Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

“Extremetech”:http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1419529,00.asp. A comprehensive review that helps plans buys for this upcoming year AMD “X-bit Labs”:http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20031203151532.html has all the details on the Prescott launch including pricing. The net is the launch is February 2. Main points are that we can expect in 1H04 the new “Prescott” to be marketed as SSE3 (what amazing marketing types these…

Four years ago, I bought two 15″ monitors for $1,000. Then, two years ago, we got a great LCD monitor for $900. Now, 19″ monitors that are very good can be had for $6-700. Amazing. Given I’m spending so much more time at home, it would be great to have a 19″. Here’s the analysis:…

OK, we’ve got a server running an old Pentium III 550MHz with 256MB of memory. It does have lots of disk though (2x120GB, 18MB system and 60GB backup with Promise Raid and removable drives). This is the only machine long term that won’t become a Shuttle box at some point because we need the drives.…

Tom’s Hardware Guide Mass Storage: Affordable and Reliable 80 and 160 GB Hard Drives – Solidly Middle Class And Affordable. If you don’t have $150 to spend on a hard drive, Tom’s Hardware likes the Samsung 160GB drive. It performed OK and is much cheaper at “$116”:http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=1224163/blsrt=1/ut=0ce6e8ac87113673 according to pricegrabber. That’s just $0.73/GB (although the…

Kazaa Lite K : Resources and Information. Kazaa Lite has gotten harder to find now that the folks behind Kazaa have been cracking down (how ironic that is!). In any case, these folks still seem to have a copy. “#KLChat”:http://kppdata.twizt3d.com/kl/index.htm. Some folks think this is the better non-spyware version of Kazaa. I’ll have to give…

RareWares. A great place to get codec binaries. “Hydrogen Audio”:http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/. Seems like the best forums for those with digital music technology questions.

Sysinternals Freeware – Utilities for Windows NT and Windows 2000 – NTFSDOS. Another darn useful tool if you corrupt your Windows NT/2000/XP installation. Let’s you read an NTFS partition from plain old DOS. When used with the network boot floppy, it should get you home no problem.

Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk for M$ Networks. Amazing someone is still maintaining this. Darn useful though if your machine doesn’t have a CD-ROM

Also know as how to get one big fat Windows partition into something manageable. I have a big partition and lots of data. So, how do you get to the right configuration and make everything boot correctly? * “Mandrake Linux”:http://mandrake.com. This Linux has a dynamic repartitioner for NTFS partitions. You defrag, backup and then run…

Using my Dad’s new Epson 3200 scanner. Man, there are a lot of software settings, here are some guides to getting the scanning right: * Epson Perfection 3200 scanner: Impressions by Norman Koren, Benjamin Kanarek, and Guido Bruck

Since I’ve been overclocking, I’ve seen two cases where the file systems have gotten corrupted, so caveat emptor. Seems pretty serious on NTFS since it scrambles everything. For instance on one machine, I lost a big part of the file tables. On another, it corrupted the Windows installation. In order to get back to sanity,…

Shuttle ST61G4. This could very well be the perfect Intel-based small form factor machine. Has a very fast ATI Radeon integrated graphics chipset (about half the speed of their top of the line card, which costs more than the entire Shuttle box!) Also has silencing technology to be quiet as well as a 6-in-1 card…

Tom’s Hardware Guide Graphics Cards: VGA Charts Part III – . _Tom’s Hardware latest reviews now takes price into account, basically you can buy a $400 card (!!!) and it is 50% faster than a $150 card, so the sweetspot in the market is nVidia and ATI’s mid range card_ We see that the Radeon…

The Windows XP defragger – is it good enough for the enterprise?. I’ve been running the XP defragmenter quite a bit on the video machine. Man, is it slow. Also doesn’t seem to speed things up much. So I’m off to try some commercial defragmenters. Here’s a quick review: * “O&O Software”:http://oo-software.com. This is another…

AppDeploy.com > The Network Boot Disk Creation Home Page. A place to figure out how to boot up from the network. I tried using Bart’s, but he’s exceeded his network bandwidth for the month 🙂 “Tech Republic”:http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6268-1054824.html. Ther e is an old Netowrk Client Administrator utility on the old Windows NT Server 4.0 CD is…

With Pentiums, the only way to overclock is to increase the bus speed of everything. But, the Athlon, with the right hardware and know how, you can leave the buses at their normal speeds and just increase the clock on the processor. here’s how: * “XP-TMC Adaptor Socket”:http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030703/index.html. This is a piece of hardware that…

A couple of more sources for the latest on processors. I’m thinking about spending $1,000 to upgrade two machines I have that are currently Pentium III 450Mhz and 550MHz if you can believe that (state of the art four years ago with 256MB at 133MHz and 8GB hard disk on one and 500GB on the…

OK, my third system this year based on the Shuttle. Bill wants to edit videos mainly and also use this machine to access the Internet. That sort of thing. He was looking at the Sony system which costs $1900. That machine has a Pentium 3.2GHz, 1GB memory and a 200GB hard disk plus a DVD…

X-bit labs – Hardware news – AMD Athlon 64 3400 to Come in December?. This chip didn’t quite make it in December, but it is the 2.2GHz version of the Athlon 64. So the line looks like: | Name | Speed | Memory Controllers | L2 Cache | Price | Comment | | Athlon 64…

ResellerRatings.com – Compare product prices, read customer reviews of stores.. Haven’t used these guys and can’t tell if these are legit, but a nice website that has reseller ratings. Will have to investigate

Connie’s Dad wants to capture analog video directly. Here are some direction on how: * Ars Technica: Guide to Video Capturing – Page 1 – (03/2003). This guide uses the Happauge WinTV PCI Card. $95 typically and widely available does take up an extra slot though. * “ATI All in Wonder 9600 Pro”:http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/video_graph/ati/aiw/9600pro/index.shtml. This is…

A quick update on buying recommendations as I’m off to buy yet another machine for Connie’s Dad. The recommendations are particularly hard since between the Pentium IV and Athlon 64, things aren’t super clear: h4. High-end System ($1500 target) | Component | Price | Comment | | Shuttle SN85G4 | “$330”:http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=150965 | SK83G2 need to…