The Zone

This may come as a slipped thought, but if you're upgrading your wireless to N (IEEE 802.11n for beyond 100Mbps), the wireless router (or switch if you're just getting a Wireless N Access Point) must have Gigabit (1Gbps) network ports.

Why? Because standard network ports are Megabit (100Mbps), and Wireless N will operate beyond 100Mbps, so this will create a bottleneck when it comes to the physical wired network connection.

Just ensuring your Wireless N router (or Wireless N AP) has Gigabit ports isn't enough, you also need to ensure the other network ports connected to the router or switch has to be Gigabit as well, otherwise again there will be a bottleneck here as Gigabit only works when both ends are Gigabit.

As you can see, Wireless N involves beyond just having a Wireless N network, you also need to ensure the wired network connected to a Wireless N is Gigabit.  This may be overlooked by many as there are Wireless N routers with Megabit ports!

A Dell product launch event? In Malaysia? Yeap, it's true. For the first time, Dell has decided to do something different with their new line of Inspiron and XPS notebooks, staging a product 'fashion show' at Cineleisure Damansara yesterday to highlight the bright and bold display colors that their new notebooks sport. More pics of the show after the jump!

We found this lonely battery wandering the streets yesterday - could you help us guess what is it so that we could lead him home or at least use it! ?

So you've got 23 level-70 WoW characters in your account. Big deal. Do you control 23 characters at one time? Now, that's a big deal.

Meet Xzin, probably one half of the the most hardcore dual-boxer/multi-boxer duo evar. This dude and his girlfriend controls 23 characters at a time - each - whenever they log on to WoW. Just take a look at their setup. It screams hardcore to the max. There's loads of hardware and it's all very neat as well, metholodically thought out before hand and arranged. I really dig those recliners the best. Note to self: Need to get one of those ASAP! 

So, just how do you really control 23 characters at a time? Honestly, I have no idea but you're interested, take a look at this guide to 5-boxing (controlling five characters at once) first. It's a good read on the hardware and apps that you'll need to get started. It's funny how that you don't really need that many monitors after all.  

First spotted at Kotaku & Dual-Boxing.com

iZZi just launched their new wireless broadband service today, and to demonstrate how effective their connections were, the media were treated to a trip to The Eye On Malaysia wheel at Tasik Titiwangsa. Needless to say, the view at the wheel was incredibly scenic, which I managed to capture a few snapshots. Click the jump to view more!

Planning on getting a Santa Rosa (4th-gen Intel Centrino Platform notebook, known as Centrino Duo/Pro, the latter coming with Intel vPro tech)?

Then it will come with Intel's Draft-N Wireless (200 to 300Mbps), but can it work well with other Draft-N Wireless routers out there?  It can if the router is a "Connect with Centrino" router!

The Connect with Centrino program is Intel's way of assuring you that their Santa Rosa notebooks will work well with other N routers which have this certification.

So if you're on the lookout for a Santa Rosa notebook and want an equally-matched N router, look for routers with the Connect with Centrino label.  A few have begun appearing - and we're even testing one this month!

So go forth and embrace Santa Rosa with no fear - for Santa Rosa routers are here!

The topic to dominate most gaming blogs is undoubtedly the latest E3 2007 event. What used to be a carnival-like affair has been scaled down dramatically. While we're a bit disappointed of not being able to go, at least several online gaming sites have been doing a pretty good job in covering the event. Here are quick highlights of E3 2007 so far:

Nintendo

- WiiFit for health concious. I wouldn't mind picking this up once I get my Wii at the end of the year. However Nintendo says that it's unlikely it will be released for the American market this year, so that's kind of a disappointment.

- Super Mario Galaxy (November 12th) and Super Smash Bros (December 3rd) can't come soon enough. 

- Mario Kart Online is also gonna be neat but frankly speaking, that Wii Wheel just look like blah. Looks like one of those cheap third-party Wii peripherals you can find in some local game shop. Same goes for the Wii Zapper.

Sony

- The real Killzone 2 trailer actually looks pretty decent. While it doesn't top the E3 2006 trailer that got everyone so excited, it comes pretty close.

- The new redesigned PSP Slim is a letdown. Sure it may be slimmer and theoretically better on game loading time, but c'mon: it looks like the old PSP! It's like when they announce the new Sixaxis controller back last year. Total snoozefest.

- Cheaper PS3 by US$100. Yeah, everyone knows this already. So am I gonna buy one? Nope - it's still too expensive, and there aren't any games for it at the moment that I'm looking forward too. Assassin's Creed is coming out for the Xbox 360. The same goes for Silent Hill V. Tell me again why I want a PS3?

- Konami reassures Sony fanboys that MGS4 will still be for the PS3 but you never know with Time Exclusives...

Xbox 360

- Halo Edition Olive Green Xbox 360. Ho hum, pass the salt. One interesting note is that although it has a 20GB HDD, it will apparently also sport an HDMI port. Is a 20GB Xbox 360 with an HDMI port in the works?

- Halo 3, and Halo Wars. Interesting, but I'm not too big a fan of the Halo series. Maybe I'll see what the fuss is all about once I finish the first Halo game.

- Resident Evil 5, yes! Great to see the ubiquitous survival-horror game for the Xbox 360. HD Zombies, here I come! :D

Other stuff

- Crysis looks like sex with its graphics and physics engine but unless you have a pimp rig, it's going to be a long time since I'll actually get to play this game. Maybe I can start abusing our uber test reference system... :p

- Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 will be my chosen music games of the year. Don't know if I'll ever pick up the new DDR game: home console dance mats still mostly suck. Although Rock Band for the Xbox 360 is a given for me, I'm undecided as to which GH3 version should I get. Xbox 360, PS2, or the Wii? If they're all the same, I might as well get the Xbox 360.  

- Burnout Paradise without real-time lighting and weather effects is a bit disappointing. Will this be the same for the Xbox 360? *sigh* Well, the previous Burnout games had pretty much only one type of weather, so I guess I'm not too bummed over this.

What's your most anticipated E3 2007 game news? 

Logitech made one of our wildest dreams a reality with the introduction of the MX Air, which is a gyration based, air-capable mouse which is able to work without you needing a surface. lt is a beautiful thing to behold, and unlike those regular mice that you've been accustomed to, it's apparently comfier too, which of course, depends on the individual.

For the August issue of HWM, we'll be reviewing two polar opposites of the standard notebook. One is the Toshiba Qosmio G40, a desktop replacement notebook that's absolutely ginormous in multimedia entertainment. The other is the petite Fujitsu U1010 UMPC, which is the smallest tablet PC we've ever reviewed. Click the jump for a preview of the two notebooks that we'll writing about next month!

Its been a while since we heard from these guys, but LaCie has shown up with two terabyte external drives which can be connected via FireWire 400/800 and USB2.0 for that ultimate PC/Mac combination. Aptly dubbed the Big Disk Extreme+, it comes in a RAID 0 for that ultimate speed which enables you to store more videos, music, design files, pictures (and everything else) and the convenient shortcut button launches an application of your choice in just 1 push of the button! Seriously |337 since we ourselves have yet to get a Hitachi 1TB hard drive for ourselves.......[Engadget]

The MTV paralble may be getting stale but bear with us!

Seagate (that's the company that bought over Maxtor) plans to kill off the PATA (Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment) hard drive, or also known as the IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) hard drive, in favor of the Serial ATA hard drive.

With optical drive these days moving to SATA as well, it's probably time to junk out PATA drives so boards of the future will only have the smaller (and more) SATA ports than maintaining the legacy larger (and few) PATA ports. After all, there seems no benefit to retain the PATA drives when SATA is clearly the easier, neater, and better option.  No more issues about master and slave jumpers - or messy interior casing.

Seagate plans to halt PATA drive production by year end, so you might see the other manufacturers follow suit as well. Time to get your PATA drives now while they last!

Source : Ars Technica

In yet another liquid-cooling movement, NEC and Hitachi have teamed-up to make liquid-cooled hard drive kits.  NEC made the world's first liquid-cooled desktop, while Hitachi is known for making the world's first Terabyte drive. 

Together they're going to score another world's first by making a liquid-cooling system designed for hard drives.

Source : Ars Technica

When one user sents in his iPhone for service, he gets a loaner unit as well as an 'official' iPhone tool that even comes with its own instruction label and packaging! Fantastic! Too bad the 'iClip' doesn't come with a white finish; it would have been a lovely match with the white iPhone.

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Pictures 

HWM Malaysia was down at The Apartment, The Curve earlier this afternoon to check out BenQ's new range of Joybook notebooks inspired by Pop Art, the S41 and S32! Click the jump for more pics and impressions of the new BenQ Joybooks that sports the latest Intel Centrino Duo chipset.

Last week Intel sent a couple invites our way to catch Ratatouille at Cineleisure Damansara, the latest Disney 3D animated film from Pixar studios. Since the Intel Core 2 Duo processor is also 2 years old, they held a little birthday cake party before the event where they had these two 'French chefs' extolling the benefits of the Intel processor. Wah so knowledgeable one these chefs. :p

After the cake was carried out and the candles were blown, we were ushered to the seating halls where we got free popcorn and Coke. :D We didn't get any cake though, even though we were promised some slices. :(

As for the movie Ratatouille, I highly recommend it. The graphics and animation is fantastic and quite unparalleled compared to other 3D animated movies showing in cinemas now. The short animated clip 'Lifted' at the beginning was really funny, and the movie overall was solid entertainment for both adults and kids.