Gearbox #24

Fluoro spinny bits to tart up your box good and proper, like. One can never over-accessorise.

bit grast mouse
Supplier: PCToy Australia www.pctoy.com.au
Phone: (02) 9617 1180
Price: $95

After looking at the photo of this product, you're probably wondering 'What's so special about this product?' Well, it's actually designed to be used by your miniaturised clone. Since Austin Powers' Mini-Me, these designer clones have become very popular, at least around the Atomic offices. Unfortunately Bennett is already so small that his clone can only be viewed under an electron microscope. At only 70mm long by 40mm wide, this little tacker looks like it was ripped straight from the set of The Incredible Shrinking Input Device. There is no doubt this is the smallest mouse we've ever seen (apart from Stuart Little), but the price certainly ain't small. It's a bit of a sting at $95, but those of you with dinky digits might find it a worthy purchase.

GlobalWin Crystal Fan
Supplier: Below-0 www.below-0.net
Phone: (07) 3348 2155
Price: $24

Another day at Atomic, and yet another fan rocks up to blow us all away -- pun fully intended. No, this fan is not constructed primarily of crystal meth -- more's the pity. It actually uses plain old plastic, so we have no idea why it's called the Crystal Fan. Maybe it was designed by a Skeksi? Maybe not... but it does have a pretty cool feature in that this fan is self aware, sort of. It's not quite smart enough to design a fusion reactor, but it is definitely smart enough to be the President of the United States of America. This is due to a built in thermometer that controls the speed of the fan as temperatures increase. So it only powers up to noisy levels when it really needs to. Clever or what?

Tri Colour Cold Cathode Kit
Supplier: PC Range www.pcrange.biz
Phone: (08) 8322 9544
Price: $29

'Like wow dude, glowing lights are like fully trippy, maaaan. Wow, let's all look directly into that industrial laser. Coooool, I didn't know my eyes could bleed.' If you're sick and tired of crispy retinas due to staring into laser beams, a cold cathode is the next best thing to brighten up your PC.
But even plain old cathodes are getting a bit yawn inducing, so now we have weird-arsed models like this Tri-Colour version. Instead of a boring single colour, this thing is divided into three colours, so it's just like having a rainbow in your PC, but without the pot of gold at the end. Unless you're hallucinating, that is, in which case you'll probably find an entire universe of telepathic ant men guarding the pot at the end of the rainbow in your tower of infinite wisdom. But back to the cold cathode...
A very nice little control box allows you to set this thing to react to sound, or to just flash annoyingly. At a mere $29, this light offers maximum mod value.

Cooler Master RAM sinks
Supplier: Cooler Master www.coolermaster.com
Phone: n/a
Price: n/a

Sink your RAM into this, or maybe you'd like to RAM your sink into this. Or you could even use it for what it's intended, which is to help cool down your video card or system memory.
Not that cooling down your memory will achieve much, especially if your memory is of the BGA type, but at least you'll be able to sleep soundly at night knowing you've riced up every possible piece of hardware in your PC. Depending on your taste in metal, these RAM sinks are available in two different configurations: Copper or Aluminium.

EL Glowire Sound Sensitive Kit
Supplier: PC Range www.pcrange.biz
Phone: (08) 8322 9544
Price: $32

Now that you've loaded your PC up with several of the Tri-Colour cold cathodes that are also in this month's GearBox, you're probably looking for something else to make lights come out of your PC components that shouldn't have lights in them. That's where this fluorescent piece of spaghetti could help out.
We're not sure what evil form of magic is used to make a piece of wire light up like an Xmas tree, but something this cool is probably the work of Satan. Thanks to its overall bendiness, this wire can be wrapped around any component you can think of. It's even sound sensitive, so it can throb and pulse along to your toons. We've seen this put to good use under the keys in a keyboard, but can you imagine the cool swear words you could fashion from this stuff? Hell, you could even write the word Atomic with it, and guarantee yourself a place in the hallowed Hot Box section. Not that we'd ever lower ourselves to such self-promoting depths...

ABIT Serillel Adaptor
Supplier: AusPC Market www.auspcmarket.com.au
Phone: (02) 9817 2899
Price: $82.50

Serial ATA rocks, OK? Just read John's big piece on it this month if you don't believe us. A new motherboard simply ain't worth looking at unless it has a Serial ATA controller, but what are you to do with those old IDE drives that you've now replaced with S-ATA versions? Sure, you could still use the IDE controller on the mobo, but fat ribbon cables sure look ugly.
Instead, why don't you go for one of these little gadgets? Whack it in to the back of your IDE drive, and hey presto, you can now hook up your old drive to that shiny new S-ATA port, thus banishing your old ribbon cables to the whip draw. It probably won't help your IDE drive's performance, but at least you can fool all your geek friends into thinking you're much more hardcore than them thanks to your pretend Serial ATA hard drive.

Cooler Master faceplates
Supplier: Cooler Master www.coolermaster.com