mundane as logic...

[Sid Elbow]

Post by Hop-Frog
Really, since PAR2 became available, RAR only makes sense as a way of
bundling many small files together. For transferring single large media
files, RAR should have long since been abandoned.

Even with many small files, if they are not RAR'd and the torrent
doesn't complete some, perhaps many, of the small files will be complete
which will usually be a lot more use than nothing. This is exactly the
situation I have (or actually dont have, sice in this case they *are*
RAR'd) with the old book scans torrent that I mentioned.

[Hop-Frog]

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by Hop-Frog
Really, since PAR2 became available, RAR only makes sense as a way of
bundling many small files together. For transferring single large
media files, RAR should have long since been abandoned.

Even with many small files, if they are not RAR'd and the torrent
doesn't complete some, perhaps many, of the small files will be
complete which will usually be a lot more use than nothing. This is
exactly the situation I have (or actually dont have, sice in this case
they *are* RAR'd) with the old book scans torrent that I mentioned.

Absoltuely true. My comment was with respect to Usenet, but I forgot to
say as much. If you're posting, say, 500 pieces of clip art to Usenet,
then RAR makes sense. Otherwise the flood of posts might be confusing,
and very few people would want to download a single clip art image. The
RAR reduces 500 lines of headers to one.

In Bittorrent, the torrent itself works the same way: bundling many
small files together into a single download process. So for Bittorrent,
I can't think of a reason RAR might be advisable.

[~misfit~]

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by ~misfit~
KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm
going to have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that
I'm adverse to having to upload - just that I can never seems to get
on to the torrents fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

Torrenting has F1 torrents. It's a ratio site but one of those where
you get a bonus just for seeding which can help.
My biggest gripe with Torrenting is that they insist on having all
their torrents in RARs. Apart from the nuisance of having to extract
them, it's an all-or-nothing thing. If you get 99% of a torrent and
the seeds disappear, you ain't got nothing.
(As an example I currently have a torrent of old book scans sitting at
around 70% for weeks. There are perhaps 100 books total .... all old
~1950s stuff. Unavailable elsewhere. It's all in a RAR. If it wasn't,
the chances are at least 50% of the books would actually be complete.)

Thanks Sid.

[my name]

Post by ~misfit~
KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm
going to have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that I'm
adverse to having to upload - just that I can never seems to get on to
the torrents fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

If you want F1, consider getting a usenet account with binary groups. All
the practices, qualifying and race are there.

[~misfit~]

Post by my name

Post by ~misfit~
KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm
going to have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that I'm
adverse to having to upload - just that I can never seems to get on
to the torrents fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

If you want F1, consider getting a usenet account with binary groups.
All the practices, qualifying and race are there.

Thanks for that - I'll keep it in mind.

[J Callen]

Post by ~misfit~

Post by my name

Post by ~misfit~
KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm
going to have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that I'm
adverse to having to upload - just that I can never seems to get on
to the torrents fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

If you want F1, consider getting a usenet account with binary groups.
All the practices, qualifying and race are there.

Thanks for that - I'll keep it in mind.

For F1 races try this site. http://burningwhee1s.blogspot.co.uk/
I use VideoDownloadHelper for Firefox to download the videos.

[~misfit~]

Post by J Callen

Post by ~misfit~

Post by my name

Post by ~misfit~
KAT has been a reliable source of Formula 1 torrents this year. The
Hungarian GP starts in just over 26 hours and it's looking like I'm
going to have to use a ratio membership site to get it. (Not that
I'm adverse to having to upload - just that I can never seems to
get on to the torrents fast enough to get a 1:1 ratio back.)

If you want F1, consider getting a usenet account with binary
groups. All the practices, qualifying and race are there.

Thanks for that - I'll keep it in mind.

For F1 races try this site. http://burningwhee1s.blogspot.co.uk/
I use VideoDownloadHelper for Firefox to download the videos.

Thanks. I clicked your link and it geolocated me and took me to a .co.nz
version rather than the .co.uk (I'm in New Zealand).

I've had a quick look but don't see how to get video from there but have
bookmarked it for further investigation in case I can't find alternate
sources.

Cheers,

[J Callen]

Post by ~misfit~
Thanks. I clicked your link and it geolocated me and took me to a .co.nz
version rather than the .co.uk (I'm in New Zealand).
I've had a quick look but don't see how to get video from there but have
bookmarked it for further investigation in case I can't find alternate
sources.

TheLP2008 is back after some time away.

http://s546271843.onlinehome.us/2016-f1/

Sometimes the weekend's races don't get uploaded until Tuesday or
Wednesday, especially if there are a lot of races on that week, but the
quality is good and he cuts out the ad breaks.

[~misfit~]

Post by J Callen

Post by ~misfit~
Thanks. I clicked your link and it geolocated me and took me to a
.co.nz version rather than the .co.uk (I'm in New Zealand).
I've had a quick look but don't see how to get video from there but
have bookmarked it for further investigation in case I can't find
alternate sources.

TheLP2008 is back after some time away.
http://s546271843.onlinehome.us/2016-f1/
Sometimes the weekend's races don't get uploaded until Tuesday or
Wednesday, especially if there are a lot of races on that week, but
the quality is good and he cuts out the ad breaks.

Thanks.

[RandyM]

Post by Sid Elbow
So now that KAT is resting in peace (or perhaps not so much peace) at
least for now ..... what (decent) non-membership public trackers are left?

ExtraTorrent has a list of trackers

[Sid Elbow]

Post by RandyM
ExtraTorrent has a list of trackers

Looks interesting - thanks, Randy

[~misfit~]

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by RandyM
ExtraTorrent has a list of trackers

Looks interesting - thanks, Randy

Since my earlier post I discovered that smcgill1969 went to ExtraTorrent
from KAT. He's the best uploader I've found over the years. I've been
getting nothing but his torrents for a while now, he usually does both SD
and HD and uploads within a few hours of race end. Search for him as an
uploader there and bookmark his page - you won't regret it.

As an aside I'd been putting off using Windows 10 but my latest laptop that
I just bought (i7, dedicated GPU, SSD and HDD, 16GB RAM, full HD matte
screen ...) was running W8 which was a piece of shit so I upgraded to W10 on
the last day of the offer. Now I read this:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11687384
and wonder if I did the right thing. I might keep an old single-core XP
laptop around in good running condition just in case I need a dedicated
torrent machine in future. They can be had for >$100 with a reasonably
hi-res screen. (I've got a T43 ThinkPad with a 15" UXGA IPS screen I was
going to get rid of that I'll keep now.)

[MartinS]

Post by ~misfit~

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by RandyM
ExtraTorrent has a list of trackers

Looks interesting - thanks, Randy

Since my earlier post I discovered that smcgill1969 went to
ExtraTorrent from KAT. He's the best uploader I've found over the
years. I've been getting nothing but his torrents for a while now, he
usually does both SD and HD and uploads within a few hours of race
end. Search for him as an uploader there and bookmark his page - you
won't regret it.
As an aside I'd been putting off using Windows 10 but my latest laptop
that I just bought (i7, dedicated GPU, SSD and HDD, 16GB RAM, full HD
matte screen ...) was running W8 which was a piece of shit so I
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=116
87384 and wonder if I did the right thing. I might keep an old
single-core XP laptop around in good running condition just in case I
need a dedicated torrent machine in future. They can be had for >$100
with a reasonably hi-res screen. (I've got a T43 ThinkPad with a 15"
UXGA IPS screen I was going to get rid of that I'll keep now.)

I held out till the last minute, and decided go the dual boot way. I split
my SSD system drive into two partitions, and installed Win10 in a blank
partition from a DVD created from a Win10 ISO downloaded from Microsoft.
The install program accepted my Win 8.1 ID code. Now I can boot either from
Win10 while deciding whether I want to keep it, or from my intact Win8.1.
All my data files are on separate hard drives accessible from either.

The Win10 installation has some odd effects in Win8.1, notably whenever I
try to enter text in Google Maps (and sometimes on other web pages) a Save
dialog pops up wanting me to save a file called f.txt. It has also changed
the icons in File Explorer, but that's actually an improvement.

[(PeteCresswell)]

Post by MartinS
I held out till the last minute, and decided go the dual boot way. I split
my SSD system drive into two partitions, and installed Win10 in a blank
partition from a DVD created from a Win10 ISO downloaded from Microsoft.

Has anybody heard anything good about Windows 10?

I have heard a number of bad things, but nothing good.

[Sid Elbow]

Post by MartinS
I held out till the last minute, and decided go the dual boot way. I split
my SSD system drive into two partitions, and installed Win10 in a blank
partition from a DVD created from a Win10 ISO downloaded from Microsoft.
The install program accepted my Win 8.1 ID code. Now I can boot either from
Win10 while deciding whether I want to keep it, or from my intact Win8.1.
All my data files are on separate hard drives accessible from either.

I did it slightly differently. A while back Canada Computers was
clearing some front panel, hot-swappable laptop-size drive trays. I
bought one, got a second SSD the same as my Win 8.1 boot drive and
backed up the Windows 8.1 installation on to it. Then I updated the
second drive to Win-10.

So now I have two completely separate installations (that know nothing
about each other) and I just plug in the appropriate drive before I boot
(hot-swappable doesn't apply to the boot drive of course).

I've used MS's boot manager in the past and never really liked it much.
I found it very inflexible and it tends (or did in the past) to find
other windows installations and "take them into account". Not least by
giving funny drive numbers. The way I did it, each installation is a
C-Drive.

[~misfit~]

Post by MartinS

Post by ~misfit~

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by RandyM
ExtraTorrent has a list of trackers

Looks interesting - thanks, Randy

Since my earlier post I discovered that smcgill1969 went to
ExtraTorrent from KAT. He's the best uploader I've found over the
years. I've been getting nothing but his torrents for a while now, he
usually does both SD and HD and uploads within a few hours of race
end. Search for him as an uploader there and bookmark his page - you
won't regret it.
As an aside I'd been putting off using Windows 10 but my latest
laptop that I just bought (i7, dedicated GPU, SSD and HDD, 16GB
RAM, full HD matte screen ...) was running W8 which was a piece of
shit so I upgraded to W10 on the last day of the offer. Now I read
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=116
87384 and wonder if I did the right thing. I might keep an old
single-core XP laptop around in good running condition just in case
I need a dedicated torrent machine in future. They can be had for

Post by Sid Elbow
$100 with a reasonably hi-res screen. (I've got a T43 ThinkPad with

a 15" UXGA IPS screen I was going to get rid of that I'll keep now.)

I held out till the last minute, and decided go the dual boot way. I
split my SSD system drive into two partitions, and installed Win10 in
a blank partition from a DVD created from a Win10 ISO downloaded from
Microsoft. The install program accepted my Win 8.1 ID code. Now I can
boot either from Win10 while deciding whether I want to keep it, or
from my intact Win8.1. All my data files are on separate hard drives
accessible from either.

I didn't get this laptop until the day before the update offer expired and,
as there's no COA with it only a restore partition I couldn't do a clean
install. :-/

Actually after I did the update I realised I may have been able to use one
of those software tools to dig out my Win 8 COA from the Win 8 registry but
by then it was too late.

Post by MartinS
The Win10 installation has some odd effects in Win8.1, notably
whenever I try to enter text in Google Maps (and sometimes on other
web pages) a Save dialog pops up wanting me to save a file called
f.txt. It has also changed the icons in File Explorer, but that's
actually an improvement.

Yeah, not looking forward to the long hard road ahead taming it.

[Sid Elbow]

Post by ~misfit~
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11687384
and wonder if I did the right thing.

"Transnational Organised Crime" .... stretching it a bit I think.

You might want to check out:

https://fix10.isleaked.com/

Before you go too far down the road with Windows 10, Shaun.

[Sid Elbow]

Post by ~misfit~
Since my earlier post I discovered that smcgill1969 went to ExtraTorrent
from KAT. He's the best uploader I've found over the years. I've been
getting nothing but his torrents for a while now, he usually does both SD
and HD and uploads within a few hours of race end. Search for him as an
uploader there and bookmark his page - you won't regret it.

Thanks for that, Shaun

Post by ~misfit~
my latest laptop that I just bought (i7, dedicated GPU, SSD and HDD, 16GB RAM, full HD matte
screen ...) was running W8 which was a piece of shit so I upgraded to W10 on
the last day of the offer.

I've come to the conclusion that people's comfort zone on the recent
Windows releases depends entirely on how successful they have been in
setting them up the way they want them. Up to XP (possibly Vista - I
wouldn't know) MS were still using the same old NT interface that we
grew to know and love (well, we got accustomed to at least).

After that they changed things so that - although you *can* set things
up the way you want - Windows is actively hostile to your doing so. In
some cases, they've buried the things you need to access, in other cases
they've made them unrecognisable. Plus, in many cases, they've wrapped
them in so many levels of "security" that the faint-hearted give up.

I bought an HP laptop running Win-7. Hated it. Didn't use it often so
didn't spend the time.
then I built a new system with $10 Win-8 upgrade (using the Win-7 key).
Over some months I managed to get it tamed to where I, more or less,
wanted it and I'm quite comfortable with it now. (Although there are
still parts of *MY* hard drive that I can't get to.) Most people though
think Win-7 was pretty good and Win-8/8.1 hopeless.

I'm not really in any hurry to move to Win-10 but see my response to
Martin .... I took the freebie while it was going. Lot of privacy issues
there plus I'd have to do battle again to set it up "my way".

Ya got me started! :-)

[~misfit~]

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by ~misfit~
Since my earlier post I discovered that smcgill1969 went to
ExtraTorrent from KAT. He's the best uploader I've found over the years.
I've been
getting nothing but his torrents for a while now, he usually does
both SD and HD and uploads within a few hours of race end. Search for him
as
an uploader there and bookmark his page - you won't regret it.

Thanks for that, Shaun

You're welcome. ;-)

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by ~misfit~
my latest laptop that I just bought (i7, dedicated GPU, SSD and
HDD, 16GB RAM, full HD matte screen ...) was running W8 which was a
piece of shit so I upgraded to W10 on the last day of the offer.

I've come to the conclusion that people's comfort zone on the recent
Windows releases depends entirely on how successful they have been in
setting them up the way they want them. Up to XP (possibly Vista - I
wouldn't know) MS were still using the same old NT interface that we
grew to know and love (well, we got accustomed to at least).
After that they changed things so that - although you *can* set things
up the way you want - Windows is actively hostile to your doing so. In
some cases, they've buried the things you need to access, in other
cases they've made them unrecognisable. Plus, in many cases, they've
wrapped them in so many levels of "security" that the faint-hearted
give up.
I bought an HP laptop running Win-7. Hated it. Didn't use it often so
didn't spend the time.
then I built a new system with $10 Win-8 upgrade (using the Win-7
key). Over some months I managed to get it tamed to where I, more or
less, wanted it and I'm quite comfortable with it now. (Although
there are still parts of *MY* hard drive that I can't get to.) Most
people though think Win-7 was pretty good and Win-8/8.1 hopeless.
I'm not really in any hurry to move to Win-10 but see my response to
Martin .... I took the freebie while it was going. Lot of privacy
issues there plus I'd have to do battle again to set it up "my way".
Ya got me started! :-)

Heh! I'd got quite used to W7, it's running on my gaming machine and I
managed to tame it nicely. However this (second hand) laptop that I got
doesn't have drivers available for 7 as it was supplied with 8 only (I tried
W7 on it and gave up trying to get drivers to work). So I'm playing with
10 - thanks for that link in your other post - I bookmarked it.

The i7 Win 10 machine will take over as my main machine one day soon - when
I'm as comfortable as I can be with it. For now it doesn't have any of my
personal information on it. I install DU Meter on all of my machines to
monitor data as, although I have a fast connection I have a monthly data
cap. I hate the way it suddenly starts saturating my download then tells me
it needs to restart - I can do it now or if I haven't within 48 hours it'll
do it anyway. Also it was uploading and I couldn't work it out for a while -
then I found a setting that stops it acting as a Windows update server for
other machines on the internet!

So I think it's going to be a while before I'm happy with it.

[Sid Elbow]

..........Also it was uploading and I couldn't work it out for a while -
then I found a setting that stops it acting as a Windows update server for
other machines on the internet!

That's one of the things in the link I gave. You should do the other
stuff too, Shaun ....... really.

[~misfit~]

Post by Sid Elbow

..........Also it was uploading and I couldn't work it out for a
while - then I found a setting that stops it acting as a Windows
update server for other machines on the internet!

That's one of the things in the link I gave. You should do the other
stuff too, Shaun ....... really.

Yeah I saw that - after I found it myself.

For now I've pulled the HDD and am trying a Win 7 install but finding the
right drivers is a bitch as this machine never ran W7.

Getting there though, most of the hardware was used in various other HP
laptops that *did* run under W7 so it's just a matter of time and research
...

Cheers,

[~misfit~]

Post by ~misfit~

Post by Sid Elbow

..........Also it was uploading and I couldn't work it out for a
while - then I found a setting that stops it acting as a Windows
update server for other machines on the internet!

That's one of the things in the link I gave. You should do the other
stuff too, Shaun ....... really.

Yeah I saw that - after I found it myself.
For now I've pulled the HDD and am trying a Win 7 install but finding
the right drivers is a bitch as this machine never ran W7.
Getting there though, most of the hardware was used in various other
HP laptops that *did* run under W7 so it's just a matter of time and
research ...

Grrr!!! The Envy dv6 (at least this one I have) has a 32GB mSATA SSD that is
used as a RAID-type cache to accelerate load times of the OS and frequently
used programmes via Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST). However I've
spent the last week trying to get it to work under Windows 7 and still no
luck. IRST installs and prompts me to select a partition to accelerate but
C drive isn't selectable. My next plan is to clone the OS onto a different
HDD with more than the single parttion and see if that works. (My usual
partitioning tools can't access the HDD for partitioning - it just comes up
with 'unsupported format' - I suspect due to this bastardised and crippled
BIOS.

(HP also crippled the BIOS / UEFI so that an SSD in the mSATA slot can't be
used for anything other than caching the HDD *unless* the HDD bay is empty -
otherwise I'd just stick a 120GB SSD in there and use the HDD bay for a data
drive.)

[Sid Elbow]

Post by ~misfit~
(HP also crippled the BIOS / UEFI so that an SSD in the mSATA slot can't be
used for anything other than caching the HDD *unless* the HDD bay is empty -
otherwise I'd just stick a 120GB SSD in there and use the HDD bay for a data
drive.)

My only experience of Windows-7 was on an HP laptop that I bought for
travel. It was a miserable experience and I ended up hating Win-7. When
I built a new desktop I installed Windows-8 > 8.1 and (once tamed) got
along with it quite well. Yet most people around me felt that Win-7 was
the good one and Win-8x was a dog. I can see now that much of my problem
with the laptop was actually the HP "background".

On a completely different note, I read this quotation in a book the
other day which gave me a real kick:

"If you can't lie honestly, then fake it"

take care, Shaun.

[~misfit~]

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by ~misfit~
(HP also crippled the BIOS / UEFI so that an SSD in the mSATA slot
can't be used for anything other than caching the HDD *unless* the
HDD bay is empty - otherwise I'd just stick a 120GB SSD in there and
use the HDD bay for a data drive.)

My only experience of Windows-7 was on an HP laptop that I bought for
travel. It was a miserable experience and I ended up hating Win-7.
When I built a new desktop I installed Windows-8 > 8.1 and (once
tamed) got along with it quite well. Yet most people around me felt
that Win-7 was the good one and Win-8x was a dog. I can see now that
much of my problem with the laptop was actually the HP "background".

Whereas my experience is the opposite - I believe that Win 7 was the best OS
Microsoft have made (a belief I saw echoed just yesterday when reading the
ThinkPads forum where several of the in-house gurus recommend upgrading /
downgrading to Win 7 as a cure for all ills).

However after struggling with this HP machine for the last few weeks I can
see how using one of their machines could put you off anything associated
with it for life. The annoying thing is that, on paper it's a beast of a
machine with high-end workstation-like specs. However getting those parts to
coexist harmoniously with anything other than the OS it was sold with (Win
8) is proving akin to sticking needles into your testicles - bloody painful
with no poisitive outcome (at least so far).

Post by Sid Elbow
On a completely different note, I read this quotation in a book the
"If you can't lie honestly, then fake it"

Nice. ;-)

Post by Sid Elbow
take care, Shaun.

Thanks, you too Sid.

[~misfit~]

Post by ~misfit~

Post by Sid Elbow

Post by ~misfit~
(HP also crippled the BIOS / UEFI so that an SSD in the mSATA slot
can't be used for anything other than caching the HDD *unless* the
HDD bay is empty - otherwise I'd just stick a 120GB SSD in there and
use the HDD bay for a data drive.)

My only experience of Windows-7 was on an HP laptop that I bought for
travel. It was a miserable experience and I ended up hating Win-7.
When I built a new desktop I installed Windows-8 > 8.1 and (once
tamed) got along with it quite well. Yet most people around me felt
that Win-7 was the good one and Win-8x was a dog. I can see now that
much of my problem with the laptop was actually the HP "background".

Whereas my experience is the opposite - I believe that Win 7 was the
best OS Microsoft have made (a belief I saw echoed just yesterday
when reading the ThinkPads forum where several of the in-house gurus
recommend upgrading / downgrading to Win 7 as a cure for all ills).
However after struggling with this HP machine for the last few weeks
I can see how using one of their machines could put you off anything
associated with it for life. The annoying thing is that, on paper
it's a beast of a machine with high-end workstation-like specs.
However getting those parts to coexist harmoniously with anything
other than the OS it was sold with (Win 8) is proving akin to
sticking needles into your testicles - bloody painful with no
poisitive outcome (at least so far).

Update FWIW; I have now got the SSD acceleration cache thingy working in W7
Pro 64bit. Turns out, after chasing multiple false leads over weeks that the
HDD I had installed had a non-standard implimentain of NCQ (the clue was
that it was blacklisted on a few obscure linux sites). This was causing my
issues but rather than give me an error message with a clue or two Intel
Rapid Storage Technology just silently stopped caching. :-/

I cloned the HDD to a new one and now it's all hunky dory.

Cheers,

[(PeteCresswell)]

Post by Sid Elbow
In
some cases, they've buried the things you need to access, in other cases
they've made them unrecognisable. Plus, in many cases, they've wrapped
them in so many levels of "security" that the faint-hearted give up.

I call it "Moving the furniture around".

Would anybody care to speculate on why they do that?

Understood that sometimes new or changed functionality demands it... but
MS seems to do most of it gratuitously.

I would have expected a committee at MS where, if somebody wants to
change the UI or how something is done, they have to present the
business reasons to the committee and the committee has to approve it.

Obviously I have no clue...

[Sid Elbow]

Post by (PeteCresswell)
Understood that sometimes new or changed functionality demands it... but
MS seems to do most of it gratuitously.

I think it's called "making this look like it's something new so we can
slap a new version number on it and charge you again".

Post by (PeteCresswell)
I would have expected a committee at MS where, if somebody wants to
change the UI or how something is done, they have to present the
business reasons to the committee and the committee has to approve it.

Close .... you just have it slighly bass-ackwards: if somebody wants to
keep the UI the way it is, they have to present the business reasons to
the committee ....

Post by (PeteCresswell)
Obviously I have no clue...

Obviously :-)

btw, Thunderbird's spell-checker suggested "Well Dressed" for "Pete Cresswell"
(why the stupid spell-checker feels it has to check the original message as well
as the reply is beyond me anyway).

[l***@gmail.com]

Post by Sid Elbow
So now that KAT is resting in peace (or perhaps not so much peace) at
least for now ..... what (decent) non-membership public trackers are left?

https://twitter.com/ldexterldesign/status/756057976553742336