Powerline Networking Primer

Whereas WiFi got all the attention, powerline networking still has its uses. There are definite advantages to being plugged in, and not over the air for your internet connection.

Sure, wireless networks work well for some people, but there are some venues where Wi-Fi simply doesn't reach far enough to provide reliable service across your entire home. If thick or heavily insulated walls don't cut into wireless strength, there's a variety of household devices, from microwave ovens to cordless phones, that can cause radio-frequency interference. Neither is a problem with power-line adapters; as long as you have a spare AC outlet in a room, you'll be able to get network access there.

Latest HP DVD Writer With LightScribe Reviewed

A look at HP's DVD 640i over at CDR Labs. The drive is notable for its support of LightScribe technology. The rest of the specs are rather unimpressive, and the media compatibility is not that good.

With the dvd640i, HP has introduced one of the first LightScribe capable DVD writers. This innovative technology lets users burn graphics and text onto the tops of specially coated discs. While this will appeal to some, first generation drives like the dvd640i aren't for everyone. Designed primarily for its LightScribe capabilities, HP has had to make some sacrifices in the way of performance, keeping the dvd640i from being one of the faster DVD writers currently available.

Like the BenQ drive its based on, the dvd640i can write to DVD+R media at 16x. At this speed, the drive took a little more than 6 minutes to turn out an entire 4.7GB DVD. Unfortunately, the dvd640i wasn't nearly as fast with other types of recordable media. While the drive performed as expected, its 8x DVD-R and 2.4x DVD+R DL writing speeds put it at a disadvantage in some of our tests.

When it came to media compatibility, the dvd640i gave us some mixed results. The drive wrote to most of our test media at its rated speed, but like its BenQ counterpart, it would not write to any 8x DVD+R media at 16x. While this is becoming less of an issue as more 16x media becomes available, it's still a nice feature to have. The dvd640i's writing quality was pretty good for the most part. However, even with the latest firmware there is still room for improvement, especially with the 16x DVD+R discs from Optodisc and RiDATA.

New AMD Roadmap

The Athlon 64 FX-55, and a dual core 5000+ AMD64 are in the works. Going mobile? How about a 4000+ part? They should be more than fast enough for a while to come.

Read all about it over at Anandtech.

New CD Freaks Wikipedia

I think of a wikipedia as an open source encyclopedia. Anyone and everyone can contribute and correct info on a gien topic. Over at CD Freaks they're starting a wikipedia of optical drives. Feel free to peruse and add.

Many of you might have heard about Wikipedia, the the free encyclopedia. The software used for the project is MediaWiki and our system administrator Liggy has recently also installed this software on the CD Freaks Server.

Our aim is to gather as much knowlegde as we can and a Wiki offers a way for everyone to contribute. Those who are not familiar with a Wiki should certainly take a look and try to discover the secrets of the Wiki. Although it might look like a strange concept to you, Wikipedia has proven that it works.

A Wiki allows everyone to add and modify content, categorise it and make it accesible to everyone. We believe that knowlegde is power and would like everyone to give it a try. You will learn how it works very fast, simply by take a look at the code of current pages (hit the edit tab on top of the page). We look forward to see your contributions and hope everyone will share.

Zip Drive R.I.P.

The "click of death" tolls for thee...

According to a statement released today, Iomega intends to "realign its product lines" and lay off 120 of its 360 employees. While the company declined to comment on details, a statement said that Iomega will focus on harddrive-based products, as well as its NSS and Rev series. Apparently, the future product strategy does not include CD/DVD burners and the product Iomega's success is built on: The famous Zip drive.

Latest Cell Phone Sports Wood!

The latest trend in electronics is wood. After years of sterile stainless steel and black plastic, now wood is being used to give the electronics some character.

Siemens has unveiled a cell phone made in part from wood called the Limited Edition SK65 Burlwood. The backs of phones are decorated with burl wood from the thuya tree, which grows in the wild. Each phone is unique, as the trees they harvested the wood from were subjected to heat, drought and fire, and even animal bite-marks, according to Siemens.

Can I get mine with bear bite marks?

Keen High MP3 Player

Everyone and his uncle wants to make a player. This look like a "Sam's Choice" model to me. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers...

Design-technical... well, it's a distinctive design alright. Some will hate it - no doubt, seems to be a surplus of haters for anything these days - others will like it very much. Most of you won't actually care. However, what does annoy us personally is that tiny little dumb-looking standard-yawn-boring LCD screen. Seems like a miniature rip-off of any X-Clef player, really.

Seagate Portable Drive

Over at the Gadgeteer, they're reviewing the Seagate Portable Hard Drive. It is based on a notebook 5400 rpm, 2.5" 100 GB capacity drive. A real nice feature is it is USB powered so it eliminates a power cord. This is a lot of capacity in a small size that will fit in your notebook bag.

Adding extra file storage capacity to a desktop or laptop computer used to be a task that involved a screw driver and a blood sacrifice to the computer gods. That is definitely not the case these days, as the external hard drive market is booming. Instead of digging into the inner bowels of your computer to replace the actual hard drive with a newer / larger one, you can just plug in a stand alone hard drive for added file space. You can’t get much simpler than that folks.

External drives are available in various physical sizes and capacities. There are 5 GB pocket sized drives and large desktop only 300+ GB sized drives. The Seagate Technology Portable External Hard Drive that I’m going to talk about in this review falls somewhere in between big and small, so it adapts well to stationary desktop usage and on the road usage.



Available in 40, and 100 GB capacities (120 GB will be available later this year), I was sent the 100 GB version, which comes packaged in a vacuum sealed static protected bag. Also included with the drive is a CD with Microsoft Windows compatible utilities and backup software, a quick start guide and a USB cable.

Netgear MIMO Reviewed

The latest crop of pre-N wireless gear is really great. Even though it is outside of a standard, like b, g, and n, they're still great. The multiple antennae really improve the range, and the bandwidth.

The Netgear RangeMax Wireless Router is the next logical step in the high quality offerings from Netgear. The setup is quick and simple and the router is designed with security and filtering options in mind. Performance was first tier in our subjective tests, and the range was nothing short of amazing for a consumer device. The appearance is stylish and features a mesmerizing blue orb of wireless voodoo magic that will amaze cats and brainwash friends.

New Miata Tech

The new Miata is notable for a new 170 hp engine, and a few other tech items.

The spare tire has been replaced by a tire patch kit (run-flat tires are an available option), which not only saves weight but also frees up space in the trunk. We were able to fit two large bags, plus a heavy-duty tripod, with room to spare.

To fill all the extra interior space with sound, Mazda partnered with Bose to create an audio system specifically for the Miata. A switch in the convertible latch informs the audio system whether the top is up or down and adjusts itself accordingly. The system is even set up to compensate for cloth or leather seats.

The Miata is also available with a keyless start system called Smart Key. A credit card-sized key fob can be placed in a wallet, purse or pocket. With it the car can be unlocked by pushing a button on the door handle. Once inside, a driver simply turns a switch on the steering column to start the car. This can be a great convenience; however, a driver might forget to hand the key to a valet. Not that we did that.

I really like the Smart Key idea. My hands are usually full when I go to my car, and this would help.

Intel Can't Make Them Fast Enough....

I wouldnever believe that Intel couldn't keep up with demand.

Somehow, Intel, the largest chip manufacturer on the face of the earth, has run out of fab space in all of its 8-inch (200 mm) and 12-inch (300 mm) fabs. Previously it was reported that Intel was short on 865 and 845 chipsets, which is now confirmed to be caused by this shortage of fab capacity at Intel. This news, along with other news such as TSMC's expectations of full fab utilization, bode well for the semiconductor industry, because presumably somebody is buying all these chips. This is truly a remarkable occasion, as Intel is the largest chip vendor in the world and even it is not able to meet demand. The increase in demand could be caused by computer system manufacturers, such as Dell and Gateway, building stockpiles in anticipation of the "back-to-school" season, so it is possible that the demand will lessen in the next couple of months. Increasing fab space is a very long, difficult, and expensive process, though, and Intel may not be capable of expanding its facilities by the holiday season, which should also see a spike in demand, and which may yet again max out Intel's production capacity ... but then Intel has half a year to build a stockpile in anticipation of that event.

Maybe Intel can outsource some work to AMD.

Western Digital Hard Drive Warranty

I thought it was rather cheap of them when they cut the warranty to one year only. I also noticed that Seagate kept their warranty at 3 years. I bet a few others noticed as well, and sales were down. I can't imagine they're just "being nice."

WESTERN DIGITAL said it is increasing the warranty period on certain of its hard drives. The company will do this by standardising WD enterprise drives to a five year warranty, while WD desktop and notebook drives will be standardised at three years.

DVD Writer Comparison

This is a comprehensive collection of stats to ease the pain of which drive to upgrade to. The Plextor 740A and the Benq 1640 are the same except for the firmware. The LiteOn 1693S and the Sony 800 are also similar twins. Both sets of twins did very well, and led the pack on most tests.

The term "Best Drive" is subjective and in truth, very much depends on the needs of each buyer. Writing quality with CD or DVD media is an important issue, since we are talking about DVD burners. However, many people might think that CD burning quality is not an important criterion for basing a decision on which drive to purchase. And while for many, reading speed is something important, it has to be combined with good error correction. It is very common for a drive to offer a higher reading speed but with inadequate error correction. Many of the latest drives however have succeeded in combining both and this is an advantage. Bitsetting is another strong feature which we highly recommend you look for in a drive since it increases compatibility, mostly with older standalone, non PC players and not only.

It's worth assessing your needs carefully before purchase to get the best drive for you.

Belkin External Enclosure Review

I've seen similar products through the years. I've also seen very mixed results with these enclosures. Belkin's product works very well. It was a lot of work, but also very enjoyable to test.

Belkin’s External Drive Enclosure is the “digital shoebox” found. Users can access their optical drives and hard drives without opening their boxes and modifying their systems. The device proved stable across a variety of tests, and multiple systems using USB 1.1, 2.0, and FireWire connections. Both USB and FireWire were faster than both drives tested, and this is quite fast. The Belkin External Drive Enclosure is another “LD Approved” product.

For another opinion see this link. Also, About.com reviewed the drive here. The drive is generally well liked.

Travel A Little Lighter Next Vacation

Digital photography pros have had devices like this for some time. Now Belkin is making one affordable. For the price of a memory card, you can clear your memory card on the go. Now leave that laptop at home on your next vacation!

Using USB cables to transfer data, USB Anywhere copies files from your digital camera to your external hard drive, between two MP3 players, and/or between USB flash-memory drives, external hard drives, CD-R burners, and memory-card readers. When your digital camera’s media card gets full, you can use USB Anywhere to download the images to your portable hard drive and take more pictures.

Under the Hood of the Cell Chip

At Popular Science, they're looking at the new Cell chip. This is going to be the brains of the next PlayStation, so it gets a lot of attention. Pop Sci explains where it gets its muscle from.

Now a powerful new chip will add brains to the games’ beauty. Developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the much-ballyhooed 3.2-gigahertz Cell processor is packed with nearly 235 million transistors and nine onboard processors that can blast simultaneously through multiple calculation-intensive tasks, such as physics-simulation algorithms. Parallel processing is the latest performance- enhancing approach: Instead of upping gigahertz ratings, which are approaching their practical limits, chipmakers are combining more than one processing core on a single chip.

DVD Writer Roundup

This is a nice comprehensive roundup of the current crop of 16x DVD writers. it's a shame that there are still so many media compatibility issues in this otherwise mature area of technology. Also, I'm sure the review took some time to put together, so for example, the Sony 720 tested has been replaced by the 800 model.

We were really dissapointed in the NEC ND-3540A's performance when compared to drives like the BenQ DW1640, but hopefully their performance will improve as their BIOS matures.

The only drive we saw that could write to the majority of discs and quickly at that was BenQ's DW1640. It had average performance on most of the benchmarks. but always had a successful read to go with the successful write. The only disc that it could not write to was the MKM A03 8x DVD+RW.

Besides that single issue, the DW1640 has features to aid in successful writes, as well as bitsetting features to allow greater compatibility of the media to which it writes. The bitsetting utility can be downloaded from BenQ's website. Over these 6 DVDR units, we recommend the BenQ DW1640 for its performance and reliability in writing to various types of media. Expect this drive to start showing up on retail store shelves very soon.

Make mine a Benq! In the US, it's sold by Plextor as a rebadged model, the 740A.

Serious Earbud Article

The included earbuds with MP3 players generally are kind of cheap. For higher quality audio, you need better earbuds- but they are going to cost you. Find out the most bang for your bux with PC Mag's roundup.

Another thing you'll already know if you've been reading our MP3 player reviews is that the stock earbuds that come with MP3 players usually don't produce very good sound. If you're willing to pay more to upgrade to great sound, we've got the earbuds for you. As you consider your choices, take into account not just your budget, but also your listening tastes. Do you want throbbing bass for your R&B tracks, sizzling highs for jazz, or sonic accuracy for classical?

New Sony MP3 Player Reviewed

Sony has been trying to get back into the music player market since they bet big on minidiscs, and the market went hard drive for the iPod. Their latest flash based player is notable for its use of an organic LED which looks real sharp.

As one of the first new portable digital audio devices from Sony designed using the company’s MP3-friendly mantra, the NW-E507 does a great job. It’s an excellent piece of hardware that’s somewhat hobbled by transfer software. As a competitor to Apple’s iPod Shuffle, it stands out for its functionality, long battery life, and style. However, Sony must improve the transfer speeds and SonicStage if they want to have a truly killer device. The slow transfer speeds are unacceptable and SonicStage is still more complicated than it needs to be. The OLED screen makes a world of difference. When you have nearly 300 songs to sift through, not having a screen and leaving it to chance is absurd. Instead, it allows you to have options to listen to music the way you want to listen to music.

Help For Sick Hard Drives

Well, now there's a whole industry devoted to saving data off of failed hard drives. This gets kind of expensive, an external drive is cheap insurance- if you use it regularly.

Mr. Gaidano says that hard drives are so unreliable that they "should not exist today." Yet they are ubiquitous - in laptops that are tossed onto airport security belts, and on iPods and camcorders used while jogging and maneuvering around moguls. When they fail, panic is often the reflex. Many call Mr. Johnson's company, or ActionFront, DriveSavers and ESS Data Recovery, fearing that their most crucial records and most cherished memories have just been incinerated.

You've been warned to back up regularly!

Takes A Lickin' and Keeps the Data Safe

I don't seem to have the same luck with memory cards, but these students seem to have done well.

University of California-Santa Cruz students launched an atmospheric research balloon with a transmitter, digital camera, and data recorder on board back in March. The plan was to fly the balloon, record environmental data, and then have the balloon deploy a parachute to land. Things didn't go as planned, though, and the balloon headed out to sea, where it blew up and crashed into the ocean. A beachcomber found the balloon 20 miles away, and found that the loaded SanDisk SD cards used in the now-shattered camera and recorder were soaked by saltwater. After drying out, the camera's SD card worked perfectly, but the data recorder card was unreadable. The university sent the card to SanDisk, which was able to extract all the data. Bob sent a link to the press release, which discusses all the details and shows photos of the case study

I'm not sure that the damaged card would even fit in my memory card's reader slot!

Samsung YP-T7Z Review

This player is notable for a color screen, and a 1 GB flash based memory. It has a ton of features, but is somewhat more expensive than the competition.

The YP-T7Z has certainly been a convenient MP3 player. The compact size is a definite plus for those who already carry a number of things in their pockets. The backlit color LCD makes it very easy to read at any time of the day. The ability to do a number of things with one device is certainly better than having one device for each product.

The YP-T7Z certainly comes in at a high price for flash based MP3 players, but all of this is due to the added features; you won't find an FM Radio, Picture and Text viewer add-on for the Apple iPod Shuffle. However, you can find some hard drive based products offering much more space, with fewer features, at a similar price. One of these will be the Samsung YH-M20, a 5 GB solid state MP3 player, in an upcoming review.

Music For College Students

I'm not sure when music became essential to college students. I guess they want ot market early on to the students, maybe they'll start with preschoolers soon.

Dell and Napster have teamed up to offer discounted computers, software, and digital music for U.S. college students, in the name of legal Internet music downloading.

The two companies are offering packages that combine Napster's digital music service and software with Dell's hardware, namely blade servers, to "help colleges and universities offer students a legal way to download music files," Dell says in a statement this week.

The Dell-Napster deal is all about discounts, lower rates for students and faculty at academic institutions, as well as ensuring there's enough bandwidth to handle thousands of downloads at a time.

Toshiba's Gigabeat

On the topic of MP3 players, the Gigabeat was highly anticipated from Toshiba. i think the kinks haven't been worked out yet, so pass for the time being.

The PlusTouch control was difficult to use, sometimes shooting me through lists too quickly and then requiring me to tap with my fingernail one menu option at a time to get where I wanted to go. Overall it’s unintuitive to operate. The Gigabeat has just a few buttons, but it does have a toggle switch for volume. That made it all the more frustrating when I was trying to change tracks with PlusTouch and a volume bar appeared on the display. If I can control volume from a hard button, that function shouldn’t be duplicated on the already-taxed PlusTouch sensor.



Using the PlusTouch was a frustration, whether I was trying to scroll through pictures or change tunes. When I tried to Bookmark a list of songs (you can store 50 to make an on-the-fly playlist), each time I picked a song, the device took me back to the beginning of the list of artists. So if I chose Indigo Girls, I wound up back at Air and had to scroll my way down. Given the difficulty of navigating with PlusTouch, it was an annoyance.

MP3 Player Roundup

Predictably, this turned into a bit of an Apple iPod fest, but it was well done. They looked at more players than you're likely to see at any one store. There were some other stand outs as well. Worth checking out if you're in the market. I especially liked that they reviewed both large and small hard drive players separately.

You can distill the current fleet of hard drive audio players into a single phrase: More for your money. Prices have fallen steadily while storage capacity has risen dramatically over the past year, making 60GB and larger players a reality. Many players out there also double as photo viewers, recorders, and USB storage devices. But the success of no-frills music players such as the outrageously popular Apple iPods and the competitors from Creative, Dell, and Rio demonstrate that music is the main ingredient. And that's where we've put our focus in choosing devices and running them through our array of audio tests.

Power Supply Review

I like to review things that not everyone else is doing. This one was pretty neat! If you need an extra power supply for your notebook, or travel a lot, check it out.

Who Should Buy This?

“The Frequent Flier”

The more you travel with your notebook, the more you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it. Getting it setup, and stowed back in the bag is a real snap with the clever retractable cord cartridge. It also looks real sharp in use, and will definitely impress your colleagues as a conversation starter. Whether you travel around the world, or down to the local Starbuck’s, Kensington’s Universal Laptop Power Supply should be along in your notebook bag.

HP Now Sells iPod Shuffle

I would think that HP should make something of their own, but being the middle man seems to agree with them. I'm not a big fan of the shuffle, but the ads are cute.

Hewlett-Packard announced on Friday that it has added the iPod shuffle to its lineup of HP-branded iPods. The “iPod shuffle from HP” is identical to Apple’s version and comes in both the 512MB ($99.99) and 1GB ($129.99) sizes. The HP iPod shuffle is available now online at hpshopping.com and will soon be at major retailers, including Radio Shack, Sears and Wal-Mart. HP now sells all current iPods except for the special edition U2 iPod.

Musical Cell Phones

The ring tones were just the beginning. Now your cell phone wants a piece of the growing, and lucrative MP3 player market.

But as carriers roll out MP3-friendly high-speed cellphone networks, phone manufacturers have been inspired to boost memory and design phones with dedicated play buttons, built-in speakers, FM transmitters and graphic equalizers. In other words, they’re functional MP3 players.

Intel Releases Celeron D Chip

"D" stands for dual, as in dual core processor. it's amazing how much tech goes into the lower "budget" alternative!

Intel recently completed the 64-bit transition of its entire line of microprocessors from the desktop to the server with the release of its new Celeron D processors. Equipped with 256 KB of L2 cache, the EMT64-enabled Celeron D processors are available in clock speeds up to 3.2GHz. Toggling with a bus speed of 533MHz, the chips are manufactured using Intel's 90 nm process technology, available in LGA775 packaging. The low-cost chips also support the execute disable bit (a.k.a. XD, or NX--see our previous coverage), providing additional security capability for operating systems that support the feature. While Celeron D chips have typically been aimed at computers costing less than US$750, I beg to hasten the day when I can grab a few gigabytes of memory within the "Celeron budget." Nice to know the support is there.

Plextor 740 Review

It's always news when Plextor has a new drive. This one is based on Benq's 1640; as that is an excellent drive, this was a good starting point. The reading speeds were among the fastest seen to date. Writing quality was good, but less than outstanding. Fans of scanning their discs with Plextools will have to look elsewhere as this drive does not support. Is is a real Plextor or not? You decide!

- The Good

DVD-R DL support at 4x, and DVD+R DL support at 8x
Very good CD and DVD error correction capabilities
Supports CD-Text (reading/writing)
Supports audio protected discs
Good Single Layer DVD writing quality
Fast DVD-Video ripping speed

- The Bad

Cannot recognize 90/99min Audio CDs
Cannot create working backups with SafeDisc protected games over v2.80
Cannot overburn DVD recordable media
Can only burn Verbatim double layer media at 8X

Slingbox Reviews

Over at Live Digitally, they have a review of the new Slingbox. I've heard a lot about this thing, this is the first review I have seen of it. Basically you hook this up to your cable box, and than you can watch the stream over the internet from your computer. Pretty amazing stuff!

The local café is four blocks from my apartment, and has free WiFi for customers. My goal: watch the rest of the MTV Video awards, at a coffee shop! Finally my TiVo, Direct TV, Router, and Computer were working together in harmony. A grin fell over myself as I sat at the Café sipping a small decaf. I enjoyed my recorded television program with the same performance my desktop PC saw back in the apartment.

Here's what they said over at PC Mag:

As for the "why?" part of Slingbox: If you're traveling, you can catch the local news. You could use Slingbox to play a TiVo-recorded movie in your hotel room (might as well, as long as you're paying $10 a day for hotel broadband). Distant grandparents could see home movies stored on your DVR or Media Center PC; they'd just need the SlingPlayer software loaded on their PC (and a guest-access password). One or two of the channels you set up could be home security cameras that you connect to, say, your VCR's or TV's video-in jacks

For a slightly more end user experience, check this out.