"Newer Technology Inc is proud to introduce the NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter, a single-source solution to allow any 2.5", 3.5", or 5.25" hard drive or optical drive mechanism with standard IDE/ATA/ATAPI 40 pin or any Serial-ATA interface to be plug-and-play accessible via USB.

Available for the introductory price of $24.95, the NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter provides USB 2.0 transfer speed up to 480Mbps.... the Universal Drive Adapter also is backwards compatible for operation via USB 1.1. ... Popular uses include file transfer after the upgrade of an internal hard drive, accessing data from stored backup drives, and interfacing with as-needed stored drives.

Each NewerTech USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter includes all hardware necessary for the plug-and-play of supported 2.5"/3.5"/5.25" storage devices to any Apple/Mac or PC with an available USB port. No software is required for the use of the Adapter on any Apple/Mac computer with OS 8.6 or higher (including any version of OS X); a CD is included with the drivers required to use this product on Windows based systems. The NewerTech USB Adapter has been tested to work with all hard drive brands including Maxtor, Seagate, IBM, Hitachi, Samsung, Western Digital, and Fujitsu; optical drive brands including LG, Lite-On, Panasonic, Pioneer, Plextor, Sony, Teac, and Toshiba; and removable media drives such as Iomega Zip.

Customers can take advantage of introductory pricing of $24.95 through www.NewerTech.com, source distributor Other World Computing (www.MacSales.com), or through other fine retailers. For sales or further information contact www.NewerTech.com or call toll free (800) 275-4576."

Note: Since posting this I've had 2 readers say that Disk Utility would not successfully format a new drive using this adapter. The adapter worked for read/write of already formatted drives, but both readers reported failures to initialize/format a drive with the USB adapter. (They used a Firewire case to reformat the drive after the USB adapter attempt failed.) I wrote OWC to ask if they had tested for this problem.

" i'm a native speaker of chinese. This Web site shows the new Merom in mac mini, it says the CPU is too new to be recognized by the latest osx 10.4.6, so it shows Genuine Intel CPU, and what follows is the comparison with G5 Duo 2.5Ghz 250GB HD and 6.5GB Ram/ G5 duo 1.8Ghz with 160GB HD and 4GB ram. By the way Mac mini/Merom Core 2 Duo2.16G/5400rpm 80G HD/2GB Ram.
Hope this helps....
-'Elvis' "

I'm not sure what the Merom 2.16GHz (T7400) will sell for, but as mentioned in previous posts, the 2.16GHz T2600 CPU cost about as much as a Mac Mini, but prices should drop over time. The May 5th news page here has a guide to swapping the Mac Mini's CPU. (The Intel based iMac also has a socketed CPU, unless Apple changed that.)

(Apple System Profiler report)
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-846:
Firmware Revision: FQ3T
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO"

Thanks to William R. for the info from his MBP.

• IE And Firefox Sport New Zero-day Flaw
• Time Gadget of the Week: MacBook
• CBS's "CSI" & "Survivor" Now Available at the iTunes Music Store
• Equinux On Air 1.1 (univ. binary) (find, view, record and edit multiple video sources)
• Clan Lord v445 - Online RPG game
• Apple NAND flash buying spree fuels rumors of 8GB iPod Nano
• Apple files second lawsuit against Creative
• PC makers bet on super-sized laptops
• HP Recalls Photosmart R707 Cameras (fire hazard)
• TiVo Delivers Internet Video to TVs

DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/RW Drives:
• IDE NEC 3540A in iMac G4 (OS X 10.4)
  
  Hard Drives:
• IDE Seagate (Momentus) ST9160821A 160GB in (12in) PowerBook G4 (OS X 10.4)
• IDE (SerialATA onboard) Maxtor L01S300 300GB in G5 Tower (OS X 10.4)

You can find full owner reports (latest shown first) by searching the database by drive/brand/interface/mac models (the latest reports are shown first in searches). If you've added a IDE, SCSI, Firewire or USB hard drive, CDRW, tape drive, etc. you can send me a report for adding to the database.