After our Numark CD1 Mixer developed a worrying penchant for spontaneous remixing (resulting in a sea of unimpressed glares from the dance floor), we feared that the machine may have been subjected to a Ramones song too many.
After testing at home, we realised that CDs that played perfectly well on other players were jumping all over t’shop on the Numark and that it had become more sensitive than usual to vibration.
If you’re a DJ playing out on a Saturday night, you’re likely to feel more vibrations than most with the dance floor bouncing to an air punchin’, all gyratin’ crowd (or an advancing angry mob demanding that the idiot behind the decks is removed tout de suite), so a sensitive CD deck is not good news.
We took the Numark into our testing labs (OK, the kitchen table) and gave it a good clean before resorting to the rather unscientific method of opening the CD trays and blowing like billy-o inside, all to no avail.
Testing the CD cleaner
In desperation – and with a DJ booking looming at a venue noted for its no-nonsense crowd – we thought we’d give the Lindy Multi-format CD/DVD Lens Cleaner a go.
Opening the packaging was a little disappointing. We were expecting hi-tech sprays, advanced lotions and cunning cleaning mechanisms, but all we found was a CD with a rather comical mini shaving brush sticking out in the middle.
The instructions were equally unfussy, with a simple exhortation to shove in the CD and play track 12.
Naturally, we were intrigued what lived on the other tracks, and discovered curious snippets of avant garde industrial
metal machine noise, before track 12 started up with a burst of jaunty Euro-pop.
Before we had chance to put on our pink leg warmers and get grooving, the track went silent while (we presume) the little brush does it head cleaning thing for about 20 seconds.
We ran the cleaner on our Numark CD1 a couple of times and are pleased to say that it seemed to do the business, with the decks working fine at the gig next day (although we’d also mounted the player on a mat of bubble wrap, just to be sure).
Of course, contrary to the famed Tomorrow’s World demonstration where it appeared that CDs were so tough, they’d probably outlive several direct nuclear hits, some CDs do fail no matter what.
We’ve had more than enough expensive CDs (as well as dodgier MP3 copies) fail miserably mid-gig, but if your CD player is in tip top shape there’s more chance you’ll be spared dancefloor disasters, so it’s worth giving the Lindy cleaner a spin.
Don’t expect miracles though, as we’ve seen more than enough CD players terminally self-destruct, but at just a fiver the CD cleaner looks to be worth a pop.
Our verdict
Features: 75%
Ease of Use: 80%
Value for Money: 65%
Overall: 70%
Commodore – a name sure to turn old skool gamers of a certain age all misty eyed and nostalgic – has released a range of high end gaming PCs.
The top of the range XX model has a price tag sure to induce “Gordon Bennett!” exclamations, serving up a £2,900 baseline spec featuring an Intel Core2 Extreme Quad-Core processor QX6700: 2.66GHz 8MB Cache, ASUS P5N32-E NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI motherboard, 2x NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB SLI graphics cards, 2x 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Raid 0 hard drives and 2GB of 1066MHz RAM, running on Windows Vista Home Premium.
Mad for it gamers might also warm to Commodore Gaming’s ‘C-kins’ designs which let users select one of a 100 flashy, scratch-proof, PC case paint jobs created using a patented dye process.
It’s been a long time coming after being announced way back at CES in January 2007, but word is that iRiver’s B20 is finally about to start shipping.
Battery life is claimed at up to 17 hours for MP3 playback, 4 hours for video, 7 hours for DAB, dropping down to just 4 hours for DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting).
Taiwanese chipset manufacturer Via Technologies has released a motherboard so teeny-weensy that it could almost fit in a box of playing cards.
The pint sized motherboard is designed to be powered by one of Via’s energy efficient processor platforms – like the Via C7 or the fan-free Eden processor in the 21mm x 21mm nanoBGA2 package – with the resultant combo delivering a hefty clout into a low heat, low power, ultra-compact package.
Not to be confused with the deceptively similar sounding (and far more famous) Yamaha brand, German tech company Yamada hope that their HTV-200XU home system will find a place in your bijou living quarters.
The system sports a DVB-T tuner and analogue FM tuner, a DVD player that can handle just about every recordable format in town ( DVD, DVD R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD and CD-R/RW) and even offers 5.1 Sound System output backed by S-video, video, stereo and digital coaxial line-outs.
Microsoft is hell bent on doubling the numbers of PCs on the planet by 2015, and is prepared to put its vast pots of money where its mouth is.
Microsoft’s bargain basement software sale opens opportunities for tie-ins with the 
We’ve been feeling the love for the Netvibes aggregator for some time, and we look to be cuddling up a bit closer now that the company is letting users publish their home pages as personal Web portals – for free.
Mix’n’matching the webThe power of the Netvibes portal means that users can mix and match email accounts from the likes of Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, and add whatever content they fancy, regardless of the source.
The new Netvibes Universe service lets users design their own homepage and slap it on the web in minutes via the Netvibes Ecosystem. These pages can be configured to include personalised feeds such as videos, photos, podcasts, news, e-mail and eBay auction notifications.
Li reckoned that even folks working in Google and Yahoo felt that the big boys should give up trying to stop surfers from using competing products, as the shiny Internet of the Noughties means that services need to live side-by-side with competitors.
Claimed to offer downloads “up to 10 times faster than over usual WCDMA networks,” the Nokia 6120 bigs up its multimedia credentials sporting two cameras. The first is a basic, low res affair slapped on the front for video calls, while the main camera serves up 2-megapixels worth of picture-grabbing, 4-times digital zoom, a built in flash and a panorama mode.
There’s Bluetooth on board for wireless streaming of stereo sounds, a built-in FM radio, support for MP3/AAC/MPEG4 tuneage and a micro SD card slot for slapping in some more memory capacity.
Here’s Peter Ropke, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia to whip us into a frenzy of expectation for the phone, “With the HSDPA technology, S60 operating system and the wide range of features of the Nokia 6120 classic, consumers will be able to make their daily lives more manageable.”
The world’s top handset maker Nokia has announced that it expects to start shifting mobile devices using the WiMAX Internet technology by early 2008.
Nokia’s numero uno handset rival, Motorola, has announced that it fancies a piece of the WiMAX action too, saying that they’ll also be bringing a WiMAX enabled mobile phone to market in 2008.
With its feeble 1.44MB storage space, that often meant you had to cart around great boxes of the things.
With this in mind, Toshiba – the world’s fifth-largest hard drive manufacturer – has decided to elbow its way into the portable drive market with its 2.5-inch USB 2.0 portable external hard drive offering a positively palatial 200GB of storage space. That works out at 57,000 digital photos, 52,000 MP3 songs or 88 DVD videos all wedged into its slimline case (approx 6″x4″x0.9″).