One last reprieve for the X58 platform soon to be annihilated by the Sandy Bridge platform

PLEASE NOTE: This is my first article to be published on www.eteknix.com,

Gigabyte has recently announced at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) a new line of extreme motherboards named the “G1-Killer” for x58 platform. These motherboards are all aimed at the serious gamer or should I say extremely serious gamer. The real killer of this series is the “G1-Assassin”, pictured below.

This motherboard could win prizes for its design let alone its performance. The Assassin board comes in an enlarged XL-ATX form factor and integrates both a Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi digital audio processor and the Bigfoot Killer E2100 Network processing unit. All the boards include 3-way SLI allowing for 4-way cross fire on the Assassin board and 3-way cross fire on the other 2 boards (Named: Sniper and Guerrilla). They all have the capacity for 24GB of 2,200 MHz DDR3 memory and include USB 3, SATA 6Gbps and an array of overclocking features. On a design note, take a look at the Southbridge heatsink and admire the magazine!
The Spec Sheet below shows you the true power of these lines of boards and show just how much Gigabyte are cramming into these boards:

Originally posted by myself on: eTeknix.com

Traffic Exchanges

A belated post. One to educate some of you of a set of websites that if used well can become a very powerful tool for any website administrator or blogger etc.

The success of all products and websites comes down to the marketing and advertising. Now everyone understands that if you are advertising a concert at your local village hall you need to inform the local radio stations and the local newspapers, as well as handing out some flyers etc. However, in this modern era, the power of the social websites is becoming more and more paramount. Facebook and Twitter have become two main revenue streams for lots of people, due to the sheer size of the market you can access with a few clicks. But maybe you don't want to in-un-date your best friends with the same message over and over again(You can only do this a few times before most people get annoyed anyway - even random strangers!)

You may ask how then you are expected to get visitors to your site when you first create a new website or blog. Well take this blog for instance, it hasn't been going long, but have a small glance at the bottom of the column to the right of this block of text >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You may notice it says 'number of page hits: 3650+' (Time of writing this 3677 - this may be of interest as you can thus work out which number person you are to view this blog page since me). How have I got over 3000 visitors to this blog in a very short time? Well the answer is Traffic Exchanges. I must stress that they are not the be all and end all, they have many flaws(which i will describe shortly).






The banner is the one I have grown to like, its the most honest and one of the most powerful out there. The basic principle is very simple, you view a site or two, and then in return they show your site to one or two people in turn. In fact with TS25, they have to view the site for a full 15 seconds minimum before they can move on, giving them enough time to scan the pages. You may say that actually most people don't even bother to read the pages, but you will be surprised at how many peoples eyes are distracted with text and find that in fact they are nearly compelled to read it, even subliminally, due to the fact our brains always want to be 'understanding' as much as possible. Even when you try not to read something, you do tend to pick up or notice a few words/phrases. This is just standard human nature. As such, people will notice your website, the chances are that they won't ever re-visit but if its good and interests them they sure will.

The main other advantage of traffic exchanges is that as you increase your exposure your rankings within search engines do increase. If for instance you type in 'Giantsitel' to google(and stop it from correcting it to 'giant sitel') then you will notice that this blog is 4th or so on the list (depending on recent twitter posts by me and @giantsite). You will notice that actually I occupy all of the first page except one slot. This was not the case before setting up this blog and sending over 3000 visitors to this page.

Why is TS25 so special?
"ts25 offers you the most powerful traffic generating system on the planet. Built on an unparalleled syndicate grouping structure, ts25 delivers the largest amount of traffic and rewards in the industry. Furthermore, ts25 has completely removed the traditional downline structure commonly associated with this type of program. That's right, there is no downline to build! Our unique syndicate structure is designed to reward you with the maximum amount of traffic for the effort you put in and not the effort of others. "

Simply put, you are automatically added(with a few conditions) into a syndicate, which is 1 of 100 or so, if you are near the top you a percentage of all the 'credits' of the syndicates below you as well as a percentage of all the credits everyone in your syndicate gains, as well as the credits earnt by the syndicate last week. All in all, you end up with an instant downline potential of 160,000 people and you effectively earn up to 5% from each member (giving huge huge traffic earnings). It is also completely free to join, if you join as a free member then you will have to 'surf' (view other peoples websites) till the end of the week to determine your place in the syndicate downline. Get yourself near the top and you can earn over 50,000 visitors a week without much effort. Get some referrals and every week you are rewarded with free credits and visitors.

There is much more that can be discussed, but in summary:

Pros : It brings members from all over the world to your website, increasing your website exposure and search engine ranking, you may well be able to make money from these foreign people! You could create a very powerful system where you earn money for doing nothing, but it is highly unlikely and you do probably need something to sell or market or blog!

Cons: You have to spend time surfing to increase the visitors you get, the visitors may totally ignore your website and just click to the next one after only 15 seconds. You could end up wasting a lot of time.

Over and Out
Giantsitel

University Costs

This is my budgeting calculations for the spring and summer term combined!

Total Income from Student Finance + University for remainder of acadmeic year = £4829.98

Expenditure for Accomodation = 1390.61 *2 = £2781.22

Remainder of Income not allocated for  = £2048.76 (Sounds like a lot right?)

Well, next guaranteed source of income is not expected till end of September (Next lot of student finance...), meaning there are another 38/39 weeks to go(This is effectively worst case..)

£2048.76 / 39 = £52.53 per week. This is not much at all bearing in mind travelling costs and more importantly Food (and a small portion of drinks...)

This improves if you take out the holidays completely leaving only 12 weeks for first term and 7 weeks(only exams..) for the second meaning I am only at University for a remaining 19 weeks this academic year!

Therefore, £2048.76 / 19 = £107. 83 per week. A much healthier sum. However, I also need to allow for a deposit on my 2nd year house of up to £200 (likely to be less but on the safe side...). Leaving £1848.76 (£97  per week).

This still however assumes that during the holidays my income and expenditure are equal, meaning I have to earn what i spend. Well this would be very nice! However I do not have a job at all currently, so this leaves me with no conclusion but to budget for £25 per week for the holidays(I don't officially have to pay my parents anything for food, however for me to get around my car is essential and £15- 20 a week disappears with the current fuel costs without covering that many miles!).

Taking this into account, there are 17 weeks of holiday (@£25 a week = £425). Therefore leaving me with a uni budget of £1423.76 Total.

£1423.76 / 19 weeks = £74.93 per week at University. This can be further broken down into my weekly expenses of a minimum of £3.20 for washing clothes, £10 for transport (buses to get shopping/taxi for 1 late night out per week). I also expect to need to budget for approximately £10 for lunches at uni (usually 3 lunches per week - only due to having lectures before and after lunch/not being able to get home in between and the want to remain relatively sociable! This cost could be 'avoided' (or reduced) with packed lunches but I'm not quite in the habit of getting up early enough for this currently!). I also am budgeting for approximately 1 train journey (home and back again) every 3 weeks(More likely every 4 weeks..but still). Which equates to £5 a week. I also have a phone contract equating to £7 per week on average(I like nice phones...whoops!)

This leaves approximately <£40 per week to spend on food, drink, toiletries, nights out, books, clothes, oboe reeds, oboe music, presents and anything else! This is only £5.70 per day average, which is primarily for 2/3 meals 7 days a week!!!! If I want to go out 1 night a week to leave myself £10 I can only spend £4 per day on food and drink!

So if anyone does want to make my student life a tad easier and give me some suggestions to making money (Something like the million dollar homepage would be perfect....shame that idea won't work again), or has a job for me, or does just want to donate I have gone to the trouble of creating a donate button (Good old paypal!).

I must also stress that I do realise I still am very fortunate to be going to University, to be offered a place, and to be able(if only just) to afford it - let alone how privileged I am to have a car and a nice mobile phone and a computer or even a roof over my head and running water! I would love to be in a position to donate money to charities and will as soon as I am fortunate enough to have a stable job, until then I hope its in everyone's nature who has plenty of money to live off to support those who are in need.

Obviously, my parents and grand-parent(Yes singular) would not let me starve(I would however have to pay them back + the student loan!) , however I want to be as independent as possible and not have to rely on my parents so hence the strict budgeting - here is me hoping this doesn't lead to a strict diet aswell!

Over and Out for now

Simon Telford -- Giantsitel

Not too late...ACHIEVE YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS!

ACHIEVE YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS!

Re-Posted Originally by Derren Brown @ http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2011/01/achieve-years-resolutions/ 

Richard Wiseman has a great guide on how to achieve your new years resolutions. Here’s a taster:

1.     Make only one resolution – Many people make the mistake of trying to achieve too much. The chances of success are greater when people channel their energy into changing just one aspect of their behaviour at a time.

2.     Plan ahead – Don’t wait until New Year’s Eve to think about your resolution. Last minute decisions tend to be based on what is on your mind at that time. Instead, take some time out a few days before and reflect upon what you really want to achieve.

3.     Avoid previous resolutions – Deciding to re-visit a past resolution sets you up for frustration and disappointment. Choose something new, or approach an old problem in a new way. For example, instead of trying to lose 2 stone in weight, try exercising more.”

To see all 10 visit the 59 Seconds Blog