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Shuttle's Tiny PC Reviewed
PhantomHarlock writes "VIAHardware posted a review of a great miniature PC desktop system from Shuttle, the motherboard manufacturer. It's a tiny aluminum case with a floppy bay and one 5 1/4 bay. It uses Shuttle's FV24 mobo, one of the smallest on the market. The motherboard has built in video (with S-Video out), audio, 10/100 Ethernet, USB and dual firewire ports. " Might be a nifty device to use as a stereo component with that S-Video out.
It does the job of being a small and workable system, and that's about it. It'd be a good cluster box, IMHO, but man... mofo is *ugly*.
Would I buy one? I don't know -- probably if they put it in a nicer case, but not like that. But I speak as someone who still lives at home and doesn't necessarily have space concerns that this box would address. (And I mean, really -- if space was truly an issue, why not just buy a Cappucino box and be done with it?)
What I want to see -- and I'm serious about this -- are a consumer-electronics-type case for a PC with an IR reciever and a graphical LED front panel (for media control) and a wooden case meant to match those "executive" mini-stereos from The Sharper Image...
/Brian
We also could use something like that here at work in the labs. Our existing dell boxes take up a huge amount of space. We could cram these things under the o-scopes or something.
If I had the money I would get one just so I could play around with it :)
Windows XP has a thing called "remote desktop connection", which is a lot like remote X connections on Linux, except that things like sound and hardware ports are also brought across to the remote machine.
My home LAN has a fairly beefy PC on it running Windows XP Pro, and it would be really useful to have a few cheap and small PCs thrown about the house, which could connect back to the main PC in my bedroom and bring the desktop to wherever you are.
Right now I use a laptop with an 802.11b card in it to do that, but that's a seriously expensive solution.
On the down side the board has no AGP slot. The review suggests that this is livable, but I disagree. I wonder if you could retrofit the machine with a better graphics card using the PCI slot and disable the onboard graphics? I've done this with older HP vectra's when their onboard video chips go out... I do like the idea of being able to have a fairly high speed system which can be easily concealed and the design seems fairly well thought out...
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
Reason I ask is that I'm looking to get ADSL soon (on order, actually) and I'd like to run a linux box as gateway/router/firewall on the ADSL and this looks ideal provided it's quiet enough.
Honestly I think this is a good middle ground for portability. When you want a computer you can haul about anywhere but don't require the ability to actually use it when you're in transit it beats the heck out of a laptop.
It might also be a good platform for some presentations. I know when I'm doing premier demos, I'm working with a computer + projector on either RGB or S-Video... this would be an easy box to throw on a desktop at home and bring to any site for a demo. (At least for the Poor College Student doing demos to college clubs and user groups!)
If I can't see it in Lynx I'm not interested.
Consider its use as a home device management "brain". A gadget doesn't have to look smart or pretty, or have particular high throughput - it just needs to have the right I/O and never go wrong.
Consider this: you arrive at work, and ask yourself "Did I lock the front door?" Well, by using simple devices like this, wired in to your home security system (which, of course, we all have) you could find out. How about - the 'fridge door hasn't shut properly, and now your Jolt Colas (or whatever) are getting too warm. Better send an alarm (SNMP...) to you - while you're at work. Someone rings the front door bell at your house, and your webcam above the door switches on, streams video to your PC at work (naturally, as blessed by your local Firewall obergruppenfuhrer) for you to either remotely unlock the front door, or for you to choose to ignore it, and finally, schedule a random light activation pattern for when you go on holiday.
OK, this device isn't really all about these developments, but simple, I/O enabled boxes, which are ready to go through a web interface, can SNMP on to your domestic home appliances, and are secure enough would represent a good market. They don't have to look all that sexy, but just be cheap and functional, and WORK.
Two parenthetical comments in closing, however:
1) I don't expect for a second that all those white goods manufacturers will agree to an open standard, and we'll end up with a plethora of separate boxes controlling different sub-systems at home (a bit like any control panel near the computer room), and
2) Am I really that forgetful when I leave the house? Hey - now did I lock the car door...
Aegilops
This is basically just a shrunken desktop computer.
The EZGo is the size of four CD cases stacked on top of each other. I didn't compare the specs, but the EZGo has enough.
Check out the Taiwanese manufacturer, a product page at directron or a review at Ars Technica.
Best of all. It supposedly runs Linux!
(I probably should mention that I have nothing to do with this product. I just saw it a while ago and thought I should mention it.)
Have you looked at the GCT Allwell boxes yet? Really neat box, NO fans => completely silent. Different sizes of flash memory (or ide disks if you need more space) for OS/applications are available. Only downside is that the fastetest CPU you can get is 300Mhz - slow by todays standards but easily sufficient for lots of aplications.
Also important: not at all expensive; most very small / embedded systems turn out to be unreasonably expensive, this one costs about $289 - $400 depending on options.
I'm running one of these as firewall/VPN Box for my home network:
- Linux 2.4 kernel
- Squid proxy
- iptables firewall
- ipsec and ms pptp VPN server
- NTP server (stratum 1, got serial DCF77 receiver)
- Boa web server (for access to squid cachemgr and serving code red/nimda antidote scripts)
- ssh server + client stuff
All of this runs from an 8M DOC (Disk On a Chip) Flash memory (plenty space still free)- no moving parts at all.you have moved your mouse, please reboot to make this change take effect
It would be quite interesting. I should know. I've done it.
Tell me what you think.
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