justechn - Slashdot User

Submission + - What Does A $16,000+ PC Look Like, Anyway? (justechn.com)

Submitted by

justechn

on Friday March 13, 2009 @10:51AM

justechn writes: "Tom's Hardware has an article about custom PC maker Puget Systems had just finished a custom $16,000 PC for one of their clients. So what exactly goes into a $16,000? How about:

Four quad-core Opteron processors

32 GB of memory

Windows Server 2008

Asus Xonar DX PCI Express sound card

3Ware 9550SX-8LP SATA 3 Gb/s RAID controller

Two Western Digital 300 GB VelociRaptor hard drives in RAID 1

Two 1 TB Samsung SpinPoint F1s also in RAID 1

Four 1 TB Samsung SpinPoint F1s in RAID 5.

Puget went with MagiCool's Xtreme Nova 1080 radiator

Nine 120 mm fans

Four Koolance CPU blocks

Koolance combined pump and reservoir unit

Cooler Master Stacker 810 case

In addition to all that hardware it also runs very quiet and very cool. The temperature of the CPUs is 36 C at idle, 45 C at load."

Submission + - iRobot Looj Gutter Cleaning Robot Review (justechn.com)

Submitted by

justechn

on Saturday June 28, 2008 @04:03PM

justechn writes: "Many of us have seen robots in the movies and wondered how long it would take for them to become a reality. Some of my favorites when I was a kid were Short Circut and Runaway.

iRobot is a company that is striving to bring some of that technology home today. Their most popular and well known product is the Roomba vacuuming robot. The Roomba is great, after I finished my review of it and sent it back I went out and bought one. It does its best work picking up pet hair.

They just came out with another robot called the Looj. The Looj is used to clean the rain gutters that go around your roof. If you have ever had to do this by hand you know how much of a pain it is. This robot uses a 3 stage auger to break up clogs and sweep all the debris out of your gutter. It is also water proof so you don't have to worry if you have water in your gutter, just don't stand below it when it is cleaning or you will get sprayed.

The Looj does not move on it own like the Roomba does, instead there is a remote control that controls the direction that the auger spins and the direction that the Looj moves (forward and backward). Because it requires constant human interaction I am not even sure I would classify it as a robot, rather it is more like a remote controlled car.

I recently got my hands on one and put it through my gutters. It did a fairly good job. I did have to go over some spots more than once to get all the leaves and dirt out, but in the end my gutters were a lot cleaner after it was done.

The price is also very good. At $99 for the base model it is cheap enough that you can pick one up just to play around with. The more expensive models only give you extra batteries and augers, so you are not missing anything if you go with the base model.

I only found two things about the Looj that I did not like. First, it will not turn corners, it is way too long and not flexible. Second, if you want it to move you have to constantly hold down the forward or backward button. As soon as you let go, it stops. If you could lock in the movement then you could do other things like move your ladder to the next corner while it was cleaning."

Submission + - Review: First ever 30-bit, 1 Billion Color Display (justechn.com)

Submitted by

justechn

on Tuesday June 10, 2008 @09:16AM

justechn writes: "I recently had the opportunity to see, first hand, HP's new 30-bit, 1 billion color LCD display. I have to say I am impressed. Not only is the HP Dreamcolor LP2480zx capable of displaying so much more than standard LCDs, but it considered a Color Critical display. This means if you work with videos or photos you can be guaranteed that what you see is what it is suppose to look like. With 6 built-in color spaces (NTSC, SMPTE, sRGB, Rec. 709, Adobe RGB and DCI), you can easily switch to the one that best suits your applications and process.

At $3499 it is too expensive to be a consumer level LCD, but compared to other Color Critical displays which can cost as much as $15,000 and $25,000 this is a real bargain. This display was a joint venture between HP and DreamWorks animation. When I talked to the executives of DreamWorks they were very excited about this display because it solved a hugh problem for them."

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