Big PC Geek Tech Blog

Just got my KPC Shuttle mini PC and within 30 minutes I had it running. This PC is perfect for many purposes or when you need a small PC. I bought a barebones K45 KPC for $100, installed a P4, some ram, and some hard drive I had laying around and I was ready to go. The biggest problem anyone is going to have with this PC is the power supply, it is green but only has 1  sata and 1 standard 12v connector for your hard drives. There are plenty of ports on the back: VGA, Parallel, serial, Ethernet USB… You can look this up for yourself!

Here is the hidden gem I found! Everywhere I looked, there was no mention of a CD-Rom drive bay in the front online or in any documentation. I have amazing  news to report! Inside the KPC there is two slots for standard hard drives and one slot at the top for a laptop Rom drive. Unfortunately, you will have to take off the beautiful Plexiglas bezel that houses those pretty pictures in the front but with a little DIY fun, you can make your own.

Take a look at the pics.

Originally, the Shuttle KPC computer was supposed to be sold exclusive from NewEgg.com for $200 but they raised the price no doubt because of many orders. Currently, the KPC is no longer available. Even though Windows is not included and Linux is, any computer at a $200 price point is amazing. Celeron Processor, 80GB hard drive, 512mb of Ram, and no CD-Rom drive makes this computer possible but the fact that it is fully functional makes it a great deal. The linux OS included is great to give to a child learning their first computer or a Internet computer for the living room. I have found a barebones version for $100 which does not include the processor, ram, or hard drive for a project of my own. Going to have some fun in the weeks ahead.

To purchase this computer, check NewEgg.com frequently, the price might be $230 but should go to $200 soon.

I recently purchased a Blu-Ray Player not for my home theater system but for my computer and there are some things people should know before they try to tackle adding Blu-Ray to players to their computer. Luckily, I had been planning this so I was not as unprepared as some might be.

First HDCP which stands for High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection and it is the new wave of copy protection added to Blu-Ray movie discs. The key to remember is that all devices in your computer that a Blu-Ray movie’s data will transfer through needs to be HDCP compliant or the movie won’t play. This means the Blu-Ray drive need to have HDCP but that should be included in all Blu-Ray players, your video card must be HDCP compliant, and finally your monitor must be HDCP compliant. If you have a computer with none of this, it can be very costly to add a Blu-Ray player and it might be cheaper to get a dedicated player for your TV. One last part you will need is software to play it on like Power DVD Blu-Ray edition which may be included with your Rom drive.

Seriously, this copyright junk really makes life miserable for honest people but it is necessary given all the people who steal movies and music over the Internet. HDCP is no joke, I have an nvidia 8800 GTS which is a high end HDCP compliant. To test HDCP, I connected my 8800 to two monitors, one HDCP compliant, and one not. I decided to move a playing Blu-Ray movie between the HDCP compliant monitor over to the non-compliant and as soon as I moved the window, it stopped playing and threw an error message at me. No exceptions, HDCP needs the Blu-Ray player, special video card, special monitor, and Blu-Ray player software. There is a possibility that there is some other HDCP compliant hardware that may be necessary which I have and have not heard of. This was tested on Windows Vista, I have no clue if XP will support Blu-Ray even with compliant hardware.

Everything I say goes for Windows computers only, all of you Mac people have to wait till Apple decides to add the functionality.

Ever wanted to add your Windows Explorer (My Computer) or just called Computer in Vista? All you have to do is click Start, All Programs, Accessories, and then right click on Windows Explorer and select Add to quick launch.

Ok, yes Windows Explorer is not My Computer but to my knowledge you cant add My Computer to the quick launch area buy you can click my computer on the left hand side. Some might think that this actually may add steps to get to your My Computer but Windows Explorer is where you can find the directory of any file.

I think most would only want to do this if they use quick launch frequently.