Wing asks: "I'm about to build a new box and I was looking at all the different things I could do to make it faster, better, etc. What I was wondering was, is it worth the extra money to invest in a DDR capable motherboard and RAM? Is there that big of a speed difference or should I stick with the same old SDRAM?"

dpro writes "Just looking around on the web didn't reveal too much, so I thought I'd ask you people if any of you have experience building your own laptop computers. I see that it's not going to be cheaper but all the stuff that's out there either lacks features, has features I don't need or there's simply no open source driver for some of them (and the companies aren't exactly helpful in writing one yourself). So what do you people think? Can anyone point me in the right direction?" My motto is "Can't someone else do it?", but the idea appeals to me; is the market for laptop hardware sufficiently commoditized? Or do you have to build your own case with a rasp and file?

FullFrontalNerdity asks: "I recently hurt my wrist in a car accident, the net result being that I am forced to type with one hand due to the pain that typing normally causes. Needless to say, its slow, inaccurate and limits by ability to do my job (I'm a software developer). Does anyone have experience (good or bad) with one hand chording keyboards or other input methods that work well in a software development environment?" We have to realize that computer users may suffer from a disability or an injury. When injuries occur to the hands, it turns in to a computer user's nightmare. Are there keyboards out there that attempt to address this possibility so people with such problems aren't forced to use a device that really requires two hands?

Milo_Mindbender writes "I'm working on designing a simulator cockpit, similar to the one shown here (about half way down the page) that I helped design while Chief Engineer at Virtual World Entertainment, in the mid 90's, for playing high-end multiplayer simulation games. I need a device to use for multiple small 'instrument panel' screens as seen in the photos. It needs to be off-the-shelf, panel mountable, color, under $400 in quantity, have USB to connect to the cockpit's main PC and have a CPU so it can generate or update simple graphics locally. The perfect thing would be a PDA minus batteries, case and with the ability to poll 8 or so buttons. Support for Embedded Linux would be nice too. Any ideas?"

phil reed writes "This article at The Register provides a deeper view of what has started out as the discussion about copy protected hard drives. Basically, the author is saying that the end of the general-purpose PC is in sight, and we're likely to end up with special purpose appliances (witness Tivo) with all kinds of built-in copy protection. He does a good job of justifying his view, and it's depressing. Comments?"

Simon writes "Check out these new iPaqs" Apparently some information leaked about the next generation: 64 megs of memory on board, expansion slots (and word of a wireless card too). I'm still hearing good word about Compaq continuing the fine Linux work they've been doing on these devices, (stretching back to the now-legendary Itsy, first mentioned on Slashdot way back in May of 98.) Having now used one for a few weeks I have to say its a solid little handheld (I don't like the WinCE GUI as much as the PalmOS GUI, but I like the apps better).

lupine asks: "There have been many dicussions about keyboards on Slashdot but I couldnt find any on keyboard trays. So if you have one you like please list the manufacturer, features and estimated price. Im looking for one that is large enough to accomidate a mouse, height and tilt adjustable, but does not need to be retractable (who turns their computer off anyway?!)"

ContinuousPark writes: "Ivan Sutherland, father of computing graphics, has been for the last ten years designing chips that don't use a clock. He's been proposing a method called asyncronous logic where there's no clock signal being distributed and regulating every part of the chip. The article doesn't give many technical details (greatly needed) but Sutherland, now doing research for Sun, is telling that significant breakthroughs have been made recently to make this technology viable for mass production. It is estimated that 15% of a chip's circuitry is dedicated to distributing the clock signal and as much as 20% percent of the power is consumed by the clock. This is indeed intriguing; what unit will replace the familiar megahertz?"

frAme57 asks: "Overclockedcafe has a review of the Juzt Reboot System/Data Recovery Card. Has anyone used one? Is it everything they say it is? It sounds like an interesting idea but a PCI card that does what tape drives and CD burners do does seem a bit...well...farfetched." The review makes the card out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, and it may be just that if it does all it claims it can. Unfortunately a few functions on this card are limited to DOS/Win32, but if it can save you from a catastrophic crash even once, it might turn out to be worth the cash. Anyone have any direct experiences with this hardware that they'd like to share?

Dan Eisner asks: "With the new SunBlades available for around $1000, running Sun hardware at home is finally a real option! (however if you want to get a 3D graphics card, though, it doubles the cost) Yet, there are plenty of PC-based PCI graphics cards with great performance, for as little as $100. Should it be theoretically possible to get a PC PCI video (or any type) card running on a Sparc? I know that PC-based cards expect some functionality from the BIOS, but couldn't this be emulated with a clever driver?"

vitus979 asks: "Every year there is a big 7 day bicycle ride in Iowa called RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa), and an interesting problem was put in front of me and I'm looking for the best solution: make an extremely lightweight, self-contained webcam system fully independent of a base station, but yet able to upload pics to a file server from nearly any location in the state of Iowa to be shown on a website in realtime."

An anonymous reader sent in linkage to a story talking about HP ditching WinCE for Linux on their Jornada handhelds. As cool as that would be, I'm gonna seriously doubt that its gonna happen. But if they did, I'd have to buy a jornada.

floam (who got the info from MacUser UK )writes: "Samsung, in whom Apple invested $100 million to further expand Samsung?s TFT-LCD flat-panel display production capacity, is now offering a 24" digital LCD monitor. The Syncmaster 204T offers support for resolutions of up to 1920x1200 pixels, a dual monitor support to toggle between input from two different monitors, support for both DVI Compliant and Analog input, and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The $8,000 monitor also supports picture-in-picture, or multi-screen functionality, which can display multiple windows on the screen and offers 'True Color,' 16.7 million color support. Supporting two full-size A4 pages, it delivers more than 170 degrees of conic view and the company says that 'all images regardless of input resolution can be scaled to 1920x1200, 16:10 WUXGA mode with unsurpassed sharpness and vividness.'" Yes, please. Imagine when we'll be able to scoff at the "only" 24" LCD screen being bundled with the cheap system at CompUSA ... reason to dream, anyhow.

mblase writes "This C|Net article, published this morning, covers some of the advantages and many of the drawbacks involved for those who want to seriously overclock their PC hardware -- and why."

Fire In the Valley is not about the computer or software industry in toto -- this book is about the evolution of the PC, including well before it was called the PC. Forget being able to pick up the phone and order a speedy machine with plenty of RAM (for overnight delivery, no less!) from any of several vendors, for less than a month of the minimum wage: this was a time when the very idea of a machine for casual or home use, or even have a full-featured computer on one's work desktop was radical, even laughable. A personal computer? There was no such animal, until the people in this book invented it. (Read more below.)

gte024h writes: "I have been approached by a friend working at a mid-sized corporation about a plan to salvage hardware from their "dead" computers to make working computers which would then be donated to a local school. In the past I have salvaged old hardware from them, but only a few machines at a time. With this plan I will initially get about 40 identical machines with perhaps many more later (he says they have a warehouse full). I have no idea what condition these machines will be in but I am pretty sure that out of 40 non-functional machines I should be able to get 10-15 working. Does anyone have experience doing anything like this? Would it be faster to strip the machines and test the components individually, or to troubleshoot each machine whole? Any ideas for efficient testing and such are greatly appreciated."

timbong writes "Have you ever wanted a small, cheap robot that you could build for about $20? (depending on whether you buy new/scrap parts and what motors you use) Then check out this tutorial it requires some soldering experience but it really isn't very hard. If you want a kit check out solarbotics, they have some interesting stuff like walking analog adaptive robots."

A reader writes "I thought this may be a good read for many of the Slashdot readers. Here is a review of what seems like a great Lan Party Case. It's light, sturdy, and more importantly has two giant sized blow holes, for all you hardware fanatics and overclockers out there."

Ravagin asks: "OK, I'm trying to teach myself Perl, and I'm doing fairly well, but I'd like to be able to take it with me, as it were. I've got a Palm IIIxe and a Palm Portable Keyboard, and was wondering if there was a port of Perl to the Palm OS (as there is with C and BASIC)? It doesn't seem to me that it would be extremely difficult. And before you say it, my C skills are way too primitive to do it myself. The Ten Perl Myths Page says it's in the works, but that's from a year ago. None of the major palm software sites have anything, but is someone perhaps working on it?" Wow! Now this is something that would actually get me to dust off my (unused) Palm VII. Of course, you'd have to do quite a bit of coding to get a Perl interpreter (and base modules) to fit in 2 megs or less. Porters might have better luck with the 8MB Palm models but even that's kinda tight. Do any of you see Perl on the Palm platform anytime soon, or is it a pipe dream?

RapaNui asks: "I'm working on a project that uses a remotely controlled camera for video and still work. It currently uses a small board camera and a microwave (analog) downlink for video (the video feed is only used for targeting the onboard DVcam and still camera). Anyway, the telemetry downlink has just been upgraded and we now have 50-60 Kbps available that (if possible) we would like to use for a video downlink. All we need is 1/4 frame (PAL, 384x288) at around 2-5 fps What I was thinking of is a PC/104 or similar PC, running Linux and a vid-capture card (or an old parallel port video capture box - Snappy?). Whatever it is needs to be relatively small and light. Are there any usable (under linux) PC/104 or similar video capture (or still capture) cards? Or is there a unit (like some of the cams made by Axis) that could take video (composite or S-video) in one end and dump out a serial data stream at the other end? (This would be preferable, 'cause it would mean less hardware, and complexity on that end)."