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