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: speed quality graphics performance very good and better than GeForce cards
Disadvantages: some functions unsupported workarounds sloppy stuttering performance results

...Product Specs Different API Supported - OpenGL, DirectX RAMDAC Clock Speed - 300 MHz (boostable by 15% easily) Memory Clock Speed - 175 MHz 2D Acceleration - Yup 3D Acceleration - Yup (or else it wouldnt be a 4500-3d would it? tee hee) 2D/3D graphics system - STM Kyro II Graphics chipset 1 x STM Kyro II Video Memory Installed - 64 MB SDRAM (non upgradable) Card Type - AGP, Plug and play compatible AGP information- supports AGP version 2.0 4x speed Comes with 1 years manufacturers warranty MAX Video Output - 1920 x 1200 @ 75 Hz with 32-bit color System Requirements Windows 95 OSR 2, Windows 98, 2000 or XP 32MB RAM 10MB HD Drive a free AGP 2.0 compatible slot I would also recommend a CD drive else driver installation will be a pain! My Opinion on it The Herculese 4500 card is a wonderous piece of kit. I myself... Read review

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Advantages: Good Price, Quality Groupset, Reliable
Disadvantages: Poor Fork

...I bought myself a brand spanking new Trek 4500 2004 edition as a foot into the door of mountain biking. Since purchasing the bike I been out on regular offroad expeditions (some of which have punished the bike quite hard, in the lakes & peaks) and my 4500 has stood up very nicely. The groupset is all good quality stuff, deore rear mech & shifters, Alivio front mech - all Mega 9 drivetrain (i.e. 27 gears). The brakes are competent, ok promax affairs however the real problem is the fork. The supplied ROCKSHOX Judy TT is a spring/elastomer fork and whilst its fine for tow path riding and light mountain-biking it really does lack on technical downhill sections. The pre-load adjuster does next to nothing and travel is sticky and unpredictable. However it is better than no fork at all and you can always upgrade! Pretty much all... Read review

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Advantages: Good functionality very competitively priced 2 year warranty
Disadvantages: Can sometime catch the side buttons unitentionally

...I have owned and used one of these particular mice for nearly two years and have found it to be more than reliable The Type of Mouse The MI 4500X is not an optical mouse but it has the advantage of being cordless one less wire attached to your PC and it is also rechargeable The Power Source The mouse is powered by two AA rechargeable batteries supplied with the product It comes complete with a charging cradle which takes its power source from your PC via either a USB connection (USB lead supplied) or a PS2 connection and a USB to PS2 converter is supplied for those who have no spare USB ports on their machine. In addition to being able to take power to the charger from your PC it also comes with a mains adaptor so the mouse will recharge not only when it is on the cradle when the computer is on but also when the PC... 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: 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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