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I've been using mice for 25 years and never once has a foot fallen off, although once when I was walking in Jerusalem on a particularly scorching-hot day, the adhesive on my Reebok runners started to melt, causing my outsoles to separate from the midsoles. Awkward. Maybe the dry heat in...

I've been using mice for 25 years and never once has a foot fallen off, although once when I was walking in Jerusalem on a particularly scorching-hot day, the adhesive on my Reebok runners started to melt, causing my outsoles to separate from the midsoles. Awkward. Maybe the dry heat in...

Just to veer *slightly* off-topic, are there any sites besides SPCR that use a calibrated rig for testing power supplies? Are there any using a Chroma 8000? Piyono

The new switches arrived today and I just finished installing them. My iron is still hot and I haven't even emptied the solder pump yet. Everything seems to be working as advertised. The new switches look identical to the ones they replace but have a different feel and sound. I suppose that...

So I got on the blower, and after being bounced around a bit I finally got the number for Microsoft's consumer order desk (800-360-7561). My mouse is OEM so they won't deal with me but they were kind enough to give me the number for the OEM parts desk (866-230-0560). Unfortunately this...

Two free? Microsoft? New one? Call? Do tell! Two of *what* for free? Switches? Mice? What number did you dial? To whom did you speak? I have no idea what the warranty period is. I bought these mice OEM for like $18. Who looks up the warranty on an OEM mouse (don't answer that)? Piyono

A lot of these refurb places are in the U.S. The shipping will kill me nearly every time. $15 to ship a $10 refurbished mouse doesn't add up. I'd have to find a Canadian online store or a local shop. Piyono

I went ahead and bought the switches on eBay. Figured for $6.50 it's worth a shot. Piyono

It took six years but the left and right buttons in my MS IntelliMouse Optical are finally starting to fail. I considered replacing the microswitches but I can't find an exact match. The part seems to have been customized for MS. Someone is selling the catalog part on eBay, but there's no...

Possibly. These tools do contribute to my income and I could break even after a job or two. ]-[

I've attached a simplified diagram of my network. I re-purposed an old diagram I made for someone else and was too lazy to delete the text at the bottom, which has nothing to do with the pictures on top. I'm looking into getting a WRT54G and some third-party firmware that supports QoS. More...

Untrue. The new non-destructive effects in PS3 are *enormously* helpful. I've been waiting for this for a long time. I'm also quite enamoured of the new UI. So far. I haven't purchased it yet but from what I saw just by playing with the public betas it was worth the upgrade. Illustrator also has...

Let's not forget that Socket370's prime time was in the era of the capacitor fiasco, so capacitor problems are not uncommon on those boards. Piyono

I'd use my Primus/D-Link DVG-1120 as the house router but a) it is woefully short on router features and b) I want my VoIP router to live next to my desk so that I detect errors at a glance and restart it when it crashes without needing to run downstairs. Practicality dictates it being...

BW? My current router doesn't have QoS but I'll pick up a WRT54G and flash it with the latest, greatest 3rd party firmware and see what happens to my network traffic. Piyono

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7448 Anyone else cringe at this? Piyono

I have a TalkBroadband VoIP line from Primus Canada. It was working quite acceptably until a few months ago when I started getting serious dropouts every few seconds. It's really quite intolerable. There are three (sometimes four) other computers on the network at home. All are...

Feel free to continue to post your favourite hard drive enclosure links. Piyono

To power supplies generating more heat and adding more weight, I say: "so?". Heat: Hard drives are designed to run at elevated temperatures. I'm sure we've all at some point touched a running hard drive inside a computer case and been shocked at how it was, despite its operating normally. I...

See, those aren't *bad* but none of them meet *my* criteria. For starters, None of them have an internal power supply. None of them have a front-panel power switch. Only one of them is available as chassis-only. Only one of them is reasonably priced. Olixir actually lists as a *feature* one...

They don't seem to make USB or Firewire enclosures— only SCSI. Piyono

Stop me if I'm way off on this, Merc— compared to the rest of the world's computer-using population — even the enthusiast crowd — there is very little about your relationship to computers that could be considered casual by any stretch of the imagination. [soft chuckle] Piyono

It's interesting you mention that, Sol, as I had been thinking about the durability difference of 2.5" v.s. 3.5" drives, and whether a 2.5" would fare better in a backpack than a 3.5". Probably would, right? But backpacking isn't really what I have in mind. I don't know anyone who casually...

As far as bridge chips go, Glyph's GT050Q uses the Oxford OXUF924DSb, which supports Firewire 400, Firewire 800 and USB 2.0. It's a dual-SATA design, configurable as dual-drive (RAID 0/1, JBOD) or single drive with eSATA passthrough. I trust Handruin likes the sound of that. Let's hear it for...

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one around who's can claim gray hair increase as a result of using these things. I'm completely serious about designing a proper enclosure and bringing it to market. I'm no engineer but I know how something should work. Anyone here with a mechanical engineering...

Nobody? OK, well let's start easy: what's your favorite enclosure with a built-in power supply and a reliable bridge chipset? Piyono p.s. Oh yes, I have to add one more item to the bulleted list above: • Stackable, in a mating-grooves kind of way. p.p.s Don't know how I managed to...

Nobody? OK, well let's start easy: what's your favorite enclosure with a built-in power supply and a reliable bridge chipset? Piyono

Over the years I've used a variety of external hard-drive enclosures and while they do, for the most part, work as advertised, I have yet to find a model priced under $50 (nevermind under $100) that has all (if any of) the features I want. My dream enclosure would be thusly spec'ed: • Solid...

Swap file is on C:. Nothing special happening in boot.ini. Piyono

I have 3 external USB hard drives and an internal billion-in-one card reader, also USB. The card reader is bus-powered and turns on with the system (although its power LED stays lit always, sucking 3 watts even when the computer is off...), but the hard drives are only powered up when I need...

It just so happens that I'm also a busy graphic designer, so a billion installed fonts are par for the course. Bozo, my prefetch folder is empty save for one item and the layout.ini. MSCONFIG is fine, but the startup manager programs I use are considerably more sophisticated and comprehensive...

The narrative: It's been a good 4 years since I've needed to reinstall XP Pro on my main machine. A little TLC goes a long way. However, Despite my using a utility (Codestuff Starter) to keep a trim list of startup programs, Windows can take well over 2 minutes to boot to a responsive desktop...

OK, so I've been slacking off on this issue a bit, but I wanted to clear up the issue of the skipping audio. I remembered shortly after mentioning it above that this is actually an old and noted problem with the Sil3512 controller and the M-Audio Delta 1010 audio interface (which I use). Any...

OK, I'm in Ubuntu now. While booting off the live CD I got a string of "Buffer I/O error[s] on device hdc" prefixed and suffixed by long strings of numbers. I'm scrolling through the logs but to be honest I don't really know what I"m looking for. Any tips? Piyono

Sol, good idea... I'll boot using the Ubuntu live CD and see what I can find out that way. Not that I have any idea what utils to use to test the controller... No chance of RMAing the board as it's well past its prime. Piyono

OK... latest developments are indicating that the issue might just be with the SIL 3512 controller on my motherboard... I had the brilliant idea to try the drive on my dad's computer which sports a brand-new GeForce 430-based motherboard. The Samsung clicked once or twice but I could not get it...

Ddrueding, in the 10 years that I've been at this game I've replace hard drives from every major player. Actually, every player but Samsung because this is but the second drive of theirs that I've ever purchased (the first one lives happily in a USB enclosure on my desk, backing up my photos)...

Just picked up a new WD3200KS. I'll dump the contents from the samsung tonight and prepare an RMA when that's done. Two interesting points to ponder: 1. I bought this WD3200KS retail at CanadaComputers; I don't know how these stores do it, but they matched my channel suppliers' prices. Same...

Ok, update... The drives are now hover at about 40°C in their new (temporary), open-air configuration. Now that I've been sitting here for a few hours the Samsung has started its song and dance, only it seems that I was imagining the "whirrrr" part of "click-whirrrr". I The drive is clicking...

Oh, OK, ANOTHER really curious phenomenon: I store my music on the Samsung. Lately when I've been playing music off that drive it would play back sounding like an old, abused tape machine; it would play too slow, dropping the pitch, and I'd get these weird "wow and flutter" kinds of effects...

The drive in question is a Samsung SP2504C. It and a second SATA drive — a WD3200KS — share a drive cage on the floor of my PC case, where they are mounted a few millimeters apart, the cooler (ostensibly) Samsung positioned below the hotter WD. There is no airflow to these drives. My S.M.A.R.T...

I actually did upgrade the power supply on this machine to an Enermax model a couple of years ago when the AOpen power supply couldn't handle the load. This is a 420W model and it's powering an Athlon XP 2600+, 3 HDs, a Radeon 7500, a PCI modem and a PCI sound card. Not a heavy load. And even if...

One of my 3 internal hard drives has taken to clicking off, spinning down and whirring back on again. This phenomenon does not affect my computing, so I assume it's not my system drive. Still, I'm concerned that one of my drives may be failing. SMART tests show nothing out of the ordinary (of...

Thanks, guys, I'll run with that for a bit and see what I can come up with. ]-[

He-e-eyyy... I like what you've done with the place. You guys want me to purplish-blue-ify the favicon to match the new color scheme? Not that there's a full-size icon to match, anymore... :) I currently back up a few small documents to a web server manually, using a GUI FTP client. It's fine...

This is an area I've never ventured into. What are the steps in setting up a virtual machine on my XP box in order to do a test install of some software (in this case slipstreamed XP and Office 2007) Piyono

In defence of S()ny, their pro audio products are top-notch and rank with the best in the business; DMXR100, C800G, 7509HD, etc. Of course, their consumer line is generally crap, but then again, who makes high-quality, cheap *anything* these days? Piyono

The "Molex" power connector, AKA "the white devil". I've lost count of the number of cuts, scrapes and bruises caused by this poorly implemented piece of plastic. No other connector inside a PC is so difficult and so dangerous to unmate. It's gotta go. ]-[

Funny... Looking at the new icon in the address bar in Firefox it appears squashed at the bottom, but if I follow the link I provided above, also in FireFox, the icon is displayed in its proper proportions, in the browser window as well as in the address bar. IE displays it correctly always. FF...

Not difficult at all. I am happy to keep revising as long as Handy is kind enough to put 'em up. I'll redo it tomorrow sometime. ]-[