New Toy - BlacX ATA External HD Interface

31 May 2008 In: Computing, Hardware

BlacX ATA HD Controller


I picked up a new toy this week. It’s basically an open external hard drive enclosure for your SATA hard drives. Now I have tons of ATA drives lying around, so this is very handy for me but when I saw it I also saw the potential for it’s use as a tech head. With this device you could mount the hard drive from your computer, as long a it’s an SATA drive, and retrieve your files should something go wrong with your system. Now, if your computer is less than 3 years old then chances are you have a SATA drive as your computer’s hard drive. The device connects to your computer via a USB cable, you drop your SATA drive into it and power it on and it mounts the drive on your desktop or in Windows Explorer if you are on a PC. It also has applications as a security device. You can transfer your sensitive files to it and then stick the drive in a safe once you have ejected the drive from the the device. You could also very easily send the hard drive, I’m thinking of the smaller size here that you find in your notebook computers, via UPS or standard mail if you had a project that was larger than 8GB. Think video projects.


It will mount all SATA drives, 2.5 and 3.5 drives and will transfer files at the rate of a standard USB 2.0 connection. (480/mb) I haven’t tried mounting a laptop SATA drive yet, I don’t have a 2.5 drive here at the house at the moment, but I am sure it will work just as well as the three larger drives I have tried. I’m very happy with it and at just over $30 dollars, you can beat the value.


One of the images below you can see that the drive it sitting next to my Mac but I also hooked it up to my Windows box and it worked as advertised there as well.




BlacX ATA HD Controller
BlacX ATA HD Controller

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Flash Games - A Good Time Killer

29 May 2008 In: Gaming

friv.com

Here’s a good time killer. This site contains what looks to be hundreds of flash based games. If you are bored at work or at home, this should occupy a little of your time. :)

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Purchased a Wii Fit

24 May 2008 In: Gaming

Just a quick note for those reading, I purchased a Wii Fit and we have been playing with it the last couple of days. I will have a more in-depth review later but I wanted to let everyone know that so far we are enjoying it. It’s quite fun and where it might not be much of an exercise piece for the athlete out there for those of us that are a little more soft around the middle I can vouch for the fact that I can feel it when I spend any decent length of time on it. In my arms, legs and stomach. It must be doing something.

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Obama or Clinton?

22 May 2008 In: From Gage

Just because I’m curious if you are reading this post, please vote. And wouldn’t it be nice if it were this simple in real life?

Obama or Clinton?

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Penny Arcade - The Video Game

21 May 2008 In: Gaming

I don’t know about you guys but I have been a fan of Penny Arcade for years. The cartoons often hit the nail right on the head with me and I often find a good laugh reading one of their comic strips. If you have never read one of their cartoons you definitely check it out if you are a game/tech geek like me.

Penny Arcade

Anyway, after reviewing games for eons they decided to throw their hat into the game development arena and have come up with a game called On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One, which is due to be released in tomorrow. If it’s half as entertaining as their comic strip it will be well worth the $20. Check out the video below for a preview.

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Internet Explorer No More!

20 May 2008 In: Gecko Rants

IE Rest in Piece

Well, I finally got tired of Internet Explorer. So I blocked it from viewing my site at all. That’s right, IE users will have to find some other site to visit and to be honest I won’t miss them at all. When someone using the IE browser attempts to visit RoamingGecko they get redirected to a page that lets them know that they will have to use another browser if they want to view content on RoamingGecko. I got tired of having to design my site so that it displayed correctly in IE when it displays just fine in everything else. And I mean everything else! It’s basically about numbers. The statistics tell me I am blocking 30% of web surfers from my site, well so be it. It’s downright ignorant to shackle yourself to designing a site because one browser refuses to adapt current web standards. I’d tell Billy where he could stick his web browser but I am trying to keep this site one that you don’t have to read after 9 o’clock at night.

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Just saw a Segway rolling down South Main street

20 May 2008 In: Tweets

Well, actually it looked like a clone of the actual Segway but that’s got to be a pretty expensive knock off.

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Blacksburg Rescue Vehicle Vandalized

20 May 2008 In: Blacksburg
Seems a few members of my crew were out on a Memorial Bike ride when one of our emergency responders was broken into. I guess it’s true what they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
clipped from www.nbc4.com

Cyclists Robbed While Raising Money For EMS Workers’ Families
Group’s Vehicles Broken Into Overnight In Capitol Heights
Cyclists raising money for families of fallen emergency workers hit a bump in the road Monday night when they were robbed in Capitol Heights.

Sixty riders are biking more than 600 miles from New York to Roanoke in four days to raise money for the families of EMS workers and paramedics killed in the line of duty.

The group was resting overnight when their support vehicles were broken into.

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Google Health Beta Launches

20 May 2008 In: Medical
For those that might have missed it. Google Health launched yesterday. This may not seam like something you might use but as someone in the medical field I think it’s great for those who are just a bit older or for someone with chronic health problems. I can’t tell you how many times I have arrived on scene and asked a patient for a list of their medications before I provide any treatment and they hand me a piece of scrap paper or a post-it with their meds scribbled on it.

If anything, it helps keep all your medications in order as well as keeping a record of what you have taken in the not to recent past. I would much rather see a list like this when I arrive on scene than a post-it! :)

Med List
(Note: I am not on these meds, I just clicked a few at random for the screen shot)

Do yourself a favor and read the advantages you can get with Google Health below and I think you might see a couple of reasons to use it. You sure can’t beat the price!

clipped from www.google.com

Google Health

About Google Health

Google Health allows you to store and manage all of your health information in one central place. And it’s completely free. All you need to get started is a Google username and password.
Google believes that you own your medical records and should have easy access to them. The way we see it, it’s your information; why shouldn’t you control it?

  • Keep your doctors up-to-date
  • Stop filling out the same paperwork every time you see a new doctor
  • Avoid getting the same lab tests done over and over again because your doctor cannot get copies of your latest results
  • Don’t lose your medical records because of a move, change in jobs or health insurance
With Google Health, you manage your health information — not your health insurance plan or your employer. You can access your information anywhere, at any time.
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Firefox RC1 Release

19 May 2008 In: Software
If you want to check out the up and coming version of Firefox 3, check out the link below. I personally don’t use anything other than Firefox for my browser and I am really looking forward to the performance and memory boost that Firefox 3 is supposed to bring us.
clipped from www.mozilla.com

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Welcome to Roaming Gecko

The Gecko

Welcome to the last page on the Internet. This has to be the last page because I don’t think you would be here if it wasn’t. You have browsed to every other page on the Internet and now you are here because you have read everything else. Well, as long as you are here I will try to entertain you as best I can. Some of the things you might read about on this site will deal with computers, photography, gaming and rescue but I will undoubtedly rant on some off the wall topics every once in a while. So, sit back. Do a little reading on the minutiae of my life and hopefully you’ll get a good laugh out of it from time to time. I’d thank you for stopping by but we both know you didn’t have any where else to be! :)

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