Reviews 51951 Published by

Here a roundup of todays reviews and articles:

10 Dark Windows Themes & Skins To Reduce Eye Strain
6 Tips For Creating An Unbreakable Password That You Can Remember
ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 Review
Eight 19-inch 4-bay rack NAS review: Rack storage
EVGA TORQ X10 Gaming Mouse Review
HD Video Editing PC - June 2014
How To Integrate Cloud Storage Services With Microsoft Office 2013
Kingston HyperX Cloud Review
Noctua redux & IndustrialPPC Review
Patriot Fuel+ 9000 mAh Mobile Rechargeable Battery Review
Plextor M6e 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD Review
Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290
Thecus N2560 Network Attached Storage (NAS) Review
ZOTAC ZBOX EN760 Plus Review



10 Dark Windows Themes & Skins To Reduce Eye Strain

Computer screens can be glaringly bright, especially in the dark. Try reducing eye strain by using a dark Windows visual style and web browser theme. You can even give every web page you view a white-text-on-black-background look. High-Contrast Themes You can choose from two types of dark Windows themes: (1) a high-contrast theme which wont look as pretty, but doesnt require any additional software or (2) a third-party theme, for which you need to perform a little hack on Windows to install it.

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

6 Tips For Creating An Unbreakable Password That You Can Remember

You can lock every door and window of your house, but if you use a skeleton key the odds are pretty good someone is probably going to end up robbing you blind. The same is true of your passwords. If your passwords are not unique and unbreakable, you might as well open the front door and invite the robbers in for lunch. A few years ago, Damien described a few ways to come up with strong passwords, like making sure you use special characters and that the password is at least 8 characters long.

Read full article @ MakeUseOf

ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 Review

With their TUF series motherboards ASUS, have rather interesting products in their portfolio. Next to their unique design, these boards feature good cooling with the thermal shield and apart from that there is a decent power design as well as an overall high quality. All of this even comes at an interesting price point which sounds like a compelling offer, doesn't it?

Read full article @ ocaholic

Eight 19-inch 4-bay rack NAS review: Rack storage

The fact that NAS devices are interesting products does not only hold true for consumers; businesses especially can also make good use of these devices. Easy to install, and featuring a large amount of functionality. Whether you are looking for an easy addition of some extra storage which you can connect to your servers or virtualized environment using ISCSI, or looking for an all-in-one solution as a small business: with these devices you've come to the right place. Technically speaking, they (obviously) look a lot like their desktop counterparts, but because they can be mounted in a 19-inch rack, they are better suited for a business environment. Although naturally, there also are Hardware.Info readers who have such a rack at home.

NAS devices are slowly but surely evolving into a new type of device. Whereas they previously were true storage solutions, nowadays they are becoming more functional, app-driven products, much like telephones and tablets. This could be especially interesting in a (smaller) business environment, as you can add a machine which can handle a specific set of tasks for you in an instant. For example, some devices allow you to create your own Dropbox-like environment, to host a Wordpress-site, or even to run a complete CRM system.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

EVGA TORQ X10 Gaming Mouse Review

The TORQ X10 may be EVGA's first gaming mouse but its design, feature set and excellent build quality competes with some of the best peripherals available today.

Read full article @ Hardware Canucks

HD Video Editing PC - June 2014

A few years ago, your PC just couldn't be fast enough for digital video processing. By now every average PC is able to process Standard Definition (PAL 720x576) as well as HD Ready, but technology doesn't stand still. By now just about every smartphone can record in HD or Full HD and the new frontier is Ultra HD, also known as 4K. This resolution and the 'accompanying' codec HEVC / H.265 require seriously powerful hardware.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

How To Integrate Cloud Storage Services With Microsoft Office 2013

One of the great benefits of upgrading to Microsoft Office 2013 is its built-in support for cloud storage. The downside though is that it only supports Office 365 Sharepoint and OneDrive - both Microsoft products.

Maybe you don't like putting your data in Microsoft's server. After all, documents leaked by Edward Snowden showed that Microsoft gave the NSA easier access to Hotmail, Skype and their SkyDrive cloud storage service (now renamed to OneDrive).

It doesn't help that Microsoft recently admitted to snooping into a French blogger's Hotmail account in their efforts to weasel out the identity of their employee, Alex Kibkalo, who was leaking "proprietary and confidential trade secrets", namely the pre-release hotfixes for Windows 8 RT.

Read full article @ Tech ARP

Kingston HyperX Cloud Review

Previously, Kingston HyperX have placed their mark on the iconic Siberia V2 to aid their brand awareness in the world of eSports. Now having deeper roots in eSports, sponsoring many teams between LoL (Cloud9 HyperX) and DotA2 (Alliance, TeamLiquid), it would appear that they are at it again. This time they team up with QPad to mix a little HyperX branding magic with the QH-90 to create the HyperX Cloud. Though it would appear that the QH-90 itself is a modified Takstar PRO 80, the formula itself is a logical one, excellent audiophile level audio with desirable features that distinguish contemporary gaming headsets from older generation ones.

Read full article @ Vortez

Noctua redux & IndustrialPPC Review

Noctua’s highly anticipated announcement of new colour schemes, in the form of new models called Noctua redux and IndustrialPPC, was met with mixed reactions. On one hand, Noctua’s customers finally have the option of buying fans that they know will be high quality, with a colour scheme that potentially works better with their current design. On the other, the features seem to be quite limited.

Normally a Noctua fan will include rubber dampening pads, a low-noise adapter, an extension cable, a Y-splitter cable, and some rubber anti-vibration mounts. The Noctua redux includes the fan and four plain mounting screws; Noctua IndustrialPPC adds some dampening pads. The cables are 40cm in length rather than 20cm, which eliminates the need for extension cables, but may require some extra effort in cable management if the length isn’t required.

Read full article @ Hardcoreware

Patriot Fuel+ 9000 mAh Mobile Rechargeable Battery Review

Almost one year ago, Patriot released the Fuel+, a complete line of mobile rechargeable batteries. There are available serveral models, from 3000 mAh up to 9000 mAh. Today we will analyze the flagship of the bunch, the Fuel+ 9000.

Read full article @ ocaholic

Plextor M6e 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD Review

Are you wanting to get beyond 550MB/s without having to do a RAID setup? Are you willing to try a new interface? Meet the Plextor M6e Series of PCI Express SSDs! Plextor is leading the charge for native PCIe SSDs and has come up with the first readily-available M.2 PCIe SSD on the consumer market. Other drives like the Samsung XP941 series have been around much longer, but they are OEM only and aren’t really meant for end users. Plextor has stepped up to the plate with a drive that had end user firmware updates, an impressive 5-year warranty and mouth watering speeds.

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290

With all of the Sapphire cards that launched this year the one model that I didn’t get a chance to check out was their Vapor-X cards. They share a lot of the styling of their other cards but Sapphire changed up the cooling design with a vapor chamber sitting between the heatsink and the GPU and PCB to spread out the heat for better cooling. I had to see how it compares to the standard Tri-X cooling as well as the competition, so I got in touch with Sapphire and put their Vapor-X 290 to the test.

Read full article @ LanOC Reviews

Thecus N2560 Network Attached Storage (NAS) Review

Finding the right product for the job is the most important thing with so many jobs. It doesn't always have to be the most expensive product in order to get the job done, but usually the cheapest product doesn't work very well. However, I have been surprised a few times where the cheaper product actually out performed some of the more expensive competition. The other consideration is that the more expensive products can be time saving and, depending on how much you value time, it may be worth spending the extra money.

I am going to use construction material as an example here, in particular, the cheap caulk that you could use to seal up gaps in your home. The cheap caulk that they sell around here often shrinks and you end up with the gaps coming back in a year or two. So then you have to spend more money to buy more and do the work over again. I have found that if I spend the extra money on the high quality silicone caulk, then I only have to do the job once. The same often can be said for electronics and computer equipment, top of the line is not always the best and cheapest is not always the worst.


Read full article @ HiTech Legion

ZOTAC ZBOX EN760 Plus Review

Zotac have been through many evolutions of their Zbox, starting with the original model around 5 years ago and bringing things into a new, orb style chassis more recently. Today we take a look at a Zbox which has familiar styling but brings the internals into the latest generation by using the new GeForce GTX860M.

Read full article @ HardwareHeaven.com