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People who don't have MSDN memberships can now download Windows 7 SP1 just like those of us who do.

Just a quick science experiment to bring up: One of my customers asked me to order him extra batteries for his and his main salesman's Lenovo T400 notebooks. The battery used in that model is the same as the one used in my widescreen T61 and in newer T410 and T510 models that several other...

Now if only they'd quit making SSDs

Looks like people who have Apple and Dell machines with faulty nVidia GPUs can get the GPU replaced for free.

I manage a server where backups to a USB drive have gotten to the point where they exceed the window of time allotted for daily maintenance due to the server's production schedule (one hour a day, seven days a week). To this point, backups have been written to an external USB2 drive. I need the...

Intel finally announces some new SSDs. Short story: They're tiny and performance is in line with an X-25M, but they aren't available to end users and they're even more stupid-expensive than normal for their capacity.

So I bought a GPS. Mostly because I'm three for three on getting lost while visiting my parents in Knoxville. It's a Garmin Nuvi 205. It's unbearably clunky. I find myself wanting to plug it into a PC and drop an address book into it from that, but it does not appear to have that functionality...

Anyone know where I could get a PCI USB3 controller? I haven't looked very hard but I could use one.

Linkage.

Take a look and tell me that this is not completely awesome.

Here's what I'm dealing with: One of my coworkers has developed an application that relies on MSSQL + IIS (and it's an asp .net thing, so it's going to stay on IIS) that targets a specific market, which is health care related. The offices I've visited in attempting to sell this setup don't...

We've been talking a lot about appliances and, as an apartment dweller, I don't have much to add. But here's what I do need: A bed. I sleep on a twin mattress. Unless I'm mistaken it's the same one I had when I was a kid. The frame certainly is. So it's time to grow up a bit and get something...

Does anyone have any smallish, working 2.5" drives they're looking to part with for some reasonable price? I'm looking for 30GB+ drives, IDE or SATA.

I have a Windows Server that a client is using for remote access to a particular application. Most of the time it's completely fine, but when they run certain reports, RAM utilization balloons by 700MB per report and that RAM is not released when they exit the app or when they disconnect/log...

Apparently, there's still a little life left in OS/2 after all. eComstation is releasing a major revision to its product in the next couple weeks. I'm not sure what the point is, other than supporting newer hardware for existing OS/2 installs, but I am impressed that they're still making an...

Does anyone have any strong feelings about how to deal with old computers and modern software? I'm talking about 10 year old hardware, the sort of thing that might've been upgraded to XP when XP first came out. I'm noticing at this point that even something like Spybot Search and Destroy is too...

There seem to be a number of Ebay sellers offering 128GB pen drives for $20 - $30 at the moment. I'm not sure what the scam is, or whether there is a scam, but since those drive normally retail north of $250, I thought I'd share it with you all. Here's a sample auction. There are others.

I saw this on Lifehacker this morning. It sounds interesting. Supposedly it makes DVDs and BDs into .mkv files while preserving audio and metadata.

Hey while we're at it... I recently became responsible for an Intel OEM Server. I don't know what model it is, but it's about six years old and uses an integrated LSI SATA controller instead of ICH* or IDE-emulated SATA. The machine has a hardware RAID1, but they way I came to be involved with...

Microsoft is offering Technet Plus for $250 with coupon code TNWIN7L right now. That pays for itself approximately the second time you install Win7. Very good deal.

I need SATA cables. Mostly data cables but also molex-to-SATA adapters. Monoprice.com seems to want $1.21 apiece for them, and that's only if I buy 50 at a time. I do want to buy 50 or more, but I don't particularly want to pay $1.21 apiece for them. Anyone have scads of SATA cables sitting...

Here's a set of directions for making Win7's XP Mode work with an unsupported CPU.

The stock HSF for an i7 is frustratingly not silent, so today while I was out and about I bought a Scythe Zipang 2 cooler with a 140mm fan on it. I'm just getting ready to take this PC down to fit it, but I was wondering if anyone else is using a non-stock cooling solution for their i5/i7...

There's a new version of Avast today and the default appearance no longer looks like a goofy car stereo.

I might be wrong here, but spot-checking seems to suggest that Amazon.com's pricing is very slightly lower than Newegg's, and substantially cheaper for people who have an Amazon Prime membership (which is $80 a year... but I might pay that on ONE Newegg order if I buy a few cases).

Let's be abundantly clear: It doesn't work and I don't even see an option to enable it, nor does there appear to be a command line option or something that can invoke it. It has worked in the past, but now it doesn't. Since I don't have advanced mode I also don't have a way to adjust my...

I'm just checking here since I don't have two identical graphics cards sitting around at the moment, but if I stick, say, two ATI 4770s or two nVidia 9500s in the same PC, I can run those as four independent displays without mucking about with Crossfire/SLI, right?

Good riddance. Now if we could just get them to quit making GPUs. And give 3dfx back.

I can't see any other reason for this, but at a customer site today I found that connections to Google's SMTP servers on port 465 were being denied over AT&T DSL. I could tether my and run the same mail configuration and everything worked just fine, but not through AT&T. I can't see any...

Intel's new i5/i7 stuff is available now on Newegg. Looks like the new CPUs use another new, incompatible CPU interface, drop the tri-channel memory supprt and have vastly cheaper motherboards. CPU pricing for the new guys looks to be very similar to the current i7s, with $300 and $500 models...

WPA with TKIP was, until today, probably the default security setup most reasonably smart folks had on their wireless routers. Now it looks like you'll need to be switching to WPA2 or WPA/AES instead.

I've recently come into possession of an 8 port 1000baseSX switch and some cables. Has anyone ever in the history of time seen either 32 bit PCI or any sort of PCIe NICs that support some form of 1000baseSX connectivity? Cheapest things I can find are TrendNet 1x PCIe NICs for $150 a pop.

If you have an MSDN sub you can get Windows 7 now.

Newegg has a dual band (2.4/5.8GHz) Netgear router that is dd-WRT compatible for $34, with coupon code EMCLTLN62. The equivalent in a new Linksys is $125.

This bit of code is very entertaining. Read the comment. But I'll excerpt: " // I had to apply to them for permission to apply to them to have them consider sending // me this sacred tome. This would have involved faxing them a copy of some document or...

In case anyone was wondering, neither DD-WRT nor Tomato will run dual-band Linksys hardware at 5.8GHz. I mean, not AT ALL. It's 2.4GHz or nothing.

One of my students is looking for a SAS controller with an external mini-SAS connection and either PCI or PCIe 1x interface. The system they're dealing with already has something in the PCIe 1x slot, but I'm not aware of any standard PCI SAS HBAs in the first place. Has anyone heard of such a...

I have a notebook here that is somehow re-setting a gamma value someplace in Windows to an eye-searing level. I don't know what's causing it, I just want it to go away. I've tried changing values in the Adobe Gamma Control, set different .icc files up in the Windows Color applet Power Tool, and...

I've been HTML-izing some handy things that can be found on the articles section of this web site. At the moment, the articles that someone might want to pass around are: How to Manually Repair a PC with Hijack This 2009 Updated Anti-Malware Procedure Information and resources for blocking...

Does anyone know of a rack enclosure that could qualify as quiet? Preferably one with gobs of 3.5" drive bays. I'd like to buy a couple for my apartment that are less noisy than the ones I have, but all the ones I'm looking at seem to use those 60mm 10000rpm fans or else some extra-crappy 80mm...

See subject. I'd like to install a Windows 7 trial on another machine but it's not letting me in to grab a key. Tried several machines, several browsers and even more than one internet connection.

Yesterday I went to visit a gentleman named Bob. Bob's partner was a computer collector. Bob's house is filled with perhaps two or three thousand boxed copies of Apple II, Atari, Commodore and Macintosh software, much of it still in shrink wrap. There were a few games (Temple of Apshai, made...

Anyone out there have recommendations for decent-quality spare or replacement parts? I recently bought 20 Via Envy-based PCI sound cards from some vendor in Hong Kong, because I know that chipset is all-around superior to anything that's shipped for onboard sound on a motherboard under $200...

Sporting a 2000GB capacity and an unrivaled lack of reliability, the WD20EADS will cost $300 and all of your precious memories in the form of digital photos and videos when it invariably dies. It's also a "power saving" (read: slow) green model, which is just WD's little kiss off to those...

Seriously. This is some damned happy software if you spend time on multiple RDP, Citrix, VNC or SSH connections. Terminals. We will discuss how you can repay me for this bit of awesome at a later date.

I signed in to Technet this morning and I see that Microsoft has posted an official Windows7 beta. I am downloading it now.

From an Email I just got from Seagate's partner program: "For products purchased on or after January 3, 2009, the limited warranty period for consumer electronics, notebook and personal storage bare drives sold to Seagate Authorized Distributors will be changed from 5 to 3 years. Seagate...

Since we all know how well Java cross platform compatibility really works, Google is apparently working on a native x86 run-time browser plug-in. I'm thinking this won't work very well on current mobile platforms but I'll bet it's neat on a desktop.

Several of my customers are at a point where they need new server systems. Well, OK, maybe not need, but the machines in question are five and six years old and I would like to move them on to new hardware. None of them have particularly huge workloads. They might run a database system...

A client of mine has a plotter. An enormously expensive, two month old , 48" wide plotter. They use the plotter to print blueprints, sometimes, and posters. At least, that was the plan. They have gobs more money than sense and no one there actually knows how to use the plotter. Or much of...