I recently had two Nvidia graphics cards go pop on me (article here: Link) because of this I needed to replace those cards with a new one. I consulted with a friend who's into PC Hardware and he recommended a few of cards out of the current ATI lineup.

So I bought an ATI 5770, which looked like a good all round desktop and light gaming card.

It is a great card, but it seems there is an issue running it on some of the Nvidia nForce motherboards. The card causes there to be a 20-30 second boot delay. The card appears to spin up a few times, like there is a seek issues with it, then it loads fine.

I've raised Forum topics in both the AMD and the Nvidia forums, but the only solution seems to be flashing your motherboard, which isn't going to happen for me, as I have an Abit motherboard, and they went bust two years ago.

XFX 5770
Link to XFX 5770 on aria.co.uk

AMD Forums:
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=133694&enterthread=y

Nvidia Forums:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=169038

Google Search:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUK341&=&q=ati+cards+cause+slow+boot+nforce+motherboard&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Following quickly on the heels of my first article about the 2010 Scotch on the Rocks, is my run down of the second day. I'll apologise now for this being quite so wordy, but I've tried to keep things succinct. I'd also like to say up front how much I enjoyed this years Scotch on the Rocks. It was a great venue, with great speakers, covering a very wide variety of topics.

It was a very intense two day thought explosion, where your left feeling kind of drained, but also with a ridiculous amount of 'development energy'.

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Monday was the first day of the 'Scotch on the Rocks' 2010 Adobe conference (sponsored by Fuzzy Orange). I went along for a couple of reasons. To see what has been happening in the community, what development ideas people were throwing around as it is a bit of a two day think tank, and to put some faces to the Twitter accounts I've been following.

This article is a breakdown of the first days seminars I attended, and some thoughts and considerations about the content on show.

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This article explains my findings on this, and my ongoing discussions with Nvidia about a potentially fatally flawed driver release, and incredibly badly timed Warranty Expiration.

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On Thursday 15 April only, take a re-usable travel flask into Starbucks and get any sized free hot or iced espresso drink worth about £2.65. Any drink with an espresso shot is included in the offer, for example a latte, cappuccino, americano, macchiato, inc. flavoured versions.

The offer's available nationwide from 7am to 11pm (provided your local store is open) at participating stores. For full details read about Starbuck's eco campaign 'the Big Picture'.

What counts as a reusable travel mug? It needs to be something you can transport your coffee in easily and that you will use again, eg a polystyrene cup won't work. A ceramic mug from home won't be accepted either. A bog-standard packed lunch flask should do the trick!

I'm based in the UK, and I use the Vodafone mobile provider. Recently they text everyone stating that they were switching to online billing, and that you wouldn't be receiving a monthly paper bill. I am fine with this, less paper in the postal system is a good thing. This Blog post is about how the online application they have built doesn't work.

If you go to http://online.vodafone.co.uk/ and try and login the SSL certificate is invalid. (Security error: (Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)).

There has been a lot of coverage in the press recently about how to check for valid SSL certificates, and what the padlock icon means, so it is a bit of a basic error to make. Customers are looking for reassurance when using online applications, and being shown error messages like the one in the screenshot above does not build confidence. The next issue that I faced was that the destination for my registration and logging in didn't actually work!

When you are actively promoting something, and in fact removing the other options (paper billing is cancelled by default) you must make sure that it WORKS. I can appreciate that sometimes you might get intermittant faults, but I got a text telling me to go check my bill three days ago, and it has not worked since.

Please fix it, otherwise I'm going back to killing trees.

A popular daytime television show in the UK has recently broadcast an article on Internet security and Internet dating. With Online Dating being an industry I worked in for a brief period this was quite relevant to me.

http://www.itv.com/lifestyle/thismorning/more/internetdatingdisasters/

The main aim of the Sally Cornock's site is to warn of 'love rats' and suspicious profiles online. It appears that she was stung by a serial dater online and has done something about it.

It highlights the dilemma of free to join, fixed cost membership sites quite well though. Most dating sites are free to join. They provide very little functionality, and no interaction at all with other members UNLESS you upgrade your account and pay a fee. When you understand this it makes policing this near on impossible.

Sally Cornock has raised the issue of potentially having a governing body to perform validation on members as they join, so that you know someone is who they say they are. This would discourage a massive percentage of the market, as signing up for free by providing only one or two fields of data is simple. But passing an online verification is an extra level of hassle to the "casual shopper", which most people are. When you look at the statistics only a tiny number of signups ever convert to full membership.

It nicely highlights some of the less technical aspects of web usage, click through below to read more:

http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/helping-prevent-crime/personal-safety/online-dating-safety

http://www.e-victims.org/

http://www.suzylamplugh.org/personal-safety/personal-safety-tips/safety-on-the-internet/

http://www.victimsupport.org.uk/help%20for%20victims/Get%20information%20victims/Information%20about%20specific%20crimes/Cyber%20crime