Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

27 Aug 00

Architosh Macworld Expo Report -2, p2

Our belated expo report series picks up again with this entry. As we have mentioned in the past, we try not to cover the same items most general Mac news sites delve into. Instead we focus on products and services of particular value to the AEC/CAD/3D professional or student. Here's what up in this report:

This Report: Processor Upgrade Cards, Cobalt's Qube 2 and Expansion Bays, FireWire Cards and portable Hard Drives

Cobalt Qube 2 Internet Server Appliance

Cobalt had a pretty sizable booth this year at Macworld Expo. The company makes a number of Internet and networking products. The Qube being the most famous lately because of the company's remarks that they might bring Apple to court over the G4 Cube's design.

Regardless of that matter—which may have simply been a clever way to gain free marketing exposure, and nothing more—the Qube 2 is actually an interesting product. For one thing, the Qube 2 is a very simple device which provides both Internet and intranet services in a cross-platform environment...very useful for today's design firm.

This no-administration box runs a version of Linux on its hard drive and runs Apache 1.3 Web Server with CGI support and Perl 5.0 scripting. Email support includes SMTP, IMAP4, and POP3 protocols. File Sharing support is cross-platform and includes FTP, SMB, AppleShare and AppleShareIP compatible file services. Packet Filter FireWall, NAT, DNS, DHCP server functionality included. The entire product is browser-based in its config and admin.

The Qube 2 home page includes demos with screen shots, case studies, details and a What Is It? section. The demos are cool because you can walk through the initial set up and the maintenance of the device. It gives you a great idea about what the product is actually like.

Expansion Hardware Technologies from VST

VST Technologies of Acton, Massachusetts, one again, of the most popular booths at Macworld with it ever growing array of expansion devices and portable drives.

VST has products for both Macintosh and Windows, though the company is predominantly Mac-centric with many of the best-of-class devices available anywhere. Some of the cooler new products included the new CD-R/W Drive that incorporates both USB and FireWire interfaces. This portable device is just 3/4" thick and will slip in easily to your PowerBook case or brief case.

Another great product is the Portable USB/FireWire Hard Drive. This drive comes in graphite and clear/black plastics and can hold up to 30GBs of data. With dual USB/FireWire connectivity this device offers the most flexibility of any product in its class. And it's really good looking to boot!

Other great products include their expansion bay modules for PowerBooks (Zip, HD, SuperDrive/Floppy Dual, DVD, etc.) and FireWire CardBus offers. Also their FireWire Hard Drive RAID solution is a unique product.

To go to our Macworld Expo Report - 1