The Computer Thread

Depends on how you plan to use your laptop. I've got a SSD in my laptop and a 1TB external USB 3 drive.

Another option is to sacrifice an optical drive to get a second HDD bay for a high capacity place to store movies and such in addition to a SSD OS drive. Also, you can get a laptop with an open mSATA slot on the mobo, buy a mSATA SSD to fit in there, and migrate the OS from the HDD onto the mSATA SSD. That's on my wishlist of upgrades for my laptop currently, since I've got the open mSATA slot and the only other things I could put in there would be a bluetooth card or a GPS card, neither of which I would likely use much.

EDIT: mSATA is this format where the cards or SS Ds are maybe a bit bigger than an SD card, used on newer laptop hardware. Check to see if your laptop includes it, and also check to see if it supports mSATA SS Ds, as I understand that neither is universally the case.

EDIT 2: So, the tradeoff is that an SSD will be faster and more reliable (no moving parts to break), but an HDD will typically be higher capacity. Also, many laptops have emergency shutoff features to stop and lock the HDD if it detects the laptop is falling. I have no idea how effective such systems are.

edited 15th Oct '14 2:19:05 PM by AFP

Well, most of the sites I've looked at offer enough customisation that I won't need to do it myself. What sort of capacity should I be aiming for?

EDIT: And, since my last post was that the bottom of the page, my question about chassis still stands.

edited 15th Oct '14 4:07:58 PM by Bisected8

An Australian researcher has worked out how to store 1000TB on a CD

I love it when something's invented by doing something simple and clever.

God ███ing damn it, I just discovered that my shiny new 500€ Windows 8.1 PC won't let me use Encrypting File System unless I pay through the nose 160 additional euros to upgrade to Windows 8.1 Pro!

It doesn't just gray out the checkbox in the UI, even trying to enable encryption programmatically fails with ERROR_NOT_SUPPORTED...

And I wasted my evening trying to set it up right. This on top of Skype on my old PC no longer letting me connect with my Microsoft account (but only for MY Windows user account; on another one it sort-of works but only shows the pure Skype contacts and not the Messenger ones)

edited 20th Oct '14 5:16:50 AM by Medinoc

Bisected - what I'd advise is that you look at the chassis and see how effective the cooling is on it. It can be worth paying more for better cooled cases, some of the cheaper ones tend to give up on that and can easily break from it.

Also, on HDD vs SSD - I'd advise the SSD simply because the boot times of an SSD are worth it, usually. It is though a matter of price, because a decent capacity SSD is still around £60 extra minimum, and that's the decent models. You still have some which aren't great for actual wear, and can die much quicker than if you'd spent an extra £20 on one.

So, I keep being told by some people at some forums that I will not name that using a VPN is a better alternative than — or at least a necessary complement for — using TOR for online anonymity and/or censorship circumvention. Is that true? How does a VPN work, in the first place? Is it a program, an online service delivered by some site, or what? And is it freeware like TOR?

I don't get it. A VPN seems to be merely an encrypted channel between you an a remote network (usually a corporate one for, say, telecommuting) which allows you to connect to the remote network's machines as if you were on the same local network.

Of course, if you browse the Internet in this state, you will go through their gateway instead of yours, but this stays much more traceable than a thing design to hamper tracing.

It's also typical VPN company policy not to be traceable. So in essence going through a VPN is going through a blackbox.

x4: Thanks, RRR. Looking up the chassis as separate products didn't occur to me.

What capacity do I need for the main drive (I can quite easily afford a 500GB high performance HDD, but I'd have to settle for half that on an SSD)?

edited 17th Oct '14 3:06:58 AM by Bisected8

Aren't you looking for a laptop though? Then there's barely any difference among laptop chassis. Usually it just boils down to where is the exhaust, left, right, or at the back.

I always assumed that TOR was a type of VPN setup.

Compare the case on this to this and this.

As I said, the appearance doesn't bother me much, but I'm worried about how strong the case/keyboard are.

Entropy - that's not always the case. One thing held in some businesses is that it's worth paying more for a good chassis on a laptop, simply because you don't know where it'll be used, and it's best to assume it'll be used in very hot places. To this end, many business laptops will actually have seemingly overdone heatsink systems to blast out heat, and they often prove their worth for all they do blast out.

And Bisected - if you can live with a 256 GB SSD, I'd go for that. It'll be worth it for the boot times alone.

edited 17th Oct '14 4:52:42 AM by RatherRandomRachel

"VPN" is a specific concept that is distinct from what TOR and other proxy networks do.

When you use the Internet, your data packets are routed from your computer to their ultimate destination, and back again. Those packets are tagged with your IP address so the destination computer knows how to reply.

When you use TOR, you are going through a routing system that deliberately hides your origin point. It substitutes the IP address of one of the various TOR exit points for your IP address in your packets. When the destination system replies to that IP address, TOR reroutes the data back through its network to your computer.

With a VPN, you establish a secure tunnel to another network, and then you are using that network to send and receive data. In both cases, you're using another computer's identity, but the mechanism is slightly different.

edited 17th Oct '14 5:04:30 AM by Fighteer

I was thinking of getting this Fangbook Evo HX6-100, with the standard HDD replaced with a 250 GB Samsung 840 EVO.

Can I do better?

In a similar vein to a VPN, you can also tunnel a connection through SSH as a SOCKS proxy (meaning it only works for TCP while VPNs work for UDP as well). I found out that when a Verizon FiOS account is suspended and placed in their "walled garden" mode that other protocols, including SSH, still work. The account got unsuspended before I could test it out with a tunnel though.

You can also connect to a virtual machine that someone's set up for you (or left open) and you are, for all intents and purposes, using that computer to browse the 'net rather than your own.

@Fighteer: I see. So that leaves the other questions... That is, which method is more secure if used independently of the other, and how would I go about using a VPN?

edited 17th Oct '14 7:51:33 AM by MarqFJA

The problem with any proxy network is that you are, in effect placing your connection in the hands of someone who has declared their distrust of authority and therefore has no particular reason to be trustworthy themselves. Proxies are used by hackers, vandals, scam artists, spammers, and all sorts of other unsavories in addition to people avoiding censorship.

I have a strong aversion to proxies of any sort because of their use in ban evasion. I'm a moderator of this site, remember? That said, TOR is very popular among people in countries whose governments restrict or snoop on Internet traffic. It's also relatively trustworthy as such things go.

To use any proxy network, you typically have to install a client or change your DHCP settings to use the network's proxy server. Then you proceed from there. You just have to search it out and find it, and I can't give you any specific advice here.

Proxies also slow down your connection because you're bouncing your traffic all over the Internet. Expect significantly higher latency and lower bandwidth.

edited 17th Oct '14 9:01:47 AM by Fighteer

Superconducting circuits, simplified

Oh believe me, I am well aware of the connection speed issue through my usage of TOR.

Thanks for the info/advice that you shared, Fighteer.

edited 18th Oct '14 4:40:50 AM by MarqFJA

Found this at a Japanese thrift shop tonight. I might go back and buy it, just to put on my shelf. I know I can't play it, unless I find a USB 5" floppy drive.

edited 18th Oct '14 4:55:15 AM by AFP

Maximum PC linkage:

• Computer Upgrade Guide Avoid the pitfalls and upgrade your computer like a pro

• HP to Stick a Fork in webOS, Preps Complete Shutdown of Services on January 15, 2015. And like betamax, video discs, virtual boy and Colecovision, Palm's webOS is now Deader Than Disco.

• Intel Posts "Best-Ever" Third Quarter Revenue and Profits. Ah the "1%" of the computer world gets richer. At least they support gamers and the modders. They are even allowing people to overclock Intel CPU's!

• AMD Sees Decline in Computing and Graphics Segment, Readies for Round of Layoffs. Poor AMD, eating Intel's dust since The New '10s...

• Gartner Blames Slowdown in Tablet Growth on Hybrid 2-in-1 Devices:

Good thing Intel isn't like Apple. If they were, the X99 motherboards and current-gen LGA 2011 CP Us won't exist, but the Z97 motherboards and current-gen LGA 1150 will be at the former groups' price points.