Content and news by Rob Williams

The promotion–“Mac Mini Test Drive”–offered a 30-day money-back guarantee, and was available only through Apple’s online store. It was launched on Wednesday in the U.S., but by Thursday morning U.K. time Apple’s site no longer showed the promotion.

Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the promotion.

Of course there is speculation, but this may only be because they have sold out of the Minis quicker than expected. Either way, we’ll soon find out.. if it comes back or not. Check out the article at News.com.

A young girl has become the first swimmer in the U.K. saved from drowning by a computerized pool-monitoring system.

The accident happened on Aug. 24 when a 10-year-old girl in a swimming pool in Bangor, North Wales, sank to the bottom of the deep end. A Poseidon monitoring system installed in the pool registered that a swimmer was in distress because she was at the bottom of the pool and not moving, and within three seconds sounded the alarm to the lifeguard on duty who pulled the girl out of the water.

This is seriously amazing.. I’m impressed. It’s incredible how fast she was pulled out of the pool. Check out the full posting at Cnet.

OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and power supply solutions, is excited to announce the release of the fastest USB 2.0 Flash Drive on the market. The high performance OCZ Rally Flash Drive implements leading edge Dual Channel Technology to deliver the high-speed data transfer rates that are needed by today’s enthusiasts and professionals on-the-go.

Prior to OCZ Technology’s decision to enter the flash media market, flash drive technology did not offer above-average performance—a requirement OCZ has of all our products. After determining the advantages flash drive dual channel technology, OCZ knew they could offer the first high performance flash drive to deliver truly superior data transfer rates.

These are extremely stylish and sturdy looking. It’s about time that OCZ released some of these! Check them out over at the Official Site.

South Korea is the latest country to raise its concerns over Google’s satellite photo service, Google Earth. The country is worried about sensitive sites being visible from space by the service’s users, including the presidential Blue House and military bases, as it remains officially at war with its neighbour, North Korea.

The presidential office in the country is reportedly planning to raise its fears with US officials. The roofs of some sensitive sites in the US – including the White House – have already been blacked out by Google, but that hasn’t happened with its satellite imagery of South Korea. Images of the secretive North Korea are also available.

I’m sure that it’s not only South Korea.. but many other areas people have yet to be exposed. Check out the full posting at NeoWin.

Rumour has it the official release date has already been decided for Windows Vista – and you can expect it to be ready in time to make an appearance late next year.

According to a report by Windows IT Pro, the official date for a full Vista release will be 7 December 2006, with the second beta of the product being released to testers late this year.

If this proves true, we will have to wait another year to get our hands on a retail copy. That’s if they don’t end up axing more features or push the date further. Check out the full posting at Silicon.com.

Exactly how well does an AMD Athlon64 X2 based PC handle the workstation grade tasks of content creation found in a typical information age office? For the answer to this content creating quandary, we’ll be turning to Canada Computer’s top of the line AMD X2 system, the Content Creator X2 + SLI Bundle. Built around a top of the line 2.4GHz dual core Athlon64 X2 4800+ CPU, and pre-installed with Microsoft WindowsXP Professional, the system should have plenty of potential pixel kicking power for anyone involved in heavy duty new media or content work.

Wow, this is quite the beefy computer! Head over to PC Stats to find out more!

The performance of the Magnum speaks for itself, it feeds ridiculously stable voltages to the systems components and does so remaining remarkably cool. If you have a silent system and are looking for a silent power supply, look no further than the Magnum, it’ll be hard to get any quieter than this. If you need a powerful power supply for your SLI gaming rig, look no further than the Magnum. It looks good, performs even better, and is very well priced to boot. Only time well tell just how good this power supply really is.

Check out the full review over at Overclockers Online.

The backplate looks a bit sparse without audio, but also notice: No parallel or serial ports. Finally going the way of the dodo, but not good if you have any legacy devices. If you do, it will be necessary to do something about it in the near future no matter what motherboard you buy.

Check out the full review over at Xtreme Computing.

Because of the outstanding cooling performance and innovative water pump we are proud to award this Asetek WaterChill system our Editors Top Choice for a high performance water cooler heatsink system. Heck it cools the best. Well done Asetek.

Check out the full review over at A1 Electronics!

Writer Tracy Spaight and photographer Robbie Cooper will be interviewing and photographing MMO players for the Alter Ego Exhibition and book in the coming weeks. Alter Ego takes viewers on a journey into the frontiers of cyberspace to explore community, identity, love, and loss within virtual worlds. Alter Ego will: Document the…..

CaseModGod.com has teamed up with memory giant Crucial to bring
you a killer two month long super easy to enter case mod competition. The
top mod will receive a complete Crucial Ballistix Tracer prize package worth
well over $400.00!

I personally love Ballistix memory, so you are crazy to not enter! Check out the full details over at CaseModGod!

InsaneTek was fortunate enough to attend an Editor’s Event held by ECS. The day and a half event gave us a glimpse of what ECS is
growing into and the goals they look to reach. If it’s true, let’s ditch the old ECS and welcome the new one.

Check out the full report at InsaneTek!

WE RECENTLY COMPARED seven dual-core-capable Pentium motherboards, but MSI’s P4N Diamond didn’t make it to our labs in time for the round-up. That’s really a shame, because this board has quite a lot to offer, including NVIDIA’s feature-rich nForce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset, auxiliary Serial ATA and Gigabit Ethernet controllers, onboard SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit audio, and an overclocking-ready BIOS. But can it run with the best mobos from Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, and Shuttle have to offer? Read on to find out.

Check out the full review of this killer board over at Tech Report.

The Enermax Whisper II 535W PSU has exceptional quality power & this is crucial for today’s high power computer requirements. There are 2 very quiet 80mm fans & plenty of leads supporting all the latest hardware. Additionally, it’s an NVIDIA SLi certified product which hardcore gamers require. This is a no-nonsense Power Supply that delivers! Watch the Video to find out more…

If you are looking for a great SLi PSU, check out the full video review over at 3D Gameman.

Cooler Master is back to team up with us to provide another yet exciting contest. This time they’re supplying us with some great
prizes and leaving the contest idea totally up to us! We’ve had members show their messy desk/workspace at home. We want to see how
messy you can be without it interrupting your every day gaming/work/computing. So prove to us!

Haha, what a great idea. Check out the full details at InsaneTek.

Vantec’s latest external IDE drive solutions for USB 2.0, is the NexStar 3 enclosure. This sleek black case accomodates any standard 3.5″ IDE hard disk. As you might expect from Vantec, a company which first made its name with heatsinks, the outer shell of the enclosure is made of solid aluminium to help draw heat away from the drive inside.

Check out the full review at PC Stats.

After years and years of waiting, we finally have a reasonably stable Windows Vista beta build to work with. Windows Vista Beta 1 (see my review) doesn’t feature many end user features per se, but it does include a nearly complete next-generation Windows shell, instant desktop search, a preliminary version of the new Aero user interface, and other useful functionality. For Windows enthusiasts, Windows Vista Beta 1 is a much-needed demonstration that Microsoft can still churn out valuable Windows releases, after years of doubt. For Mac OS X users, however, Windows Vista Beta 1 engenders a sense of déjà vu. Isn’t a lot of this stuff already in Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” (see my review)?

This is a cool idea, and I am not sure what I’d personally prefer. Probably Mac OS X because it’s just so damn pretty. Check it out at WinSuperSite.

The Razer Copperhead has the same shape as the Diamondback, featuring a symmetrical design that’s great for righties and even better for left-handers who haven’t yet surrendered to right-handed mouse operation. The mouse has two oversized left and right click buttons that make clicking easy for a variety of hand placements ranging from the usual “hand on top” to a “low-rider” grip where the palm rests on the mousing surface rather than the mouse itself. The scrollwheel is clickable and has groves to provide subtle tactile feedback as you scroll up and down.

Check out the full review over at Gamespot if you are looking for the next killer gaming mouse.

One of the better points from a marketing perspective is that OCZ has broken up their products into five different categories, Platinum, Gold, Titanium, Performance, and Value. Too many manufacturers out there limit their branding to one or two namesakes, leaving users looking for “something in the middle” out to dry. By branding their RAM in such a more diversified way, OCZ can also attract these users who might not be looking for low end budget RAM, or expensive high performance RAM.

Check out the full review over at MBReview!

Everyone knows Gigabyte as a top tier motherboard manufacturer, but they have not been just motherboards for years. Servers, networking, cases, video cards, DVD drives, and more have been added to their lineup. Well one of their latest additions has been cooling. Today we look at their new G-Power Pro GH-PDU21-MF Cooler for Socket 754, 939, 940, 478 and 775. It a copper base nickel covered cooler with aluminum fins, and as you can see 4 long heatpipes. It comes with a fan speed control unit that can be mounted in a 3.5″ front drive bay, or an expansion slot for complete control of RPMs.

Head over to AMDZone for the review of this great looking cooler!