I have an HP HDX18T laptop with an external drive that holds my old stock 250GB/5,400rpm 2.5-inch drive. The external case uses an internal SATA connection and has both a USB 2.0 and eSATA connection externally for my laptop. I’ve read that there is a theoretical transfer rate of 4GB/s with eSATA, but I’m lucky to get 40MB/s copying to or from. Can you tell me what I’m missing?
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
In the PDF archive of the Holiday 2009 issue you can find: How to Get Free Programs, Services, Software, Apps & More 8 Photo-printing Solutions Compared Interview with Cryptic Studios’ Craig Zinkievich about Star Trek Online Awesome Product Reviews, including the Thermaltake Level 10 case Ask the Doctor Best of the Best How-to: DIY Arcade PC And a whole lot more! Click the big giant cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
I just bought a used PC running Windows XP. It had been really fast loading and running programs and accessing the web, but suddenly it slowed down to a complete stop. I had to unplug it just to shut it down. So, I unplugged the Ethernet cable and it worked fine.
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
I’ve often heard the rumor that a full hard drive is significantly slower than a mostly empty one. Despite my black belt Google-fu I am unable to find any stories, articles, or write-ups to elaborate on this. How much slower? At which point is a hard drive too full—60 percent?
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
Powerful and feature-rich, but not for newbs The Synology DS409+, though targeted at small- and medium-size business owners, is a great addition to any home network, with a robust web admin panel, media streaming of all stripes, cross-platform support, and easy backup—of the computers on your network, and of the NAS itself. To call this merely “network-attached storage” does the device a disservice. The DS409+ is a squat brown-black box with a minimalist feel, and it ships sans drives, so you’ll have to provide your own. The ports are on the back of the device and include two USB 2.0, one eSATA, and one Gigabit Ethernet. In addition to two 8cm fans, the hinged back panel contains four thumbscrews, which, once unscrewed, allow the panel to open and the top of the case to lift off
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
Happy New Year! Well, almost. Before I can raise my glass and tip my columnist’s hat to the one-year birthday of the Freeware Files (and Murphy’s Law), it’s time we get down to the time-honored tech tradition at this time of year: the awards list. Unlike my brethren at Maximum PC, who have put together a fine list of general freeware applications that you should check out regardless of the time, I’ve sat down and gone through the hundreds of apps and utilities that I’ve covered throughout this year. Some, you might know.
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
Meet a 3G-connected Wi-Fi access point that fits in your pocket When you’re ready to step up to the world of cellular broadband connections, there are lots of options. The removable PC Card, USB, and ExpressCard modems deliver great performance and work with pretty much any PC, but they’ll connect only one machine at a time to the Internet—that is, unless you can successfully set up connection sharing in Windows. And while we love the always-on nature of modems integrated in notebooks, their permanent association to a single machine makes the external cards seem positively promiscuous by comparison. Enter the MiFi 2200.
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
I’ve got two monitors: a slightly older 24-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2443 BWX and a brand-new 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2233 RZ. I am attempting a dual-monitor setup for Illustrator/Photoshop purposes (as well as animation and other forms of graphic design) on a Radeon HD 4850 X2 with Catalyst 9.8 drivers. Out of the box the color representation couldn’t be worse. The new monitor is extremely blue and the old one looks better, but is still a tad red
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
Do you want to know how long I’ve been doing this? So damn long that I covered the original Monkey Island games. Friends, back in my day, we had only two colors (black and not-black—and black’s not even a color!), and we liked it ! Actually, it kind of sucked, and one of the pleasures of covering games throughout the 1990s was watching sound and image improve to the point that spectacular graphics barely warrant a mention. If you can’t make a game look and sound good in 2009, you really should be making something other than games
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
Yeah! Another top-ten list for 2009. This one’s from Nielsen , the kindly folks who track our TV viewing habits, and now bless us with four lists for mobile phones: phone brand, web sites accessed, brands accessed, and video channels accessed. It’s an odd top ten list, as it only covers the period January to September (October for cell phones), but the top mobile phone is the Apple iPhone, with 4 percent of the “embedded base of all subscribers.” RIM’s BlackBerry 8300 series comes in at number two, with 3.7%, followed by Motorola’s RAZR V3 series, with 2.3%.
For the full story, go to Maximum PC
