Content and news by Greg King

It’s been a while since we last evaluated a NAS device, so to help kick things back off, we’re taking a look at Synology’s 2-bay DS212 NAS server. Synology has long offered not only robust hardware, but exceptionally good software, so let’s see if that still stands today, as our last look at a Synology product was a full three years ago.

Self-contained liquid CPU coolers have become a dime-a-dozen (figuratively, of course), but it’s still not often when we see a chassis released with liquid cooling built-in. We’re taking a look at one such option here, from Ikonik. So let’s see what the Ra2000 Liquid is made off, and see if it deserves its $400 price tag.

With the chassis market dominated by a small group of major companies, it’s easy to get excited when we receive a model from a company that’s not that well known – at least on these shores. In this particular case (no pun, of course), that company is Fractal Design, and its the silence-focused Define R3 mid-tower on deck today.

When Logitech released its Revolution MX nearly five years ago, it delivered a mouse that impressed – and for good reason. It featured a great design that was both comfortable and attractive, and had a very effective hyper scroll wheel. With the Performance MX, a natural progression has been made, and an impressive one at that.

When building an HTPC, there are multiple angles to tackle – components, power consumption, software, and so forth. But what about peripherals designed to complement the HTPC you’re building? Quality options are not as common as we’d like, but the GlideTV Navigator looks to be an exception, and one that won’t drain your wallet.

Among the mass of set-top media players available on the market, can one of the most well-respected electronics companies set itself apart from the crowd? With Sony’s SMP-N100, we aim to find out. On the surface, the device looks similar to others, but inside, Sony’s popular XMB interface awaits, along with powerful wireless capabilities.

At its pre-CES press conference, MSI touted its huge line-up of P67 motherboards that support Intel’s brand-new Sandy Bridge processors, and it also tackled its notebook line-up that looks to cover every budget and need. Of course, we were also filled in on what MSI believes sets itself apart, so read on to see what we saw at the conference.

With the surging popularity of streaming content online, media players are popping up all the place from a countless number of vendors. Roku isn’t a bandwagon jumper, though, as it’s been designing robust media solutions for some time. With all of the competition we’ve tested, we’re taking a look at one of its current products, the XD.

Having a home server can bring obvious benefits, but what if it could do more than just sit there? If you’re a music buff, then you may be interested in an audio CD ripping solution from Illustrate, called RipNAS. Pop in a disc, and minutes later it will be available for streaming. It couldn’t be more simple, but is it worth the $45 asking price?

While there’s more competition than ever in the network music player space, Logitech’s Squeezebox division continues to push out products that are both feature-rich and also excel in what they do… not to mention look good. The Boom is the latest product off the line, and as we had hoped, it impresses in many different ways.

Ahh, nothing beats a good LAN party. Sitting back, chilling with friends, drinking a lot of Bawls and of course, getting hundreds of frags in… there’s nothing quite like it. We made the trip to Evansville, Indiana recently to game it up at AsylumLAN’s 33rd event. This is not the first AL we’ve attended, and we can honestly say… this one keeps getting better.

When we took a look at Hiper’s Anubis chassis just over a year ago, we were quite impressed, to say the least. For a company that seemed to come out of nowhere, their first offering was robust, well-designed, and feature-packed. We of course had high hopes when we received their follow-up Osiris. Does it live up to our expectations?

Think that “surround sound” in a gaming headset is laughable? Psyko Audio Labs doesn’t think it has to be, and they’re here to prove it with their upcoming 5.1 offering. We sat down with “Head Psyko” James Hildebrandt to learn a lot more about his unique product, and to find out what makes it so superior to the many attempts made before it.

Synology has become well-known over the years for producing some of the highest-quality NAS boxes on the planet, some of which we’ve taken a look at in the past, and the new DS209+ is no exception. Though expensive, it has a huge feature-set and superb performance to back it up, which makes it a good buy for anyone with a fairly lenient budget.

When road signs in Texas warned of Nazi zombies last week, we all collectively had a good laugh.  When “hackers” pulled the same stunt a few days later in my beloved home state of Indiana, I could barely muster the energy to defend the copy cat “crime”.  In all due respect, Zombies pose a much greater threat to humanity than 10K hard drives.  That said, we did get this gem from a passing motorist “It’s kind of crazy.  I’m totally confused.  I’m kind of expecting… dinosaurs to run down the road, or something.”  Totally.  This comment made me cringe.

In what seems to be a me too type prank-a-thon, hackers (and I use this term loosely) again warned of the coming zombie apocalypse in Illinois yesterday by, you guessed it, changing a road sign to read “DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES”.  So to map this out, the Zombies have somehow migrated north from Texas, all the way to Illinois and Raptors are running loose in central Indiana.  I expect the two groups to meet somewhere around Terre Haute, Indiana.  If this happens, I say we just give them the entire city.

Is this even funny anymore?  These road signs are notoriously low-hanging fruit when it comes to civil disobedience.  Then again, if this is what the folks of a rather affluent area of northern Indianapolis choose to do with their time, so be it.  It’s far better than my choice of recreation.

Who am I kidding?  This is totally awesome.  Totally.

“Oh.  By the way, this is VERY illegal.  You have been warned.” – Me

Back in May of 2005, Time magazine published a wonderful article on the just announced, not-yet-released, Xbox 360.  In the article, the author was able to sit down with Bill Gates and go behind the scenes of the 360 before it was launched later that year.  One of the primary goals that Microsoft had for the 360, other than turn a profit this time around, was to use the console as an all in one media platform at the center of the family’s entertainment center.

With Netflix’s announcement yesterday of one million installations by Gold Live subscribers in just three months time, it would appear that Microsoft is one step closer to becoming the “all-in-one” media hub that they envisioned the 360 being many years ago.  That’s a lot of users in not too long of time.  Not only is this quite the cash cow for Netflix, but Microsoft has given users a very nice capability for free (subscription fee excluded).

If your like me, you signed up, grabbed a few shows and have since let your subscription either sit idle or you cancelled it.  We don’t have any numbers stating the amount of users who signed up simply because there was a free trial, but even if half of the one million users still use the service on a monthly basis, this is a health stream of income coming in for Netflix and one more reason why the 360 has the edge on becoming the true center of family entertainment.

Netflix Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Kilgore said in a statement, “Netflix continues to provide its 9.4 million subscribers unprecedented convenience, selection, and value. With more than 100,000 titles on DVD and 12,000 movies and TV episodes available to watch instantly, there’s no better way to enjoy movies than Netflix. As these strong results on Xbox demonstrate, Xbox LIVE is a terrific way for Netflix members to enjoy watching movies instantly on their TVs.”

After watching their Q4 revenue drop a staggering $100 Million compared to the same quarter last year, Microsoft’s Zune team had to have an uneasy feeling when the announcement of layoffs came last week.  While the Entertainment and Devices Division remained quite profitable, the Zune fell squarely on its face.

Things however are not all doom and gloom.  The hardware is very solid and their Zune software is, in my honest opinion, far superior to iTunes in almost every way.  With that in mind, Zune can’t die, can it?  According to Adam Sohn, Microsoft’s director of Zune marketing, updated Zune hardware and software is still on track and they are planning to deliver “progress” in this calendar year… whatever that means.

Having owned offerings from both Apple and Microsoft, I have to admit that I prefer the Zune.  Its interface is on a level above that of the iPod and the software is polished to near perfection.  Microsoft will never overtake Apple in sales, but they can hit back on an innovative level like they have been so far.  As much as I like the Zune, how long can Microsoft continue to hemorrhage money for the device?

“Every time anything comes up, there is a set of people who pull a Chicken Little and say, ‘The Sky is Falling. Zune is dead,’ ” he said. “The fact is we are on track to deliver the next generation of Zune innovation in software and hardware.”

“The planning is fast and furious,” he said. “We will deliver progress this calendar year.”

There’s been a fair amount of attention hovering around NVIDIA’s ION this month, and for good reason. It’s small, offers decent performance, and can deliver huge peripheral connectivity. We were able to spend some time with the ION earlier this month, putting it through various tests, such as gaming, HD playback and even Photoshop. Read on for all of our experiences.

ASUS kick-started their CES announcements two days prior to the official show start, and to say that a few interesting products were unveiled would be an understatement. At the event, we saw a hard push for multi-touch technology, a slew of Eee products and even an entire computer inside of a keyboard.

The ASUS RoG Con is done and over with, so we take a look back at what made the weekend so great. Depending on who you ask, the LAN was a great success, with nobody leaving without some sort of swag in their hand. But, there was so much more to it than just that. Will we see another? We sure hope so.