Merry Christmas 2016!

Merry Christmas!  Here’s wishing you a Christmas day full of joy and laughter celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ!

Merry Christmas 2016

Luke 2:8-20   New American Standard Bible (NASB)

In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

15 When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.”16 So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. 17 When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.


Posted in Holiday

Always Check Your System for Memory Problems

Have you ever tested your computer’s memory (RAM) before for errors? If not, it would be a good idea to. Why? I’ll explain.

System memory stores temporary information for programs to quickly access. System memory is 100+ times faster than conventional hard drives, and thus minimizes delays in programs that you are running.

Programs depend upon the memory to be reliable, otherwise program malfunctions may occur (sometimes serious malfunctions).

For instance, say one of your memory sticks is bad, and this memory stick happens to be storing information containing an online order you are submitting to an online retailer. Now since this memory stick is bad, the debit card # you entered (e.g., 1111 2222 3333 4444) ends up being (e.g., 1111 2222 3333 4445)!

You see what happened? The last digit [ 4 ] became a [ 5 ]!  This would obviously cause a problem with your order. This is just one example of many potential problems you may have when dealing with bad system memory.

Other symptoms of bad memory are:  Blue Screen of Death (or Kernel Panic on Linux), outright programs crashes, and corrupt files.

So what can you use to test your system memory? Well a couple of programs I have used are MemTest86+  or  PassMark’s MemTest V7.1. These programs do not run in Windows. These programs require to be run by CD, USB drive, or any other bootable device.  You can Google these programs to find the downloads.

In my opinion, you need to run these tests for at least 3 complete passes* (with no errors) before considering your system memory to be reliable.

* A “pass”  =  a complete system memory test; so 3 “passes” means 3 complete tests


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Software

Gone Full-SSL Encryption on My Blog

I have finally gone full-SSL encryption on my blog. You should notice the lock symbol to the left (maybe right…depends upon the web browser you are using) of the URL in your browser.

What this means is that all your communication to my server is encrypted and the chance of someone decrypting your communication to my server is small.

More and more the World Wide Web is going SSL-only (encryption) for communications, regardless of the actual confidentiality of the information being transmitted.

Since there are people and organizations out there trying their hardest to invade people’s privacy, SSL encryption all the more has become necessary.


Posted in Computers, General, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Software

HDD vs SSD – Difference and Comparison

Over the last 20+ years, people have used a very popular hardware device called a hard drive. The typical hard drive is a mechanical device that has a spindle inside of it that reads over a magnetic disk (platters) to retrieve your stored data. These became common place in computers many years ago.

Over the past few years there has been another type of drive that came out in the market. They are called Solid State Drives (‘SSD’ for short). SSDs allow for extremely quick and easy access to your data, so you do not experience long delays when accessing your data.

SSDs are completely electronic (no mechanical devices are used in its operation). This is what allows for the quick and easy access to data I mentioned earlier.

Now that you have a quick explanation of the two types of drives, I am going to give you some pros and cons of both of them.

Pros for Mechanical Hard Drives

  • Cheaper to buy
  • Usually can get more disk space for less money.
  • Will be a better choice for storing important information (e.g., family photos, personal bank info, attorney letters, etc.).    Note: You should have a backup of these files on external disks anyway.  Never trust a hard drive to never fail.

Pros for Solid State Drives

  • SSD are not (are at least should not be) affected by magnetism
  • Practically no heat to worry about when using SSDs
  • No moving parts = no noise to bother you
  • SSDs use almost no power (less stress on your computer’s power supply)
  • SSDs will be more reliable, due to the fact that they do not have mechanical parts in them

So there you have it. Both types of drives are good for different situations.

In my opinion, if you really want/need a fast hard drive, then go for an SSD.

On the other hand, if you need/want a lot of disk space to store important information on, then you will be more cost effective going with a mechanical hard drive.


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers