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USB Flash Drives
“USB Speeds Explained”:http://www.kingston.com/products/MKF_530_HS2_overview.pdf. Well, I’m finally getting one for Connie. Talk about a confusing market. There are basically three standards: * USB 1.1. This is very slow. 1Mbps * USB 2.0 Full-speed. This is 12Mbps * USB 2.0 Hi-speed. This is 480Mbps Many folks are saying just USB 2.0 and making you think they will…
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USB Dongles: The Variety
With miniturization, it’s fascinating to see all the things people are building with USB. Here’s a small summary: * “Memory + Wifi”:http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1533. Gigabyte GN-WLBZ201 and the TwinMOST “B241”:http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/34565.html is a USB 1.1 device (so kinda slow) with 32-256MB of flash memory plus a 802.11b card inside of it. Great idea for older laptops. Two in…
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What Color is Your Parachute?
Someone recently came by for career advice. Like I somehow have a smart view on this 🙂 Anyway, I thought I’d write down the usual advice I give someone. _Now I sound like the guy in the Graduate who said the future is, “plastics”_ Anyway, here you go Jonathan. Have fun! OK, so what should…
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What fits in a 3.5 Floppy Slot
Since I’ve been getting rid of these floppy drives in my machines, I was wondering what else can fit into them, here are two good candidates: * “4-Port USB Hub”:https://www.rogerssystems.com/store/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=765. $20 and it is much neater than an external hub or “SIIG”:http://www.siig.com/product.asp?partnum=JU-H41B22&category=USB. * “USB and Firewire Hub”:http://www.cables4computer.com/leftlinks/Product_Links.asp?M1=USB%20and%20Firewire&sub1=Hubs&sub2=USB. $99 and you can get a Firewire and…
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What's a good CPU Temperature
“CPU Temperatures”:http://www.pantherproducts.co.uk/Articles/CPU/CPU%20Temperatures.shtml. Now with Superfan,, I can see CPU temperatures, but what’s a good temperature to run? Well, they vary by processor, but according to pantherproducts.co.uk, you should say 20 degrees C below the critical (e.g, above this I burn out) temperatures: | Processor Family | Critical | Stay Below… | | AMD Athlon “Barton”…
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SpeedFan
“SpeedFan”:http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php. This is an amazing utility. I’m going to donate to the guy who wrote it. It knows about the SM (system management) bus and the many different chipsets used. It can actually detect the temperature sensors used and the fan control. It can even dig down into late generation hard drives and tell you…
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Memory Testing
Arrgghh. I removed two disk drives from my hurting ASUS A7N8X-X machine, but I’m stil getting random reboots. Next suspect is memory problems. There are actually quite a few memory testers around: * “Memtest86”:http://www.memtest86.com/. The grand daddy. Now has bootable CD version. Requires 8KB and tests like crazy. Hasn’t been updated since 2002 though, so…
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NEC ND-2500A and CD-R/DVD-R recommendations
“CD Freaks”:http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/134/. A super comprehensive review of the new NEC ND-2500A. It is the first drive that can write DVD-Rs at 8x. (Most drives can now write 8x DVD+Rs). But, the most impressive thing is that it has very low write error rates for CDs and DVDs. The same piece does some great recommendations for…
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DVD Backup
“DVD Copy Basics”:http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/114For those of you with kids who love peanut butter or have seen a DVD blown by a 4-year old sliding it across the table, here’s a pretty good intro into how to have a backup until they learn to treat DVDs like Chihuly glassworks. They recommend DVDXcopy Express for beginners. For power…
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First 8x DVD-R combo Drive: NEC ND-2500A and CD-R/DVD=R recommendations
“CD Freaks”:http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/134/. A super comprehensive review of the new NEC ND-2500A. It is the first drive that can write DVD-Rs at 8x. (Most drives can now write 8x DVD+Rs). But, the most impressive thing is that it has very low write error rates for CDs and DVDs. Most interesting though is that they go through…