The Gadgets Page

At $99 street price at the time of this writing, the Corsair Flash Voyager is bulk flash storage on the cheap. With a read speed of 27MB/sec and a write speed of 11MB/sec, its performance is typical of mid-speed USB drives.

But with this much storage, performance becomes critical. You purchase large capacity drives because you have big files you need to move. I copied a 27GB virtual machine data file to the drive, which took 40 minutes. My A-data 32GB Expresscard drive (through a USB interface), on the other hand, copied the same file in 20 minutes, and a RAID-0 drive of 4 USB flash drives copied the data in 15 minutes (which is essentially the USB bus limit for data transfers).

It’s always disappointing when I plug a drive in and I’m reminded of the difference between what the package says and what the drive is. A 64GB drive really equals 60GB of data, which is the amount that will show up in your operating system when you mount it. Whether or not you’re being ripped off depends on the definition of a gigabyte: To everyone in the computing world except drive manufacturers, a Gigabyte is the binary 2 raised to the 30th power (1,073,741,824). To the drive industry, a gigabyte is the decimal 10 raised to the 9th power (1,000,000,000). In the days of megabyte hard drives, the difference was negligible but in the days of terabyte drives, the difference will hold an entire operating system installation. Drive manufacturer’s say they can’t change or they’ll look bad in comparison. I think it’s an issue the FTC should rule on so that all manufacturers have to change at once. But this is a review, and not a rant on ancient numerical injustices, so I’ll go on.

Like all flash drives, the Corsair Flash Voyager 64GB is highly reliable. However, out of the eight Corsair Flash Voyager drives I’ve owned, one failed suddenly. Despite the promise of a lifetime warranty, the warranty was basically impossible to execute, with the company sending forms back and forth and then basically doing nothing until I gave up on it because it wasn’t worth my time. I wound up returning it to Fry’s Electronics, who happily exchanged it even though it was beyond their return period.

There were a lot of people displaying iPod cases and USB drives in The Sands at CES this year, but the cutest of them all was from Bone Collection.

They had these adorable penguin USB drives. They were 4GB, which is enough for the transfer of some personal documents. It’s even enough to load Linux onto and run from the USB drive instead of the hard drive.

Mostly, they were just CUTE!

When I worked in an office, there were some personal documents that I used to work on during my breaks or lunchtime. I would keep them on a USB stick so I wouldn’t have to save them on my work computer or keep emailing them home to myself. This little penguin would have been perfect for that.

The USB is under his head, so you DO have to decapitate a penguin every time you use the drive, but most of the time, he can just sit on your desk looking cute.

These little guys are actually available for purchase NOW. You can buy them at X-treme Geek here:

• X-tremeGeek.com – Bone Collection DR07021-4BK 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Penguin Drive, Black
• X-tremeGeek.com – Bone Collection DR08031-4BK 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Santa Penguin Drive, Red Hat/Black

The computer bag industry hasn’t quite caught up to the netbook fad, so if you’re looking for a bag for your new little netbook, you might think that you’re out of luck until they catch up, but I have an option for you. Most personal DVD player cases out on the market are about the size of your typical netbook, so you can buy them and use them for your new laptop bag. I found this Denali Sport Deluxe PDVD Bag at Target for twenty bucks. It fits my new Acer Aspire One PERFECTLY!

The thing that I love about this case is that it comes with a variety of straps and loops on the bag to hang it from the backseat of a car, but I can use them to make a convenient backpack out of this tiny bag. The Case Logic In-Car DVD Player Case has the exact same setup (without coming in fashionable colors like red). Since it’s so much easier to carry things on my back than just on my shoulder, I LOVE a backpack design. The fact that I have that option with the Denali bag (and the Case Logic) blisses me out.

I used to use a Targus Sport Portable DVD Player Case for my old Acer mini computer. It worked very well for me and I included it with the computer when we gave it to Mike’s dad. I was wishing for it back when I bought the Aspire One, but now that I’ve found this Denali case, I don’t miss it so much anymore.

Eventually, laptop bag manufacturers will catch up to the netbook fad, but until then, you can find a good case for your netbook right next to obsolete personal DVD players in your favorite department store for about twenty bucks.

For the last two years, I have used my Apple MacBook for travel and home computing. It has been a great computer, but with the introduction of the netbooks, I wanted a sleeker machine to travel with. Last week, while I was in Las Vegas covering CES, I took a detour to the Las Vegas Fry’s Electronics and purchased an Acer Aspire One. Here is a photo of it compared to my MacBook.

When the MacWorld announcements were so disappointing, I realized that Apple is never going to make me a netbook. They are too in love with their full sized keyboards and 13 inch screens. Sorry, Apple, but THIN isn’t necessarily SMALL. The Acer Aspire One can fit in my purse. The MacBook Air cannot.

I don’t mind Windows, and honestly, I’ve had some difficult problems with the Mac OS that just DIDN’T work. Going back to a Windows machine is merely a training of my hands to use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V instead of Command+C and Command+V. Other than that, there is little difference. That’s why it was so easy for me to switch from Windows to Mac. It’s just as easy to switch from Mac to Windows, especially on a travel computer.

Plus, I want to try out all the cool Linux stuff that Ubuntu offers. With the Acer Aspire, I was able to create a USB boot drive following these instructions:

• USB Ubuntu 8.10 install from Windows (non Persistent) | USB Pen Drive Linux

It was easy to follow the instructions and I was able to do it without too much help from Mike. I haven’t been able to get my wireless to work yet, but it’s fun to play with a new operating system and I like the idea of running a computer with open source software.

In the end, I felt frustrated waiting for Apple to deign to give me a netbook computer. I wanted a small computer that I could take traveling and to coffee shops. As many times as Mike said that my MacBook was “small enough,” seeing it next to the Aspire is a shocking reminder that it’s possible to upgrade by downgrading in size.

Update 12-08-10:

It has been nearly two years since I wrote this entry. In the end, the Acer Aspire is in Kristen’s room, relegated to kid’s computer status. I’m STILL using that MacBook as my heavy duty travel computer, but more often than not, I don’t even bring that and just use my iPad wherever I go. While even the newest MacBook Air STILL doesn’t fit in my purse, the iPad does.

Apple DID make me a portable computer that lets me blog, write, read books, watch videos and play games on the go. I guess I should have been patient and saved myself the money I spent on the Acer…

Sometimes The Onion makes videos that are too close to reality. This parody shows an imaginary Apple product called the MacBook Wheel:

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

For $2599, all you get is a screen and a round click wheel. Sounds like a deal, right? I love the quote from the Apple User:

I’ll buy almost anything if it’s shiny and made by Apple.

After watching last week’s lackluster footage from MacWorld, this parody from The Onion hits too close to home.

Via: Apple’s “Other” Announcement at Macworld | 2009 MacWorld, Apple, funny | geeksugar – Technology, Gadgets, & How Tos.

I’ve always been skeptical of USB docking stations because USB technology is too slow for video. USB 2 is less than half the bandwidth of a gigabit network adapter, and its speed has to be shared amongst all connected devices. It’s more than fast enough for keyboards, mice, and even network adapters, but video is another matter entirely—video needs a lot of speed.

But I’ve also got a new netbook that desperately needs a docking station, and netbooks don’t come with or support docking stations. And most netbooks only have USB ports, so there’s no option: It’s either a USB docking station or none at all.

So with some trepidation I hooked up the StarTech USB 2 Graphic Docking Station and gave it a spin. Installation was simple after copying the drivers to a USB flash drive (because my netbook has no CD-ROM reader)—just run the setup program, tell it to continue three or four times for driver install, reboot as indicated, and plug the dock in. Each of the devices came up in turn: A USB 4-port hub, network adapter, audio adapter, and VGA adapter. My monitor woke up and displayed the blue background of my desktop, and a new tray icon appeared that allowed me to set the monitor to be the primary display. With no trouble at all, I was up on my external keyboard, mouse, display, and wired network connection.

Knowing that bandwidth would be an issue, I immediately set out to test the performance of the dock. I set the resolution to my monitor’s maximum of 1600x1200x32 bits, and started browsing the web. To my surprise, the video was quite usable—yes, dragging windows was choppy, and occassionally the mouse cursor would flicker, but overall there were no usability issues. Annoying motion banner ads were just as annoying as usual, and web flash video ran without any significant degradation. I was surprised by that. So far, so good.

So I hit it with a real test: Netflix streaming video. This would surey tax the USB port because the inbound network data and the outbound video and audio would be going over a single USB connection. Sure enough, it did. Full motion video ran at about two frames per second, which was completely unusable. I was able to get the framerate up by switching to the internal wireless adapter and disabling the dock’s wired network adapter and by moving audio back to the laptop’s internal sound card, but never to the point where it would be consdidered even remotely acceptable. But then, I knew that would be the case.

What really surprised me was how useful the dock was for everything but streaming video and gaming—any typical office task, web, and email will be just fine with this dock—that’s pretty much what Netbooks are good for anyway. If you’ve got a laptop that lacks a dock, and you’re not using it to watch movies or shoot aliens, the StarTech USB 2 Graphic Docking Station will do the job for you with no hassle whatsoever. When you do need to watch video or shoot aliens, just undock it and use the laptop’s own devices.

Disclosure: StarTech was nice enough to send us a docking station for this review.

Update 01-15-15

The incredible Mike Dodas recognized the computer and the people in the photos! He identified some of them and told us the whole story about them here:

• The Gadgets Page – Utah Department of Employment Security and Their RCA Spectra 70

Thank you, Mike, for sharing all this information with us! I love hearing about the old systems and I believe all of it should be saved and archived. Wishing you the best in all you do!

I found these photos in a local antique store in Salt Lake City and I knew that I HAD to have them. It’s obvious that these people are so proud of their RCA Spectra 70.

Here is a little more information on this particular computer.

• RCA Spectra 70 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The RCA Spectra 70 was a line of electronic data processing (EDP) equipment manufactured by the Radio Corporation of America’s computer division beginning in April 1965. The Spectra 70 line included several CPU models, various configurations of core memory, mass-storage devices, terminal equipment, and a variety of specialized interface equipment.

The system architecture and instruction-set were largely compatible with the non-privileged instruction-set of the IBM System/360. While this degree of compatibility made some interchange of programs and data possible, differences in the operating system software precluded transparent movement of programs between the two systems.

Michael found these PDFs of the RCA Spectra70 Brochures:

• RCA Spectra70 Brochure – 1965
• RCA Spectra70 Brochure – 1968

If you notice, the 1965 brochure doesn’t mention a Salt Lake City office, but the 1968 brochure does. Considering that RCA stopped selling the Spectra70 in 1970, I suspect these photos are from the opening of the Salt Lake City office. There were few companies in Utah who would be so proud of their computer back then: Evans and Sutherland or maybe the U of U.

More photos after the break: (Continue Reading…)

I have a Nintendo DS with one pixel that just doesn’t work the way it should. It looks like a white dot (sometimes it changes color, but ALWAYS the wrong one) on my screen. It’s just irritating on games like Animal Crossing, but for more time sensitive games, sometimes it’s a killer. It became so irritating, that I eventually just got a new DS.

I found this awesome entry by Tina at MakeUseOf.com about how to fix a stuck pixel on your computer screen. If I had known about this, I might have been able to fix my Nintendo.

• 5 Ways To Fix A Stuck Pixel On Your Screen | MakeUseOf.com

Most of the software that she recommends is for Windows machines, but there are a couple of techniques to use if you have a Mac. It’s called JScreenFix and it’s a website you can visit.

• JScreenFix – Fix stuck pixels

There’s even one that might work if it’s a different machine (like my Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP). Before you take that Mac back to the Genius Bar, try these techniques to see if you can reset your pixel on your own.

Via: HijiNKS Ensue – Geek Webcomic – Updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday » Archive » Catching Up

Did you know that Atari Computer Camps existed?! I had no idea and I was EXACTLY the kind of kid that would have LOVED Atari Summer Camp.

Last month, I was doing some research at the library for Starling Fitness by looking through old Seventeen magazines from the Eighties. I happened to find these two advertisements for Atari Computer Camps and even now I wonder how I didn’t hear anything about this. I READ those magazines back when I was a teenager. You’d think I would have noticed these ads a little more than the “It Feels Good To Be Thin” ad that I remembered even after twenty years.

I first learned how to program in BASIC on an Atari 800 at Kennedy Junior High. I would have LOVED to go to Atari Computer Camp. Look at that photo! I would have thought it a dream come true to go to a COED camp with BOYS.

This advertisement makes a big deal about that “feature” of the camps. It reads:

Why do girls like Atari Computer Camps?

Maybe girls like Atari Computer Camps because of our full program of sports and recreational activities. Maybe it’s our professional and dedicated staff. Most probably it’s because they have the unique opportunity to get computer skills that will serve them the rest of their lives.

And of course, it could just be that Atari girls happen to like Atari boys.

It doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

I found this article wrote in 1983 about the Atari Camps:

• Inside Atari: Computer Camp

The schedule looked like this:

9:00-10:25 a.m. Computer Instruction
10:30-11:10 Drama
11:15-12:00 Tennis
12:00- 1:55 Lunch – Rest Hour
2:00- 2:55 Computer Workshop
3:00- 3:35 Free Swim
4:00- 5:25 Softball

They even had famous visitors:

Once a week on banquet night a special guest speaker, usually a computer game designer/programmer, appears to talk about his work. The week before our visit, Chris Crawford, author of Atari’s Eastern Front, talked about his programming experience and his new games, soon to be released, called Gossip and Excalibur. The day we visited the camp, Vince Wu, designer of the famous Donkey Kong arcade game, was scheduled to speak.

I would have loved to go to a camp like this! I wonder how my life would be different if I had.