Most of the hard drives in use these days are SATA/SATA II. The SATA standard was adopted quite some time back. The advantages offered by the new SATA disks are many – greater speed & bandwidth, more reliability and hot-swapping.

Another advantage is that the SATA power & data cables are much smaller than the corresponding IDE cables and hence prevent unnecessary clutter in the cabinet maximising free air flow.

Additionally, there are no master-slave configuration or jumper settings required as in IDE drives.

To use SATA hard drives, you need:

1. A SATA enabled motherboard. (You can alternately use a PCI SATA Adapter)

2. A SATA hard drive. (duh?)

3. The SATA connectors that come bundled with the hard drive.

Installing a SATA hard drive is very similar to installing a IDE drive, actually easier. Continue reading ‘How to install a SATA hard drive’

Dell Inspiron 1525 was an upgrade to the hugely popular Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. Dell brought about subtle changes in its design and looks more than the configuration front which was much required to the Inspiron 1520. Dell Inspiron 1525 is a 15″ laptop with like any other Dell laptop offers customisation according to what you desire.

Dell Inspiron 1525 specifications :

• Dimensions : 14.0″ x 10.1″ x 1.45″
• Processor : 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7250
• Memory : 2GB 667MHz DDR2
• Hard Disk : 120GB
• Display : 15.4″ TFT with 1280 x 800 resolution
• Chipset : Intel GM965
• Graphics : Mobile Intel Express 965GM Integrated
• Optical drive : DVD±RW Integrated
• Battery : 6-cell Lithium ion battery
• Approx price : $1000

Continue reading ‘Dell Inspiron 1525′

GPS, the thing that has caught the fancy of people and is slowly becoming a necessity for people. TomTom, renowned for making GPS equipment. In-Car navigation systems are being used by many people to help them find alternative routes, voice-assisted navigation and other stuff. TomTom GO 930 GPS is the latest device to be released by the manufacturer.

TomTom GO 930 GPS specifications :

• Display : 4.3 inches
• Resolution : 480 x 272
• Touch sensitive
• Memory : 4GB
• Bluetooth hands free
• Expansion slot : SD
• Processor speed : 400MHz
• Battery backup : 5 hours
• Approx. price : $500

Continue reading ‘TomTom GO 930 GPS’

Samsung SyncMaster range of LCD Monitors is quite popular in the market. There are only few companies that make large displays for monitors and Samsung is among one of them. They aim at making great displays at a relatively lower price. Samsung SyncMaster 305T is a 30″ LCD Monitor which an attractive price tag.

Samsung SyncMaster 305T specifications :

• Display type : TFT active matrix
• Dimensions : 27.2″ x 11″ x 19.8″
• Color : Black
• Diagonal size : 30″
• Max. Resolution : 2560 x 1600
• Refresh rate : 60 Hz
• Response time : 6ms
• Signal input : DVI-D
• Image brightness : 400cd/m2
• Image Contrast : 1700:1
• Approx. price : $1300

Continue reading ‘Samsung SyncMaster 305T’

We recently had a question on the Ask-Us page that prompted me to write this tutorial as this might be very handy for people using not only the Asus EEE PC but all PCs which do not have a optical drive.

Pre-requisites before beginning :

• A PC with CD-ROM
• Windows XP installation media
• Atleast 1GB USB flash drive
• USB_PREP8
• PeToUSB
• Bootsect.exe

Now that you have got the required files in place, we can begin on the tutorial.

Step 1: Unzip the files

First, extract the files present in the bootsect.zip . Next you need to copy the PeToUSB executable into the USB_prep8 folder. All these folders can be placed anywhere according to your convenience. Continue reading ‘How To Install Windows XP On Asus EEE PC’

Antec has a plethora of cooling devices ranging right from CPU coolers to notebook coolers. Antec Notebook Cooler To Go is one such cooling device that aims at cooling your laptop but saving some precious space too. Most of the notebook coolers that you would find occupy almost the whole of the bottom of the space of the laptop, but this one is just half of those.

Antec Notebook Cooler To Go specifications :

• Dimensions : 10″ x 4″ x 1.25″
• USB powered
• 2 quiet double-ball bearing fans
• Low power consumption
• Light weight
• Two speed fan speed control
• Approx. price : $25

Continue reading ‘Antec Notebook Cooler To Go’

The Logitech VX Revolution mouse for notebook PCs was released way back in 2006 but even today there are hardly any new mice that can give challenge to this wireless notebook mouse, its upgraded version, Logitech VX Nano was reviewed too on this blog. If you are looking for one, then don’t forget to check its review right here.

Logitech VX Revolution specifications :

• Connectivity : Wireless
• Movement detection technology : Laser
• Zoom wheel
• One-Touch Search
• Battery : Two AA type
• 3-years limited warranty
• Approx. price : $50

Continue reading ‘Logitech VX Revolution’

The first query is by Jos :

We just had a brand new Asus Eee PC 4G. It’s running on Linux. We wanted to subscribed to Smart Bro’s Wifi services but it won’t run on Linux. The suggestion was to replace the Linux OS with a Window-based one, preferably XP. How do we properly install XP into the unit?

Thanks much.

For starters, Asus EEE PC does not have a optical drive which limits its capability to install Windows XP. Now to get started on to the problem, there are a couple of ways you can go about installing the Windows XP to your Asus EEE PC 4G. But you will need to erase the Linux installation for you to be able to install Windows XP.

The first process is getting  an external USB CD-ROM drive and booting the PC from it with Windows XP CD loaded into it. That is the simpler way but finding the external USB CD-ROM drive is not!

So the more preferred method of doing it is making your USB drive bootable and then copying up the Windows XP installation files to the USB flash drive. Continue reading ‘Asus EEE PC and New PC query’

External hard drives are not all about storage and performance, they also add to your personality if you do carry one along with you everywhere. Iomega reiterated the fact with their Iomega eGo Portable hard drive that not only promises to deliver strong performance but also act as a fasion accessory!

Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive specifications :

• Dimensions : 3.5″ x 5.2″ x 0.7″
• Exterior color : Red, Silver
• Capacity : 160GB
• External data transfer rate : 480 Mbps
• Drive speed : 5400rpm
• Cache : 8MB
• OS Compatibility : Mac OS X, Windows 2000 or later
• Warranty : 1 year
• Approx. price : $110

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The latest phone from the Sony-Ericsson warehouses to hit the market is Sony Ericsson G502. Sony Ericsson introduced the G-series cell phones recently, a change from the W-series and the K-series which had almost become trademark of Sony Ericsson cell phones. The Sony Ericsson G502 has tough competition to deal with with touchscreen phones hogging the limelight off-late.

Sony Ericsson G502 specifications :

• Dimensions : 109 x 46 x 13.5 mm
• Weight : 83.5g
• Display : 2 inches TFT display
• GPRS, EDGE, 3G
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• 2 megapixel camera
• Google Maps
• FM radio with RDS
• Approx. price : $300

The phone is of bar-candy form factor and is priced for people with medium-budget and hence has few features missing. The phone is extremely light weight at just 83.5g and its dimensions are also rather small. The small dimensions hence can incorporate only a 2 inch big screen. The phone has good looks to appeal anyone in general, although not flashy.

Continue reading ‘Sony Ericsson G502′