Advantages: A bargain. Easy to install and used. Good entry level SCSI controller.
Disadvantages: No support for higher data rates.

...If you plug an SCSI card into your pc, don’t hold your breath because nothing exciting is going to happen. (Unless of course you have made a very bad job of installing the card. Then you might see smoke and flames coming from your cherished/reviled PC or even, in extreme cases, find yourself moving down a tunnel towards a bright light.) However, once you have installed you SCSI card you will be able to attach any number of exciting devices to your pc. Although this is an opinion of Adaptecs AVA-2900 series of SCSI card, it is also a general review of SCSI. I have done this because as far as I can tell this is the first review at Ciao of a SCSI controller card. This seems to be a bit of an over sight to me as any number of SCSI devices have been reviewed, (such as the excellent Plextor external SCSI cd writer which... Read review

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Advantages: Very versatile mid range server
Disadvantages: support web site can be awkward to navigate

...I started building these when they were X232's,they were good then and are still good now. They work equally well as an SMB domain controller, larger corporate BDC/SQL server or mid use terminal server. I currently support a pair of them using round robin DNS supporting some 100 TS users using office docs, outlook and an accounts package. As you can see from the picture they are a tower unit but you can buy, for about £250 a rack conversion kit. The kit includes a new facia, metal case and rails. Once converted the rails will fit into most SERVER cabinets. This server will not go into a standard 600 wide data cabinet because you tend to find that the doors on the data cabinets hinge in such a way as to stop the server sliding out on its rails unless you remove the door. Secondly the cabinet should be at least 900mm deep... Read review

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Advantages: Inexpensive cost per page, quick, parallel and USB interfaces
Disadvantages: no printed manual, no cables, slightly tricky to get going

...Having suddenly started generating a lot of monochrome output I decided to take the pressure off my existing photoprinter - especially as the price per page is in excess of 30p. I did a bit of research and ended up with this one that fit my needs - I needed something with a parallel interface to couple onto a network print server I already had, or that had an ethernet interface built in. The latter pointed me in the direction of printers in the £150-200 range - way more than I really wanted to pay. Anyway - enough of my life story - I bought it, it arrived and I unpacked it. It's a reasonably compact footprint for a printer - and unlike most others in the price range it has a proper paper drawer - so your unused paper stock is not out and being covered in dust. All the packaging removed, toner cartridge was installed (slight toner... Read review

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Advantages: VERY GOOD SERVER SOFTWARE AND RELIABLE
Disadvantages: A BIT OUT OF DATE BUT HEY IT WORKS

...Windows NT Server v4.0 was the first Server OS I ever used and I must say its capabilities were amazing. It was easy to install and with the Service Pack 6a Which allowed a 60Gb Hard drive. I'm not going to tell the min spec as it is low but tell you the features that I have found. The first server OS I tried on my new network at work was 2000 Server but the 2000 workstations wouldnt work as the cashed credentials were causing a problem. I was under pressure and my only option was to try the microsoft knowledge base. It gave me a solution but it didnt work. I know very unusual. So i put on NT 4 Server and they worked. I find that the user manager is better than 2000 as you can select a differnet logon script and user profile, etc all atb once wheras on 2000 you have to do them seperatley. The server manager was good to as i could use... Read review

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Advantages: Concise and accurate. Covers all aspects of Windows 2000 Server.
Disadvantages: A very heavy book, not one for the bus!

...Mastering Windows 200 Server, something that a lot of network analysts such as myself would like to do! On the front of the book it claims that it is the ‘complete guide to enterprise networking with Windows 2000 Server’, this is a bold claim because as the Windows Server product grows increasing depth is required to investigate its features, whole books have been written just on TCP/IP. However, I can honestly say that this book does indeed cover all the aspects of Windows 2000 Server. I have now been using Widows 2000 for some time and I have not identified anything that the author has left out. I would say this book is suitable for various levels of experience although it is easier to read if you at least know something about the Windows Server family. The more experienced reader may wish to brush over the section... Read review

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Advantages: good build quality - rarely break down - It's an IBM!
Disadvantages: support website can sometimes be awkward to navigate.

...I must have built / overseen the build on about 100 of these over the last five years starting with the X220 up to this current 226 and I have had very little to complain about. You can also buy a rack conversion kit in order to rack mount it With the addition of a pair of 73GB 10K hot swap scsi drives (about £250-300 for the pair) configured to use the on board HostRaid the 226 is an ideal entry level or terminal server. I have often installed it (with the addition of a 6i RAID controller to give a RAID5 config) with MS SBS2003 standard as the main server for a small business of up to 25 users. It handles file & print and exchange without any real fuss although I would recommend plenty of RAM if you are going to do this as Exchange can be quite memory hungry The on-board HostRaid card comes disabled so you have to go in and set... Read review

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Advantages: Cost, Service, Accesibility (Internet access)
Disadvantages: Location of server house (Stratford, London)

...My clans server has been colocated with them for the last 3 years. Set up was straightforward, they supplied IP details and settings which I then preset before taking the server to their server house. They CAN set it up from scratch for you, but WILL charge to do so. I met one of their engineers there and within a few minutes the server was up and running.Since then in the 3 years its been with them, its 'downtime' has been restricted to 1 day, for which I received a week of credit. Reason for downtime was given as a DOS (denial of service) attack on the server house. We were credited with a weeks use for that.Others have offered service but none could match them in terms of connection,cost and availability. Our on line gaming clan has members in : Croatia,Ireland,Sweden,Holand,Italy, Scotland,America and Belgium. All have great... Read review

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Advantages: Very low cost
Disadvantages: No potential

...If you are two users working from home, or you require a small good value box to act as a small scale scanned document server then this is the one for you, load it up with your favourite operating system, chuck it in the corner and away you go. i would however advise that you put in a second hard drive and at the very least run on a mirrored pair. At least that way if one drive fails you can carry on working whilst you wait for the replacement. When I think of server I think SCSI hard drives, fault tolerence and expandability of which this server has none by default and whilst IBM products are generally built to a high specification I have never been a big fan of using SATA drives where constant disk access is required. Likewise the celeron processor does not easily lend itself to blistering performance but, on the other side... Read review

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Advantages: compact, easy to use, useful features, pretty design.
Disadvantages: possibly too 'automatic' shutter delay

...Nikon's coolpix 4100 is a very pretty camera. It's the perfect size to sit in the palm of your hand, or slip into a coat pocket when you're heading out anywhere - I measure it as about 8.5x6.5x3.5cm. It's the usual 'metallic' silver-painted plastic that's so common on gadgets these days - maybe an aluminium case would make a little classier, but even so, the plastic feels solid and substantial. It's comfortable to hold, with the battery bulge at the front allowing a firm grip, and the the 'fire' buttom falling just where my forefinger lands in a very natural position. On the back, all the controls fall within easy reach of my thumb. These controls are: zoom (3x optical) Menu review delete a 'scene' wheel with 8 settings - automatic, Scene choice, portrait setting, landscape setting, sports mode, offset portrait, setup... Read review

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Advantages: __
Disadvantages: --

...I now have ntl's entry level broadband cable services. This provides me with download speeds of 64k and uploads of 32k. This is part of a triple digital package costing £20.99 a month. This includes a phone line, basic digital TV package, and the cable modem. If you pay a touch more of £20 per month, you can enjoy true broadband style of 512k download speeds. Now, all this service is great but it wouldn't be here if I didn't have a cable modem. Ok, so the modem legally doesn't belong to me since it is under contract with ntl and we are currently renting it which is included in the price. http://www.gi.com/noflash/sb4100.html - this is their webpage should you want to find all the tiny technical specs about this modem. Well...ntl supplied us with this modem, which so far has worked well. It is an external modem no bigger than... Read review

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