ASUS M4A785-M review – overclocking the 6-core AMD Phenom II X6 1055T at stock voltage

I got one of the most cost-effective 6-core setups you can put together, did some overclocking, and watched the heat.

Maya 2011 and Mental Ray Satellite – always benchmark first!

My first look at multiple machines trying to render via Mental Ray Satellite, and why I’m glad I benchmarked first.

How to fix Windows not installing to a GPT partition.

Some versions of Windows are picky and won’t format a disk that’s already formatted differently. Here’s how you can work around it.

Asus P5KPL-CM and BSEL pin volt mods – Don’t bother, they don’t work.

My failed attempts at pin modding the P5KPL-CM motherboards.

Overclocking the i3 540 on the Gigabyte H55M-UD2H past 4Ghz

Pushing the i3 540 past 4Ghz!

Power consumption of various household items…

Ever wonder how much juice the items in your house use? I tested a number of items and you may find the results surprising.

Time Capsule 1TB uses the WD Caviar Green

I wasn’t sure what hard drive would be in my Time Capsule (purchased in Canada). Pulling it apart, it turns out it’s the WD Caviar Green – not bad!

Boot Camp and the Apple Wireless Mouse not working

Apple’s “Magic Mouse” works fine in Mac OS X. On Windows through BootCamp though… that’s another matter.

PST online payments in Manitoba

The Government of Manitoba is getting a little more high-tech! You can now process PST payments online.

Leliana’s Song – Find the Mages’ Cache

Having trouble finding the Mages Collective Cache in DA:O? I sure was.

in-win BL-631 case review – small, packed, and mostly quiet with decent airflow

The in-win BL-631 is a fairly small case, with a packed interior. I go over an installation and mention the quirks and qualms I ran into.

The fix when the P5KPL-CM won’t sleep

Who would have thought a motherboard wouldn’t sleep because of a default jumper setting?

FreeNAS – a powerful file serving solution, but not without its issues

I take a look at FreeNAS, with a slight focus on ZFS.

FreeNAS fix – afp file permissions

If you aren’t used to setting file permissions in your OS, FreeNAS might be your first introduction. Here’s how you set them.

FreeNAS fix – creating ZFS raid-5 (aka raidz) and UNKNOWN showing everywhere

A number of things in FreeNAS showed up as UNKNOWN when trying to set up ZFS partitions. Here’s how I worked around it.

FreeNAS error while installing – the fix

A workaround when trying to install FreeNAS to a USB stick and running into the “failed to dd image” message.

VMWare Fusion 3 vs Parallels 5 – Windows GAMING on the Mac

Hoping to run a game on your Mac through Fusion 3 or Parallels 5? Both can play games, though how they each fare varies quite a bit.

Anti-Virus software and activation: Why free just might be better than paid

My poor experience with Kaspersky de-activation on licenses I bought. Directly from them. And why free anti-virus has better uptime and is cheaper.

Cities XL vs Sim City 4

Having played both, here’s a comparison in case you’re trying to decide on one or the other.

Samsung ML-1210 and Windows 7 – the driver

Getting the Samsung ML-1210 driver to work well with Windows 7 wasn’t straightforward. Fortunately, the trick to get it working is easy.