.tk domains for free!

Hi all, I'm back to show you what I discovered.

.tk is the Internet country code top-level domain for Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand, and has been introduced in 1997 and provides free domains for people from all around the world. It's very simple to register your existing domain. Just go to dot.tk and paste your website address, copy the code and click on next, then all you have to do is type the name you want and voila, you have a domain without any sub-domain (not domain.subdomain.com but name.tk). It's actually like bit.ly or tnij.com which are the websites that allow you to short the long web address, but with dot.tk you can give this address a name. I have also used dot.tk to change my other blog's name, and you can visit it here. Now you see that it really works ;)
Although the domain name is free, there has to be some traffic on the website, this is the part of the conditions I have agreed to, and can I ask you my friends, to visit this blog as well?;)
Have a nice Christmas
Stachmeister

Sorry to say...

Unfortunately, I have nothing to write about... and this means I'll have to take a few weeks break until I dig something new up. I just wanted to be frank with you, and I don't write too much because I write about the things I review personally or the things I do, I don't want to steal content from other blogs and interpret it my way, just like others do.




but,

Stay tuned for the review of my budget computer after 2 months of use. It's a little bit early to talk about this, but I can share two things with you, first is that the computer works perfectly and the second one is that the CPU heatsink is already dusted a lot. That's all for a moment, you'll find out more later. There will be a lot to talk about so it'll be worth reading. But you have to wait, unfortunately.




See you soon on here.
Mike (Stachmeister)

Building a budget PC...

Hi everyone,

This is how I built my budget PC. So, let's start.

On October 20. 2009 I realised my PC is soo old, celeron 1.7, 1.5gb ram, 120gb hdd and radeon 9250... I decided to buy a motherboard, processor, memory and graphics, but i did not want to spend too much on it as I save money to buy a motorcycle ;) So, I went to my favorite computer store, where I could get good parts for a good price and really cheaper than in High Street stores and even ebay. I bought the cheapest possible motherboard, ASRock G31M-s, an Intel Celeron Dual-Core e3300, ASUS Radeon HD4550, and 1GB ram - not much but frankly, couldn't afford any more at the moment I was at store as I took only 140 gbp. So the MoBo costed me like 35 pounds, processor costed me about 50, graphics was another 40 and 1gb ddr2 13 pounds. All the rest was from my old computer.

Let's start reviewing the MoBo. So, G31M-s is probably the best low cost motherboard produced. It features LGA775 socket, two DDR2 ports, a PCI-E port and 2 PCI, built in GMA x3100 accelerator (which is shit anyway) and Realtek HD sound card. The motherboard is in the miniATX format, so it's smaller than normal motherboards but still compatible with ATX computer cases.

Now, the processor. An intel celeron e3300 is one of the cheapest intel processors available on the market, and it's almost the same as Core2duo e5800, the only difference between the two is that e5800 has 2mb cache whereas e3300 has 1mb. So what was the point of making the same but a little downgraded processor and selling it for about £10 cheaper? Anyway, the processor is completely different than the older celerons. We remember the times when Celerons were slow and cheap, and now this changed. Almost core2duo... OK, leave core2duo alone, and let's talk about my celeron e3300. So, it was boxed with a fan and thermal paste on it, so it was ready to place it into the motherboard. When I installed it, I was surprised with the fan's work... it was very silent compared to my old mPGA478 Celeron 1.7, but that's probably because that 478 was old. Nevermind. Ok, when I installed everything, system and that stuff, there was time to test it. The maximum temperature it had was 45 celsius degrees loaded. Not bad, it's even great. But I am the type of a person that is not satisfied by factory settings, and, as you've probably guessed, I overclocked it to 3.3 ghz (2.5ghz was in factory settings) by increasing the main frequency from 200mhz to 266 without changing the voltages. Now, the temperature never exceeded 46C loaded, and on idle it gets 33C.

Memory. Not much to talk about, 'Crucial' 1gb ddr2 667mhz, the cheapest available. I won't make any improvements to it, I will just buy additional 2GB memory of the same producer and with the same frequency.

Graphics. Also, the cheapest I could buy, I mean the cheapest on stock. Asus EAH4550 which is ATI HD4550 but produced by Asus. 512mb ddr2 on-board, shader 4.1, directX 10.1 and can easily compete with GeForce 9400GT. Has a great performance compared to my old graphics, that's obvious. Unfortunately, it's fanless, so overheats. But silent. But I don't care ;) To prevent it from overheating, I have found a case fan, and hooked it up to the card. But anyway, even though it is fanless, it still has a great performance and I like it. Again, as I don't like factory settings, I have overclocked it to 700mhz core and 600mhz memory.

Conclusion

You CAN get a gaming computer for less than £200, and even cheaper if you upgrade your old computer, just as I did. £140 and I have a computer that plays the newest games with no problems at all. It is not the highest performance, but I think I won't have to upgrade my computer in next three years :)

Mike

Toshiba L300 heatsink FIXED

As I said before, the heatsink in my Toshiba L300 was clogged and the computer was overheating. The day after writing my last post, the computer was getting even 97C! So I said to myself, that cannot be ignored and I HAVE TO unclog the heatsink. I know I promised the photo report, but unfortunately, there was nothing special to take pictures of. I have only taken the keyboard off so I could see the fan and tried to clean it with the hoover, but with no success. Then I got an idea to try to suck the dust through the heatsink's side, not fan's. It didn't work as well. I decided to blow the dust with the air, but 'huh where is the compressed air can? I think I don't have one' so I blew it with my own mouth, and here I would for the first time in my blog, ladies and gentlemen, use a popular LOL acronim. But really, it DID work out. The dust has come through the fan and I only had to take it out with the screwdriver. Then it was time to place the keyboard on, and to turn the computer on. You don't even know how was I surprised by the work of my computer. I got used to listen to the fan's noise on high RPM's and the temperature of the palmrest, but after my repair, I like came back to times where my computer was new ;)

ps. To the professional computer servicers: I know what consequences would be, but nothing bad happened. I am lucky, ain't I?

ps2. Don't try this at home, better give your computer to specialist.

I think I don't have to say anything about the warranty? So don't do it on your own, unless your warrranty period has finished.

IMPORTANT! This post has been copied from my other blog, it was first published on October 11. 2009

Toshiba L300-1CU after half a year of using...

Today I am going to tell you about my Toshiba L300-1Cu which I have bought about half a year ago.
Firstly, I was amazed by the laptop's performance. It has 2Gb memory, Dual-Core Intel Pentium T3200 processor working at 2ghz, GMA X4500m GPU which is not the best graphics but quite good for me; and glossy, colorful, high-def 15.4'' LCD screen. Microsoft Windows Vista, not bad I thought, actually I thought of downgrading to XP, but when I turned on the computer first and for the first time I saw Windows Vista Ultimate, I like fell in love with Vista and began to like Microsoft again. OK, after configuration of the Windows, I decided to test the computer's performance. I have installed NFS Carbon which worked very fluently on high performance. All the other games I played also worked great (GTA San Andreas, Max Payne II, Postal II)
I thought: What an idiot said Vista is not good for games? Of course it is good, but perhaps they used Vista Basic which I used for a few days on my older laptop, ACER 3680, but downgraded it to XP because even old-ass GTA Vice City graphics were crashing... let's come back to Toshiba.
So I've been using it for half a year, and everything was alright, apart from overheating, but that's what I am going to talk about now. Well, after 5 months use, my computer started to overheat. When it was new, it was getting around 40c, when I played games it had 50-55, with some games it had even 65... but now, at the moment when type this, I am getting 57c. Oh crap, probably the heatsink is clogged and I am going to have to disassemble my laptop and clean it... I'm a do it soon, so stay tuned for my photo report.
Now, about the cosmetic issues. After half a year of use, the some of the keys have become shiny, the dirt has come under them, but I don't mind, it would have happen anyway. When I moved on from Acer to Toshiba, it seemed like Toshiba had better quality finish, but in reality, it didn't. The thing suffered the most after my use, is the palmrest. The paint comes off now at the corners and begins to come off near the touchpad, touchpad buttons, and on the bottom of the palmrest.

Conclusion
My computer is used for about 16 hours a day (including 5-8 by me) so the clogged heatsink has to be the effect of this use. The same about the palmrest. Some people use laptop for like 3 hours a day, so if my computer is used 5 times more a day, it means that mine is 5 times more likely to break, it wears 5 times more, and probably has 5 times shorter lifespan. Normally used L300 would have the same problems after 2-3 years.

IMPORTANT! Copied from my other blog, this post was first published on October 8. 2009

Vista: If Aero doesn't work... FIX

If your Vista's GUI changed to Basic and doesn't want to go back to Aero, then use my tutorial.
This helped many of my friends who were annoyed by this. But this tutorial will work probably only when Vista says 'your graphics interface has been changed to vista basic' or something like that.
Ok now, try this trick.


1. Click Start, type regedit.exe in search field

Regedit will open

You have to ensure that these registy entries exist:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Composition set to 1 (32-bit DWORD)b.
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\CompositionPolicy set to 2 (32-bit DWORD)

Note: if they don't exist, you'll have to create them.


2. Restart the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service:

Click Start and type cmd.exe in search field

Command Prompt will open

Type these lines pressing ENTER after typing each line

a. net stop uxsms

b. net start uxsms


That's it. Your Aero interface should work for now.
Wish you good luck and have fun with Aero :)

Make your XP look like OS X!

Want to change the appearance of your ugly Windows XP? Or maybe you like Mac OS X style?
Then this tutorial will help you do it quite quickly and with no difficulties at all! Your XP will look almost like OS X 10.5 Leopard and I hope you will like it.

OK, let's start then

To totally change your XP you will need the following programs:


StyleXP or Window Blinds (skins the GUI of your operating system)


FinderBar (The OS X style drop-down menu on top)


ObjectDock, RocketDock or MobyDock (the cool dock at the bottom that contains shortcuts to

programs)


YzShadow (puts a lovely drop shadow under the windows)


iTunes (no need to explain :) )

Icons (What can i say? The little pictures on your desktop. This file contains about 1000 icons from Apple OS X 10.3 Panther, which make a very big difference in appearance of your desktop)

.

Ok, now how to :)

1. Install StyleXP or WindowBlinds
2. After the program is installed, skin your interface. I prefer Panther style (try it yourself)
3. Install FinderBar but don't turn it on after you have finished installation
4. Unlock Windows taskbar and move it to the top of the screen
5. Turn on FinderBar and you will see then fields: Finder, File, Edit etc. If you don't see it clearly, right-click and point to 'SkinIt!' and click on it. The toolbar will now adjust to the bar and will look like the one from original Apple Mac.
6. The dock. Install whichever version you have downloaded. It is very easy to set it up. All you need to do is to drag your shortcuts to the dock. Simple!
7. Install YzShadow. This will put a shadow under your windows.
8. Download iTunes and turn the music on :)
9. Change the icons.
10. Use any High-Definition wallpaper :)
11. Voila, you have a cheap Mac!

I hope you will like it,

Good luck and have fun.

Mike