Kitification - the act of kit-attaching in a frenzy of spin, light and steel. Here's your ammunition.
ICEMAT mousepad Supplier: InnovisionWebsite: www.innovision.com.au Phone: 1300 785 795Price: TBC
Hoorah! The time to rejoice is nigh! Finally, a custom, 'too cool for school' mousepad that actually works! Ok, so it's not perfect, causing a bit of mouse stutter, but it's good enough for general desktop work. The glass pad is constructed entirely from frosted glass, with an incredibly smooth top surface. The result is a sensation that your mouse is sliding over a nice, greasy layer of untainted baby's blood. . . erm. . . melted butter.Take note -- if you don't mount the 'pad surfer' tape included in the kit onto the bottom of your mouse, expect an awful scritchy-scratchy noise that will send you insane in the short time it takes to boot up your PC.
Tweakmonster EL Appliques Supplier: PC Case GearWebsite: www.pccasegear.comPhone: (03) 9568 0932Price: $36
Now this is the kind of product we like to see. Yes, it's yet another glowy gadget, but it's not simply based on ramming LEDs into bits of plastic. It's an appliqué (a fancy pants way for saying sticker) covered in a protective coating of thin transparent plastic. A 12V inverter with a Molex attachment plugs into the base of the appliqué. When this is switched on, the appliqué lights up like, well, like nothing we've ever seen before. It's a bizarre yet cool effect. The only downside is the clunky inverter box, but this can easily be hidden away inside your case.
Zippy EL-610 keyboardSupplier: AnywareWebsite: www.anyware.com.au Phone: (07) 3856 3999Price: $85
Here we go again -- more lighty brighty stuff. But like the EL appliqués, this keyboard is actually kind of cool. This keyboard emits a warm blue light, handy during those late night gaming sessions; no longer will you need to keep a lamp on, as you'll now be able to see each and every key perfectly thanks to its self illuminating properties. The effect is very similar to the prissy Neons mounted under the cars in the abortion of a film, The Fast and The Furious. Except if you use this keyboard, it doesn't automatically make you a wanker, unlike the Neons seen under the above mentioned cars. It's much smaller than a standard keyboard, but is still very comfortable to use when gaming.
Wacom Intuos tabletSupplier: Video Bytes Website: www.videobytes.com.auPhone: (03) 9348 9177Price: $924
This product is aimed squarely at the designer types, for use when they're not too busy sipping on lattés, discussing the latest art exhibition or getting $200 haircuts. Kind of like Atomic's designer, Tim. So we thought we'd get his opinion on this tablet: 'The Wacom Intuos tablet has to be one of the best tools out there to produce high quality graphics intuitively. This particular model comes with advanced pressure sensitivity that recognizes the tilt as well as how hard you push to achieve complex painting effects otherwise impossible with a mouse. It's one funky package that'll cover a wide spectrum of needs, whether it be Photoshop for your design or Deep Paint 3D for your 3D.'
Sony Ericsson HBH-60 Supplier: Sony EricssonWebsite: www.sonyericsson.com.auPhone: 1300 650 050Price: $380
While it's not quite as cool as the headsets the troops use in the film Aliens, as it doesn't have a built-in video camera to send images back to some pussy holed-up in an armoured personnel carrier while all his troops get eaten, there is still something inherently sweet about this Bluetooth headset. It's probably the fact that it's so bleedin' small, easily being one of the smallest Bluetooth headsets on the market. It also happens to be rather comfortable, unlike certain other headsets that double as medieval instruments of torture. One other thing you might care to know -- it's bloody expensive!
OCZ 512MB PC-3700 EL DDR-RAMSupplier: Yen Industries Website: www.yenindustries.com Phone: (02) 9703 7640Price: $345
If you're lucky enough to have a motherboard that will comfortably run memory at 466MHz, you might be having a few problems tracking down memory that is also happy to run at such a ludicrous speed. Enter this wondrous stuff. Yes, it's not cheap, but it's the only memory that you'll find that you can be confident of running at these kinds of speeds. Sadly we didn't have a hardware combination on hand that could run the memory at this speed, but Yen Industries guarantee it will run at 466MHz -- provided you use one of the motherboards that OCZ have tested with this memory. Check the full list of compatible motherboards at www.ocztechnology.com.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012