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Written by garfi3ld Tuesday, 17 August 2010 00:00
This week, the largest LAN party in North America begins in Dallas, Texas. As gamers, we dream of being among the thousands of like-minded gamers enjoying the four-day marathon. As fellow LAN party organizers, we can only admire what the once thirty-some attendee event has become. A group of our more dedicated community members, known as Team Waffle Train, have had the pleasure of attending the monstrosity more than a few times, and a member from TWT has been kind enough to share his guide to survivng the 96-hours of geekdom.Written by garfi3ld Friday, 09 July 2010 21:33
One of the most interesting nitches of PC and gaming is the Case Mod. You turn a PC into a work of art that is not only functional but also something even someone who cares nothing about PC’s could find interesting. We at LanOC Reviews have seen our fair share of mods at our events, on our forums, and in my other places around the net. Today it is my pleasure to announce a contest we have been putting together for some time. We are hosting a summer case mod contest.
Written by garfi3ld Thursday, 08 July 2010 00:00
When packing up your rig to head to a LAN party, you will find yourself trying to find the best way to pack your keyboard and other peripherals. I have seen people use everything from backpacks, totes, and even plastic shopping bags. The need for a good way to pack your equipment is there, but oddly enough you won’t find many options. Razer quietly introduced what they call the “Razer Gear Rack” last year along with their gaming gear line. Today we finally have a chance to look at their Gear Rack a little closer; maybe this is product we have been looking for.
Written by garfi3ld Monday, 05 July 2010 00:00
Written by garfi3ld Friday, 02 July 2010 00:00
How many times have you been away from an outlet and needed to give your cell phone, DS, or PSP a charge. I know I have found myself in that position more times than I can count. Choiix just released a product with that in mind called the Power Fort. Over the past week I have had the chance to put their Power Fort Advanced model, has it been helpful? Let’s find out.
Written by Lersar Thursday, 03 June 2010 04:25
Based out of Michigan, MaxForce PC has been creating custom rigs tailored suited to customer requests since 2007. To further suit customer needs, they will even track down a part not listed on their site to install in your system. Max contacted us a while back to see if we were interested in reviewing one of his enthusiast gaming build's, the Javelin P55. Since it was right down our alley and had a perfect LAN situation to test it out in, we took the oppourtunity.
Written by garfi3ld Monday, 24 May 2010 23:17
When you are looking for a fast and easy to use PDF reader you may come across a company called Fox-It. They make a fast, if not the fastest PDF reader; you can say they do a better job with adobe PDF files than Adobe themselves. When I found out last year that Fox-It was bringing out an e-reader, I was excited to see if their PDF knowledge would improve on the already great e-reader.
Written by garfi3ld Tuesday, 27 April 2010 20:00
What If I told you that you could pick up a 23 inch monitor today for less than 160 bucks? A lot of people including one of our staff would jump right on that. Of course, no matter what the price it won’t make any difference if it’s sporting dead pixels. That’s why today I will be taking a closer look at one of these hot deals, I’m sure you have already ordered yours so you can read about my experience with it while you wait for it to come in the mail.
Written by Lersar Monday, 19 April 2010 00:00
When it comes to PC gaming, owning your competition in-game just isn't enough anymore. When you arrive to a LAN and first power on your rig, they should know that you mean business. Whether your looking to complete a theme, light your PC up like a Christmas tree, or just trying to spruce up an old build, nothing gets the job done like cold cathodes. VIZO has a long line of lighting options, including UV reactant cables and binding kits (which we've already had the pleasure of testing). Today, they've sent us a more simple option, a set of cold cathode lights, to see how they perform.
Written by Lersar Wednesday, 14 April 2010 07:40
Its always sad to see a LAN come to and end, but as we awoke Saturday morning, there was still plenty of time to game before it was time to pack up and drive home. In relation to the previous days, we slept in a little, ignoring alarms and scoring a nine o'clock wake time. We quickly made our way to the building to find little change; it was still packed with gamers, the some of which were going strong after twenty-four hours of gaming. Not to be out done, we jumped on our PC's and got ready to game.
Written by Lersar Sunday, 11 April 2010 15:37
The next day began around ten after 7AM, a little late then we had planned. Our in-room alarm clock did a great job not disturbing neighboring rooms, and just as good a job of not bothering us, either. Luckily the Verizon tone I set just-in-case was more than willing to get us going. We hit a nearby McDonald's for a breakfast to go, and arrived at Stompfest shrotly after to finish setting up. Thanks to the kind staff at SF, we were able to drop our equipment off the night before, so all that was left was to hook them up in the harsh chill of an April morning.
Written by Lersar Saturday, 10 April 2010 03:35
Four of us from LanOC left Ohio City around 3:30PM, right on schedule to arrive early in Wanamaker, Indiana early enough to drop our rigs off at the Stompfest event building. After hearing horror stories from MML late last year (a close call involving a car break-in), we were a bit gun shy to leave our equipemnt in a car over-night. Initially armed with Mapquest printed connections, Wes (garfi3ld) soon upgraded us with his TomTom.
Written by garfi3ld Tuesday, 07 July 2009 05:04
![IMG_4736 copy [lr] [lrsm]](http://lanoc.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_4736-copy-lr-lrsm.jpg "IMG_4736 copy [lr] [lrsm]")
Sitting here in front of my 28 inch monitor I'm sometimes reminded of when my mom would remind me to not sit close to the TV or I would go blind. With my eyes being sensitive, I already have to wear sun glasses anytime I am outside, sitting in front of this monster (and the 24 next to it) puts out enough light to light up the entire room. Of course I have turned down the brightness on both of my monitors, and I try to run a light in the background. Until recently I didn't know there were any other things I could do to prevent eye fatigue. I heard about a company named Gunnar Optiks that produces glasses designed specifically to prevent fatigue along with a list of other benefits. Today I will be writing about my experience using a pair of their glasses for my everyday life and how it affected game play and overall pc usage.
Written by garfi3ld Thursday, 19 February 2009 02:31
This past December I walked everyone through a few small mods that I did to our Cosmos S to help it stand out. The window and lighting really made the case look amazing. I did have some issues with the fans with vibration and overall noise. Infact it got so bad that I had to unplug most of them. Because of that I was on the market for replacement fans. I have reviewed a few fans in the past so my decision was hard, adding to that was the problem of my favorite fans running $20+. When you’re looking at 5 or 6 fans that adds up quickly. In the end, I decided to go with Noctua fans considering the amazing performance of them in the past. After working out a deal with Noctua, the next thing I know I had a box full of fans on my doorstep. Will they be an improvement?
Written by garfi3ld Thursday, 01 January 2009 01:51
I hope everyone has a great time. Please stay safe!
Written by garfi3ld Monday, 29 December 2008 05:01
I was recently shopping for a new camera, while I was at the store I noticed that most stores don't even sell film camera's anymore. It has gotten to the point that Most Wal-Mart's don't even deal with film development anymore, they just mail it out. What this means is that everyone, even non-tech savvy people have or will be switching over to digital cameras. Because of this, we have countless new options that weren't possible before. Things like modifying your photos, printing your own, and recently digital photo frames. I personally have almost 12 thousand digital photos that I have taken in the past 7 years. A company by the name of eStarling has been making a name of not only producing digital photo frames, but connecting them through wireless and making it easy to add photos and videos. Today we are going to take a look at their most recent model the ImpactV.
Written by garfi3ld Friday, 10 October 2008 04:27
In the past with DVD’s, CD’s, BluRays, and any other kind of disc you have to worry about finding a case to hold your discs while traveling. I have always found that case logic cases protected your discs from scratched well but lacked style. When looking for a case with a little style I had trouble finding one that was made with good quality and protected my discs. When our lan sponsor Slappa sent us out a few things to review I was very excited too see that they included one of there HardBody CD cases. It worked out that by the time I found time to take a close look at this case I was packing up for ShowDown Lan and needed a quality case to carry my game and system discs. This was perfect chance to put the case through its paces while saving room in an already full car. Please read on to find out how the case performed.
Written by garfi3ld Friday, 04 July 2008 04:34
Having been looking for a powered USB hug to replace the junk one that came with our rock band kit I’ve learned two things. One, it’s hard to find any one hub that people can recommend. It seems the quality of almost every hub is hit or miss at best. Two it’s hard to find one that stands out. VIZO has been kind enough to send one of their “UFO” USB hubs along with a power kit. Let’s find out how they perform.
Written by garfi3ld Friday, 06 June 2008 04:01
When Evo-G told me they would be sending a mouse bungee for review my mind was racing picturing things like how you would strap the little guy in, how high in the air would he be jumping from, and where I am going to get a live mouse. After my little day dream I realized that it was a product to keep your mouse cord from getting tangled with anything else on your desk. How did they know my desk is always a mess? Click to find out how it worked out for me.
Written by garfi3ld Monday, 26 May 2008 13:25
If I were Rob Gordon (John Cusack) in the movie High Fidelity and I was making a top 10 list of things that aggravate me. It would include power strip “warts”. If you don’t know what a wart is, it’s one of those power bricks that you can never find a way to plug into a power strip without losing at least 2 spots. Almost every power strip sold now has their own way of fixing this problem. Most of them have one plug for a “wart”. Me being the gaming dork that I am; in my old school console gaming area I have a Nintendo, a Super Nintendo, a stereo, my TV, our cordless phone, and a battery charger. Of those six devices four of them have power bricks. Not even small bricks, some of them are almost 3 inches long! Obviously a normal 6 plug power strip isn’t going to cut it. Not to mention I would like to keep my old Nintendo for many years to come, I’m going to need a good surge protector. This leads us to the Power squid; namely there top of the line Surge3000 Calamari Edition. Click to find out how it worked out for us.
