Hardware Geeks

Today Western Digital (WD) introduced a new passport studio drive with a Firewire 800 interface. I have been using the drive for one day now and I have to say it is much faster than any other firewire drive I currently have.

“Photographers and videographers, be they creative pros or Mac computer enthusiasts, have a genuine need for large amounts of fast, portable storage for their high-definition files,” said Jim Welsh, senior vice president and general manager of WD’s Branded Products and Consumer Electronics Groups. “With a new FireWire 800 interface, My Passport Studio speeds up editing and transferring of big media files making it perfect for performance-minded Mac computer users on the go.”

So today I picked up the Lincoln MKZ 2009, to test out the newest version of Microsoft Sync which is available on almost all ford vehicles. Being in NYC I do not drive as much as I’d like because everything is with in walking distance or you get there fast by taking a subway or bus. But once in a blue moon I find my self in the driver seat of a car.

I have to say that the Lincoln MKZ 2009 handles really well, you can turn her on a dime if you had too.

I will have a full review on the car and the “Sync” system next week sometime, and I will be posting some pictures later on today maybe tomorro. 

Today HP introduced the new Mini 1000 companion PC, a thinner smaller lighter version of the HP Mini-Note 2133. But unlike the 2133 which is geared towards education and business users the Mini 1000 is meant to be a Companion PC for anyone.

The HP Mini 1000 will come in two colors and three flavors, and weighing in at only 2.5 pounds it is one of the lightest Mini Notebooks available. Even though the Mini 1000 systems are thinner and lighter than the HP Mini-Note 2133 it enjoys the same keyboard that made the 2133 popular.

Today HP will open their doors and allow third party developers to create applications and or port in their current applications, to take full advantage of the popular Touchsmart Computers.

“The guidelines will be posted on the new TouchSmart Community site, http://www.TouchSmartCommunity.com—they’ll likely post by the end of the day today.  The community site is intended to be a destination for our installed base to download new applications created by developers and engage in conversation to share ideas, information and suggestions for the TouchSmart experience.” Said Ann Finnie HP’s Public Relatios Manager for Consumer PC’s.

Today Dell introduced the new Mini 12, an easy to carry extremely portable notebook which according to Dell is ideal for tweeters, and those who just want an easy and portable way to access the web, blog or check email. (Tweeters are People who Twitter.)

The Mini 12 is currently only available in Japan which sucks since mini notebooks are all the rave lately, but late November it will be available globally. The systems will have an under $600 dollar starting price and will be available with Windows XP or Ubuntu.

From pictures I have seen of the Machine it looks fairly stylish and a lot better looking than the HP Mini-Note 2133. Click here to view an image of the machine. 

When I first told you all about the Skeleton case I thought cool, really didn’t think much of it. Some people even said it would be an expensive mouse trap.

But then I got one for review (I’ll get you a review in a week or two) and I honestly don’t think it as just cool anymore, it’s almost artistic and in a way resembles the Base Eifel Tower or something, and it’s jam packed loaded with features such as a removable motherboard tray and a huge three speed fan at the top.

I will go into more detail about the case in my review, but until then enjoy the pictures.

This past Friday I had a chance to get an in person demo on Antecs Veris Multimedia stations, there are four versions of the Multimedia stations, the Basic, the E-Z, the Elite and the Premier. Each of the four comes with a remote, ir-blaster and work seamlessly with Windows Media Center or you can use it with the included iMon software.

All four are easy to install, but with the Basic, Elite and Premier you will need to know the ins and outs of cracking open a computer case to install them.

Today we bring you a quick how to guide on how to add a new hard drive two your HP Media Smart server. Some of you may think it is as easy as taking out the old hard drive if there one and stick in the new one, and yes it is that simple but there are always those who like a visual explanation and we hope this guide will help them.

Or HP MediaSmart Sever already had all of it’s hard drive bays full, so we removed out of our 500 GB drives and replaced it with a 1.5 GB Barracuda drive from Seagate.

Well it pretty much looks like any other hard drive. But this post is more to tell you about the 1.5 TB drive I received and not show you what it looks like.

Yesterday UPS dropped off the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB Hard drive from Seagate (Codename Cuba), the first 1.5 TB hard drive ever available. While the 1.5 TB is amazing in it self the drive is energy efficient 43% less energy than other drives.

So how much stuff can you fit on a 1.5 TB drive? 24,984 hours of digital music, 480,000 digital photos, 1,500 hours of digital video, 375 two-hour DVD-quality movies, or 750 games on a Barracuda desktop drive. That is according to Seagate.