Content and news by Rob Williams

Optical mice can run on pretty much all surfaces. Do you really need a mousepad? I guess true gamers will need one, or if your
mouse feet rubbed away and became dull.

Check out the entire review over at InsaneTek.

This mouse pad definitely delivers, but the high cost hurts the overall score. Although this mouse pad makes mousing nearly effortless, only die-hard computer enthusiasts will even consider buying a mouse pad for nearly $45… Ulti-mat should look into lowering the cost of this item, then I think they’ll have a real winner on their hands.

Head on over to Big Bruin for the full review!

When I first found out that I was getting the Serina from Titan, I wasn’t sure what to think. After seeing the results of what the relatively simple Serina can do, my view has changed somewhat. Being able to remove the amount of heat from the underside of the notebook that it does will do nothing but increase the lifespan of your notebook.

I gotta get me one of these. My Inspiron overheats like it’s on fire. Check out the full look over at Overclockers Online.

A long-standing question for potential VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) consumers is “How much bandwidth does a VoIP phone require to make quality telephone calls?” Well we look to provide that answer in this article.

Check out the full article over at Bona Fide Reviews.

HEXUS: So does that 12 months include sending the chip back for any respins? Actually, did RS480 need any respins at all? We heard whispers within ATI that your team is known for getting silicon back working with performance and stability you could probably ship with?

John: Well, we do well with that side of things. RS480 came back working first time and got a silicon spin for some minor stuff before we went to full production. We could probably have shipped the bridge on A11 if we wanted to, though. Now this is a cool story. RS482, which is the 110nm shrink of RS480, we got that back in a full package, first silicon, and nine minutes after getting the package we had it up and running, playing Doom. That’s nine minutes from being handed the package, getting it onto a socket on the board, getting the BIOS set and booting the OS, before getting Doom up and running on the core.

Check out the full interview over at Hexus.

The Samsung SyncMaster 930MP is the latest hybrid LCD/TV display from the company, and the focus of this review. This Syncmaster 930MP features a 0.294mm dot pitch, 19″ screen, 1000:1 contrast ratio, luminance of 250cd/m2 and a native resolution of 1280×1024 pixels. More to the point, the 930MP integrates a TV and FM tuner into its chassis, allowing it to function as a standalone television set and FM radio (AM is not supported) as well as a DVI/analog compatible computer monitor.

Check out the full review over at PC Stats!

JOHN CARMACK’S QUAKECON address has become something of an annual benchmark for the industry, summing up the news of his latest work and the state of game development’s cutting edge, as intertwined as those two things are. Carmack spoke live and in person at QuakeCon this year, after having missed the last two years due to illness in 2003 and the birth of his child in 2004. He was back in typical form, delivering his speech without notes, seemingly off the top of his head. The speech was still crystal clear and reasonably well organized, as one might expect from a renowned programmer. His topics included next-generation game consoles, the problems with physics acceleration, and what he’d like to see in future graphics hardware.

Check out the first details at Tech Report!

Home networking lets you do great things that aren’t possible with standalone PCs. Printers can be shared between PC, so there’s no need to buy one for each machine; data can be swapped around virtually instantaneous; and every PC can go on the net via a single modem or ADSL connection. But, for many years, the price to be paid was having messy wires trailing all around the house, with associated hazards such as disentangling the dog from the mess or persuading the cat to stop chewing cables. Then along came the WiFi wireless networking standard, allowing computers and peripherals to communicate without all those cables. Read about it here.

CoDecs compress and decompress data. The word CoDec is a shortening of the term Compressor/Decompressor. Compressing a data stream or a file reduces its data rate. This cuts costs all the way down the line. It reduces the bandwidth required for transmission or broadcasting and the amount of space required for storage. Before the data can be used, though, it has to be decompressed. Both phases of a CoDec’s work can be carried out in hardware, in software or a combination of both. Read about it Hexus.

Put aside the speed issues, and the SPV C550 is a complete handset that provides every application you could possibly need as a mobile user, and more.

Check out the review at Hexus.

Many people don’t think of their computer when doing a bit of cleaning around the home, but perhaps they should. We’re talking about an effort far less unpleasant than doing windows or cleaning the bathroom, and the use of a can of compressed air can take care of a bulk of the work for you. Cleaning your system on a somewhat regular basis can easily help extend the life of components, increase system stability, and reduce noise. This Tech Tip will take a look at a few areas to focus on, and all you really need to do is open your case and pull the trigger!

This is so important, it’s unreal. I try to do a good job of airing out the computer once a month myself. If you don’t regularly clean your PC, check out the full article over at Big Bruin.

Ever since the introduction of the 7200 rpm spindle speed in desktop drives, thermal dissipation has become an important issue for hard disks. Today, we will take a look at the new Jetart HCA05 HDD Guard hard disk cooler. Let’s see how well this slim cooler does!

Check out the full review at Rojak Pot!

Although ASRock is generally regarded by computer enthusiasts for producing poor and inadequate motherboards when compared against its rivals, they do manage to manufacture incredibly inexpensive and extremely innovative products. Currently, ASRock offers a combo, dual, and upgrade series – each of which series brings their own unique features. In fact, the focus of this article is the newly unleashed 775Dual-880Pro motherboard that not only supports DDR and DDR2, but also AGP and PCI Express, while supporting Intel’s new dual-core processors!

Check out the full article at Phoronix.

In our following review pages handy to use lists we hope you find as useful as we do the range of AMD Athlon 64, Sempron socket 754 motherboards from Abit, ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Chaintech, DFI, ECS, Epox, Foxconn, Gigabyte, MSI, Shuttle, Soltek & Soyo which we hope will give enough details to help you choose which motherboard you want.

Head over to check out the full guide at A1 Electronics.

I’ll definitely say that the Amacrox NB Kit is a definite and welcomed addition to my travels with my notebook as it is a practical bundle of devices that most notebook users would require. I particularly found the USB 2.0 4 Port Hub very useful as I often have to resort to unplugging and plugging in USB devices as I have only 2 USB ports on my notebook. Now with the USB 4 Port Hub, this problem goes away.

Check out the full review over at PC Modding Malaysia.

After doing a few reviews, the effect of ‘cool’ things coming in the mail kinda wears off; the excitement of new things coming isn’t there as much as it was when I first started. When the new 7800GTX came out, I decided I needed a new card, and of course bought it as soon as it came out. The first thing I notice besides the improved gfx performance, was the heat that it puts out!

Check out the full review over at Think Computers.

WALTHAM, Mass. – Aug. 15, 2005 – Novell today announced that Novell® GroupWise® 7 is now available worldwide. Novell GroupWise is the most secure and reliable collaboration platform in the industry and runs on multiple operating system platforms. GroupWise 7 delivers significant advances to increase end-user productivity such as integrated e-mail and instant messaging, enhanced Microsoft* Outlook* support and a pre-bundled license of SUSETM Linux Enterprise Server. As a result, customers benefit from reduced costs and increased productivity as GroupWise 7 manages mission-critical collaboration functions.

Organizations around the world are deploying Novell GroupWise to provide immediate benefit to their businesses. “Novell has provided us with a clear path to the future with GroupWise 7,” said Roger Fenner, infrastructure services manager for Comair, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines. “It maintains the reliability and security we’ve come to expect and rely upon from Novell and GroupWise, while adding features that allow us to offer greater flexibility and capability to our user community. We’ve been waiting for the amazing features and broad-based support that only GroupWise 7 offers.”

Check out the full press release over at Novell.

Are you looking for a quality sound experience at a great price? We are looking at Chaintech’s AV-710 card, which is based on the proven Envy24 chipset. Does it have what it takes to compete with the big boys? Let’s check it out.

Xandros Business Edition provides a desktop environment that looks and feels much like a better-looking Windows 2000. Unlike Windows, Xandros is easy to install and maintain, and it doesn’t come with all of the security flaws and virus vulnerabilities that Windows has. As an added bonus, Xandros Business Edition includes the full edition of CrossOver Office 4.2 (other editions of Xandros include only a 30-day trial). That means that if there is a major Windows software package that you can’t live without, chances are you will be able to install and run it on Xandros through CrossOver. In short, Xandros is now ready to eliminate Windows from corporate desktop computers.

I have yet to try Xandros, and I find it hard that anything could take me away from SuSE. This OS intrigues me though. Check out the full review over at News Forge.

Over the years, OCZ has built up a great reputation for quality and their name is synonymous with performance. The EL in the name stands for Enhanced Latency. The Gold refers to not just the color of the shiny gold layered copper heat sinks, it also refers to the gold standard OCZ uses to denote the level of the memory in their performance line. OCZ PC-3500 Gold GX products are 100% hand-tested to ensure compliance with stringent quality standards.

Check out the full review here! Check back to see our review of this memory later this week.

The higher the DPI count, the more sensitive
the mouse becomes. While both techniques improve optical mouse performance,
no company has decided to combine the two – until now. Introducing the
Optorite ML100 laser mouse, the first mouse ever to feature both a laser
tracking system and a 1600 DPI sensor.

Head over to A True Review.