Shuttle XPC DOA

My Shuttle XPC arrived from Directron.com last week but it was DOA! So I've requested an RMA and am just going to return it. I'm disappointed it doesn't work and already spent enough time on it. Time to move on.

I bought some other gear I like better anyway, like the ASUS Terminator. Its cheap, small and efficient. The case is wackier than anything I've seen in a long time, but it works to some degree. The power supply blocks the IDE ports above 2 inches so I can't use my direct insertion compact flash to IDE adapter there. Instead, I bought an indirect insertion adapter from newegg.com for $10. It has a female IDE slot for connecting to a cable instead of plugging right into the mobo.

On the ASUS Terminator, I'm going to try booting directly off an internal USB flash drive. To do so, I bought some USB adapters for the motherboard from ituner.com called EPIA-USB-Adapter. Hopefully they'll work, as USB flash drives are cheaper and more widely available than CF and IDE drives. USB drives will undoubtedly have more booting issues because the IDE interface is so mature. Also, I am going to try setting up RAID0 on CF IDE drives to boost performace. That will be pretty awesome.

Soundpoint Phones from PC Connection

Since PC Microstore didn't come through with the Soundpoint phone, I instead bought two Soundpoint 501 models from PC Connection. I opted instead for the 501 as its cheaper, and PC Connection carried the GN Netcom 2120 which was tested with the 501, where the Plantronics headset was not.

While I was at it, I ordered the above mentioned GN Netcom 2120 headset, which is unfortunately on backorder for two weeks, as well as an Asus barebones. I picked this last one up for $69, which is pretty cool as I have a processor and memory sitting around I can build it with. I can't remember which AMD processor it is, but it is an Athlon. The memory I have is 256MB left over from the Thecus 2100 I recently bought from newegg.com.