gadget news and reviews

Netgear Storage Central Turbo (Review) 8

Earlier this year during the Consumer Electronics Show, Netgear announced their new Storage Central Turbo (SC101T). Although it only reached store shelves a few months ago, this is still the newest version of Netgear’s bestselling Storage Area Network (SAN). The SC101T is much faster and much more versatile than its predecessor, allowing for multiple users to access data simultaneously and even protecting music, photos and videos.

The Upload Test:
The SC101T is a great Storage Area Network (SAN) (aka. Network Attached Storage – NAS), providing gigabit speeds. When coupled with a gigabit router, can offer fast backups and data access for networked machines. In addition to allowing 2 SATA hard drives, of any size, to be combined, the SC101T offers amazing upload speeds. After running a quick test, my results showed that it only took approximately 3.5 minutes to upload a 4.5GB file through my gigabit connection versus the 8.5 minutes it took using a standard 10/100 Ethernet connection.

The Throughput Stress Test:
To further test how well Netgear’s Storage Central Turbo would perform, we connected the unit to three wired computers through a gigabit connection and a single wireless media streaming device. After loading up large separate video files on all the units at the same time, our computers and media streaming device continued to receive the data seamlessly. Despite so much data flowing through, the video continued to play without any staggering, delays, or hiccups. It was quite impressive compared to the previous generation of NAS devices. Read More

Seagate FreeAgent Desktop (Review) 5

I recently got a Segate FreeAgent Desktop 320GB external hard drive and I’m pleased to say I’ve been quite happy with it so far. There are many other similar external storage devices in the same price range & category such as the Western Digital My Book and the LaCie Hard Drive, but I ended up going with Seagate because of the price and for some of the items mentioned in this review.

The packaging was clean and secure. Other than the hard drive itself, only the power supply, USB 2.0 cable, and Warranty Card are included in the box. The FreeAgent’s body is made of plastic, but was quite robust. The unit has a fancy design with a glossy top and upper base. The front of the hard-drive light ups with a neat orange-colored light making it looks like some sort of DVD drive. The light only turns on when the USB cable is plugged in. In fact the hard drive actually turns itself off as soon as it is disconnected from a computer. I’m no expert, but some say it is better for the drive to turn itself off as this one does and others argue that it is better to have a drive running constantly at the same speed with a constant temperature. Speaking of temperature, the base of the unit is the FreeAgent’s heat exhaust. It probably do the job better if it was placed on the back, but the drive didn’t seem to warm up too much during the stress test anyways. Either way don’t complain since LaCie doesn’t even have a fan and many of their drives have ended up overheating (causing data loss) during heavy use.

The setup process was as simple as it could get for Windows XP and Vista users. Just plug it in and it was ready! However Mac OS X users unfortunately have to waste a few minutes reformatting the NTFS drive. On the bright side, no drives or software was needed for either operating system. Performance-wise, it was pretty acceptable. For example most real-life users wouldn’t be able to notice the speed difference between the Seagate FreeAgent or the Western Digital My Book. However when benchmarked, the My Book did in fact performed slightly better. As mentioned previously, our unit was the 320GB model, however Seagate also offers the FreeAgent Desktop in 250GB and 500GB capacities. All three models are SATA II drives running at 7200RPM with 16mb of cache. Seagate also offers a 5-year warranty which covers any hardware malfunctions, but NOT data loss. The drive has been available for a few months and costs only $85 for 250GB, $99 for 320GB, and $130 for 500GB.

If you don’t already backup your data we highly recommend investing a bit of money into it. If your hard drive with all its important content happens to fail, restoring the data can cost as much as a few thousand dollars! Whether it be the Seagate FreeAgent, LaCie Porsche, or Western Digital My Book, BACK UP!

Links: Seagate FreeAgent Desktop
Buy Now: Seagate FreeAgent Hard Drives

Digg Gets Profiles, Images, & Alerts +

This morning, Digg’s founder Kevin Rose announced a few new features that digg will soon be getting. The fist implementation, which will be pushed out tonight, will revamp digg’s user profile system by making it more “social”. Registered diggers will now have the ability to send each other quick messages called “shouts”. When the recipient logs in, a notification will be visible in the headers as well as his or her profile page. With the new “share” feature, users can also send other users links to digg stories. Previously the only method to share a story would have been to send an actual email. Digg’s new favorites feature seems to be replacing the “My #1″ feature. Once a story is dugg the option to add to favorites will become available. As for the profile page, it now displays larger profile pictures, full name, location, member since date, about section, personal photos, recently dugg/comments, favorites, and contact information. (50 new additions!) And just like Facebook, diggers will have privacy settings to choose whether or not to display each component. Only time will tell whether this feature will be accepted or ridiculed by the digg community.

Also, due to popular demand, digg will soon be implementing a pictures section next month. In addition they will also be fixing the problems with the slow comment loading system, offering email alerts, and automatic suggestions based off your digging history! Check back tomorrow to see the what’s changed and if you are in a hurry, a video demonstration is available on Digg’s Blog.

Links: digg.com | digg blog | my profile

Google Presentation Goes Live 3

Google’s long awaited web-based PowerPoint-like application finally went live this morning. Google Presentation, as it is called, is their latest addition to the Google Docs family. Starting today, anyone in the United States will have the ability to upload, create, share, edit and view presentations online. Google Presentation also includes collaborative tools allowing multiple users to connect together to organize, modify, and present right from a web browser. Since Google Docs’s presentation feature supports Microsoft’s PowerPoint, any document created offline can easily be uploaded. Unfortunately documents created or edited online can only be exported into a HTML format, therefore won’t work with PowerPoint.

This is a pretty big step towards completing an entirely free online version of standard office applications. With Gmail and Google Docs for spreadsheets, word documents, and presentations, they may soon pose a serious threat to Microsoft Office. Although literally all their services are still in beta and are very limited in terms of features when compared to any standard office suite. For example Google Presentation only has 15 themes, basic text formating, limited image modification, no transitions, no sound/video, and lacks much more. This will most likely change as updates are rolled out.

Anyways give this a shot, but if you are still planning on purchasing MS Office keep in mind that Microsoft’s got that $60 deal! If you’d like to avoid that fee too try the new version (v2.3) of OpenOffice.

Links: Google Documents (docs.google.com)
Press: Google Blog – “Our Feature Presentation”

100k Spam Comments Caught +

Since we switched over to the WordPress platform about a year and half ago, we’ve have continuously been hit by large numbers of spammers. Luckily with some tweaks, pieces of code, a few services, and some manual labor we’ve been able to catch 100% spam comments on our site. If you were wondering what was our number one tool, one word, Akismet. This innovative spam catching tool, alone, has caught over 100,000 spam comments for Skatter Tech this year. Akismet works by checking checking the data that is posted onto our server with a huge database of items known to be spam. Since the spam database learns by users moderating their own comments, it automatically adapts to new types of spam. According to their website, Akismet has been able to catch 93% of all the spam that would hit a website.

Although this only caught about 60% of the total amount of spam, it took another 3-4 tools, including Bad Behavior, to block another 30%. We still end up having to manually catch and throw out about 10% of what gets onto our sites. We could always implement a captcha system or require registration, however that would only be annoying and would deter everyone from participating in discussions. This tool has been primarily created for WordPress, however it is also compatible with plenty of other systems including Movable Type, Drupal, phpBB, Expression Engine, Joomla and more! We highly recommend giving Akismet a shot if you already haven’t heard about it and are having problems fighting spam.

P.S. We’ll be posting a WordPress tutorial on combating spam very soon!

Links: Akismet.com

Sony NWZ-S610 Walkman (Review) 120

Skatter Tech recently got a hold of Sony’s NWZ-S610 Video Walkman to review and we have been messing around with it for a few days. We’ve got to say that Sony should be proud since they have finally taken a big step by launching Video Walkmans which are also “open format.” (Means support for most DRM-Free music formats.) If they keep up the pace, this could help them regain their market share in the portable media sector. Getting back to the review, since this was Sony’s first Walkman in the U.S. that can playback video and the first to be “open format,” we weren’t expecting too much. As we got more into the player’s features and capabilities, we were surprisingly impressed with what Sony has turned out. Just to heat things up, we’ll even go as far to say that we’d recommend this over Apple’s new iPod Nano!

Sony NWZ-S Walkman Specs:

• Type: Portable Flash Video Player
• Capacities: 2GB, 4GB, & 8GB
• Screen: 1.8-inch 320 x 240 LCD
• Music Format: AAC, MP3 & WMA
• Video Format: MP4 Only
• Special: FM Tuner w/ Presets
• Colors: Silver, Black, Pink & Red
• Connection Type: USB 2.0
• Price Range: $99-$179

The Body: – 3.5/5
The S610’s body is simple and elegant, but not eye-catching. The unit is quite durable and wouldn’t be easy to break. The Walkman is just 3.25 inches tall, 1.7 inches wide, and .45 inches thick, making way sleeker, but thicker and taller than the new iPod Nano. On the front you’ll find the display followed by the navigation controls right below. At first we assumed the four-way commands were touch sensitive, but it ended up that all the controls on the unit are actually hard keys. The ‘back’ and ‘option’ buttons, which are awkwardly placed at the top left and top right, are used to return to the previous menu and bring up an options menu. We felt both these buttons should have been placed elsewhere, but it wasn’t a problem after some getting used to. The ‘play’ button in the center acts as the enter key. I actually prefer hard keys since it is easier to navigate the player without having to be looking at it. The hold key can be found on the left side and the volume controls are on the right. Other than that the stereo headphone jack can be found on the top of the unit while the data port for syncing and a reset pinhole are on the bottom.

Read More

Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 – $60 2

About three days ago, Microsoft announced a very unusual deal for students on Office 2007. Starting on September 20th, Any student with a valid “.edu” e-mail address will have the opportunity to purchase Office Ultimate 2007 for just $60. Offer ends in April 2008. For those of you thinking this is probably just another cut down version such as Home & Student Edition ($100), which has only the basic for processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, WRONG! The downloadable Office Ulitmate 2007 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Groove, and InfoPath! Although you probably won’t be using half those applications, we recommend going with this offer.

If you wish to grab this offer it’s available on TheUlimateSteal.com. As for those of you who wish to use an alternative to avoid even the $60, we would recommend OpenOffice which includes just about all the programs you would ever need and is completely open source, therefore free.

P.S. Don’t try lying to get this offer since Microsoft will charge the full $679 price if your student enrollment fails to validate!

Links: TheUtlimateSteal | Compare Office 2007 Editions

New Logitech PS3 Accessories 1

Logitech has just announced two new bluetooth based accessories for Sony’s PlayStation 3: the cordless Vantage Headset and MediaBoard Pro. The new wireless headset is a lightweight behind-the-head design and has can be worn on either the left or right side. The reachable headset, with its noise canceling features, offers up to 12 hours battery life. The new black MediaBoard Pro has been specifically designed for the PS3, therefore supports just about any feature the console offers. In addition, as an upgrade to the its predecessor, the keyboard now includes the PS3’s triangle, X, square, and circle buttons. With the improved touch pad and action buttons, there is no need for an additional mouse or to have to fiddle around with a controller in addition to the keyboard. The MediaBoard functions from up 30 feet away from the PlayStation 3 and provides over 200 hours of battery life.

The Logitech Vantage Headset will be available in November 2007 for a retail price of $79.99, while the MediaBoard will hit stores as early as next month and will also cost $79.99. Logitech’s accessories are high grade quality, however are often expensive. In this case, this headset’s price is more than usual because of its extremely long battery life and noise cancellation technology. If you wish to spend the cash it will be worth it. However for the majority of people bluetooth headsets such as Jabra BT5020 or Samsung WEP200 will do just fine. We would recommend the keyboard though!

Links: Logitech Vantage Headset | Logitech MediaBoard Pro

Google Lunar X PRIZE – $30 Million +

Earlier today, Google and X PRIZE announced the “Google Lunar X PRIZE,” a race to the Moon to win a $30 million prize. The same foundation, Ansari X PRIZE, offered $10 million for the first non-government manned spacecraft to enter space in 2004. That project was won in October of 2004 by Tier One using the SpaceShipOne craft. Shortly after they succeeded, they were approached by Virgin Galactic and later signed a deal to begin routine space travel as early as late-2008.

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity,” X Prize CEO Peter Diamonds. “We’re confident that teams from around the world will help develop new robotic and virtual presence technology, which will [...] reduce the cost of space exploration.”

Today’s new prize requires that a private company land a robotic rover on the Moon, travel over 500 meters, and transmit video/images back to Earth. The first to pass the requirements by the end of 2012 will receive $20 million. An additional $5 million will be available for completing optional tasks such as traveling over 5,000 meters, imaging artifacts or discovering ice/water. The second team to succeed will win the remaining $5 million. As for the public, everyone will have access to view high quality footage of the moon, since all rovers will be equipped with high-definition video and still cameras.

Links: GoogleLunarXPRIZE.org

Amazon Customer Service Rocks! 8

I recently purchased a portable fridge for my dorm room on Amazon. When I received the package, everything worked fine, but there was a very visible dent on the side of the door. Being the picky person I am and wanting my full $200 worth, I asked Amazon for a replacement unit. Amazon kindly agreed to replace the damaged unit and since I was in a rush, they even threw in “One-Day Shipping” through UPS. I placed the original unit at the door for UPS to pickup, and when I got home the original package was taken and the replacement was at the doorstep.

The “new” box looked pretty badly beaten up, smashed, and torn. When I opened the box I was horrified to see the fridge’s front door had a HUGE “bullet-hole” looking crater. The rest of the unit was scratched up, smashed inwards, and bulging out. And to top that, the unit was soaked in some weird liquid. I decided to open the fridge door, to make things even worse, it fell right off its hinges. Read More