init6 Technology

I’ve been looking quite feverishly for a good slightly larger netbook computer that is powerful enough to play HD video (mkv files). It doesn’t need to be a HD media powerhouse. I just want a very functional netbook with a full (or almost) sized keyboard.

Recently I seen news related to several netbooks coming out that will utilize the Intel Core 2 Solo ULV processors. I have tried an Acer Aspire One 10″ model and it was great except that it just didn’t quite have the power I was looking for. So after reading this article about a new Acer Aspire 1410 that is coming to the states, I was quite interested.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, I’ve been searching quite hard to find an estimated arrival date and after looking at several online retailers I found one that may have a good estimate. It’s listed on one retailers’ inventory system as being available on September 2nd.

Also it appears to be available as a pre-order from JR.com for $449.

If your not familiar with this upcoming netbook/laptop and want to be here are the specs below. There is also a video review here.

Specs:

UPDATE:
I have the blue version of the Acer Aspire 1410 on order from Amazon. I should receive it tomorrow. If I get a chance I’ll take some more pics and give some more details.

Test Freaks gives a fairly indepth review of several different 16GB flash drives. Since these things keep getting cheaper, and are so darn handy to carry with you, it’s nice to have an idea of the ones that perform well.

Drives tested:

CORSAIR Flash Voyager 16GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

Kingston HyperX Hi-Speed DataTraveler HyperX 16GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

OCZ Diesel 16GB Single Channel Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

Transcend JetFlash V30 16GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable)

Short excerpt:

“If I had to give an ordering for the top three drives, taking everything here into account ,including my preferences, it would have to be the OCZ Throttle coming in first with the Kingston HyperX in second, the Patriot Xporter in third. Those are the ones that I would buy personally.”

Check out the whole review

Found an interesting device online today called Peek. I’m not quite sure what I think about this e-mail and texting platform. Peek is a mobile e-mail and text messaging platform that currently costs $49.95 for the device and $19.95/mo for the service. It allows for unlimited e-mail and text messaging nationwide. It’s meant to be a simple, cheap, and easy to use device for non-techies. Although, my first thought was it’s a smartphone who cares, I got to thinking about it and realized that someone like my parents could use this which is most definitely not the case with a complicated smartphone. I consider myself a techie, and I’ve had both a Blackberry, a Windows Mobile HTC slider, and now an iPhone, and none of the above is truly EASY to setup. Not to mention the idea that the Peek doesn’t require a contract is also VERY appealing.

Here are a few details for you to look at:

Here is a quick video from the company:

Quite a while back I bought a LaCie D2 Quadra (500GB model) for my iMac. It has a lot of very nice features and in my opinion is worth every dime I paid for it. For anyone not familiar with the LaCie brand, they have been around since 1992 and they typically produce very high performance and high “design” related storage solutions. Of course they also tend to be associated with Apple/Mac. On the D2 Quadra model in particular LaCie outfitted it with a very nice set of connection options. It can be connected to a Mac or PC via USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and eSATA. That combination of connection options makes it a great choice for PC or Mac users alike. It of course also raised the price a bit.

Shortly after receiving the D2 Quadra, I decided to upgrade the drive in the external enclosure to a 750GB Samsung. That drive recently gave out on me and I needed a replacement. I decided to go with a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) from NewEgg despite the negative press recently I figured I was safe because any firmware issues are most likely resolved and already in the drive. Regardless, I thought it might be handy to document the procedure for upgrading the drive in the LaCie unit.

Keep in mind that as far as I know, this does void your LaCie warranty. However, if your looking to upgrade the drive inside D2 Quadra you’ve already run out of space and are looking for a cheaper alternative to buying a new external drive.

Drive Replacement Procedure:

1. Obviously we need to shutdown the drive and remove all the connections before starting. If you look at the back of the drive you’ll need to remove two screws. One is beneath the “warranty voiding” silver sticker at the bottom back of the drive. In the pictures below it’s on the right. You can see a slight amount of the sticker that stayed adhered to the surface of the drive. So “they” will know if you remove it!

2. Once the back panel is removed you’ll be able to pull on the front panel of the drive and slide the internal chassis out of case.

3. If you turn the internal drive chassis upside down at this point you’ll see the SATA connections to the current drive. You’ll need to remove both the power and the SATA connection from the drive. You should be able to fold back the SATA cable however if yours is in the way you can also remove it from the board. Keep in mind that you may need to keep track of the orientation of the cable since it has a fold in it that seems to allow a good fit when sliding the chassis back into the outer cover.

4. After disconnecting the SATA and power connections turn the whole internal chassis over and you’ll see the mounting screws for the harddrive. Remove these with a screw driver while holding the harddrive on the other side.

5. Place the new drive in place of the old one and use the chassis screws removed in the last step to re-mount the new drive. Make sure you mount the new drive with the SATA and power connectors facing the right way.

6. Hook up all the connections and gently slide the internal chassis back into the outer cover.

7. Replace the back panel with the two screws removed at the beginning and you should have a newly “resized” D2 Quadra.

NOTE: I used a 1.5TB Seagate drive for my upgrade and it seemed to work great. I can access the full size of the drive. I am not aware of what the max harddrive size is (if any) for the bridge circuitry within the LaCie drive. Keep that in mind as drive sizes grow.

BFG Tech has started to offer a new gaming system setup called the Phobos. I don’t know about you but I’ve bought quite a bit of BFG Tech gear in the past and coupled with it’s great quality and awesome warranty I am very excited, not that I can afford one right now, but nonetheless.

Top Configuration:

Processor
* Intel Core i7-965 – 3.2GHz EE PHOBOS OC

Motherboard:
* BFG Approved Intel X58-Based – Supports NVIDIA SLI (3-Way/Quad)

Graphic Cards:
* Two BFG GeForce GTX 295 1.79GB PHOBOS OC (Quad SLI)

Memory:
* 12GB PC3-10666 DDR3 – 1333MHz

Operating System:
* Microsoft Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Add a Graphics Card for Dedicated PhysX Processing:
* Add BFG GeForce GTX 285 1GB PHOBOS OC for PhysX

All for a low low price of $9720

According to an article posted on Engadget the Apple AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule have both received a worthwhile upgrade to better support dual band (5GHz and 2.4GHz) networks. Seeing how the iPhones only support 2.4GHz WiFi and the MacBook’s all work so well with the 5GHz WiFI this may make an “all Apple” household work a bit better. Check the link above to see more.

Engadget unleashes their first hand-on of the iPod Touch. Here are a few quick pics from Engadget:

Here is the Touch compared to the iPhone:

Apple’s gallery of images on the Touch.

Interesting article about upcoming Zune models with some “rumored” features listed.  Isn’t this like a bad movie getting a sequel?

HTC will be releasing the HTC Advantage this summer. This thing has a 5inch screen and a flip up style display. There is an article on it here.

Quote from the above article:

“The Advantage is powered by Intel PXA270 624 MHz processor and ATI Graphic Chip W2284 and features 256MB ROM and 128MB SDRAM memory, as same as 8GB hard drive. It has 5-inch touch screen, 3 mega-pixel camera with an additional camera and High power LED for camera flash, built-in microphone, dual speakers and loud speaker for Hands-Free operation.

Along with Tri-Band 3G/ 3.5G (HSDPA) and Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connections, the HTC Advantage comes with a variety of connectivity features, ports an slots such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, internal GPS antenna, 20 parallel channel GPS receiver, 3V USIM/SIM card slot, HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one), HTC proprietary 16-pin combined port (USB 1.1 host/VGA and TV Out) and miniSD card slot.”

I have absolutely no idea what I would really need this for, however it does seem as though the possibilities are endless. Have you ever wanted a webserver running in a Altoids container? Or perhaps one that can be hidden under a lamp shade? Me either but I’m sure someone does.The picture below is of the picotux which claiming to be the worlds smallest Linux running computer, at 35mm x 19mm x 19mm it sure seems to be small enough for the claims. This thing comes with a preloaded uCLinux operating system and it’s can run a telnet server and a webserver.

I heard about this thing from here.

Here are some of the specs: