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Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2010-02d
Breaking news: everybody taking 2/29 off this year
In this issue:
Antec case by case for gamers/video/media... Fixmo Tools initial
6-pack oops antidote details... Franklin & the Spanish ring...
Dr. Phil backs BACtrack... Tiffen crud antidote bottle... Special
Report: the Escort Geek... Project Yippie: the server O/S...
Reviews: IntelliScanner, GE DynaBeam LED lantern, Thermaltake
Silent 1156, Pioneer BDR205 BluRay burner, Forefront on WWS...
plus our commentary on BYO redux
Case by case: gamers & video & media
A few years ago, the high-horsepower system builders who hit the
BYO sections of computer stores were almost all gamers (the aroma
was a dead - sometimes deadly - giveaway). These days, the gamer
gang still has a strong presence, but they're not the only ones.
For the past year, HD video editing has been the fastest-growing
business application for PCs & has been a really vibrant
population of people who tend to run a CPU fast & hot with
clusters of drives. On a somewhat less cost-aggressive part of
the landscape, there's been a huge upsurge this year in people
building home theater media servers, many in smaller cases &
based on platforms as inexpensive as the Atom. The common thread
in all of this system building is Antec, long a leader in cases,
power supplies, cooling solutions, case fans & more. Veronica can
get you up to speed on the coolest, newest & best of what Antec
offers to address the very separate special interests of all
three of these groups. Contact: Veronica Feldmeier, Antec Inc.
(Fremont, CA) 510-770-2150 vfeldmeier@antec.com
http://antec.com
Fixmo Tools starts with 6 oops antidotes
When the Fixmo Tools ($19.95, initially just for BlackBerry)
collection launches on March 17, it will start with 6 oops
antidotes for handsets. Undelete saves & can restore the most
recent 20 deleted items (messages, calendar entries, tasks,
memos, contact entries, etc.). Flame Retardant triggers when it
detect some classic (generally temper-driven) "assets" in
outgoing messages, giving users a chance to revise before
sending. Silencer checks your calendar for busy meeting events &
keeps the handset from interrupting you during them.
Forward/Reply with Edit lets you selectively include as much or
as little as you want of an original message. It also has a
Battery Watch & a Memory Monitor. Its price includes a year of
updates & new features, with several already in the works; even
so, Fixmo tools (ask Marty for a Sneak Preview copy) is just the
tip of their iceberg; we'll tell you a little more next time.
Contact: Rick Segal, Fixmo (Toronto, ON) 416-414-9726
rick@Fixmo.com http://Fixmo.com
Franklin & the Spanish ring
Franklin's only 2-language handheld electronic reference products
are Spanish-English & they sell best in a geographic ring along
our western, southern & eastern US borders. There's another
interesting division. Native English speakers tend to prefer
something like the BES2100 Merriam-Webster's Speaking
Spanish-English Dictionary. ESL buyers tend to prefer the BES2150
Speaking Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary with
Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary. Aline
can get you either or both. Contact: Aline Boutin, Franklin
Electronic Publishers (Burlington, NJ) 609-386-2500x4434
aline_boutin@franklin.com http://franklin.com
Dr. Phil backs BACtrack
If you missed the Thursday 2/18 Dr. Phil show, Keith can get you
audio or video clips, even photos of Dr. Phil endorsing BACtrack
breathalyzers. His citable quote: "I enthusiastically support
BACtrack Breathalyzers & their mission to get a breathalyzer in
the hands of everyone. I know lives & families can be saved
through the use of personal breathalyzers." Everyone in the
audience got one. Contact: Keith Nothacker, KHN SOLUTIONS (San
Francisco CA) 415-693-9756x113
mailto:keith.nothacker@bactrack.com http://bactrack.com
Vision recovery in a bottle from Tiffen
You don't have to be a photographer to deal with a lot of lenses,
from eyeglasses to Webcams to cell phones to any real cameras or
camcorders you may have. Keeping those clean can be both tedious
& expensive, but we discovered a great value: Tiffen Lens Cleaner
16oz bottles (list $12) quickly & safely removes crud from all
optical lens surfaces. If you'd like to try it before you write
about it, Hilary can send you a smaller 1.25oz bottle (list $6 -
we told you the full pint is a good value). Contact: Hilary
Araujo, Tiffen Company (Hauppauge, NY) 631-609-3216
haraujo@tiffen.com http:/.tiffen.com
Special Report: The escort geek
None of us can gain street-smarts at our desks, so we spend a lot
of hours getting reality checks validated in the aisles of local
stores. We sometimes actively engage in conversations about what
customers are looking for & how they make their decisions; we are
often in more of a passive stealth mode, eavesdropping or just
observing. One thing we've been observing over time but failed to
notice (meaning we only recently recognized it but having done
so, remember having often seen it before) is the unusual but
logical role of the escort geek. They are easiest to identify in
the most heavily geeky store areas, like BYO (build your own)
departments: you will see two people who are obviously not
related to each other shopping in tandem. The one who ends up
paying for everything is the one who needs whatever they're
buying but is very confused by it all; the other is a trusted
advisor who understands the wares. You might expect there to be a
lot of conversation between them while shopping, but there
generally isn't much; there does tend to be a little more Q&A
activity in the checkout line or as leaving the store. The escort
geek's role is a sign of mistrust in a store's ability to advise
& communicate. This extends to the store's service desk,
especially in the past few years; would you pay $75 to install
$60 worth of memory? With a lot of the population still
cash-strapped & an actuarially growing population of computers in
need of simple upgrades like memory or hard drives, we want to
suggest to you that the role of the escort geek is one you may
want to champion.
Project Yippie: The Server O/S
Microsoft Web Server 2008 R2 May be Microsoft's newest, but it
was our first experience with a server O/S since Netware. One of
the new features in R2 that's an especially good fit for our
needs is core parking, which turns off unused server cores when
they're not needed, reducing power consumption. Installation is a
lot like you've seen with XP, Vista or Windows 7, though when it
finally turns its desktop over to you, there's a new slate of
choices to address, plus one of the most annoyingly
security-tight implementations of MSIE 8 we've ever seen; it took
40-50 clicks to select a search engine & send configuration info
to our desktop e-mail address. That first running screen you get
to see after installation lists the chores ahead of you, like
installing IIS (more on that next week). The Windows Update
session didn't have any huge number of updates to fetch. The
server O/S itself is approachable; while similar to what we've
come to expect from a Vista or Windows 7 desktop, it's different
enough to frequently send us back to the Web for more info. That
route gets very twisted as we find we need to install Forefront
(the Microsoft antimalware solution; more on that in a future
installment) which requires that we first install SQL Server, IIS
& some other pieces. Our next installment covers IIS (Internet
Information Services), the elements that make this a Web & ftp
server.
Special Report Bonus Review: IntelliScanner
Apparent Corporation's IntelliScanner is one of those handheld
bar code scanners shaped like a bent, small, solid ice scraper;
you've seen scanners like it at the checkout & this unit connects
via USB. The basic operation is pretty straightforward: point it
at a barcode, push a button & the decoded data ends up in your
PC. The review unit came with a Media Collector software utility;
when we scanned the bar on an old Stan Getz album, there was no
result, but on our next scan it found a Manhattan Transfer album
& displayed the album & cover within that utility. We have a pal
with a media collection so enormous that we'd have to upgrade his
computer to fit all the entries, but this would certainly
shortcut a lot of squinting & keyboard work. They have Collector
series software for other kinds of collections, like wine,
comics, assets, inventory & more. They also have other kinds of
scanners, including some very sexy portables. This is a great
tool for many people; we don't keep enough of anything collected
for it to be useful for us, but we're atypical. Bottom line: the
Apparent Corporation IntelliScanner is a fuss-free way to dodge
the tedium of keeping track of things that already have (or to
which you apply) barcodes - the more you have of those, the more
valuable & useful it can be.
Special Report Bonus Review 2: GE DynaBeam LED lantern
We like to showcase LED-based lighting so we asked Jasco Products
to send their GE DynaBeam LED Lantern for review. In its box, it
looks a bit like a tiny pot-belly stove; once out of the box, a
pull up on its handle exposed the cylindrical diffuser behind
which 12 LEDs are arranged. (You have to push 2 side buttons to
collapse it again, so that won't happen accidentally). A big
black push switch beneath chooses low or high intensity or off.
Behind a rubber cover below, a coax power jack lets an AC (wall
wart) or DC (lighter plug) recharge the lantern's built-in LiIon
battery; that also exposes red "charge" & green "full" indicators
plus a small pushbutton that can start or stop its small, shrill
built-in siren. If it's dark & you need light but can't plug it
in to recharge it, its cap unfolds to offer a crank that takes
care of that. It offers just about enough light to read by or to
avoid obstacles in the dark, enough to be seen when walking in
the dark, but not enough to let you see a deer on the other side
of your yard. With a full charge, it can run 3-4 hours on high,
6.5-7.5 hours on low. Bottom line: the GE DynaBeam LED Lantern
does a good job of providing a modest amount of illumination for
a reasonably long period while offering more than the usual
options for recharging.
Special Report Bonus Review 3: Thermaltake Silent 1156
The Core i5 processor in our Project Yippie server sent us
looking for quiet-running CPU cooler alternatives for socket 1156
CPUs. The new Thermaltake Silent 1156 was a latecomer to tht
party that we're definitely keeping on hand for future builds.
Its shrouded 92mm PWM fan directs air flow across a tall stack of
fins to vent heat from twin U-shaped heat pipes. The fan runs at
800-1700rpm with a top-speed air flow of just over 36cfm at a
22dB noise level, so while it is impressively quiet, this is a
cooler that's appropriate to scenarios where a hotter CPU is more
likely. Bottom line: the Thermaltake Silent 1156 is a cool &
quiet choice for any Core i5 system that's likely to need a
little extra help against the heat.
Special Report Bonus Review 4: Pioneer BDR205 BluRay burner
When we built our Core-i7 systems to be capable of deftly
handling HD video editing, it was only natural to consider BluRay
authoring as something that would have to happen. Now that the
Pioneer BDR-205 drive is out, it seems to be a perfect solution.
Its pricing (street under $240) is attractive for an internal BD
(plus CD/DVD) burner & surprising when you consider this is the
first 12X BD burner (12X for BD, 16X for DVD & 40X for CD). For
big-capacity projects, it supports dual-layer (BD-R DL) recording
of up to 50GB/disc. The interface is SATA (not SATA II but
compatible), which means it's compatible with many older systems;
it works in either a horizontal or a vertical mounting
orientation. 12X writes means a 50GB DL write takes about 20
minutes & a 25MB single-layer BluRay disc fills in about 10
minutes at an overall average write speed around 40MB/sec.
There's really no hassle getting this drive to create BluRay
video discs in any of the variety of compressions that almost any
BluRay player can play, but there's another significant use of it
to consider. If you treat it as a data drive, a double-sided
(50GB) disc can hold more than 6 minutes of a pristine-quality
YUV 4:2:2 video file (125MB/real-time second) as an archive, as a
backup or as one of a library of production elements that can be
brought into future projects. Bottom line: the versatile,
economical & speedy Pioneer BDR-205 BluRay/CD/DVD read/write
internal drive makes nothing but sense for anybody doing HD video
production for any purpose.
Special Report Bonus Review 5: Forefront on WWS
We started out hating Forefront, which is Microsoft's
server-based antimalware solution, so it was the right fit for
our Project Yippie Windows Web Server 2008 R2 platform. The
biggest witch you've ever seen Joan Collins portray is Mother
Teresa compared to installing Forefront the way that was obvious
to us (but stay tuned for a happy ending). The installation would
fail if we don't first install the Group Policy Management
Console, Windows Server Update Service 2.0 SP1 or greater, SQL
Server Reporting Services, SQL Server Integration Services, SQL
Server Backward Compatibility Component & a few others. We were
installing 6 Forefront elements at once, all on the same server,
because that's what the installation wizard said to do. We gave
up, yelled for help & learned that we were playing Captain
Overkill in our own production. The only thing we needed was the
64-bit Forefront client. We double checked Windows Update was set
to fetch updates for Windows & other MS products, ran the command
line we were given & in seconds the Forefront client icon showed
up in the server's system tray. A few seconds later, after
running Windows Update to pick up a service pack, the icon turned
from orange to green. Another few seconds to tweak our options &
we now have as transparent an antimalware solution as we'd hoped
to have. Bottom line: The 64-bit Forefront antimalware client on
our Windows Web Server 2008 R2 platform gives us the same light
footprint & operational invisibility we've been enjoying with
Microsoft Security Essentials on the desktop plus the confidence
of knowing it has the same tough engine behind it.
One more BYO comment
The Build Your Own sections of computer stores are never empty,
but there's an unmistakable seasonality to them. Peak buying
seasons are December through April (some gamers spending
Christmas money but a lot of business people spending tax
refunds), in the summer when school lets out & in the fall when
school reconvenes. Not all of the buying there is because of
people doing scratch builds of new systems; a lot of it is
catch-ups & upgrades to older gear, both by people who built
their own & by people who keep bumping their heads on some low
performance ceilings in branded computers they are quickly
outgrowing. Most people walking into a local retailer's BYO
department are going to be totally confused by the choices they
see; it's even worse if they're not near one & have to shop
online. Some of the chains (like Micro Center) offer free
Saturday classes. We also see a lot of "escort geeks" - more
tech-aware friends or family who are there to help those
decisions. That's especially true for the 70% of the population
with notebooks when they need a memory or capacity upgrade; do
you know how to spec what yours uses? Aha! Now you feel their
confusion! Contact: Martin Winston, Newstips (Novelty, OH)
440-338-8400; marty@Newstips.com http://Newstips.com
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Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com
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