Blog: A Day In The Life
Contents: Blog Home | Blog Archive | Tags | Featured Posts
Thursday, 3 July 2008
New Everything
- New computer stuff from Ebuyer!- New blog template (in fact an entirely new website) in the making!
- New Firefox out last week! Version 3!
The night before last I bought some stuff from Ebuyer:
- Hannspree XM New York 19" TFT widescreen Monitor
- Western Digital Elements 500GB External Hard Drive
- Extra Value All-In-One Card Reader
- Labtec USB Webcam
And they all arrived this morning at 9:00! I got free delivery and they were here within 36 hours! How amazing is that? I first saw the external hard drive in the ebuyer edeals email (I get it every week and take a look for good deals on things I want/need but have never gone ahead and bought anything from looking at the email) because it was such a vast amount of storage at such a low price! Half a terabyte (500GB) for £50! Compared with the last external hard drive I bought for £60 in 2006 (60GB), with both storage/cost ratios measured in gigabytes per pound (GB£-1).
Therefore, based on my purchases:
In 2006 the cost of external hard drives was 1GB per pound = 1GB£-1
In 2008 the cost of external hard drives is 10GB per pound = 10GB£-1
To measure the rate of change in cost over time, we can use a simple calculation used to measure acceleration, which similarly is the measure of changing speed over time:
Acceleration = (Final Speed - Initial Speed)/Time
a=(v-u)/t
Therefore, the rate of change in cost over two years is (10-1)/2 = 4.5
So we can say that, based on my purchases, the ratio of storage to cost in external hard drives is falling at a rate of 4.5GB per pound per year! (That one's for you, Woollard!)
Anyway, I thought I'd treat myself to a sexy new monitor and get rid of the bulky old one that takes up half the desk. I'm well pleased with it already - I have a huge resolution (1600 x 1024) and I can now watch 16:9 films without huge black space at the top and bottom!
I thought it was about time I bought a webcam, especially seeing as I'll be moving to Manchester soon and won't be seeing much of my friends - and it was dirt cheap, like the cardreader.
So here's my setup showing my sparkly new monitor, webcam blue-tacked to the edge, my awesome mouse (the Logitech MX 1000 Laser Cordless Mouse - also bought from Ebuyer):
You can see a preview of my new blog template on my monitor in that photo! I've been working on it today and I overcame the problem I was having last week with it not rendering properly in Internet Explorer. Seriously, if it wasn't for IE, web development would be a walk in the park! This is one of the many reasons why everyone in the world should use Firefox! There was a new version out last week and there have been some amazing changes and really useful additions! If you don't use Firefox, why not give it a try and see for yourself what all the fuss is about? It's safer, faster and the all-round better choice when it comes to doing everyday tasks on the web! Download it now! http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/
I'm hoping to have the new site up some time next week. Watch this space! It might be a bit bluer next time!
Labels: Computers, Firefox, Maths
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 12:12 
