Hardware Geeks

My initial reaction upon receiving the NZXT Whisper Case box was that there is no way in hell that thing is all case, because of how huge it was.

Well, it was all case. Upon opening the box my only reaction was “Crap, this thing is HUGE!”. Amazingly huge at that!

It’s not so much heavy as is it awkward due to its size.  This is fine in all aspects though.

If you ever have wanted to bring your computer music or Internet music away from your computer and into your living room or other rooms in your home, you probably needed some soft of media center extender and had to run wires all over.

Well Logitech has made that process easy with the Squeezebox boom. The Squeezebox boom uses the Squeezenetwork, to bring internet radio stations such as Live365 and Last.fm into your home and away from the computer. It also uses software on your computer (Optional install) to bring your music collection be it iTunes music or just a collection of your MP3s to the Squeezebox Boom, and it does it with out wires over your wireless network.

Today NVIDIA launched he NVIDIA Quadro FX 470 a professional intergrated GPU, and the NVIDIA Quadro FX 370 Low Profile, designed for small form factor systems. The NVIDIA Quadro FX 470 and 370 were designed to deliver high performance and flexability and affordability to CAD and DCC applications.

“In today’s competitive global marketplace, engineers, traders, designers and power office users demand more functionality and reliability from their desktop computing solutions,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Services, NVIDIA. “The Quadro FX 470 and the Quadro FX 370 LP are precisely tested, certified and designed to maximize productivity and deliver the cost-effective, professional-quality solution these users require on a daily basis.”

HP has come out swinging these past two months with some of the best looking and powerful notebooks around. For example the hdx 16 and hdx 18. But with beauty and power comes high prices and there are some of us who can’t afford the hdx 16 and hdx 18 especially in this economy.

But just because times and the economy aren’t at their best, there are other options that deliver beauty and power at an affordable price and HP gives us one of those options in the dv4 a beautiful and powerful notebook for under $600. 

HP today announced that starting today it has dropped the price on it’s ultra thin Voodoo Envy 133 notebook to $1899 down from $2099, and they have also lowered the starting price for the blackbird 002 to $1179.

HP has also said that starting November 30th, users who buy a Voodoo Envy 133 will receive a free second battery.

The price cuts come just in time for Christmas. 

Today WD has introduced the WD TV and it is I believe the very first and only product from WD that does not contain any internal storage of any kind. WD TV is a little black box that will allow you to easily bring your pictures, music and videos to your home entertainment system, and allow you to play that digital content in high definition (1080p).

“As leaders in external storage, we have become the trusted brand for storing and backing up large media collections for consumers around the world” said Jim Welsh, senior vice president and general manager for WD’s Branded Products and Consumer Electronics Groups. “Our best-selling My Passport portable drives help customers carry their media library with them anywhere but until now, there has been no easy, affordable way to access and play all that content in the living rooms. The WD TV HD Media Player effectively unlocks all that content from the storage device and lets people enjoy it on their biggest screen and best sound system.”

Today is my last full day with the 2009 Lincoln MKZ and well I am a bit sad, because the car is amazing. It handles well it’s comfortable to be in and it is loaded with features in particular Sync.

Being that today is Sunday and typically my down day I really didn’t do much with the car today, I only drove her around the neighborhood to see how she handled and she handles oh so well. Living in NYC you face a lot of obstacles and the MKZ handled them all flawlessly. One scary moment I did have was while driving down Utica Ave in Brooklyn NY. There is a lot of bus and cab traffic on that street and there was a bus at a bus stopped and I was in the lane next to it when suddenly a cab pulled out from in front of the bus. I did not see it as it was hidden behind the bus, but if it weren’t for the good brakes that the MKZ has, I don’t think if I could of slowed the car down enough to prevent an accident.

So I have now have had the Lincoln MKZ 2009 for three whole days and I pretty much have two days left with her, Sunday and Monday.

Today I pretty much road around and tested out how easy it is to listen to music, not just the radio but music from my Zune and my sisters iPod. I pretty much just plugged them into the two USB ports and using my voice I would tell the car to play a song.

I could instruct the car to play a particular song or album, I could even narrow it down to artist or genre. It was really easy to do, at first I had to remember I needed to get into the music menu but once I was in it, it literally was a breeze.

So I have had the Lincoln MKZ 2009 now for two days, and for the second time in two days I have been stopped by the NYPD. While I did not mention it in my first post I did mention it on facebook for those of you who have befriended me there.

Like the first time, the NYPD claimed they stopped me not for violating any traffic law but because the tags on the car are out of state “Michigan” Tags and are “Manufacture” tags. So both times I was stopped for that, I personally think they thought I stole the car. Something funny I’d like to share with you guys though is I was able to demo some of the cars features to the cops and they were impressed.

So if the NYPD pulled me over I must have been putting the car to the test, and boy have I been testing it out in particular the Microsoft Sync system.