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A 200$ netbook is coming soon and it will run Ubuntu.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ALPHA-400&cat=NBB

Well under $200 (was below $150 not long ago), runs Linux, and different variations of the machine have been available for a couple years.

The driver is not specifically for the wind. That's the same chip used in cheap USB wireless adapters like this one and RealTek has been providing their OS X driver for some time. The driver and associated utility do not work very well, FWIW, and I don't suggest trying to use them with a Mac unless you really have no other option.

Save your pain and just go with IBM/Lenovo. They are still the standard bearer when it comes to keyboards (despite what they have done).

I've owned two Thinkpads over the years. Their keyboards aren't the worst, but they aren't all that great, either.

That, and you don't have to have a cut-rate quality netbook attached to it. An older X series can do just fine and still fit the bill.

The world is moving on... Power consumption, weight, etc. The EEE PC is the one everyone latched on to, but some others are even better (spec-wise), provided their designs were fleshed out just a little bit more. eg. http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ALPHA-400&cat=NBB

In fact here it is for just $180..

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ALPHA-400&cat=NBB

looks like you can get one now from geeks.com http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ALPHA-400&cat=NBB

here is one it has way more features than a XBox. I can build one cheaper here.

http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=NBB
http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/edealinv/servlet/ExecMacro?nurl=control/BrowseCatalog.vm&ctl_nbr=641&path=c641-def-USD-230%23%23-1%23%23-1~~c641-def-USD-43620%23%233%23%23at~~c641-def-USD-43622%23%230%23%2385~~q&query=&sortby=%2Bprice

Take a look here at what The Computer Geeks has available for servers. One of the listings is for a new 1U Pentium IV server w/ 1GB RAM & 120 GB HD for $320. Add a second 120 GB HD for $50 and a slimline combo optical drive for $25, and you have a basic 1U server for about $400.

I can get a Dell Axim x5 for about the same price, which has faster screen updates and can be used away from the wall socket. I can also get a refurb of a BlackBerry 8700 or a new open box Navman PiN 570 PDA with built-in GPS. If you include specials that are running right now, Geeks.com has a refurbished Axim x51 for $180 or a refurbished Jornada 728 for a few dollars more.

I'm all for the open source angle, the soft shell, and the whole underdog thing, but usefulness is important.

I can get a Dell Axim x5 for about the same price, which has faster screen updates and can be used away from the wall socket. I can also get a refurb of a BlackBerry 8700 or a new open box Navman PiN 570 PDA with built-in GPS. If you include specials that are running right now, Geeks.com has a refurbished Axim x51 for $180 or a refurbished Jornada 728 for a few dollars more.

I'm all for the open source angle, the soft shell, and the whole underdog thing, but usefulness is important.

I've been running whitebox servers like that at home for years but recently decided, like the original poster, that I wanted to go with a rackmount setup. If you're deadset on building a custom system, then I can't offer much advise. Me, I picked up a couple of these.

Even after paying shipping and picking up a could of larger hard drives, I don't think I could have build a similar system any cheaper. One is my mail/web server and the other is an internal domain controller and file server.

They don't come with rails, so they're sitting on shelves in my rack rather than actually installed but I can live with that.

This one is cheaper and more flexible.
In my experience, it is a good idea to get a big 120mm fan and plug it into the same power-supply to keep the disk cool while you use it.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=EN2535A&cat=HDD

For super simple.
Freenas.org offers will do the trick.
Want to get fancy? Openfiler.com will do anything you could want.
For hardware. Well if you have a spare case with a good power supply sitting around you could go with this. http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001
It will be low power and is pretty cheap. Just buy some DDR-2 ram and what hard drives you want and your good to go.
This board does have two slots free so you do have some expansion options for more drives or even a raid if you want.
If you don't want to build a system then you could get the $199 Walmart Linux PC which uses this motherboard. If you are going to put a lot of drives on it I would still upgrade the power supply.
You could also pick this up at geeks.com http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=TS-X2002RS
Or if you want just use what any old PC you have.

It all depends on what you want to do. There are some nice small NAS systems that you can just plug in as well.

Weird cause I have one at home I got from geeks.com

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MP4-NXV-WATCH-512&cat=MP3

Please don't turn me in.

--BTW, Example Linkies: (Std Disclaimer, I have no affiliation blah blah)

o PCI Card: ** (Silicon Image Sil3112ACT144 chipset) -- Should also work in Linux
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=VP-9601&cm_mmc=googleproducts-_-Controllers/Adapters-_-SATAControllers-_-VP-9601&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=VP-9601

o eSATA -> SATA Cable
http://cooldrives.stores.yahoo.net/10satsaexca3.html

The Game King can play NES and GB/GBC games. It is also a 1GB Portable MP4/MP3/FM/Voice/Camera/JPEG/TXT W/SD Slot AND 2.3'' LCD for $70

GAMEKING-II

Yes, I use a trackball, no I do custom, embedded linux os work.
I use this one, I prefered to use my fingers instead of my thumb. $21
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=904360-040 3-DT&cat=MOU

I got it because my wrists hurt with a mouse, since I got this a few years back, my wrists don't hurt anymore.

Don't know why they cost more, the parts are the same concept. Production scale I suppose.

1. It is currently out-of-stock (or unavailable - see catch #2)
2. Both keyboards that I received needed modification to work.

In my experience, practically every new PCI modem you find is a winmodem. And finding out which chipset before buying is a real task.

There is an easy (and cheap) way to get a real hardmodem though. Just buy an external modem with a serial interface. If it's got a serial interface, it's got to be a hardmodem.

Plug it in, set your modem to /dev/ttyS0 and you're off.

One at ComputerGeeks for $10.50.

I imagine the geeks store will carry their USB floppy drive for a little longer... I couldn't pass that deal up ($15.99!) as it seems way too often I need to install raid drivers, do a bios flash or some other odd floppy required task to get a deskop or a server going... I never get to use my USB drives. Kind of a bummer. (and the real humor is, the floppies are only needed when we have to combine top of the line equipment!)

The factors involved seem to be being present when a photo opportunity happens, recognizing a photo opportunity, having a half-decent camera, and having the skill to produce a well composed photograph (instead of a blurry mess with half a thumb).

Being present is somewhat a matter of luck. However, photojournalists (like other journalists) spend more time than most people in many areas where "newsworthy" (IE: "I can turn that into a story!") events are more frequent. This improves their chances.

Recognizing a photo opportunity is a learned skill. Unsubtle ones like the collapse of the World Trade Center can be recognized by any moron with a pulse and an IQ higher than room temperature. However, such moments may be hard to pick out of the crowd of moments around us, as the current Wikipedia example image for Eisenstaedt suggests. The kiss is one amoung millions, probably even millions that day; but capturing it has elevated it. Would you have stopped and taken the shot, or merely smiled kindly at the happy couple and wandered on past? (I don't think "Get a room!" was a current expression at the time; anyone know?)

The ubiquity of cameras has reduced the importance of merely having a camera on the scene. However, all cameras are not created equal. No matter how lucky you are, you won't get the same quality shots with a keychain toy as with a fully kitted Hasselblad. Professionals put serious money into having the best gear, since they can get a return on the investment (and often a tax write-off). The barrier isn't absolute, since the availability of quality and affordable digital camera gear has gone up over the last couple years; there's a lot of "prosumer" grade cameras about. However, the ubiquitous cell phone camera is a lot closer to my first example for quality.

The last element is skill. With the cost of "developing" digital shots so low, it's a lot cheaper to develop the skill of photo composition than it used to be. However, since developing such skill also takes effort, most people still use a RFC 2795-styled approach, taking shots and picking the best afterwards. While a professional does this too, the expert knowlege they possess means they have a higher starting point, and an easier time finding that one utterly outstanding shot.

As Heinlein observed in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, "There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe." I wouldn't be too shocked if an "amateur" ended up with a Pulitzer within the next 20 years, but I don't expect the professional photojournalists to die out any time soon.

Yowtch, extreme! ...and here I am, getting all flustered at the 25sec. span it takes Ubuntu to come to login. Although... with my Win2k dual-boot, the time does increase to 45 sec. (not taking in all the startup services and call-home updates taking place) Leave it to MSFT to have a system that looks booted without really being "booted".

My best suggestion for a P/Pro system (more like a PowerPC than AMD or P4) would be to go for full-uptime; have it on 24/7 (idling at login screen when you're not using it)

For that solution, uninterruptible power would be key, and with the preeminent conditions of your area, it would seem to be a necessity! Those with serial DB-9 or USB interface would be best; gives feedback to a Windows applet and even appends to system events.

Other keys for speed; RAM RAM RAM... you can get most SDRAM (does it even take SDRAM?) on the real-cheap from discount places like http://www.geeks.com/.

Other tips generally come in the form of; reduce your startup items* and/or pace them with delay software* so they aren't chewing-up CPU so much during boot; shut-off unnecessary services or keep them from auto-starting until they are needed; and remove unnecessary devices in Device Manager.

* The above software links are only suggested titles I've used myself among many other options out there.

In addition to the other Denverite; I'll throw my hat into the ring with an old Athlon 1.1GhZ that seems to overheat too easily. The MoBo and ram seem to be the tops. (takes DDR 266 or "PC 2100") Don't underestimate the benefit of a faster hard-disk, either!

These tips come compliments of another who has burned the crucible of aging hardware time and time again. (after all, the $500 cost for a serious upgrade only comes along every year or so) Currently using (at home) a 1.7GhZ Sempron within a Soyo barebones kit. (all told, the Kit, CPU and RAM only cost about $250 at the time) My next project, Home-Theater PC with Linux.

I have this player below. 20GB drive, 7 hours video playback(I tested myself), 3.5" screen, built in camera, an FM tuner, works on non windows platforms, contains a video recorder, even has a microphone. The cost is 149USD. This is what I bought, and its WAYYY better than the ipod. I even used ipodder and have it convert every video to the player's resolution and format. Oh, and the player supports many more formats than the ipod.

I can record from the microphone, fm tuner, camera(still or video), and video input!!! The ipod is a toy compared to this player.

I repeat, the cost is 149USD. Bite me apple!!!

description...

The SP-PMP is the perfect size for viewing your favorite movies, TV shows or home videos. With its huge 20 GB hard drive you'll have all the storage you need for all your favorite media, plus with its built-in FM tuner you'll never miss a beat! Share your movies, photos, music with friends and family on the TV or stereo via the audio and video out cable.

# 640 x 480 (30fps)/ 320 x 240 (30fps) video recording
# MPEG4, AVI, DIVX, MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, JPEG, BMP, GIF file support

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SP-PMP51C

I have this player below. 20GB drive, 7 hours video playback(I tested myself), 3.5" screen, built in camera, an FM tuner, works on non windows platforms, contains a video recorder, even has a microphone. The cost is 149USD. This is what I bought, and its WAYYY better than the ipod. I even used ipodder and have it convert every video to the player's resolution and format. Oh, and the player supports many more formats than the ipod.

I can record from the microphone, fm tuner, camera(still or video), and video input!!! The ipod is a toy compared to this player.

I repeat, the cost is 149USD. Bite me apple!!!

description...

The SP-PMP is the perfect size for viewing your favorite movies, TV shows or home videos. With its huge 20 GB hard drive you'll have all the storage you need for all your favorite media, plus with its built-in FM tuner you'll never miss a beat! Share your movies, photos, music with friends and family on the TV or stereo via the audio and video out cable.

# 640 x 480 (30fps)/ 320 x 240 (30fps) video recording
# MPEG4, AVI, DIVX, MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, JPEG, BMP, GIF file support

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SP-PMP51C

I have this player below. 20GB drive, 7 hours video playback(I tested myself), 3.5" screen, built in camera, an FM tuner, works on non windows platforms, contains a video recorder, even has a microphone. The cost is 149USD. This is what I bought, and its WAYYY better than the ipod. I even used ipodder and have it convert every video to the player's resolution and format. Oh, and the player supports many more formats than the ipod.

I can record from the microphone, fm tuner, camera(still or video), and video input!!! The ipod is a toy compared to this player.

description...

The SP-PMP is the perfect size for viewing your favorite movies, TV shows or home videos. With its huge 20 GB hard drive you'll have all the storage you need for all your favorite media, plus with its built-in FM tuner you'll never miss a beat! Share your movies, photos, music with friends and family on the TV or stereo via the audio and video out cable.

# 640 x 480 (30fps)/ 320 x 240 (30fps) video recording
# MPEG4, AVI, DIVX, MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, JPEG, BMP, GIF file support

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SP-PMP51C

I love my Tapwave Zodiac: you get a nice 4 inch screen, Stereo Speakers that are quite loud, 2 SD card slots for 8Gb of total (2x4Gb SD cards when used with Fat32 Driver) storage, Bluetooth, and a 4-5 hour play time. Use Core Media Player and pocketDiVXencoder for video. You can encode movies down to 200Megs. Bluetooth GPS. I Use LJZ for Console emulation of GB, NES, SNES, Gen, NGP, WS,and TG16. There are also some SD games(Doom,DukeNukem,SpyHunter,Galactic realms, and Legacy). There is also a free version of Quake and Hexen avaliable. Also there is a version of SCUMM VM.

Its also a Palm PDA so you have a Office suite with Document To Go, and a few Web browsers that work with a Bluetooth Phone. Sync with Outlook(not my choice, thats what the USAF makes us use). It also nice because you can play MP3s while running other applications with very little slow down.I can also take my SD card from my camera and view the pics and vids with out any reformating. Its hard to call this a "PDA", its trully a small tablet computer. --

Zodiac Fat32 Driver
IR Keyboard

Uhm.. 10 bucks'll get you that: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=IW-06&cm_v en=Froogle&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_ite=total Videos > Video Settings > TV Out, Signal, and Widescreen

Funny, I currently live in New Castle, Indiana, and Tuesday FedEx just left a package from http://www.geeks.com/ next to the door without anybody signing for it, and it had a 1GB DDR PC3200 200-Pin Laptop SODIMM and a desktop power supply in it.

Funny, I currently live in New Castle, Indiana, and Tuesday FedEx just left a package from http://www.geeks.com/ next to the door without anybody signing for it, and it had a 1GB DDR PC3200 200-Pin Laptop SODIMM and a desktop power supply in it.

I'm very eager to know: how many times do you need to change batteries in your PocketPC on a regular day? Three times, five times or more?

I don't. It's got a Li-Ion battery (~900mAH IIRC) and it will last for about six to eight hours of actual use with the backlight on low. I got mine from Computer Geeks for $230 (looks like $199 now) with a 128MB SD card and an extended battery (3600mAH) because it was a refurb. So far it's been absolutely beautiful with almost no glitches - it is running Windows after all.

Now, what I don't know is what my battery life will be like with my new WiFi card in the mix as well. It's a Sandisk "Low-Power" ConnectPlus, which has 128MB flash and the 802.11b+WEP (no WPA, unfortunately) WiFi adapter in one slot. I'm installing all my network apps to the flash on the adapter, since I won't need them otherwise. Free advice: don't buy this WiFi adapter. It seems to work fine so far (I'm about to go down to the conference center and test it) but they don't make them any more so if it fails during the 3 year warranty period, they won't replace it... or so the phone monkey told me. (I'll see them in court before I'll let them welch on a warranty.)

I'm very eager to know: how many times do you need to change batteries in your PocketPC on a regular day? Three times, five times or more?

I don't. It's got a Li-Ion battery (~900mAH IIRC) and it will last for about six to eight hours of actual use with the backlight on low. I got mine from Computer Geeks for $230 (looks like $199 now) with a 128MB SD card and an extended battery (3600mAH) because it was a refurb. So far it's been absolutely beautiful with almost no glitches - it is running Windows after all.

Now, what I don't know is what my battery life will be like with my new WiFi card in the mix as well. It's a Sandisk "Low-Power" ConnectPlus, which has 128MB flash and the 802.11b+WEP (no WPA, unfortunately) WiFi adapter in one slot. I'm installing all my network apps to the flash on the adapter, since I won't need them otherwise. Free advice: don't buy this WiFi adapter. It seems to work fine so far (I'm about to go down to the conference center and test it) but they don't make them any more so if it fails during the 3 year warranty period, they won't replace it... or so the phone monkey told me. (I'll see them in court before I'll let them welch on a warranty.)

Nah, you need this.

As CmdrTaco, I'm sure you have money coming out of your ears that you've harvested from the pseudo-religion that is Slashdot.

But for those of you with fewer fiscal resources, I will tell you the stories of my friend and me, a.k.a. The Master Rebaters.

My story is a simple one. I love music. I have over 1,000 CDs and have spent a lot of time meticulously ripping them with my friend CDex. So, I have some 350-400GB of data that I would like to archive. There are a multitude of possibilities but, since I'm short on cash, I opted for a simple $13 RAID 1 controller ... I know, I know, I'm going to catch hell for using such a crappy generic product. And I know many people who will tell you that VIA is crap when it comes to RAID controllers. Maybe you're one of them. If you are, I hear that the brand Promise provides excellent RAID controllers, you'll just pay a whole lot more for them. A couple of these babies in RAID 1 and you're set.

My friend, however, opted for a huge and expensive RAID 6 array controller made by Promise. Then he waited and waited until there was a 250 GB Maxtor rebate at CompUSA or Outpost and went in and bought five with cash. Then he filled out the rebates for relatives and played the waiting game. Huge initial investment but he received a lot of money back slowly. Result, a 1.1 ~ 1.2 TB RAID array. He got a lot more storage and more efficient use of the disks since a RAID 6 with striping allows for drives to be rebuilt in the array.

What he wasn't planning on was the logistics of what he would have to do to his Antec case as a result of all these drives. Fans. Airflow. Heat. These all became huge issues for him--especially in the summer. I'm not sure what your situation is with a case but I made no alterations to my case.

Now, there's a lot of things I skipped over that you can take into consideration, like SATA or ATA? 7,200 RPM or 10,000 RPM? 8MB or 16MB buffer? Striping size? etc. Honestly, those issues aren't worth my time to mess with. Sure sure, I'm losing precious ms seek/read time on my disks but I'm not that motivated.

In the end, if you're only looking for half a TB, do what I did. Those 500 GB drives will only get cheaper and if one blows, just pop another in. And if you really need that room to grow, grab the nice RAID controller that supports RAID 0-6 and just use two 500GBs leaving the other three slots open for the future when you might buy them and RAID 6 it.

What fails? The old IBM Deathstars. Beware!

Unlike most PC case mods that remove shielding and cause radio interference, this one actually adds shielding! Not that iPods are likely to be poorly shielded.

For $2200, I'm planning on buying 18 of these 15" monitors - I figure I'll have 14 megapixels vs. Dell's puny 4. And the screen area? Let's just say that, depending on how I arrange the screens, I can view lots of things at life size.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=GVD300-N&c at=CON

well, the only thing i have to say to this, is where do you get your info for prices? i dont think i've seen a 60gb hdd cost over $300 for years.
 
  cheap hard drive...

True enough... it's the price we pay for being free of all that nasty virus/spyware/trojan crap you folks have to deal with. Not to mention the godawful interface you torture yourselves with when not gaming.

The easiest answer: a Mac for real computing (anything internet-connected). A cheap, non-networked Windows PC for gaming. (And/or the patience to wait for the good games to get ported. At least some developers are starting to realize that even 4% is an awful lot of customers to ignore.)

Now as for online gaming... well, I'd rather skip on the Windows-only online games than have to deal with a internet-capable Windows PC. Bleaugh!

Where else can I get a mouse with a roller ball built in instead of a scroll wheel?

Targus makes (made?) one. You can buy it from geeks.com. Hell, here's a link so you don't even have to search for it.

Still doesn't help your grandma's confusion, though.

--Ender

I got one of these a month ago from http://www.geeks.com from $140. I wanted wireless access so I also bought a Sandisk 802.11b + 128meg CF card because it was so cheap. Since I researched ahead of time I knew that sharp has basically stopped supporting these things or providing update so my new cheap wifi card was only going to work if I replaced Sharp's software with OpenZaurus. OpenZaurus is a little ruff around the edges. If you've messed with Gentoo or ever done a Roll Your Own Distro then OpenZaurus should be a walk in the park but it's not for average Joe consumer.

I was happy to find that the OpenZaurus email app has support for IMAPS and SMTPS w/AUTH. I've about given up reading/writing word, excel, and powerpoint files because even though the Original Sharp ROMs have application to do this you can't really get them to work under OpenZaurus. But how much spreadsheet work would you do on a 320x240 device? OpenZaurus does have lots of software, it's got ipkg which you can think of as a mini-clone of apt-get or yum.

As other have said, battery life could be better(especially with the wifi card). But other then that it's cool that there are SD and CF slots. SDIO is not supported but I've got a 1gig SD card working fine. Other have complained about having to use headphones for sound, personally I don't have a problems with that.

Favorite thing done with my Zaurus so far; Walking around every corner of my apartment and scanning all the wireless networks so see what the best channel would be for my network. I've also managed to cut down alot on post-it notes.

And don't forget http://slashdot.org/palm

Let's face it, people... no computer is a real computer without a cigarette lighter in a drive bay.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-CIGCUP -BAY

Don't set your case alight!

ZipZoomFly is what used to be known as googlegear.com until Google got uncomfortable with that...I like their site and prices. I've also shopped with good success at ComputerGeeks. TigerDirect is in my experience Highly Evil and should be avoided at all costs.

http://www.geeks.com/

This is the same company but for consumers instead of Business's

Plugging the USP plug into my Xandros Linux system caused the file manager to come up automatically. I could just drag .ogg files into the MUSIC folder and they became visible to the player.

It has a built-in microphone so you can directly record audio (in MP3 format). It also has a line input so that you can record audio from another source. It even has an FM receiver that works very well.

I was impressed with the complement of cables that came with it: USB extender cable, line input cable, ear buds, and also a lanyard and belt adapter.

I have a 512M model. According to the manual, there is also a 1G model, but I didn't know about it before I ordered.

Plugging it into the USB port charges the batteries. I haven't used it enough to have a sense of how long the built-in battery lasts. I used it for several hours today without any problems.

So far I'm very pleased with this unit and I am very happy to support companies which support OGG.

FYI: iOPS F350 512MB MP3/FM Digital Audio Player

Yes, Jason Kohrs of Geeks.com wrote this. Here is part 1 about Intel, which is what we're all (not) reading, and part 2, which is the AMD counterpart.

Yes, Jason Kohrs of Geeks.com wrote this. Here is part 1 about Intel, which is what we're all (not) reading, and part 2, which is the AMD counterpart.

Yes, Jason Kohrs of Geeks.com wrote this. Here is part 1 about Intel, which is what we're all (not) reading, and part 2, which is the AMD counterpart.

It looks like this was actually posted on May 19:
http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-19MAY05.htm

Here is the part 2 on AMD mentioned at the end:
http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-26MAY05.htm

It looks like this was actually posted on May 19:
http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-19MAY05.htm

Here is the part 2 on AMD mentioned at the end:
http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-26MAY05.htm

Personally, I don't want a combined pda, phone, camera and mp3-player since all such devices seem to be bad at everything they do. Big, clunky things with poor batery life, a horrible UI, low reolution camera, limited storage, etc. These 'convergence' devices are a compromise, and all compromises are a combination of the worst of two (or more) worlds.

This would explain why the Nokia 3300 didn't sell all that well.

As far as the portable revolution goes, it won't be too long before mobile dataplans get fast enough that you can stream your music from home.