Just took me two hours to watch a 1 hour movie. Why I’m leaving @coxcomm. — Krono$ (@SuperKronos) January 28, 2013

I finally decided to switch over and give DSL a shot, but I didn’t cancel my Cable.  I figured I’d do a little testing and really see who was the better service after all.  I put together a pretty extensive document of my results.  You can find that document and all the data I captured and used in a link below. This blog post is a summary of what I found to be the important parts.

Before I continue there are a few things that I need to let you know.  In all fairness to Cox (the cable provider), they did reach out to me via twitter to the frustration I vented above.  They said that using a newer version of a cable modem (DOCSYS 3.0) would lead to faster speeds and better bandwidth, but I didn’t really want to spend the $60-$90 just for a study when I’m already committed to DSL.  Perhaps if they’re willing to donate a new modem and a few weeks of free cable, I’ll redo the testing.  CenturyLink (the DSL provider) become my new primary source of internet.  I know that when testing like this, the test network shouldn’t be used during.  However, my life is on the internet, and I wasn’t about to give it up just to avoid the randomized testing.  So these results include daily usage on the DSL connection.  The Cox cable line was untouched during testing with the exception of any Windows (or other installed apps) automatic updates.  Finally, the results of this test may not be the same as what you experience.  This is a quantitative and qualitative approach to testing in my geographical area.  The Cable was a 25 Mbit/s advertised connection and DSL was a 12 Mbit/s advertised connection.

So here are a few interesting results:

During Peak Hours DSL outperforms Cable in Download Speeds

I considered peak hours to be between 17:00 and 23:00 local time or basically the hours that I’m most active online during the week.  After testing I noticed that the download speeds were on average and consistently far better for DSL than that of Cable.  Here’s the average speed over roughly two weeks.  There’s a whole 2 Mbit/s speed difference between the two.

I put together a box plot that shows where roughly %50 of the values are for each.  The DSL connection was more concentrated in one central area, and was faster than the Cable!

Finally I decided to put together a confidence interval where I could be %95 sure where the range of speed would be during those peak hours.  This is what I found:

Not only was the interval smaller (less variation of the speeds during the hours), but it was overall faster than Cable!  Before testing I assumed that Cable and DSL were going to be pretty close especially since the DSL connection was half the advertised speed as the Cable, but for the fact that DSL excelled beyond Cable blew my mind.

 DSL Upload speeds aren’t speedy at all

One of the things that Cable did do well was in Upload speeds.  Of course that’s because DSL only offered a 800 kBit/s up speed, but here’s a few graphs to show just how bad the comparison was:

This will lead to some bandwidth issues, especially if you’re gaming.  Dropbox for iOS decided to start uploading my pictures while I was playing a game.  This led to some pretty horrible ping times and me pulling out my hair wondering what was going on for about a 1/2 hour.  The take away from this is, if you’re uploading a lot of data on a DSL connection, don’t play games while your at it.

Reliability and speed set aside: I still didn’t get 100% of my advertised speed

Neither Cox nor Century Link provided the full 100%

Cable’s 27% performance during peak hours is dismal and really unacceptable, especially since Cox did so much better according to the FCC’s national testing.  DSL you’re not off the hook either.  71% is bad as well, just not as bad as Cable.

At the end of the day, how did I feel about the service?

Numbers are great, and they qualify what I as a customer feel, but in the end they really don’t matter.  What matters most is whether or not I get frustrated with my current service.  I have to say, that while DSL hasn’t given me the speeds that I expected and hoped for, the reliability has been a big plus.  I’ve only noticed lags here and there, and I haven’t (yet) had to sit and wait for buffering that took just as long as the actual show that I was watching.

Want to look at the full results?  Here’s a link to the .pdf document I put together for the testing I did.  Here’s another link to all of the data if you want to mess around with it yourself.

Great job everyone. We had a great go around with this contest and lot of participants. With over 2000 posts during the contest period there were plenty of questions and answers about Windows 8. For more stats, Bob put together a stats web app where you can compare contest stats and even personalize it! Go give it a check out for more details on the contest as a whole.

All winners will receive an email from the Stack Exchange team with instructions on how to get your prize. (Note: the T-Shirt emails have already been sent, so if you achieved Level 1 and didn’t get the email, check you spam folders and make sure you weren’t suspended for cheating.)

Level 1 Winners

All users who reached Level 1, and weren’t disqualified due to cheating will get a T-Shirt! Great job guys. It’s our way of saying “You just answered all those questions, and all you get is a lousy T-Shirt!”

To achieve Level 1, you had to have:

• 2 posts with a score of 1 or more
• 1 post with a score of 3 or more

… all tagged Windows-8.

And now onto the other contest winners!

Tile Prize Winners:

Tile Prizes were raffled off for achieving specific tasks during the contest. Each of the Tile Prize winners will receive a Microsoft Wedge Keyboard. Out of all the tile contestants, a single individual was selected to win a $200 value NAS server!

10 Edits:	1k View:	25 Votes:
50 Referrals:	Accepted Answer:	Award Bounty:
Bounty Recieved:	Blogger:	NAS Winner:

Level 2 Winners

The Level 2 Prize is a Microsoft Arch Touch Mouse.  The 15 winners below were selected from users who had posted:

• 5 posts with a score of 3 or more
• 1 post with a score of 5 or more

… on questions tagged Windows-8. Congratulations!

Level 3 Winners

To achieve Level 3, users had to have…

• 10 posts with a score of 3 or more
• 2 post with a score of 5 or more
• 1 post with a score of 8 or more

… tagged Windows-8. The six winners selected below will have a choice of getting either a GPU, SSD, or Monitor of their choice (fulfilled by Amazon) worth up to $200.  

Level 4 Winners

Twenty-four users managed to achieve Level 4, which required…

• 15 posts with a score of 3 or more
• 5 post with a score of 5 or more
• 1 post with a score of 15 or more

… tagged Windows-8. Two drawing winners get a Windows Surface RT and these two lucky users are:

And…

Congratulations to everyone who won, and thank you all for participating! We hope to see you around Super User in the future!

October 26th is coming fast. Are you ready for Windows 8? Super User is!

We’re having a party and you’re invited. Ask and answer questions to complete the challenge levels, and complete different tasks like editing, voting, and blogging to win the eight tile challenges. Each level you beat and each tile you finish enters you for sweet prizes, including the grand prize of a Microsoft Surface RT!

To increase your chances of success…

Before you jump in though, make sure you’re asking good questions, and make sure your question hasn’t already been answered. Use the built-in search, or your favorite search engine. When writing answers, leave a full answer (no bare links!), make sure to cite any resources you use, and use the Markdown formatting to make your post beautiful.

If you’re new here, please read our How to Ask page and the FAQ in its entirety before you begin. Earning the Analytical badge (awarded for reading all sections of the FAQ) is required to win any prizes. And remember, questions that are closed and answers that are deleted don’t count towards the contest.

 But wait! I don’t have Windows 8 yet…

That’s OK! If you want to get started now, you can still:

• Download the release preview (beware that it expires January, and has some differences from the final release)
• Install a 90 day evaluation copy of Windows 8 Enterprise (this cannot be directly upgraded to Windows 8 standard or Pro, so consider installing in a VM or a machine you can reinstall later)
• Preorder Windows 8 Pro
• Wait until October 26th, at which point you can upgrade from Windows XP, Vista, or 7 to Windows 8 Pro for $40 through the built-in upgrade system

Good luck!

We hope you enjoy our contest, and that you keep coming back for your future Windows 8 questions. If you have any questions, drop a comment or come visit our chat room. Good luck!

He performed a simple ping request but missed a ‘dot’.  I assume he meant to ping 192.168.0.72 but instead ended up typing 192.168.072.  What’s really amazing though (as pictured below) was that it worked!!! but not to 192.168.0.72 it sent the ping request to 192.168.0.58 :

So how does this work?

Synetech gave an awesome answer (go up vote it) explaining what happens.  Basically, pings are interpreted by the command line based four parts separated by ‘dots’.  Leaving out the dots means assumed zeros.  For example:

1 part  (ping A)       : 0.0.0.A
2 parts (ping A.B)     : A.0.0.B
3 parts (ping A.B.C)   : A.B.0.C
4 parts (ping A.B.C.D) : A.B.C.D

But that’s not all.  You can send the ping command using multiple formats:

So, there are plenty of ways to represent an (IPv4) IP address. You can use flat or dotted-quad (or dotted-triple, dotted-double, or even dotted-single) format, and for each one, you can use (or even mix and match) decimal, octal, and hexadecimal. For example, you can ping google.com in the following ways:

• google.com  (domain name)
• 74.125.226.4  (dotted decimal)
• 1249763844  (flat decimal)
• 0112.0175.0342.0004  (dotted octal)
• 011237361004  (flat octal)
• 0x4A.0x7D.0xE2.0x04  (dotted hex)
• 0x4A7DE204  (flat hex)
• 74.0175.0xe2.4  (ಠ_ಠ)

So now you can play around with your friends with your ping-fu mad skilz:

So when user Pickledegg asked about how much info can websites can get, it became a pretty popular question.

I am trying to determine if the information shown on the website www.whatsmyip.org is the absolute maximum amount of information that a webserver can obtain from a web visitor. Does anyone know of any other sites that will be able to get more information from the user passively like this? I’m not talking about port-sniffing or any kind of interaction from the user, just the info that a server can get from a ‘dumb’ visit.

So what’s the verdict?

Here’s what we found.  From What’s my IP they can determine the following (I removed un-important info, if I missed something feel free to comment):

• External IP
• Homename
• Proxy
• Internal (LAN) IP
• Operating System and version
• Screen Resolution
• Cookies Enabled
• Browser Plugins
• Location (kinda sorta)
• And a WHOIS Lookup

Basically is looked like this (I put green checkmarks across things that were correct):

But there’s more!  A browser can also give away your installed fonts! GASP.  Wait… what?  Why is that important?

User Informaficker had this to say:

Installed fonts are probably the most identifying piece of information as soon as you start adding one or two. Just because of the amount of fonts out there, it is unlikely to have the same set of fonts on two different computers. (As long as they are used by different persons)

This means that if you have any custom installed fonts on your computer, you have a greater likelihood to have a different “Font Identity” than others since there are lots of fonts out there.

How do I stop this monstrosity?

First DON’T LET IT!!!

Browsers are typically good at telling you what’s going on.  I suggest that you NEVER select Always run on this site (or other browser equivalents), and only allow trusted websites to run Java or Flash.  Disabling Java or Flash is another option, however with a majority of websites using either Java or Flash this can be difficult and annoying.

However, the browser can still access your External IP address.  A way around that is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).  I tested this out and it worked, including getting the wrong internal IP, since it picked up the VPN’s Internal IP and not my actual home networks IP.

Overall, it goes without saying to just be careful when ever your browsing the interwebs.

• Windows 8 Hyper-V – how to give VM internet access?

• How do I install and use Window Virtual PC in Windows 8?

One of them asked by Graham Clark, and the other is a self post by myself.  This prompted me to do a more formal review of Microsoft’s Hyper-V for Windows 8.

What is Hyper-V for Windows 8?

Hyper-V for Windows 8 is really called Client Hyper-V.  It’s similar in many aspects to the Microsoft Server’s Hyper-V (2008 and the upcoming 2012).  What’s different about Client Hyper-V is that it was customized to fit the portable environments, such as laptops, that developer’s find themselves in.  What does Hyper-V do?

In brief, Hyper-V lets you run more than one 32-bit or 64-bit x86 operating system at the same time on the same computer. Instead of working directly with the computer’s hardware, the operating systems run inside of a virtual machine (VM).

(source)

Requirements for Hyper-V

In order to run Hyper-V Client you need the following:

• Windows 8 64-bit
• at least 4GB of RAM (for running 3-4 VM’s)
  • If you’re running 5 or more VM’s then you’ll need more than this
• Second Level Address Translation (SLAT).  Don’t know what SLAT is?  Here is a list of supported processors.
  • This also means that you need to enable SLAT in your bios.  Typically this is under an option that states “virtualization”
• Personally, I would recommend at least a dual-core processor, if not a quad core.

Some cool features of Hyper-V

Hyper-V has some really cool features, and the following isn’t meant to be a complete list, only a few of the top ones:

1. You can use Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) to connect to the VM! While this may not sound that exciting, especially given the fact that VM Connect, a solution that also connects to the VM, comes with Hyper-V there are some added functionality that comes with using RDC.  For example, you can span across multiple monitors, full multimedia experience, multipoint touch-enabled interfacing, etc,.
2. Live Storage Move: Live storage move is the to move the VM’s storage from one local drive to another, including USB sticks or remote files share WITHOUT SHUTTING THE VM OFF!!!!
3. The use of Wireless NIC’s With Windows Server Hyper-V there was really no case where a Wireless NIC card was used to connect the VM to the network.  However, with developer now moving to a more mobile development environment, Hyper-V Client needed to add this functionality, and it did!  Read this article for a little more info on why this was a challenge, and how they solved it.
4. Dynamic Memory with a static minimum bootup memory option. This means that the allocated memory to a VM increases or decreases according the needs of that VM.  If you’re running a lot on it, it’ll increase the amount of memory for that system, if it’s just sitting there idling by, then less memory.  You can define the minimum and maximum amounts as well.  This is great so that you’re running VM’s don’t take up those precious resources.  But what about minimum requirements for bootup?  Hyper-V allows to define the minimum RAM needed to boot the system up.
5. SNAPSHOTS!!!!

A snapshot saves everything about the virtual machine allowing you to go back to a previous point in time in the life of a VM, and is a great tool when trying to debug tricky problems.

Some basic how-to tutorials for Hyper-V

• How do I install Hyper V? I answered this fairly well in my self answered post.
• How do I connect the VM to the internet or network?I ran into this very problem myself when first setting up the VM’s.  What you have to understand is that Hyper-V works with “Virtual Switches” in order for connection to be made to other VM Machines or the outside network.  Here’s a cool pic from the Microsoft site on how it’s setup:

In order to do this, follow these instructions from my answer here.

Is it worth having Hyper-V on my machine?

I’ve dealt minimally with Oracle’s Virtual Box.  However I did use Windows Virtual PC that came with Windows 7 to provide Windows XP-Mode.  If you’re looking for a replacement for Windows Virtual PC that provides XP mode, then you’re out of luck.  This is a more complicated system that Virtual PC.  However, if you’re looking for a free system, that has a lot of great features for Virtualization, the Hyper-V is a great tool.  I’ve been using it for Ubuntu, and XP VM’s and plan on installing Windows 7 as well.  Setting up the VM and installing the OS is a breeze.  I give it a two thumbs up.

1 Storing hard drive near electric wire – Ever wonder if your hard drive could be ruined while being near electical lines well here’s the tl;dr answer:

In short, don’t worry about it, unless you’re working with some kind of industrial equipment with VERY high currents on that cable (the amount of interference emitted from a power cable is proportional to the current on it). Household currents are unlikely to be a problem.

2 What are PATH and other environment variables, and how can I set or use them? – Environment variable can be a powerful tool to use.  The answer is a great guide on the how’s what’s and why’s of environment variables within Windows.

3 Why do disks fragment? – With the advent of SSD’s and their completive prices there may come a day when fragmentation will become a thing of the past, but for now it’s something we need to deal with.  The answers still provide insight to the woe’s of the the past when it comes to disk drive fragmentations.

4 How does a CPU ‘know’ what commands and instructions actually mean? – There’s a lot of “magic” that goes on behind the scenes as you operate your computer.  All of this magic eventually ends up being assembly level instructions which in turn…  well that’s the question, and the answers are pretty good at explaining the basics.

5 What makes a laptop overheat? – Laptops are notorious for overheating, and this question/answer duo helps to try to explain what it is.

6 Why can’t I email myself at: MyEmail@74.125.235.55? – That IP address is google’s.  What’s really interesting about this question is actually the answer, which goes into great detail of what DNS is and how it works.

7 Determining if a hard disk has been removed and data copied from it? – For all you paranoid freaks out there, this is right up your alley.  There are some great answers addressing how to prevent and how to protect yourself from hard drive tampering/stealing.  My favorite detection is the little sticker on the drive and chassis.

8 Security Concern with my Windows 7 Box at Work – Did you know there’s an automatic admin share on your drive?  Ya kinda scary, but hey at least the account has to have local admin access to be able to see it…

9 How to find the process(es) which are hogging the machine – We treat our linux resources (memory, CPU usage, etc,.) as Gollum treats his precious dark Lord’s ring.  So when we find out that there’s some little computer hobbit stealing them away, we gets a little mad.

10 Does a computer use fewer resources when programs are minimized? – What happens when the program is minimized.  Does it still suck the life away from my computer, or is Windows smart enough to reduce it’s impact.  The answer… depends, but in general it actually does!

11 Why don’t you see binary code when you open a binary file with text editor? – The answer here gives a great explanation of what the differences are between binary files (like images) and text files are.

12 How can I prove (with logging) where a port block is occurring? – Is your ISP blocking ports it’s not supposed to be again?  Here’s how to prove it.  Unfortunately the solution is Linux only, so maybe some of your Windows Wizards can add to it?

13 How do I hit the CTRL key without straining my pinky? – Carpel tunnel… the painful reminder that your job requires you to sit on your bum all day staring at a computer screen.  Here’s one way to reduce its onset.

14 Can avi files contain a virus? – I’m not going to lie.  I was scared about this as well, same thing with .mp3’s.  So what’s the answer?  Here’s the TL;DR

An AVI file is a video, and therefore not executable, so the operating system can/will not run the file. As such, it cannot be a virus in its own right, but it can indeed contain a virus.

15 How to store and preserve lots of data? – It’s amazing the the prices per GB that just keep dropping.  Good thing too, because the amount of space we use, is getting bigger and bigger.  But how do we handle all of this data and keep it safe from harm?  This question answers just that.

16 Windows File Copy Dialog: Why is the Estimation So… BAD? – XKCD says it all:

But the real answer is that this is a difficult thing to really guess.  Luckily the new Windows 8 estimations are a little more on par, and getting better.

17 Is the Windows Experience Index calculation the same on Windows 7 and 8 – The WEI, where Super Users can whip out their numbers and see who’s is larger, and guess what, if you’ve got Windows 8, you’ve got a chance to be even bigger.

18 How can I read my hard drive’s SMART status in Windows 7? – I won’t go into whether or not SMART is smart to use, but it is tough to read those values from Windows.  This question provides a few good answers on how to do just that.

19 Securely erasing all data from a hard drive – Whether you’re an IT professional trying to keep your data from entering the outside world, or an individual with important data, before your throw out those drives, make sure they’re clean of your data, even broken ones.

20 How can I visualize the file system usage on Windows? – With your data getting bigger and bigger, it’s hard to spot what takes up all the space on your computer.  These are a few good solutions on how to visualize them.

21 Windows 7 and Vista Activation FAQ: How do language, version, 64-bit or 32-bit, and source affect ability to install and transfer Windows licenses? – This one is a Community-FAQ and a good one at that.  Activation for Windows is difficult to understand and if you get the wrong license, you might be up a creek without the paddle.

22 How does Windows know whether it has internet access or if a Wi-Fi connection requires in-browser authentication? – OK so I lied, this one was already featured… it’s it’s so freakin awesome that it had to be mentioned again.  It’s actually one of the blog posts that still brings in daily traffic.

23 32-bit vs. 64-bit systems – 64 bit has been around for a while now, but believe it or not, there are still a lot of people that don’t know what the difference are.

24 Easiest way to find out if user has either Windows 7 or Vista (through telephone support)? – Tech support over the phone is super difficult as it is, that’s why we have this cheat sheet:

But finding out which version of Windows over the phone, was a tough one until now.

25 Computer is infected by a virus or a malware, what do I do now? – Another Community FAQ that’s good to point your friends to when they have issues that you just don’t want to deal with at that moment.

26 Who provides the Internet service to Internet Service Providers (ISPs)? – So I may have selfishly put this one in, but I think it’s super interesting an apparently 194+ other people do as well.

27 Does e-mail address obfuscation actually work? – This is another really neat question that’s useful to know.  The answer is getting a little dated, but I think it still stands, it really does help to obfuscate even just a little.

28 What are the Windows A: and B: drives used for? – This one was so popular that even Jeff tweeted it.  If you don’t know what a floppy disk drive is, then I’m going to feel really really old.

29 How does a computer restart itself? – The answer is like a wiki document, but it’s an interesting read that’s very detailed.

30 Transatlantic ping faster than sending a pixel to the screen? – So wait… you’re telling me that the time that it takes a packet to travel thousands of miles is FASTER than the time it takes to update the pixels on my screen?  Yep! Oh ya, and BTW John Carmack answered it.

31 Why does performance of a regular hard drive decrease over the duration of a benchmark while SSD doesn’t? – HDD’s have a lot of limitations, one of them being the speed of read/write depending on physically where they’re reading/writing to.

32 Preventing applications from stealing focus – This is one of the questions that still isn’t answered.  If you answer it correctly I’m pretty sure a ton of votes and bounties are headed your way.

33 Which of shutdown / hibernate / sleep causes the least wear to an SSD drive? – While they’re cheaper than they used to be, SSD’s are still expensive.  That’s why Super User’s do their best to reduce any wear and tear on their super fast SSD drives.

34 How can I physically destroy data from a failed HDD? – Sometimes software destroying of data just isn’t enough.  I personally like the idea of thermite.

35 Is a laptop cooler really effective and useful? – I don’t know how many times I thought my pants would catch fire from how hot my laptop gets.  That’s why I got a cooler, but did it add to the performance?  Ya it actually does.

36 Best way to sync Outlook 2010 with Google Calendar on multiple computers? – Outlook 2010 is either really hated or loved.  I personally love it, but hate it’s difficulty in syncing with 3rd Party Services like gmail.

37 How can I read a reel-to-reel tape from the 1970s? – Reel-to-Reel tapes are old school, but still used today. In fact Google  still uses it just in case something really really bad happens.

38 How to avoid exposing my MAC address when using IPv6? – Did you know that your MAC address is by default hidden inside your IPv6 address?  Well it is, and this show’s you how to remove it.  (Little side note for ya… this one has 42 stars…. just saying)

39 How should I interpret the specifications of a SSD? – Since SSD’s are still new, it’s hard to tell what’s good and bad about the ones that are being manufactured.  This should hopefully help you out a little.

40 What regulates Intel SpeedStep CPU throttling? Can I get some control of this on Windows7? – SpeedStep can be a pain when you don’t realize what it is and what it’s doing.  This question/answer pair helps you to figure it out.

41 How badly do SSDs degrade without TRIM? – Again Super Users are all about getting that last little bit that we can from our devices.  TRIM helps, but what if it’s not an option?  How bad can it be?

42 How does a computer render an object to the screen? – I always chalk this things up to the little Bill Gates mini-me’s running around in my PC, but apparently there’s a little more to it than that.

General Understanding/Installation

• What is the difference between Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT?

• How can I upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 and keep my files and applications?

The New Modern Apps

• How do I exit a Modern UI app?

• How do I turn off Modern UI in Windows 8?

• How to delete contacts from the Windows 8 People app?

As time goes on, and more questions/answers come along, we’ll update this help all you Super Users out there with the new Windows 8.

But what’s really frustrating is buying memory.  There are so many factors to consider that it can get overwhelming.  This is the same issue that Super User nathpilland had:

What am I looking for in RAM?

This is the one area of computer building that still has me in the dark, and I think a lot of people are with me… There are many different types of RAM, with each company having high and low end sticks. What is the difference between the high and low end? Also, what do the numbers in the latency mean? What is the speed rating (I know 1600 MHz is about normal) and how much is too much? What’s the difference between dual channel and single channel? Can you overclock/overvolt? Is there even a point to do so if this was possible? As you can see, I’m thoroughly confused here. I tried doing some research, but I can’t find this information anywhere on the internet. I’m not actually buying RAM, I’m just trying to get a better picture as to how all this works so I can be more educated on the hardware in computers.

So here we go.  This blog post is a stab at defining the basics you need to know about RAM.

A quick look over at NewEgg there were a few major categories that advertising threw at me:

• Type (DDR, DDR2, DDR3)
• Speed (typically in terms of 1066, 1333, 1600, etc)
• Timings
• CAS Latency

Memory Type: DDR (1 vs 2 vs 3 vs …)

What does it mean?

Kyle Brandt (SF valued associate #1) over as blog.ServerFault gave an awesome brief definition of what DDR stands for and what the major difference between the different versions are:

DDR stands for Double Data Rate. In the case of DDR memory the data transfer event actually manages to carry two chunks of data. With DDR2, you get 4, and with DDR3 you get 8. This does not include the rate of operations, but rather the amount of data chunks carried in each operation.

I’m assuming as time goes on, DDR versions will continue to double in “chunks” of data they’re capable of transferring.

What should you look for when purchasing?

Compatibility is going to be the key when selecting memory type.  Memory type is specific to motherboards.  Meaning that a motherboard running DDR2 will only use DDR2.  So if you’re looking to upgrade your memory, then make sure to keep the same type as what you had previously.  If you’re looking to build, the higher the version, the more data that the memory can carry.

Speed

What does it mean?

This is typically measured in Megatransfers per sec (MT/s).  From wikipedia:

1 MT/s is 10⁶ or one million transfers per second.

What should you look for when purchasing?

The higher the number, the faster the transfer rate.  This means the higher the performance.

Timing (CL-tRCD-tRP)

What does it mean?

The three front number of a timing (i.e. 9-9-9-27) represent three different things:

1. CL – Clock cycles between sending a column address to the memory and the beginning of the data in response
2. tRCD – Clock cycles between row activate and reads/writes
3. tRP – Clock cycles between row precharge and activate

What Should you look for when purchasing?

TM has a great answer as to what you should look for:

Generally, lower is better, however, it’s not always true, as the separate numbers have an effect on each other. You can think of this as basically a measure of how “quick” the memory is, as opposed to how “fast” it is. It’s basically the delay before actions can get started. Because the numbers measure clock cycles, remember that lower timings don’t necessarily mean faster access times. Memory running at 100mhz with a timing of 2-2-2-5 will have effectively slower timings than memory running at 400mhz with a timing of 5-5-5-15 for example (even though it takes 5 clocks rather than 2 clocks, it cycles 4x faster).

Column Address Strobe (CAS) Latency

What does it mean?

From wikipedia:

the delay time between the moment a memory controller tells the memory module to access a particular memory column on a RAM memory module, and the moment the data from given array location is available on the module’s output pins.

What should you look for when purchasing?

It’s a measure of latency, which means that, in general, the lower the number the better the performance.

Putting it all together

All in all, the higher the DDR version and speeds, and the lower the timings and CAS Latency the better the memory.  When comparing memory modules, make sure that you compare similar.  For example DDR3 ONLY with other DDR3 modules, and 1066 speeds ONLY with 1066 speeds.  Getting outside of those realms can cause a misunderstanding of what the real difference is, as noted in TM’s answer.

A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is usually a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user’s web browser while a user is browsing a website. When the user browses the same website in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the website of the user’s previous activity.  Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember the state of the website or activity the user had taken in the past. This can include clicking particular buttons, logging in, or a record of which pages were visited by the user even months or years ago.

This basically means that websites will save small pieces of data on your machine in plain text.  These have a wide range of uses, but here are some common examples that I can think of:

1. Netflix: Isn’t is awesome how it remember where you last left off?  This is done through cookies
2. Amazon (and other shopping sites): They remember what was in your basket last time you visited.
3. Stack Exchange: Remembers you, so you don’t have to log in every time.  (Actually this is a WAY more complicated process detailed here, but you get the picture)

What do these look like?  Here’s a screen shot of my Amazon session found in chrome://settings/cookies/

It appears that Amazon stores the following 6 values: at-main, session-id, session-id-time, session-token ubid-main and x-main.  I don’t know what each of those values mean, but I’m assuming that since I’ve recently been doing some browsing of Amazon, session-id would link to the contents of my last cart or searches.  Since cookies are used everywhere, and appear to be harmless, what’s all the fuss about using these cookies?  It’s the fact that these cookies can literally store anything, and that they’re stored in plain text.  Also any website can use them sometimes without you even knowing.

This leads us to this week’s question of the week from Pureferret where he asks:

Why are websites suddenly asking me about cookies?

I have for a long time known that websites give me cookies so that small pieces of information can be remembered about my habits, passwords etc. I accept this, but all of a sudden they are asking for my permission to do so. Why has this changed? What sparked this?

If you’ve been living in the UK and all of a sudden been seeing messages like this:

then you know what Pureferret has been experiencing.  Super User Yasin Soliman gave this answer:

The EU e-Privacy Directive, otherwise known as the EU Cookie Law, originally came into place on the 26th of May 2012 and means you, as the site owner/administrator, have to get your visitors’ informed consent before placing a cookie (probably related to social media elements or login/tracking systems) on their machine. If you are a WordPress admin, there is a notification plugin for you to use which looks like this:   There is also a great overview. According to the above link, it is not just standard cookies.

The law also affects anything that acts like a cookie, for example: Flash Cookies and HTML5 Local Storage.

There are also ‘suggested categories’ from the same link above (overview):

• Essential (logins)
• Non-Essential but harmless (functionality, not essential)
• Fairly Intrusive (web tracking)
• Very Intrusive (PII – personally identifiable information)

There are a few cookies that are exempt from informing the user of their presence, but these appears to all be non-harmful ones:

For a greater detailed guidance on the rules I suggest looking at this pdf from UK Information Commissioner’s Office.