Archive for November, 2005:

I’ve ordered 2 x Biostar small form factor style cases and all the components to go with it. They’re for work, as I’ve been requested to build 2 new PCs for the Internet cafe next door.

Why am I telling you? No particular reason, but I’d highly recommend a small form factor chassis if you’re looking for a small and quiet, yet powerful alternative to the hulk that is a desktop PC.

Sure, they’ve been out for a good few years, with Shuttle pioneering the market. But Shuttles are expensive for what they are, and you can get a much cheaper alternative that performs just as well, if not better.

I’ve built an AOpen X-Cube here recently, and am just about to embark on these two Biostars. AOpen make several high quality SFF base units, that are almost half the price of a similar spec Shuttle. I’m not dismissing a Shuttle, on the contrary. But if you’re looking into building a SFF, then don’t limit your choice to just the one manufacturer…

George Lucas announced today that he is producing a further 3 Star Wars films. The first:

Star Wars Episode VII - The Rise Of The Squirrel Jedi

Well, not really. But here’s just a few things I thought I’d pass on…

Above is the first official screenshot of 3D Mark Next. I believe ‘Next’ is the working title, so I suppose we’ll see 3D Mark 200# whatever they decide. More information at the official site.

Also, nVidia have announced that they’re producing mobile chips for Motorola and Sony Ericsson 3G phones. So I guess we can expect true 3D accelaration on our phones in the near future.

This may not make much sense to most of you out there… but for us ‘geeks’ these following pictures are nirvana:

4 Graphics cards are supported by the Motherboard. To put that in perspective, you could run 8 monitors off of this thing, and it would support 4 x dual gpu cards, totalling a whopping 8 gpu’s on one PC (your average PC has just the one)!!!

If only we all had the cash to buy them…

So there I was, in a rush to get to work… my screen wash fluid had run out about a week ago, so I decided to fill it up.

Bear in mind I’ve just recently passed my driving test (September 2005), and I knew the location of the various caps under my instructor’s Corsa bonnet.

A few moments after pouring the new screen wash fluid into the cap, I realised I had been pouring it into the brake fluid reservoir.

So, my brake fluid is now contaminated with screen wash fluid. My own fault I know, but hopefully I’ll resolve it…