Posted by hina on March 26, 2009 under Accessories, Computer Hardware | 
PogoPlug works similarly to the Addonics USB-to-NAS adapter, turns any external USB hard drive into a NAS. This is handy for those who have a few of the external USB hard drives which have great contents on it and you wish to share it with your colleagues or family members.
Just hook up the USB hard drive with this little PogoPlug and the USB hard drive can then be connected to your home or office computer networks. It’s definitely a very straightforward way to turn any hard disk drive into a network attached storage which can be used to share and store files among family members or colleagues. The little PogoPlug costs only $79, which is much cheaper than buying a NAS.
Posted by hina on under Accessories, Computer Hardware |
USB monitor is handy as it connects to your computer’s USB port and takes power from it. If you have a few of USB monitors, you can hook all them up to the available USB ports on your computer, so you can have multiple displays to work on more efficiently.
D-Link has unveiled their SideStage USB monitor. It’s a 7-inch LCD monitor that plugs into the USB port of your computer and powered by the USB port. The SideStage 7-inch LCD features 800×480 resolution, and can be switched between landscape and portrait modes.
This mini D-Link USB monitor weighs 1.34 pounds and housed in a sleek black frame. It’s 7-inches wide, 4.6 inches tall and a mere 0.75 inch thick. The SideStage definitely comes in handy for the heavy multi-taskers who need a couple of monitors to carry our their work.
It comes with software which allows you to painlessly configure it to work with other monitors. You can also designate it as the default monitor for certain applications. The official price is still unknown, but rumor puts it around $100, and it’s likely to show up by end of this year.
Posted by hina on under Accessories, Computer Hardware |
USB to HDMI converter is handy for you to hook up your computer to a HDMI LCD TV, for showing those videos on your computer on HDMI TV. Grand has got an USB to HDMI converter, called Grand HD Cinema, which is what you need, if you wish to output videos on your computer on a HDMI LCD TV or a projector.
This converter takes the video as well as the audio from the high-speed USB and pipes it to the HDMI output. The converter is able to convert the video at a pretty high-resolution at 720p. This adapter is claimed to be able to support HDCP which hints Blu-ray playback is one of the potential applications.
The little worry would be the degradation of the video quality due to the narrow USB bandwidth. Anyway, it’s a handy one for outputting video from a computer to HDMI display or projector. You’ll also be able to hook up to six of these HD cinemas, so you can span the desktop or image up to 9660 x 720 resolution. If you’re a heavyweight multi-tasker, then you’ll need six displays for keeping your eyes on those interesting apps.
Posted by hina on under Accessories, Computer Hardware |
These days, you may have several USB gadgets on your work desk that come in various directions. And you need a USB hub that is flexible enough to suit the different angles of plug-ins of these gadgets.
Here comes the “7″-shaped USB revolving hub, comes in the shape of the number “7″. It features four USB ports, which one of them is able to rotate up to 90 degrees to provide ultimate plug-and-play flexibility. It’s USB 2.0 compliant, works with most operating systems and costs as little as $8 bucks. The little downside is it’s in pink which suits girls better.
Posted by hina on under Accessories, Computer Hardware |
Besides cellphones, LG also showed off their new model of Netbook at MWC 2009. The latest in their line is the LG-X120 Netbook. Since LG is good at making mobile phones, of course they’ll incorporate the mobile Internet connection into their new netbook. The LG-X120 Netbook comes with a built-in 3G, which allows you to hook up to high-speed HSPA connection, while WiFi hotspot is not avaialble. This LG netbook has a slot for you to insert a 3G SIM card, so you can then start surfing the Internet via 3G connection.
This LG netbook also features Smart-Link technology which allows the users to easily access data from one computer using simple USB cable. The LG netbook weighs at just 1.2kg, but I don’t consider this as lightweight, since it’s more than a kg. The battery life is pretty comfortable for those who wanna work for long hours, it can stay up to 3.5 hours with the 3-cell battery, and double at 7 hours with the 6-cell battery. This is definitely handy if you get a 6-cell battery, and with the built-in HSPA connectivity, you can stay connected much longer while you’re on the go.
The LG X120 is also configured with LED Backlight screen that makes it different from others. Other goodies found on this netbook is a 1.3-megapixel camera, LG You Cam software, Smart-On interface, and more. Currently, the pricing has not been announced yet but it’s expected to hit Europe in March.
Posted by hina on under Accessories, Computer Hardware |
Although USB monitors are pretty common these days, but you may wanna save your pocket, looking for cheaper solution for hooking up one or more monitors to your computer via the USB ports. So you could have multiple displays to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously. The ViBook Tronic USB video card will be the solution, if you want a quick, easy and cheaper way to hook up one or more monitor displays to the USB ports.
The ViBook device is actually an DVI to USB adapter. The company seems pretty smart, having given it a cool name, called the ViBook USB video card. Basically, there are quite a number of such devices out there in the market and most of them come with a cheaper price tag.
But they’re much lower-end than this ViBook adapter. Such as the cheapest will normally come with NO Mac support (Windows only), max out of 1280 x 1024, and provide analog VGA output only. Those higher-priced have support for Mac, with resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 or 1680 x 1050 and provide DVI support. But with this ViBook adapter you get the features of all.
vibook-usb-video-card-with-the-vesa-mountThe ViBook USB video card comes with various adapters to suit different types of monitor. Its outer look is a small rectangular black box, with one end is the DVI male connector and the other end is a USB cable. If you don’t have a DYI-equipped display, no worry, it does include a DVI to VGA adapter cable. If you have a VESA-capable flat panel display, you can opt to use the plastic VESA mount and use the provided mounting screws to stick it to the back of the monitor.
In short, the ViBook USB video adapter is a straightforward solution for hooking up your existing monitors to the USB ports. Unfortunately, it’s a rather pricey piece that costs $129.00, but it shall be much cheaper than having to buy a new USB monitor. (But not the D-Link SideStage, rumor says that it’s cheaper than the ViBook adapter.)
Besides the price tag, other shorts of this device are no support of video acceleration, motion display not smooth, HDTV support limited to 480p, HDMI support needs the HDMI to DVI adapter, which is not included and it does NOT support Linux.
Posted by hina on under Accessories, Computer Hardware |
Winstars M4 (codenamed WS-NSU68M4) is a USB networking server that connects up to 4 USB devices, and it comes with an Ethernet port which lets you hook it up to your existing home or office LAN. From that on, the 4 USB devices can be shared to other computers connected to the same network or LAN.
The M4 is just like a normal networking device, which can be connected to a network switch or a wireless router, and the 4 USB gadgets connected to M4 can then be accessed by computers on the local network.
The M4 is USB 2.0 compatible and useful for sharing a USB printer, an external USB hard drive, USB memory card reader or other USB storage drives to old computers that do not support USB. As long as it’s a USB device that you wish to share to other computers connected to the same LAN, you just need to hook it up to M4, and connect M4 to the same LAN.
Posted by hina on under Accessories, Computer Hardware |
Modders are getting better and better these days. How amazingly that they’ve produced such a cool PC case mod, shaped like a Pyramid, and the most amazing part is it clearly presents the guts of the PC inside.
The Pyramid PC case mod was made by modder polo360x from the Techpowerup forums. It was made from a customized Luxor Pyramid case, which was made from laser cut aluminum, and is a combination of black and silver aluminum.
The base of this PC case measures 19 by 19 inches and it stands 25 inches tall. The components that are housed inside this Pyramid case are as follows:
* CPU: Q6600 B3 OC @ 3.15 GHz (Max stable OC @ 3.4 GHz) – “water cooled”
* Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L
* RAM: G-Skills 4GB PC2-8000 OC @ 1066 MHz
* GPU: 512 MB 8800GT Zotac AMP Editions (700 MHz Core/ 2000 Mhz Memory)
* HDD: 500 GB Cavier WD 300 SATA
* PSU: 500 Watts Rosewill
* Cooling: Thermaltake Tide water plus w/ Swiftech apogee GT CPU block