Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on August 18, 2008 by CyberNet.

Mac only
One of the things that I really like being able to do on my MacBook Pro is monitor the temperature of various parts of my laptop, and also control the speed of the fans. Using the iStat Pro widget (review) I’m able to read the temperature of my hard drive, CPU, GPU, heatsinks, wireless card, and more. If you want you can take it a step further and even control the speed of your fans.

When I’m running a lot of different applications on my computer I’ve noticed that the fans don’t always increase their speed despite the temperatures rising to nearly 70 degrees Celsius. After a little searching around I found a free program called smcFanControl that lets me create different profiles to control the minimum fan speed.

By default Apple has set the fans to run at 2000 RPM, but smcFanControl will let you override the minimum speed setting. It will not, however, let you set the minimum speed below what the default is.

After running smcFanControl I configured a few different profiles. The default one, which I still use almost all of the time, is set to run at a minimum of 2000 RPM. Then I also created two other profiles that run at 3000 and 4000 RPM respectively. With a quick glance at my Menubar I can see what my CPU temperature is, and choose one of the alternate profiles accordingly:

The fans don’t have any problem going this fast, and can actually be pushed up to 6000 RPM. You do need to keep in mind that running your fans at a higher speed for a long period of time could make them more prone to failure due to the extra wear and tear. In my case I only bump it up when I see my processor temperature inching closer to the 70 degrees Celsius mark, but I normally use the Apple-recommended 2000 RPM speed.

Get smcFanControl for Mac

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Man, is there anything the iPhone can’t do? Police arrested a man after holding up a Connecticut-area Indian restaurant, this week. Jerome Taylor, the 20-year would-be robber told restaurant workers that he had a gun. The cooks weren’t willing to hand over the cash so easily, grabbing knives and standing up to him.

Taylor apologized, adding that the robbery was a joke and he needed money to support his kids, quickly fleeing the scene. When the cops caught up with him, he confessed to the crime–everything but the iPhone part. According to Taylor, he was actually wielding an iPhone.

If Steve Jobs were present, I’m sure he’d let Taylor know that he was holding it wrong. Officers arrested Taylor, despite the restaurant’s insistence on not pressing charges.

Skype CEO Tony Bates issued an apology to customers affected by the service’s 30 hour shutdown. “We’ve been able to successfully stabilize Skype due to the dedicated supernodes deployed by Skype’s engineering team,” Bates wrote in a blog post. “We’re at roughly 90 percent of normal user volumes.”

According to the update, issued yesterday, audio, video, and IM are all back online, though a few services like Group Video Calling and offline IM are still having problems.

The company still isn’t entirely sure what caused the outage, though it is offering 30 minutes of free calling to paid subscribers via e-mail. Active subscribers will get a free week’s worth of service, which will be applied open their next renewel date.

“Again, we sincerely apologize to all of you for this service outage and the inconvenience it has caused,” added the exec. “We know how important it is for Skype to be available, so you can connect to your friends, family and colleagues.”

Digitimes.com reports that Logitech has ordered Gigabyte Technology to temporarily suspend shipments of Revue set-top boxes.

Originally posted at Media Maverick

We’ve seen our fair share of budget tablets from the Augens, Cobys, and Viewsonics of the world over the last six months, but let’s not forget that before everyone and their mother jumped into the cheap-o Android tablet pool, Archos was already in the shallow end with its own sub-$200 tablets. But, while the company was first to market, products like the Archos 5 and 7 Home Tablet certainly weren’t anything to wait in line for — they both packed slow processors, resistive displays, and ran outdated versions of Google’s mobile OS. Whether it was the mediocre reviews or the competition coming up behind them, the French company knew it was time to step it up, and its Archos 70 and 101 attempt to right all those wrongs. The 7- and 10-inch tablet both have Android 2.2, 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processors, and capacitive screens. Oh, and don’t forget the front-facing VGA cameras. With each ringing up at $299, has Archos finally mastered the art of the cheap tablet? Find out in our full review!

Continue reading Archos 70 and 101 Internet Tablet review

Archos 70 and 101 Internet Tablet review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 12:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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