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Although this will come out as sounding elitist, you don't deserve to be called a slashdot geek if you can't run your own cable and crimp your own connectors. Heck, the kit from Computer Geeks is so cheap, you can subsidize the cost by crimping patch cables to sell to your friends for cheap. I know you live in an apartment, but there are plenty of ways to consolidate and conceal the cable (local hardware store has lots of goodies). Because of the small diameter of the cable, you can run it along baseboards or under carpet and not have it glaringly obvious. Going through drywall won't be a problem---and if you worry about doing it in an apartment, make the hole as small as possible and patch it up before the final walkthrough inpection when you're ready to move out. You can use surface mount keystone jacks that can be easily removed and holes patched up when you're done with them---they're as damaging to the wall as hanging mirrors and picture frames. At times like this, dealing with supposed "easier" technology like wifi can actually end up costing you more time and headache. Why not just say to heck with it all and go "low-tech" with wires?

I don't know much about DiVX

I have a 1TB media server RAID-5 NTFS array (vintage 2002 so it's not a speed demon but still respectable - maxes out the PCI!). I back it up using FW400 (also not the fastest these days) onto an external 1TB RAID-1 array.

Anyway, one advantage I have noticed about DIVX over DVD is reduced bandwidth. You can get very respectable video quality from 1.5Mbps DIVX, versus ~4-5 times that DVD. Either of these is acceptable over wired connections, but 802.11a barely allows acceptable DIVX, and even 802.11g struggles to support more than a few DVD streams. But it manages several DIVX streams handily. There's also the issue of multiple seeks and STR rates on the RAID-array. So if you are in a family/group situation and you anticipate multiple simultaneous wireless access, recompressing to DIVX/XVID is a good option to reduce contention.

Also, if you're setting up a media server, then Media Center is a good choice. Its ability to do on-the-fly codec transcoding and bandwidth downsampling based on client profiles is a godsend, as is its ability to control Tivo and uPNP media hardware devices on the network. Technical info here.

just in case you had to switch HDDs wonder how long it'll take to back up 1TB

I have a 1TB RAID-5 NTFS array (vintage 2002 so it's not a speed demon but still respectable - maxes out the PCI!). I back it up using FW400 (also not the fastest these days) onto an external 1TB RAID-1 array. Using ntbackup with write-verify it takes 2 days for the backup, and 1 day for the verify.

XXCopy is quicker - takes around 1 day for write+verify.

These times would be cut to around a fifth if the data travelled over a faster bus than regular PCI and FW.

Seems like nobody makes hubs any more.

Or they should use the same system that we can now find in some flashlight. Shake and charge. Ideal when playing FPS games :)

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=70665& cat=CAR

I was able to carry two laptops (A ThinkPad and a PowerBook) in my rolling bag. You have to put a second sleeve in there, but it works.

Good point. To add: The new BTX for allows for supposed better cooling because of the arrangement of components on the board. However how much of that extra cooling is due to the new CPU fan orientation.

Currently most fans are mounted so that air flow is perpendicular to the board. So cases need additional fans to move air parallel to the board (intake and exhaust). There are some CPU fans like the Jet that are mounted the same way the new BTX fans are mounted.

This isn't new or innovative. Sun has mounted their CPU fans like this for years and even designed their computer so that there is a channel of air for just the CPUs. The Apple G5s and iMac G5 are also designed this way. With BTX there is the parallel flow but no channel so I would not assume that the cooling is as effective.

1. Soyo SY-K7VM333 socket A microATX motherboard -- $39.00
2. AMD Duron 1.1GHz (200MHz FSB) Socket A CPU -- $34.00
3. 11-Bay ATX Case w/300W Power Supply -- $19.00
4. 128MB PC-2100 Double Data Rate (DDR) 184-pin (16x64) RAM -- $27.00
5. 52x Beige IDE CD-ROM Drive -- $8.95
6. IBM Deskstar 20GB UDMA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Drive -- $34.00

1. Soyo SY-K7VM333 socket A microATX motherboard -- $39.00
2. AMD Duron 1.1GHz (200MHz FSB) Socket A CPU -- $34.00
3. 11-Bay ATX Case w/300W Power Supply -- $19.00
4. 128MB PC-2100 Double Data Rate (DDR) 184-pin (16x64) RAM -- $27.00
5. 52x Beige IDE CD-ROM Drive -- $8.95
6. IBM Deskstar 20GB UDMA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Drive -- $34.00

1. Soyo SY-K7VM333 socket A microATX motherboard -- $39.00
2. AMD Duron 1.1GHz (200MHz FSB) Socket A CPU -- $34.00
3. 11-Bay ATX Case w/300W Power Supply -- $19.00
4. 128MB PC-2100 Double Data Rate (DDR) 184-pin (16x64) RAM -- $27.00
5. 52x Beige IDE CD-ROM Drive -- $8.95
6. IBM Deskstar 20GB UDMA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Drive -- $34.00

1. Soyo SY-K7VM333 socket A microATX motherboard -- $39.00
2. AMD Duron 1.1GHz (200MHz FSB) Socket A CPU -- $34.00
3. 11-Bay ATX Case w/300W Power Supply -- $19.00
4. 128MB PC-2100 Double Data Rate (DDR) 184-pin (16x64) RAM -- $27.00
5. 52x Beige IDE CD-ROM Drive -- $8.95
6. IBM Deskstar 20GB UDMA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Drive -- $34.00

1. Soyo SY-K7VM333 socket A microATX motherboard -- $39.00
2. AMD Duron 1.1GHz (200MHz FSB) Socket A CPU -- $34.00
3. 11-Bay ATX Case w/300W Power Supply -- $19.00
4. 128MB PC-2100 Double Data Rate (DDR) 184-pin (16x64) RAM -- $27.00
5. 52x Beige IDE CD-ROM Drive -- $8.95
6. IBM Deskstar 20GB UDMA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Drive -- $34.00

1. Soyo SY-K7VM333 socket A microATX motherboard -- $39.00
2. AMD Duron 1.1GHz (200MHz FSB) Socket A CPU -- $34.00
3. 11-Bay ATX Case w/300W Power Supply -- $19.00
4. 128MB PC-2100 Double Data Rate (DDR) 184-pin (16x64) RAM -- $27.00
5. 52x Beige IDE CD-ROM Drive -- $8.95
6. IBM Deskstar 20GB UDMA/100 7200 RPM IDE Hard Drive -- $34.00

If I could run it 100% Windows Free I would, but the University I'm due to transfer to next year insists on everyone running Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, Office2000 or XP, and SPSS. Aside from SPSS I'd be totally fine being Windows Free but so far I have found no way to either run SPSS in Linux (neither Codeweavers nor the regular WINE project can do it at this point) but there are SPSS workalikes that are Linux native. Hopefully by the time I have to deal with stats I'll be able to convince my math prof to let me use either RProject or PSPP instead. I am so ready to ditch Windows once and for all.

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DD1205 -NB&cat=DVD

here is a non-ebay source with more than 2 left

Dude, there's better deals out there. CompGeeks often runs some killer deals. I got my dad a 2 GHz Pent IV (IIRC) for around $300 + $20 for shipping. Yeah, that one comes with a moniter, but you can get one of those on there too for less than $50. I think I'll just skip the AOHell.

Computer geeks has cheap megapixel digital cameras for under $100. Kreep an eye out - they had a refurbished 3.3MP (which I purchased and am happy with) a few weeks ago for under $60 - used compactflash too, which these days seems to be less common.

-Adam

Believe it or not, these cheapies from Compgeeks. ATA66-133 drive bay for less than $7.00. They work great.

Only thing is, they only power up when they're locked. I didn't like this, as I leave my server on 24/7 and if I need to yank a drive out because the house is on fire I won't have time to search for the key. The little metal piece that prevents you from removing the drive when it's powered up is screwed into the key mechanism. I unscrewed it and pulled it out. Now I can "lock" the case, which gives power to the drive, and still pull the drive out without unlocking it if I have to.

Also makes normal operations convenient because I don't need the key to change drives.

You could hop over to one of the surplus dealers and replace that raggedy pp200 with a box at least five time faster - I see 500-600mhz PIII machines go out the door all the time for $99.00. If an upgrade to five times the performance you are getting now isn't even worth a hundred bucks, then you simply don't count. You may have found it "refreshing" to read about a ceo who isn't hyping clock speed above all, but in the end you don't matter to him or the industry because your money never makes it up the food chain. You're not "the type" he's trying to reach because you obviously don't consider even a $300 laptop or $99 desktop a worthy upgrade - so when would you ever appear on his radar? Five years after, when the machines are so antiquated they're not even worth freight charges?

I'm not saying this to dis you: I'm also into being a green geek and recycling everything I can get my hands on (thus my collection of old "giveaway" desktops and cheap refurbished laptops). But those Via boards are not designed for sub-$100 desktops. At best they'd make a sub-$300 desktop, and you can buy machines right now that would trounce such a low end machine for much less than $200 on the surplus market. And you wouldn't be generating any new pollutants (except the packing materials and the fuel for shipments) with the surplus system.

So, are you really sure you're "the person he was thinking of?"

You can buy 500mhz laptops for under $300 if you're patient with your bidding and expect to do a bit of parts swapping. And yes, if you buy the right systems you'll find a machine that is very well upgradeable just by swapping a few parts. My own portable pet is a 500MHz PIII frankensteined from no less than three previously dead machines (only one of which is now still dead). I do this all the time and my only concession to new is to buy a new hdd (if needed) since brand new (warranteed) 20gb drives are only about twice as expensive as worn out 4gb drives.

You can do exactly what you're wishing, but you can't do it with new boxed parts and a three year warranty. If you want new then you got to get out the cleaning materials and spray paint and create!

Your construction
smells of corruption
I manipulate
to recreate
in this air
to ground saga
gotta launder my karma...

No long time computer user can go shopping for RAM (or other parts) without a quick visit to The Computer Geeks.

Computer Geeks

Net Seller

PC Onramp aka EPC

Directron

For comparison shopping:

Price Grabber

MySimon

Compgeeks has these for 22.95. I bought this one several months ago and am quite happy with it.

The only thing is; they don't have the Flexikey logo. Other than that they are exactly the same, right down to the graphics on the special function buttons across the top.

Compgeeks has these for 22.95. I bought this one several months ago and am quite happy with it.

The only thing is; they don't have the Flexikey logo. Other than that they are exactly the same, right down to the graphics on the special function buttons across the top.

This is an example of a newer 802.11b card that uses the AMD AM1772 chipset.

AMD makes a lot of differnet types of semiconductors. Not as diverse as Ti, but they're not trying to compete with Intel across all markets or anything.

Actually, it's not, and it's for sale now.

While it wasn't a Divx encoding, I just put together a (90 minute) full length computer animated movie, and it looks GOOD!

Computer Geeks has two listed: a narrow carriage industrial printer (Citizen 500) and a wide carriage model (Citizen GSX-195). The former is $84.99, the latter is $99. For a further discount, start at FatCash and link from there for a rebate, and also use coupon code FATWALLET for another 10% off.

And no, I don't work for any of these companies and really wish you would buy an IBM printer instead. IBM's models start at about $2600. They're called "impact printers," by the way. Just about every printer (except the old daisy wheel and band printers) uses dot matrix technology (a matrix o' dots).

Compgeeks has them for $144.50; you can check the site for the specs. It has MP4 capability, which is nice for you Xvid fans. For those of you who don't understand why we're griping that it has no CF slot, perhaps you'll understand better after I tell you that people have been getting cheap 4GB minidrive CF cards by cracking open devices such as the Creative Lab's Muvo2 MP3 player -- i.e. the higher capacity drives/memory cards so far, tend to be CF cards. It's still up in the air whether or not the 4GB minidrive from the Apple iPod can be used in devices that support CF Type II cards.

Zaurus is cheaper if you take a few minutes to look.
SL-5600
Here and here
SL-5500
here

And the hsn one comes with a free camera card.

If anybody has bought anything advertised by email, or is considering doing so, or knows anybody who buys from email advertisements, then please be aware: you are supporting the criminals who are deliberately and maliciously attacking your computer, and the computers of your friends.

Take a breath, sport. There are legitimate email advertisements. That's why Computer Geeks gets some of my money, and why the whole damn spam debate is so hard to clearly delineate. When you want to go off on criminal spammers, use a little more linguistic precision.
</rant>

Initially, I bought a pair of these for Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Playstation emulation. They're an inexpensive ($5/ea) playstation 1 controller clone (but in pretty translucent blue, which matched my cabinet nicely) but with much better action/feedback than the original playstation controllers. These worked great for the console emulators, and some MAME games, but there really is no substitute for a joystick and a handful of arcade buttons.

Recently, I decided to add a Nintendo 64 emulator to the cabinet also, but I was unable to find any USB controller that was close enough to the slightly-odd n64 controller to be usable. I settled on getting a pair of N64 to USB adapters.

At this time, there are basically just 2 available if you're bad at soldering, like me. The Adaptoid($30/ea), which is compatible with just about every n64 controller, and supports such niceties as rumblepads and memory packs, and the Lik Sang one ($12/ea), which features no rumble pad or memory pack support, and only works with the original black, gray, and yellow controllers. I went with the cheap ones :)

I use an external firewire chassis and put an IDE hard drive pullout tray in it. That way, whenever I need to swap in a new drive, I just power down the firewire enclosure, swap drives, and power it back up.

Everything works under Knoppix including sound. I haven't tried the modem yet, but really have no inclination to seeing as I have DSL at home and both 802.11b and GPRS connectivity available to me while out and about.

Only sticky bit is playing VCDs under Linux...the X video driver doesn't seem to be able to do video overlays like what is needed by Xine. I suspect with a little more digging I'll be able to deal with it. In the mean time, I can just boot over to the Dark Side and watch my VCDs happily.

Alan Cox still uses his 600 series ThinkPad, I believe, to give but one example of someone high up in the Linux Universe who uses a ThinkPad. However, there are hundreds of other Linux users who run Linux on ThinkPads. I think right now that the only laptop kit more common running Linux than ThinkPads are Apple PowerBooks and iBooks.

Computer Geeks still has 600X laptops around for super cheap...those have Pentium IIIs instead of Pentium IIs like the 600 and 600E do. Why look, here's one now. Enjoy!

Doubtful, unless you get yorself a socket-adaptor. The 1.4GHz chips (based on the Tualatin core) use a slightly different pin-out (FC/PGA2) than the older chips.

There's something very similar at Compgeeks, so you can dump the contents of a flash card onto a laptop disk. You have to provide your own laptop disk, but the USB 2 version should be pretty fast.

X's drive USB2
They also have a regular usb version

What, like the oft-toted-on-slashdot Forever flashlight, available at compgeeks for $10-$20 less?

First of all, the geekiest stuff is often home-build... have about contracting out to build something? I've always wanted to make one of these.... VP's are good at messing up computers so why not make it easy and geeky too!

Alternately, you can always shop at thinkgeek or compgeeks

Of course, much of my geeky pipedreams have involved cool places to put a flat panel display. How about something rigged up with a USB-flat-panel that looks like a desktop picture (but can change, or is animated). I know I've seen support for usb-flat-panel in my recent kernel version, so I'd assume the hardware is out there. Better yet, if you could fit it into a real picture frame so that it looks realistic, and enable it as default output for video-conferencing software: functional+geeky.

And of course, if you wanted to go outside the office (I doubt this would fly in most companies), replacing the ol' car stereo with a custom-wired miniPC (don't forget voltage-backing capacitors or a failsafe for when spikes/ignition), and perhaps an LCD that pops out of the glove?

Wireless is always cool. Go with the picture frame, but set it up wireless somehow so that it's as hard-to-figure as possible. You might even be able to do something with an old ebay laptop and a little wiring of the video connector through the desk. Anyhoo, just suggestions, and personal preference, but I'm sure there are lots of cool things one could do with miniturized PC components and a little time, and the custom-job is often much more unique/cool/geeky than stuff you find in even semi-geeky retail stores.

On the other hand, you could get a Pentium III (or another equally distasteful brand) for $200 from geeks.com and just replace the whole damn show.

On the other hand, you could get a Pentium III (or another equally distasteful brand) for $200 from geeks.com and just replace the whole damn show.

I've seen this at Computer Geeks for some time now. Even better, they also have it at newegg.

Pretty cool how you can use the radio, CD and mp3 playing capabilities without booting up the PC. But they say due to the proprietary nature (I assume they're talking about these features) that only MSI optical drives a guaranteed to work.

I'd also consider an XDrive II - it's a multiformat digital media reader that also can accept a hard drive. It comes in USB2.0 various flavors. (Bare or with internal HD)

I use the XDrive II in my daily routine. You don't have to have a computer to offload digital media onto the internal hard drive as their is a copy button on the drive with a little LCD indicating status.

IF you have to wait for a thumb drive -- a 1 gig + SD/MMC/XD reader of the Lexar Pro+ Jumpdrive is due out early next year. Also SD is being promised at 1 gig about that time and XD is promised to be 3 gig by the end of 2004. So if you don't like the XDrive suggestion, wait for this drive.

I'd also consider an XDrive II - it's a multiformat digital media reader that also can accept a hard drive. It comes in USB2.0 various flavors. (Bare or with internal HD)

I use the XDrive II in my daily routine. You don't have to have a computer to offload digital media onto the internal hard drive as their is a copy button on the drive with a little LCD indicating status.

IF you have to wait for a thumb drive -- a 1 gig + SD/MMC/XD reader of the Lexar Pro+ Jumpdrive is due out early next year. Also SD is being promised at 1 gig about that time and XD is promised to be 3 gig by the end of 2004. So if you don't like the XDrive suggestion, wait for this drive.

Any crypto algorithm worth its salt would have The Farm Boys cranking away until the Universe ended and then some. Not that this thing is going to be doing say, 2048-bit Blowfish or anything, but an expected brute-force or crack along a timeframe of 'weeks' is cryptographically poor.

On a similiar topic: this being sold at geeks.com. Front panel ports plus a thing that does "real time 64-bit DES" on your HD. I'm skeptical towards both products, but it's a good start. The jaded cynic in me saw "Secure IDE" and just assumed that Palladium was a step closer, at least data-storage-wise. Ever notice how when Certain Software Firms say 'secure' or 'trusted', it's usually not in the traditional senses of the words?

well that's easy: compgeeks.com

Alright so it's not quite a 733, but for $50 less it's close enough. Audio is good enough, and although the video may leave something to be desired a $30 video card off pricewatch would give you comparable 3D graphics.

To be honest I don't think people hack XBox's for the "bang for buck", I think they do it just to do it. If you could get the BMW's 745i computer to run Linux I'm sure people would be doing it.

Okay, for anyone who actually wants this system to work, it needs DDR Memory for $23 instead of that stuff above.

It also needs a $6 heat sink.

And, if you want it to really be comparable to the XBox, you need a $5 network card.

Okay, for anyone who actually wants this system to work, it needs DDR Memory for $23 instead of that stuff above.

It also needs a $6 heat sink.

And, if you want it to really be comparable to the XBox, you need a $5 network card.

Okay, for anyone who actually wants this system to work, it needs DDR Memory for $23 instead of that stuff above.

It also needs a $6 heat sink.

And, if you want it to really be comparable to the XBox, you need a $5 network card.

Socket 370 Motherboard: $25

Celeron 733: $32

128MB Memory: $32

nVidia Geforce 4: $47

DVD-ROM: $28

Case w/ 300W PS: $23

20GB 7200 RPM HD: $57

4 Channel Sound Card: $8

Total: $252

Of course, the XBox has a 5.1 channel sound card, but, other than that, this box would be superior. Not as cheap, though.

Socket 370 Motherboard: $25

Celeron 733: $32

128MB Memory: $32

nVidia Geforce 4: $47

DVD-ROM: $28

Case w/ 300W PS: $23

20GB 7200 RPM HD: $57

4 Channel Sound Card: $8

Total: $252

Of course, the XBox has a 5.1 channel sound card, but, other than that, this box would be superior. Not as cheap, though.