More detailed pics

I was able to replace an IDE hard drive on my Maxtor One-Touch portable external hard drive. I put it back together, but then realized I forgot what seems to be a heat sink of some sort.

Maxtor Drive Replacement

Buying two NAS setups from Newegg

I'm buying the components to build two network attached storage devices from Newegg. The shell is the Thecus 2100, and the drives are Samsung.

The Thecus 2100 is an open box for $250 : N82E16833201005R

and the Samsung 500GB Hard drive for $139: N82E16822152052

and memory upgrades Kingston 512MB for $39: N82E16820141436

I have a Linksys NSLU2, which is an awesome device, but it needs a little more power to be really useful. I'm going to rebuild mine with a 2GB flash drive instead of the 512MB one I'm using currently. That should be much better.

Network surveillance camera

I'm looking at network surveillance cameras:

LINKSYS WVC54GC - no linux / mac support??

The CPU Cooling Fan Fits!

Readers may recall that I had a CPU Cooling fan die on my recently. I bought a replacement fan from Newegg, and I'm glad to say it fit!

Multi-meter and Macbook Pro

Thanks to Slickdeals and Dealnews for these ones:

I'm going to get 2 of these multimeters - one for home and one for work:

These multimeters are getting rave reviews, I gotta get it!
Sears Multimeter

This price is terrific, can it be true? Will the rebate ever show? Ha! This was for a 17" Macbook Pro for ~$1600, but I just checked the link and it now shows "product not available". Knew it was too good to be true!

New Mac XServe?

I'm thinking about technology, and the XServe looks nice. It might be able to save me some maintenance labor, and I especially like the Intel "lights-out" capability.

I'm wary of running MySQL and Apache on OS X though. In the past its run very slow for me. Furthermore, compiling special packages like Ming for php is a nightmare.

I would go for a bargain basement setup, and at $3000 its not that accessible. :-(

Some Rebates from 2006

There were a lot of great rebates available last year:


* $70 rebate for Office Depot 160GB hard drive
* Powmax $10 rebate sent in 10/10/2006
* Newegg Level One USB 0301 WLAN adapter $15 rebate - sent 20061004
* ATI Radeon Mac Edition - $30 sent Oct 1, 06
* Sept 19, 2006: Hanns-G display 2 rebates: $100, $20; D-Link DBT-120: $10 and DWL-G120: $10.
* OCZ $8 rebate - Sept 1406
* Microsoft Mouse - $5 - Sept 14 06
* D-Link $10 - Sept 13 06
* Epson stylus $50 rebate - sept 14, 2006
* Circuit City $20 buffalo wireless airstation Aug 2006
* Sent in Epson claim form - April 12, 2006 - 2 X $25
* Submitted rebate forms for DLINK adapter and Canon Photocopier June 27th, 2006. - $115? - rcvd Sept 06
* 4 rebates from CompUSA - air, mouse, bag, and memory. Sent Monday, July 10, 2006 - total: $65 - rcvd Sept 06
* Need to send in rebates for Konica color laser writer when it arrives from Newegg - $100 - send July 5, 2006.
* Need to send in $10 rebate for Shaw's 4-packs of cola - sent in early June, 2006
* Staples printer $80 submitted Aug 2006 - rcvd Sept 06
* A rebate from Compusa order - rcvd Aug 06
* Another BenQ monitor - Sent June 24, 2006 - $30 - rcvd Aug 06
* RadioShack plantronics headsets (10) - bought on May 28, 2006 - need $200 rebate plus 3% cash back from Nest Eggz, sent letter on June 9, 2006 - rcvd August 06
* Submitted Staples Easy Rebate for $10 for Brother Labeler June 24, 2006 - rcvd Aug 06
* NewEgg BenQ Monitor - May 12, 2006 - $40 - rcvd August 2006
* Buy.com - May 11, 2006 - $20 for ethernet and usb adapters - rcvd July 5, 2006
* Seagate - $40 April 2006
* Sony thumb drive - Oct 05? - $25? - received March 2006
* D-Link smart switch - Dec 05 - free wireless router ($100) - received March 2006
* Sharpies and binder - Jan 06 - $10 - received
* Sears Dishwasher - Jan/Feb 06 - $65 - received
* Crest Whitestrips - March 3, 2006 - $20 - received
* Staples printer - 06 - $30 - received
* Gillette Vibrance - March 3, 2006 - $12 - received May 2006
* Walgreens soda - March 27, 2006 - $5 - received May 2006
* Seagate Hard drive - 3Q 05? - $60 - received April - May 2006
* Newegg Wireless adapter - Early feb 06 - $15 - rcvd May 2006
* D-Link bluetooth adapter - March 1, 06 - $10 - rcvd May 2006
* RadioShack LCD monitor - 3Q 05? - $85 - being processed - recvd
* Got Bofa $125 bonus - june 09, 2006
* Staples - May 9, 2006 - $5 for power strip - received June 10, 2006

Tech Deals I'd love to snap up

Here are a few items I'd like to get, but won't, due to various reasons:

* iphone from Apple - totally sweet, but on the Cingular network (blah).
* Motorola L7 - ditto.
* Blackberry pearl - not on verizon's network.
* Apple TV - too expensive.

Not that I don't like Cingular (now AT&T), but I'm practically married to Verizon. They are CDMA, and GSM appears to be the long term winner, unfortunately. Here in New England though, its working really well.

Amazon S3

While I got a thumbs down at Slickdeals for this "slick deal", I still think its a hot one. Amazon has launched their web services business, and one of the offerings is the simple scalable storage. Its $0.15 / gb / month, and $0.20 / gb transferred.

Like the responses to my post at Slickdeals, many people will say that while this is a good deal, you can get cheaper rates through web hosting companies. But I say they won't be as reliable and as scalable as Amazon's service.

What do you think? Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section below.

Yet Another Deals Site

Found this through Technorati:

The Daily Find

Seems pretty good, but from what I've seen so far, it is pretty disorganized.

5 Cooling fans and 1 CPU heatsink + fan combo = $35

I just bought 5 Masscool cooling 70mm cooling fans and 1 Rosewill CPU heatsink + fan for $35 from Newegg. What a bargain! I did this because a cooling fan burnt out on one of my servers, causing it to shutdown randomly. Its a Debian linux server, so it shouldn't do this under normal circumstances, which made it easy to diagnose.

Thanks Debian!

Verizon DSL Blog

For a good deal on blogging, you can't beat the cool setup I've got going on with Verizon. Check out the specs at my Verizon DSL Blog, and let me know what you think.

Hosting Deal

Best deal I've found in awhile:

Netfirms: $10 for 1 year of hosting plus 2 domain names. Its worth it just for the domain names!!

Netfirms PC Max Promo

Review of Netfirms at Informed Hosting

Apple iPhone!!!

The hottest tech gizmo on the market is now the Apple iPhone. Sweet!

Apple iPhone at Telecom Rebirth

D-Link Rebate

Finally got another rebate processed, this time from D-Link. I've found these tech manufacturers to be pretty reliable when it comes to rebates.

D-Link has the right idea with these rebates, they are using the opportunity to communicate with customers! This is what they sent me:

Thank you for your recent purchase of D-Link products. We invite you to take your investment in home networking to the next level with the D-Link DSM-320 Wireless Media Player. This revolutionary device unleashes digital content from your computer, and allows you to enjoy it in other parts of your home! The DSM-320 builds on your home network to stream MP3 music files, digital photos, and digital video from your PC to your home entertainment center via a fast and reliable 802.11g connection. The DSM-320 supports virtually all popular media formats. Plus, your purchase of the DSM-320 includes a limited free trial of Radio@AOL, the #1 Internet radio service. Radio@AOL features over 175 originally programmed, commercial-free stations broadcast in CD-quality sound.