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Russell B.

Russell B.

Joined on 08/18/12

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 8
Most Favorable Review

As always, simple and easy to use

Apple Mac Mini Desktop (2013 Model) Intel Core i7 4GB DDR3 1TB HDD Mac OS X Mountain Lion - Silver (MD388LL/A)
Apple Mac Mini Desktop (2013 Model) Intel Core i7 4GB DDR3 1TB HDD Mac OS X Mountain Lion - Silver (MD388LL/A)

Pros: For what you get, this is a powerful package for a small computer. The included 1TB drive is SLOW, so buy another drive to become the primary. I also recommend the upgrade to 16GB of memory. With those two additions, you will be happy with this small wonder.

Cons: The 1TB drive is simply to slow for everyday usage.

Overall Review: I am running VMWare ESXi on my Mac Mini with 8 virtual machines and am very happy with the performance and reliability so far. I have an entire home lab created running Windows Servers, clients and OSX Server without any hiccups. This is not for the faint of heart, but a surprisingly good machine for doing just these kinds of things.

Most Critical Review

Horrible

ASUS P9X79 DELUXE LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
ASUS P9X79 DELUXE LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: Great Features Listed

Cons: There appears to be a ghost in the machine. I am not at nob when it comes to customizing PCs, but this hunk of junk causes one to reevaluate life's choices. Like buying this board was the worst mistake I ever made. Loaded everything and (without OCing a thing) I would start a media conversion, walk away and when I returned sometime later, the machine had rebooted. Hmmm. No error's reported or anything. I would logon and play around for a few hours and nothing would happen. Seems fine. So, I would get up and go do some thing else while the computer just sits there. Guess what happened while I was gone? You guessed it, it had rebooted again while under no load. So what do I do now I wondered. I tried different memory modules, different graphics cards, different drives, even different operating systems, I even invested in a lot of different cooling options even though it never ran hot. Nothing worked. So I reached out to ASUS's crack support team to be told to try different configurations of devices like memory, video card,etc... After struggling with the explanation, it became clear that I was pretty much out of luck. Unfortunately for me, I travel a lot for work so the little time I do get to trouble takes me several months to do something that should only take a few days.

Overall Review: Don't get suckered.

Disappointing

NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router, Gigabit Ethernet, Compatible with Amazon Echo/Alexa (R8000)
NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router, Gigabit Ethernet, Compatible with Amazon Echo/Alexa (R8000)

Pros: 1. Great looking 2. Fast Wireless Speeds

Cons: 1. No Advanced Features 2. Expensive for slightly better than an AP

Overall Review: I was looking forward to being able to put this router in my network. If you are looking for an expensive AP, then this router is for you. If you want any kind of advanced features, please look elsewhere. Asus has the ability to show network traffic by device. Guess that's where I am heading to next.

Works

Kingston ValueRAM 2GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module

Pros: Bought this for my Synology DS1512+. Easy installation and works. My home NAS now uses almost all of the 3GB of RAM that is installed and could not be happier.

Cons: None

Love it.

Apple TV 3rd Generation (MD199LL/A)
Apple TV 3rd Generation (MD199LL/A)

Pros: Cheap, small and just works. What else is there to say.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Do I wish it would do more? Of course. But it is designed primarily for streaming your iTunes library to a TV. Works without a hitch in that department. Plus it can access my Netflix account, HBO Go, etc... with no problems.

Quirky Little Thing

Linksys RE2000 N600 Dual Band Wireless Range Extender
Linksys RE2000 N600 Dual Band Wireless Range Extender

Pros: Bought this to extend my EA6500 from Linksys. My house has funky layout and this little guy seems to help with the limited range of the EA6500 quite nicely. Wanted to extend my 802.11N coverage and I am a believer in the interoperability between products that are produced by the same company.

Cons: I now know why Cisco sold Linksys. They really do not belong in the home consumer market. This little guy took several support calls in order to get operational. When I initial configured it, it worked. But, when I moved it to its new location, it stopped. It kept losing its configuration and connection to my home network. And tech support was completely clueless about why this was happening. Finally did several resets and did the configuration in its finally resting place. Since then, I have only lost connection to my home network twice.

Overall Review: Hopefully Belkin can straighten out the mess that is Linksys. Would like to see a product line for home consumers that allows a little more control. Not all of us want plug and play simplicity with our home networking products. We like to tinker and experiment while pushing the boundaries. Linksys is not that product line.