Best Buy has announced that they are rolling out an electronics recycling program to all of their US stores on February 15th. The program will allow consumers to bring in 2 devices per day, including a wide range of items, such as computers, VCRs, and some types of televisions.
Tag: Technology
Seagate Hard Drive Dies Firmware Death
I experienced the worst feeling a computer owner can have this week. I had turned on my computer and waited for the usual tones of the Windows Vista startup chimes, but was instead greeted with an error message from the motherboard stating that no startup disc could be found. A quick check through my system showed that the hard drive was powered on, but couldn’t be accessed by the motherboard.
Of course, later that day, I heard about the Seagate firmware bug that’s killing hard drives. Had I gotten word of this prior to the failure, I might have been able to load an update to resolve the issue, but currently my data is locked in the drive without access.
I tried contacting Seagate through their support line, but only ran into a message stating that there was a technical issue with their call system and to look at their website for support. Unfortunately, the support website was down as well.
Honestly, this incident, and the lack of information and support has turned me away from being a steady customer of Seagate drives.
Another Motherboard to Add to the Pile
Old AMD ATX Motherboard vs New Atom Mini ITX Motherboard
The old AMD socket 939 motherboard that my Ubuntu Linux file server was running on finally gave up the ghost last week. Because replacements are harder to find for older processors, I decided to try a different router and went with an Intel mini ITX motherboard and Atom 330 processor.
What’s neat is that the heat sink with the fan isn’t cooling the processor, but the northbridge chipset. The actual Atom 330 processor is underneath the fanless heatsink next to it, which tells you just how little power it’s using in comparison.
Mini ITX Motherboard Inside Case — Lots of Room to Grow
It’s amazing how small this little guy is, especially when compared to the motherboard it’s going to replace. I’d almost go as far as calling it “Mac mini” small. It’s pretty comical to see how much space there is surrounding it in the Rocketfish tower case I had for the box.
So far performance has been good, both from a file serving perspective, as well as trying out general desktop performance under Ubuntu.
A Li’l Guppie for Big Jobs
I’ve been using the Li’l Guppie Multi-Tool that my sister bought me as a Christmas gift from ThinkGeek all day, and I’ve come away with a lot of respect for the little guy.
While the included tools aren’t really meant to replace your nice, rugged toolset, it’s nice to have a multi-tool device that can hang from your belt like a carabiner for all those quick little fixes you need to do in an on-site technology support job like mine.
Plus, the little fish design makes for a good conversation starter with clients who see me using it. Thanks, Sis!
Apple Abandons Macworld Expo
The tech news sites are all abuzz with news that Steve Jobs will not be making the opening keynote address, along with the announcement that Apple will not be taking part in Macworld Expo after this year.
I understand that companies like Apple, Adobe and Belkin would decide to skip the large amount of money that the average convention costs them in terms of marketing dollars, but at the same time, I have to wonder if it’s possible for companies to be losing out in the long run with these short term savings.