An anonymous reader wrote in to say "Tom's hardware has an exclusive review of the new 3Com Network Jack. This is a 4-port 10/100 switch that fits in a standard-sized wallplate." Alright, thats a good idea (he says while accidentally kicking the switch hidden under his desk). Having run more then my share of ethernet drops in the past, I gotta say I dig this idea.

Skaven04 asks: "After finishing up my Digital Design class this semester I've suddenly got the urge to build something really cool. I'm leaning toward a processor/pda/calculator thingamajig. Not really a processor, considering that it wouldn't be following any set standards, like x86, but basically a machine that I can program with my own assembly language, have keyboard input, and (most likely) an LCD output (like on your TI85 or whatever). What I'm seeing in my head right now is an 8-bit design with an ALU (like the 74LS181) as the centerpiece and naturally a few 64K RAMs and various registers, counters, etc. as necessary to implement my command set. Has anybody else out there ever undertaken this kind of project? What are some sites I could visit to get a good outline of the best way to approach it? What are some good places to get the parts cheap? Any suggestions on displays? Links to similar projects?"

msolnik writes: "The guys over at Aces' Hardware have put up a new article going over the basics, and not-so-basics, of building a new server. This is a very informative, I think everyone should devote 5 minutes and a can of Dr Pepper to this article."

msolnik writes: "Tom's Hardware has put 13 motherboards to the ultimate test in their lab. The outcome? By and large, the VIA KT266A chipset knocks the stuffing out of the Nvidia nForce 420D. True bright spots were the candidates sent in by Soltek and Soyo."

Levendis23 writes: "We've just posted our latest review: the Cybiko Xtreme. Pretty slick little gadget, with RF networking and ability to set up bluetooth-like clouds so that other units can talk to each other, play games, or swap files. You can can even use another unit at as a repeater to bounce your message to another unit out of your range."

Dan asks: "I'm in desperate need of a manual (in digital format) for the IBM 6408 printer. Hours of scouring Google returned nothing majorly useful. Does anybody out there possess such a thing?"

hubertf writes: "There's news over at the NetBSD web site that Lennart Augustsson has added support for USB v2.0 devices into NetBSD-current. The new ehci driver is still in development but is in a working state for some mass storage devices, such as CD-RW drives. USB v2.0 offers a vast speed improvement (480Mb/s instead of 12Mb/s) over the original USB specification, and retains a good level of compatibility. For more details, see Lennart's announcement on current-users@netbsd.org."

isdnip asks: "I've noticed that when I burn a CD-R, it's basically a random chance whether or not it will play on any given CD player or CD-ROM drive. Blank CD-Rs are dirt cheap nowadays, but the costlier gold ones are not available at retail, if at all. So which ones now on the market are most likely to work? They seem more interested in bragging about maximum speed, not quality. Does a high speed rating help or hurt readability (I usually only burn at 2x or 4x)?"

quecojones asks: "I've been thnking about getting one of those IBM memory keys. IBM's device seems a bit expensive, but I've found a few others made by JM Tek and M-Systems in a variety of sizes (16MB-1GB). They're suposed to work with Windows [98|ME|2K|XP], MacOS, and Linux. Just how reliable are these things? I figure they'd make a great little backup device. I could use one of these to keep my PGP keyrings, my PasswordSafe database, and a few other files. Why aren't these things made by other companies? It seems like a perfect floppy replacement. Another thing is, can I boot a computer with one of these things? If I get one of the larger ones (512MB-1GB), could I just install Linux on it and boot from it. It would make trying out different Linux distributions a lot easier. Jus try each one out on the USB drive to figure out which one you prefer and then install it on the HDD."

msolnik writes: "PocketNow has a review of the new Toshiba Pocket PC e570. With an integrated CompactFlash Type I/II, Secure Digital (SD) slot, a 206Mhz StrongArm, and upto 64MB of ram the Toshiba is going to give the IPAQ a run for its money. Just FYI with some slight modifications the Handhelds.org IPAQ Linux distro should run just fine on the Toshiba."

msolnik writes: "nV News has a brief article about the long-awaited NV25-based video adapters. These graphics processors have similar capabilities compared to the XGPU, and are a lot more powerful than GeForce3 Ti500. Since they are manufactured using .13 micron technology, they will probably be clocked at very high levels."

V_IL_Len writes: "I'm the administrator of a university NT based animation lab. I have a Sun Ultra 60 sitting unused in the corner which seems like a travesty. I don't have any Unix experiece but am willing to learn. I'm not sure what the best use for it is." Read on for more on the circumstances here; perhaps you've tried something similar?

ByTor-2112 writes: "DVD recorders seem to be ready to break loose on the consumer market, despite the remaining uncertainty about DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM etc. I see ATAPI DVD writers, but I do not warm to IDE/ATA-based technology. When I've got a $10 blank DVD on the line, in SCSI we trust. I have been unable to locate a SCSI DVD writer that falls within the general price range (plus the usual SCSI markup) of the ATAPI burners. Firewire seems nice, but FreeBSD does not support this yet. Anyone seen a drive out there that might fit the bill?" Anyone who can lend hope on the Firewire front is encouraged to speak up here as well.

Bill Kendrick writes: "Thanksgiving was a great day for Linux PDA gaming. Not one, but two classic id games were ported to not one, but two different Linux PDAs! Quake (screenshots) is available for the Sharp Zaurus and the original Wolf3D is out for the Agenda VR3. Now if only they could do Unreal Tournament over IR ports..."

ElGrandeBurrito asks: "I just picked up an iPAQ to replace my trusty Palm, but there's a catch I didn't realize: This little toy is more integrated into the MS line of products that XP is! My company uses the Netscape suite of products for mail, calendaring and LDAP, so I need a way to synch my iPAQ's 'Contacts' database to a Netscape PAB.NA2 file, an LDIF file, or even better, to our LDAP server through field selection. I've found solutions for every application except 'Contacts'. Help!"

man_ls writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of a new Koolance water-cooled case. It has a built in watercooling system, to save people into overclocking the trouble of building their own. Unfortunately, it only works with Athlon, Duron, and Pentium IIIs. The P4 socket isn't compatible with it. "

Ravagin asks: "I am deeply in love with my Dell Inspiron 8100 running Windows 2000. I have a perfectly good NEC Silentwriter SuperScript 610Plus that I want to use; however, NEC's support site has nothing for Windows 2000 (the 610plus win95/98 drivers return a Windows version error). It's supposed to be HP LaserJet IIP compatible, but I've had no luck getting that to work. Google hasn't helped, either. Does anyone have any useful experience or sites for getting this old, 'unsupported' printer to play nice with Win2k?"

Jaromir Dolecek writes: "The support on NetBSD for these old IBM boxes has reached the point where it's useful for general work and should provide stable multiuser service. The NetBSD/i386 installation tools were also updated to support installation on this type of machines. The next NetBSD formal release will include all this support. Until then, it's available through NetBSD/i386 binary snapshots of the development branch. For further information, see the original announcement, the NetBSD site and NetBSD/i386 on IBM PS/2 page. Besides the hobbyist and enthusiast value of this project, the general support for MCA (MicroChannel Architecture) bus will also be used within upcoming NetBSD RS/6000 port, since quite a few of IBM RS/6000 boxes have MCA bus too."

thonot asks: "I build PC's from my home, generally for frinds and friends of friends. Yesterday though, my wife's boss called me and asked if I could build him a bussiness PC. The only problem is that he wants a RAID0 configuration w/ 3 Seagate Cheetah 18.4 Gig 15k RPM SCSI drives, and I've never even seen a RAID controller, well except in pictures. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good controller card?"

Luddite Joe asks: "I'm planning on buying myself a DVD player for Christmas, spending maybe 200 bucks or so. I've also considered that I might buy an Xbox a couple of months down the road - but that's less certain. So I think to myself, the Xbox is a DVD player, right? If I hold off a couple of months and just buy the Xbox, I won't be wasting money on a DVD player that is almost immediately redundant. Keeping in mind that I'm buying more or less a low end, single disc DVD - how do the capabilities and quality of the Xbox as a DVD player compare? I don't want to sacrifice quality or features (or level of DVD compatibility), as I can get a pretty decent DVD for what I'm planning on spending."