The UberReview » Computers

Star Trek Shuttle Simulator On The Block

C. S. Magor — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:00:12 +0000

This USS Galileo simulator would make a most excellent fortress of nerditude.

According to the seller:

Remember those days, as a child, when you pretended to be a daring captain of a starship? Or when you pretended to be the brave crew? Why pretend? The USS Galileo, from Alpine School District’s Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove, is now up for sale. Those days of pretend are over, a real starship for the taking. The USS Galileo is a space ship simulator, complete with stations, networking, speakers, a main viewscreen, and anything a futuristic starship should have. The Space Education Center built a new Galileo so we must sadly sell our old Galileo.

The reserve price has not yet been stated, but given that the current bid is $1000, there is a good chance that it is set fairly high. If you do want to take this thing home, you will have to get yourself to Utah and bring enough muscle to load it onto your own truck.

[io9]

Asus USB 3.0, SATA 6.0 Via PCI-E a Cheaper Way To Raise Bar

C. S. Magor — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:59:04 +0000

Asus has brought a happy compromise to the table for the people that want to have USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 but don’t want to get a whole new motherboard for the privilege. It comes in the form of the U3S6, a PCI-E card that features a pair each of USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 ports.

At the moment there aren’t a lot of USB 3.0 devices on the market, but give it time; contrary to what a lot of commentators believe, we will start seeing the first trickle of devices sooner rather than later. The key technologies that are going to push USB 3.0 are display over USB and our increasing use of flash memory.

Price: $30 [CrunchGear]

Boot Time +2min: Acer, Sony and HP Worst Laptops For Bloatware

C. S. Magor — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:46:24 +0000

It is inevitable, faster processors and bigger hard drive capacities will always lead to more useless crap choking up the works. PC Pro has released some astonishing figures regarding the memory and hard disk footprint of bloatware with various manufacturers and the affect that the software has on boot time. The results grate more than they surprise:

Acer: 2:01 longer boot time, 952MB larger memory footprint, 2.4GB less HDD space
HP: 1:35 longer boot time, 1.06GB larger memory footprint, 2.18GB less HDD space
Dell: 0:52 longer boot time, 1.18GB larger memory footprint, 3GB less HDD space
Sony: 1:54 longer boot time, 1.11GB larger memory footprint, 1.3GB less HDD space

There was a time that 1GB of RAM was more than anyone would ever need and if you cut things back to basics it will still get the job done. These figures indicate that, if you want to run all of the bloat, you are going to need at least 4GB not to notice the added weight that it puts on your system.

The RAM use can be worked around, and space can be freed up via task manager, but two minutes is a significant increase to boot time and the only way to fix that is to hunt out all of the bloat and kill it. Or, if you want to save yourself the effort, just give your system a fresh install as soon as you get it home. That or you could get a Mac, which booted in 49-sec and, according to PC Pro, had virtually no bloat. [PC Pro via Gizmodo]

[Gizmodo]

Is Snow Leopard Worth It? Totally

C. S. Magor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:08:28 +0000

When it comes to upgrading operating systems, my policy has always been to wait to see what goes wrong for other people before I take the plunge.

Snow Leopard’s issue is a bug that can cause user data to be wiped. It seems to occur when operating from guest accounts and then switching back. As I don’t use a guest account, I like my odds.

Yesterday, it arrived and short of time I decided to go ahead with the installation. While the smart move would have been to back everything up, I didn’t. I stuck the disk in the drive and hoped for the best. I was not disappointed.

All up, it took about an hour to get Snow Leopard running on my rapidly aging, pre-multitouch Mac Book Pro and I barely had to lift a finger.

What I got for my trouble was a massive performance improvement. Things have gone from a semi-acceptable level of sluggishness to lightning fast. While I might find myself crying later, if this data loss issue doesn’t get resolved, I am definitely impressed with the performance boost. It is like having a new computer.

Odyssey Super-rugged Laptop Case Will Make Security Goons Wonder What You’re Planning

C. S. Magor — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:52:20 +0000

The Odyssey, a super-rugged laptop case that is watertight, dust- and impact-resistant and even features a pressure release valve, sounds a good idea. The foam liner is pluckable so that it can be shaped to hold any gadget or gizmo that warrants the hefty cost of the bag; making the heft of the bag itself, somehow appropriate. With a dry-weight of 11-lbs, the retractable handle and wheels are necessary inclusions on the Odyssey.

The only trouble that one is likely to encounter from the bag is from overzealous X-ray scanners who think it looks suspicious, and trust me, they get suspicious over a hell of a lot less; the price you pay for laptop safety.

[Odyssey via Gizmodo]