2006-09-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

Young Micro USB 2.0 Aluminum (One Touch Back-Up) External Laptop Hard Drive Enclosure

This next little gem I had bought only a few weeks ago, but already I am feeling the benefits of having it around. While it's classified as a mobile backup device and even has a one touch backup option for Windows XP users, I use it for mobile data storage. I can fill this thing up with music, pictures, code, anything really and take it into work plug it right in and wammo, I have my own personal 60GB drive right on my work computer. Now its import to note that this is only a external case enclosure for a laptop hard drive, so you will need to buy the drive before the enclosure is useful.
Once you do get a hard drive to put in it, it will prove indispensable. Being USB 1 and 2 you can take take it almost anywhere, be it a cafe, library or work. The speed it pretty good if you connect it to a USB 2.0 connection, however if connected to a USB 1.0 connection be prepared to suffer a performance impact. Also if used on a USB 1.0 port you will need to connect the extra power cord if you have a drive over 60GB, a limitation of USB 1.0.
The case itself is good and sturdy, not like most plastic enclosures this one is aluminum, which is perfect for getting shuffled and banged in your bag. Not to mention its just about the size of a small PDA and its light so no worries there.
Again if you are in the market for an external hard drive enclosure, this is a good buy, not to mention only costs about $15.00. A good buy.
Here's a good place to buy one from, unfoutunatly Newegg didn't seem to carry them:

http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=p:10503842;c:36116

2005-10-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

Philips PCVC675K Web Camera

I have to say, one of the more useful and versatile accessories I have bought for my computer has been this little web cam from Philips. When I bought this thing from CompUSA a good few years ago, i was just looking for a simple little web cam for sending videos and pictures to my family. Little did I know how versatile this little number actually is.

First, I just used this little web cam for sending video and still images to my family across the country, and it did its job perfectly, with little hassle, which it still works perfectly for, only now I run it under Linux instead of Windows98. There was a time not long after I had gotten the camera, when me and a couple of friends decided to take it and hook it up to a laptop and make some cheap movies of ourselves doing stupid stuff, not to mention it has a built in microphone, so didn't need to spring for the extra mic. Now the quality wasn't movie production, but it was great for what we were doing, and playing back the movies always gave us a good laugh. Now a days I run web server from my Linux box and this little cam happily takes captures an image every 30 secs and a little java applet refreshes the image on my site and viola I have a web cam, which will show how hard I stare at my computer screen, but hey my girlfriend loves it. Here's my site, if it doesn't come up that means I'm not home(can't be leaving it on all day now can I?) . Thats about all I do with my little camera, but its uses don't end there.

One look at this site and you will see a more amazing feature of this camera, as a CDC camera for a telescope. If you move down to the Moon section you will see some of the images take with this little marvel, this person happens to be using the same exact model as me. The image quality is, I think, superb for something this inexpensive. All it takes is a little ingenuity and you can have yourself a pretty decent CDC Camera, something I have been tempted to try, being an amateur astronomer myself.

Now the technology used in this camera is a few years old now, I would love to get my hands on one of their newer models and test it out. I can imagine how much Philips has improved on the image quality and such, but for right now my little web cam works just fine.

The Evening Review