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John T.

John T.

Joined on 06/01/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

Excellent Firewall

NETGEAR FVS338 Firewall
NETGEAR FVS338 Firewall

Pros: ICSA Certified. VPN Client software included. Metal chassis with mounting screw holes. 253 LAN users I have not had to reset it in the 7 months I have owned it. I got my rebate check!

Cons: None yet...

Overall Review: This is a great value. ICSA certification, VPN support and VPN client software come at a much higher cost from other manufacturers. FYI: I have Verizon FIOS static IP with 15Mbps/2Mbps service. My download tests on XP/Vista/2003 systems average 15.2Mbps/1.8Mbps. The high-throughput works as advertised. I did not need to tweak anything on the firewall.

Most Critical Review

Another DOA

Intel S3000AHLX ATX Server Motherboard LGA 775 Intel 3000 DDR2 667
Intel S3000AHLX ATX Server Motherboard LGA 775 Intel 3000 DDR2 667

Pros: It is a motherboard.

Cons: Intel support was terrible. I spent 4 hours on the phone with Intel to find out that my board was defective. What was frustrating was that the check only took 4 minutes. (See Other Thoughts below)

Overall Review: If you buy this board the first things you need to do is update BIOS and then ENABLE iAMT in the BIOS. If you do not get a configuration screen for iAMT configuration before OS load you got a bad board.

Terrible performance

NETGEAR AC1200 Wi-Fi USB Adapter High Gain Dual Band USB 3.0 (A6210)
NETGEAR AC1200 Wi-Fi USB Adapter High Gain Dual Band USB 3.0 (A6210)

Pros: None

Cons: My access point is a Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit WNDR3700v3. I purchased this to replace a LInksys USB100 USB adapter I purchased many years ago. This is not the new USB100, it is the old grey one. Before I replaced it I copied a 1.5 GB. The file copy averaged 2.6 Mbps. I replaced it with the Netgear AC1200 and the copy speed averaged 2.8 Mbps. Just to be clear, i copied the exact same file, placed the adapters in the exact same place. This is a total waste of money, any 5-year old adapter is just as fast as this one so don't waste your money.

Epic Fail!

ADATA 32GB UV128 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Flash Drive (AUV128-32G-RBY)
ADATA 32GB UV128 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Flash Drive (AUV128-32G-RBY)

Pros: None.

Cons: The drive would disconnect while I was copying files to it. I downloaded and installed Check Flash to test it. In less than 1 hour, Check Flash found over 80,000 errors!

11/19/2015

Stay away from teh G1W

G1W 2.7 inch 1080P Full HD Car DVR Camcorder Novatek Chip 4X Digital Zoom 120 Degree Wide Angle Video Recorder Reachargeable lithium battery 12.0MP image resolution 5.0MP COMS
G1W 2.7 inch 1080P Full HD Car DVR Camcorder Novatek Chip 4X Digital Zoom 120 Degree Wide Angle Video Recorder Reachargeable lithium battery 12.0MP image resolution 5.0MP COMS

Pros: None that I am aware of.

Cons: Incomplete and poorly translated instructions. Horrible battery life. Does not overwrite automatically so card fills up after a few short trips. Cigarette lighter adapter, which is mandatory because of battery life, gets extremely hot and is likely a fire hazard. Mounting mechanism is flimsy and camera started falling out of it after 30-days of use.

OCZ Vertex 3 is unreliable

OCZ Vertex 3 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) VTX3-25SAT3-60G
OCZ Vertex 3 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) VTX3-25SAT3-60G

Pros: Fast, competitive pricing, efficient RMA process

Cons: Installed in Dell Latitude E6400 in June 2011. I work in the field servicing systems and rely on Sleep and Hibernate to get my battery through the day. After a few weeks, the system would tell me there was no hard disk or BSOD after being "woken up". I restarted and it would work again. I created a new power profile that skips Sleep and goes straight to Hibernate. This allowed the system to start normally after being in power save mode. I thought I was in the clear. About a month later, the problem returned. This time restarting the computer did not resolve the problem. I connected it to another computer via SATA but it also could not "find" the drive. I was finally able to access the drive using a USB to SATA enclosure. I reported the problem to OCZ and they replaced the drive with a brand new one. It worked for 3-weeks and then failed. I couldn't even access it with the USB enclosure. I have requested a refund from OCZ and I am waiting for a response.

Overall Review: OCZ SSD should not be used for production systems. If they don't refund me I will be using it in my gaming rig and making regular disk images to back it up.