Category Archives: For free/sale/trade/recycle

iMac G5 2.16GHz 20″ For Sale

My friend Peter is parting with his iMac G5. The machine is in excellent condition and still has over one year of Apple Care warranty left on it, too. Here are the specs in short:

– Last PowerPC-based G5 generation, 2.16GHz
– 1.5GB RAM
– 250 GB HD
– 20″ LCD
– Built-in iSight Camera
– Keyboard, Mighty Mouse
– SuperDrive
– 128MB ATI Graphics Card
– Airport Extreme Networking
– 3 USB2 ports
– 2 Firewire 400 ports

Best offer!

Please contact via email: pjy@speakeasy.net

VHS to DVD

I’m thinking of converting a bunch of old sentimental VHS tapes to DVD for my parents for Christmas.
Anyone have a suggestion for the in-between converter or have one I could possibly borrow?

I’d be going from VHS to firewire in a Mac.  I just want to convert the video into a new format and keep all the raw footage for maybe a project down the road.

Simple and cost-effective are both at the top of my list.

Disk Storage

Anyone have any insight into inexpensive but plentiful storage systems?

I’m finally at the point where it’s time to start re-ripping my CD collection into some lossless format. My estimates are that it will take between about 700-750G to hold the whole thing. I need to keep one copy at home and on-line for the home-audio system, and I’d like it to be network attached. Hopefully it’s reasonably priced so I can afford a second one as the project goes forward to have some kind of off-site backup.

I’ve looked at the Drobo, and really like the idea, but it’s USB only and costs $500 for the empty cabinet, then you still have to add drives.

Western Digital’s MyBook World II Edition looks pretty good, with gig-ethernet, compact size, and decent price (about $300 right now from buy.com for the 1T model w/ 2x500G drives). Although that assumes you stripe the included drives to get the 1T, which means a drive failure takes out the entire collection, making a second unit for off-site storage far more important.

LaCie has a similar product (to the WD MyBook) for about $450 via buy.com, but USB 2.0, no network. Same problems with the redundancy part.

There’s also Hammer Storage, who has a 2T unit with network support (2x1T drives) for about $650. Price is higher and the unit is larger, so that makes off-site a bit more difficult.
Anyone else have any thoughts or suggestions?