Domain: netcabo.pt
Stories and comments across the archive that link to netcabo.pt.
Stories · 3
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What's the Hardiest Hardware You've Seen?
mrsev asks: "I work in a lab and so have lots of strange equipment around me. Recently I found an old 256Mb USB Flash Disk, that I had been looking for 6 months. This would not be amazing but for the fact that it was frozen in a block of ice in one of our -80C freezers (-112F). It must have fallen from my top pocket when I was reaching in. After chiping it out and a quick thaw and dry ... it worked!! All my data was intact and there were no problems. I am now looking for a victim to test in our liquid nitrogen storage facility. My question is what is the strangest hardware survival you have seen." -
Mozilla: The Good And The Bad
Rui del-Negro writes "According to this article at The Register, six security flaws in Mozilla were posted to BugTraq last weekend. They have not been added to the official Mozilla vulnerability list yet. But details can be found here, here, here and here (phew!). Finally, two other bugs were found, relating to loading GIF files (in several Linux browsers) and Mozilla's (JavaScript) implementation of onUnload ( ). Are they trying to prove they can beat Microsoft at their own game..? Or is someone just trying to win a prize?" On a brighter note, Zerbey writes "From Neil's Place here is 101 Things Mozilla can do which IE cannot. Very interesting reading and an excellent resource for convincing stubborn Internet Explorer users why they should switch. This article was also reported at Mozillazine. I'm still waiting for NTLM auth to be implemented so we can switch over at my workplace, the only reason we still have to use Internet Explorer." -
Building an MP3/DVD Box for the Home Audio System?
_typo asks: "I was thinking about building a nice MP3/VCD/DVD playing box for my home. Such box would stack along with the rest of the home entertainement equipment. I need suggestions about the case to use, the hardware to put in it and the software to drive it." This is similar to the Ask Slashdot on Home Theater Systems, but this approaches the issue from a different angle, that of building your own device to run the DVD/VCD/MP3 aspect of your mega-stereo system. Off the shelf products can do this decently well, especially with DVDs and VCDs, however about the best player of MP3s in existance, aside from the portables, is your average home computer. DVD/MP3 combos will play some MP3s fairly well, but even the best ones have problems with certain MP3s that will play well enough on a machine with a decent MP3 player." There's a few problems I need to solve to be able to do this.
First is the case to put the harware on. I've been looking for a case that's roughly the height and width of a 1U or 2U rackmount case but just 13'' or 14'' deep. It should have room for a standard motherboard, a hard drive, a DVD-ROM, and a front-mounted LCD.
To put inside this case I'd need a motherboard with Ethernet 10/100 and video-out included (to have less boards hanging around), and a reasonably good soundcard. As for CPU and memory, anything should do if it doesn't generate too much heat. This setup shouldn't need a fan, to avoid noise in the room.To interface to the thing I'd like to have a wireless keyboard of some kind with a trackball and a IR remote interface. For the IR remote I think I can use lirc's plans to build a small IR receiver but I would still need to find a way to mount such receiver on the front of the case.
To drive all this I'd need proper software. Linux and X are the base options I'm most confortable with, but I still need the software to browse and play my MP3 collection and playback my dvd's (OMS?). Doing some Web browsing would be nice too but that seams easy enough to do with any regular linux browser.
Finaly I would like it to be cheap to build. Any help will be appreciated."