Chad's News

Now this is -my- type of hard drive enclosure. It’s called a “stage rack.”

Link: http://www.engadget.com/…

Apparently it’s not a wise idea to be an early adopter with regards to the Blu-ray high-definition movie format. Due to competition from the HD-DVD format, the Blu-ray specification was released about a year early. Smart shoppers will wait until players are available that support “Profile 2.0” of the spec. There’s also an intermediate step called Profile 1.1 (current players, with the exception of the PS3, support Profile 1.0).

Link: http://consumerist.com/…

Update: Ars Technica has an article that explains more about the various specifications and the players that support them.

Asus is advertising a scratch-proof monitor. One Ukrainian reviewer took this claim to the extreme, going so far as to fire a crossbow bolt at the screen. The video is not in English, but it pretty much speaks for itself.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via digg)

Chad’s News has previously discussed solid state hard drives (SSDs), but this item was a surprise: BitMicro Networks announced the release of 1.6TB SSDs early next year. No price information is available, but I bet they’re expensive.

Link: http://www.computerworld.com/…
(via Slashdot)

The eRazer™ is a neat little gadget that allows one to directly erase a hard drive without involving a computer. There are several models, with options for single- or multi-pass erasure, 2.5″ or 3.5″ drives, and IDE or SATA interfaces.

Link: http://www.engadget.com/…

If you purchased a Seagate hard drive in the United States between March 22, 2001 and September 26, 2007, then you are part of a class-action settlement and can get useful stuff or money. Note that you have to have purchased the hard drive by itself—it doesn’t count if it came with a pre-built system.

Link: http://www.harddrive-settlement.com/…
(via engadget)

If you are thinking of upgrading your wireless network to the (draft) 802.11n standard, perhaps it’s time to think again. There are some problems with patent ownership that have not been resolved.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Seagate has announced it will discontinue manufacturing IDE hard drives by the end of the year. The interface, also known as PATA, is losing ground to the newer, faster, and more popular SATA format.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Chad’s News has previously mentioned flash-based, solid state hard drives, but it’s worth noting that they’re continuing to decrease in price and rise in capacity. For now, they appear to be targeted only at laptops.

Link: http://www.infoworld.com/…

Remember the Amiga computer? It was well ahead of its time back in the late 80s, but it never really took off beyond being a niche computer for graphic artists. The brand has stuck around, however, and Amiga, Inc. has announced a new line of computers running Amiga OS. I doubt it will amount to much, but I still have a soft spot for the brand.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Here at the Chad’s News network command center, we strongly believe in getting every possible bit of use out of our aging computer equipment. Hands-on exposure to new technology, therefore, is not something we often experience. Thus the need for articles such as the one below, which gives a good overview of current and upcoming display connectors. It covers VGA, DVI, HDMI, UDI, and DisplayPort, as well as some of their relative strengths and weaknesses. Definitely something to read before purchasing a monitor or video card.

Link: http://www.extremetech.com/…
(via Slashdot)

While it’s been known for some time now that computers can be cooled by submerging them in cooking oil, the linked article discusses a company trying to do this commercially with server racks. The oil doesn’t conduct electricity and is better than fans at transferring heat away from the computer components.

Link: http://www.newscientisttech.com/…
(via Slashdot)