Goatbert writes: "More Athlon news, seems to be a lot of that going around. This time, LinuxHardware.org has a DDR Athlon motherboard comparison to find out which of the three featured chipsets performs the best with Linux."

NecroPuppy writes "Hewlett-Packard is introducing the first commercially available DVD recorder, according to this. According to the article, it will be on store shelves in September, and list for $599, and uses the DVD+RW standard." Well, now that I've just bought the supposed to be awesome CD burner from TG (end plug), it might be time to pick this up come September. It'll make backing up a lot easier - since I don't have the Linus method of backing-up.

David M. Sweeney writes: "Salon has posted a news item that states, "Rows of tiny crystals that armor the skeleton of a certain kind of starfish act as an array of microscopic lenses that would be difficult for even the best engineer to duplicate, researchers say." These lenses have a number of possible applications in computing and telecom. Wonder what PETA will have to say when Intel opens its first starfish farm..."

An anonymous reader says "Linux4.TV is the official open-source website for interactive set-top box technologies based on the National Semiconductor Geode? SC1200 integrated processor and SP1SC10 development platform." Looks to be an interesting project, although since they require registration to download stuff, I'll never know.

dsginter asks: "Now that PC hardware is dirt cheap (under $100 for a Duron 700, motherboard, LAN, modem, sound, etc), I would expect to see more in the way of leveraging this sort of hardware for uses outside the home and office. Is there any vendors out there who address the need for cheap 12 volt DC power supplies? How about vibration tolerance (besides Flashdrives how are you getting the processor and accessories attached reliably)? PC/104 is comparatively expensive so it would be nice if there were some solid-state, 12-volt, embedded (and possibly even real-time) Linux projects out there. Example: with RAM as cheap as it is, you could make a portable digital video camera for very cheap. Are there packages out there or is this strictly DIY?" So where can you go if you are looking to purchase decent hardware for your embedded projects? Are any of you attempting to assemble projects like this? If so, what kinds of things are you working on?

Johnath writes: "This just happens to be a great time to be a hardware junkie. For those interested in learning more about the metal under their PC's hood, Tom's Hardware has a great intro to PCB manufacturing, Ars Technica has recently written an architectural study of the P4, and ExtremeTech has a decent look at the South Bridge." The circuit board article is really good - explains it better than the textbooks I've seen.

A reader writes "Saintsong, our favorite manufacturer of tiny PC's (see here and here) is at it again. They've released the TX2 version of the Cappuccino PC everyone drooled over not to long ago. It's designed by Gingko corp., the same folks who designed the iMac. The new unit includes 2 Firewire ports and an additional 2 USB ports over it's predecessor, the Cappuccino GX1. Unfortunately it appears that Saintsong is only distributing it in kit form, so you'll have to supply your own socket 370 processor, RAM, hdd, etc. No prices are listed, but it's still a slick looking toy."

zoombat writes "The BBC reported that the Cray SV1 product line won the Readers' Choice Award for Best Supercomputer for 2001 by the readers of Scientific Computing & Instrumentation magazine. These beasts have some pretty remarkable stats, including a 300 Mhz CPU clock, up to 192 4.8 GFLOPS CPUs or 1229 1.2 GFLOPS CPUs, and up to a terabyte of memory. And they sure know how to paint 'em real nice. Of course, we all know how "scientific" the Readers' Choice Awards are..."

schussat writes: "This brief AP article describes a lawsuit that alleges that syncing a Palm Pilot "damages or destroys the motherboards on certain PC brands." Does anyone know more or have experience with this? Is it even possible to cause damage? The article is not very detailed."

A reader writes "I don't know what they were smoking, but these guys decided that the G4 case makes for a great LAN party box. Of course, without the G4 and all that yucky Mac hardware -- just the aesthetics. They go about hacking and modding the case, turning a low power (aka, weak) x86 box and toss it into the G4 casing, and don't end up destroying the case to make everything fit. Lotsa pictures and explanations of every step in the process"

Spamlent Green asks: "The recent 'Cashing In On Antique Computers' thread, and the PBS Flea Market documentary made me all misty-eyed for the MIT Swap Fest. I moved from Cambridge to D.C. last year, and haven't been able to find anything like it down here, and I don't mean those bogus 'Comptuer Show and Sale and Monster Truck Rally' events advertised constantly on cheapo UHF stations. So I was curious -- do any DC-MD-No.VA-area Slashdot-ers know of events like this down here -- or anywhere else in the country for that matter? They must be out there ..."

It looks like the 3COM Ergo Audrey hacking scene is finally taking off. A guy named Sowbug has hacked the 3COM Ergo Audrey to shell. He has pictures of it here(1) and here(2). Another site has opened to cover this hack, here(3). And of course the Linux Hacker messageboards are covering it quite a bit.

Misha writes: "In this day and age, it seems that the advertisement offers for desktop systems have slowed down in term of features. Everyone has agreed that AGP, DVD, >1GHz, etc. is what everyone will want. This does not seem to be the case with laptops. Every year, they manage to cram a bigger resolution screen, more system and graphical memory, more battery life into a less-than-two-inch thick plactic box. So, what are everyone's preferences as far as laptops go? What kind of features are most important? How does price enter the equation? Which one is best for the money? And especially, can you get a decent machine for under $1000?" I've been using the IBM Thinkpad T20 for the last year or so, and love the machine -- with the exception of the WinModem *sigh*. What else is everyone using?

mightypie writes "What's the best way of carrying a Visor Prism, mobile phone, cybertool, digital camera, wallet & keys? I just don't like the vest solution Somebody here must have the solution" That is the most disturbing ad I've seen. Someday my phone/camera/pda/mp3 player will be one tiny happy box. As it stands my solution is baggy pants w/ big pockets.

Rhinobird writes: "I was just catching up on some stuff and ran across this article on New Scientist. It describes a new Hitachi wearable computer which is planned for a release of Christmas 2001. More info can be found at Hitachi's site here(1) and here(2)." These will come with Windows CE officially, but unofficially, how long could it take to make them run other OSes as well? At $2000, wearables might finally hit a lot of toylists.

mwillems writes: "The Economist posts this story this week about how old computer hardware can be worth money. At the Vintage Computer Festival East, a lot of old hardware was seen, swapped and admired. An industry is emerging, it seems: an Apple One apparently fetched $25,000 at auction. Time to dust off my Ohio Scientific OSI Challenger 4-p!" These festivals sounds like a lot of fun -- can anyone offer some first-hand reports from the Boston one? Hmm. The local thriftstore has a working Mac IIci for $1.98 -- maybe I should put it on eBay as a collectable.

TellarHK muses: "Thinking back to the CueCat debacle, and on the topic of 'soon to be abandoned-ware,' has anyone considered mucking about with the MySmart mousepads? I picked up one of these on sale at Best Buy for $5, figuring someone might come out with a way to use the 'Smart' card reader as a tool for other applications. Sure, I know this'll get a lawyer's underwear in a bunch, but I don't recall signing any license stopping me. Maybe someone's come up with a quick and dirty program or routine for it, under either Linux or Windows?" These are also at CompUSA. Smart-card access to the basement? One more layer of security on your workstation? These look like fun, if someone has a driver.

dpease writes: "Metricom, purveyor of Ricochet wireless networking, died today. I understand that, sans infrastructure, a Ricochet wireless modem can call another Ricochet modem, and that modem-to-modem range is nearly a mile. Is the hardware this company leaves behind a viable solution for a really cool, really cheap wireless LAN?"

Guinnessy writes: "According to Toni Feder on Physics Today, scrounging used equipment is worthwhile if you can avoid the pitfalls of wasting time and compromising scientific goals. Feder interviews experimenters who have dug up everything from dewars to nuclear reactors."

Bob_Robertson writes: "I have a Sony floppy adapter for their memory stick, and of course Sony has no "drivers" to use this rather expensive but nice thing in Linux. Works fine in Win95, but who cares? There should be a way to 'mount' the floppy adapter just like any other device. Searching has turned up no success stories other than the Sony USB adapter under SuSE, any suggestions? " The Sony chewing-gum memory has held on doggedly, and there are even non-Sony makers for it now. What suggestions can anyone offer for taking advantage of it under Free OSes?