Monday's Daily Hardware Buys

IF YOU know of any good value IT sales (auctions, rebates, one-off, clearance, surplus, classified ads) going around in the United Kingdom, France, USA or Singapore, don't hesitate to contact me, at least 24 hours before the sales end. Due to a regrettable typing mistake, the price of the AIW card yesterday appeared as $15 instead of $157, apologies to all of you.

Today's special Daily buy is entirely dedicated to the UK's first and only non-profit computer company. Afterhours computers was created back in 1999 and after having started as a traditional outfit, the owner's wife became housebound due to a serious illness, the result of which was that all the profit of selling computer parts and services now go to the West Kent Neuro Rehabilitation Unit, in Sevenoaks. AHC however are better known for having some pretty unique products on sale; some of which we are going to see right now.

Right now if you're looking for a quality powerboard, let say a Quad Opteron motherboard, you just cannot pop in PC World and ask them for one. You can fly to USA and get back with one but it will be pretty darn when a problem occurs. The other place of course is AHC, they are selling the Tyan S4882UG2NR, which is that Quad Opteron board you saw sometimes back at the Inquirer. At £978.50+VAT, it is competitively priced with US imports and you will get support back here. The board supports up to four AMD Opteron 800 Series processors. It uses the AMD 8131 chipset featuring the Hypertransport PCI-X Tunner. What ore, it has up to sixteen 184-pin 2.5v DDR 400 DIMM socket, each capable of supporting 2GB of registered memory, giving up a mind-boggling 32GB memory - more than some entry level computer hard disks and a hundred times what you'd find on most entry level comptuers. It has two serial, two USB and one parallel ports. Other specs include an interagted Dual Channel U320 SCSI and SATA RAID controller - supporting four ports, two Ethernet LAN ports supporting GB speeds and four 64-bit PCI slots and one traditional PCI slot. The graphics controller is the ATI Rage XL.

Another very interesting product is the Nisis Pocket DV5 MPEG4 Digital Video Camera/camcorder . The camcorder is an evolution of the DV2 which can be found coming from Aiptek or Mustek. Like its predecessors, the DV5 combines many functions into one compact body - it can take photos, record sound, act like a digital camcorder, read and write to memory cards, act like a webcam and even like a small telly. It has a high resolution 3.1 megapixel CMOS colour pixel and employs a built in software interpolation to produce stills up to 4.1 Mpixel. The DV5 has a 1.8-inch colour TFT LCD screen which is larger than any previous NISIS DV Camera, and can be tilted through angles of up to 225 degrees so you can see what you are recording in just about any direction. An ergonomic and streamlined exterior, distinguishes the NISIS Pocket DV5 camera from the typical and standard design offered by other camera manufacturers. The stylish design provides maximum comfort in handling without sacrificing ease-of-use while using the camera's many functions using only one hand. It utilises the latest, industry standard, MPEG-4 encoding technology so you can record longer, and higher resolution video clips, than was achievable with earlier DV Cameras. It can record videos at VGA resolutions which corresponds to SVHS. A demonstration video is available on AHC's website. The camera has 32MB memory for image buffer and 16MB memory for storage. Interestingly, it also features a powerful flash and anti red eye technology. A 4x digital zoom will make sure that you can get close to the scene in a fraction of a second. Its multimedia use is also highlighted by the presence of a microphone, a speaker and IO ports to your telly. Last but not least, the DV5 is compatible with CF cards and Microdrive - this of course opens the way for massively cheap storage, you can get a 2.2GB Microdrive for around £70, enough for 4000 photos at maximum resolution, 3 hours of high resolution stereo video or several days of MP3 songs. Not bad at all for a camera costing only £85.50+VAT.

If you are a audiophile, you probably know the build quality of Terratec products. Even if the Terratec DMX 6Fire 24/96 sound system is nearly three year old now, it still commands respect. The card comes with six analog out and works with sound in a 24-bit 96Khz environment. The DMX 6fire24/96 uses only the best in sound technology - 24Bit/96kHz transducer components for all inputs and outputs guarantee a straight frequency response and a signal-to-noise ratio beyond-100db. The bundled 5.25-inch front module offers audiophile options to sound enthusiasts. In addition to stereo inputs and outputs for analogue and digital devices - optical and coaxial-, there are plugs for MIDI instruments, headphone and microphone. Furthermore, a direct connection of tape deck and record player is also possible and the supplied power pack of phono amplifier and professional software enables you to polish your oldest records with the finest digital sound. Gamers will be served by the range of compatibility. Fast DirectSound, EAX, A3D, Sensaura 3D or MacroFX are just a few of the favourite standards supported. The seamless connectivity with DVD players, AC3- and DTS reproduction via the digital interface, as well as the full support of current Windows operating systems from 98SE to XP with WDM drivers, is also a big advantage. For an easy start, the package includes various applications from DVD player to audio editors and virtual sound studio; it offers everything you can dream of. PC Format says of it "The 6Fire delivers crystal clear sound... and when it comes to recording, it's a better performer than its Creative rival. That's because it delivers genuine 24-bit/96KHz sampling". Thr price asked might be steep at £109+VAT, but you won't find anything cheaper in UK.