Just thought I'd start a thread here. I was wondering, what are some of you guys favorite computer hardware or SW?

Mine might be like:

Signal converters
Overclocking tools
Rounded IDE cables

:D

What are your's?

It's got to be LAN really.
And very fast CPU's and RAM.

fast GPU/CPU combo,

neons, casefans.. casefans with leds.. etc!

I love my speakers and mp3's....and every p2p program :D ...don't forget about the beautiful cd burner ;)

Originally posted by grazzhoppa
...don't forget about the beautiful cd burner ;)

oh yes, of course.. and i *love* my DSL..

I love my AMD K6 200.

And my 6.4 gig hard drive.

My 96 MB of RAM.

Running Windows XP Pro. :)

(Next computer is going Mac OSX I think.)

I really like my silver TI-89 graph link. That thing rocks. Although it is more of an external thing.

Software - I also love MP3's. Not to mention Winamp. I use something called download accelerator plus. the best download manager there is.

Opera
Pegasus mail
Xnews
Trillian
RealFTP

All free surprisingly

Mp3's! :D (Is there something called a Mp4?)

Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw used in unison...make good pictures. :)

(Is there something called a Mp4?)
of course - it's video format

Ooh, I see. :cool: Wonder what a Mp5 will be? Maybe virtual reality! :D

Actually MP3 stands for MPEG Version 3, it was originally meant for movies I believe and is a compression method with a higher ratio than it's previous counterparts.

So MP5 would be the fifth version, with a larger compression ratio.

MP3 is audio only. MPEG would be version 4x, is the current version I believe (I wouldn't know, for the most part I stopped watching porn movies long ago :o :D ) It is a compression style. These things are often referred to as codecs. Other video compressions would be like the popular Divx for example. Also, Apple (Mac computers) have their own little thing with QuickTime movies.

There are other types as well, like WMA files which are used for streaming video (like downloading and watching at the same time - it has a frame buffer to it, so these files are not good for offline viewing).

The file extension for MP3 is just that, MP3. The extension for an MPEG movie is MPG Movies that use other compression forms are generally AVI files with built in compression that rely on other sources for playback (they are encoded at the time of making). Or you could have another specific format (like RMF, which is unique to the god awful RealPlayer program).

Some of the things you guys are listing are essential for gaming (like fast GPUs). I really meant more accessories you found very useful and couldn't live without.

For example, standard ribbon IDE cables are large (they block air flow and take up alot of room), prone to signal distruption (they have no shielding, rounded cables are twisted which helps, and wrapped in rubber, one of the worst conductors of eletricity in the world and slightly block interference), and getting kinks and creases (which can bend the copper wires inside, and make the cable useless).

It may not seem like a big deal, but I love mine, I am really running out of room in my case.

Without signal converters, video capture or exporting would be impossible (and or decoder/encoder chips). So if you had something on a VCR tape, you could never get it as an AVI video file on your harddrive. Unless of course, video cards were designed for Coex and not VGA, and came with input automatically :-S

I think overclocking tools should be obvious :D

I kind of agree with the speaker setups that are now out there. Amazing advances have been made in the computer speaker setups and they now offer some suprisingly good sounds for little money.

You can get a 5 speaker setup for around $50 that rival cheap stereos but have spatical displacement. Nice.