Backside Bus

I recently obtained a new Sony Vaio Ultrabook - the SVT13128CXS. This is a robust laptop that can easily serve as a desktop replacement while, at 3.77 lbs. and .71" thick, being small an light enough to not be a burden to carry around on a daily basis. Specs The Vaio SVT13128CXS has a 13.3" multitouch screen and comes with an Intel Core i7 3517U CPU running at 1.9 GHz, a 256 GB Solid State Drive, and 8 GB of RAM, and the Windows 8 Operating System . It has all the common ports: HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, 1 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, and a MemoryStick/SD card slot, and has built-in 802.11 b/g/n wireless as well as Bluetooth 4.0. It also has a 1.3 MP HD Web cam. Design Like most high-end Vaio laptops, the SVT13128CXS looks great. The brushed aluminum casing and sleek lines look good and resist fingerprints. It feels solid, and, while a little thicker than some of the offerings out there, at .71" it is still very thin. The ports are easy to access and are spaced well enough t

As someone who does light to medium office work on my business trips (creating editing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, e-mail, skype chats) as well as wanting light entertainment (music, movies, games) while traveling, I would typically bring a netbook and an iPad on all my business trips. They both filled their niches and I was generally a happy camper.   I recently brought my Surface RT on a 10-day business trip as my only computing device. My initial conculsion was that it was working well for me after the first day and a half, and that impression didn't change throughtout the rest of the trip. One thing that really impressed me was the battery. Not only does it have adequate battery life - I never had it run out in the middle of the day with moderate use - but it charges quickly - about 2 hours for a full charge. This meant that I could use it all day, then put it on the charger while I went out to dinner, and it would usually be done by the time I returned to my hot

I've done a lot of thinking about the specifications of the computer I am going to build . My two main priorities are speed and storage. I use my main PC for video editing, some Web development, and as a media server for the house. I figure that whatever I build will replace it as my main desktop, and then I can give my current machine (a two-year old Dell Studio XPS 8100) to my wife. Motherboard Since the motherboard was a gift, there wasn't really a choice. It is an ASUS P8Z77-M Pro , which is a decent Micro ATX board that supports 3rd gen Intel  processors. It is a little light on the internal expansion ports (three total), but has decent built-in sound and video as well as support for several USB ports (front and back) in both 2.0 and 3.0. It can handle up to 32 GB of memory. Processor Since I have the luxury of shopping around and buying parts over time, I am looking at getting the Core i7 3770k processor. It is currently the fastest Core i7 that will fit in thi

I've had my Surface RT for a little over a week now. While I have generally been impressed with the device, enough to take it solo on a business trip , I have also discovered a few rough edges. Nothing that I would consider a fatal flaw, but things that bug me nonetheless. Inserting a flash drive does not pop-up a message or take me to the desktop automatically. While the system acknowledges the drive with a USB device attached sound, I am used to Windows either taking me to the drive window or popping up a "what do you want to do" window. Unless I am already at the desktop, I need to switch to see the device activities. Of course you don't need to go to the desktop in order to use a device - if you are using the Photos app and insert a USB drive with photos, it can be accessed without going to the desktop first. Some games act up when playing offline. This is not a Microsoft issue per se - it really depends on the particular game. Actually, most MS games worked

The Surface is at home on the hotel desk. I am currently on a business trip and decided to only bring my Surface RT along. Since Microsoft is positioning it as a device that can be used in lieu of a laptop for business users, I figured I would see how well it does. So far (after a day and a half), things are working well. I was able to get online at both airports (I had a connecting flight) and check/respond to e-mails. One of the airports had a walled garden, and I was able to connect without a hitch. My hotel has free wireless, so no problem here either. One thing to note - from what I read, there is currently not an official Ethernet dongle out for the Surface, but this MS community post has a potential solution . Since my arrival, I have had to take notes in a meeting and work on a budget for a proposal for my office. Office 2013 RT has worked well for both tasks. Since I have an Office 365 business account , I can use the included Office 2013 for Commercial use, however i

The comments are now open. The initial settings for the blog (I think the default - I don't think I had changed it) required people to have a Blogger account to comment. I have removed that requirement, so feel free to comment away...

This is a bummer ... I had been hoping to get one of these, but when they didn't come out for over a month and there was no word on how long they were delayed, I decided to get my Sony Ultrabook instead.

I've been using Windows 8 for a little over one month now, and have used it enough to develop some thoughts on it as an Operating System (OS) as well as on what I perceive as the broader direction Microsoft is trying to go with it. In a nutshell, Windows 8 an attempt at combining the traditional desktop OS with a tablet/touch-friendly OS. For desktops and laptops, this basically means that you get a fully-functional desktop OS (with some not-so-small performance enhancements over Windows 7) overlayed with an elegantly executed tablet OS. In some cases, this works very well, and in others it can be confusing or just weird. Personally I think that MS is headed the right way, and that as the lines between traditional computers and tablets continue to blur, we'll see more of this (such as Ubuntu for Android - a different approach to the same idea). Where's my Start Menu? The biggest change in Windows 8 is the addition of the start screen, which is really the tablet side

My brother-in-law recently gave me a motherboard. He had been thinking about building a PC, but life got ahead of him and he decided he wasn't going to do it just yet. Since he was also moving to Australia, he decided it was something he didn't want to take with him. It took me a while to decide what I was going to do with it. I've never built a complete PC all at once. I've replaced every part in more than one system, but that usually would take place over a couple of years. It's not that I didn't want to build a computer, but it was generally less expensive to buy something pre-made and then tweak it. But now I had this shiny new motherboard, and a pretty decent one at that. So I decided to take the plunge. This seems like a great topic for a series of posts... walking through the process of obtaining the parts and software, putting it together, then testing and running benchmarks to see if it will perform as well as I hope. I'll start with a post

Had a little early Christmas yesterday... well, technically a late birthday. I got a Sony Vaio T-series ultrabook and a 64 GB Microsoft Surface RT . Playing with them now. Quick first impressions of the Vaio: this thing is incredibly fast... from power off to using Office 2010 apps in under 20 seconds, including the time it takes to enter my password. Also, this is the kind of machine Windows 8 was made for. Surface RT impressions: decent tablet, but quirky. System messages call it a PC, which makes me chuckle when I see them. Not seeing the speed issues I read about in the early reviews, but mine updated right when I got it. Office 2013 RT is the best tablet office suite I have used, and it integrates well with my SkyDrive. I'm impressed with Microsoft's work on creating a seamless ecosystem... I upgraded my desktop when Windows 8 came out, and when I set up both systems, my settings (including wireless network settings) synced. I set the Surface up at the office, and

Welcome to the Backside Bus blog What is Backside Bus? Backside Bus is a technology blog. I'll fill the pages with my opinions, experiences, reviews, tech tips, and other things I find interesting in the IT world as well as fun gadgets and other tech-related stuff. I'll cover projects, such as making a home built PC, coding a Web application, or setting up home automation. Hopefully I'll post something useful, and maybe I can help someone out. Backside Bus is not striving to be anything more that a fun hobby written by a technology enthusiast. I don't expect to be Lockergnome  or CNET  or Endgadget any other tech blog (though it would  be nice to eventually gain a loyal following). What I write can probably be found in hundreds of other blogs across the Web (my original name - Yet Another Tech Blog - was taken by several other blogs), but hopefully someone somewhere will like the way I say it better. About Me I'm a jack of all trades when it comes to tec