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- The hobbit-hole cathouse is the perfect kitty Christmas gift
- 10 World Leaders as Modern Day Fashionable Hipsters
- Boost Transfer Speeds with an Inateck USB 3.0 PCI-e Card
- Microsoft Enables Bitcoin Payments for Xbox, Windows Phone Content
| The hobbit-hole cathouse is the perfect kitty Christmas gift Posted: 16 Dec 2014 10:08 AM PST  No matter what your cat’s name is, you might want to change it to Frodo or Bilbo after seeing this cathouse themed after a hobbit-hole. Surfing around we came across this video depicting a process where a super fan built a cathouse themed after the hobbit-hole seen in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. It also comes with a litter box and scratching post with Barad-dûr/Eye of Sauron themes, so no one can ever accuse you of picking sides. As long as you don’t get an orc-looking dog, this could become the perfect kitty hang-out place, they’ll just need a place to have a council and decide what to do with the ring. Via Geekologie Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at Lord of the Rings Passages Recreated In Stained Glass and Google Does It Again! Geeky Lord of the Rings Easter Egg in Google Maps.         |
| 10 World Leaders as Modern Day Fashionable Hipsters Posted: 16 Dec 2014 06:00 AM PST  It’s hard to imagine Abraham Lincoln of Vladimir Lenin as fashionable, almost Hipster like characters. It’s good thing artists like Amit Shimoni do that creative thinking for us. The Israel designer started HIPSTORY as a way of comparing Israeli leaders of the past with today’s leading men and women and also the different fashion trends. The success of the project caused it to expand, and include other decision makers with a more global flavor. Abraham Lincoln (United States)Winston Churchill (UK)JFK (United States)Mahatma Ghandi (India)Nelson Mandela (South Africa)Margaret Thatcher (UK)Mao Zedong (China)Vladimir Lenin (USSR)David Ben-Gurion (Israel)Che Guevara
For more on world leaders going through an artistic makeover, check out these dictators with a touch of geeky art makeover.    |
| Boost Transfer Speeds with an Inateck USB 3.0 PCI-e Card Posted: 16 Dec 2014 05:30 AM PST  The USB 3.0 standard has been around since November 2008, but low-end motherboards motherboards didn’t feature it until recently. If you own an older system or simply need more USB 3.0 ports, Inateck’s USB 3.0 PCI-e cards may be one of your best options. Inateck is a German company that manufactures USB 3.0 hubs, chargers and PCI-e cards, along with many accessories for iPads, Macbooks and Kindle e-readers. There are several USB 3.0 PCI-e cards in the company’s product portfolio, and consumers are encouraged to pick the one that’s most suitable for them, depending on the number of ports they need. The card in question is a dual port USB 3.0 PCI Express card with internal USB 3.0 20-pin connector, codenamed KT4007. PresentationThe card comes in a compact cardboard box that’s large enough to store its components. Besides the card itself, which is placed in an antistatic bag, there is a low-profile bracket, two screws, a CD with the drivers and a PDF manual, as well as an User’s Guide (with instructions on how to install and uninstall the drivers) in physical format. I found the label on the box a bit misleading, as the box of the KT4005 has the same thing written on it, and that card provides you with 4 USB 3.0 ports at the back of your case. The label is not entirely wrong, as besides the two external ports, the KT4007 also features an internal USB 3.0 20-pin connector that enables you to connect front panel or bay USB 3.0 ports to the computer, in case your motherboard doesn’t have support for this. CD ContentsThe window pictured above appears right after inserting the driver CD in the optical drive. The interface provides quick access to the drivers and the manual, but also to the online shop, should you be interested in buying other Inateck gadgets. As you can see, you are given the option to visit the manufacturer’s website to get the latest drivers (this is also what I would recommend you to do), but in case there’s no Internet connection available, you can install the drivers provided on the disc, depending on the color of the PCB. Inateck took the right decision to color-code the cards depending on the USB 3.0 that is used. The only other mention that the KT4007 comes with a NEC chip was on the barcode on the product’s foil. InstallationInateck KT4007 is wired for PCIe 1x slots, but it works equally fine in PCIe 4x, 8x or even 16x slots. Just push it in one of those ports and install the driver provided on the CD. Test benchMotherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785G-UD3H Software:CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64 The computer used for testing the Inateck KT4007 USB 3.0 PCI-e card matches the manufacturer’s system requirements (Windows XP/Vista/7/8 and one available PCI Express slot), and is an old enough of a platform to emphasize the benefits of adding USB 3.0. BenchmarksUsing the two aforementioned pieces of software I performed a comparison between the motherboard’s USB 2.0 ports and the USB 3.0 ports on the KT4007 card. In theory, USB 2.0 has a transfer speed of 480 Mbps, while the 3.0 standard comes with 5 Gbps. In practice it’s pretty difficult to achieve such results, but that doesn’t mean there’s no actual difference between the two. The results obtained using ATTO Disk Benchmark are even more conclusive and somewhat closer to the rated speeds. According to Corsair, the 32GB Flash Voyager GT 3.0 should reach read speeds of 240 MBps and write speeds of 100 MBps. Of course, you can opt for faster USB flash drives or even SSDs that connect via USB 3.0, if you need to boost transfer speeds even more. ConclusionsMaking the jump from USB 2.0 to 3.0 is the proper thing to do in this day and age, if you can’t afford a new motherboard that comes with 3.0 ports, getting yourself a PCIe card such as Inateck’s KT4007 is far more affordable. The speeds achieved with this card are nothing short of impressive, but using different drives could lead to different results. There are a few things I would like Inateck to add in their future products, even though such changes could make prices go a bit higher. First of all, seeing how many motherboards and computer cases are black nowadays, offering USB 3.0 cards with black PCBs would reduce the discrepancies in color. Secondly, I would love to see an USB 3.0 expansion card that also comes with SATA III (6Gbps) ports. Most hard drives and SSD nowadays are manufactured using this standard, and an expansion card with both USB 3.0 and SATA III would mean an even better upgrade. Inateck sells the KT4007 expansion card via Amazon US for $15.99. In Europe, you can find it on Amazon UK / Germany / France / Italy and Spain. Not at last, the card is also available on Amazon Japan. I would like to thank Inateck for sending me a product sample for this hands-on review, and I’m looking forward to testing more of their products. Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Inateck Kindle Paperwhite felt case and the world’s first 1TB USB 3.0 flash drive.    |
| Microsoft Enables Bitcoin Payments for Xbox, Windows Phone Content Posted: 16 Dec 2014 04:00 AM PST  An online alternative to real, physical money, bitcoin has now been accepted by Microsoft as a form of payment.
Thanks to new additions in technology – such as faster Internet speeds and shopping apps on mobile devices – more of us are now shopping online than ever before. But this also means that payments have changed too as we are no longer so reliant on paper coins and money. Often, we make use of Internet banking or PayPal to make online payments even easier, but cryptocurrencies have also been introduced. Cryptocurrencies are currencies that use cryptography (the practice and study of secure communications) to secure the transactions and to control the creation of new units. The most popular of these by far is bitcoin. And, as the cryptocurrency increases in popularity, Microsoft is the next retailer to accept is as a form of payment. How this works is that US-based customers can add money to their accounts via bitcoin. This money can then be used to purchase games from Xbox Live, apps or videos (such as TV and movies). Rules for using bitcoin to add money to accounts is restricted to $1000 a day and up to $5000 overall, there are also no refunds for their bitcoins once you’ve added them to your account. Furthermore, Microsoft has explained other limitations to bitcoin usage:
With this said, there is potential for a larger scale roll out in the future. Eric Lockard, corporate vice president of Universal Store at Microsoft, suggested in a blog post that this is very much just the beginning:
So it’s early days yet but we’ll keep you posted once we know more. Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, BitCoin & other digital currencies are legal again in California, World's First Bitcoin ATM Went Online in Canada    |
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