I saw an ad from Newegg yesterday and came accross something I hadn’t seen before – it’s a USB Vinyl turntable under $100! Of course there are some of us (geeks) that still have turntables, and you can just take the line out and run it in a decent sound card to capture your songs and turn them into mp3′s. Or – you can buy this affordable solution to archive your old vinyl record collection quickly and efficiently.
The reviews say that the software that comes with it isn’t the greatest – but if you buy Spin it Again by Acoustica it creates mp3′s flawlessly from your vinyl. Spin it again can also be used to create mp3′s from your old cassette tapes. The portable version below can even be battery powered or run from the wall adapter. I thought this was pretty cool anyway. Have you run accross some cool geekery that combines old school hardware with new technology? Comment now!
When I read this post on “best things to do with your old PC” it really cracked me up. This barbecue PC was probably the funniest for me, but they’ve also got one case turned into a coffee machine, many “mice” sculptures, and some very unique uses for old monitor cases. I think that you’ll enjoy these a lot! Have you ever “repurposed’ your old computer hardware for a completely new use? Comment if you have, we’d like to know about it!
I want to talk to you about the HDD Player. For about $30 or less, you can buy a HDD or Hard Disk Drive Multimedia Player Encolsure that will blow your mind! These external enclosures can be either Sata, eSata, or IDE – and they even have wireless and wired LAN versions. You won’t find these in a brick and mortar store anywhere – usually only on eBay or an online gadget shop? Why? Well, the big electronics giants would never want to see you have something this cool – EVER!
Because it’s keeps you buying their clunky, proprietary garbage. They want to tie you into DVD burners that won’t backup your legal store bought DVD’s, that don’t support ripped and burned DVD’s, and devices that use HDCP and DRM to limit what you can to with your own electronics! Your dvd player might only play DVD’s coded for North America – and you want a region free player that will play DVD’s from anywhere in the world!
What if you could have a device that would allow you to store all of your ripped DVD’s and movies, YouTube, MySpace and online video, your entire mp3 collection, in addition to the thousands and thousands of digital pictures you have accumulated!? You need a storage device – and entertainment storage device at the center of your house! With 500GB hard drives at an all time low – the time is right for a device like this! I’m telling you – it works great for me because I am so tired of plugging in my laptop to our 42″ flat screen just to watch some video I edited or something from our digital camera or camcorder.
The HDD or Hard Disk Drive Enclosure Multimedia Player
Most of these hard drive enclosure boxes will do the following:
Play mp3′s
Play mp4′s
Play Divx movies
Play AVI videos
Play DVD’s
Play Audio CD’s
Play VCD’s
Play SVCD’s
Play JPG pictures (slideshow)
Most come with a remote, some even play AVI and Windows Media WMV and WMF formats. I’ve even seen quite a few new ones that EVEN have a memory card reader slot. Also, many have optional connectors for either a TV (AV cable or s-video) or PC (VGA connector). You can usually use up to a 80GB+ hard drive, and depending on which case you get, it can be either 3.5″ PC form factor, or a notebook HDD. The one I mentioned with the memory card reader, it even has a one-touch button to copy everything from a memory card to the hard drive without having to hook it up to a PC at all. Most also have 5.1 channel digital audio output support as well. These things work with Windows PC’s from 95, to 98, 2000, Windows XP and Vista, in addition to Mac and Linux, and NTSC or PAL formats. They even have handheld ones with an LCD screen – so you don’t need to hook it up to anything!
You can get an AWESOME deal on one of these on eBay. As always, but from reputable sellers with lots of positive feedback, know how much shipping is in advance (usually $10-$30 depending on there it’s being shipped from and it’s weight), and read all the details to make sure that your HDD player does exactly what you want when you get it. Ask the seller questions in advance so you know what you’re getting.
Also, if it’s still not clear – let me point out why this is one of the coolest things out there. You can put your pictures on it. Put your music on it. Convert and rip movies and dvd’s to it. Watch them on any PC you take it to, or any TV you hook it up to. Copy pictures from your digital camera flash card with the touch of one button, and watch them on your television in seconds. No more figuring out how to burn downloaded movies to DVD, VCD, or SVCD. Imagine all the money you’ll save on blank DVD’s and CD’s alone. Just copy to this drive and watch on your TV, then delete when you’re done. If the hard drive dies or is too small, just replace it with another one. These are cool, you will use yours all the time ( I know I do ).
I’m going to show you some HDD player auctions ending on eBay soonest below. If you want to see everything, just…
also – if you’re looking for region free dvd player for your home entertainment center, or a region free portable dvd player – here are bunches of options new and used on eBay right now:
I’ve seen a lot of case mods, but this is a very unique one. It’s a smaller scale version of a drum (you know, like a rock star’s drum from a drum kit) modded out to accomodate a motherboard, fans, hard drive, optical drives, and it even has a header with usb/firewire jacks including audio with headphone and microphone. As a custom case mod the things that make this really cool are:
it’s not a one off (you can buy one)
the design is high quality long lasting materials
the components are VERY well cooled
the display is awesome from all angles!
If you’re a drummer – you have to get one of these…right now! If you’re a musician, get one too. I mean what are the chances of getting a guitar or bass case mod anyway? If you’re a music wannabe – even more perfect! The design is well thought out, and this could be your last PC case for many years. Visit Spotswood Custom Computers for more info. Oh – and here’s a video to give you a complete picture of what it looks like and how it goes together:
Gizmodo has a post about a Lenovo Solar Powered PC. On the one hand, it’s got a pretty high geek factor – a solar powered PC! But then I got to thinking, who has sunlight where their PC is (on the office or at home)? So now I have to move my desk by the window or something? In addition, if there is enough sunlight to power the PC, doesn’t that mean it will also be harder to see my monitor? The post says it can come with an “optional solar panel”, so maybe you can mount it outside or by your window or something – and then run the cord back to the PC. Well – it’s a step in the right direction anyway!
I’ve build hundreds of PC’s and probably repaired even more computers over the last 10 years. For the most part – it’s always been cheaper to build a PC for someone that acually buy one outright. I often wonder – is that still the case? I’ve upgraded a thing or two here or there, but I haven’t done an entire “case build” computer in a couple years now. When I read the ExtremeTech article “Building Mom a $400 PC” – it pretty much answered my questions. Joel’s goal was to build a new computer for his mother (case and internals only), that would basically be a simple workstation for surfing the web, email, and printing out some greeting cards. Sounds like what most of the friends and family I built and repaired computers for do as well. And it really made me wonder, since you can get a complete computer with LCD monitor, laser mouse, keyword, and case for under $500-$600 brand new from Dell is it still worth building one?More…
The second page of the article lists the parts Joel bought, and he got out for just $379. Not bad considering he bought an $89 case and power supply. He got an Asus MB, a nice AMD Athlon 64 CPU, 2GB of DDR2, 256MB Sapphire graphics card, 80GB hard drive, and 18x DVD+/-RW for that same price as well. So far – I’m pretty impressed! As I read on in the article he describes how he put the old system hard drive in an empty external usb enclosure to get the data from when the new system was up and running, and the new build went pretty smoothly. The new PC went together, and everything seemed fine, for a few days. Then there was all kinds of crashing and issues, which he figured out through testing were both the graphics card and the ‘cheap’ memory he bought. One he returned the memory and graphics card – and went with a slightly better brand (of memory) and the motherboard onboard GPU, everything was rock solid stable and fine. His end cost was $348.
So I guess the answer is YES, you can still buy a very reasonable and stable custom computer and build it yourself. You MAY have to search for the best deals on some parts, BUT stick with better brands – cheaper is NOT always better. If you’re looking for parts to upgrade, or want to build a new one from the ground up – here are the some of the most reputable places I know of with good prices, quality service, and a decent return policy. Please, comment now to add your two cents in the mix!!
<a href=”http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/12/firefox_milestone/”>The Register</a> posted that Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox browser has reached the 400 Million download mile mark. Wow! That’s not bad for just 3 years time! Internet Explorer is at about 64% now and Firefox is about 17%. While it’s still primarily “the geek’s browser”, most of us “geeks” have turned our families and friends (and kids) into Firefox users as well, which is probably why the percentage went up about 6% from 2006-7. Internet Explorer works fine, and it now has browsing tab, but the 3rd party plugins, add-ons, plugins, and XUL applications are what sets it far apart from IE. And – it’s multi-platform working on Mac, Windows, and every flavor of Linux as well! Good job Firefox team, you had a great year. Here’s to next year being even better!
You get all kinds of emails talking about scams, and most of the time I immediantly check Snopes to make sure it’s legitimate or not (and usually it’s not). There was one going around about a year ago in forwarded email that talked about watching when you filled your car up with gas because gang members were hiding under cars, and they would slit the back of your ankle with a knife slicing your Achilles tendon so you couldn’t walk – and then hijacking your car. This was a fraudulent story that never happenned, an urban legend. There was another one that gave some special code to use to dial 911 on your cell phone, and yet another code to use to give your cell phone more battery life – all fraudulent.
But sometimes the stories seem all to real, and more and more the spam emails prey on people that are expecting an email. Now they send out emails regarding bonus checks for people signing on to a new job, or worse from their retirement account or something. If you were expecting such a check, the spam email might seem real to you. This official article from the United States FDIC warns of such a ‘cashier’s check scam’. Even though the bulletin was from 2002, I’ve seen emails like it this year.
This article from the United States FTC warns or being way about ‘sweepstakes winnings’. Most people have enough common sense to know that you never pay for sweepstakes winnings, but I’m sure we all know a relative or friend that doesn’t. Geeks unite – warn your friends and family about such things, we are often their first line of defense! Have you been scammed or known someone who has? Comment now…
Staying on the topic of Linux LiveCD’s, OPHCrack is a tool that you can use to break, crack, or retrieve any Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Vista password quickly and effectively. Here’s the background….in our house friends and family know we work on computers and can fix and repair them. It seem like every month one is dropped off for on reason or another. Usually the problems are the same – the computer is slow because of heavy surfing on the web and has some kind of virus or trojan. But we got one the other day with a really simple problem – they setup a password to login and forgot what it was. The computer was a couple years old and Windows XP.
Seems like someone dropped a computer because of a forgotten or lost password a few years back, and at that time the only solution I managed to find after hours and hours of searching was a linux boot floppy with some tools to reset the password by editing the registry and some other file. My son found OPHCrack for this time around, and he managed to crack and reveal the lost password in just minutes. All you have to do download and burn the LiveCD, and then bootup using it on the computer with the lost password – then use OPHCrack to crack it and you’re good to go! There are some Linux tools out there that allow you to reset a Windows password (like the one I used to have), but this one just flat out cracks the password for you. It worked well for us, we were very pleased. The program is free and legal – just don’t be using it for illegal or illicit purposes! Bookmark the page, you might forget your own password someday!
Here’s another nice resource I found stumbling around, a list of 315 Linux Live CD’s for download. LiveCD’s are great because you don’t have to install anything on your computer to run a complete operating system. Nice to use as a guest on someone else’s pc, but more importantly it’s a great way to try out a Linux distribution without having to install it on the hard drive. This list is sorted by number of votes, so the more popular ones are on the top. Also – if you’re into Linux you may not realize how many different kind of distros are out there. Like ones specifically for education, gaming, medical, security, home entertainment. You may be surprised to find out though, that many liveCD’s contain tools for specific purposes. Like computer forensic tools, firewall tools, diagnostic utilities, data recovery, server clustering, and of course OS replacement. Download a couple and try a new version of Linux today!
My name is John Pratt and I like all kinds of geeky, gadget tech stuff. I maintain web sites, write a little code, fool around with Wordpress, Ubuntu, play lead guitar in a band, and have a general fondness for computers electronic 'thingies'!
