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2010-03D

Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin             Issue # 2010-03d

              News for when the New Year used to start

In this issue:
  Antec & Mom on PSUs... Fixmo watches BlackBerry battery present &
  future ... Franklin has NYT times 5... BACtrack as a
  zero-tolerance employer tool... Tiffen at NAB: circumstantial
  upsurge for Dfx... Special Report: Desk phones... Project Yippie:
  crash-proofing the drives... Reviews: Samsung slim DVD writer,
  Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 Ultra, Fellowes MS-450ci, PowerGenix NiZn
  Rechargeables, Dual Boot Pro... plus our commentary on spring
  cleaning

Things your Mom never told you about power
  It's tough to spec a power supply because most vendors skimp on
  specs, , some of them lie & even the truth can be deceiving. Is
  its power rating its failure load, all it can endure for brief
  periods, all it can endure ongoing or a nominal load that it can
  continually deliver without overheating or speeding component
  failure or stressing out if you should briefly need a bit more?
  Will it keep your system running while a UPS switches on or does
  it not even spec a hold-up time? Does the production line QC-test
  100% of its run or just samples? Is that testing done at the
  rated load or something else? Most people aren't brand-specific
  when buying a PSU; they should be. Ask Veronica to set you up for
  an interview with an Antec exec who isn't afraid to tell you
  everything. Contact: Veronica Feldmeier, Antec Inc. (Fremont, CA)
  510-770-2150 vfeldmeier@antec.com http://antec.com

Fixmo watches BlackBerry battery present & future
  Battery Watch is one of the initial 6 utilities in the new Fixmo
  Tools BlackBerry Edition ($20 including a year of updates). It
  lets you know when the handset battery is getting low (you set
  the alert level) & forecasts your remaining up-time according to
  what you're doing: Web browsing, talking, audio playback, video
  or just standby. It also displays the battery Voltage &
  temperature. For anybody who's ever coped with a surprisingly
  dead battery, Battery Watch can make it seem like the other
  utilities are free. It's reviewable now; ask Rick. Contact: Rick
  Segal, Fixmo (Toronto, ON) 416-414-9726 rick@Fixmo.com
  http://Fixmo.com

Franklin has NY Times - times 5
  Somewhere back of the front page there's a lot of New York Times
  content that made for a very good fit in Franklin's line of
  handheld electronic literacy-can-be-fun products. Aline invites
  your review interest in any or all: The New York Times Crossword
  Puzzle Dictionary (NYT570, street $50), New York Times SET Game
  (NYT-100SET, street $40), New York Times Brain Partner
  (NYT-340BRN, street $60), New York Times PageMark Dictionary
  (NYT-540MW, street $50) & New York Times Sudoku Game (NYT-320SDU,
  street $20). The real puzzle is how addicted you're going to be.
  Contact: Aline Boutin, Franklin Electronic Publishers
  (Burlington, NJ) 609-386-2500x4434 aline_boutin@franklin.com
  http://franklin.com

BACtrack as an employer tool & zero tolerance
  The kneejerk reaction of most of the public when you mention
  breathalyzers is that they somehow encourage drinking; it's much
  more likely that they enforce company programs that establish
  zero tolerance for drinking, like at delivery & restaurant
  businesses or dozens of others. Let Keith connect you with users
  who are the farthest thing imaginable from alcohol abusers.
  Contact: Keith Nothacker, KHN SOLUTIONS (San Francisco CA)
  415-693-9756x113 mailto:keith.nothacker@bactrack.com
  http://bactrack.com

Tiffen at NAB: circumstantial upsurge for Dfx
  We keep hearing from stations around the country that their old
  Avid altars are being retired in favor of Final Cut workstations.
  That's raising new interest in the Final Cut plug-in version of
  Tiffen Dfx software because it adds flexibility without
  interrupting the workflow. Ask Hilary. Contact: Hilary Araujo,
  Tiffen Company (Hauppauge, NY) 631-609-3216 haraujo@tiffen.com
  http:/.tiffen.com

Special Report: Desk phones
  If you get your dial tone from a pair of wires provided by your
  local phone company, you use POTS (plain old telephone service)
  lines, probably with familiar RJ11 modular connectors. Back in
  the day when communicating through your computer meant getting
  familiar with the warble of an analog modem, Microsoft worked
  hard to deliver TAPI & Sun JTAPI so PCs could pretend to be
  telephones with the right modems in place. Lots of little
  utilities would dial from anything that showed a phone number. We
  still like POTS desk phones for their call quality, reliability &
  freedom from failure because of a PC lockup or a power outage,
  but that freedom comes at a price. For most of the gear in use
  today, the only link between an on-screen number & the phone is
  human. Lots of phones keep a record of incoming Caller ID, but
  not many can port that log to a PC. Many of you know how very
  awkward it is to try to record a phone call (in our case, for
  interviews; we acknowledge the intentions of others may differ).
  The only USB-connected telephone sets we can find are for VOIP.
  Much of the software to provide these simple functions to
  somebody who does have a modem can only support one phone line. A
  great deal of productivity is lost as people either forego the
  convenience of having phoned information as audio records in the
  computer, or of computer Caller ID logging, or the extra seconds
  (for every outgoing call) of reading & dialing those digits by
  hand. Our search for gear to bridge that gap is continuing.

Project Yippie: Crash-proofing the drives
  One thing we know about hard disk drives (as well as life forms,
  like people): death is a birthright & sooner or later, it's going
  to happen. Empirically, when a drive dies, all or most of the
  data dies with it, but that's mostly because few drives are ever
  backed up. These days, even huge drives come without huge price
  tags, so we advise others to do what we do & use 3 hard disk
  drives in the place of one. Our configuration is a combination of
  synchronous (real-time) & asynchronous (daily, overnight)
  mirrors. Two of the drives (all 3 are Hitachi Deskstar SATA II
  drives) are in a RAID1 array, so a mechanical failure in either
  drive won't halt the system. This array is automatically mirrored
  (aka image copied, ghosted or cloned) once each night to a
  same-size (bootable) single drive. With that third drive, an
  attack that manages to take out the first two drives still gives
  us an essentially (but not literally) offline image from which we
  would lose at most a few hours of data. There are a few very
  simple additional measures we can pursue, if we choose, to
  provide some additional redundancy. Very little other than the
  server's applications & configuration data originates or stays
  there: the Web site authoring happens from a desktop, the e-mail
  gets picked up by the desktops about once a minute & anything
  made available for an ftp fetch is also copied from a desktop. We
  have the option of making occasional secondary images of the
  system onto detachable USB or eSATA drives that we truly can
  store offline; that can provide a line of defense against
  time-bomb malware. One of our goals is to create a
  low-maintenance, set & forget server. These simple precautions
  can anticipate & prevent developments that could otherwise be
  disastrous.

Special Report Bonus Review: Samsung slim DVD writer
  Since our first Atom projects last year introduced us to the
  world of mini-ITX we've been almost naughtily intrigued by the
  scant space a mini-ITX case makes available for an optical drive.
  They offer about the same space as a notebook, so we wanted to
  explore notebook-style slim drives. Samsung is one of the big
  players in that arena & at our request, provided two of their
  SN-S083 drive model for our upcoming build projects as well as
  this review. This is a capable 8X DVD+/- RW dual layer SATA drive
  with special features for in-motion environments; for example, it
  modifies writing power to outer sectors to compensate for disc
  vibration. It also automatically adjusts write speed to match the
  specific disc's ability to be written to & its algorithms avoid
  buffer under-run errors even in lower-performance PCs. Also to
  its credit, there's a firmware live update utility available.
  Would a notebook drive really fit into a mini-ITX case without
  issues? We tried; it was a tool-free slide & snap experience &
  removal was just as easy. Bottom line: The Samsung SN-S083 Slim
  SATA 8X DVD+/- RW dual layer disc writer is as much a
  disappointment-free pleasure to build with as it is a performer
  when reading or writing optical discs.

Special Report Bonus Review 2: Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 Ultra
  As we noted before, the standard media players in Windows can't
  play BluRay, so we wanted to take a look at players that can. We
  got in Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 Ultra, which has a number of
  compelling features, like a "True Theater Live" 2X frame rate
  multiplier. It offers excellent BluRay support including BD-Live,
  many HD movie formats & HDMI 1.3 support. Their standard-def DVD
  upscaler (tested on a 1954 telecine program) introduces detail
  (as well as improved contrast & edge definition) but also adds
  visual "mosquito" noise to a picture; most people will prefer the
  detail enough to ignore the noise. Our one disappointment is that
  it installs in "bully mode", giving us no control over when &
  whether it should be considered the default player. Bottom line:
  Cyberlink Power DVD 9 Ultra is an extremely capable & versatile
  player for DVD videos from the old & grainy through BluRay's
  best, complete with an arsenal of advanced features &
  sought-after support for several popular viewing modes.

Special Report Bonus Review 3: Fellowes MS-450ci
  Part of spring cleaning is getting rid of unneeded papers; part
  of living carefully is shredding those; part of making Green less
  annoying is to reduce the volume & frequency of recycling. Add
  that up & you'll get why we asked for a Fellowes Microshed Series
  MS-450ci desk-side shredder (a single-user model, they say) for
  review. The shreds look more like sawdust or dandruff than
  confetti & the basket holds 4.8 gallons of that at good density.
  It can handle optical discs; the shred polycarbonate goes to a
  small child basket, separate from the paper shreds. Fellowes
  calls this jam-proof because if you try to feed too many sheets
  at once (more than 7), it stops & lets you reverse-out if
  necessary. Staples or paper clips won't stop it & it can gobble
  up credit cards for snacks. Bottom line: The problems that long
  plagued many shredders couldn't be deader than in the Fellowes
  Microshed Series MS-450ci desk-side shredder with the added
  security & density of almost powder-fine shredding.

Special Report Bonus Review 4: PowerGenix NiZn Rechargeables
  In our first 2009 issue, we reviewed private label NiZn
  rechargeables; we now have the maker's own PowerGenix charger &
  AA (they also make AAA) cells. As we noted then, these have a
  native cell Voltage rated at 1.6V (oten as much as 1.8V & always
  more than 1.5V), a smidge more than the 1.5 or so of alkaline
  cells & considerably more than the 1.2V of NiMH rechargeables.
  The AA cells are rated at 2.5WH each; in combination with their
  elevated Voltage & relatively flat discharge rate, that
  translates to extremely good runtime, even with digital gear with
  critical Voltage needs. The charger (for NiZn cells only) can
  handle 1-2 AAA or 1-4 AA cells; a red light says charging is in
  progress, a green says it's done & a flashing red says you have
  the wrong kind of cell (or a bad battery) in the charger. Bottom
  line: PowerGenix NiZn Rechargeables represent what we regard as
  the best choice in standard AA/AAA cells for contemporary gear.

Special Report Bonus Review 5: Dual Boot Pro
  If you only have one drive with one partition, Windows just
  boots; if you have more than one bootable partition, you get to
  choose, but often (as we learned when we first started making
  nightly ghosts of our main array) those choices all look
  identical. That's what first got us interested in the product
  that is now Dual Boot Pro; it lets you manage multiple boot
  entries in a lot of useful ways. You can rename them any way you
  want, set the boot choice timeout, tailor the order they appear
  at boot time, set one as your default, change your boot drive
  letter assignment, install a system boot loader, run boot
  diagnostics, backup/restore your boot configuration & more.

Footnote: How many cores?
  We were puzzled after upgrading to a 6-core/12-thread Core
  i7-980X when nothing showed more than 2 cores & 4 threads. Google
  got us to an answer on the boot tab of msconfig (also accessible
  through Dual Boot Pro): you have to change the CPU limit to 0 (or
  disable the Limit CPUs option) then power down & restart. Once
  done, all the cores/threads appear.

Spring cleaning
  We've been working on spring cleaning for weeks & we're making
  good progress (even if it is our spring cleaning for 1992). We
  got several wheeled 3-shelf sets (2 of them as a tandem, a third
  one solo) equipped for our build projects. We're using rolling
  plastic drawer storage to organize audio gear, video gear,
  batteries, slotware, cables by type & several other types of
  tech. We have a set of 3 shelves dedicated to things that need to
  stay charged & we're now attacking our cable runs. What are you
  doing? Contact: Martin Winston, Newstips (Novelty, OH)
  440-338-8400; marty@Newstips.com http://Newstips.com

Calendar coincidence
  Imagine our surprise to learn that Ed Baig's birthday is on March
  26 & Walt Mossberg's on March 27 when Marty Winston's is March
  28. Marty wishes a very happy birthday & prosperous year to his
  fellow old-timers.

                               # # #

Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com

(c) Copyright 2007 Martin Winston and TwandaCorp - all rights reserved.

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