isaac writes: "The cat is out of the bag! Palmstation has photos of the new PalmOS pda from Handera (formerly TRG of TRGPro fame). Features include a 320x240 screen with "soft" grafitti area, CompactFlash *and* SD slots, and Voice Recording. No word yet on built-in RAM or other capabilities - an official launch at Handera's website is rumored for Monday. The alleged name of this device is the "HandEra 330". Wish they'd do something about the name." There's also a combination PDA/phone that looks interesting.

tie_guy_matt asks: "I was in our stockroom at work trying to get connectors so I could reproduce a circuit board that I broke (oops!) I wanted to get a 20-pin connector that I could use on a wirewrap board. The guy in charge of the stockroom said that they no longer make that type of connector for wire wrap boards. Companies are starting to produce more and more surface mount chips and less and less DIP chips. Ever try to solder a sufrace mount chip onto a homemade circiut board? There is only one company left that makes wire wrap stuff: OK Industries. If this company goes under we may no longer be able to make home made Z80 computers from parts we bought from Digikey. Are hobbiest starting to have trouble finding the parts they need? Will very small companies now have to spend a lot more money to make prototypes? Is this yet another example of how big companies are squashing the little guy?"

km790816 writes: "I was just reading an article in the EETimes about the possible war over the technology to replace the PCI bus. Intel has their 3GIO. (Can't find any info on Intel's site.) AMD has their HyperTransport. There has been some talk about HyperTransport going into the XBox. I hope they can agree on a bus. I don't want another bus standard war. So when can I get a fully optical bus on my PC?" Now that's what I'd like: cheap transceivers on every card and device, and short lengths of fiber connecting them up. Bye bye to SCSI, IDE, USB, Firewire ...

robb_c sent us this story about new high-efficiency power systems for portable devices - high-efficiency solar cells plus some sort of fuel cell system to store energy. Very nice, if it works, doesn't cost some ludicrous amount to manufacture, and doesn't explode when you drop it.

A Not-so Anonymous Coward asks: "This is day three of trying to find a .PRC file or something that would enable me to dial out from my visor using a cable connection to my Nokia 6160m phone. The Nokia 6160's don't have IR capabilites so getting the SERIALIRPN1.PRC and the SERIRCOMMLIB.PRC files won't help. these files would be needed if I were trying to use IR, but as you can see, don't need them. The Visor only has a Palm OS of 3.1 and can only update it with a patch of which would make like easier if there was such a thing. So, what can I do while on the road when I want to download a map or check email? I can connect through a conventional phone line, since I have the Circom globalaccess modem for the Visor, but it won't dial through the mobile connection cable since it keeps looking for the conventional phone line! Am I just out of luck here? Does anyone feel especially creative, to try and figure this one out?"

// asks: "How do you protect YOUR backups from destruction? Paper-based backups can survive most disaters (fire and even EMP) in a relatively low-spec firesafe/cabinet. Magnetic media (floppies, DAT, DLT) are much more sensitive to temperature (and EMP) - they won't reach anywhere near the magic 233C (or "Farenheit 451" if you prefer) at which paper bursts into flames. A higher specification firesafe is required for these. But what about CD-ROM; what temperatures can they handle? And we've all zapped CD's in a microwave - does this mean that they are particularly vulnerable to EMP too?"

tyen asks: "There is enough gear in my office that a dedicated air conditioner is called for. A standard window unit will not work for various reasons; I need a unit that will let me mount an intake/exhaust panel inline with the window. I am looking for recommendations of portable units as used in data centers for spot cooling; reliable, low-maintenance units preferred over simply cheap ones. While the DeLonghi Pinguino wins style points for its unintended Linux riff, US$1,000 and up is a bit much to spend just for the sake of staying 'tres Linux cool'."

jaredcat writes: "The until-recently rumored new 64MB IPAQ handheld with improved expansion-card capabilities finally went on sale today at Compaq Direct for $649. Seeing as the lesser 3650 model can't currently be found on the street for love or money (I've seen it listed as high as $1000), I'm grabbing my 3670 while I still can." For some reason, I can't find the higher-end one on the site -- am I alone? With 64MB, this beats all but my most recent computer. Pop in my Merlin wireless card, and I can roam the city talking to myself all day? Excellent.

Several people have taken the time from their busy day to submit the how-to make an air chiller story that's currently running on OCMod.com. Me, I think that if I open my case the magic pixie dust that runs my computer will fly out, and my bad hardware karma will ruin my machine, but hey, maybe you'll have better luck then I.

NineSeventy writes: "Infosync has a short but interesting article and photographs regarding an 'ueber' PDA project being developed by Compaq and MIT called Project Mercury. Despite being somewhat sketchy, the article explains that this new mobile compututing 'solution' will involve an expansion sleeve, a camera and a 'downscaled version of linux' running the whole thing in place of Windows CE. I want one." There are also some interesting Linux-PDA-related sidebars.

GrandCow writes: "There's a really interesting article over at Sharky Extreme on why the computer industry is slowing down recently. He talks about looking for the killer application that will make him go out and spend the big money on a whole new system... and can't find it. It's a really good read. For lots of the people on /. (me included) getting the latest hardware piece is a given, but for many people there's just no real reason to." Strangely, the proposed solution seems to be for the hardware industry to write bloated code so people will have more incentive to replace their currently-OK PCs. (Huh?) All I want is a machine on which Broadcast 2000 works.

chrisd writes "From the yopy developers list, Young Hoon Kim notes that :"G-Mate will introduce the next generation of Yopy which targets the end user in the 3rd or last quarter of this year. This time, it will have 64MB of RAM and 16MB Flash, and it will use ramfs. Of course it will have X windows installed and all the application will be run on X too. Therefore, if you are planning to develop any application for Yopy, you have to port your application to be used with X windows. Since we will include GTK+ toolkit, it's a good idea to start making application using GTK". I've got the yopy, and I have to say I really like it, the screen is very nice and it's -very- fast. The development version shipped with something called w-windows which was weird, but I quickly installed X from the Yopy X Server Project."

Sadam Andler asks: "I am looking to replace my home's multiple PC test network with a small rack. Separate cases are too bulky and will block access to each system. What I have in mind is a filing a cabininet-sized box with 5 to 15 sliding shelves, one for each motherboard. Quiet cooling and power supply would be handled in a centralized manner. Each computer and its cabling should be easily accessible for the swapping or testing components. Is there a cheap solution for me?"

jlam writes: "Brighthand has a review on the Linux based Agenda VR3 PDA. Sounds like the product was rushed out the door after being delayed almost a year, has performance problems, and is depending on the talents of the open-source community to help fix the problems. The review has screenshots of the PDA including the boot up screens." I've also been using mine. I agree with parts of the above review -- there's some definite problems with the device. However, from what I've heard there's a device with a 130 MIPs chip, rechargeable battery and some other goodies in development right now. The additional speed will help out, as the current device has speed issues. Summary: It's got definite potential, but I think it came out a bit too early.

Scott Haugaard writes "There's a cool open code/open hardware power management device page has the schematics, programs, and pictures of a homebrew remote power console. Use this to cold boot those unresponsive servers remotely, or to shut them down at night via scripts and bring them up again before your users log on to save power. Solder, TCL, LEDs, wires galore. Manage power to 16 servers from two wires on a serial port."

whirred asks: "I often hear about certain laptops being particularly bad or ideal for particular operating systems. I want to purchase a laptop with around 30 gigs of hard drive space, and when I do, I want to be able to use FreeBSD, Linux, Win32, and Solaris on Intel. I would also like to possibly install BeOS or OpenBSD. Not being an expert on any of these operating systems, is there a laptop out there that has hardware that is supported by all of these operating systems?"

Golgo_13 writes: "Spindl3top released their latest community-generated Blackbird source today, pooling together some of the coolest free software-friendly components. Highlights include the project's ultracool trademark black cube, SMP with dual PIIIs @ 1GHz, SCSI @ 10000RPM, a Matrix-Orbital LCD panel (with lcdproc), a ThermoEngine (or optional Watercooler), and an ultra quiet PS from Enermax. Aside from being an ubergeek dream, it's for a good cause. They are selling them here for less than $2500 and all proceeds are being used toward Spindl3top going nonprofit. Since Spindl3top and the FSF have joined hands (first mentioned here by Lucas) to create the official, noncommercial GNU hardware/free software database, this is a very important cause IMHO."

MacauMan writes "Finally, after six months delay, Agenda Computing has just released the Agenda VR3, which, if I'm not mistaken, is now the world's first PDA that ships with a Linux OS. It sports a 66MHz MIPS processor and comes with 8MB RAM and 16MB flash memory. It looks like a nice little box, and at $249 the price is right. I just hope they sorted out all those little problems they had with the developer model..." The folks at Agenda shipped me a review model and I'll try to have a report soon. So far I have mixed feelings: the UI isn't as smooth as a Palm or Wince system, but you can get a terminal, so its the only system where I can use ps and kill.

Steve Nakhla writes: "I came across this article detailing how the Walt Disney Company is using ONLY gigabit ethernet in its new Japanese park, Tokyo DisneySeas. Previously, a combination of ethernet, ATM, and others were utilizied to create the network backbone in Walt Disney World and Disneyland. It's an interesting look at how the "magic" is created. For example, using CobraNet's technology, they are able to stream audio out to speakers with no loss of sound quality, while keeping the control rooms in a centralized location remote to the area."

eebly asks: "I'm working with a team at my school to help ensure that some of our new building projects are environmentally friendly. As part of that, we want to include good, energy efficient computers. The new building will be labs, so we can't sacrifice power. We're looking for suggestions on what machines use low amounts of power, techniques to make the machines run with less, and ways to tweak the software to make things like sleep mode get used more effectively."