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Sound Cards: Creative Labs, and Alternatives

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The last few days have seen a lot of negative press surrounding the largest sound card manufacturer on the block, Creative Labs. Here’s a little background on what’s happened:

Creative Labs has had a near-monopoly on the sound card market for a long time. Barring onboard sound controllers (like those integrated into almost all Nvidia and Intel based chipsets), Creative cards make up an overwhelming majority of audio cards currently in use. Creative has not done a very good job of getting Windows Vista sound drivers working which offer the same amount of features that their XP drivers have had. A lot of people have been really frustrated by this, since their expensive audio cards weren’t working or were giving reduced functionality.

My Perspective on Personal Computers

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My name is Daniel Brown, I am a PC technician. I’m writing this article because I feel like, based on my experience, I may have some wisdom to impart regarding PCs. I’ve been working with PCs for most of the last 13 years. Even when not employed in the computer industry, I’ve consistently dedicated a significant portion of my own time to staying up to date with PC hardware trends and learning more about personal computers. During my time in the IT industry, I’ve encountered more than my share of problems and done countless hours of troubleshooting. In my current role as ‘Lead Support Technician’ here at Puget, I add to those hours of troubleshooting daily, dealing with modern PC systems.

Drooling Over New Technology

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I don’t drool often, but I have to say — this is an exciting time to be in the technology field. We work closely with both Intel and nVidia, and they both have new products out that are changing the way I look at high performance computers.

Customer Service that Serves Customers

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My job title at Puget is ‘Director of Inventory’, which is a fancy way of saying that I’m responsible for keeping track of any parts that aren’t currently inside a computer. Among other duties, I have the delightful job of arranging Return Merchandise Authorizations (RMAs) with our suppliers – just as our customers come to us for warranty support, we can go to our suppliers or the manufacturer to get defective parts replaced. It’s rewarding to see a stream of broken parts go out the door and come back in a couple weeks as shiny, functional equipment, but trying to get warranty support can also be one of the greatest hassles known to man.

A little clarification about TV tuners

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So during our Puget tech support/production meeting yesterday it was decided to stop carrying TV tuners for a while. The idea is that we need to step back and see what hardware is out there, what our customers are expecting, and if the two are compatible – and more importantly supportable. Since I’m sort of the resident HTPC expert here I wanted to put a little more info out there on exactly what a Vista-based home theater system is and is not capable of (as far as tuning in TV goes, anyways).

Why Vista Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard

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There has been a lot of talk on the Internet for the past year about how Vista isn’t all its cracked up to be. There are lists of why folks hate Vista, lists of things Microsoft supposedly stole from the Mac OS, and reports of people switching back to XP in disgust. Amidst all of this negativity, I wanted to share my experience with Vista and address some of the accusations folks have leveled at Microsoft’s newest operating system.

Why Corsair power supplies?

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You may have noticed Corsair power supplies popping up in our product line. I wanted to take a minute to tell you about why we’re doing this, and why I’m excited about it!

When I was at CES a few months ago, I was not shopping for a new power supply vendor. We have been using Seasonic for years, and have been very happy with their units. And yet there are times when we find a company speaking our language. Hype doesn’t get our attention. Show us the product! We want to see real, measurable quality. At CES, in their suite at the Wynn hotel, Corsair spoke our language. We weren’t looking to replace Seasonic, but Corsair was too good a fit to not get our attention.

Puget Systems Blog!

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Everyone and their mother has a blog today, and we have been cautious about whether it is really a good addition to our company. I’m happy to report that we have enthusiastically decided it is! This blog will be a place where all Puget Systems staff can post their thoughts and stories, in a venue that we don’t really have otherwise. It will be more formal than our forum posts, but not so complex as hardware articles. We’ve often commented to ourselves that we have good information that the public needs to know! Sometimes writing a full hardware article requires a level of research, data gathering, and formatting that is too daunting to make it worth while for more of your everyday thoughts. This will give us that happy medium! There are quite a few people here enthusiastic about getting started, and I look forward to seeing this in action.

Improving Windows XP Performance

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Windows XP has the potential to exhibit far greater performance on your machine than is delivered from a clean installation. This guide is intended to show you how to tweak your computer produce the fastest machine possible.