The novel strain of coronavirus might be cancelling a lot of events around the world, but it didnt cancel Beatrice Chapmans 101st birthday Tuesday.

Chapman rang in her next year of life with friends and family gathered outside of the window of her room at The Berkeley Assisted Living Center with balloons and signs wishing her a happy birthday.

It was special to still be able to find a way to celebrate Chapmans birthday Tuesday, said her niece, Joyce Carswell.

My mother and her were sisters, Carswell said. The other two have passed, and she was the oldest. Shes still with us, so weve always kind of made over her.

Andrea Elder, Chapmans great niece, brought her children, Noah and Sarah, to the party with her.

This is four generations of us with her, Elder said.

With visitation restricted at assisted living facilities across the county, Chapmans family had to come up with a creative way to celebrate their Aunt Bea.

This is even more the event to celebrate, especially at this time, Carswell said. Since we cant be with her either at home or at the church fellowship hall, we needed to even more do as much as we could to celebrate.

One of the nurses at The Berkeley asked Chapman what her secret was to living to be 101. She told Elder the answer is simple: Do as the Bible says.

She said to treat others the way that she wanted to be treated, just like the Bible said do unto others as you would have done unto you, Elder said, quoting her great aunt.

It was just in November that Chapman came to live at The Berkeley after falling and breaking her hip in late October, requiring a replacement. Her doctor praised her the morning of the surgery, Carswell said.

He said of his three patients that day, she was the healthiest, Joyce said.

Living by herself, Chapman was thoroughly involved in church activities at Dentons Chapel United Methodist Church.

Last March or April, when the church had one of their last suppers, she fixed like six or seven desserts, said Lonna Wilson.

Shes always had that dedication to the church.

Shes an amazing lady, said Linda Saunders, who said shes gone to church with Chapman for many years. Shes always give to the church, church conversed and shes always worked for the church.

When she became a centenarian in 2019, the church celebrated in style.

We had a big fling for her when she was 100, and there was about a hundred people there, said Judy Peach. Every time Id see her she would tell me about that she was so grateful for that.

She still is able to reminisce on what life was like growing up around Burke County.

If you go to her house, she can tell you about things 80 years ago when she took care of her mom and dad and her husband, Wilson said.

Her friends and family all described her as an amazing woman.

She is a saint of God, Wilson said.

Read the rest here:
Woman celebrates 101st birthday with party through window - Morganton News Herald

Windows 98 was my very first exposure to PCs,but by the time I got my own it had already been replaced by its successor, Windows XP. At the time, I thoroughly dreaded the 98 aesthetic. I found XPs vivid color scheme and rounded corners infinitely more appealing.

XPs design seemed more modern to my eyeballs back then. But with time, Ive come to develop a keen appreciation for the 98 aesthetic. Im not the only one: Up to this day, people are still paying homage to this classic look with Windows 98-inspired DIY gadgets and appreciation sites just like98.css.

Its a new CSS library that lets you effortlessly build interfaces in the likeness of Windows 98. If youve been thinking about recreating that look for one of your upcoming projects, you should absolutely have a gander at it.

98.css comes with several pre-styled components, including buttons, checkboxes, textboxes, a dropdown menu, and a window among others.

The library uses semantic HTML and doesnt contain any JavaScript, which means you can easily apply it to a variety of frontend projects. It simply styles your HTML with a bit of CSS.

Another cool thing is the project is MIT-licensed, which should give you enough flexibility to tweak it to your needs.

And if youre looking for a trip down old-school OS memory lane, check out Microsofts unexpected throwback to Windows 1.11orthis snazzy music feed disguised as a retro Mac OS.

Read next: After Tiger King, Netflix seeks $1 billion loan to make more original content

Read our daily coverage on how the tech industry is responding to the coronavirus and subscribe to our weekly newsletter Coronavirus in Context.

For tips and tricks on working remotely, check out our Growth Quarters articles here or follow us on Twitter.

Excerpt from:
This CSS library makes it easy to build Windows 98-inspired UIs - The Next Web

Engineershave developed a semi-transparent solar cell that offers a viable level of efficiency, and it might get us closer to a future where windows that double up as solar panels could transform both architecture and energy production.

Two square metres (around 22 square feet) of the next-gen perovskite solar cells (PSCs) would be enough to generate about as much electricity as a standard solar panel, according to the latest study in the region of 140 watts per metre, if tinted to the same degree as current glazed commercial windows.

Solar cell windows are something researchers have been working on for years, but as yet no one has really hit the sweet spot in terms of efficiency, stability and cost. The team behind the new project says they are closer than ever to doing just that.

"Rooftop solar has a conversion efficiency of between 15 and 20 percent," says materials chemist Jacek Jasieniak, from Monash University in Australia. "The semi-transparent cells have a conversion efficiency of 17 percent, while still transmitting more than 10 percent of the incoming light, so they are right in the zone.

"It's long been a dream to have windows that generate electricity, and now that looks possible."

Central to the work is the replacement of a key solar cell component (Spiro-OMeTAD to be technical) with a specially developed polymer, based on an organic semiconductor, which increases overall stability.

That stability is crucial in material that is out in the sunshine all day. Add the recent efficiency increases in PSCs and you can see why this growing solar technology is becoming more and more commercially attractive.

However, you won't be able to gaze through a perfectly clear window and get the maximum amount of energy efficiency from it there's still a balance to be found between opacity and efficiency.

"There is a trade-off," says Jasieniak. "The solar cells can be made more, or less, transparent. The more transparent they are, the less electricity they generate, so that becomes something for architects to consider."

Even with this major step forward, it may be some time maybe as much as 10 years before the tech can be commercialised and scaled up. The scientists are working with business partners to try and get the solar cells included in future building plans.

Multi-storey buildings where glazing is already expensive are likely to be the first beneficiaries, according to the team, as the addition of solar cell technology won't cost a huge amount extra (and don't forget the electricity savings).

Among the avenues that the researchers are now exploring is combining a layer of perovskite solar cells with a layer of organic solar cells (the more traditional type) to get the benefits of both.

"These solar cells mean a big change to the way we think about buildings and the way they function," says Jasieniak.

"Up until now every building has been designed on the assumption that windows are fundamentally passive. Now they will actively produce electricity."

The research has been published in Nano Energy.

Read the rest here:
This Genius New Type of Solar Energy Cell Can Be Used in Windows - ScienceAlert

Brady Gavin

When you inadvertently press Insert on your keyboard, it toggles to Overtype mode. This means anything you type next will overwrite the text that follows the cursor. Fortunately, you can disable this annoying key in Windows 10.

Every key on your keyboard has a correspondingkey scan code that tells Windows how to handle each keystroke.While you cant turn off the Insert key by default, you can tell Windows to replace it with a null character in the Windows Registry.

SharpKeys is free software you can use to edit the specific Registry entry for you. It uses a graphical interface to remap keys on the keyboard.This tool makes it easy to make the necessary change to the Registry without actually having to open Registry Editor.

To do this, fire up a browser, head over to the SharpKeys GitHub page, and download the most recent release.

After you install SharpKeys, open it from the Start menu, and then click Add when it opens.

Scroll through the list on the left and click Special: Insert (E0_52), click Turn Key Off (00_00) in the list on the right, and then click OK to remap the key.

The value in the parentheses is the key scan code associated with it, so the Insert keys code is 00_52. We want to disable it, so we replace the code with the nonexistent 00_00.

Next, click Write to Registry, and SharpKeys adds the values to the Windows Registry for you.

Click OK.

For the changes to take effect, you have to log out or restart your computer.

You can also use SharpKeys to disable other annoying keys, likeCaps Lock.

If youre comfortable making changes to the Windows Registry, you can also disable the Insert key manually in the Registry Editor. Youll be making the same change that SharpKeys performs in the background.

The Registry Editor is a powerful tool, though. If its misused, it can render your system unstable or even inoperable. However, this is a pretty simple hack. As long as you follow the instructions, you shouldnt have any problems.

If youve never worked with the Registry Editor before, you might want toread up on ita bit before you get started. Definitelyback up the Registryandyour computerbefore you make the following changes.

For extra safety, you might want tocreate a System Restore pointbefore you continue. This way, if something goes wrong, you can just roll back to a time before things went haywire.

RELATED: How to Open the Registry Editor on Windows 10

When youre ready, open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key in the left sidebar:

Right-click Keyboard Layout, select New, and then click Binary Value.

Although the name of the value is arbitrary, you should choose something memorable in case you have to find it again and make any changes. For example, you could name it Insert Remap.

Double-click the value, and then set the value data to the following:

The order is important here. It tells the OS how to handle the remap and what to do when you press the key.

The first 16 zeroes act as the header and will remain set to all zeroes. You can ignore these.

The next hexadecimal number specifies how many remaps are in the value plus onethe null entry at the endfollowed by six more zeroes.

The next two digits are the scan code to the key to which we want Windows to remap the Insert key. In this case, we set it to do nothing (00 00).

After that, the following scan code is the Insert key (52 E0).

Finally, the last eight zeroes signify the null entry and the end.

As long as you follow the scheme above, you can map multiple keys with a single value. First, increment the 02. Then, type both the scan code for the remapped key and the default key before the null entry (the final eight zeroes).

It might seem daunting at first, but once you understand which set of values do what, it gets easier.

If youd rather not edit the Windows Registry, you can download our DisableInsert Key registry hack. Just open the ZIP file, double-click DisableInsertKey.reg, and then click Yes when prompted to add the information to your registry.

These REG files add the same registry settings we covered above.If youd like to see what this (or any other) REG file will do before you run it, right-click the file, and then select Edit to open it in Notepad.

Thats all there is to it! Weve also put together a guide to help youmake your own Registry hacks, if youre interested.

RELATED: How to Make Your Own Windows Registry Hacks

If you cant make changes to the registry on your current Windows system, you can also just pry the Insert key off your keyboard. This will be easier to do on some keyboards than others. However, you probably shouldnt try this low-tech method on a laptop keyboard.

Continued here:
How to Disable the Insert Key on Windows 10 - How-To Geek

Three-hundred-and-eighty-three in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

Microsoft plans to release the next feature update for Windows 10 in May 2020. Check out Mark's post if you want to know what is new and changed in that version. Wayne's review of a new privacy app for Windows 10 is another good read this week.

As always, if I've missed an app or game that has been released this week that you believe is particularly good, let me know in the comments below or notify me via email.

Discounts this week

The following list is a selection of the best deals. Make sure you check out the Store for all offers.

Some apps are discounted for more than one week. Only new apps and games are listed below.Check out the previous postin the series for past offers that may still be valid.

New Windows apps and games

Bing Wallpaper

Bing Wallpaper is a new desktop program for Windows devices that downloads the latest wallpaper from Microsoft's Bing search engine to set it as the desktop background on the Windows machine.

The app runs in the background so that new backgrounds are set on the system automatically in regular intervals. You can check out my full review of Bing Wallpaper here.

BrightnessSwitch

The application uses the light sensor of the device to switch between light and dark theme on Windows 10 automatically. Options to override the theme are provided by the application as well.

Windows Notepad (makes a return)

Microsoft pushed the classic Notepad application to the Microsoft Store last year but removed the application again from the store shortly thereafter.

The application is now available again and with it improved functionality such as find & replace improvements, text zooming support, line numbers with word-wrap, as well as performance improvements.

Windows 10 themes

None this week

Notable Updates

Threema will be removed from the Microsoft Store in July 2020. The app was only available for Windows Phone.

Twitter update introduces direct messages and multi-account improvements.

Excerpt from:
Best Windows 10 apps this week - BetaNews

It's one of the most basic components of Windows, but also one of the most loved and most useful. Notepad has been with us for decades, and now it has found a new home in the Microsoft Store.

This is not the first time the app has appeared in the Microsoft Store. Originally announced in August last year, Notepad appeared for a while before vanishing. Now it's back, and it's better than ever with a host of new features.

See also:

While still very much a no-nonsense, no frills app, Notepad has come a long way in its 30 years of existence. Microsoft bills it as an app that you can use to "view, edit, and search through plain text documents and source code files instantly", and it can be used for this and so much more. Microsoft's decision to add the app to its Store came after the company made it possible for people to uninstall Notepad from Windows 10.

If you've not investigated Notepad for a while, there have been a number of changes that you may well not be aware of:

Wrap-around find/replace: We've made significant improvement to the find/replace experience in Notepad. We added the option to do wrap-around find/replace to the find dialog and Notepad will now remember previously entered values and the state of checkboxes and automatically populate them the next time you open the find dialog. Additionally, when you have text selected and open the find dialog we will automatically populate the search field with the selected text.

Text zooming: We've added options to make it quick and easy to zoom text in Notepad. There is a new menu option under View > Zoom to change the zoom level and we display the current zoom level in the status bar. You can also use Ctrl + Plus, Ctrl + Minus and Ctrl + MouseWheel to zoom in and out and use Ctrl + 0 to restore the zoom level to the default.

Line numbers with word-wrap: A long outstanding request has been to add the ability to display line and column numbers when word-wrap is enabled. This is now possible in Notepad and we've made the status bar visible by default. You can still turn the status bar off in the View menu.

Other Improvements:

If you would like to install the Microsoft Store version of Windows Notepad, you can grab it here. In order to use the app, you need to be running Windows 10 version 19541.0 or higher.

More:
Windows Notepad returns to the Microsoft Store with new features - BetaNews

MARIETTA Work on Macs Chophouse, the newest Marietta Square restaurant venture that has replaced the four-decade mainstay Shillings on the Square, is nearly complete, owner Randy McCray tells the MDJ.

New signs have gone up on the historic two-story building at the corner of North Park Square and Church Street, and while butcher paper still blocks the windows, a few passersby have recently been seen trying to sneak a peek inside through slivers left uncovered.

Dave Reardon, who owned Shillings for the length of its life on the Square, sold the restaurant in November. McCrays new restaurant will have a focus on steaks and seafood, with menu items to include slow-cooked meat, six to eight prime Angus beef options and seafood dishes such as sea bass.

The new establishment will also boast a wide variety of wines, craft cocktails and 10 to 12 beers on tap, and the lunch menu will include a variety of sandwiches, salads and other lighter choices, he said.

Other items such as pimiento cheese fritters are expected to be adapted from the menu of The Mill Kitchen & Bar in downtown Roswell, another of McCrays restaurants. He said the restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner, as well as Sunday brunch. Upstairs will be a more formal dining experience, while downstairs will be a little more lively, McCray said.

McCray said remodeling of the restaurant is about 90% complete, and contractors are installing booths, hanging light fixtures and completing touch-up work. He said the coronavirus delayed the goal of opening in March, and though theres only about a week of work left to go, hell be cautious with a grand opening date, which he said should be during the first week of June.

We just feel its the right thing to do right now, McCray said, adding that the restaurant will eventually employ 40 to 50 staff. All in all, it probably was a good thing, because it allowed us to do what we wanted to do instead of trying to rush the process.

The restaurateur said those who visited the former Shillings will notice a marked difference the space has been opened up significantly, the upstairs bar has been replaced and the building has received new plumbing, electrical, countertops and other features but there will be touches of the buildings past sprinkled throughout the new restaurant.

Its much brighter and cleaner and fresher in the restaurant. It doesnt look the same. The restaurant has been completely revitalized. Its a total overhaul, he said, adding that the restaurant will be a high-quality but affordable dining option. But weve kept a large portion of the antique bar that (Reardon) had thats probably, gosh, its probably over 100 years old.

Wood that was taken out of floors or ceilings in portions of the building has also been repurposed for other parts of the renovations, and the buildings original red oak hardwood floors have been restored, maintaining its history but also making it warm, McCray and his contractors said.

We brought back a lot of exposed brick on the inside. Back in the 70s and 80s people ... plastered and covered up a lot of that beautiful brick and we just decided to go back in and tear that off, McCray said.

For Gordon Brans, a 30-year Marietta resident and the contractor remodeling the building, the Macs job has come full circle.

(My wife and I) used to come here for brunch when our kids were babies. Theyre all in their 20s now. And I actually had a surprise birthday party upstairs for my wife about 10 years ago, he said. And we used to come up here and have dinner and drinks at the bar.

Brans said revitalization of the restaurant needed to happen, calling the newly renovated Macs the only really authentic bar, in the area. Pointing to the floors, portions of shelving, windows and other features dating back to the early 1900s, when the building housed Schillings Hardware Store, Brans said keeping the history is both important and fascinating for customers.

The Square needs a bar like this, he said.

Former Marietta Councilman Philip Goldstein, whose family owns the Macs building, said the restaurant will be a fresh and likely welcome addition to the Square.

Theyve done a phenomenal job with the remodeling of the building, he said. Its a lot more open and they made it where its much more accessible ... and the look is just a great look.

Goldstein said the new restaurant certainly has the potential to become the next Square staple, but only time will tell.

That, said McCray, is what he and his wife, Kelly, are hoping for. He said the most exciting part of opening the restaurant will be joining the Marietta restaurant community.

(We want) to have something to offer and try to help freshen Marietta Square up a little bit, give people within the community and outside the community reasons to come to the Square more, he said.

Follow this link:
Transformation from Shillings on the Square to Mac's Chophouse nearly complete - MDJOnline.com

Editor's Note: On April 21, sources close to Microsoft said that the first of these Surface devices will now be launched in early May.

Weve known for a while that Microsoft plans to launch the powerhouse Surface Book 3 and ultramobile Surface Go 2 sometime before the end of May. But what will be inside Microsofts new devices, exactly?

Weve rounded up whats leaked and whats been rumored about each device. Weve been told that the launch was pushed back a bit because of the coronavirus, and Microsofts fears that it wouldnt have enough finished product to stock store shelves. No ones been able to pin down a shipping date yet, though its sure to be within the near future if these leaks are to believed.

Like the original Surface Book 2, weve been told that the Surface Book 3 should ship in two different configurations, with 13.5-inch and 15-inch displays.

We also havent seen any indication that the Surface Book 3 will differ radically from its predecessora convertible 2-in-1 whose screen can be undocked as a separate tablet, though without the kickstand of the Surface Pro series. That design is unique to the Surface Book (and the erstwhile Porsche Design Book One), and that comes with other benefits, namely two discrete batteriesone in the base, and one in the tablet portionproviding plenty of battery life. Microsofts Surface Book 3 is also the only Surface that has a discrete GPU, a feature thats expected to carry over to the Surface Book 3.

The Surface Book 2 is Microsofts flagship Surface.

What will be inside? According toWinfuture.de, which claims to have uncovered several dealer configurations for the European market, the 13.5-inch version of the Surface Book 3 will be powered by either the Intel Core i5-10210U(1.6GHz, 4.2GHz turbo) or the Core i7-10510U (1.8GHz, 4.9GHz turbo).

Both of Intels chips are quad-core, eight-thread 25W Comet Lake chips optimized for clock speed, rather than all the bells and whistles of their Ice Lake cousins. They have basic UHD graphics inside of them, but will be optimized to work with discrete GPUs.

The listings Winfuture.de uncovered offer no real memory or storage surprises: RAM options may include 8GB, 16GB and 32GB, while SSD options may include 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. Thats roughly the same as Microsoft offered as part of the Surface Book 2, though those machines offered just 8GB and 16GB memory options.

Unfortunately, theres no word about what type of memory Microsoft will offer, though the Comet Lake chips support bothDDR4-2666 and LPDDR3-2133, according to their specifications. Either would be a bump up from the 1,866MHz DDR3 memory used by the Surface Book 2.

Part tablet, part workstation, the Surface Book 2 is the only detachable tablet that doubles as a laptop.

We dont know nearly as much about the GPU, however, and thats because we cant be entirely sure how Microsoft is positioning the Surface Book 3. In years past, devices like the Surface Pro 6 have been marketed in both consumer and business configurations, mainly differentiated by the use of Windows 10 Professional for the Business version. The hardware, however, has been otherwise identical.

That may change.Both WinFuture and Petris Brad Sams have suggested that the most powerful Surface Book 3 options will include an Nvidia Quadro GPU, a workstation-specific GPU in keeping with the Surface Books role as a workstation-esque laptop. Sams also reported that Nvidias 16xx-series GTX GPUs would be offered elsewhere in the lineup.

Both reports would be consistent with one another if Microsoft offered both a Quadro-powered version of the Surface Book 3 for developers or business customers, and a more traditional GTX option for consumers. Neither, unfortunately, would max out the Surface Book lineup with Nvidia's exciting RTX ray-tracing GPUs.

Pricing is the final question. According to WinFuture, the 13.5-inch options will range from about 1,023 to 1,523 euros, or about $1,110 to $1,650. Microsoft will sell the 15-inch Surface Book 3 for 1,410 to 4,324 euros, or between $1,530 and a whopping $4,690. (A slightly more reasonable 15-inch option would be the 16GB RAM/256GB SSD configuration, which will cost 1,410 euro or about $1,530.)

The Surface Book 2 is a magnificent machine. But the original Surface Book 2 had a power problemits internals drew too much power for either the stock charger or the legacy Surface Dock to power the Surface Book 2 under load. (The Surface Book 2s charger put out 100W, while the 100W Dock reportedly supplies 60 watts to the Surface Connector, reserving the rest for other ports.)

Expect the redesigned Surface Dock 2 to look very similar, but with USB-C ports replacing the miniDP connectors.

Enter the Surface Dock 2. Dr. Windows.de, a German site, has also claimed to see retailer listings which indicate the presence of a new Surface Dock, with an updated port selection and a reported 200W output. A separate 125W charger for the Surface Book 3 is also being developed, the site adds. Both are thought to be sufficient for the Surface Book 3s needs.

According to Dr. Windows, Microsoft has replaced the miniDisplayPorts on the current Surface Dock with USB-C. Two more USB-C ports replace the USB Type A ports on the front. But Microsoft hasnt substituted USB-C for USB-A entirely. Reportedly, there are still two USB-A ports on the back, plus ethernet, an audio jack and a Kensington lock.

What we dont know is whether the USB-C ports are Thunderbolt-enabled. On the other hand, each USB-C port should be able to power a 4K/60 display, the site reports. All thats good news for a Dock whose connectivity had become quite stale.

If you wanted a compact, ultraportable Windows tablet, the original Surface Go was an excellent choice. Its performance was not in the least competitive with anything else in the Surface lineup, though. Now, the Surface Go 2 has reportedly shown up at the FCC, a good sign that its about to launch soon. Its predecessor is also out of stock on Microsofts site.

The original Surface Go was small and compact, ideal for on-the-go users. Expect the Surface Go 2 to be the same.

Microsoft appears to be designing the Surface Go 2 in the originals image: portability first, performance second. LTE, thankfully, appears to be an option at some point.

Sources including Winfuture put the Surface Go's screen size at about 11 inches, with a resolution of 1,800x1,200 pixelsa possible bump up from the 10-inch display of the Surface Go. (Smaller bezels? Possibly.) Otherwise, expect the same tried-and-true tablet with a kickstand behind it, paired with a Type Cover. (Hopefully the Surface Gos typing experience has been improved as well.)

Though the Surface Go 2 will almost certainly be offered in a single physical configuration, youll reportedly have a choice of processors: either the Pentium Gold 4425Y or the Core m3-8100Y. Neither chip is particularly powerful. The dual-core, four-thread 6W Pentium Gold runs at a fixed speed of 1.7GHz, while the dual-core, four-thread Core m3 runs at 1.1GHz but powers up to 3.4GHz turbo under load. The latter chip, of course, should offer a great deal more performance.

Several Type Covers were available for the original Surface Go.

WinFuture reports that the Pentium Gold version will ship with 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD. Opting for the more powerful Core m3 will add 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD.

Prices could start as low as 500 euro or $550, according to the dealer prices WinFuture saw, to just over $1,000. Because the Surface Go shipped with a Type Cover as part of the bundle, its likely the Surface Go 2 will do the same, saving you a few bucks.

Correction: The listings for the Surface Book 3 attribute an Nvidia Quadro GPU inside, not an Nvidia Tegra GPU.

See the original post here:
Will Microsoft launch Surface Book 3, Surface Go 2, and Surface Dock 2 soon? Here's what we know - PCWorld

Is it worth it to upgrade a laptop's RAM or storage? We had a chance to find out when Dell asked us to test the upgradability of its Inspiron 15 7000.

I admit that as I faced this challenge, I started sweating. Panic-sweating. In my experience, upgrading a laptop is never a fun time. Cracking the case open feels borderline illegal, and once youre inside you find a maze of tiny screws, tiny parts, tiny wireslike disarming a bomb built for ants. Many laptops don't want to be opened, hiding the screws or voiding the warranty if you dare.

Imagine my surprise when I found the Inspiron 15 7000 almost...friendly? Getting inside still feels a bit illicit, but it was pretty easy to do. Was it worth it? We ran benchmarks to find out.

The Inspiron 15 7000 is a good candidate for upgrades, because no single configuration is perfect. The model Dell sent over is the top-of-the-line Inspiron 15 7000 Model 7591 (currently $1,050 on Dell.comRemove non-product link), a humble little machine that packs an Intel Core i7-9750H, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050, a 512GB M.2 SSD, and 8GB of DDR4 RAM.

Its a strange machine, for sure. At just over $1,000, the Inspiron 15 7000 still feels a bit overpricedblame the Core i7 processor and that generous 512GB of storage. But only 8GB of RAM? Meanwhile, the cheaper $900 modelRemove non-product link touts a Core i5-9300H and Intel UHD 630 graphics, but 16GB of RAM.

Whats an enterprising buyer to do if they want a Core i7-9750H and 16GB of RAM to go with it? You do it yourself, of course.

The Inspiron 15 7000 is held together by eight screws, all very visible on the bottom of the machine. The three along the hinge side are captive, meaning theyre not meant to come out of the lid. After turning them a bit, youll hear a pop as the threads snap back into place. Stop turning! Theyre out, even if its difficult to tell.

Captive screws help separate the bottom panel from the rest of the chassis. Once youve loosened all three, you should notice the side with the hinges has already begun separating. All thats left is to loosen the five remaining screws. Keep a coffee cup nearby to stash them so they dont get lost.

Then, get ready to rockby which I mean, find a guitar pick if you have one. A spudger is the correct tool for the job, but anything will do so long as its thin, durable, and plastic. Starting from the existing gaps on the hinge side, run your plastic doohickey under the edges to pop the clips holding the bottom panel in place. This is the part that always feels illegal. Even after youve freed the edges you might notice the panels still holding on. Give the captive screws one more twist if this happens. Thats usually the culprit.

And voila, were inside. From here, the hardest part is just deciphering all the various components.

Luckily if youre here to swap RAM, Dell labeled everything for you. DIMM A and B are covered by a thin black sheet. Lift it up and youll see the existing 8GB stick, which is easily freed by pressing down the little clips on either side. Line up your replacement RAM with the slot, press it in (firmly), then lower it until it clicks into place.

Out with the old...

...and in with the new.

Keep in mind: You ideally want RAM to match. Tempting as it may be to buy one 8GB stick and pair it with the existing one, youll typically find better performance (and fewer headaches) buying a 16GB set instead. We stuck with 16GB because its what we had on hand, but you could go higher if youd like.

Dells provided plenty of storage options. In the bottom left corner (if the hinges are facing down) youll see a big, silvery panel attached by a single screw. Lift it, and you can install a standard 2.5-inch HDD or SSD. Hard drives are pretty cheap nowadays, offering massive amounts of storage spaceassuming you dont care about speed.

Those with a bit more spending money can add a second M.2 SSDor replace the existing SSD, or replace and add. Youve got a lot of options here.

Adding an M.2 drive is the most straightforward, though spotting the M.2 slot is hard at first. With the hinges facing down, look to the right of the RAM enclosure and youll see a little black stripeand a screw two inches farther to the right. Remove that screw, insert the M.2 drive into the port, press it down, and then put the screw back in. Thats it. Youre done.

This is what youre looking for. Notice the M.2 label on the motherboard.

All secured! Easy.

Replacing the existing drive is a bit more complicated because Dell uses an M.2 2230-size SSD. This is quite a bit smaller than the usual M.2 2280 (or 22mm x 80mm) form factor used by a Samsung 970 Evo, our 1TB Firecuda, and so forth.

The primary drive is also semi-hidden underneath a thermal panelthough proximity to the empty 2.5-inch enclosure means you might mistake it as the place for your secondary drive. (I did.)

It looks like this when closed up.

Unscrew this tiny piece of metal, then unscrew the primary drive and remove it. Once its out, youll see a tiny metal brace set to the 2230 marker. Remove that as well, swivel it, and then slot it into the clips for the 2280 setting (assuming youre using a standard M.2 drive). And then...put it all back together.

Remove the default M.2 2230 form factor drive.

Next, look for this metal clip thats in the 2230 position...

...turn it around and reinsert it at the 2280 position for most off-the-shelf M.2 drives.

This approach is also more complicated because youve removed the C: drive. Before upgrading, youll need to navigate to Dells website and download the Dell OS Recovery Tool, then put it on a 16GB USB stick. Plug this drive in when you boot the machine for the first time, and youll be walked through Dells custom Windows 10 installation. An OEM Windows installer will not work.

Once youre done mucking around inside, lay the bottom panel back on the laptops gutschecking the orientation, of course. Secure the captive screws first, then press the keyboard layer and bottom panel back together. The area around the trackpad is tricky, and you may need to use your spudger to wedge the whole thing apart and try again. Youll probably need to push harder than you think for everything to snap into place.

These angled screws are a bit of a pain. A magnetic screwdriver helps with this step.

Once thats done, find your coffee cup of screws and replace them as well. Assuming you didnt replace the OS drive, Dell will run a quick check on your memory to make sure everything looks good.

Fingers crossed.

Its (at least in my experience) pretty hard to seat RAM improperly in a laptop and still get it to close, so barring a malfunctioning stick you should be good to go.

So...should you do it? Is it worth it?

Upgrading the Inspiron 15 7000 was easier than I anticipated. No special tools (except a guitar pick), no hidden tricks. Its not the only laptop to make it this easy, but its one of the few that does so while staying relatively thin and lightweight. Usually this level of access is reserved for larger gaming laptops with more room inside.

The thinner you get, the harder it is for manufacturers to lay out the components while keeping them accessible. Considering all that, the Inspiron 15 7000 is pretty impressive. Its very clean inside, and I could get the bottom panel off, the parts replaced, and everything screwed back together in under 10 minutes, easy. Maybe five minutes, if I rushed.

There are obvious benefitsparticularly when it comes to storage. When you need more space, you really need it, and the Inspiron 15 7000 makes it easy. While its included 512GB is a respectable amount of storage, its hardly impossible to fill. Throw in a 2TB 2.5-inch drive or another M.2, and youll have plenty of space to expand.

Having more memory is just generally usefulas is filling out that second DIMM. Your PC can only read and write so much information to memory at a time. Two DIMMS means effectively double the bandwidth, especially with a Core i7-9750H that can take advantage. Check out the results we saw when we ran the Inspiron 15 7000 through GeekBench 4:

Thats a huge bandwidth increase, most of it resulting from adding a second stick of RAM. You probably wont notice the additional speed, but it will make the Inspiron 15 7000 a little bit more responsive across the board.

For instance, when we ran our usual HandBrake test, encoding a 30GB MKV file down to the Android Tablet preset, our upgraded Inspiron 15 7000 finished the task approximately a minute faster than the default hardware.

The same pattern played out in Cinebench, which tests the CPU over a much shorter period of time:

The trend repeated in 3DMark, where we used the Sky Diver benchmark to simulate some basic gaming performance, as well as some real-world testing with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive at 720p, where the performance bump from a memory increase could better come into play. Across the board, our in-house upgrades performed better than the stock Inspiron 15 7000.

Now, was it much better? No, and I think the performance benefits are probably secondary to the more tangible benefits. Adding another M.2 drive is better first and foremost because you have more space to store your files. Moving to 16GB of RAM allows you to open more Chrome tabs or run games that require 16GB of memory. Thats more important than any day-to-day speed increase.

One final note: Dell specifically asked us to explore the benefits of installing the second drive as a RAID 0 array instead of a separate drive. RAID 0 links two (or more) drives into one massive storage space, and in theory can improve performance. I typically dont bother with RAID, though, because the speed increase is offset by the risk. If one drive in the array fails, the entire array fails, and you can lose all your data.

Still, we tried itand if youre sticking with the default Dell-provided drive, I wouldnt recommend it. As youll see in the charts above, our benchmarks actually came in lower (for the most part) when we set up RAID 0 compared to running programs directly off our newly-installed secondary M.2 drive. The Firecudas speed dragged the average up, meaning the OS and anything else installed only to the C: drive probably performed better. Anything we couldve installed directly to the secondary drive? It all performed worse, as a consequence of being split across the slower Dell drive and the faster Firecuda.

If you install two zippy new M.2 drives, RAID 0 might net a slight speed increase. Otherwise, if youre just adding a secondary drive, its probably better to take full advantage of your faster M.2 speeds when needed, and leave the original drive to handle the OS and anything thats less sensitive.

I hope laptopsespecially gaming laptopscontinue to trend toward upgradability. One of the biggest problems with gaming laptops (compared to their desktop counterparts) is they tend to last only three or four years before theyre irrelevant. Maybe five if you dont mind dipping settings. Thats while costing two to three times as much as comparable desktop hardware.

But if you could get in there and replace some of the parts, you could potentially add another few years of use. RAM and storage are a good start, and Dells made it such upgrades easy.

What we really need are CPU and GPU upgrades, though. Thats trickier, but imagine buying an Inspiron 15 7000 and then being able to swap out the already-dated GTX 1050 for a top-shelf part. Thats the dream. Maybe one day.

Read more from the original source:
Is upgrading a laptop's SSD and RAM worth it? We try it in the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 - PCWorld

A developer has submitted plans to convert a former monastery and college building in the West End into luxury homes.

Adam Scotland has just lodged plans for 10 Partickhill Road with Glasgows planning committee.

St Kentigerns Hostel, formerly Wellpark House and St Peters College, is a category B listed building.

St Kentigerns Hostel on Partickhill Road is earmarked for four new homes. Image: NVDC Architects

Papers set out external alterations including site works, replacement or refurbished windows and new grilles/flues to the rear of the property.

The proposal is to create four spacious three-bedroom apartments with appropriate amenity space and parking.

NVDC Architects say the building was most recently run by the Marist Brothers and is situated within the Glasgow West Conservation Area.

A report says the building is generally in good condition externally apart from some poor concrete repairs to the rear elevation.

But some of the sash and case windows are in a state of disrepair.

Adam Scotland is to undertake a survey to see how many windows can be retained and how many will need to be replaced.

City officials have already indicated their general support for the conversion of the property into homes.

Map: St Kentigerns Hostel on Partickhill Road. Google/NVDC Architects

They stipulate that car parking requirements are for one space per flat and one visitor parking space.

Officials point out that all the trees on the site are protected.

In pre-application correspondence they said: Landscaping proposals will be required and should demonstrate how the development will enhance biodiversity.

Architects say trees will be retained and new planting will take place to enhance the existing building and surrounding conservation area.

According to its Wikipedia listing, St Kentigerns Hostel is a Jacobean-style building, constructed around 1869.

The entry says: In 1874, the building became St Peters College, a seminary for men training to become Roman Catholic priests.

In 1877, a small wooden chapel was built behind the house. In 1892, the college was moved to Bearsden.

Wikipedia adds: In 1906, the Archdiocese of Glasgow turned the building into a St Kentigerns Hostel, a residence for students at nearby teacher training college.

It was run by the Marist Brothers. From 1954 to 1956, the interior of the house was renovated by Gillespie, Kidd & Coia.

In the 1960s it was a residence for students at the Notre Dame College of Education in Bearsden.

In 1991, flats were built within the grounds of St Kentigerns, behind the house.

The application will be decided for approval or refusal at a later date.

Read the original post:
NEWS: Plans to convert former West End monastery into luxury homes - Glasgow West End Today