As part of the home data safety series, I went out and got myself a 750Gb miniStack NAS from NewerTechnology.  There are many different NAS device options available, this is just the one that I liked based on price and features.  At first glance it solves all the problems that plague the other home data security options.

• Many people/computers can access it at once.
• There is no limitation on read/write.
• At 750Gb, it should have more than enough space to fit all your data for a long time to come.
• The price is more than reasonable at $250.
• It’s physically small enough to fit into a safe or store with a neighbor when not being used.
• You have fast access to the data via 100mb network.
• You have even faster access to the data via USB 2.0 when necessary.
• Your important and personal data is not housed and secured by a stranger.

Lets look beyond the first impression and see what this particular drive can really do.

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Before someone gets to win it, I get to play with it. The HP Dragon arrived on my doorstep this morning. This thing is huge. By huge, I mean enormous. Literally gigantic. This is a notebook of epic proportions. You can’t call this thing a laptop, because no one has a lap this big.

This notebook will be given away via our contest. We are part of the 31 days of the Dragon sponsored by HP. Each day for 31 days, HP is going to give away one of these notebooks through a blog or other participating website. GeeksToGo.com was lucky enough to be chosen to be part of the contest. Our contest begins May 13th and will end May 20th.

On to the review. Did I mention that this notebook is big? They don’t call it a “Desktop Replacement” system for nothing. The standard size for a desktop monitor is still 17″. This monstrosity has a 20″ widescreen display. Even by desktop standards, this monitor is still big.

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Update: We have a winner! Please be sure to checkout the other contests!

GeeksToGo.com has been chosen to be part of the 31 days of the Dragon sponsored by HP. As part of this marketing campaign, each participating site creates their own contest to give away an HP Pavilion HDX Dragon notebook. If purchased, the package value is over $5,000! Package details here.

Contest Overview

Simply print the Geeks to Go logo. Take a picture or video of it. Reply in the contest submission forum topic (free registration required) with your picture or video. From the pool of contestants who properly enter the logo competition, a random entry will be chosen as the Grand Prize, HP “Dragon” notebook winner… In addition, the entries judged as the Most Creative Photo and Most Creative Video will be awarded Windows Vista Ultimate (full retail), courtesy of Geeks to Go. Have some fun with it! Take the logo somewhere interesting, exciting, or strange. Submit only a photo OR a video, not both. One entry per person.

Have fun creating your submissions, and enjoy viewing other entries. You can view contest rules, find logo downloads, and instructions for submitting your photos and videos in this topic: http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/31-Days-Dragon-Contest-Submission-Topic-t196838.html

Other contest have begun already, be sure to check them out!

http://www.31daysofthedragon.com/

Update: We have a winner! Please be sure to checkout the other contests!

It’s only fitting that one of the biggest notebooks I’ve ever seen, is sponsoring one of the biggest contests I’ve ever seen. HP has partnered with BuzzCorp and 31 sites to give away 31 HP HDX Pavilion Entertainment Notebooks! (a.k.a. The Dragon) 31 days, 31 sites, 31 notebook prize packages. This is HUGE!

As configured, the retail value of the notebook is $4,500. Including movies and software from other partners the total price if purchased would be $5,196! That’s over $160,000 in total prizes to be awarded!

Yes, we’re one of the participating 31 sites, and you can win one here! Find more details on the system, and how you can win yours after the break.

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Still searching for that special Mother’s Day gift? For a long time I have wanted to get my wife a picture viewer small enough to carry to take with her. All of our pictures are digital, and we only have family pictures taken once yearly. She needs something for all those in-between pictures, so she can show off our little one.

For those in the same situation, let’s take a look at the Digital Foci Pocket Album. This keychain weighs in at just over an ounce, sports a 1.5 inch color LCD screen and 8MB of onboard memory. The Pocket Album also comes with its own special software to manipulate photos and transfer them to the keychain.

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By now you may have seen the commercials for Ford’s line of cars featuring Microsoft Sync, a music and mobile phone platform for automobiles. If not, you can view one here. It chronicles the embarrassment of people who find that treadmills, doors, and curtains do not respond to their voice the way their car does. While I like the concept of Bluetooth capability in cars, and I think voice commands are a safety enhancement over trying to dial a phone or search for a CD while driving, I sometimes wonder if our cars are becoming too electronic and computerized, to the point that safety could be compromised. I actually also wonder if some cars are just becoming too complex.

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As a kid, I absolutely loved the movie Spaceballs. As an adult (and arguably still a kid) I still love the movie Spaceballs. When I got my mitts on the Corsair Voyager GT, the line “Light speed is too slow?” “Yes. We’re gonna have go right to – ludicrous speed” popped into my head. According to all the Corsair hype, the Voyager GT is supposed to be up to 4X faster than a standard USB key. Let’s see how it stands up during some real world tests.

The first thing I noticed when I got this USB key is the attractive look to it. It’s a good looking unit with its black base and red, yellow and white accents. The activity light is blue, which seems odd for something in black/white/yellow/red, but whatever. This key has a rubberized exterior that gives it a nice rugged look. According to the materials that came with it, it’s waterproof and shockproof! I’ll try these features later; that way if I break it, I at least get to test it first.

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What would you do with a 32GB Flash Drive? Mine contains my entire music collection, all of my important documents, my family photos, a restore image of the operating system on my computer, and 6GB of free space. When you’re used to using 2, 4, or even 8GB flash drives, you find yourself looking for stuff to store on this drive…it’s actually tough to fill up! Voyager will hold almost 10,000 6 MegaPixel images, or nearly 13 hours of MPEG-2 video (152 hours of MPEG-4), or 8,000 of your favorite MP3 recordings. Imagine the possibilities – a thumb-sized device that has the capacity to store all of your important data securely in one location, and is accessible from nearly any computer. It even comes complete with an encryption application already aboard. The Corsair Voyager is compatible with Windows ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac (9.X and later), and Linux (Kernel 2.4.2 and higher). Pretty much everyone can utilize this device.

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Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3
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Motherboard review by James_8970
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As technology continues to progress, our present demands continue to outgrow our pasts. Over the past few months we have seen many new chipsets released: Intel’s P35/X38/X48, nVidia’s 7×0i series, and now it’s AMD’s turn with the 770 (AM2+) and 790fx series chipsets. With our budget constraints we were not able to leap for a $200+ motherboard, but overall we believe this board is a great compromise between performance and dollar value.

As time moves on, new CPU’s are released and their performance is greatly affected by the features on the motherboard. AMD has just recently released some new products, the Phenom series CPU’s. While they aren’t quite as good as their Intel counterparts, they do have a great number of innovative features that set them apart from Intel’s current offerings. That aside, many of the current motherboards are Phenom compatible – after a BIOS update. This motherboard, on the other hand, is compatible with this CPU out of the box. It also has a higher hyper transport speed then other traditional AM2 motherboards, which could ultimately affect future upgrades. This motherboard comes fully equipped with native DDR2 1066MHz, PCIe 2.0 – a first for an AMD motherboard – and up to 16GB of RAM to keep you on the leading edge of technology and give you an unprecedented upgradability path for the future.

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I’ve been a fan of Corsair RAM for years, so when they decided to enter the power supply market, I jumped at the chance to see what they have to offer.

The TX750W comes with some impressive packaging including a “velvet” bag to keep it in if you’re not actually going to use it…which would be a serious mistake. Don’t let the “Plain Jane” matte black and orange dressings fool you, this is a truly nice piece of hardware. When you remove this PSU from the box (and the bag), the first thing you notice is the abundance of leads…more than enough for almost any installation. There’s an ATX 24/20 pin connector, an EPS/ATX12V 8/4 pin connector, 4 PCI-E 6/8pin connectors, 8 SATA power connectors, 8 4 pin Molex peripheral connectors, and 2 floppy connectors…all of adequate length. This all sounds great; but it presents some issues I’ll get to a little later.

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