Elemental-Gear

We are taking the summer off

Serhan — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 23:21:00 +0000

Jim and I have been super busy with work and family stuff so we decided to take the summer off; we will return with new episodes of Elemental-Gear this fall.

Elemental-Gear Episode 12

Serhan — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 02:06:00 +0000

We make our triumphant return with Elemental-Gear Episode 12 where we take a look at eSATA and SAS then we engage in a heated discussion regarding Apple and Microsoft.

Our Picks for Episode 12 are Orb for yours truly and Jim picked the fsutil command.

Elements we talked about during Episode 12 were:

Direct link to Episode 12

Elemental-Gear Episode 11

Serhan — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 00:18:00 +0000

In Elemental-Gear Episode 11 we announce the winner for our contest then talk about building a 2TB file server for $2500 and look at the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet.

Our Picks for Episode 11 are Darik's Boot and Nuke for yours truly and Jim picked HDTach.

Elements we talked about during Episode 11 were:

File Server Performance Chart:

Direct Link to Episode 11

10th Episode Contest

Serhan — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Since we just had our 10th episode we also thought we should have a little contest. Our one of a kind give-away entails answering a single question:

If Elemental-Gear was an element on the Periodic Table of Elements what element would it be?

You can use existing elements or make up your own; the only requirement is, be as creative as possible. Email us your answers with a brief description justifying your element by February 17th 2006; a lucky winner will be announced on our next show and will receive a pimped out Thermaltake A2021 XRAY 5.25" Drive Bay Kit (only one entry per listener will be allowed).

Elemental-Gear Episode 10

Serhan — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 23:54:00 +0000

With Elemental-Gear Episode 10 we revisit the world of virtualization which we introduced in Episode 5 and describe how to setup a virtual testing lab using Microsoft Virtual Server. We also talk about Virtual Networks, using a NAT server to connect your virtual network to the “real” network, and reusable Windows images.

Our Picks for Episode 10 are the Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP in particular the Alt-Tab Replacement, Tweak UI, and Open Command Window Here PowerToys for yours truly and Jim picked the SC.exe command.

Elemental links for episode 10 were as follows:

Direct Link to Episode 10

Episode 10 Supporting Files

Serhan — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 02:18:00 +0000

The accompanying files for Episode 10 are available for download below:

The rest is coming soon...

Elemental-Gear Episode 9

Serhan — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 00:40:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear Episode 9 marks part 3 of our series on Digital Video where we cover capturing video from camcorders and TV broadcasts and making DVDs out of these videos. We talk about the differences between codecs, especially AVI and MPEG, discuss optimal MPEG 2 Encoding settings, and mastering DVDs using a couple different products.

The concepts we cover in this episode build on the topics we covered during episodes 6 and 7, so you might want to listen those episodes if you start to feel lost or don’t exactly understand where we are coming from.

Our Picks for Episode 9 are the GSpot Codec Information Appliance for yours truly and Jim picked the www.free-codecs.com website.

The elements we described during episode 9 were as follows:

Direct Link to Episode 9

Elemental-Gear Episode 8

Serhan — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 21:07:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear is back and the underlying theme for Episode 8 is “Pimp my PC”. We will be talking about our experiences while building new systems over the holidays and how we made these PCs visually interesting, we will also present an overview to PC modding.

We will also have a codec update, as you may know DivX 6.1 is out, and there is a newer Beta version of Dr. DivX 2.0. We will continue our series on Video in Episode 9 where we will be talking about capturing video from different sources.

Our Picks for Episode 8 are the Session Saver Extension for the FireFox browser picked by yours truly and Jim picked the 64-bit version of Daemon Tools.

The elements we described during episode 8 were as follows:

Below are couple pictures of the system that I build, Jim's pictures are not ready yet.

D irect Link to Episode 8

Episode 8 is coming in January

Serhan — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 04:15:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear will return with Episode 8 where will continue our discussions regarding digital video early in January of 2006.

We also have some great shows lined up for next year and are planning on introducing another short segment that’s geared around hardware.

Happy Holidays to everyone, see you next year...

Elemental-Gear Episode 7

Serhan — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:05:00 +0000

With Elemental-Gear episode 7 we are introducing part 2 of our series of episodes on video. We will be covering extracting digital video from DVDs and encoding that video into different formats. The purpose of doing this is to provide us with a stable, long term, space efficient, and high quality format for storage with flexible playback options on different devices. We talked about using 3 different encoding program: the DivX Create Bundle, Dr. DivX 2.0, and Auto Gordian Knot 2.25.

Our Picks for Episode 7 were the VLC Media Player for Jim and DVD Shrink yours truly.

The elements we described during episode 7 were as follows:

DivX 6 just came out for the Mac as well, we didn’t talk about it during this episode but it’s out there for all you Mac user, it includes the DivX Converter, DivX Codec, and DivX playback support if you want to check it out.

Direct Link to Episode 7

Elemental-Gear Episode 6

Serhan — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:41:00 +0000

With Elemental-Gear episode 6 we are starting a series of episodes on video. We will be covering video capture/extraction, video encoding, mastering DVDs, and basic video editing, but before we get started on all these fun topics...today’s episode covers some fundamentals and we will be talking about video delivery formats, digital video formats, and video codecs.

Our Picks for Episode 6 were the DIRUSE command for Jim and I picked Alcohol 120%.

The elements we described during episode 6 were as follows:

Direct Link to Episode 6

Elemental-Gear Episode 5

Serhan — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 03:19:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear episode 5 gives an introduction to virtualization, covers virtualization software from VMware and Microsoft, talks about the benefits of using virtual machines, describes setting up a basic virtual machine, etc...

We also introduced a new segment called Picks where we each pick a little utility or application and talk about how it makes our life easier.

Our Picks for episode 5 are DoubleKiller for Jim and Konfabulator for yours truly.

We described the following additional elements during episode 5:

Direct Link to Episode 5

Episode 5 is Coming Next Week

Serhan — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 03:42:00 +0000

We will be talking about Virtualization during our next episode using products from Microsoft and VMWare to setup virtual servers and workstations for different usage scenarios.

Elemental-Gear Episode 4

Serhan — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:57:00 +0000

As promised Elemental-Gear episode 4 is all about backups, backup strategies, backup software, and backup devices. We have discussions on how to perform different types of backups, how to pick the right backup devices for small business & home users, and other related topics.

We described the following elements during episode 4:

Direct Link to Episode 4

Elemental-Gear Episode 3

Serhan — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 02:15:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear episode 3 covers storage and storage sub-systems; we talk about different hard drive interfaces including (IDE, SATA, SCSI), disk controllers, RAID arrays, applications of RAID arrays, and related utilities.

If you are curious about dual core processor comparisons between the two big CPU manufactures check out this article entitled AMD’s Dual Core Athlon 64 X2 Strikes Hard.

We described the following components during episode 3:

Direct Link to Episode 3

Episode 2 is Coming Soon

Serhan — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 15:45:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear Episode 2 is coming soon where we will be talking about the dark art of overclocking...

Episode 3 is Almost Here

Serhan — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 00:25:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear Episode 3 is coming out next week and we will be covering storage...

Elemental-Gear Episode 2

Serhan — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 03:10:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear episode 2 explores the world of overclocking; we discuss the benefits of overclocking, describe PC components that are best suited for the job and provide some directions on how to successfully overclock a system and test it for stability.

We described the following components during the show:

Please keep in mind that overclocking may void your warranty and if done improbably it may even damage your hardware so please exercise caution.

Direct Link to Episode 2

Our Inaugural Episode

Serhan — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 15:20:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear episode 1 describes a server that Jim recently build and we compare Intel Xeon processors with the Dual-Core Opterons from AMD, we also have a discussion about dual graphics card technologies.

The main components Jim used on his ‘Dual-Dual’ server are listed below; to make life easier, the product links lead to newegg and TigerDirect where current prices are displayed:

Subscribe to Elemental-Gear's feed to automatically receive new episodes when they are released.

Direct Link to Episode 1

We Have a New Look

Serhan — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 16:17:00 +0000

We had several problems with the old gray template displaying everything correctly so we moved to this new look and so far everything is working out...not to mention, you can now visit our site using Mozilla Firefox and everything displays like it’s supposed to…

Issue with Mozilla Firefox

Serhan — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:05:00 +0000

We have recently noticed that our website does not display properly in Mozilla Firefox...we are working on resolving this issue.

Welcome to Elemental-Gear

Serhan — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 15:16:00 +0000

Elemental-Gear is a weekly podcast dedicated to computing technology. We will feature discussions on trends in computing and networking, provide brief product reviews, talking about hardware upgrades/issues, provide simple how to guides, and other technology related commentaries.

Jim and I are veteran IT Consultants with an undying love for Computing Technology and we love playing around with and talking about computers. Not too long ago, we had this crazy idea to take our phone and email discussion public and thus Elemental-Gear came to be. We hope that you will enjoy the show and feel free to email us with you comments.

At this point I would like to apologize for the 'dash' in our domain name, all other names we looked at were already taken and we had to choose name, but to make a long story short, we decided to embrace the dash rather then be intimidated by it and we hope you will do the same and find us without any problems.

Keep your fingers crossed Episode 1 is coming soon...