The post pictures of your computer thread

[Antony]

]

New toys.

Linksys 8 port Gigabit switch (I was so sick of 100mbit!)
3ea 20m CAT6 network cable
Samsung Laser Printer (monochrome)
Logitech Optical Mouse
Logitech Z-5500 speakers

Cool. Nice addition. (to Don: I am not the only one keeps getting new gadgets.)

I am sure you will love the Gigabit networking with CAT6 cables, and laser printer. (If you print quite a fair bit, you might want to consider switching to another brand. Using third party toner is not recommended.)

Does the Logitech Z-5500s have Dolby Digital or DTS? If my understanding is correct, you are connecting the speakers to your computer. Can the speakers be connected to Sony TV or Sony PS3?

Enjoy your new gadgets

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[Mandrake]

I am sure you will love the Gigabit networking with CAT6 cables, and laser printer. (If you print quite a fair bit, you might want to consider switching to another brand. Using third party toner is not recommended.)

Does the Logitech Z-5500s have Dolby Digital or DTS? If my understanding is correct, you are connecting the speakers to your computer. Can the speakers be connected to Sony TV or Sony PS3?

Enjoy your new gadgets

Thanks. Yes, they are currently connected to my PC. They can easily be connected my PS2, PS3 or Sony TV via optical output port on both the speakers and console/TV. The 360 also supports them, but I'm not using the official MS HDMI cable, so the 360 lacks an optical output port.

The speakers have a built in hardware decoder for Dolby Digital Live and DTS. I'm looking forward to playing with that.

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[Mandrake]

These speakers also support Dolby ProLogic II. This converts any audio stream into 5.1 surround sound audio with pretty good results. Too awesome.

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[Mandrake]

The verdict is in. A quick trip to Dick Smith got me a digital coax cable for only $19. Bargain.

I'm now enjoying the finest audio quality I've ever heard, anywhere. This is just awesome. It's almost as if the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude soundcard and the Logitech Z-5500 speakers were made for each other!

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[Antony]

Excellent! I am sure you love the new sound.

One quick question. How many sets of inputs can Logitech Z-5500 connects to? (As in how many different sound sources you can connected at same time?)

Well, I am now missing my Yamaha Home Theatre Sound System TSS-10. I bought it back in 2002 for Xbox. Yamaha provides decoder for Dolby Digital or DTS. (Yamaha is now sold to Jessica, and Xbox is loan to Jessica.)

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[Mandrake]

Excellent! I am sure you love the new sound.

One quick question. How many sets of inputs can Logitech Z-5500 connects to? (As in how many different sound sources you can connected at same time?)

Well, I am now missing my Yamaha Home Theatre Sound System TSS-10. I bought it back in 2002 for Xbox. Yamaha provides decoder for Dolby Digital or DTS. (Yamaha is now sold to Jessica, and Xbox is loan to Jessica.)

There's a coaxial input, an optical input and three 3.5mm analogue inputs. You can easily change between the three different inputs with the remote that is included.

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[Mandrake]

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[Antony]

A large heat sink?
For CPU or graphic card?

And congratulations on getting a digital camera! Much better pictures than camera phones.

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[Mandrake]

New CPU heatsink. The new Noctua heatsink has a much better mounting system - using a backplate and screws so that it isn't going anywhere. The old heatsink used flimsy pushpins that were incredibly unreliable. They also had the tendency to slightly bend the motherboard.

I got a new motherboard as well because my old X48 board died. I'm not sure how that happened - it's still something of a minor mystery to me.

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[Antony]

is the new heatsink noisy?

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[Mandrake]

is the new heatsink noisy?

No. The 120mm Noctua fans mounted on the heatsink are dead silent. Overall my system isn't noisy, but I'd hardly call it silent either. Just an obvious side effect of having so many fans to keep all this gear cool.

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[richard mitnick]

Here is my current set up at home. The computer on the very left is a new item, and Acer 150-1635 Netbook, For US$299.99, it replaced my very very aged Dell Inspiron 8000 PIII machine which just plain expired.

This little beast has an Atom N270 1.6 gig CPU, 1024 gigs DRAM, a 160 gig HDD. It has 3 USB ports, Ethernet, on board wireless connectivity and 8.9" monitor., VGA port for a (analog) monitor, speaker jack and microphone jack, on board camera.

I bought it only to manage a 500 gig HDD fvor music and video, and to crunch for WCG and BOINS.

But, it was a great traveling companion instead of my 17 " Dell M1710 Core 2 Duo machine.

Lets see if this picture works:



Yup. You can see that for home use, I have added a keyboard, which I already had, and a monitor which I needed to buy.

>>RSM

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[Antony]

Nice setup! Thanks for showing us.

The computer on the very left is a new item, and Acer 150-1635 Netbook, For US$299.99, it replaced my very very aged Dell Inspiron 8000 PIII machine which just plain expired.

This little beast has an Atom N270 1.6 gig CPU, 1024 gigs DRAM, a 160 gig HDD. It has 3 USB ports, Ethernet, on board wireless connectivity and 8.9" monitor., VGA port for a (analog) monitor, speaker jack and microphone jack, on board camera.

I bought it only to manage a 500 gig HDD fvor music and video, and to crunch for WCG and BOINS.

But, it was a great traveling companion instead of my 17 " Dell M1710 Core 2 Duo machine.

How's the actual use of the netbook when you travel? I've been thinking if I shall get a netbook as well.

I've been feeling that my 15-inch MacBook Pro is a bit bulky while travelling. (Although the 15-inch screen does turn out to be useful from time to time.)

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[richard mitnick]

Antony-

First, thanks for coming on my weblog. I really appreciated it.

The netbook: you know it's a compromise. Everything one does in travel becomes compromise, except the reason for the trip. So, little tubes of toothpaste are not a problem. But little mice and keyboards can get to you.

Still, I am very happy I did it. On the plane for 6 hours, I could watch some videos I keep on my Passport 320gig portable HDD. My room at my daughter's home in Los Angeles has a really tiny desk, so, you know, it all works out.

Some things, you know you walk into the store or you see an article or review, and you know that's it!! All I was trying to buy when I saw the Acer was to get a 100 pack of DVD-R blanks for approx US$22.00. I knew the PIII was on its last legs, so this was on my mind. I walked past this display. The Acer and an HP. The HP had these weird ports. Then I read the Acer specs on the card and saw the price.

I went to five stores. All sold out. I wonder why!! So, I ordered it on line from FRYE's, a west coast retailer, for two day delivery.

They way it is set up now, it is fine at home. Then, I just pull the unit and the power supply. I have the original tiny Logitech mouse and the neat Targus numeric keypad I bought before attaching the keyboard all packed in the computer's bag.

So, happy you liked the snap.

>>RSM

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[richard mitnick]

Antony-

An interesting aspect of this new machine that you might find interesting.

The machine is running WinXP Home. So, I copied an install file for Music Match 10 (MM10) from my wife's XP machine. MM10 will not run in Vista. MM10 was destroyed for all future installations by Yahoo. But, if one has a working copy, it is still O.K.

I do not need MM10 as a player. I use WMP11 for library, and Winamp for library and web streaming. But what MM10 has that no other players (iTunes?) have is a utility to export one's library information to a spread sheet, .csv, .xls, whatever.

I had an immediate use for this. I got a download of the music of a certain composer. There were 80 "CD's". But I could see by the folder names that this was a compilation of two separate libraries. So, there were bound to be duplicates. I loaded the composer into MM10 and exported the data. Now, I could sort, and get the duplicates contiguous in the spread sheet. This was a great help. In the end, there were only a few CD's duplicated.

If anyone needs or wants a working copy of MM10, complete with a license key, I will be happy to oblige via sendspace.com.

>>RSM

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