New and interesting computer hardware, gadgets and toys reviewed. And letters. Lots of letters. http://www.dansdata.com/ USB solar panels, file-date fixing, mysterious Skyrim crashes-to-desktop, and how and why mobile phones cause radio interference. http://www.dansdata.com/io164.htm The death of the window-trail, difficulty switching browsers, EVENING out the VOLUME of your RANDOM-PLAY music, video-card power plugs, and the joys of parenthood. http://www.dansdata.com/io163.htm Crank USB chargers, not knowing how you fixed something, killing slide-ins, and mysterious pinkness. http://www.dansdata.com/io162.htm Overdoing DHCP, clamping a monitor, yet another use for paper clips, and cat puke on a keyboard. http://www.dansdata.com/io161.htm Round blue electrical things, a PC full of extinguisher powder, a stripey screen, scammy computer "tune-ups", and why password resets work in the way that they do. http://www.dansdata.com/io160.htm USB-boot oddities, exploding components that do no obvious harm, a ludicrous list of startup processes, plugging holes in PCs, and the "annoying" way in which "bluescreen" errors are "formatted". http://www.dansdata.com/io159.htm Fun with a floating ground, turning drives into folders, crimping versus soldering, another mysterious user account, and plugging speakers straight into sound cards. http://www.dansdata.com/io158.htm A lifeless and beepless PC, soldering a thumb-drive back together, silent permissions failures, alarming network wiring, and e-mail from nowhere. http://www.dansdata.com/io157.htm A laptop versus half a cup of tea, browser extensions versus your CPU, and beeping modifier keys versus your sanity. http://www.dansdata.com/io156.htm Zapping programs by name, how to move program data from an old registry to your current one, and diabolically clever encryption. http://www.dansdata.com/io155.htm Reviving a dead external drive, perverse activities with SSDs, an undesirably musical image viewer, Chrome CPU problems, mysteriously inaccessible Web sites, changing drive letters, and Unknown Contacts. http://www.dansdata.com/io154.htm Mysterious disk usage, an Ethernet oddity, when computers can't tell you what they're upset about, and whacking CPUs with hammers. http://www.dansdata.com/io153.htm Charging things dangerously, undesired enhancement, misaligned ports, easy Internet drive-mapping, and a cavalcade of foistware! http://www.dansdata.com/io152.htm An auditory skeuomorph you've heard many times, without even knowing it. http://www.dansdata.com/gz148.htm Have we all been killed by 3D-printed guns yet? I haven't been paying attention. http://www.dansdata.com/gz147.htm The false promise of HDMI-to-VGA cables, LANning with your neighbour, jammed fan motors, and cruelty to CPUs. http://www.dansdata.com/io151.htm A phone-crashing oven, phishy-smelling e-mail, slightly accelerated music, and big drives on cheap USB adapters. http://www.dansdata.com/io150.htm Giant cheap UPSes, drive-adapter improvisation, bootable CDs, and boosting your phone signal without breaking the law. http://www.dansdata.com/io149.htm Unusual PC power switches, strangely slow card-reader recognisation, cracking encrypted Zip files, diagnosing slightly wrong keys, hunting bandwidth vampires, and plastic storage tubs as computer cases. http://www.dansdata.com/io148.htm Caseless computers, multiple power supplies, and fixing circuit boards. http://www.dansdata.com/io147.htm On the peculiar phenomenon of worthless apps and printed Wikipedia articles that cost a lot of money. http://www.dansdata.com/gz146.htm Caseless computers, multiple power supplies, and fixing circuit boards. (Now with correct link!) http://www.dansdata.com/io146.htm A terrifying boot error, a ticking laptop, mysterious gaming black screens, and yet another use for paper clips. http://www.dansdata.com/io145.htm In which some rather hilarious hate mail about my Pono column presses my Talk Button. http://www.dansdata.com/gz145.htm Numbers that are random in one way, but not in another, and what you can use them for. http://www.dansdata.com/gz144.htm Neil Young's 'Pono' audio system, and why I don't buy it. http://www.dansdata.com/gz143.htm Mysterious elderly-computer problems, a creeping malware plague, grievous harm to CPU pins, and the very good idea of keeping your computer cool by spraying water on it. http://www.dansdata.com/io144.htm Why did hundreds of thousands of people pay good money for software that did nothing at all? http://www.dansdata.com/gz142.htm Your world is weird. Realising that is good mental exercise. http://www.dansdata.com/gz141.htm Online video that won't let you seek, mysterious laptop-battery behaviour, ANTS EVERYWHERE, and puzzling pointer-twitching. http://www.dansdata.com/io143.htm Evading Google's snooping, PeerBlock paranoia, de-Redditing your workday, an Interruptible Power Supply, and mysterious ticking. http://www.dansdata.com/io142.htm Another strange Wi-Fi problem, surgery on speakers destroyed by a child, hiding illicit activities in the workplace, and the mysteries of the relationships between devices and their chargers. http://www.dansdata.com/io141.htm Greetings, fellow criminals! http://www.dansdata.com/gz140.htm We need more games on TV. http://www.dansdata.com/gz139.htm Apparent spam-sending, suspicious update reboots, a mysteriously inaccessible network, making a drive that anybody can read, and moving the invisible. http://www.dansdata.com/io140.htm A full-featured gigabit-Ethernet NAS enclosure, for $25! (Yes, there is a catch. But it's not much of a one.) http://www.dansdata.com/noontec_n5.htm Out-of-spec laptop power supplies, Mysterious Inaccessible Network Problem #32725, a CPU-hogging invisible process, extending antique Wi-Fi, and a sneaky browser hijacker. http://www.dansdata.com/io139.htm It's becoming a lot easier to make your own fun. http://www.dansdata.com/gz138.htm Magnetic hard-drive murder, mysterious MacBook dust, strange SATA sockets, a zombie Windows-install folder, permission to delete, and a PC problem that made me feel like an idiot. http://www.dansdata.com/io138.htm So why DOES a Skyrim giant smash you a mile into the sky, anyway? http://www.dansdata.com/gz137.htm Why do so many very expensive games still have parts that look so cheap? http://www.dansdata.com/gz136.htm The difficulties involved in using all of the pipe, a Picasa annoyance, suspiciously-named attached files, a laptop that refuses to reinstall, and how many Windows updates does one computer need, anyway? http://www.dansdata.com/io137.htm In which I attempt to buy a decent mouse, for games and Photoshop and everything, for less than eight dollars. http://www.dansdata.com/mc086.htm Strangely tiny space games, the distinctive sound of the circular buffer, and a USB hub that tries to power a PC. http://www.dansdata.com/io136.htm Bizarre symptoms from bad video-card contacts, tracing cables, a SYN flood that wasn't, and mouse-wheel surgery. http://www.dansdata.com/io135.htm On conditional probability, and debugging your brain. http://www.dansdata.com/gz135.htm In which I am pleased to present another of those Things That Don't Bother You If You Don't Know About Them. http://www.dansdata.com/gz134.htm Graphics glitches, decrapifying your PC, avoiding touchpad accidents, a narcoleptic laptop, and navigating Win7's control panels. http://www.dansdata.com/io134.htm Pathfinding: It's not just for getting Mammoth tanks over bridges. http://www.dansdata.com/gz133.htm A blog-post pseudo-review of a frickin' enormous external drive. http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/09/11/15-16-thousand-megabytes-per-dollar/ On the terrible affliction of, and imperfect cures for, grinding in games. http://www.dansdata.com/gz132.htm Tethering phones, USB foot pedals, possibly terrible international-mains-wiring advice, and yet more perpetual-motion machines. http://www.dansdata.com/danletters210.htm Killing hardware with a CRT, killing yourself with an LCD, and foot-switches for games. http://www.dansdata.com/io133.htm In which I do my level best to ruin giant robots for everyone. http://www.dansdata.com/gz131.htm De-Activating a drive partition, a confusing multitude of hard drives, plugpack consolidation, and looping a network. http://www.dansdata.com/io132.htm And now for something completely different: A baby katana. Quite cheap. And surprisingly good! http://www.dansdata.com/miyabi613.htm Fear of drive refurbishment, mysteriously defective memory, unexpected key-map changes, and a computer that's dropped to 300 baud. http://www.dansdata.com/io131.htm You know what I need? A hell of a lot more ancient computers cluttering up the place, that's what. http://www.dansdata.com/gz130.htm Fixing graphics cards in the oven, when speakers say they're a keyboard, and a modest proposal for trans-planetary networking. http://www.dansdata.com/io130.htm What does playing video games do to your mind? http://www.dansdata.com/gz129.htm A successful hard-drive board swap, the choosing of thermal goop, and the Mystery of the Self-Tangling Cables. http://www.dansdata.com/io129.htm An educational tale about some of my most inept troubleshooting. http://www.dansdata.com/gz128.htm Why did people ever pay the price of a good laptop for a MUSIC BOX? http://www.dansdata.com/gz127.htm Video game documentation has never been better, because the video game companies aren't making it any more. http://www.dansdata.com/gz126.htm A surprisingly flexible alternative input device, that costs pretty close to nothing. http://www.dansdata.com/footswitch.htm Graphics memory versus graphics speed, clipboard managers, sneaking macros into the workplace, and an infelicitous collision of old and new entertainment technologies. http://www.dansdata.com/io128.htm A bandwidth mystery, charging SLA batteries, large amounts of electricity, wireless interference, testing a free Laserdisc player, and my office full of pocketknives. http://www.dansdata.com/danletters209.htm Un-drowning a hard drive, killing mystery windows and blackscreened games, "better algorithms" for playing MP3s, and hard-disk shelf-life. http://www.dansdata.com/io127.htm Mister Handy versus your frame-rate, volume-control sliders that don't work properly, education versus Facebook, and hooking up ancient monitors to modern devices. http://www.dansdata.com/io126.htm File extensions are, in this day and age, ridiculous. But we're stuck with them. http://www.dansdata.com/gz125.htm Letting the smoke out of a wire, crackly cats versus computers, a series of mysteriously dying hard drives, and oiling up a video card. http://www.dansdata.com/io125.htm Wide-view "distortion" in games actually isn't distortion at all, but an ACTUALLY distorted view can work better. http://www.dansdata.com/gz124.htm Hard-drive board transplants, catproofing your keyboard, and the unending confusion of hard-drive capacity numbers. http://www.dansdata.com/io124.htm Perhaps the energies of governmental busybodies can be less harmfully applied... http://www.dansdata.com/gz123.htm SSD reliability, fun with the hosts file, and a super-fast alternative to Windows Search. http://www.dansdata.com/io123.htm Lego computer cases, hard-drive reliability by brand, impossible data compression, and high-powered USB. http://www.dansdata.com/io122.htm The problem with being trapped on a local maximum is that you often don't even know that it's happened. http://www.dansdata.com/gz122.htm Curing the Windows "Not-Responding Problem", and the mysteries of laptop-drive connectors. http://www.dansdata.com/io121.htm If you call yourself a gamer, but you've never played NetHack, I really must insist that you do. http://www.dansdata.com/gz121.htm I cannot speak too highly of mucking around. http://www.dansdata.com/gz120.htm The perils of RAID 0 and the economics of CrossFire, and... memorable... PC practical jokes. http://www.dansdata.com/io120.htm Cleaning printer nozzles with something other than ink, the mysteries of processor affinity settings, and installing a PC motherboard in a giant old non-PC case. http://www.dansdata.com/io119.htm More and more games snoop on how you play. This could be a good thing, a bad thing, or an entirely unimportant thing. http://www.dansdata.com/gz119.htm Sparklers and thermite, alkaline chargers, more Windows fun, clicky keyboards, car-battery UPSes, Bernoulli disks, homeopathic suicide, Frankenstein switches, and a finger-to-mains adapter. http://www.dansdata.com/danletters208.htm Educational LED frying, mystic battery rejuvenation, modifying headphones, running a US TV in Australia, fixing filthy power, novel dancing-pole installation, fooling your electricity meter, and inhaling deadly gases. http://www.dansdata.com/danletters207.htm Why do so many game characters have so little to say? http://www.dansdata.com/gz118.htm "I'm afraid you've got a bad game, Mr Jones." "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!" http://www.dansdata.com/gz117.htm Soldering battery cells, keeping dust out of a large sucking hole, cordless ESD straps, concatenating plugpacks, and laser video projectors. http://www.dansdata.com/io118.htm The fake-Flash rip-off, diamonds as heat sinks, endless troubleshooting frustration, and deafening beeps. http://www.dansdata.com/io117.htm HDTV display lag, system-monitor programs that disagree, and the wonders of LSD NiCds. http://www.dansdata.com/io116.htm I have a confession to make: I have never had a PC that worked properly. http://www.dansdata.com/gz116.htm CrossFire versus PCIe x4, upgrading to Windows 7, and why some burned CDs STILL won't play in the car. http://www.dansdata.com/io115.htm PC gamers put up with a lot. But we can also claim a peculiar reward. http://www.dansdata.com/gz115.htm Why is it, you might wonder, that something so often goes horribly wrong when you try to alt-tab out of a game? http://www.dansdata.com/gz114.htm The extraordinary, and extraordinarily difficult, activity of game speedrunning. http://www.dansdata.com/gz113.htm Grinding, in games, is evil. But its power can be used for good. http://www.dansdata.com/gz112.htm