Just one Magazine with misinformation

[muckshifter]

It is no coincident that a member here at PCR previous enquiry on a magazine's recommending a program has come to light on these forums ... I trip over misinformation from numerous 'experts' all the time and have a good laugh.

This one really is hard to beat.

Using a USB ram/memory stick with Vista is no secret, Microsoft call it ReadyBoost. Here is a quote from one well know Mag ...

Sooner or later, everyone computer tends to slow down. Call it old age or simply doing too much, but even the most cutting edge PC's seem to lag after a year or so of use.

For those who aren't keen on opening up their PC to put in more memory, Windows Vista has a handy little feature called ReadyBoost that can use USB sticks for additional memory. Unfortunately, Windows Vista doesn't take kindly to the slower sticks on the market and refuses to use them. Proving once again that we control the computer and not the other way around, here's four simple steps to get around this limitation and use any USB stick you have to increase your computers memory.

... note this 'writer' is adamant in quoting "your computer memory" as a way to improve performance.

Well, he is correct, up to a point in that physically adding more RAM will improve performance ... however, he is totally wrong in that adding a USB stick is the same as adding RAM ... it is NOT.

Let me put that another way. Using a USB stick and Vista's ReadyBoost does NOT improve your installed memory.

"... the feature is designed to improve small random I/O for people who lack the expansion slots, money, and or technical expertise to add additional RAM. As y’all know, adding RAM is still the best way to relieve memory pressure ..."

What ReadyBoost does is ... it helps the hard drive 'cache' concentrate on improving the performance of small, random I/Os, like paging to and from disk. Hard drives are great for large sequential I/O. For those situations, ReadyBoost gets out of the way. Remember, we're not adding memory, we're improving disk access.

The Mag in question then goes on to describe how to 'hack' Vista into accepting any non-ReadyBoost-compatible USB stick ... oh, boy ? It is a safer idea to go get yourself a USB stick that is compatible ... and reap the benefits.

Oh, and the magazine ? is called ... "Windows Vista (the Official Magazine)" ... you'd think they may have some insight in what they were talking about, wouldn't you ?


Have you come to rely on these 'Mag' or, are you more likely to go of into the bright blue yonder of the 'tinternet for your answers ?

 

[Anon_F]

Never bought, waste of money

 

[Ian]

Following that advice may even slow the PC down I guess, as if the USB stick is too slow for Windows to use then if it is forced it will be using a slower device than already exists

Makes you wonder who they get to write that!

 

[muckshifter]

Following that advice may even slow the PC down I guess, as if the USB stick is too slow for Windows to use then if it is forced it will be using a slower device than already exists

Makes you wonder who they get to write that!

I forgot to stress that bit ... thanks Ian.

Well, I get a good laugh out of 'em.

 

[cirianz]

Slightly off topic, but also on the theme of 'experts' that don't know what they're talking about.
Saturday night was our latest works 'do'
& early on during the 'sit around, feed your face & get... inebriated' section of the evening
We were having a conversation with one of the women from John's work.
For some reason the subject of Greenland came up & she didn't know if people lived there or not but was sure that they didn't.
So we informed her that yes they did... blah blah, etc etc...
This was when she started to get a bit 'het up'
&, informing us that she had a university degree in tourism etc so we couldn't fool her, she huffed off to the next table.

maybe it was a little uncharitable
but with a challenge like that we just couldn't help ourselves...
& so we asked her where she thought John was from.
She said Ireland.
This is no big deal really
most New Zealanders can't tell the difference between the scouse & Irish accents.
(we just think they're both very s*xy )
So we informed her no & asked again, dropping the hint that he was from the same place as the Beatles came from.
She didn't know where the Beatles came from (Now as far as downunder tourists, this is probably second only to stonehenge in places to visit if you ever get up there)
But she did manage to guess England.
This is where we really started to have some fun.
Within 5-10 minutes we had her absolutely convinced that 'Scouse' was a seperate country in Britain, in much the same way that Wales & Scotland are.
Although she began to wonder if we were pulling her leg when we informed her that Scouse is even officially an actual language of it's own (This was made extra funny because it actually is true. Scouse & another English 'accent' are actually not just dialects but have all the neccesary requirements linguistically to be classed as languages of their own with their own Alphabets containing containing a significant number of different consonants & vowels etc etc.)
Given that this is all obscure linguistic trivia I wouldn't've actually expected her to know this anyway, it was merely funny in that, the only piece of what we told her that she didn't believe, was probably also the only bit that was true.
But then, she was a tourisim graduate, so we couldn't fool her.

Like I said, probably very uncharitable of us.
But I must confess that when people try to 'pull rank' in that fashion....

 

[muckshifter]

ooh ciri, you are naughty ... but nice.

 

[Spezi]

I don't as a rule take any one sites information for granted on a subject as there are so many contradicting bits to be readily found all over the internet.