Lessfeet » Hardware

Chromebook Poll

Mark — Sun, 22 May 2011 23:44:13 +0000

New Chromebooks Overview

Mark — Sat, 14 May 2011 04:06:21 +0000

I found this video on YouTube with more about the Samsung and Acer Chromebooks.

Me Want Drobo

Mark — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 08:28:42 +0000

My first three rules of computing are backup, backup and backup. You may have heard this before?

I use Carbonite a cloud backup solution that works very well but I really should have a local backup as well.

321 Backup

Drobo looks like a great solution. Drobo is an external hardive based storage device that uses multiple drive in their BeyondRAID configuration. BeyondRAID is Drobos own system that allows you to hot-swap drives of any size. Drobo give you a warning when your drives are nearly full and you just snap out your smallest drive and snap in a larger one.

Drobo can get a starter kit with a “Drobo w/ 2 – 1 Terabyte harddives” for $524. You can add up to 4 drives with a total capacity of up to 16 Terabytes. The Drive are just ordinary SATA drives that you can buy anywhere. You don’t have to buy any from Drobo.

More information and watch demos by Cali Lewis of Geekbrief TV.

Pro Microphones to USB

Mark — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:16:08 +0000

You can do podcasting or multi-track recording without the need for a mixer. If you have a good quality professional microphone (Shure SM58 or better) you can connect it directly to your computer via USB using one of two devices.

The first is a USB microphone cable the SoundTech STUSBXLR10. One end is an XLR microphone connector the other a USB to connect it directly into your computer. You cannot use this cable with phantom power microphones.

If you have a phantom power mic what you need is the Shure X2u XLR-to-USB Microphone Adapter.

I have the SoundTech but I seldom use it. I would think that you would have to be very careful when handling it. If you break it it may not be repairable so don’t break it. Maybe a better idea is to buy the Shure even if you don’t need phantom power. It may last longer.

Build A Home Server

Mark — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:46:26 +0000

As I say constantly, “The three most important maintenance task on your computer are, backup, backup and backup.” You can always restore your software or replace your computer in a worst case scenario. What you can’t do or can’t do easily is recover your data. This is what you want to spend most of effort doing. I’ve mentioned to online backup solutions I like. What I’m now going to talk about is getting a backup locally(At your home or workplace). The advantage of this is it’s quicker to restore your data when it becomes necessary to do so. This by no means replaces the the off-site backup. It is just faster and more convenient.

You can build a home server or NAS (Network Attached Storage) with any old Pentium 4 class computer you have laying around. Besides the P4 you need a 500GB or more harddrive. At least 512MB of RAM is prefered. I do not have a spare drive around and later I’m planning to make this RAID5 so I am buying a 4 port SATA card and new 1 terabyte drive from NewEgg. Later I will buy the 2 or 3 additional drives I need to set up the RAID5.

After you gather the hardware you need to download FreeNAS and burn the image file to a CD. FreeNAS is free and open-source software that will turn your computer into a NAS.

So you have your Pentium 4 computer with 512MB RAM. You have a 500GB or more hardrive and you’ve downloaded FreeNAS. I will not explain how to put the parts together. If you don’t know how to do that you should not be doing this project. Now you are ready to begin.

The rest of the insructions!

D-Link DIR-615 Router

Mark — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:53:16 +0000

The wireless on my Netgear Wireless G router went out this week and I had to replace it. I got a D-Link DIR-615 Wireless N 300 Router this week and I can’t be more pleased. With my Netgear router I never got all of my 10Mb speed from my ISP. I never worried about it because it was fast enough! Now I’m getting the full 10Mb and I’m sure if I had a computer with 802.11n I’m sure I would get much more. The best this is I always had problem using my wireless in one of my rooms. Now it just passes right through the walls as if they were not there because of something called Wireless G Maemo whatever that is. I don’t really care as long as it works!

The DIR-615 has better security with the addition of WPA2 which I was wanting to switch to for a while.

One of the best things about this gadget is the price $48 from NewEgg! Is was $39.99 until it was nominated product of the year by NewEgg customer. It still is a great deal.

Networking Over Powerline

Mark — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:34:32 +0000

Do you have a cable modem in your living room but have computers in a different room as I do. I live in an apartment so drilling holes and stringing cable is out of the question. I tried using wireless with some success but it is slow and very unreliable. I dealt with this problem for quit some time.

The other day I ordered a Linksys Powerline AV Network Kit from NewEgg.com. Nothing but ethernet could be better! No more dropped signal! No more slow speed! It is easy to setup. In a few minutes it was ready to go.

Build A Home Server

Mark — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:11:19 +0000

You could buy a HP MediaSmart Server or any of the other Windows Home Server PCs or any of the other home-server products (one being Drobo). These work great but they cost $525 and up. I am going to turn a pc I already have in to one using Ubuntu Server. Ubuntu Server is free and I figure it might be a fun project. It will be harder to configure than an HP but it should be relatively painless. It is a good project and I really do need a home server.

New Digital Camera

Mark — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:30:41 +0000

Feb 23, 2009

I really like my a new camera. My old one was the pits! I even went back to film because of that old piece of junk.

I purchaased a Canon EOS 50D digital SLR camera. It is really a significant upgrade. 15.1-megapixel CMOS sensor so you can make tremendous print with little degradation. A 3″ LCD” view-screen so you can clearly see the images and settings. I got the package with 18mm to 200mm zoom lens. So it zooms from wide-angle to telephoto. With an aperture of f3.5 to f5.6 it’s not the fastest lens but it really is very versatile. What I am really crazy about is the low light performance. I have been shooting in very poorly lit rooms and I’m getting really great photos (photos posted later).

The 50Ds controls are quit complex and I’m still trying to figuer it out, so more later.

Aardvark

Mark — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:47:32 +0000

Aardvark is a very useful Firefox extension. Powerful and user-friendly selector utility for selecting elements and doing various actions on them. It can be used for cleaning up a page prior to printing it (by removing and isolating elements) and for web development.