Recommended Posts

chconline, I love your reviews and your setups, but where do you get all the money to buy the stuff you review? Like the DiNovo Edge keyboard that thing costs like $200 and adding up all the other stuff you've bought, it's like 1k+

@pdmcmahon - Nice setup for sure mate!

Question for you...have you ever had any issues with those external WD hard drives? I was thinking about grabbing one, but wanted to know your experience with them? Normally, I would just buy a case and HD and put one together myself.

Thanks! :)

John, that is very good job at hiding the wiring. Are you putting it all behind the dresser?

Yeah, except its a file drawer :p

img0069ch0.jpg

Everything is nice and twist tied together. The cable on the left is for my Ikea lamp, the middle thick one is for everything (Monitor, speakers, etc) the one on the right is for my G5 V2 mouse so it gets free movement.

Its quite convenient to use my network cable plugged into the network jack to guide the cables, lol :p

:yes: +1 on the wiring.

I also love the new chair, can you post a link? I always really like your setups and hardware reviews.

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku....;affixedcode=WW

It's called "Office Star Air Grid Manager's Chair". :)

chconline, I love your reviews and your setups, but where do you get all the money to buy the stuff you review? Like the DiNovo Edge keyboard that thing costs like $200 and adding up all the other stuff you've bought, it's like 1k+

Quite beyond 1k, but I don't need to pay for these things ;)

desk.JPG

Twin 3007WFP HC screens

Twin 2405FP screens

I've sold one of the smaller 24" LCDs and am using the other one now with my Inspiron 9300.

Desktop is an E6600 @ 3.2

2GB 4-4-12-4 Corsair DDR2 @ 966 or so

8800GTX

I have a few soundcards in the case - X-Fi Fatility for games, M-Audio 24/96 for music

Genelec 1030A studio monitors

Lots of synth gear to the right, but this is all about workstations and not funstations :p

Love your setup ahfunaki,

I get my matching lcd today for dual monitor setup, has been too long with an lcd and a crt :)

Oh, and make sure you use a program called ultramon, its great for dual monitor setups.

thanks, and yea I can't live without ultramon. definitely a must have for anyone who owns dual monitors...

@pdmcmahon - Nice setup for sure mate!

Question for you...have you ever had any issues with those external WD hard drives? I was thinking about grabbing one, but wanted to know your experience with them? Normally, I would just buy a case and HD and put one together myself.

Thanks! :)

You might laugh at how I have them set up, but yes, they work just fine.

Originally, I had 3 internal 250GB drives on each of my file servers. 750GB total. Now, I plug all 5 of these into my domain controller (pitched the file servers as I didn't need them anymore). So, now I share all 5 volumes across my entire LAN. My 3 Macs all mount them and my PCs map to them, all on startup/login. Even though they are USB 2.0 hard drives and not internal, I see no performance issues whatsoever. Obviously, if you were to just plug them in to your workstation directly, they would be even better.

My philosophy is to be redundant with everything. For example, from the left to the right, they are VOL1 through VOL6 (no VOL5 right now). VOL1 and VOL3 are exactly the same contents, pictures, software, etc. VOL2, VOL4 and VOL6 are all exact copies, they contain all of my complete album MP3 folders. I am not going to say how many I have, but I will say that they fit in 500GB drives quite well :)

Overall, they work just fine for what I need. The added bonus is that when no one is accessing the drives, they simply spin down after 10 minutes of inactivity. In other words, when I go to work, I don't need to shut the whole thing down. When I come home and I log in, the simple act of mapping/mounting the shares makes them wake up.

Here's my 'reverse Squeezebox':

img0075xj9.jpg

Old AMD Athlon 64 sitting behind the set.

img0078pn3.jpg

Yes, it will live next to the sub lol. Sound output is from my Creative Audigy 2 sound card, using digital out (S/PDIF passthrough for external decoder) to the receiver. Darn Creative and their 3.5mm jack outputs, it took me a while to find something that would convert 3.5mm to RCA jack. Well, I found them in my basement, so what the heck. Connected via a standard 75ohm digital coaxial cable to the receiver.

The ATI thing is the receiver for my Remote Wonder II remote control.

Why I call it a 'reverse squeezebox':

The Squeezebox can stream music from a fixed source to anywhere in your home. Well, in this case, the music is located in a fixed source and any computer in the home can instruct it to play :laugh: (Remote desktop -- connected to main home gigabit network).

BUT it can stream music from my NAS.

img0081kp6.jpg

lol 32" display, no complaints about size of the display of this media player :p

You might laugh at how I have them set up, but yes, they work just fine.

Originally, I had 3 internal 250GB drives on each of my file servers. 750GB total. Now, I plug all 5 of these into my domain controller (pitched the file servers as I didn't need them anymore). So, now I share all 5 volumes across my entire LAN. My 3 Macs all mount them and my PCs map to them, all on startup/login. Even though they are USB 2.0 hard drives and not internal, I see no performance issues whatsoever. Obviously, if you were to just plug them in to your workstation directly, they would be even better.

My philosophy is to be redundant with everything. For example, from the left to the right, they are VOL1 through VOL6 (no VOL5 right now). VOL1 and VOL3 are exactly the same contents, pictures, software, etc. VOL2, VOL4 and VOL6 are all exact copies, they contain all of my complete album MP3 folders. I am not going to say how many I have, but I will say that they fit in 500GB drives quite well :)

Overall, they work just fine for what I need. The added bonus is that when no one is accessing the drives, they simply spin down after 10 minutes of inactivity. In other words, when I go to work, I don't need to shut the whole thing down. When I come home and I log in, the simple act of mapping/mounting the shares makes them wake up.

Perfect...thanks a lot for the input! They really do sound like great ExHD's, even though at first when they arrived in stores, I didn't like them as much. :D

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • I think it depends on what you're looking for to do, and the time you have to spare. With my Dwarf 3, I easily spend 3-4 hour sessions; half an hour driving to an un-light polluted place, unpacking and setting up the smart scope + tripod for equatorial tracking, mucking around with settings, maybe shoot some calibration frames, spending a few hours shooting, merging with past photo sessions, etc. It's crazy how time flies and I often get home later than I expected. It's something I still need to set aside a good part of an evening to do, all in all. For one session, where you often need like four for best results when it comes to deep space objects. With practice, I can probably begin cutting time here but I think where smart scopes find their home is among people who love to shoot the night sky but don't have the spare time to go deep with the "navigator level" attunement to the night sky itself. Having said this, _if_ you have even more time to spend on this hobby, it will probably be even more rewarding to do it more by hand and learn the skies and the details of how it all works.
    • I misread the title and thought Teams itself would be redesigned. Imagine having this one as a native WinUI app.
    • Dell, HP PCs ran into endless reboot, BitLocker recovery loops but Windows 11 isn't to blame by Sayan Sen Last month Neowin reported on a major issue on Dell systems wherein a bug in its official support tool was leading to endless blue screen of death (BSOD) and restarts. Following our report, Dell officially acknowledged its SupportAssist-related crash issue, confirming that the culprit is not Microsoft's operating system but rather a faulty version of its own remediation software. In a newly published support advisory, Dell stated that version 5.5.16.0 of Dell SupportAssist Remediation and Alienware SupportAssist Remediation can trigger blue screen errors and unexpected system restarts. The company notes that the problematic component operates independently of the main SupportAssist application, meaning users should not remove the primary SupportAssist software when troubleshooting the issue. According to Dell, the crashes are linked specifically to the SupportAssist Remediation service, which is bundled with SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools, and as such it has since released an updated version, 5.5.16.1, which is said to resolve the problem. Affected users are advised to first verify whether version 5.5.16.0 is installed by checking the Installed Apps section in Windows Settings. If so, Dell recommends updating SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools through either SupportAssist's "Update Software" feature or Dell Command Update. Dell also advises users to back up important data before performing the update and to ensure systems remain connected to power throughout the installation process. If you are still having issues though make sure to report to the Dell support forum. As it turns out though Dell is not the only PC maker currently dealing with update-related headaches as HP is also facing a separate but probably equally frustrating issue involving recent Windows Secure Boot updates that were released with recent Windows 11 Patch Tuesdays. Similar to Dell, HP also put up its own support article where it explains the issue. The company says that affected devices could hit a brick wall when booting as they run into a BitLocker recovery loop after the April 2026 updates. The problem appears to affect systems wherein the new UEFI Secure Boot CA 2023 certificates fail to apply properly. As such affected users will find themselves entering their recovery key over and over again despite the system otherwise functioning normally. HP says such PCs should be updated to the latest available BIOS version and configured with the necessary Secure Boot certificates before installing Microsoft's Windows 11 Patch Tuesday updates. Systems that are already experiencing the problem may require BIOS configuration changes to restore normal boot behavior. Admins can find information regarding that in the support article here on HP's official website.
    • Getting further away from the artistic study of mental disease that was the first game... (which never needed any sequels to begin with) But I get it, a company has to make money. And the second was at least visually impressive, if not in any other way.
    • If its the devs fault you would think Unreal would help M$ take full advantage of Unreal and work with them to fix the performance issues. Otherwise they are catching unwarranted bad press.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      493
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      246
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      72
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      69
    5. 5
      neufuse
      68
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!