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Edelweiss PC casemod goes above and beyond insanity
Sure, these days, it can be pretty hard to get super-stoked over a casemod... after all, they're basically a dime a dozen. We're always impressed with the crazy ones though, and this one over at Million Dollar PC -- the Edelweiss (possibly named after our least-favorite song and flower), really takes the crazy and turns it up to 11. We're not even sure what's going on, to be honest, but we can assure you of this much: we're really, really fond of it. Two more shots after the break.[Via Case Mod Blog]
Gateway unveils DX mini-tower and SX small form factor PCs
Nettop? All-in-one? Sometimes you just want a good ole' fashioned desktop, and that's where Gateway's new DX and SX PCs come into play. The SX small form factor, pictured above, has packed in a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Quad with GMA X4500 integrated graphics, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, 640GB HDD, a 18x DVD writer, multi-card reader, nine USB 2.0 ports, multi-card reader, firewire and eSATA, HDMI and VGA outputs, and Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Asking price for that setup is $499, but if you're looking to game, we don't see much room for adding a hipper graphics card. On the slightly heftier side, the DX mini-tower boasts either an Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom X4 with NVIDIA GeForce G210 / ATI Radeon 4650 graphics cards, respectively, up to 8GB DDR3 and 1TB HDD, eight USB 2.0 ports, and all the other amenities of the SX for a starting price of $750. Both models are expected for release end of June, which means pretty much now-ish. To top it off, the company's also just released a new FHD display series in 21.5, 23, and 24-inch varieties, and it looks like there's been a spec refresh to its LX and FX desktop lines. Full press release after the break.
Video: hands-on with ASUS' Eee Keyboard at Computex
We first caught sight of ASUS' totally weird Eee Keyboard -- a full PC with an Intel Atom N270 CPU built in -- way back at CES in January. Well, our friends at Engadget Chinese have laid hands on it at Computex, and it's looking a bit different than what we expected... and a whole lot more awesome. The 5-inch, 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen display/trackpad on the right side of the keyboard, is, as it turns out, running a standalone version of XP, and serves as the shortcut screen to most of the included software -- including Skype, MSN, and music playback controls. Our friends found the touchscreen to work extremely well, and though we don't know anything rock solid about pricing or availability yet (we hear it will launch by the end of June, we do know that it will come in two flavors -- wired and and UWB wireless -- with the wireless version housing a battery which gets about two hours of use before needing a charge. There's a video (in Chinese) showing this badboy off after the break. Hit the read link for a full gallery of photos.
Dell Studio One 19 reviewed, deemed totally sufficient but not awesome
Dell's touchscreen Studio One 19's been showboating around the States for a few weeks now, so it's no surprise to see the verdicts start rolling in. Computer Shopper's just reviewed the unit, and while they give it points for its slim and stylish form factor, and for the implementation of the touchscreen, they take away a few for the cloth-laden accents, and complain that the high-end models are expensive and underpowered. They're basically fans of the lower-end configurations, but warn that they don't really think the unit would be very family friendly. There's one more shot of the 19 after the break, and hit the read link for the full review.
Insane Russian casemod shamelessly puts good taste to bed once and for all
We see plenty of wild casemods around here -- staying on the pulse of what's new with the cool kids is part of our jobs. We've never really seen anything like this one, however. We don't know a terrible lot about the case -- just that it's made of what appears to be solid evil dipped in bronze, and lit by the blood of a terrifying hellbeast. Regardless: it's going to look great in your living room... once you convince Satan to sell it to you for a reasonable price, that is. One more terrifically horrendous photo after the break.
Dell's rainbow-hued Inspiron desktops now available
There's a certain breed of person out there that wants everything to be available in a plethora of colors and options, infinitely customizable to fit the personality of whatever room it'll inhabit. That breed of person is us. Dell's customizable addition to the Inspiron line -- which includes the 537 and the 537s -- present the buyer with a host of options -- eight different colors, a choice of Intel Celeron, AMD Sempron, Core 2 Quad and Phenom X4 CPUs, up to 8GB of RAM, integrated Intel graphics or ATI Radeon GPUs, and up to 750GB HDD for the slim tower and 1TB for the mini-tower. The Promise Pink model is part of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure program, and we have a feeling we'll be seeing it pop up over on Della any minute now. The starting price for the lowest-end model is $299 and they're available now. One more shot after the break. [Via Desktop Review]
OBAMA PC sure to bring hope to your desktop, a tear or two to your eyes
Obama's already inspired a cell phone and an MP4 player, but this is the first desktop we've seen tipping its hat to our Commander in Chief. What's really awesome about this one, of course, is that its makers (Taiwanese company SEED) seemed to think that merely naming the PC "Obama" would result in capturing some of the magic... because other than the name, it's just a plain-old, boring desktop. It packs a patriotic Atom N230 CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 500GB SATA hard drive, plus it's got four USB 2.0 port and an ethernet port around the back, just to name a few. The presidentially named PC is only available in Taiwan, for the oh so affordable price of NT$7,999 (about $242). We're kind of hoping this is just the first in a long line of POTUS-named PCs for SEED, so may we suggest the next one be dubbed POLK or FILLMORE? [Thanks, TheLostSwede]
Pyramid PC casemod will look really cool on your desk next to your Crysis poster
Casemods range from the peculiar to the spaceage, but this one -- a pyramid PC case -- kinda takes things to the next level of outrageousness. Weighing in at 7.5 pounds (just for the case) this 25-inch high beast is not exactly compact, with a 19 x 19-inch base. Modder polo360x made it from a customized Luxor pyramid case, and, and in our opinion, it fits in nicely with his home decor choices. Check out another two shots and hit the read link for many, many more, plus a full specsheet.[Via Geeky Gadgets]
The Escapist takes a look at multiboxing
Multiboxing. It sounds like cheating when you have one man controlling two or more characters, but it's more of a pain to work with than it is a straight out cheat. Whatever your feelings are on the situation though, you have to admit, people who do multiboxing have some tremendously interesting setups and rigs to accomplish this difficult feat.The Escapist has just let loose a feature article detailing the stories of users who multibox, why they do it, and exactly how they accomplish it on their game of choice. It's a very interesting look at the whole situation, especially when the reasons of why these normal people choose to run more account at once in their favorite game rather than just join groups or work solo are fully explained.If you're interested in reading the full five page feature article, head on over to The Escapist and check out what Greg Tito was able to uncover.
Laptops outship desktops for the first time worldwide
Laptops have been out-shipping desktops in the US for years upon years (upon years), but it wasn't until now that such a scenario was true worldwide. According to iSuppli, global notebook computer shipments exceeded those of desktops for the first time ever in Q3 of this year, a "watershed event" according to it. More specifically, notebook PC shipments surged around 40% to 38.6 million units, while desktop shipments slipped 1.3% to 38.5 million. We'd say this is a marvelous day and a sign of what's to come, but haven't we all known that desktops were being reserved for hardcore gaming, computational science and games of chess for years now?
Laptop shipments exceed desktops in US for the not-exactly-first time
Hope you're eager to break into that Halloween candy early, because you've got some (re)celebrating to do. If you'll recall, we first heard that laptops accounted for over half of US retail computer sales back in 2003, and in June of 2005, we found that it was somehow worth getting jazzed over once more when it happened again. Here we are in the latter half of 2008 shaking our heads in disappointment, as IDC has amazingly discovered that notebook shipments into the US market have exceeded the 50% threshold for the first time ever. Go ahead and stock up on rave supplies early -- we get this weird feeling that we'll be doing this same song and dance in 2010 or so.[Image courtesy of DayLife]
Dell pre-loading music mixes, CinemaNow movies, world again asks "Why?"
When Dell started pre-loading digital copies of Iron Man in new systems for $19, we didn't think that was very enticing, but at least it was a pretty good movie, right? Quite possibly encouraged by thousands of accidental purchases (we kid, sort of), Dell's announced two new content pre-loading partnerships -- Universal Music Group and CinemaNow. The music comes in 50 and 100 song bundles starting at $25, but at least it's DRM-free, so if you don't mind a mega mix chosen entirely by Dell it's not all evil. CinemaNow, though, offers $25 and up bundles including (among other flicks) world-renown classics like The Fast and the Furious and the Matrix sequels. Fear.Read - Universal Music GroupRead - CinemaNow
Wallpaper Clocks
I was on the hunt today for a clock application and ran across an interesting implementation in Wallpaper Clock. Basically it's a small application that dynamically redraws your Desktop every minute, to keep your time and date, well, up-to-date. The application itself is free, but requires particular artwork files in a variety of designs. Some of these clock files are available in a free, low-quality version, while others are only available to registered users (along with the free ones in higher-quality versions). It is also possible to create your own Wallpaper Clocks with your own images.Wallpaper Clocks is a free download however there is a registration fee for subscription based access to the maker's website with artwork unavailable in the free version. Subscriptions are $8.99 for 3 months, $12.99 for 6 months, $19.99 for one year, and $29.99 for lifetime access.
Apple sets "gold standard for corporate America"
There's a glowing article about Apple at Fortune today. Here was the stand-out line for me:"Apple's philosophy goes like this: Too many companies spread themselves thin, making a profusion of products to defuse risk, so they get mired in the mediocre. Apple's approach is to put every resource it has behind just a few products and make them exceedingly well."Consider Apple's product line. There are three laptops, the MacBook, the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. Even a potential customer who's never used a computer before can understand the distinctions just by hearing their names. "MacBook" is obviously the basic laptop. The "MacBook Pro" is obviously a "better," or professional, model and the Air is somehow different than the two. Easy.Not to pick on Sony, but look at their lineup of Vaio laptops: Vaio UX Series Vaio TZ Series Vaio SZ Series Vaio CR Series Vaio FZ Series Vaio NR Series Vaio AR Series What? Just reading the names, I can't surmise anything about the differences between these machines. Plus, there are seven models vs. Apple's three.The same goes for desktops. Apple builds three; the iMac (a name nearly everybody knows), the Mac mini (obviously smaller and, one would assume, lower priced) and the Mac Pro, which follows the pro-level naming convention of the laptop line.The iPod line is slightly more convoluted (if "convoluted" is even the right word) with four models iPod shuffle iPod nano iPod classic iPod touch I bet the classic will eventually be replaced by the touch, once the cost of flash drives comes down. The Fortune article is full of good stuff, so go and read it. [Via MacDailyNews]
AOL, HP extend search partnership to worldwide PCs
Because we know just how much you like to know exactly whose crapware you'll be removing from your next store-bought desktop or laptop, this is a just a quick heads-up that HP customers worldwide can soon expect to be confronted with portals, toolbars, and default search settings courtesy of AOL (which also happens to own Engadget parent network Weblogs Inc.). Since it was almost exactly a year ago that HP made a similar deal with Yahoo, we can only assume that AOL has pushed its rival off of HP machines altogether, extending its current agreement to provide only the co-branded portal for domestically-sold rigs. Perhaps the best news here is that for those folks who haven't bought a PC in several years, the pre-loaded AOL software may provided a much-needed connection back to the days of dial-up in this scary new world of broadband, Vista, and MySpace.
DeskLickr
DeskLickr is a fantastically well named app that epitomizes all that is right with Mac development. Simply it downloads a photo from Flickr and sets it as your Mac's desktop. You can tell DeskLickr to limit itself to a certain Flickrstream, tag, or group.DeskLickr will randomly select Desktop images for you, and if you don't like it you can tell the app to never use that image again. DeskLickr can be set to automatically select images, or you can manually get a new image. DeskLickr displays a windows, which you can close, with a link to the photo on Flickr and tells you who took the picture (as seen to the left).[via Laughing Squid]
1001: A really cool Flickr client
The old adage that 'a picture is worth 1000 words' is still going nice and strong. Considering the sheer number of pictures that Flickr is hosting these days, that could be a lot of stories to sift through - why not try out a desktop app to help with all the work?1001 is a unique Flickr client from Adriaan Tijsseling, developer of the Mac version of blogging app ecto (the one with a slick new alpha version) and RSS newsreader endo. In addition to letting you upload your own photos to Flickr, I think 1001's primary appeal lies in its downloading and viewing abilities. It provides rich features for watching the stream of photos from your friends and groups, filtering the public photo stream with tags, blogging (of course) photos you like, displaying a Growl-like popup with certain photos you want to see and even using photo as your desktop wallpaper or screensaver. It's a really interesting way to interact with Flickr, and the only downside is a somewhat unique UI that might make it a little confusing to navigate 1001 your first time through. For a quick primer: 1001 allows you to pull down these photos by setting up one or more 'streams' that specify exactly what photos you want to see. You can create one stream for, say, just your friends (or even specific friends), and another for Flickr's popular Interestingness page. You can then toggle the different streams on and off depending on your mood, allowing you keep the streams from becoming a flood. Be sure to use the Streams button in 1001's toolbar, or check out the Streams menu to get started.All things considered, this really is a great app for Flickr enthusiasts or even newbies starting out. Once you get over the very brief learning curve, 1001 is a powerful app that lets you view just the Flickr photos you want and use them in other places on your Mac. But what does all this Flickr wonderfulness (hey, if Flickr can use pseudo-words, so can I) cost, you ask? Surprisingly, it's donationware, and I encourage you to show Tijsseling some appreciation if you enjoy 1001 and would like to see ist development continue.
Get Desktoptopia for half off
Desktoptopia (not to be confused with Desktopia) is a program that automagically delivers the latest and greatest in wallpaper right to your desktop-- just press go, and the app will drop a new desktop on you as often as you want, from any categories that you want, rated however you want. For people who love seeing a brand new desktop, but don't want to take the time hunting around to find one all the time, it's the best. The best, Jerry, the best!And now it's even better, because they've posted a coupon code on his site that drops the normally $20 shareware application down to just $10. Enter "luckyme" at checkout, and you'll be wallpaper browsing and changing in no time. More desktops, no worries-- sounds great to me.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Wal-Mart reveals its full Dell lineup
For some reason we kinda doubt that many Engadget readers are in a hurry to load the kids into the station wagon and head on down to Wal-Mart for some cheap computer action, but we'd be remiss in our journalistic duties were we not to give you the final lowdown on that pair of Dell bundles hitting the retail behemoth this weekend. Since we already knew the specs of the 'high-end' $698 package, the only real surprise here is that you're getting almost the same machine for $498 -- the only difference being a 250GB vs. 320GB hard drive -- with the price drop instead coming at the expense of "extras" like a monitor, speakers, and memory card reader. A little later in the month, those lucky enough to have been accepted into Sam's Club will have their choice of an $828 multimedia bundle featuring the same Dimension E521 desktop supplemented by NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE graphics and another gig of RAM, or a 15.4-inch dual-core Inspiron 1501 notebook with a DVD burner, 2GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive for a few cents under $900. Seems like Wal-Mart should be able to push a pretty decent amount of these out the door -- which is good news for Dell, because Michael and friends need all the help they can get to reclaim their top spot from those crafty competitors over at HP.
TUAW Desktop of the Week
This week's TUAW Desktop hails from Flickr user form953, who has managed to turn both Dashboard and the Dock more or less Inside Out. The iStat pro widget is running in Development Mode, which is what allows it to live on the Desktop, separate from the Dashboard. I'm not entirely sure how form953 managed to pin the Dock underneath the menubar, however; I've seen that option in one utility or another, but have never used it so I'm blanking on which apps allow for this. Here's a list of what else form953 has going on here, thankfully provided along with this shot at Flickr: wallpaper and Disctop from mekentosj.com iStat pro widget running in developer mode Bytecontroller SMARTReporter Spirited Away VirtueDesktops (which, sadly, is no longer being developed due to Leopard's upcoming Spaces feature) Google Desktop for Mac Chip Set icons If you'd like to see your unique, functional or otherwise interesting desktop featured in our TUAW Desktops of the Week series, check out past featured desktops as well as the original post for the rules and to get an idea of what we're looking for. Then, upload your desktop screenshot to our TUAW Desktops Flickr group. We'll feature one or more desktops each weekend, giving credit to the desktop owner, wallpaper creator and any apps featured in the screenshot (if available). Keep those desktops rolling in!