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Archive for April, 2011

HP has introduced his ultra gaming computers BlackBird 002, Dell is well known for the XPS series, and Northwest will give anyone a great wow with the high end configurations for the most exacting gamers. Alienware, the expert in implementing the newest components in laptops or desktops, he could not just stay and watch so Area-51 ALX gaming computers have been launched.

With a NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI graphics card on the motherboard, the Intel Core 2 Extreme with Quad Core technology processor could not miss, which runs at a 3.0 Ghz frequency and having a level 2 cache with 8 MB memory and a 1333 Mhz FSB. And in order to offer more power and performance, the processor was over clocked until 3.33 Ghz, the manufacturer providing a maximum stability in the conditions provided by the warranty.

Alienware Area-51 ALX

In the standard version, the DDR2 RAM memory at 800 Mhz is only 2 GB and can be extended up to 4 GB. For storage in order for you to save movie collections from Rapidshare downloads, music and especially games, Alienware prepared a few pleasant surprises. You can choose from 7200 rpm or 10.000 rpm HDDs, in single mode or RAID 0 and 1 matrix, with a Serial ATA2 at 3 Gb/s interface. The surprise is represented by the possibility to mount four hard drive disks, each having 1 TB, reaching an impressive value of 4 TB. The standard optical unit is a DVD RW Dual Layer 20x, but you can choose from the LightScribe technology or even 2x Blue-Ray Reader / Writer. The long forgotten floppy has been replaced by a 28 in 1 card reader.

At what does a gamer first look when buying a system? The video cards of course. The standard Area-51 ALX gaming computers come equipped with two NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX video card mounted in SLI mode with 2 x 768 MB video memory, four DVI out, two S-Video out, support for the newest DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0. The surprises are not stopping here because you can install in SLI the two GeForce 8800 ULTRA, the “doped” version of the 8800 GTX graphic chip.

Not even the sound is below standards. You are provided with a standard Surround card on 24 bits and 8 channels. You can also install a Sound Blaster X-Fi with 64 MB XRAM audio memory. When talking about connectivity, Alienware excels again. Two High Performance Gigabit Ethernet ports, two FireWire 400 ports (one on the frontal panel), 8 High Speed USB 2.0 (two for a fast access on the frontal panel), audio connectors for the speakers, headset and microphone and the video mentioned above.

Alienware Area-51 ALX

The case’s aspect is amazing. The frontal panel presents numerous blue LEDs which can be configured, and the chrome elements, the opening system of the side panel and front panel which hides the optical drive, like the Alienware logo hive a plus of originality, impressing through each detail.

The ALX system is silent thanks to the cooling system AlienICE based on liquid, which includes both the processor and the video cards. All the high-end components are fed by a 1000 real W source. The Area-51 ALX gaming computers are great systems.

You are wondering how much does a beauty like this costs? Well $4.999 for the standard version. Have fun gaming!

Want to stand out among all the other laptop users on your next coffee shop visit? You can do so with laptop skins. They are decorative laminates for your laptop’s outer surface, similar to a decorative sticker. It is usually made of thin elastic material so that it stretches firmly across your laptop. Some companies even offer suede skins for their customers. It protects your laptop from scratches from constant use and transport. Plus, it earns you some serious style points!

What are the available designs?

Laptop skins can come in plain, basic colors which is perfect for people who just want a cover for their laptop. Usually, this type of skin bears the logo of a company or the maker of the skin. Others who prefer to use the skin to decorate their laptop can choose from different elaborate designs and colors. Many websites offer design themes such as animal prints, retro, nature, graffiti, patterns, flowers, vector-type and sports. Some skins even bear masterpiece artworks such as the Mona Lisa, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. A few companies even offer customization jobs where people can send in their designs or even photos to be made into skins. With the many design options available in the market, there is something out there that fits your personality.

Buying tips

1. Choose a removable laptop skin that can be safely removed without leaving spots or damage.

2. Choose laptop skins made of high quality material to effectively protect against dust and scratches. If you work in a cold environment, look for a neoprene skin which provides insulation.

There are many benefits to overclocking your hardware peripherals. It is said to benefit computer owners who have low end models. Overclocking increases the speed of any hardware peripheral more than the limit set by the manufacturer. By overclocking, the low end hardware is made to perform just as its higher end version does. Some computer enthusiasts who have good and new quality models also overclock their computer hardwares in order to push them to perform much better. Besides speed advantages, overclocking gives greater signal strength which helps your hardware perform at a maximum level.

Take the 3.0 gigahertz Pentium 4, its owner can overclock it to 3.4 gigahertz. By doing so, he has on his hands now a computer that works exactly like the actual Pentium 4 3.4 gigahertz without having to shell out more money for an upgrade or a new computer purchase. With overclocking, you are also able to test drive an upcoming model or a newly released model you are contemplating on buying.

You can overclock just about everything on your computer, the graphics, memory, and processors. While still on experimentation, PCI, AGP ( accelerated graphics port), USB and serial ports of older computer models have the possibility of being overclocked. However, a person who owns older models of computers might best exercise caution not to overclock their hardware while no concrete success results are documented and while there is still no accurate information regarding specific instructions and troubleshooting processes .

Remember to overclock your system in increasing levels, starting at minimum speed modification. An abrupt system modification thru oveclocking may cause serious damages to your computer. It has been reported that some computers suffered from data loss, frequent boot failure, and even system crashing. By overclocking a step at a time you are more able to assess your computer’s overclocking limit. Increase speed only after you’ve already placed your system thru thorough performance system testing and after you ascertain your computer’s stability on the present modification. On the web, you can find sites and companies which offer CPU tests for stability. You can easily scout for a reputable site and product to acquire CPU testing from.

Possible overheating problems (which were reported to be the common problem to overclocking) can be prevented from happening by ensuring enough peripheral cooling to maintain low temperatures. Remember to always keep your CPU cool, and most of the time, everything will be alright.

Gaming computers also benefit much from overclocking. Because of a faster and higher performance level, players experience lesser problems (or even none at all) with game loading (and web page loading for online games), game performance, and others. Owners who like to play computer games, eve online ones, would definitely have an increased level of satisfaction with gaming.

Special Forces, special team for special purposes such as military force, fire emergency service to adventurer will surely need specially designed equipments too in order to support the extreme activities they are going to do. Just take fire emergency team as the simplest example, to deal with emergency call all the time the team should stay in alert whether it is day or night, whether they already have meal or not with the fire resistant clothing ready nearby.

Talking about fire resistant clothing, it is very important to have the best quality of fireproof clothing since it is the very first thing which protects you whenever you deal and cope with fire. You also need to remember that fire has no mercy nor heart so it will not stop until the worst scenario happen, so it will be much wiser to prevent rather than to regret.

To get the trusted quality of fire retardant clothing, all you need to do is to visit ADS, the experienced and trustworthy source of special purposes equipments. Simply jump to the links and you will get most of the equipments you have been yearning for in order to support your adrenaline pumper activities! Grab them now!

Using a laptop for home studio recording projects is a great idea. After trading in my big ol’ desktop a few years ago I put everything onto my laptop including my music recording software. Using mainly Pro Tools and sometimes Digital Performer, but also have used Cakewalk and Cubase in the past.

What made this change-over so appealing to me was how much laptops have improved in the last couple of years. With the speed, power, and storage capacity rivaling some of the top desk top models. Throw in the portability factor and it was a no-brainer.

You can also take your home studio to another home or even pro studio and integrate your project into their set up or simply transfer your tracks. Having this option has saved me lots of time and money as well as improving on some of the quality of some tracking I wasn’t able to do at home. After which, you simply pack up your laptop and go plug it back into your own home studio with all those new tracks to play around with.

Which laptop?

The choice for PC users has come down to this: Intel Core 2 Duo Pro. Luckily for us, they have started producing laptops that are truly high performance music production machines. The key point here is the Intel Core Duo CPU processors. Yup, two processors to make these laptops run many times faster than any high powered desk top you may have be using.

Everything from the CPU to the FireWire card to the optical mouse has been designed to make these laptops a high powered studio recording monster. For model and a full list of features see link below as there isn’t enough room here.

Mac Computers

Same thing applies to macs. The new Mac PowerBooks have Intel core 2 duo as well, making them faster than anything we’ve seen yet. These are truly amazing at only 1 inch in thickness and up to 4 Gig’s of memory and 250 Gig hard drives.

Considering these kind of features and their portability and small usage space on your desk, any home recording studio enthusiast would be crazy to even think about a big ol’ desk top anymore.

Compaq CQ4010F Black Desktop PC: It comes as no surprise that a Compaq desktop has made it to this list. This time around, it is with the Compaq CQ4010F desktop model. Price at just around $309, it is about as affordable as a desktop can get. This PC comes with 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a 2.3Ghz processor and the Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium OS. For graphics, the Compaq CQ4010F has a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE graphics processor. Other features include 6 USB ports and a DVD optical drive.

Acer AX1301-U1302 Desktop PC: This Acer desktop PC is another exciting model. It is a mini-tower desktop that comes with a set of great specs and lots of ports/connectors. It has a spacious 750GB hard drive, 4GB of DDR2 RAM and a blazing 2.7Ghz dual-core processor. It comes with a keyboard, mouse, NVIDIA GeForce 9200 graphics processor and even supports 5.1-channel audio. There also 9 USB ports, FireWire port, audio jacks and a HDMI output. All these are yours with just around $399. Talk about a bargain!

eMachines EL1331-03 Black Desktop PC: The last desktop on this list is an entry-level desktop that is well suited for users with light computing needs. The eMachines EL1331-03 comes with a 1.8Ghz processor, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. It also has a 16x DVD optical drive and a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE graphics processor. At the moment, the eMachines EL1331-03 desktop PC is priced at just around $309. Look out for the next installment next month!