tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-285458112011-12-14T21:47:24.830-05:00A look at Technology from the High Country of Boone, North Carolina.Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.comBlogger121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1160413002289027872006-10-09T10:45:00.000-05:002006-10-09T11:56:42.330-05:00

I spoke not too long ago about heat. The amount of heat that is in a case is directly linked to how much power a machine draws, the more the power draw, the higher the heat output. With last weeks news of two new graphic cards from NVIDIA, I felt I'd touch on the insane power requirements that the industry plans to throw on us.I remember reading a story a while back about a reviewer who was

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1158337555468750242006-09-15T10:22:00.000-05:002006-09-15T11:25:55.543-05:00

It seems Windows Vista is all the talk these days. Just about everyone knows that there's a new Windows on the way, but many people don't know what it's all about. I'm here to tell you, it's almost usable in the Release Candidate 1 that was shipped out a couple weeks ago, but your hardware selections are going to either make it or break it. In order to make things easier on smaller OEM's,

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1157385481126177792006-09-04T10:22:00.000-05:002006-09-04T10:58:01.193-05:00

Back a few months ago, I predicted that coprocessors were about to make a come back. They have in the corporate world, with Cray's introduction of the XD1 supercomputer, using Xilinx's Virtex FPGA alongside AMD's Opteron. I went a few steps further, and predicted that coprocessors would start to make some waves on the desktop side, just like the 3d accelerators that we take for granted these

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1156439305348506452006-08-24T11:06:00.000-05:002006-08-24T12:08:25.386-05:00

It really seems like Dell is always coming up for something. This time, it's the 4.1 million laptop batteries that were just recalled. What's great is when a company as huge as Dell recalls so many parts, it's all over the news and everyone wants to talk about it. So here ya go, my take on the Dell battery situation.First off, this isn't the first time Dell has recalled laptop parts, such as

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1154705507735879702006-08-04T09:51:00.000-05:002006-08-10T11:38:17.903-05:00

Yeah I know, I'm pretty much stating the obvious here. However, heat is currently a big deal in computers. The faster and more complex that our machines get, the more heat they put out, or at least attempt to.Getting the heat out is the most important part of a chassis design, however the major manufacturers have apparently forgotten that golden rule.I was working with a particular design from

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1154105977174638332006-07-28T11:34:00.000-05:002006-07-28T11:59:37.186-05:00

With all the hubbub surrounding the Core 2 from Intel, some of you may have missed out on the bigger news in the industry: AMD is planning to buy ATI in a $5.4 billion purchase. If you look even just a little out there, you'll see that this deal was recently approved by AMD's stockholders, and pending SEC approval, it looks like it is good to go. Actually, even if you've been following the

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1153327015199433372006-07-19T11:06:00.000-05:002006-07-19T11:36:55.213-05:00

While not shipping to vendors yet, intel's newest Core 2 Duo chip is making quite the waves all over the industry. Unfortunately, as this is not a hardware review site, I haven't had hands-on experience with one yet, but what I've read backs up everything I've ever said. Everyone in the industry is claiming a revolution in processing power. A lot of people asked me if this chip was worth

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1150823108162297792006-06-20T11:38:00.000-05:002006-06-20T12:06:50.100-05:00

If you've read the other posts around here, you may be thinking I'm kinda like John Hodgman from his new commercial for Apple where he claims to be a PC. (by the way, John is one of my favorite authors and contributors to the Daily Show, and you should check him out) I am in no way a "fan-boi" of either camp. Computers are to me as hammers and saws are to a carpenter, or like guns are to Robert

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1150213976104003272006-06-13T10:17:00.000-05:002006-06-13T10:54:43.246-05:00

I recently picked up a copy of Vista Beta 2 to play around with on a couple different machines. I've used several versions from Beta 1 on up to the various CTP's that have been released to this point, but the public release of Beta 2 means that the product is just about done. There will probably be a release candidate 1 and 2 after this, and then the retail version should ship out to

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1149094759046115682006-05-31T11:43:00.000-05:002006-05-31T11:59:19.056-05:00

As a true goober, or professional geek, I try to check out everything I can before my users start asking me questions about it. This includes everything from new platforms like Apple's Intel platform and AMD's new AM2 platform, all the way through to new software. Today, I'm looking at a preview of Mozilla's Firefox 2.0, currently known as Bon Echo.One of the most handy things that this release

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1148657060956307072006-05-26T10:04:00.000-05:002006-07-11T20:55:21.566-05:00

One of the things that us techy guys seem to love is electricity. This shot shows nature's most impressive electrical shot in the form of a burst of lightning. I took this shot with a fairly old Sony digital camera, and yes, with a new SLR I would've gotten much better results.There are two important factors to catching a shot like this on your own: a long shutter speed and patience. I personally

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28545811.post-1148312714898164502006-05-22T10:44:00.000-05:002006-05-22T10:45:14.906-05:00

Back when I was a young teenager, I used to run for the Sunday paper and check out all of the electronics stores' latest offerings. I knew back then that I would never buy a pre-packaged computer, but I still used the ads as a standard for what a machine should cost. When I went to pick up my first tower, custom built for me by a local shop, I was fairly shocked by what I got for the money.

Nate Solberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16989439961359133671noreply@blogger.com0