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2010-03B

Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin             Issue # 2010-03b

    News we'll all be too drunk to read come St. Patrick's Day

In this issue:
  Antec Kuhler coolers coming... Bye oops; Fixmo Tools launches
  next week... New Franklin Learner spelling corrector pencil
  box... Breathalyzers coming to this year's prom... Tiffen at NAB:
  Steadi on... Special Report: Analysis & analysts on 2560...
  Project Yippie: POP3 & SMTP... Reviews: Asus P6T6WS, Adaptec
  5405Z RAID controller, GE Power Failure Night Light, Ultra 4-port
  USB bracket, Roku HD... plus our commentary on our tweaks

Antec Kuhler coolers coming this spring
  Antec is kicking its CPU cooler presence up several notches this
  spring as a new line of Kuhler coolers debut. Images & specs are
  available now (preview reviewables not just yet) of these clever
  combinations of heat pipes, fins & fans that are engineered to
  draw heat away from the CPU case before dissipation begins. This
  visible gap between the top of the CPU case & the bottom of the
  radiator array reduces the amount of heat that can radiate back
  into the CPU, a factor that very few contemporary cooler designs
  address. Contact: Veronica Feldmeier, Antec Inc. (Fremont, CA)
  510-770-2150 vfeldmeier@antec.com http://antec.com

Fixmo Tools for BB launches next week - bye, oops
  The message ticked you off, so you fired off a reply saying some
  nasty things about the other guy & his mom; oops! Your boss told
  you when & where to meet him for lunch but you deleted the
  message; oops! This afternoon, there's a major client meeting
  that could mean a big promotion, except your phone keeps ringing;
  oops! Next week, a collection of antidotes for all this launches;
  scoops! Get all the info & hands-on now for the new Fixmo Tools
  BlackBerry Edition ($20) officially launching on March 17. Ask
  Rick. Contact: Rick Segal, Fixmo (Toronto, ON) 416-414-9726
  rick@Fixmo.com http://Fixmo.com

New Franklin Learner line's first product debuts
  The Franklin Learner product series has some great family-priced
  products coming over the next few months, beginning with the new
  LRL103 Webster's Spelling Corrector ($13) built into the lid of a
  pencil box. Photos, info & even reviewables are available from
  Aline now. Contact: Aline Boutin, Franklin Electronic Publishers
  (Burlington, NJ) 609-386-2500x4434 aline_boutin@franklin.com
  http://franklin.com

Coming to this year's prom: breathalyzers
  At many schools, zero tolerance for alcohol extends beyond the
  corridors & into screenings at football games (or other sports) &
  the prom. We're also hearing about parents doing their own
  screenings whether it's the prom or for any other date that
  drives. With consumer-friendly prices on accurate breathalyzers
  like those in the BACtrack family plus their increasing retail
  presence, parents are feeling empowered to be parental. If that's
  a story you want to cover, ask Keith for products. Contact: Keith
  Nothacker, KHN SOLUTIONS (San Francisco CA) 415-693-9756x113
  mailto:keith.nothacker@bactrack.com http://bactrack.com

Tiffen at NAB: Steadi on
  The Tiffen Steadicam display never fails to draw a crowd at NAB,
  sometimes because of the strange & clever ways it gets adapted
  (like the Steadicam Segway) by its fans. This year's NAB will
  include a preview look at something outside broadcasting, too:
  the upcoming Steadicam Smoothee that's made to mount an iPhone.
  Ask Hilary. Contact: Hilary Araujo, Tiffen Company (Hauppauge,
  NY) 631-609-3216 haraujo@tiffen.com http:/.tiffen.com

Special Report: Analysis & analysts anent 2560
  See http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey for a survey of the
  hardware that gamers on Steam are using & you'll find some
  interesting trends: more cores per PC, a lot more Nvidia than
  ATI, a lot more Intel than AMD plus some surprises. One of those
  is a decline in their most popular resolution (1280x1024) with
  the biggest gain for 1920x1080; please see the data yourself to
  intuit the differences between notebook & desktop users; our
  1920x1200 displays (the highest resolution Steam supports) are
  typical of about 6%. That link came to us courtesy of the main
  brain trust of display info, Dr. Jon Peddie (we call him "The
  Tiburon Monk") of Jon Peddie Research, who introduced us to Bob
  Raikes of Meko, behind the premiere UK-based industry newsletter
  on displays. Jon pointed out that you could get more screen
  resolution for less money by using more monitors with more modest
  pixel counts; HDTV manufacturing volumes are keeping those panel
  prices very attractive. He doesn't see much hope for the 2560
  category. "I have been surprised (and so have Dell, HP & Apple)
  that the 30-inch didn't gain more traction," he said. "It's just
  expensive enough and production low enough that it's stuck." Bob
  believes that while there are 11 major panel manufacturers, the
  30" panels are currently only being made by LG & Samsung. He sees
  the current premium pricing for 30" 2560 displays as based mostly
  on the expectations of the panel makers, noting that the price
  per square inch is "often more than double, although there is not
  much of a cost difference - given the same volume." Bob also
  expresses (with some disappointment as a self-avowed
  pixelaholic), "It frustrates me that I can't get a desktop
  monitor with the same dpi as my notebook." My comment to them &
  you: "I perceive that one difference among us is that you guys
  are focused on things you can observe & measure while I get a
  bigger thrill out of finding things I can change. I try to
  observe where things aren't just as lucidly as you try to discern
  where things are & we're all old enough to know it's a crap shoot
  either way."

Project Yippie: POP3 & SMTP
  We very deliberately set out to find a commercial (not open
  source or freeware) incoming & outgoing (POP3 or IMAP & SMTP)
  e-mail server software package because we thing the very small
  businesses (anent whose needs this article series is focused) may
  need the stability & support implicit in that. We came close. The
  commercial package we landed on is Ipswitch IMail Server, but as
  we went down the list of which of its features we needed, we up
  choosing its free sibling, IMail Express. Its most significant
  limitation (before you need to upgrade to one of the not-free
  versions) is that it supports no more than 10 logins, but it
  includes some features that can make each login cover a lot of
  e-mail addresses. The righteousness authentication features that
  help your recipient's anti-spam engine know that you're OK are
  all there. We use a non-standard SMTP port (among other measures)
  to help keep the wrong people from relaying through our mail
  server, also supported in the free version. The free version does
  not include support, but it is available at a modest fee (not all
  users will need it). More advanced features or more logins or
  add-ins for antispam or archiving or antimalware are likewise not
  free. IMail Express does support Webmail access & remote
  administration plus some nifty rules-like tools for helping (for
  example) misaddressed e-mail still reach you.

Special Report Bonus Review: Asus P6T6WS
  Last year, our multipart Core i7 build series set its sights on a
  non-overclocked desktop system capable of including HD video
  editing & rendering among more ubiquitous office tasks. This year
  (in our next issue's "Project Up & Up" series), we look at
  rolling in several in-place upgrades & seeing what visceral
  differences we'd encounter. Might a different kind of X58
  motherboard better fit our needs? The experts at Asus recommended
  & sent their workstation-class P6T6-WS Revolution. The initial
  trigger for that choice was our desire for a second Gigabit LAN
  port (making it easier to reach both our internal NAT addressed
  LAN & the "real" internet where we have a static IP address).
  That opened the door to an avalanche of cool features, like being
  our first mobo with SAS & the only one we've seen with six PCIe
  X16 slots. The build quality is especially good to an engineer's
  eye, with extra shielding, effective heat piping, aggressively
  finned chipset cooling plus some impressive deployment of power
  management components around the board. The connector layout must
  have been done by somebody sick & tired of swearing at boards
  with unreachable headers; it's one of the easiest we've
  encountered. While there are warm spots on the board, there are
  none of those light-my-cigar points we sometimes see on other
  boards; overall the motherboard contributions to heat are well
  spread out, making for a build that can run cooler & as a result,
  more quietly. Bottom line: the Asus P6T6-WS Revolution
  workstation-class X58 motherboard offers a combination of
  features, functionality & extras that, for veteran builders like
  us, borders on fantasy.

Special Report Bonus Review 2: Adaptec 5405Z RAID controller
  When we did our Core i7 build project a year ago, we spent a lot
  of time doting over its internal 4-drive RAID 5 array, capable of
  dealing with high-bandwidth pro-level YUV 4:2:2 HD video a bit
  faster than real time. We had a hunch that we could find a better
  controller card, asked industry leader Adaptec & on their
  recommendation, got a 5405Z controller card (PCIe X8) for review.
  There's some seriously sweet tech on this card, including
  dual-core ROC (RAID on chip) & 512MB DDR2 cache (many times what
  we had before). Its zero-maintenance cache protection, using 4GB
  of flash memory & powered by a super-capacitor, is a wonderful
  alternative to piggyback backup batteries with amazing 10-year
  preservation ability (versus 72 hours before, until the batteries
  quit). Passively, it uses fins (heat sink) & a vented bracket to
  keep its cool without adding to the PC noise load, though it does
  expect plenty of airflow. There's a bigger (active) difference
  through features Adaptec collectively calls Intelligent Power
  Management, which both spins down idle disks & offers a
  lower-power mode for active disks. That adds up to a substantial
  power savings (especially in our installation, where this array
  is mostly used for HD video editing & rendering) which in turn
  lets the power supply run cooler & the system's thermally
  responsive fans run more quietly. This card lists for just under
  $800, so it's not something you should grab on a whim, but having
  had opportunity to deal with lesser offerings, there's such a
  long list of better attributes here that it presents a much
  better value, regardless of price (unless your time & your data
  are both worthless). Bottom line: the Adaptec RAID 5405Z PCIe X8
  4-port SAS/SATA controller card

Special Report Bonus Review 3: GE Power Failure Night Light
  Our third LED lighting product from Jasco Products is the GE
  Power Failure Night Light, a cylinder with a flip-out power plug,
  a 3-position switch (on/off/auto), a photosensor & a triangle of
  LEDs. When set to auto, it stays dark when there's light in the
  room, glows when its surrounding are dark & turns on its brighter
  flashlight mode should the power fail. Keep it plugged in to let
  its flashlight-mode battery charge or unplug it to use it as a
  flashlight any time. Bottom line: the GE Power Failure Night
  Light combines all the features you might want for a kid's room
  (or your own) to keep from bumping into things in the dark,
  especially when that darkness is unexpected.

Special Report Bonus Review 4: Ultra 4-port USB bracket
  Every recent motherboard we've seen has a header for connecting
  additional USB ports & every system we've had since the arrival
  of USB has always had more things to plug in than places to plug
  them in. Since we're dealing with other in-place upgrades to last
  year's Core i7 project system, we found a hidden treasure in the
  Ultra Products ULT40299 4-port USB bracket. New motherboards
  often come with a spare-slot bracket with a pair of ports ready
  to connect to a single USB header; this offers a pair of pairs -
  4 ports total - each pair ready to connect to a separate header
  through its own 18" cable. Our new ASUS motherboard has 3 such
  headers, meaning we can connect one to the case & 2 to this
  bracket & not waste any of the available ports. Even if you don't
  build your own, if you find a rear bracket with just 2 USB
  connectors, it's worth checking to see if there's an unpopulated
  USB header on the motherboard; if so, you can gain 2 fully
  powered ports just by using one of these brackets instead. Bottom
  line: We really like having the one-slot 4-port option that the
  Ultra Products ULT40299 bracket gives us.

Special Report Bonus Review 5: Roku HD
  We've bought chunks of cheese bigger than the Roku HD box - its
  small size surprised us - but so did its performance. It connects
  via wired or wireless Ethernet to tons of Web-based content, from
  Netflix or Amazon or Pandora or any of a growing collection of
  content (a dozen free & 5 premium channels at this writing). WiFi
  means that we can, if we want, walk it from set to set with a
  back-panel choice of connecting analog or optical digital audio,
  composite or component or S-video or HDMI. We don't know what
  trickery they're using to upscale streams of old content to an
  HD-displayable output, but we like it. Bottom line: The Roku HD
  box is a fun, flexible, richly & wildly varied content resource
  for those surprisingly many times when hundreds of cable channels
  just don't seem to offer choices as good as these.

Tweaks
  Based on your feedback, we've made some tweaks on our format but
  we have no idea if they're good or bad until you tell us what you
  think. We've begun paring down on our item length. We added the
  "In this issue" section at the top. We're staying with plain text
  (favored 3:1 among those who responded). What do you think?
  Contact: Martin Winston, Newstips (Novelty, OH) 440-338-8400;
  marty@Newstips.com http://Newstips.com

                               # # #

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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