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Geek.com - The Online Technology
Resource
- May 31, 2000 - Vol. 4, Issue 20 -
http://www.geek.com
----------------------------
C O N T E N T S -
0) Behind the Scenes
1) New Stuff at Geek.com
2) Links to new reviews
3) Rob's favorite news items
4) Geek.com Web Picks
5) Don't forget about this
----------------------------
BEHIND THE SCENES - A Geek's arsenal
What goes into the arsenal of a Geek? What tools do you need to do
your job every day, and to enjoy yourself? In my home office here, I
have five PCs at the moment in various stages of assembly. Two of them
are on 24 hours a day, residing in monster-sized PC Power and Cooling
cases with the side slide-panel off at all times.
My main machine is currently a Celeron 400 overclocked to 500 MHz,
with 128 MB of SDRAM and a Voodoo 3 3000. It's been running wonder-
fully at 500 MHz with 83 MHz bus speed ever since last summer, when I
leave the AC off in my office at night. Also, I found--after the
summer, of course--that part of the clip on the heatsink was on
backwards, and the heatsink wasn't flush against the chip when I
pushed it into the Slot 1 motherboard. Since it was on backwards, it
hit a piece of my motherboard and pushed slightly away from the chip,
causing some strange crashes when it was hot. I have since remedied
the situation, and I am curious to see if my overclocked Celeron can
last through the summer without seizing up.
The main machine runs Windows 98 for now, and has some odd issues with
the aging WD 2 GB hard drive at times when I play Flash content off of
the Internet and when I'm listening to MP3s and the drive has to be
searched. I think the 11 GB Maxtor drive I have as my secondary is
begging to be my main drive, but I haven't had the time to redo my
system. This system also acts as the heart of my network, sharing my
cable connection throughout my house. If I have over 10 copies of
Internet Explorer 5 open at the same time, along with DreamWeaver 3,
Netscape, ICQ, WinProxy, and AIM, I often find myself out of system
resources. Time to shut some things down. I've got to get off of
Windows 98!
My backup machine runs Windows 2000. It's an AMD K6-2 450 with 128 MB
of memory. It's currently got an AGP Voodoo Banshee card in it that I
got cheaply in an ad swap. In some ways, it's my most stable machine.
One of my problems with it are that the monitor attached to it has a
sloppy cable that makes the red gun go out at times unless you adjust
the cable. The other problem is that the main drive is a 2 GB drive
that is almost full. The old 1.6 GB drive that was in there running
NT4 had some issues with reliability, and I have it turned off at the
moment.
I have to admit that the third machine in my office right now is an
eMachine that I am "borrowing" from a friend of mine at Quickdot.com.
It's a Celeron 366 MHz that I haven't done much with, but it is
running Corel Linux right now. It's currently got 128 MB of RAM in it,
but I'll be sure to tune it back down to the 32 MB of RAM I got it
with before I return it to my friend.
I'm working on building the fourth and fifth machines at the moment.
One will be a 233 MHz Pentium, which will serve as my Linux TCP/IP
gateway to the 'Net. I have not decided which distribution to use, but
I may go with Red Hat 6.2. The other is a 300 MHz Celeron (that I'll
have to tune to 450 MHz) and it will either run Linux or BeOS.
Honestly, I'd like to get more in tune with BeOS, but I'm not sure
what I'd do with it at the moment. Perhaps I'll relegate that machine
to be my Windows 98/BeOS machine and finally upgrade my Windows 98
main machine to Windows 2000.
The two machines that are in progress both need some extra parts. I
found that the motherboard that I'm putting the 300 MHz Slot 1 Celeron
into only came with a P-II retention mechanism that doesn't hold the
Celeron in place very well. I found a Celeron retention mechanism on
Computernerd.com, along with some extra case fans. Did I also mention
that I have a three-channel RAID card lying around with three 2 GB
SCSI hard drives? I will probably end up making a very speedy RAID 0
for one of my machines. I am just waiting on some cables to arrive.
Building PCs may not be for everyone, but for some, like myself, it's
a strange addiction that we can't quite seem to kick. I have thought
of just tossing all of it and going with 10 or 20 1U rackmount
machines to start my farm of machines, but that will have to happen
when I get my own basement and start my own server room. Do I have any
plans for all these machines? I find that "If I build it, the plans
will come." I can't seem to stop building machines. I should also
mention that my parents are using a machine I built way back that got
retired from my lineup. I now throw out most of the 386s and 486s that
I come across. I can still find friends that have need of a Pentium
90, but I will usually try to convince them to buy a $300 box from a
computer store instead. Building a PC is a very satisfying endeavor,
and for all those out there that have built their own, we'd love to
hear your story. Submit it to our Tales from the Geekside. I've told
my tale, or at least part of it ...
- http://www.geek.com/geekside/index.htm
Anyway, here's the newsletter:
----------------------------
NEW STUFF at GEEK.COM
*** Tips & Tricks
We've got a whopping 10 new tricks for your perusal. This time we have
a cross-platform tip for BeOS users and a tip to speed up your Linux
drive performance. Of course, we put some Windows 98 tips in there for
you as well.
- http://www.geek.com/tips&tricks/tipsmain.htm
*** Rants and Raves
This week, readers rant about getting tech certifications. Also, when
you buy a new CD-ROM drive, do you expect a SPDIF connector on it?
Well, one reader got a 72x Kenwood drive and found an SPDIF connector;
unfortunately, it won't work at all.
- http://www.geek.com/rants/rmain.htm
*** Technical Glossary
We're now up to 1,570 terms. Recent additions include ADC, BGP, CLEC,
DAC, dark fiber, OLAP, release engineer, SONET, S.M.A.R.T, SS7,
tachometer, and virtual machine. Ever forget what an acronym means?
Well, so do we, so we put together a Technical Glossary that everyone
can use. If you can't find a term you're looking for, submit it.
- http://www.geek.com/glossary/glossary_search.htm
*** Tales from the Geekside
I'm not sure how many people believe in horoscopes any more, and I'm
sure that even fewer techie people think the Zodiac can tell your
future. But we've got a great Geek Horoscope up in Tales from the
Geekside today that you'll really like ... whether or not you're a
believer. Check it out.
- http://www.geek.com/geekside/
---------------------
LINKS TO NEW REVIEWS
PDA Hardware Review
*** Casio Cassiopeia E-115 Pocket PC - super sweet!
This new PDA with TFT color screen plays MP3s and lasts 6-10 hours per
charge on its batteries. Check out the new top of the line in PDAs.
- http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/pda/casioe115/index.htm
PDA Software Review
*** DataViz's Documents To Go - Office files on your PalmOS PDA
Wish you could read your Word and Excel files on your PDA? Use this
neat program from DataViz and you can. It's also got a few extras up
its sleeve.
- http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/palmpilot/dtg/index.htm
---------------------
ROB'S FAVORITE GEEK NEWS
Here are my favorite items, picked out of the headlines from the last
two weeks. See what you're missing if you don't read the daily
Geek.com news?
*** Future of Microsoft stock - OS or applications?
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000530001546.htm
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000526001527.htm
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000524001503.htm
*** Gateway chooses Transmeta - GW + AOL + TMeta vs. Wintel
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000530001542.htm
*** No more porn - Amex refuses to pay porn companies
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000529001536.htm
*** A scary sale - Boo.com sells for $300K after burning $120 mil
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000529001535.htm
*** Corel gets some cash - $15 mil to keep it going
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000526001518.htm
*** Media highlights components shortages - all of the sudden
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000525001510.htm
*** Searching the future - with quantum computing
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000525001511.htm
*** New flat panel screens - 38" screens for cheap ... in 2003
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000524001502.htm
Quick Takes
*** Free ISP roundup - 7 free ISPs compared
- http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/q22000/gee2000524001501.htm
---------------------
GEEK.COM WEB PICKS
I don't get any money from these sites, I just wish I did. Submit
your favorite sites to [email protected]
(mail subject: Good Sites)
- http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/
Visit Classic Gaming's museum of classic games. There's plenty of pics
and explanations of console games here. Ah, the lovable Colecovision,
or the underdog Sega Genesis. Not old enough? Well how about the Atari
2600 & the Vectrex? Now you're talking. Take a walk down memory lane.
- http://www.websmostlinked.com
Wondering what the most linked to websites are on the Web? Well, you
can check out this interesting site. Just type in any domain name and
see what its link ranking is out of over 400,000 sites. I was
certainly curious, so I tried out Geek.com. We ranked 17,208. Our old
domain name, UGeek.com was still at 202,212. Not too bad, since we
changed our name several months ago. If you are a site owner, this is
a good way to see how well your Web marketing programs are going.
---------------------
AS ALWAYS DON'T FORGET ABOUT THIS
*** Geek Support
Get the support a Geek deserves! We've got everything from message
areas to a technical glossary. Also, check out our co-branded
MyHelpdesk area for the best support links on the Web.
- http://www.geek.com/geeksupport.htm
*** List your resume or job listing at JobGeek
You know the geeks are here, and you know that they know the geeks
are here. So put your resume up, or put up your job listing. It's
free, and it will get your name out there.
- http://www.jobgeek.com
*** Free Geek.com Mail
Sign up for your always free Web-based e-mail address at Geek.com or
GameGeek.com. Advanced e-mail capabilities and you can gather all
your POP accounts in one place, free of charge, unlike those other
"free" e-mail services. Click on the white "Sign-Up" link
on the
upper right.
- http://www.geek.com/
*** More Newsletters
Keep informed of the latest information, whether you can browse the
web or not. Sign up for our PDA and ChipGeek newsletters!
- http://www.geek.com/nlmain.htm
Until next time, keep on geeking!
Rob Hughes
[email protected]
Chief Technologist
Geek.com
http://www.geek.com
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