The shape of the drive is not the usual rectangular box. Instead, it’s sloped in the front and can be either used standing up (see photo on left) using a stand, or flat on top of another device, like your desktop computer.

The specs are:

USB 2.0: up to 480 Mb/s
FireWire 400: up to 400 Mb/s
eSATA — up to 3Gb/s
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
6.89″ in H x 1.33″ in W x 6.77″ in L (175.0mm x 33.7mm x 172mm)
Weight: 3.06 lb (1.39 kg)

The photo below shows the interesting front light indicator that shows the drive activity.  I’m not sure if all this light show is great or not. I think I’d rather just see a LED indicator that shows me on/off and active/not active.  But these days, I guess you need a gimmick to sell external drives.

The picture below shows the back of the unit.  This side looks more like a conventional external drive with the power connector, eSATA, firewire, and USB2.0.  It’s not ultra skinny or small but slender enough to slip between other junk on your desk.

What I like most about this drive is it’s automatic power saving mode.  When the drive has not been accessed for a while, it will automatically power down and save electricity.  Nice green touch.  You pretty much forget about it until the OS tries to access it, then it will turn on and the crazy light comes on in the front.

If you need more hard drive space, this is a good quiet addition to your desk.

The easiest way to do this is to get a SATA to USB2.0/eSata converter, and of course, to get something like that, you just go to your local Fry’s.  What I found there was the Vantec NexStar Hard Drive Dock (MSRP $39.99).

This docking station will accept both 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA drives (click on picture below). According to the Vantec website, their new version also has Firewire, but the one I got doesn’t have that connector.  Their specs say that you can get transfer rates Up to 480Mbps with USB 2.0 and transfer rates Up to 3Gb/s with eSATA. I didn’t actually do any testing of the speeds that I got with it.

On my first use, for some reason, I could only see one of the partitions on the drive, but when I tried it again later with another computer, I was able to see both partitions. I don’t know what caused this difference, but I suspect that it may have been caused by a NAS drive being mapped over the drive.

Otherwise, I didn’t have any problems with this docking station and it looks great on my desk, and I’m very happy with it.

At first, everything was going good. Except for compatibility problems with Vista, the computer hardware was working fast and smoothly…

Until 3 weeks later…

Just about the time I finally had everything installed and moved over from my old hard drive, I turn on my computer and I get a blank screen.  Oh crap.  Not good.

HP has a built in self test program by pressing F9 upon power-up.  This is actually a nice touch.  The screen below shows the result of the testing.  You can click on the picture to see a larger version.

Notice that the hard drive is dead. Also, notice where the diagnostic says, “Suggestion: Backup your important data” WTF? How am I supposed to backup my dead hard drive? It also says to call HP support.  Which I did.

HP support is one of the worst support call centers in the industry.  It took them 55 minutes to tell me that my hard drive was dead and that they would send out a new one to me.  Most of that time, I was on hold waiting for the 2 people on the line to read their script so they can tell me what I already told them.

Of course, I didn’t wait 6 days to get the replacement hard drive.  I went straight to Fry’s to get a 1TB SATA drive so that could start restoring my new computer. What’s really frustrating is that it took me about 3 weeks to finally get everything restored from my old computer and all the programs re-installed.  Now, I have to go through the entire procedure again.  What a pain.

The picture below shows the HP’s guts out.  The cage for the hard drive comes out so that you can install the drive.  It’s not as clean as DELL’s case but it’s not the worst one I’ve seen in my life.  I give it a 6 out of 10.

So I finally did get my replacement hard drive after about 6 days. However, it took about 2 weeks to get the “system restore” DVDs that HP sent out. Luckily, I did create these DVDs myself while the computer was still working so I didn’t have to wait.

After I got the replacement drive, I added that to the system to use as a backup internal drive. I had to go into the BIOS to tell it which drive to boot from, but otherwise, it all works fine.

In conclusion, it’s obvious that I’m as stupid as stupid does.  Even after having problems with my first HP, I still went out and bought yet another HP and paid the price.  To be fair, the hard drive dying is a Seagate problem, but HP gets the blame for putting it in their system.  It would have been a lot less work for me if the new HP was DOA instead of dying after 3 weeks.

So I’ll continue to use my HP and see how many weeks it lasts this time.

As you may have read, my old HP died and had to be replaced with a newer Vista version of the HP desktop. One of the first things I wanted to do was move over the bookmarks from Firefox 3, which is my main browser that I use.  As it turns out, not so easy when you don’t have your old computer working anymore.

The first thing to do is to be able to access hidden folders. To see them, you have to open Explorer (right click on Start, then click Explorer).

As shown below, next click on “Organize”, then click on “Folder and Search Options”.

Next, you’ll get a window as shown below. Click on the “View” tab, then scroll down to “Hidden files and folders.” Now, click on “Show hidden files and folders,” as shown below.

Now, open Explorer again and go inside your username, then “AppData”, which was the hidden folder, followed by “Roaming,” then “Mozila,” then “Firefox,” and “Profiles,” as shown below.

Note that “Z” is my username (so replace with yours), and the weird folder after “Profiles” will be different and is apparently a randomly generated folder name.

Now, the following files are of interest:

1. places.sqlite
   This is the Firefox 3 bookmarks and browsing history.
2. cookies.sqlite
   The cookies
3. formhistory.sqlite
   Saved entries from web forms and the search bar.
4. key3.db and signons3.txt
   Both files are needed for saved passwords.

The directory where these files are located is shown below.  Now copy these from the original drive over to the new computer.  Done!

According to an inside source, Pinkberry will start offering Pomegranate flavored frozen yogurt starting November 11, 2008 for the same price as Coffee and Green Tea. We’ll find out later today if this is BS or not.

After looking around, the price range was from about $50-$200 ($500 for professional units).  Not wanting to go crazy, I decided to get one in the middle range of the APC line and got the XS 900 (MSRP $129.99).

This unit is rated at 540 Watts @ 900 VA so this is more than enough power for my computer and monitor. For a tad more money, I could have gotten a display on the unit but since it’s connected via USB to my computer, I didn’t see a need for that data right on the unit itself.

The picture below shows the front of the unit with LED indicators for the various stats.  The replace battery is a nice touch compared to my old unit which had no indicators except for on and off.

The back of the UPS is shown below with 6 battery backup plugs and 2 surge protected plugs. There’s also I/O for a modem and cable, as well as the USB2.0 connection to your computer.  This last bit turns out to be a great feature as you’ll see below.

The image below (click to see larger version) shows the status screen of the APC monitor program that comes with the UPS.  It gets the information via the USB directly from the UPS.  The bar graph below shows that after connecting my computer, monitor and Buffalo NAS RAID, it still has plenty of juice left and tells me that I have about 25 minutes of power.

I saved the best for last.  Using the APC monitor program, you can also configure your UPS alarm, which makes a loud high pitched beeping sound when the power has gone down.  Of course, normally, this is a great feature to let you know that you need to save all your data and turn off your computer.

The feature I love here is you can disable the alarm sound between specific hours (see image below and click for larger version).

As you can see above, there’s a setting to disable the alarm between specific hours of the day.  I wish I had this exact same option on my cell phone so that it would automatically turn off the ringer during the hours when I’m sleeping.  This option alone on this UPS makes this a big thumbs up from me.  Bravo!

A friend of mine got her T-Mobile G1 the first day it was available. Here she is presenting it between her boobs.  That’s how she rolls.  For the most part, she likes it but there’s some things she doesn’t like.

I played with it for a few minutes and found that I had the same problems I always seem to have with touch screens.  I don’t know if it’s something wrong with my finger or something else but I had the same problem with the iPhone as well.  The unit is a little thicker than I thought and much thicker than the iPhone.

The Android UI is not as completely intuitive as I thought it would be.  After calling her phone, I wanted to store the number into her contact list but couldn’t figure out how to do it.  Obviously, there must be a way to do it but pushing the menu button didn’t do it and I didn’t know what else to press.

My first impression of the phone hardware was so-so. I like the QWERTY keyboard but not too sure about the touch screen.  Android was a little harder to use than I thought it would be but it might be okay after you get used to it.

I’ll have to play with it more to decide if I want to go T-Mobile/Android right now.  Maybe I can talk my friend into letting me play with it while it’s between her boobs.  Or not.

My old HP Media Center PC with just 250MB of RAM felt super slow compared to my new Toshiba Qosmio with 2GB of RAM. So, I decided I’d add some RAM to my old computer.  Although I haven’t done a RAM upgrade in probably 10 years, I’ve built computers from scratch in my previous life so there should be no problems.

Fast forward to me slapping myself for blowing up my motherboard without even backing up my hard drive.

Maybe I subconsciously wanted to blow up my computer so I can buy a new one.

But I digress.

In need of a new computer, I quickly checked my options. The Dell looked good but I didn’t have time to order something online. I needed a computer today. Right now. Best Buy didn’t have what I wanted in stock so off to my good old stand-by Fry’s I go.  I called ahead and had them put my HP Pavilion aside for me, but I knew I had to get a bunch of other stuff as well.

As you can see from the picture above, basically, this unit looks like my old Media Center.  But inside, the specs are a little different:

• Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9300 @ 2.5GHz (5.9 Windows Experience Index)
• 8GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM (4×2048)
• 750GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive (686GB usable, 12.3G used by restore partition)
• 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT, 2 DVI (VGA and HDMI adapters)
• LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
• Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64bit
• Built in WiFi
• 6 USB2.0 (4 in the back, 2 in the front)
• 2 FireWire (IEEE 1394) (1 in the back, 1 in the front)

As you can see, this baby is fully loaded.  But as per usual, I’ve got some complaints.

The first thing I noticed was that they changed the keyboard.  Now, the weird function keys are on the left side.  I’m used to having the CTRL key in the lower left corner of the keyboard and this bothered me enough to switch back to my old keyboard.  Why do they insist on changing stuff that works?

I totally understand laptops coming with built-in WiFi these days, and that’s great.  But if you don’t have a hard wired Ethernet coming to your desktop, maybe you need to move your desk.  For me, the built in WiFi is a total waste.  I’ll never use it.

The 2 DVI outputs is great.  I wish I had the money and space for 2 monitors.  However, they don’t give you even one DVI cable.  I had to use my old analog cable.

No eSATA port.  Even my Toshiba laptop has a eSATA port.  WTF?

Unlike my old HP desktop, the doors on the front open like doors, instead of sliding to the side.  It’s not horrible but it kind of gets in the way of the cables a little.  Another example of changing what worked before to something else that doesn’t work as well.  But I have to admit, it does look better.

There’s an “Easy Backup” button on the front to start your backup.  Really?  Do we really need a button dedicated to this?  How about just using the scheduler to backup your drive automatically without even pushing a button.  Isn’t that easier?  How dumb do they think we are?  Never mind.  Don’t answer that.

The 64bit version of Vista does have compatibility problems.  Most of these can be solved by running the application in Windows XP SP3 mode.  However, a couple of programs I use do not work properly.  Even after upgrading to the current version, Multiplicity does not work completely. To make matters worse after my crash, the Memeo backup (and restore) doesn’t work in 64bit mode.  I contacted them and they confirmed that it currently does not work with Vista 64bit.

Alright.  Enough complaints.  What do I like about this puppy?

They put a “technology pad” on top of the computer.  Sounds stupid but it works great.  It’s a lowered area on top with some type of anti-slip covering as well as a guide for the cables so everything from your iPhone, MP3 player, digital camera and camcorder can rest easy and clean on top.  This is the opposite of the PS3 which is round on top so everything slips off.

Coming from my old HP with 250MB of RAM, this computer screams.  As fast as I can open up windows, they open.  I rarely have to wait for the computer.  It’s usually waiting for me, or an external device.  But the speed can really spoil you.

Unlike the old HP which had the motherboard on the right side, this one has the motherboard on the left. No biggie.  It’s actually better for me since the left side is against the wall.  The inside looks clean and well organized.  I’ve seen better designed cases but this one is up there.

All in all, I’m happy with my new desktop. It’s fast, and I’m finally getting used to Vista.  It’s not so bad.  I’m starting to like it.  Just in time for Microsoft to come out with Windows 7.

As you can see in the picture above, there are a bunch of green and red lights everywhere.  At first, I just thought it was some weird viral marketing for some movie.  Then I noticed a pattern.  Spaces that were open had green lights, and spaces with cars had red lights.

The picture below shows the lights close-up.

As a gadget lover, I had to get out of my car to take a closer look.  Upon closer inspection, each and every parking space has what appears to be a distance sensor that detects when a car is in the parking space.  I’m not sure what technology is being used (laser, sound, or other) but from what I could tell, it worked very nicely no matter how big or small the car was.

Frankly, from a shopper’s point of view, this is great.  As you are looking for a parking space, you can clearly see the green light which indicates there is a parking space available.  It would be difficult to install the same device in outside parking lots, but it sure seems to work great indoors.

Of course, these lights still don’t stop a-holes from taking your space before you get there.