Category: Hardware

You want a really, really big external drive?

Forget USB and FireWire. I want one of these Terabyte Hot Drives from Evergreen Technologies:

The TeraByte HotDrive is based on the latest Serial ATA RAID technology. By incorporating this new data transfer technology, the HotDrive delivers the large storage capacity demanded by today’s data intensive computing at speeds that will support your productivity requirements. Evergreen’s HotDrive storage products are the ideal answer for audio and video production studios, cad design, database management, and small home and office networks.

Our four bay drive enclosures measure 10″ High x 7″ Wide x 15″ Deep.


The entry-level 1000 GB (1 terabyte) drive array is under a grand. Thomas Hawk, this might be the solution for your massive music collection!

Is this the perfect Tablet PC?

Michael Gartenberg has convinced me to put the new X41 ThinkPad Tablet PC on my short list:

This device is a no compromise system that’s perfect for business use. The Tablet functionality simply adds a hugely powerful mobile feature to what is already a killer device. Want pen based functions. You got it. Want to go ahead and type a long email with a full size ThinkPad keyboard. Done. Want to work for more than six hours on a single battery charge. It’s in there. The wonder of this machine is that it’s not revolutionary. It’s not the thinnest, lightest, cheapest or most expensive. It is the best of the breed. This is a device that will clearly be the Tablet of choice for the verticals that need the functionality immediately and I suspect this machine is the first Tablet that can be good enough over time to make inroads with horizontal mainstream users as well. The Tablet PC edition of Windows isn’t dead, it’s just been hibernating waiting for the release of this machine.

Still nothing on the Lenovo site with product details – only this Webcast.

Update: Details on the X41 Tablet (including a 3D tour) are here and full specs are here. (Thanks to jkOnTheRun for the pointer.) Up to 8.5 hours battery life? Under 4 pounds? Yes!

I am, however, steeling myself for the price tag, which I assume will be formidable.

Dude, where’s your Tablet PC?

Robert McLaws grabs Dell by the collar and slaps them silly for not having a single Tablet PC in their lineup because “the market is too small.”

One of the main reasons the Tablet business is so small is because you’re not playing in it yet. Wake up and smell the consumers! You guys are the #1 marketer to the average computing consumer. If you guys had a Tablet, a smart ad campaign from the Dell Dude (fresh out of Rehab or wherever), and had the same financing options you do now, you’d have a LOT more Tablet sales.

Absolutely right. Dell drives me crazy with dumb support policies and practices, but they still make excellent products at unbeatable prices, and I buy or specify a lot of Dell products. I’m getting ready to replace my Toshiba Tablet PC with a new model, and it kills me that Dell isn’t competing for my business.

Frustrated by power supplies for your gadgets? Here are three easy fixes

The Your Tech Weblog (whose author really needs to provide some bio information) recently served up this mini-rant, which I found courtesy of Ernest Miller at Corante:

My current tech pet peeve: gadget power adapters that aren’t properly labeled.

An iRiver AC adapter, for instance, should read “iRiver” somewhere on its surface so it’s more easily associated with an iRiver music player. For tech journalists or geeks with multiple gadgets, this is a potentially nightmarish situation.

PalmOne, for shame; Sony-Ericsson, kudos; etc.

I understand how this happens. Cost-conscious hardware makers buy generic power supplies from low-cost providers. If they have the same power supplies custom made, including the company name and logo, the price goes up. A company that is struggling to be profitable or to avoid losses is going to be tempted to shave 50 cents off the cost of every device as a way to keep its bottom line under control.

The rest of this item contains a solution to this problem, a piece of troubleshooting advice that can help you match a generic power supply to its device, and a bonus tip that might help you reduce the number of power supplies you have to deal with.

Solution: Add your own labels to power supplies. When I get a new device that includes its own AC adapter, I slap a small sticker on it and use a Sharpie to write the device name. (The small labels for file folders usually work well for this purpose.) Update: The PC Doctor notes that the adapter block can get hot and cause the adhesive on the label to give up; he recommends attaching the sticker to the power cord instead.

Troubleshooting advice: Every AC adapter has to be labeled with some key information, which can help you sort out which device it goes with. You may need a bright light and a magnifying glass to read this information, but it’s there. Look for the following data points:

  • Input voltage. Most devices manufactured today for worldwide markets accept 110-240V AC, 50/60Hz, which means they can be used in just about any country with the proper plug adapter.
  • Output voltage. This will be expressed as a measurement in volts DC. The adapters for my Audiovox SMT5600 phone, my iRiver H120 music player, and my wife’s Creative Zen Micro all put out 5V DC. The battery charger for my Canon S500 digital camera puts out 4.2V DC.
  • Output current. This will be expressed in amperes or milliamperes (typically abbreviated A and mA, respectively). The labels on the adapters for the four devices I listed above show output currents of 1A, 2A, 1000mA, and 0.7A, respectively. (Note that 1A is the same as 1000mA, and 0.7mA could also be expressed as 700mA.)

Update: The PC Doctor recommends checking the polarity of the output jack as well. He has a good diagram here.

Armed with that information, I can check the technical specifications section of the manual for my device (Look it up online if you can’t find the printed manual) and find out what its input power requirements are. Those requirements, not surprisingly, should be a perfect match for the output of the power supply. When you find a generic power supply whose power output specs match your device’s input requirements, with a plug that is compatible with the jack on the device, you’ve got a winner. Slap a label on it.

Caution: Don’t assume that any AC-to-DC power converter with a matching plug will work in your portable device. Plugging in a mismatched converter is the surest way I know of to destroy a valuable device.

Bonus Tip: Don’t carry around multiple power supplies if you don’t need them. My wife’s Creative Zen Micro and my Audiovox SMT5600 Smartphone have custom power adapters that carry the company’s logo. But each one has absolutely identical power output specs (5V at 1000mA) and identical USB connectors. I can plug the music player into the phone’s power supply, or vice-versa.

Likewise, the adapters for my iRiver music player and my Creative Labs portable speakers are functionally identical. So, on my recent trip to Europe I carried only two power supplies for these four devices. After the music player was fully charged, I unplugged it and plugged in the phone. That simple step cut the hassle of carrying adapters (and constantly plugging/unplugging them) in half.

Tim loves his 20-inch widescreen monitor

Tim Coyle is ga-ga for his Dell 2005FPW monitor:

I got the monitor with a 14 Watt Sound Bar for $445 – including shipping. And let me tell you – this monitor is amazing. I am really digging wide screen – big time. I can see extra columns of data in Excel and my widescreen DVD’s are actually in widescreen now! It comes with an adjustable stand so you can easily raise or lower it, tilt or turn it. It has two usb slots on the side for easy access. You can see in the above image how it compare to my old 17” LCD display.

I’ve got one too, hooked up to my Media Center display. I like it so much, though, that I’m thinking of swapping it with one of the two 18-inch Dell Ultrasharps on my desktop. There is no better productivity-enhancing tool than a second monitor, in my opinion, and a 20-inch widescreen would still fit on my desk. Hmmm…

Update: Of course, then I see this review of the new 24-inch widescreen Dell Ultrasharp, with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200. What would one of these look like on the desktop? How about two of them?

Tip of the day: Keep your computer cool

Sometimes the cause of Windows problems isn’t software at all. If you suddenly begin experiencing mysterious crashes, pay attention to when they occur. Overheating inside your computer case can cause memory chips, CPUs, and other heat-sensitive parts to stop functioning properly. If your computer consistently begins crashing a short time after you power on, heat may be the problem. Here’s a short list of things you can do to diagnose and repair heat-related problems:

  • Check the power supply fan and make sure air is blowing from the inside out. A broken fan will cause problems in no time.
  • If your PC has a separate case fan, check to see that it’s operating properly as well.
  • If your computer’s BIOS includes a temperature reading (many new models do), check it by restarting and going into the BIOS setup after you’ve been running for a while.
  • Clean out those dust bunnies! Take your PC’s case off and use a can of compressed air to carefully blow out dust that may be clogging up ventilation ports.
  • With the cover off, check your CPU fan. This device sits right on your CPU and blows heat away. If it stops working, your computer will, too.

Those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere are about to head into the hottest time of the year. So now’s a good time to ensure that your cooling systems are working as they should.

What do you get when you cross a hard disk with a flash drive?

I spent 90 minutes in the Windows Hardware pavilion at WinHEC last night and saw some cool stuff. Most noteworthy was a hybrid disk drive that incorporates non-volatile flash memory into a conventional hard disk drive. The impact on performance is pretty huge, as you can imagine. This technology is still pretty early, but it should be commercially available when Longhorn ships.

I also got a chance to look more closely at the “Metro” technology. It looks like there will still be room in the world for PDF files. The real impact is to replace the old Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format with a new, smarter native format for printed output. There’s a big overlap with PDF files, but it’s not as direct a competitor as early reports, including mine, might suggest.

Quieter, cooler PCs

I just got out of a fascinating session at WinHEC on designs for new Media Center PCs. Nvidia has been researching heat and noise in PC design, with a special emphasis on creating PCs that are quiet and cool enough to pass the living-room test.

Heat comes from some surprising sources. If you select the right CPU, it will probably pass the heat test with flying colors. Under heavy loads (recording two programs at once and playing back a DVD), the most heat came from graphics processors, tuner cards, and hard drives, all of which easily hit 60 degrees Celsius (140F).

The challenge for the next generation of Media Center PCs is to cool down all these components and keep fan noise to a minimum and put it all in a case that fits in your audio rack. That’s a tall order.

Some great links on the final slide:

Case and fan designs:

Quiet PC specialists:

I have yet to find aPC quiet enough for my living room, which is why my Media Center PC is in the office and a Media Center Extender is connected to the TV. Custom home builders have been hiding audio/video equipment in closets for years; maybe this technique is ready to move into more modest homes.

 

Auxiliary displays

Here’s a feature you’ll start to see on portable PCs around the end of next year. The auxiliary display is a tiny LCD-style screen (plus navigation buttons) embedded into the outside of a notebook or other portable computer. The idea is simple: You can check an appointment, look up a phone number, pull up a music playlist, or do some other light task without having to open the PC and wait for it to wake up. Great idea!