Step 1: Identify Your Networking Needs
This is a very important step that you will ideally perform before purchasing the ingredients listed on the previous page. As noted above, the key considerations are:

a. How many wired Ethernet ports, if any, will you need?

b.Where will these Ethernet ports need to be located? (In other words, where will the PCs and other equipment that will be plugged into these Ethernet ports be located?)

c.Where will the router and high-speed modems be located?

View: Full Story @ informationweek.com

Complaining about Windows Vista is a national past time on Internet forums these days. Windows Vista “costs too much,” “has onerous product activation,” “requires too much hardware,” etc. These complaints are often followed up by a very simple boast: “I’m just going to switch to Linux (or Mac).”

But in today’s landscape, how viable is that statment? Is the threat to switch to Linux an empty one, or is it entirely possible? Linux on the desktop has been viable for years, especially for programming gurus who can solve their Linux problems by simply writing new software. It also seems to be viable for “Mom and Pop” end-users who just want a machine to write letters, send email, and browse the Web (although, admittedly, a guru will probably have to set it up for them).

But what about power users, such as the typical audience of HardOCP – those who know how to build their own computers, but not compile their own programs? Or people who may not know how to do something, but aren’t afraid of taking the time to figure it out? Is Linux truly an alternative? Can they do everything they did in Windows? The truth is, we didn’t know, but we very much wanted to find out.

View: Full Story @ hardocp.com

There are all sorts of tools for sharing files without having to choke your email server or upload them to your own web host account. Pando supports emailing huge attachments by using a special version of BitTorrent to serve up the file in p2p fashion. Box.net, Xdrive, and eSnips provide easy upload and sharing with large amounts of cheap or free space. senduit offers a two-step process for uploading files and giving them a private URL. Titanize backs up your files to a secure online site and then allows you to share links to the backed up versions of the files.

Now there’s izimi, a download for Windows aimed at making it really easy to share anything directly from your computer to someone’s browser via the izimi website. izimi is similar to Avvenu, another Windows-only desktop install that turns your machine into a file server. These services remind me of Parakey, a web publishing tool for the masses under development by Blake Ross, one of the co-founders of the Mozilla Firefox project. They all aim at the mass market of nongeeks who want to share photos, videos, and other files on the web but aren’t necessarily interested in or aware of the latest online file storage service.

View: Full Story @ webworkerdaily.com

Microsoft on Tuesday launches a fierce attack on Google over its “cavalier” approach to copyright, accusing the internet company of exploiting books, music, films and television programmes without permission.

Tom Rubin, associate general counsel for Microsoft, will say in a speech in New York that while authors and publishers find it hard to cover costs, “companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the back of other people’s content, are raking in billions through advertising and initial public offerings”.

View: Full Story @ ft.com

So, you’re getting tired of your processor’s and graphics card’s stock coolers and you start thinking, “What next can I try?”. The answer is simple – get an after-market replacement cooler! But which one, you may wonder.

The most common option is to get an air cooler. Air coolers are cheaper and easier to install, but their performance will suffer as dust accumulates, necessitating periodical cleanings. Noise from their fan can also be a really big problem, especially if you are looking for cutting-edge performance which is only possible with insanely fast (and noisy) fans.

But what if we want great cooling performance without the noise? Is that even possible? Yes, it is. Go water-cooling!

View: Full Story @ techarp.com

In a bit of investigative journalism, I have recently taken it upon myself to answer the question of, “where have all the 20 gig Playstation 3 models gone?” In a rather silent disappearance, it seems that the 20 gig version of Sony’s new console has gone missing as of late. So where could they be?

To start off, I contacted local stores in my area as to inquire about the availability of the 60 gig’s little sister. Naturally, the response I received was universally negative. There was not a 20 gig model to be found. However, upon dialing up one store in my area, I stumbled upon a piece of information that was quite shocking. It seems that one of the nation’s larger consumer electronics stores were listing the smaller console as “Discontinued” in their inventory system. That’s right; discontinued.

View: Full Story @ gamedrift.com

A genuine crack for Windows Vista has just been released by pirate group Pantheon, which allows a pirated, non-activated installation of Vista (Home Basic/Premium and Ultimate) to be properly activated and made fully-operational.

Unlike cracks which have been floating around since Vista RTM was released in late November, this crack doesn’t simply get around product activation with beta activation files or timestop cracks – it actually makes use of the activation process. It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of Vista that doesn’t require product activation – apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient.

This version of Vista uses System-Locked Pre-Installation 2.0 (SLP 2.0). It allows the “Royalty OEMs” to embed specific licensing information into the operating system which Vista can activate without having to go back to Microsoft for verification. The licensing components include the OEM’s hardware-embedded BIOS ACPI_SLIC (which has been signed by Microsoft), an XML certificate file which corresponds to this ACPI_SLIC and a specific OEM product key.

View: Full Story @ apcmag.com

Hoping to get a jump on Google and other competitors, Adobe Systems plans to release a hosted version of its popular Photoshop image-editing application within six months, the company’s chief executive said Tuesday.

The online service is part of a larger move to introduce ad-supported online services to complement its existing products and broaden the company reach into the consumer market

View: Full Story @ news.com