Extending uShare with RC Scripts
n my earlier entry on uShare, I took a look at installing and using uShare. I'll spare you the introduction to uShare and get to the point of this writing. If you're unfamiliar with uShare, then by all means, read our review. In the article, I discussed creating an rc-script for uShare in Gentoo, to automate the process of starting and stopping it. This is beginning of a series of articles on how to package an application for Gentoo's Portage. I'm going to start by creating a more advanced rc-script than what I wrote earlier.
Tuniq TX-2 Thermal Compound
Years ago, I remember buying many Sunbeam-branded cold cathode fluorescent lights (CCFL). Since that time, they've expanded their product offers several times over. You can find cases, power supplies, keyboards, and more all bearing the Sunbeam name. Tuniq is a new divison of Sunbeam, and they offer many similar products, but with a much more enthusiast-like focus. They sent us some of their new thermal compound, Tuniq TX-2.
Using the XBox 360 as an HTPC with uShare
uShare is UPnP (TM) A/V & DLNA Media Server. It implements the server component that provides UPnP media devices with information on available multimedia files. uShare uses the built-in http server of libupnp to stream the files to clients. Originally, uShare was developed for use with GeeXboX, a LiveCD version of Linux aiming at turning PCs into small Home Theatre systems. We'll save our thoughts on GeeXboX for another time, but we do want to look into uShare. We discovered uShare as an way of connecting Microsoft's XBox360 to a Linux PC.
OCZ Rally2 in Linux Software RAID0
With Solid-State Drives (SSD) on the verge of mass consumer adoption, we're left wondering what kind of performance we're going to see from these drives. We already know SSD's require less power than drives with moving parts, but what kind of performance gains will we see? To get an idea, we took one the faster drives on the market, the OCZ Rally2, and ran it through our benchmarking process. To make things more interesting (and see how much performance we could squeeze from the technology, we're using two drives later in this article to use the drives in a RAID0 configuration.
Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2-800
The Ballistix Tracer memory is being advertised specifically for enthusiasts and case modders. Not only does the RAM feature lower latency, but it's got LEDs built into it as well! More on the LEDs later, though. This RAM is meant to please everyone!
Thermaltake Soprano DX
We've got the Thermaltake Soprano DX on our bench today.The name Soprano, much like Antec's Sonata, makes us think of something cheap and quiet. This cases is something of a little brother to the Thermaltake Tsunami line, as they both feature similar designs, but different materials and hardware. The Soprano is considered an entry-level case. It's a perty piece of hardware sitting on our desks, but does bring us the quality case Thermaltake is known for? Let's find out!
Ratpadz XT
When it comes to mousepads, most gamer's will tell you the best is Ratpadz. Ratpadz has been dedicated to making gaming mousepads since 1999, and was one of the innovators for the mousepad surface industry. Now, Ratpadz original mousepad has been re-released as the Ratpadz XT. We're going to be looking at how the Ratpadz XT performs in everyday computing, gaming, and it's durability.