Saturday, May 14, 2005

Tritton USB 2.0 Video Card for Mac mini. We recently reported on Tritton’s SEE2 USB 2.0 to SVGA video adapter for Windows PCs, and now the company is reporting they’ll be putting out a USB 2.0 Video Card version for the Mac mini (although “card” in this case is a bit of a misnomer). Presumably it would work on other Macs as well, but there’s not much incentive to use this with a desktop machine unless you really have an aversion to PCI cards, and there aren’t too many of us who need dual-monitor support from our laptops — but for the Mac mini, it will be pretty much the only option you’ll have for extending or mirroring the desktop area to an extra monitor. [Engadget] 10:28:40 AM   comments[]

Sunday, March 6, 2005

Apple Powermac LED Clock Hack. Those punched holes in the front of the Apple G5 Powermac's aluminum case just happen to be the perfect size to hold standard-issue LEDs. Swedish hacker Anders Lundberg built his own LED clock that fits right in the bottom, and I think it's sort of swell. Can you think how rad it would be if the entire front panel was one giant LED array? (Thanks, Hammond!) Project Page [PaulAnders] [Gizmodo] 2:05:09 PM   comments[]

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Mac mini Lexus. In the glove box of this new Lexus sits a Mac Mini, USB 2.0 hub, and an easy bundle of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support. On the dash is a Pioneer in-dash receiver with touch screen displaying the mini's OSX output. Gin and juice, money on your mind optional. Hopefully within a couple of months this will be so common it's not notable. Mac Mini in a Lexus [theRADblog] [Gizmodo] 1:35:20 PM   comments[]   Turtle Beach Video Advantage USB. Turtle Beach has a new video capture device that's not only small, but has such a low draw that it works off USB bus power alone. The $130 Video Advantage USB isn't fancy, exactly, but it can capture DV-quality video, which is a big step up from the old school USB 1.0 devices. If you're bringing video in over RCA or S-Video in the first place, it will probably get the job done. Product Page [TurtleBeach] [Gizmodo] 1:24:54 PM   comments[]   EvolutionTV gets in on the Mac DVR game. Miglia’s EvolutionTV steps into the ring as a notable contender to Elgato’s EyeTV in the Macintosh digital video recorder market. Not only does it undercut the EyeTV in price ($279 versus $329), but its feature set outshines the elder product by including MPEG-4 and DivX support along with the traditional MPEG-2 option. Bundle in TitanTV compatibility, integrated iCal scheduling, and no-import editing in iMovie 5, and this device is starting to look like the best DVR solution out there for the Mac. So far. [Engadget] 1:24:09 PM   comments[]

Monday, December 13, 2004

HOWTO make your PC more secure, by Bruce Schneier. Bruce Schneier has published a list of security recommendations for individuals who want to make their PCs safer: Operating systems: If possible, don't use Microsoft Windows. Buy a Macintosh or use Linux. If you must use Windows, set up Automatic Update so that you automatically receive security patches. And delete the files "command.com" and "cmd.exe." Applications: Limit the number of applications on your machine. If you don't need it, don't install it. If you no longer need it, uninstall it. Look into one of the free office suites as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Regularly check for updates to the applications you use and install them. Keeping your applications patched is important, but don't lose sleep over it. Browsing: Don't use Microsoft Internet Explorer, period. Limit use of cookies and applets to those few sites that provide services you need. Set your browser to regularly delete cookies. Don't assume a Web site is what it claims to be, unless you've typed in the URL yourself. Make sure the address bar shows the exact address, not a near-miss. Web sites: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption does not provide any assurance that the vendor is trustworthy or that its database of customer information is secure. [Boing Boing] 8:29:09 PM   comments[]   Trust HU-3340M 4-port USB 2.0 Hub. Trust's new HU-3340M is a 4-port USB hub. That's it, nothing fancy, just a USB 2.0 hub. But it happens to be tiny and aluminum, which takes it up a notch, and has an optional AC adapter for those times that your USB devices need a little more juice. If the AC adapter is tiny and sleek as well, I may have actually found a USB hub that I'd be willing to carry around with me at all times. [Gizmodo] 6:03:26 PM   comments[]

Thursday, December 2, 2004

V-Tec's V-Disk Cutie OTG. It’s small (2.95 x 5 x 0.79-inches), cute, battery-powered, and comes in sizes up to 100GB with USB 2.0 and USB On-The-Go (which means backups and offloads from devices and memory cards without a host PC). In other words, despite the $450+ pricetag, it’s going to be our new best friend (we’re just going to have to sell a kidney to hang, see?). [Via BIOS] 11:44:08 AM   comments[]

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Seagate ships their new 400GB Barracuda 7200.8 PC hard drive. In a few years this’ll seem like nothing, but for right now let’s all gasp in awe at the news that Seagate is shipping what is (for now) the “world’s highest capacity PC hard drive”, the new Barracuda 7200.8, which clocks in at a massive 400GB. 250GB just won’t do now, will it? [Engadget] 1:37:59 PM   comments[]

Monday, November 15, 2004

New DVR package for Macs from Plextor and Elgato. In a marriage even mom would approve, Plextor and Elgato have come together to create a digital video recorder package for Macs that combines Plextor’s DVR capture device with Elgato’s EyeTV software.  The capture unit uses RCA or S-Video connections to grab video from broadcast, cable, or satellite and compresses the video using a hardware-based MPEG-2 processor, and connects to your Mac via USB2.0.  The EyeTV software sports all the DVR controls you would expect, like time shifting and instant replays.  Total retail price is $229 for the package, less than you would pay for both items separately. [Engadget] 1:30:24 PM   comments[]   Atomic Time on a Grain of Rice. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created an atomic clock which measures a mere 1.5mm by 5mm. This is just slightly larger than a grain of rice. Compared to the current crop of commercially available atomic clocks, most of which are about the size of a large filing cabinet, this leap in miniaturization is expected to impact everything from navigation to faster cell phone and data networks. Atomic clocks are prized for their precision. Unlike their piezoelectric crystal counterparts, they use the vibrations of atoms to time events, and are much more accurate because atomic vibrations aren't wildly influenced by environmental factors. An atomic clock might lose a second every three hundred years - a quartz crystal clock loses a second a day. The leap was made possible not by a mere decrease in size, since the technology has existed to do that for years, but by a decrease in power consumption. Current atomic clicks use a couple of watts, but the NIST atomic clock only use 30-50 milliwatts (thousandths of a watt). [kuro5hin.org] 1:04:41 PM   comments[]

Friday, November 12, 2004

The Mirror TV. Either they beat Philips to the punch or this is a knock-off of their idea (well, it could be both), but Smarthome is selling a bathrooom mirror with a 15-inch LCD TV embedded into it. From the pic it looks like it’s just a TV with a mirror around it, but when you turn the TV off all you see is a regular mirror. So good, because you really wouldn’t want to miss a second of Good Morning America. Oh wait, that’s what TiVo is for. Forget it. [TRFJ] 2:17:15 PM   comments[]

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

PodLock. It's a bit expensive at $40, but the new PodLock software from Micromat looks like it could be really handy for people that like to use their iPod as more than just a dumb music storage device (there is a hard drive in there, remember?) It's namesake feature is the ability to create a hidden partition on your iPod for store personal data—not that useful by itself, but pretty handy when you add OSX's FileVault encryption on top of it. It will also allow you to backup and restore the iPod volume to another drive—don't know if that's a disc image or the files themselves, but either way it could be handy. And probably most interesting to me, it also offers a way to defrag your iPod's hard drive for increased performance and battery life. As far as I know, the only way to do this before was to reformat and reload. [Gizmodo] 2:59:22 PM   comments[]

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

M-Audio Firewire Solo. M-Audio has announced the FireWire Solo, a simple bus-powered way for home recording folks to get tracks into their computers with a minimum of fuss (and EM noise). The Solo has two inputs, one with a 1/4-inch guitar input and the other a standard XLR microphone interface with phantom power. All in all, it looks like a nice setup for singer/songwriter types who need a nice, clean interface for pro equipment (although I can't help but think there might be a cheaper option for less than $250). (Thanks, Chris!) M-Audio Introduces FireWire Solo Audio Interface [Sythopia] [Gizmodo] 12:23:26 PM   comments[]   Firefox 1.0 is Finally Here. The final 1.0 build of Firefox is now freely available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Today also marks the beginning of many marketing efforts on the part of the Spread Firefox community, including the full page ad in the New York Times they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for. And now that there is a stable, final, 1.0 build of the little browser that could, its adoption should continue to even greater heights. And isn't this interesting, after all the chatter about Google adopting Firefox and re-branding a build of it for themselves. This "Firefox Start" page is the default home page for Firefox now when you install 1.0 final, even if you've set your preferences for something else in an earlier build. [What Do I Know] 10:45:35 AM   comments[]   Skin your iPod, TiVo remote, gameboy, phone and PDA. SkinIt sells reasonably priced crazy-ass vinyl "skins" for your MP3 player, PDA, phone, handheld game, whatever (even your TiVo remote!). They've got a zillion patterns and they'll even pay you royalties on yours if you submit it and they sell it. Just ordered one for my iPod. [Boing Boing] 10:36:31 AM   comments[]

Tuesday, November 2, 2004

iPod charger in an Altoids tin gets 10 hours of play. Instructions on how to make an external iPod battery pack from two 9 volt batteries and two AAs. Claims to get 10 hours of play. - playing card box - Altoids tin [Boing Boing] 3:00:17 PM   comments[]

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