Camera Labs

Hi everyone, we've just launched our computer hardware section!

http://www.cameralabs.com/PC_Hardware_reviews/

This continues where my hardware columns at the late PCW magazine left-off, so you'll find articles about achieving Hifi audio, building HTPCs etc.

My plan is to run the section like a blog, posting new articles as and when I come across an interesting tip or piece of equipment - so don't worry, camera reviews will remain my core focus here!

Some future articles for the section will also address issues facing digital photography, such as ideal amounts of RAM. If there's anything you'd like to see, let me know, and of course please continue to use this section of the forum to post your own hardware tips and questions.

Finally, a big welcome to any former PCW readers!

Gordon

PS - this section is also for discussions on operating systems, but if you have any specific application questions, such as Photoshop, Lightroom etc, please post in our Imaging software section at

http://www.cameralabs.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=26

We also have dedicated sections for Displays, Storage and backup, and Printers, so if your question or tip is related to these, please post them in the most appropriate forum!

PPS - if you're wondering what happened to PCW magazine, please check out my obituary.

I really enjoyed the Hifi article Gordon! I haven't got anything worth mentioning at the moment but it's something I'm looking to get into. I'm going to read the other articles right now

You use B&W 802s? Nice speakers!

Also, I might have missed something but it seems a bit difficult to access the hardware section (no link in the navigation bar) unless I click on the link from the front page.

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Graham
Flickr

Wow! This is absolutely great! I haven't read any of the reviews yet, but I"ll be doing so in a minute as soon as I finish my CONGRATULATIONSSSSSSSS!

Btw, in the news page, the picture showing "what happened to pcw?" isn't linking anywhere. It's supposed to, right? And oh, check out the typo in your (above) post ...

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SX10IS
Flickr Picasa

Thanks Guys, both corrected!

PS - yep Graham, I'm currently working out where to link to it from the front page.

I wish my computer only drew 200 odd Watts of power

Glad to see a hardware section though! A lot of photographers get as far as "Oh I need this program" after they get a camera but thats it. I don't blame them though, the people in the retail stores will tell them that a 2Ghz Celeron could fly you to the moon and back, but they'll not tell you that it'll do so VERY slowly

But again with photographers having to be able to do everything from start to finish, not just press the shutter, its not a matter of wanting to know, they NEED to know!

I do find it annoying when some people (one of my bosses included) just are like oh it works its fine, well no not really. You're wasting maybe only 5-10 seconds here and there for loading times per image maybe, plus any time it takes edits to be applied. Once you start adding that up for a whole editing session, then multiply that by a years worth... it really amounts up to a REDICULOUS amount of time wasted.

I'm hoping for RAID articles in the future, (please please please if you do, put in big big writing that it is NOT a replacement for a backup!) and backup solutions, for the DIYers and the people who just want to buy some decent stuff but not get ripped off.

God, I really do enjoy computer stuff way to much

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

Great to see this new HW section! I have a Master Degree in Computer Science (pending the Master Thesis, hope to finish it in the next few months, if only work left me a bit more free time...), I work as a software developer (Mainly Java EE web apps) and, unsurprisingly enough, I'm kind of a computer geek!

Loved the article about your HTPC, that's some powerful multimedia rig you got there!

Can't wait to see more articles in this new section. Congrats!

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Nikon D90 | AF-S 18-200 VR II | AF-S 35mm f/1.8 | Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 | SB-600 | Gorillapod + Manfrotto 484RC2

Thanks guys!

Yep Daniel, I do plan on doing some RAID articles in the future, and agree it's not a replacement for backing up - it only protects against disk failure. It's not much good against fire, flood or theft!

Or a massive lightning strike

At least an unplugged drive would survive so an off site backup wont always be required for most people. Make sure your backups arnt stored under the stairs or in the basement if you live somewhere flood prone.

Web offsite solutions I can see REALLY taking off once BT gets their finger out and gets us 2-8Mbit Up and 20-30Mb down.

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

Online-based backup sounds ideal, but I remember a story about a company which offered off-site backup, but found that clients so rarely requested their data that they didn't bother keeping it! And when they did, they claimed the disk / tape had broken. Paranoid I know, but something worth considering.

There was a company I seen featured on almost every tech site and blog doing MASSIVE storage in 4U racks and gave the details of how they built them away. Because they offered cloud storage and backup for loads of clients they needed massive storage cheaply.

I'm sure it was over 20TB per 4u rackmount. 4u is about the side of a full tower computer case, on its side, maybe a little longer. So yeah, a lot of data in one space!

-EDIT-

Scratch that, it was 67 TB lol! - http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/pe ... d-storage/

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!