WebElites - Technology and Website Reviews

Hello all, this is Tonka, a new contributor to the WebElites website. Before I get started, I’m a volunteer firefighter and EMS provider on my local fire dept. and an avid video game player. I enjoy technology and hopefully I’ll be providing plenty of reviews.

Today I’ll be providing a review of a tool that is helpful for those who like to overclock their video cards. I personally run a Dell that has 2 gig’s of RAM, a 40 Gig harddrive, 2.4Mhz processor, and a 1650x ATI Radeon video card. This rig isn’t the best in the world and is pretty decent for someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of money to spend on computer parts. However, lately I’ve been fiddling with trying to get higher FPS in my gaming and decided to try overclocking.

Now a word of warning, Overclocking can void your video card’s warrenty and can overheat and DAMAGE your video card. Do not do this if you don’t know what you’re doing. For those who don’t know what an overclock is, it’s pushing the processor and GPU to run at a higher Mhz then the factory default.

ATI cards usually come with a Overdrive feature that will overclock  your card slowly and find it’s limits and sets the overclock just a few notchs below that limit, however, this feature only comes with their newer cards. My card lacks this feature. After some searching around, I came apon a nifty little program that is FREE and simple to use to those with some experience with video card settings. The card allows you to manually set your overclock and fiddle with video card settings. It also allows for testing to make sure you aren’t overloading your card and allow you to keep tabs on the card’s temp. It can also go a little bit more advanced and actually allow you to change settings that the normal CCC program that goes with the Radeon cards cannot do.

Here’s the website for Tray tools that is hosting with Guru3d.  The download link is also there.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-tray-tools-/

 Our Rating For ATI Tray Tools: 5 Stars!

At first I thought Google Chromium, or Chrome, was just Google’s attempt to get into another field.  I didn’t think they would make a good or even fair browser.  I was very wrong.

Chrome gives the option to search directly from the address bar. Other browsers such as Opera have this, but this browser gives suggestions of what to search for. When you open a new tab in Chrome it shows some of your most frequently used pages. This is similar to Opera’s speed dial except it is automatic.

The best part of Chrome for me is that it’s a lot faster. I can surf the web much faster than I can with Opera or Internet Explorer. It seems like both the actual speed and the access time are faster. I have satellite, and the access time has been a little slow. With Chrome, it is about three times faster than Opera with the access time. It’s about twice as fast as the actual loading as well.

I really miss the mouse gestures from Opera though. That’s one of the things that this browser lacks. I doubt there are many plugins for the browser either. It doesn’t support JavaScript that well, but it does fair.

Overall I am very pleased with the browser. It has room to improve, but I like it.

Our rating of Google Chromium: 4 Stars

I got this flash drive for about $40 a year or two ago.  It’s a lot cheaper now - I think it’s even sold for $9.99.  However, after using it, I wouldn’t buy this if it was the only thing available.

First off, the most obvious thing is that the USB port retracts. You just slide the part in the middle. It takes a little getting used to though. It’s kind of awkward to slide for the first time. Actually, I don’t think I got it open on the first try. The place for your finger could have been made a little differently.

The Cruzer looks pretty nice. It’s exterior is black. The text is white and the part in the middle to retract the USB port is white. It has a detachable strap that goes around your neck. I just took it off and put it on my keychain.

Now to the important part of the review. The flash drive broke after about 6 months or so. It just felt flimsy. When I slid it in and out it didn’t click like my other one did (I also have a 512MB Cruzer Micro, still working). I’m sure being rough didn’t help much, but I don’t think it was the main problem. I have seen many other reviews where people are saying that theirs died on them too. I don’t think that it was a one-time thing.

Finally, the U3 is pretty bad in my opinion. I never got much out of it and I like technology to be much simpler.

Our Rating of the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2GB Flash Drive: 2 Stars