March 2008 Meeting

This month we discuss building a PC again (power supplies, cases and video cards)

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=58&name=Power-Supplies

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=48&name=Video-Cards



Links this month:

Another free file sharing site, drop.io http://www.drop.io/

Tech gossip at Valleywag: http://valleywag.com/

CBS launches its new online news show: http://www.moblogic.tv/

Microsoft webcasts: http://mcpmag.com/webcasts/mcpradio/radio.asp?id=284

Vista SP1: http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=9668 434.5mb

DO NOT CLICK DOWNLOAD IF YOU ARE UPDATING JUST ONE COMPUTER: A smaller, more appropriate download is available on Windows Update.

Rocketboom more online TV, sort of: http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/

Mahalo Daily: http://daily.mahalo.com/2008/01/16/md038-the-steve-jobs-90-minute-keynote-in-60-seconds/

Secrity Now Iron Key episode: http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

https://www.ironkey.com/


SPAM news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20080317/tc_infoworld/96019

Arthur Clarke tribute: http://www.planetary.org/radio/show/00000281/

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Sir Arthur Clarke

The Portal song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVJlMYsiJEk&feature=related

February 2008 Meeting

Build a PC

This month we discuss Motherboards and Processors

Here is the Gigabyte M61P-S3 AMD Socket AMD2 that I purchased from NewEgg last November for $77. It now sells for $60. Using it now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128034R

I put an AMD 4800 Brisbane in it for $100 also purchased last November which now sells for $85.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103212

Wikipedia has a nice list of socket choices for AMD and Intel with pictures/descriptions of each:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket

Hard to find reviews of this board, I usually always start with Tom's Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/find_by_topic/reviews.html

Here is one from PC World:

http://www.pcworld.com/product/userreviews/prtprdid,32944378/gam61ps3_motherboard.html#

I usually end up spending several weeks looking at boards and processors before making a decision. This is my first dual core, the board I replaced was an ASUS A7N8X that would occasionally lock up but I never isolated why. I have two more of these still going strong.

Linux Corner

Got a copy of MiniMe running from flash we will take a look at.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/02/06/usb-minime-2008-install-from-windows/

Security

Episode # 130 of Security Now has an interesting mention of a class of Trojan called Banking Trojans we will spend a few minutes discussing.

http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

You can open the transcript in a pdf and search for banking if you want to read it, or, just listen to the episode.

Other News:

The other things that got my attention lately were the BlueRay/DVD announcement recently, and Microsoft's new Server to be released on Wednesday.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19174580
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/21/paramount-officially-blu-ray-again/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23204819/

http://weblog.infoworld.com/daily/archives/2008/02/product_review.html
http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2008/022108-windows-2008-server-test.html