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France
The Gallic attempt to emulate Japan's Akiba's success gave rise some years back to Rue Montgallet and consequently to its website RueMontgallet.com (when will there be a tottenhamcourtroad.co.uk? [Never, hopefully, Ed.]). The French lot is currently selling an Asus v9950se graphic card for EUR 179 (USD 215, GBP 120). It is known either as the SE or the GE for "Gamers' Edition". Armed with the old favorite NV35/GFX 5900 clocked at 400MHz (memory 350MHz), it has VGA, TVO and DVI ports and is bundled with a dozen games and applications. With 2.8 nanoseconds memory, its overclocking capabilities are limited but it does prove to be a very worthy competitor to the Radeon 9800se. In the UK, dabs sells a comparable item for GBP 109.

The vendor's website is here v9950SE official webpage is here Reviews can be found here, here, here and here. µ

USA
Computersurplusoutlet.com has a free offer which has been lasting a while. Basically, you get a free High Quality Microphone from Labtec, the AM240 fleximount microphone. It features NCA technology (Noise Cancelling and Amplification) to provide optimal voice clarity for voice command. It stands as it is or mounted on a monitor or on your shirt and has a 2.5m shielded cord with a gold plug. Very impressive given the price... It is on sale in UK for around £10 and in the US for USD 10. No reviews were found on the enternet. Computersurplusoutlet's page is here. µ

UK
Sometimes, you just wonder whether the floppy has its raison d'etre nowadays. Morgan Computers, on New Oxford Street in Londinium, provides yet another nail in the old 3.5-inch FDD coffin. It is currently flogging a 32MB memory key from Hewlett P for only GBP 7.99+VAT, less than a floppy disk drive and two dozen diskettes. It has embedded drivers for Windows XP and 2000 and has a USB 1.1 interface. With all new PCs having a couple or more USB ports, why should we still stick to the floppy disk? Windows 98SE drivers are found here, Morgan's web page is here. In the USA, Tiger Direct sells a comparable item for USD 11.99. µ

Singapore
Barebones system have taken over the world. Shuttle set the trend only for much bigger firms to follow. Amongst them, the PC Chips group has proved to be the most value conscious as usual. Hardwareplace is selling its latest AMD Athlon XP barebone, the EZ-Buddie D3V7-2 for SGD 235 (Around GBP 78). The same product costs GBP 80 inc. VAT in UK at ebuyer. It costs substantially less than similar products from Shuttle or Epox, but doesn't skip on features. It is slightly less than half a cubic feet in volume (grossly three reams of A4 paper), made of aluminium (yes!), has 18 inputs/outputs including 2 Firewire and 5 USBs, has a card reader and a cool speedometer. Its motherboard is based on a KM400 chipset, meaning that it does support the latest Athlon XP processors. It also sports an AGP 8x Slot, a PCI slot and a CNR slot. It also comes with two DIMM memory banks and has integrated lan and a 5.1 sound chip. Finally, it has its own exhaust which should save you some monnies as it does accept OEM CPUs. Have I told you it also has a Card reader and that it sports and external adaptor? Reminds me of Carla's iPaq but in a much better way... The official website is here. µ