MIT's Huggable Robot Teddy Enhances Human Relationships

"Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab have created Huggable, a robotic Teddy bear they say could be used in healthcare, education and social communications applications. Huggable was designed to improve human relationships by serving as a tool for long-distance communication. "

Hi-Def TV Myths

Also, the difference between old and new TV:

Digital Tv Transition: A Very Simple Flowchart Explaining The Digital TV Transition

I only wish it had been presented this succinctly by everyone else. The "still way-too expensive flat-panel TV manufacturers" must be swimming in the money spent unnecessarily on the transition. And TV shows continue to get worse and worse. "Look! I can watch this horrible TV show in high-def now!" And my big pet peeve: people who either don't know how to adjust aspect ratios, or maybe they're people who will use every bit of screen real estate on their hyper-expensive new TV, even if everyone is all squished out and looks like Hey Arnold.

Review of the Sans Digital TR4U-B (TR4U SATA to USB drive enclosure)

This review is lifted almost entirely from my newegg.com product review. The only thing I couldn't put in there was info about what it replaced: a Datarobotics Drobo, with which I had quite a bit of trouble. Initially the Drobo was okay, but it began throwing errors, and when I got tech support involved things went downhill quickly: *after*getting a diagnostic report they asked me to upgrade to the firmware level I was already at; then a replacement they shipped took a week to arrive even though I paid out-of-pocket for overnight shipping, etc. The Drobo now sits unused in an equipment closet because I couldn't trust it.

But, on to the TR4U:

Positives:
Good-looking and quiet. Drives seat well and stay in without mounting screws. JBOD or spanned mode works well. Drives stay cooler than other solutions I've tried (case is well ventilated on front and sides, and the big fan pulls the air out the back). Front LED changes color when a drive is being used. Front power button is handy, and must be held for 3 seconds to turn unit off. No power brick -- transformer is built into the case. Thumbscrews make it easy to remove cover if you need to do so; I just insert the drives and run then without mounting screws, so I don't remove the cover, I just get to everything via the front door. No software required for JBOD or spanning, it all just works. I haven't had to use tech support since I bought it, but they answered pre-sales questions admirably quickly. The unit itself is just a simple box, but is glossy black, and the vent perforations in the front door and side panels are very small.

Negatives:
2 TB limit on spanned drives (limitation of the on-board controller, as it's mentioned in the manual), and you can only make 1 volume per drive set, so leftover drive real estate must go wasted. Drives go in and seat fine, but are difficult to remove, because the drives are close enough together that a hand can't get a good hold -- I've tried using pliers, which scratched up my drive fronts, and am now using a screwdriver that I bent to a 90-degree L on the end that fits nicely in an hole in the bottom front of my Seagate drives… removing the cover and using the provided drive mount thumbscrews would obviate this problem. Manual suffers from translation difficulties, but everything is easy to do. DIP switches that control spanning and power modes are inset and thus well-protected, but hard to get at unless you turn the unit around (as with all such switches; but I'd prefer to have these on the front). Fan has blue light that might be annoying in a darkened room.

I'm using this enclosure and Backup Exec's Backup-To-Disk option to back up several of my department's servers, and it works very well. I use three sets of 3 750 GB drives, and rotate drive sets once per week -- full backups on Friday, incremental backups Monday through Thursday; and I have the drives in JBOD mode, and configure the drive sets as members of the device pool, and allow two jobs to occur simultaneously (but only one job per drive), and the USB seems to handle that just fine -- I'm getting throughputs (as calculated by Backup Exec) of anywhere from 300-600 MB per minute per drive with two drives in use at the same time. Swapping spanned drive sets with the power off results in no problems, all data is retained (although I do label my drives and make sure I put them in the same position top to bottom, I'm not sure if this is important). I would buy this again, or might go with the 8-drive version that allows the use of drive trays for easier drive changes (although the trays, at $20 each, might be too expensive).

Turn Your PC into a DVD Ripping Monster

'Privacy Will End in 2013'

"By 2013, technology will be widely used to monitor people's lives, but Fuss believes if this information is made available to everyone the Big Brother element would be negated."

Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition: powerful, free disk and partition management

"Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition is a free disk partitioning utility that offers a powerful range of functions such as resizing drive partitions, formatting partitions, copying partitions/drives, creating new partitions, deleting partitions, hiding partitions, changing drive letters, setting active partitions, and a handful other functions."

Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy

How To Turn Any Video File Into A DVD Player Playable Disc

Videos from your camera, YouTube, etc. Works very well.

How to open and forward ports on your router