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High Performance Components

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See also

Recommended Books

Recommended Links

FAQs

Comparative shopping

Merchants ratings

Motherboards  CPUs Memory Harddrives Videocards Monitors Keyboards
Floppy CD NIC CD-RW Sound cards Flash Cards Iomega
Epson StylusPrinter Modems Scanners Voice Parallel
port
and USB info
Cases Power

This page is devoted to notes on optimal selection of components for servers and clusters.   I do not update it often, but it might contains some ideas that can help you to use Goggle and other search engines to get more recent information. You help is welcomed (see the bottom of the page for the address). 

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov


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Switchboard
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NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

4th Generation Intel� Core� Processors Are Here


Recommended Links

Google matched content

Softpanorama Recommended

Top articles

Sites

Stalled sites

Dead sites


Comparative shopping

PriceColumn.com, computer and hardware, pc150 memory, external modems, sound cards.

SlickDeals.net [Home] - Your Daily Source for the BEST Deals on the Net!

www.dealcatcher.com

www.edealfinder.com

www.shopper.com

www.pricewatch.com

www.pricegrabber.com


Merchants ratings

Some comparison shopping sites provide rating as part of their list


Top dozen places to check

http://www.motherboardexpress.com/

http://www.pccost.com or http://www.jcshopper.com. seems to be the same company

TC Computers

http://www.compuplus.com

http://www.pcprogress.com/


FAQs

PC-Guide4.html

CD-Recordable FAQ
Computer FAQ Superlist
Enhanced IDE FAQ Index
Epson Connection - FAQs
FAQ lists related to Ethernet
Gary Field's SCSI Info Central - SCSI FAQ Page
Maxtor HDD FAQ
REALMagic Hollywood DVD FAQ
SCSI FAQ
The Enhanced IDE-Fast-ATA FAQ
The Scanning FAQ - Intro Page


Videocards


Monitors

The Viewsonic Q17 Big, Bright, Sharp, and Cheap

Linux Magazine: Taming The Two-headed Monster [single screen displayed across two monitors](May 20, 2000)


Network adapters

Acer ALN-310 Dec Tulip Fast Ethernet Card (this is a great card much better than 3Com). Netgear FA310TX works great and dirt cheap.

Intel EtherExpress card is also a very card (I85229 chipset cards rock!) and tends to have great
driver support. But you need to have the $$$ for the Intel cards

3Com


CD-Roms


Onsale atCost offers brand name monitors at verified wholesale prices. -- 19' 390 no shipping costs


Keyboards

Focus Keyboard (see pictures at FOCUS Keyboards) You will pay more for this board but, if you are looking for standard AT enhanced keyboard with the windows keys (104 keys total), I do not believe you will find a better one. It looks good (wish the pictures did it justice), feels good, will take a lot of abuse. An additional set of users defined programmable function keys which simplifies the input of a command or a string of characters to a single keystroke. This feature saves the user from the annoying repetitive key-in task by defining the most frequently used commands or words to the 12 Programmable Function Keys. If you want to do yourself a favor and spend the extra 20 or so bucks for a quality keyboard-- there are two most promising models to recommend:

Ergonomic Resources Browsing Avant Stellar Keyboard -- similar to Sun keyboard and macro programmable, so you can exchange caps lock and Ctrl key for more convenient operation. Very expensive.


Cases

Well constructed case and relible power supply are important, especially if you plan to upgrade your PC. The quality of the power supply is crucial, especially for Athlon and P4 CPUs. Also level of noise of power supply is *very* important. In this case you need to spend additional money for a noise-rated power supply. If you can spend additional money PC Power & Cooling power supplies should be considered. The company has "Silencer" series that have approximately a tenth the noise of a typical generic power supply.

Ars Technica Case considerations

Reviews:

Shopping:

Producers


Linux Handhelds


Parallel port

What Is...EPP-ECP (Enhanced Parallel Port-Enhanced Capability Port) (a definition)

The Parallel Port Squeeze - Computer Peripherals - 03-06-1999

PPPT - Printer Port Programming Tool

The PC's Parallel Port

Beyond Logic (formally Interfacing the PC)

Kris Heidenstrom's PC Parallel Port Mini-FAQ Release 10

Interfacing to the IBM-PC Parallel Printer Port

Jan Axelson's Parallel Port FAQ

Linux and parallel port IDE devices

Second parallel port. You can install a second parallel port via an ISA or PCI expansion card. I would strongly recommend a PCI solution; the ISA parallel port cards I have tried in the past have been more hassle than I expected. Any Pentium computer will have one or more PCI slots. SIIG even offers a PCI card with two parallel ports on a single card. Expect to pay $40-$90 depending on the features of the expansion card.

ZDNet- Help & How-To- Add A Second Parallel Port

If you are going the parallel route you will probably be better off buying a switch. However, with Windows 98 and a USB port I highly recommend buying a USB scanner. Note, you can buy a USB hub, 1-to-4 and 1-to-7 are very common and transfer are not affected (you can daisy chain USB devices and hubs, 127 maximum USB devices per PC). Furthermore, there are parallel to USB converters available if you want to use USB with your parallel peripherals. Not only are transfer rates much faster with USB, but USB devices are Hot Swappable (i.e. you can connect/disconnect devices without rebooting, true plug-and-play). Good Luck.

USB Parallel Printer Adapters for your PC or Macintosh -- the Dell factory outlet store have them for $29.99
...Support Search Press Releases USB Parallel Printer Adapters for...
...increase in speed! The Belkin USB Parallel Printer Adapter makes... $31 at
PROVANTAGE.COM PC Products Superstore

PortGear USB to Parallel Printer

uPar USB-Parallel Cable $39

D-link

UH420 -- USB hub $39



Epson Stylus 600

Printer is very cheap (you can find for $80 or so at www.microwarehouse.com). Brand name cartridges are expensive and does not last long. Best prices can be found via CNET. I think Epson 600 is superb. The Epson prints pictures better on ordinary paper than the HP on photo paper. The only problem I had was when buying fake Inkjet toner, don't do it unless absolutely necessary! See also Aardvark Reviews - Epson Stylus Color 600

CNET - Shopping - Latest Prices - INTL COLOR INK CARTRIDGE FOR STYLUS 400-600-800+-1520 (4)

CNET.com - Shopping - Printers - Accessories & supplies - Color ink cartridges

Compatible Inkjet Cartridges

Epson Compatible Cartridges

www.microwarehouse.com Color S0200089 $19.95

The cheapest and the most risky way:


Voice


Power supplies

PC133-PC150 Memory & Athlon Power Supplies - Global Overclock


Etc



Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater�s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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Last modified: March, 12, 2019