• DIY

    5-Minute Project: Homemade Hard Drive

    By Posted on 3.27.2008 6 Comments

    Sure, external hard drives aren't exactly scarce these days, but while the price point has come down a lot, they're still not cheap. Enter the hard drive case. For just a fistful of dollars, you can pick up a case that (almost) instantly transforms your old internal hard drive into a new storage unit. As Deputy Editor Jake Ward demonstrates here, putting it together is a piece of cake. In the end, you'll have a great-working hard drive, not to mention a few dollars more. Just, keep an eye out for the tiny screws.

    3.28.2008 at 07:45am - Comment by zielmann

    wadlust: Inside your computer, an internal hard drive gets it's data connection (SATA or IDE) sent straight to the motherboard, and the power connection straight off the power supply. When you put the hard drive into an external case, it can't get these connections like this. The circuitry you saw on the plate was to allow the drive to send data and get power. Most external drives connect to a wall outlet (some smaller ones just take power straight through a USB drive). It appears that this case has a firewire connection, and possibly a USB connection on the front plate, and all that is set in the circuitry on the back panel.

  • The Environment

    America's 50 Greenest Cities

    By Posted on 2.14.2008 49 Comments

    In the international alliance to fight climate change, the United States is considered the sullen loner. But in the seven years since we rejected Kyoto, changes have begun. Not at the federal level, however. Its the locals who are making it happen.

    2.9.2008 at 03:13am - Comment by zielmann

    This is actually kind of disheartening. Seriously, on a 30 point scale, the 50th cleanest city only has 10 points? And, only 12 cities score in the 20's. Now, I realize that they couldn't have evaluated every single city in the USA, but there's a lot of cities out there. With the technologies that we have today, I would think that we could easily have all 50 cities in the 20's by this scale's ratings.



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