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Design-Your-Own Computer Case Kits
lord black writes "I was walking the aisles of the local Fry's and discovered a nifty computer-case-erector-set-thingy. Made by Aero Cool, the Lubic kit is basically a bunch of aluminum rails, acrylic panels (for mounting hardware to), and misc. screws to connect it all, for constructing a unique computer case. They have a gallery of example cases. BTW, Aero Cool also makes neat CPU coolers."
So where can I buy a kit?
Oh, wait, this is Slashdot. Like those spermies are ever going to end up anywhere but a tissue anyway.....
People who are 'in the know' shunt around the whole Taiwan/China controversey by referring to that island as Formosa. Formosa is the Dutch colonial name for the island, so it pisses off all the different factions of Chinese equally to call it that.
A Good Intro to NetBS
I rrecently upgraded my case from the POS that I had before. While shopping for the new case, I ran across these kits. While they sound interesting, (and I'd give them props for the concept if it weren't for the legos and erector sets that had it long before them) The finished products from their gallery are rather dissapointing visually.
I am an art major, so that might have something to do with my bias, but as far as I can tell, you'd get much better results visually with a couple sheets of plexi, your saw of choice, a dremel and some acrylic joining compound, (I use IPS Weld-on 3... got it from http://www.tapplastics.com ) In my mind, the latter setup will give you alot more flexibility in your case than a pre-made kit.
of course, i could just have looked at the gallery and gotten dissapointed too quickly to really make a fair critique of the product. *shrug*
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
Sounds like someone hit a little too close to home.
Ergonomic case? you sit on the case? Windows in the case are ergonomic features?
UV reactive lighting is ergonomic?
For convenience I use a laptop with a trackpoint. No wires needed, no Ricer peripherals or input options needed.
My Multi user systems are rack mounted, and since I started using Knoppix on the Laptop, I don't need fault tolerant redundant storage. All I need is a spare CD offsite and a thumbdrive.
1.) AGP slot that has a special opening for giant sized fans
2.) allowing multiple power supply
3.) allowing as many as 8 fans on the side.
4.) enable water cooling to graphics card and cpu
5.) water tank that can be refilled externally
6.) convenient screwless case
7.) case that can slide the entire motherboard out easily without any recabling
8.) 10 external and 10 internal bays
9.) firewire, usb and headphone jack at front
10.) case opens up top conveniently for cooling
Damn I can go on forever.
At the end of WWII, there were about 6 millions Taiwanese. From 1945-1949, about 2 million Nationalist troops and civilian refugees arrived from China
While that had been a tragic event and impacted the Taiwanese who were already there. The Nationalist/KMT hardly founded Taiwan.
I saw a mod on TechTV where they put the comptuer in a machine gun cartridge box. OK, what is the point of this? It doesn't make you cool, it just makes you the idiot who wasted countless hours with a Dremmel Powertool modifying a tin can to house his computer.
I'm not criticizing someone who wants to create a new space-saving circuit board design or something. That makes sense and takes some engineering skill.
This particular product seems more than a little silly with the designes that are just rails, not becasue I am concerned about electromagnetic radiation, but because I am concerned with dropping stuff on my motherboard. I thought that was the point of the case, otherwise, just lay the crap out on your desk and use it. It's a hell of a lot easier to switch hardware with it not in a case.
Maybe the grammar nazi did get it, but chose to ignore it because it allowed him to bring in the word "plankeye". I have to admit, it's a pretty cool word. I can just see him champing at the bit (chomping? champing? what-the-fuck-ever) to use it.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
If you wanted more flexibility than you get from a kit, you could try 80/20 aluminum extrusion. They have various hardware, plastic panels, etc.
Rice type cars are like imacs, or maybe a gateway with like a flat screen monitor and a slim black tower that sells for only $1,000. They're just cheap pieces of crap meant to look nice. There are a lot of case mods that are just for looks that a lot of people look down on (Ooooo you have a window and a neon light! Badass!) But I'm more impressed with case mods than some decal that took 2 seconds to apply. There's actually some work to making a case mod look nice, now if you buy a case that comes pre-modded, that's kind of lame. Most of the case mods I've done were quite difficult (like the window mod on my DVD drive, it's in the shape of the radioactive symbol, it took a lot of drawing, measuring and precision cutting but it's exactly above where the CD sits, and the shape is perfect.)
All of my future mods will actually increase the performance of my computer while also looking pretty sweet at the same time. I recently cut out the front plastic grill on my case, going to replace it with some chicken wire and a radiator from an ATV. Then I'm going to stick a NOS bottle inside my case, that will be hiding an enheim submersable pump (the 2-lb NOS bottle will be the resevoir and it fits perfectly in my case) I will have watercooling on a peltier, there will also be an exhaust sticking out the back of my case, it will start at the CPU and exit out the back, I think I might put a 80CFM fan at the start, give my CPU some extra cooling, depends on how much it'll make a difference on top of the watercooling.
Rice is bad cause it takes a shitty product, covers it up in a cheap costume, tries to make it look much more expensive then it actually is, and adds absolutely nothing. Well maybe it'll add that "dying cat in your exhaust" noise (wow I love that noise, listening to the raw power of a 4 cylinder 100hp engine at 4,000 RPMs, it totally kicks the crap out of my mustang 5.0.)
I'm suprised more slashdotters don't discuss really tuning their cars, it's such a geek/hacker type thing. You look at an engine, take it apart, figure out how it works, see that maybe if you increase the size of one piece the performance increases but if it's too big the performance decreases, go over a ton of data seeing where you can improve your cars performance by a fraction of a percent, cut up things or hammer them into place just to make them fit. And like a computer you can go get really cheap parts used and put a car together or get some old junked chevelle, restore it and drive around town in your sweet '70 chevelle SS, and the car doesn't go down in value like a computer, the value actually increases. So instead of putting together some 33mhz computer and installing linux on it cause that's the only use, you can buy a totally trashed car, spend a bunch of time fixing it up and working on it till it's in really good shape (maybe spending $3,000-$4,000) and sell it for like $15,000.