Latest DFI LAN Party, Hack Your Cable Modem, ASUS Server board

Hey folks, it's hard to believe that the new year is upon us.  2004 has flown by in my opinion, with a lot of changes in my life occurring.  I hope 2005 will be a good one, with a few goals set, it could be.  I'm not big on the whole "resolution" thing, but there is that sense of a clean slate, starting fresh.  I have to say, I always get a bit of a chuckle this time of year when you suddenly start seeing more joggers than usual on the road.  I guess getting in shape is the most popular resolution out there.  Well, I'm running a little slow today, woke up with no coffee in the house.  So let's get the news going so I can go get my java!

DFI LANParty UT 915P-T12 LGA775 Motherboard @ Systemcooling:

"Some people are laboring under the assumption that DFI is a relatively new company. In fact, that couldn't be further from the truth. They've been around quietly doing their business in an unspectacular style for over 20 years now. The reason for this assumption is that they were almost exclusively an OEM supplier for a very long time, and their products were not the kind that inspired the interest of the enthusiast market. That all changed a year or two ago when DFI introduced their LANParty series of motherboards, boards that had unheard-of style, with their brightly colored UV reactive components, to go along with what proved to be excellent performance. The board we're looking at today, the DFI LANParty UT 915P-T12, is one of the newest members of the LANParty stable, and we'll find out if the board is a worthy successor to the LANParty name and reputation"

OK, this one is for those of you who really like to get your hands dirty. Tcniso.net has a cool tutorial on hacking your cable modem. Interesting stuff if you have the right model:

"The following tutorial explains how to implement a modification and hack that enabled a "secret" menu that the developers wrote into the bootloader of this modem. This modification works on RCA 245 and 305 and Thomson 290 modems, it may work on other models too! Once you have enabled the developers menu, you can easily change many of the startup parameters, hardware addresses, firmware, EEPROM as well as a suite of diagnostic tests."

ASUS NCL-DS1 Server Board (E7520) @ Hardwarezone.com:

"The ASUS NCL-DS1 is the latest server board based on Intel's Lindenhurst (E7520) chipset supporting PCI Express technology. Instead of utilizing expensive DDR2, the NCL-DS1 offers I.T. managers a cost effective Xeon platform using readily available DDR333 memory parts."