Top 5 Gadgets you should have when going to college

This is for all you potential college freshman out there. You need these things. It's also popping up in the orientation issue. You guys don't need the links, I'm assuming if you found your way here, you know where to find all this crap anyway. Yark.

Computer
I know what you’re thinking. But to be truthful, there are some people that come to college without a computer, and, in today’s college environment, that just doesn’t work. You need a computer. If you’re bringing in a desktop, have something to carry it on. You do not want to be on the top floor of a dorm and have carry a computer tower and monitor up 4 or more flights of stairs. At the bottom of this article is some links to where you can get a PC carrying bag, which will simplify the process. You’ll also want your own printer. Walking to the library every time you want to print something can be a hassle, so you’ll definitely want one of those to go with it.

Digital Camera
But…what will I need one of these for? Taking pictures of course. There’s no way around that you’ll be at one party or another this semester, and most likely a lot more for the next four years, so you’ll want a way to remember these parties right? I mean…you’ll remember it anyway. In fact, forget I mentioned it. But you can find a great selection of good and decently priced digital cameras at the local Best Buy.

Router
You’re going to need one of these if you have a video game console that hooks up to the internet, ie: Xbox Live. You won’t have enough Internet plug-ins for you, your roommate, and your game console otherwise. I know were on a closed network here, but, for all the non-geeks and people worried about security, get a router that requires wires. You may have to buy some extra stuff, but there’s more security with them, and the actual wire router itself costs less than a wireless one.

iPod
Unless you have a lot of friends, and know that you will be walking with them to class every day, you’ll be doing enough walking to warrant buying an Mp3 player, and why not buy the best? Especially when you can get a 20-dollar student discount on them at the bookstore. The best Mp3 player around also comes with a dern good music store in iTunes. Not only can you download music directly from Apple’s store for 99 cents a song, you can also connect to other people on iTunes, and listen to their music. You can also use a little program called MyTunes Redux to get those songs from other people onto your play list. But…I didn’t tell you that.

USB Flash Drive
These are replacing floppy disks as the way to transport amounts of information. You can buy varying amounts of space on these little flash/thumb drives that plug straight into a USB port. Of course, the more space you need, the more money its going to cost you, but if you don’t have a printer in your room, you’ll want one of these to easily transport your papers or PowerPoint’s to a computer in the library.

Let the Writing resume, and the Wars begin.

Finally, im writing again. After getting snubbed by the editor for my paper, the new one came through and gave me the inspiration to write again. So, you get it before anyone else.

Let the Wars Begin


It’s that time again. The console wars are about to start heating up again, and we’ve got the usual set of competitors. Sony’s Playstation 3 is by far the heavyweight of the group, with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 bringing up second, and the “were not showing or telling you a damn thing” Nintendo Revolution coming up as well. I’ll do a quick breakdown of each console and its features, or at least the features we know of, now. Also, it should be noted that because of a lot of info pouring out of the biggest geek gathering this side of the Pacific Ocean, (which is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3), there’s a lot more info that I just tacked onto this article so I could still get it in on time.

Xbox 360
Since the most info is available about this one, we’ll go here first. It’s obvious Monopoly..err..Microsoft has a pretty big hill to climb going up against the PS3. But, if anyone has the money to do it, it would be them. Microsoft has already unveiled the console, and everything looks to be in working order. Prettier looking games? Check. More people on screen doing more crap? Check. Pushing the online community of Xbox Live even farther? Big check. So everything looks good, right? Well, I have my doubts. The console still looks huge. It’s supposed to be more streamlined and less than that of the gorilla that is the first Xbox, but to me, it still looks pretty big. The overall design to me still doesn’t look that great. And the all white color scheme, well, I guess I’m paying for what’s under the hood. Microsoft is also jumping the gate on the latest console wars by getting their system out first. Good move? Only time will tell. But there has been one nasty rumor(which has been nearly confirmed by Mr. Gates himself in a recent interview) that Microsoft will be releasing Halo 3 the same day as the Playstation 3. Sure, it’s evil, but it’s one hell of a marketing idea…

Sony Playstation 3
The next iteration of the Playstation, which has the extremely creative name of Playstation 3, will have what’s being dubbed as the “cell” processor. Without getting overly geeky on this( and it can, believe me) the cell processor is basically a small system of its own, working together however many other cell’s there are, and forming a small “supercomputer”, so to speak. The cells are supposed to be able to communicate with each other through ultra-high speed broadband connectivity. Think of how fast signals get to your brain, and you’ll have figured out what they’re shooting for here. Well, all this sounds great in theory. The best question is can IBM get this thing down in time for the release of the planned PS3 release in 2006? And, thanks to E3, we know what the thing looks like. To me, the console is ugly. It almost looks like some weird shaped metal turtle. Not to mention that, you should check out the controller. It looks worse than the console. I guess looks aren’t near as important as what’s under the hood anymore…Granted, if it lives up to performance standards, it produces a whole Teraflop more of speed than that of the Xbox 360. That, for the non-geek types among us, means its really freakin fast, and capable of some incredible graphics. We’ll see if this Cell processor lives up to bill.


Nintendo “Revolution”
“Revolution” is in quotes because no one even knows the name of the freakin system yet. Nintendo is pulling…well, a Nintendo, and not saying much at all about the new system. But thanks to the graciousness that is E3, we now know bunches more about the system than we did before. And Nintendo must be the only one who believes in looking good, because this baby looks small, sleek, and sexy. The biggest thing the big N has said about the Revolution is that its backwards compatible. Not just compatible with Gamecube games, but games from every Nintendo system ever made. Holy crap, that’s cool. It’s supposed to work that you’ll be able to download the throwback games from the system’s built in Wi-Fi adapter. The downside to this? We have no idea where you’re going to keep the games, or what cost, if any, there might be. The other potential downside this has, is that unless Nintendo can secure the rights to some games, only games that Nintendo released themselves can be downloaded. This isn’t all bad. You’ve got a huge library of incredible games that all came from in-house at Nintendo. But, if they can’t the rights to some other games, you’ll be missing out on some great games like Chrono Trigger, the Final Fantasies, and Goldeneye, just to name a few. Also as of this time, no system specs have been released yet, so we don’t know how the “Revolution” stands up to the PS3 or Xbox 360.

The war begins later this year when Microsoft fires the first shot of the new console age with the Xbox 360, with the PS3, and the Revolution both coming sometime in 2006. Of course you can find all the latest gaming and tech news right here in the Star when we get it.