There is a new Century Compact Flash to SATA adatper coming out May 1st. We have all seen these before but, what makes this one unqiue, is its support for three CF cards. That’s up to 96GB of RAID 0/5 love for half of what the current crop of 64 GB drives are going for. Interesting huh?

The current online price is around $192.00 plus shipping. Based on earlier reviews of similar products, the performance should be top notch.

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Ever since the release of Windows 2008 Server I have been hearing the buzz about it being a better Windows XP replacement then Windows Vista. During the first month after its release I attributed this buzz to the normal hype surrounding every release of a new version of Windows and, as is my habit, I ignored it but, the buzz continued.

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Intel has tweaked its processor price list, cutting up to 50 per cent off what it charges for desktop CPUs.

The big reduction came to the 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad Q6700, which now costs $266, down from $530. The 2.4GHz Q6600 is also cheaper now: down 16 per cent to $224. For those of you not in the know, the Q6700 part is an overclocking monster thanks to its 10x multiplier.

The other big reduction was applied to the 3GHz Core 2 Duo E6850, which had 31 per cent taken off its price, bringing it from $266 to $183.

I guess it’s time to hit newegg.

Well, fastest hard drive that isn’t SCSI anyway. Western Digital has taken their Raptor hard drive which is a 10,000 RPM drive and cleaned out the cob webs and added some synthetic turning fluid. Now called the VelociRaptor, with a maximum capacity of 300 gigabytes, the drive is smaller, weighing in at 2.5 inches. (how do you weigh an inch again?) Anywho, even though the drive is smaller, thermal power loss and high drive temperatures are less of an issue with decreasing physical dimensions and they typically offer much improved access time with excellent transfer rates. The drive still utilizes SATA, because SAS would increase the cost to the user, but don’t fret… The interface supports SATA at 3 Gb/s link speed (300 MB/s) instead of the previous 150 MB/s. Throw a few of these in a RAID and you will be the most wanted geek on your block.

Check out the full article here.

Replace Symantec Ghost Enterprise with Clonezilla.

Since posting my article listing the open source alternatives to Symantec Ghost Enterprise, I have received a lot of questions related to installing and configuring Clonezilla, so I thought it would be a good idea to post a “quick start guide” for installing Clonezilla.

The following applies to setting up a network boot environtment using the PXE capabilities of your network card. If you simply want to image a single machine, then I suggest you use the Clonezilla Live CD. You simply boot your system from the CD, mount a network drive, and save your image to the network. It is the same as using a ghost boot disk in DOS but, without all the network card configuration.

If you are anything like me then you don’t like having to remember what you did with a boot disk and have to image a system a lot more often then a couple of times a year. In that case, follow along to setup a Clonezilla server your clients can use to boot from without the need for a boot disk.

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If  you want to talk about great PHP scripts then you need to check out phpXplorer.

From the website:

phpXplorer is an open source file management system written in PHP. It enables you to work on a remote file system through a web browser. By default it has got dialogs for editing HTML, PHP, image, Apache, compressed and email files. Its modular design makes it easy to build your own filetypes, property sheets, views and themes. phpXplorers permission manager enables you to restrict the access to the shared file system for multiple users in a detailed way.

I’ve been looking for something like this to setup a more useful file hosting site for my personal use for sometime. This looks to me to be the answer.

I could see this as a perfect way to setup a file sharing site for family and friends when you don’t want to have to explain how to use ftp. The security allows you to share only the directories that you wish while not opening up your entire system to everyone you grant access.

Screenshots: [1] [2] [3] [4] 

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Check out this great preview of what Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm will look like on the PS3. Besides Gran Turismo this game makes me want to get the Playstation 3 also! I thought I was watching the anime and not a game. Hopefully the gameplay will coincide with the graphics. And if you haven’t heard of Naruto, I highly recommend checking out the series. It has a decent story line and some thought behind the madness. I give it a 7 out of 10. Anyway, check out the PS3 preview and stop drooling already.

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D-day is approaching rapidly. No, not that D-day, that already happened, this one is Digital Day. At the time of this article being written, there are 307 days left until analog TV broadcasts cease and the only thing left is digital over-the-air broadcasts. So you have an old 19 inch tube analog television or maybe even a Flat panel that you bought 5 years ago when they first surfaced at your local retail store that doesn’t have a ATSC tuner (That’s digital of course) and you don’t have the 700 to 3000 dollars to invest in a new HDTV, what do you do? There are a couple of options.

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Almost daily I am asked how to remove spyware or malware from an infected windows system so, I thought I would compile a list of the free utilities I use to perform that task. That way I could point those poor souls here instead of spending thirty minutes explaining all the options.

These programs can help you remove malicious software by helping you to detect, remove, and prevent your system from getting infected in the first place. No Windows system should be without these programs.

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Well not just yet, sadly. After the test drive of a brand new 2008 Mazdaspeed 3 GT, I just couldn’t say no. Well I said no a few times to get the price to where I wanted it, but I am very happy with the end result. 24K + tax (my mom laughed at me cause she bought her first car for the amount of tax I paid). Now I just have to wait for the bank to come through with my loan and for Mazda to find the exact model with the features I requested. (they both said it should only take about a week.) Sigh.

Mazda has made the Mazdaspeed series for a few other of their cars and only makes a limited amount of the car for approximately 2 years. 07-08 was the Mazdaspeed 3 which is a hatchback. Not your typical sports car, but that’s what I love about it. You never see it coming!!

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