Each holiday season, millions of computers celebrate the holidays isolated and unappreciated for all the hard work they do throughout the year. Whether you just unwrapped a new PC or you're just looking to upgrade your old standby Windows XP or Mac G5 computer, we have the perfect accessories to complement your system.
From replacement keyboards and mice to reduce typing fatigue to aftermarket monitors that increase your workspace and external hard drives for more storage space, these peripherals are a simple and cost-effective way to show your PC the love it deserves.
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Let's just come right out and call this the Year of Resurrected PC Games. So far in 2009 we've seen iPhone recreations of Civilization, Command & Conquer, Doom, Myst, and even the ancient Lemonade Stand. Earlier this month, Gameloft brought back one of my favorites: Driver. I know, I know, the game first appeared on the PlayStation, but it's the PC version I remember. Set in the '70s (with a funk-a-licious soundtrack to match), Driver casts you as an undercover cop trying to expose a national crime ring. That, of course, is simply an excuse to get you behind the wheel for madcap missions across four cities. Driver is like a playable version of the classic car-chase scene from "Bullitt"--and you're Steve McQueen.
Never push the red button!
(Credit: Nickelodeon)Dong's back and he's on the attack! Unfortunately, he returns from Vietnam with swine flu or something, so if I sound like I'm mumbling during the show, it's because I'm trying to keep my mouth covered from his germy germs.
Dong lived on a boat for one whole day in Vietnam, swam in the bay, and tries to convince me to do the same. That conversation somehow leads to a discussion about the Seven Wonders of the World, which apparently now include the Internet. Pretty lame if you ask me.
Also, Dong attempts to uncover the real story concerning Facebook in Vietnam and its "technical problems."
Having trouble deciding on what presents to get loved ones for the holidays? Dong has a simple solution. It's all Dong, all the time!
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TomTom's fully featured navigation app is on sale for $49.99.
It's already getting cutthroat in the young world of iPhone navigation apps. Facing increased pressure from the likes of ALK, which recently dropped its CoPilot Live North America app to $19.99, TomTom just slashed the price of its eponymous navigation app by 50 percent.
Well, kind of. The new TomTom U.S.A. app ($49.99) provides maps for just the U.S. (including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico). Missing from the picture: Canada. That's probably fine for most drivers, who'd rather not pay for unneeded extra maps anyway.
Of course, if you do need the top half of North America, you can still buy TomTom U.S. & Canada--now priced at $69.99, down from $99.99 when it debuted just a few months ago.
According to TomTom, $49.99 is an "introductory" price good until December 28. But will the company actually raise it in 2010, or leave it alone to stave off increasing competition from the likes of iGo My Way, Magellan RoadMate, and MobileNavigator?
We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, there's never been a better time to buy a GPS app for your iPhone. And in case you're wondering, CoPilot Live is still on sale (though now it's up to $24.99).
Sigh. I should have known this morning's Best Buy Netbook would sell out. Grumble, grumble. Well, here's something just as good, IMHO.
Dell has the Iomega 1TB Home Media Network Hard Drive for $114.99 shipped. That's one of the best NAS deals I've ever seen.
An NAS (network-attached storage) system is great for backing up and sharing media between multiple household computers. It also makes any selected data available over the Internet--nice for sharing, say, photo slideshows with distant relatives.
Be sure to read CNET's review of the Iomega drive and watch the above video. We liked the drive's easy setup and support for external USB drives and printers, but found it lacking in advanced features.
Still, for just a few bucks more than the price of a regular old 1TB external drive, you get a NAS that's far more versatile. Definitely worth a look if you're in the market for copious home-friendly storage.
Backup deal: Also at Dell, you can snag one of those Wasabi PZ310 pocket printers, plus a 48-pack of paper, for $39 shipped. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, these things are really fun. Splendid little gift item.
On Sale Now: $128.99 - $179.95
View the latest prices for Iomega Home Media Network Drive (1TB)
R-Type strategy guide, Easter Eggs, and do you see my signature on the cover?
(Credit: Scott Stein/CNET)I found an old issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine in an ancient cardboard box filled with stuff I somehow saved from my years at summer camp. Dated July 1989, it's more than 20 years old--and it's an incredible reminder of how quickly things can change.
Besides the god-awful layout by modern standards, I found a few notable shocks when thumbing through the issue:
- Game ads have addresses to write to and phone numbers to call, since there were no Web links yet.
- The TurboGrafx-16 preview, featured on the front cover, boasts how the $199 console will have "stereo output" and an optional $399 CD-ROM player with CD-G support that will be able to "display still pictures and graphics" in addition to music.
- A letter regarding Tengen's Nintendo cartridges and Nintendo's lawsuit with them discusses whether or not they'll still be making Tetris. More interestingly, the editor's response reveals that
The new Momentus Thin laptop hard drive.
(Credit: Seagate)At only 9.5mm, the regular 2.5-inch laptop hard drive is already very thin compared with the 25.4mm of the 3.5-inch desktop hard drive. But Seagate, one of the bigger hard-drive makers around, just decided to go even slimmer.
The company announced Monday the Momentus Thin, a new 2.5-inch-based laptop hard drive that's 25 percent thinner, at only 7mm. This reduction in thickness makes the new hard drive comparable, in physical size, to that of most solid state drives (SSDs) used in Netbooks and ultraportable computers. However, it retains the advantages of regular hard drives, which include much higher capacities and, most importantly, a much lower cost per gigabyte.
The Momentus Thin offers the same performance as a regular SATA 2.5-inch hard drive, which is faster than most low-end SSD used in Netbooks. The new drive comes in two capacities (250GB and 160GB); sports 8MB of cache memory, supports a SATA 3Gbps interface, and spins at 5400rpm.
The Mometus Thin ... Read more
Tom and Rafe talk about the gadgets they've been using, like Windows Home Server, a Canon printer, and the PS3 as a Blu-ray player.
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Clearly the most notable detail about the PSP Go is the omission of a UMD drive. With Sony opting for a digital-only device, veteran PSP users with UMD discs don't really have much of a reason to upgrade.
From Joystiq comes a rumor that Logitech is developing a UMD add-on drive for the PSP Go. To us, this just reinforces the fact that a PSP Go owner who wants a UMD drive should have bought a cheaper PSP-3000 to begin with. This would just defeat the whole purpose of having a digital-only device.
So let's just get this straight: this third-party accessory will improve the PSP Go--a product that prides itself on not having a UMD drive--by actually giving it one? OK, it sounds just as strange when we say it loud too.
Again, as confusing as it may be, this is nothing but a rumor right now. PSP Go owners, would you pay for a UMD add-on drive?
Inside this shiny black monolith: a whopping 1.5 terabytes of storage.
(Credit: Dell)Storage junkie that I am, I loved seeing terabyte hard drives dip below $100 this year, and then drop as low as $75.
Today we've reached another milestone: Dell has a Western Digital Elements 1.5-terabyte USB hard drive for $99.99 shipped. Yowza.
That's an awful lot of storage for less than $100. In fact, it's probably more than most people need, though I'd rather have too much space than too little.
The Elements sports a USB 2.0 interface. Curiously, Western Digital doesn't list the speed of the drive itself, which leads me to think it runs at 5,400 rpm, not 7,200. Consequently, it's probably not a performance dynamo, though I reckon it's fine for everyday tasks.
You can pair the drive with a Mac or Windows system; I believe it comes preformatted for the latter. (Thus, Mac users would need to reformat it, which is no biggie.)
The only ... Read more
On Sale Now: $119.99 - $129.95
View the latest prices for Western Digital Elements Desktop (1.5TB)
