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Weekend Open Forum
Dedicated to our weekly open discussions, the TechSpot community debates and voices its opinion on a range of different subjects. Common themes include the latest product launches or polls about your computing habits.
Weekend Open Forum: Do you turn your PC off at night?
- For years we have heard the pros and cons regarding turning off your computer each night. Those in favor of the practice usually point to energy savings as their main reason for doing so. The trend of “going green” is…
Weekend Open Forum: What was your first screen name?
- This week we'd like to highlight a thread created by longtime TechSpot member LookinAround. He asks: "There's a lot of interesting and curious looking usernames on TechSpot. The meaning of some are more obvious than others. Some usernames are downright…
Weekend Open Forum: What are your software essentials?
- Let's revisit an old topic for this installment of the Weekend Open Forum. Three years ago we asked about your software 'essentials', those that you rely on everyday and usually install on your machine first thing after a clean install. …
Weekend Open Forum: Tech gear you travel with
- As a technology connoisseur, product reviewer, news editor and owner of my own tech site, I suspect I travel with more gear the average person would. For a quick weekend getaway, I typically only bring my phone and camera but…
Weekend Open Forum: Your favorite gadget
- With an undying passion for technology, some of us have more electronics than RadioShack. Although your desk surface may be a silicon junkyard, you undoubtedly spend more time with specific devices depending on your lifestyle. Folks bound to a chair…
Weekend Open Forum: Your favorite music service?
- Apple's iTunes is widely regarded as the service that spawned the legal music download industry. At a time when music piracy ran rampant on p2p networks, the platform served as the prime example that customers are willing to pay for…
Weekend Open Forum: What in-vehicle technology do you use?
- In-vehicle technology implementation has skyrocketed over the past several decades and even more rapidly over the past 10-20 years. It seems hard to believe that air bags have been around since the early 70s and advancements like electronic stability control,…
Weekend Open Forum: Mother Nature's fury
- Every year, Mother Nature claims thousands of lives and causes billions in damage worldwide. In the US, nearly every month this year has brought a catastrophe costing $1 billion or more, according to the NOAA. A blizzard blanketed the Midwest…
Weekend Open Forum: Do you buy DLC for your games?
- Downloadable content has become a big part of the gaming industry. Some give it away for free to promote new game sales over the second hand market and piracy, and some use it as a way to further monetize their…
Weekend Open Forum: Has DRM spoiled your fun?
- It seems like every week the Internet is up in arms over some DRM-related injustice. The consensus tends to be that most DRM schemes cause grief for paying customers while completely failing to thwart piracy. I can't speak for any…
Weekend Open Forum: A PC industry without HP
- HP shocked the technology world this week when it announced that it is considering the spin-off or sale of its personal computer business, and is also dropping its operations for webOS devices -- which they acquired just sixteen months ago…
Weekend Open Forum: How many processes are running right now?
- Not long ago, it was fairly common for power users to reference Windows' process list as if it were a barometer for the machine's speed. I can recall forum debates between members bragging about how few processes their system ran…
Weekend Open Forum: What if the Internet didn't exist?
- Have you ever wondered what would life be like if the Internet didn't exist? The Internet as we know it had its early development in the 1960s as a point-to-point communication between mainframe computers. Then the TCP/IP protocol was standarized…
Weekend Open Forum: Your favorite music and streaming sources
- Music is among the most primitive forms of entertainment and self-expression, with the oldest confirmed musical instrument -- a bone flute -- dating back at least 35,000 years, and it's believed the human voice, hand clapping and other bodily-derived noises…
WOF: Do you know what your CPU's clocked at?
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Considering TechSpot's audience mix of techies, hardware enthusiasts, IT pros and gamers, the question above sounds overly simplistic, if not insulting, but is it? Over the last decade, the MHz measurement in your PC's processor has lost much of its meaning, in part because it's no longer an absolute reflection of performance, but that may not the end of it.
Weekend Open Forum: Do you use a custom cooler?
- A decade ago, custom heatsinks and liquid cooling solutions were all the rage among techies. While overclockers and other such performance junkies still commonly purchase aftermarket coolers, they seem less popular among your average system builder these days. Today's processors…
Weekend Open Forum: Is spam still a big problem for you?
- Have you noticed any less spam in your inbox lately? You should, according to Symantec Intelligence, which claims the volume of junk mail sent worldwide has dropped around 80% over the past year. A large part of this came from…
Weekend Open Forum: Your experience with mail-in rebates
- Let me preface this by saying that I understand you've probably had some positive experiences with mail-in rebates -- I have too. However, I'm inclined to believe they're nothing short of a rampant marketing gimmick that have tainted the consumer…
Weekend Open Forum: What's your ideal laptop size?
- When shopping for a new laptop one of the main factors to consider is size. Whether you want a gaming powerhouse that will only move from your desk occasionally, something that hits the sweet spot between performance and portability, or…
Weekend Open Forum: Your last meal
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Let's take a break from the usual tech talk. Here's the situation: you have a day to live and one last dinner to eat. What would it be? Takeout from your favorite pizza joint? Your grandma's world famous macaroni and cheese? Liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?
Weekend Open Forum: Who had the strongest showing at E3?
- There's been a barrage of announcements coming out of E3 this past week from all the big names in gaming. Here's a brief recount if you missed our coverage: Nintendo talked up its next generation console, the Wii U, putting…
Weekend Open Forum: Finding a use for old hardware
- Being tech enthusiasts, we've committed ourselves to an everlasting pursuit of owning the latest and greatest hardware. Many of you probably upgrade your graphics card more often than you get an oil change, and we wouldn't be shocked to learn…
Weekend Open Forum: Do you keep antivirus protection running 24/7?
- Having antivirus protection has become a fact of life for most computer users, as it's certainly not uncommon to hear of massive botnets recruiting infected PCs for spamming operations or Trojans that steal or damage your information. But it's also true…
Weekend Open Forum: 2011's game failures, triumphs and beyond
- As some of you may recall, we kicked the year off with a compendium of widely anticipated PC games expected to launch in 2011. For better or worse, many of those titles have come to fruition over the last five…
Weekend Open Forum: Would you get a Chrome OS laptop?
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The recently launched Chrome OS notebooks from Acer and Samsung offer a glimpse of the future Google envisions, where all your computing is done hassle-free through the browser. Would you be interested in getting one, even if just as a secondary machine? What would you consider the sweet spot in terms of price? Vote and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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