Supergeekblog

I have a new review up on OCIA.net. Today we are taking a look at the Vantec NexStar SATA to USB3.0 adapter.

Adapters are always interesting to test – sometimes they work as advertised – and sometimes not.

Stop on over to take a look at our conclusions!

While reviewing the SilverStone PS05B case, I also got a chance to review SilverStone’s SST-AP121 “Air Penetrator” fans.  Check out the review over at OCIA.net.

I had actually been contemplating picking up a couple of these anyways as a possible airflow management solution.  So since the case had 4 intake slots for 120mm fans, it worked out well to test those at the same time.  If you are doing a new build or looking to make some changes to an existing case, this review is worth taking a look at.

Over on OCIA.net we have a new review today.  It is on the new budget model case from SilverStone.  The PS05B.  This is a budget model case that was actually quite fun to review.

Cases have come a long way in the last few years.  Not slicing my hands up when working with cases and the hardware in them is still somewhat odd to me, but goes to show how far case manufactures have gone to accommodate enthusiast builds.  Check it out and let us know what you think.  I have been pretty impressed with SilverStone products and this one certainly didn’t disappoint.

I recently had the enjoyable time over at OCIA.net reviewing Noctua’s NH-U9B SE2 heatsink.

The review has gone live today, so head on over to check it out.  There are a variety of ways to approach CPU cooling and this one took the sound approach.  I still haven’t taken it out of my machine because it is pretty impressive.

We have a new review up over on OCIA.net.  I recently reviewed SilverStone’s new HDDBOOST product.  It is a unique product aiming to bridge the gap between aging tech and modern hardware.

Head on over to OCIA.net where we have reviewed the Cooler Master NotePal EgroStand.

So, you want a widescreen LCD?  You want an affordable monitor that boasts high resolution, flat panel profile and enough screen real estate to spread out all your icons?  Well, look no further than the Dell 2005FPW 20.1″ LCD.

Boasting a 1680 X 1050 resolution, it should display just about anything you want to a reasonable clarity.  This is a mid-range LCD, so we can’t expect too awful much on the resolution end. It’s got 24 bit color and a 4 port USB hub built in.  A 16:9 aspect ratio give it full widescreen capabilities.

Pricing starts at about $370 and can range up to about $500 so be careful where you buy from.  Being especially frugal, one could find a discount somewhere and potentially pick up this CRT replacement for around $300.

Aside from the fact that this looks like something out of a milk bar in “A Clockwork Orange”, why is it that everyone insists on imitating the iMac and iPod designs? Is it because they are so popular? And why white? Seems like I’d spend most of my days cleaning the damn thing instead of using it.

Seriously folks, here’s a review of the Compaq B2800, which is only available in Asia and Australia. Any Aussies wanna send us one to toy with? Didn’t think so.

With a super slim profile, a 14″ screen, and weighing in at only 4.8 lbs, the B2800 sounds like a pretty serious traveling laptop.

That doesn’t seem to mean that it is a cheapo machine either. Sturdy case design, a 1.7 or 2 ghz Pentium M 740, up to 1.5 gigs of DDR2/533 Ram, and a dedicated graphics card mean this could become a favorite for all around usage. Fan Specs and screen size may limit it from ever being a gamers machine, but for a multi purpose, portable, this one may take a few cakes. Here’s a few snippets from the review to whet your appetite:

The screen is one of the week points of this notebook. For some reason it isn’t a widescreen, but it is true that widescreen have taken a bit longer to be adopted in Asian notebook models, except by Sony. But still, at this day in age they should offer this notebook with a widescreen.

The results are what you would expect from a Pentium M 740 machine. It is much faster than my old Pentium 4 HP notebook and is also a bit more responsive than my AMD Athlon XP 2000+ desktop. It is more than fast enough for nearly anything you would ask of it. If you want further speed you could also buy a faster CPU model like the Pentium M 760.

[tags]compaq b2800, compaq, b2800, ipod, imac, notebook, pentium[/tags]

So Trillian logs in this morning, just like every other morning to Yahoo, MSN, and AIM IM networks. Only one difference this morning: An info box pops up saying I have an email in my inbox for AIM.

What the heck – I don’t have AIM/AOL email! I have had the same AIM login for the last 7-8 years. (I really don’t even know how long I have had it.) It is a AIM address not an email address. It never has been.)

However, AIM seems to have silently upgraded all users to a free @AIM.com email address. This is complete with 2GB of storage, a pretty nice looking webclient, and an interesting sounding “unsend” option to other AOL or AIM addresses. (I am guessing too many AOL users drunkenly sent emails and then called tech support looking for the Unsend option.

I have no confirmation yet if this really did happen to all uses, but I know I never signed up for it. I already have enough 2GB free email accounts. Between Live Mail and Gmail – AIM mail is just over-kill for me. Yet, I know that there are a bunch of people out there who will enjoy this new feature.

So… if you still have an AIM address out there – try logging in and seeing if your account has had this addition.

[tags]AIM, AIM Mail, IM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Webmail, 2gb webmail[/tags]

We at SuperGeek have been quietly testing Hamachi VPN over the last several weeks and so far, we are amazed at its usefulness. There will be a couple of different versions, a Premium and Basic versions. The main difference between them will be scalability. The basic will remain free as well. The premium looks to have a fairly small monthly fee, though the store isn’t open yet so they could differ. (We have linked to the Hamachi developer posts for your convenience.)

Hamachi allows for a quick setup in most cases and allows for nearly instantaneous file sharing between computers on the Private Network. The added ability to play network games, remote management, and several other tools makes Hamachi a wonderful tool. The ability for Hamachi to allow a secure remote desktop connection from inside of a corporate firewall, through my home network firewall, was impressive and very useful. Having a secure but seamless network has been very handy when working from different locations.

We did run into a small issue with Hamachi not working with Windows XP firewall. The solution at the moment seems to be to turn off the Firewall. We would like to see some better integration of that. However some machines didn’t seem to have this issue. It has been tested under WinXP, Win2k3 Server (Standard and Enterprise), and Mandrivia Linux. The Linux client was a bit of a pain to work with, but should be possible.

Oh, and yes Michael. It is “incredibly useful“.

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[tags]Hamachi, Firewall, VPN[/tags]