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Tom Henderson, CBiz Test Drive columnist, honorary Canadian and man about Comdex is also principal researcher at ExtremeLabs Inc., a consulting, testing and reselling firm based in Indianapolis. He writes: "Computing can be painful. I remember eight years ago having some problems with an Adaptec 1742a SCSI controller. The end result was that we took the Adaptec SCSI host bus adapter outside into our parking lot, then poured lighter fluid on it. Our chief field engineer tossed the match. We hoped the result would increase traction in the parking lot during the following winter. The good news is that in eight years, Adaptec has matured a lot. Maybe we have, too. Here are my picks and pans for 2000." [For more on computer destruction, see Payback Time, pg. 42.]
BEST CONCEPT REVIEWED
After more than 420 burned CDs, the HP 8300 USB-connected CD-ROM burner has certainly seen the most action of any of the products 1 reviewed in 2000. Not a single hiccup has occurred, apart from operator insanity. HP bundles Adaptec's EazyCD Creator software, a reasonably cool bundle, but Windows Media Player 7 has a driver built-in that makes it even easier to use. This product, therefore, gets a serendipitous boost: WM7, a cool software bundle and immense amounts of my cassette tapes that are now in the recycling bin make this product useful, if on a personal scale. The floppy is dead: long live the floppy. In two years, DVD-RAM will arrive, and it'll spell the death knell for CDs.
BEST PRODUCT TO GIVE TO THE UNCLE WHO WANTS FREE TECH SUPPORT
Aloha Bob's PC Relocator does a job that can only be related to cleaning sewers: moving a user's life from one Windows PC to another. It's not perfect, but it's the kind of product that can be given to any sentient civilian with an expectation that they can actually move their life from one Windows machine to another without eons of reinstallation and customization hell. There's a cable included, the instructions are astonishingly clear (and need to be sent to Florida), and while it can't quite deal with Windows NT/2000 perfectly, it's a winner on the 9X/Millennium Edition platforms. Bless them.
BEST PRINTER TESTED
There are three...