Mini Grows Up

This is Creative's answer to the iPod 6 GB, which trumped their 5 GB Micro player. They stepped it up several notches, on up to 20 GB. Not available state side yet, but more info here.

This player looks like it could get the mini market of mp3 players, the capacities to realistically hold some folks larger collections in a smaller size format. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Don't Throw That Old Computer Away

Now that old computer could be "vintage" and even worth several thousands to collectors. You can read the list here. Then you can decide if it is going to the auction house, or the garbage heap.

How To Guide For Computer Crashes

Over at MSNBC, they are talking about what to do when your computer crashes.

"Even those consumers who curb their violent impulses tend to do the wrong thing by attempting to fix the problem themselves. Some even start disassembling hard drives in an attempt to recover lost data, Johnson said. Such electronic experimentation can make matters worse."

OK, so don't try taking the hard drive apart. In that case there really are no user serviceable parts inside.

iPod Speakers

Share those tunes. See what CNET thought of this Logitech product which is a set of speakers for your iPod.

"What you get are compactable speakers that can run on batteries, complete with a protective case, all at a decent price. We've messed with $40 portable speakers, and they don't compare favorably in terms of sound quality, which comes through clean and live but predictably tinny with very low presence of bass on the Logitech mm22. Sound will carry through a small room, but don't expect to rock the house, particularly since the mm22 can't handle the highest volumes. These are good for picnics but not for parties. We've heard much better and seen many cooler features--especially for iPod-based designs--but considering the mm22's price, we can't complain too loudly."

I will say that the case does look VERY slick!

AMD Interview

Over at Anandtech.com they have a nice interview with AMD.

"From talking to people like Justin Rattner and Fred Weber, the future of the CPU industry is looking to be particularly bright. For the first time in recent history, we have both AMD and Intel agreeing on major points of future microprocessor architectures, and to AMD's credit, it looks like a lot of the decisions they made with the Athlon 64 were, in fact, the right ones."

Nice to see that AMD is doing things right for a while. There are also some details about their upcoming mobile (Turion) processors.

Double Layer DVDRW Roundup

Over at PC World, there is a nice review of current DVDRW offerings.

"Except in the case of double-layer writing, you probably wouldn't notice most of the performance differences we observed, unless you used a stopwatch. In the end, a combination of overall strong performance and friendly documentation garnered the Toshiba SD-R5372 one of our two Best Buy nods. The BenQ DW1620 earned the other Best Buy, for pairing excellent performance with a low price."

I'm a big fan of the Benq, and am consistently unimpressed with Toshiba's offerings. Toshiba's drives are generally picky about media which makes for a painful experience.

New Notebooks

There are some tests of the new 915 chipset notebooks over at PC World. No surprise, but these are not anything that revolutionary. They do set the stage for further improvements though.

"Even though these systems utilize a faster platform than previous notebooks, we didn't expect to see a dramatic increase in performance--and we didn't get one. This update is more about setting the stage for future improvements than setting the world on fire with faster run times today. Happily, these systems don't carry a sizable price premium over non-Sonoma notebooks."

New Notebooks- Less For Less

I'm all for getting good value, but this is not. CNET is talking about some new notebook models. they all sound very underpowered, and rather overpriced for what you are getting. Don't say I didn't warn you.

"The portable LX 300 will come with a 12.1-inch wide-screen display, a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron M 350 processor, 128MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive and a combination CD-burner/DVD-ROM drive for $699. It will be preloaded with Linspire 4.5 when it starts shipping in April."

iPod Cell Phone

Electronics makers are always looking for the "next big thing." If they would stop pushing those camera phones, and devote their attention to an iPod phone, they might have something.

Samsung Drive Review

It seems like Samsung needs to hire some firmware engineers. They got the hardware right, but the firmware needs some help. Hopefully, they'll keep on working on it. Read the review over at CDR Labs.

"While the TS-H552U is an excellent CD burner, it's DVD burning abilities are very suspect. We tried valiantly alongside Samsung, through several specially rewritten firmware updates to make this drive work the way it should, but we could not overcome several glaring write quality issues. When burning with the TS-H552U it is obvious that users would have to use high quality DVD+R media from a very select group of manufacturers in order to keep the quality of the burns satisfactory."

LG Review

"To sum it all up, this is the best we could say: “The worlds fastest DVD-Writer, which also offers good quality. But stay away from unknown disc types with this drive.” The drive has earned our “Editors choice” award, even though the drive is not perfect, it still has some noticeable strengths; worlds fastest writer, good writing quality and supports all formats including DVD-RAM. This makes it quite unique and it really deserves the editor’s choice award."

OC-Freak has done his usual, and exemplary, review of the latest DVD burner from LG. I've never been that impressed with LG's drives, but some of the features are standout, including DVD-RAM spport. Media support could definitely be better.

Pez MP3 Player

"...the Pez MP3 will arrive sometime this summer. The gadget will be built around a Samsung chip and will have 512MB capacity, as well as an LCD screen. The device will look exactly like a traditional Pez dispenser from at least two sides and will come in a variety of colors, said Patrick Misterovich, president of the Springfield, Mo., design company."
What won't they think of next. I can't say that I was clamoring for this one. But at $129 for 512 MB's, it's not a bad deal, and more stylish than the minimalistic iPod Shuffle.

Tax Return On Net

A man who used tax return software and a peer to peer software application ended up with his tax return on the internet. All that glitters is not gold.

Photoshop Tips

Looking for some tips to make your photos their best with Photoshop. Put down that 300 page tome and head over to Anandtech for the latest ideas, and get your photos just right.

First Tests Of Intel 64 Bit Processors

If you're an AMD fan, than relax. PC World has reviewed the new Pentium 64 processor, and it doesn't exactly trounce AMD's offerings. Read about it here.