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brycv.com

A window into the Digital Life of Bryan Vyhmeister

SilverStone FT03-Mini Set to Be the Mini-ITX Case to Beat

Although the form factor has its limitations, I continue to be fascinated with Mini-ITX systems. The newest Mini-ITX premium case is the SilverStone FT03-Mini. It has a similar but more compact form factor to the Micro ATX SilverStone FT03. I never ended up purchasing the FT03 but the FT03 Mini is on the top of my list. This morning, the FT03-Mini models showed up in stock at Newegg.

Ivy Bridge Processor Guide

As of this past Sunday, Ivy Bridge processors are now officially available for sale. This article is intended as an initial guide to the available options and whether you should upgrade. Intel has only released some of the Ivy Bridge processors and the remaining models including all of the slower Ivy Bridge mobile processors will not be released until June. This article will only cover a selection of the available Ivy Bridge desktop processors.

Building Your Own Minecraft Server: Hardware

A friend of mine introduced me to Minecraft about a year ago. It’s a very interesting and creative game. It’s a fun activity with our oldest son since you can build all sorts of amazing structures in the game. Most everyone I’ve played with likes the creative mode which is all about building and does not involve any monsters. In any case, if you are not familiar with the game, you can find out all about it at Minecraft.net.

Ivy Bridge Motherboards: Asus Sabertooth Z77

In line with Intel’s tick tock roadmap of processor introductions, Ivy Bridge processors are officially available on April 29 as the tick. Earlier this month, the first motherboards featuring the new Z77, H77, and B75 chipsets started emerging. Although I don’t have an Ivy Bridge processor at this time, these new boards work perfectly with Sandy Bridge processors. This is a rundown of the some of the best boards so far.

Top iPad Accessories: Keyboard

As I have covered before, one of the major needs with the iPad if you want to use it for content creation, is an external keyboard. There are a few different options but one sticks out as my favorite.

Back in the Land of the iPad (and 4G)

I purchased my first iPad right when they were first announced and I received it the first day of availability. In fact, I drove to the FedEx hub so I could pick it up as soon as the truck arrived from distribution. I purchased the top-of-the-line iPad 3G 64GB. I kept it for almost a year but decided to sell it in early 2011 shortly before the iPad 2 release. For a variety of reasons, I never purchased the iPad 2. On Friday, I decided to purchase the new iPad.

Chrome vs Safari

On anything but Windows, the choice of a web browser falls to a half dozen different options but only a few stick out as the very best choices. The three most commonly used browsers for non-Microsoft platforms seem to be Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, and Firefox. My web browser choice seems to alternate between Chrome and Safari these days. This is the first post in a series about what I like and what I do not in these browsers.