Farstone

Farstone wasn't a company we were familiar with; their name sounded vaguely like a series of fantasy novels you might have read in high school. But instead of dealing with things fantastical, they create things virtual - as in virtual disc drives.

If you are unfamiliar with the reasoning behind virtual drives, you might be one of those rare birds who loves switching out the discs in your CD-ROM drive every time you want to play a different game or DVD. At the THG gaming lab we have multiple computers running all the time with different games. Reviewing various titles throughout the day would mean opening and closing the drives far too many times, and the constant handling of easily-scratched optical media would increase the chance of damage.

Farstone's products like VirtualDrive 9 and GameDrive 9 convince Windows that you actually have the physical discs loaded, so that when copy protection schemes like SafeDisc or SecuROM look for them they come away satisfied, without you physically juggling CDs and DVDs. A live update feature ensures that future versions will still be compatible with your new games, and even more new features will be of particular interest to LAN gamers. VirtualDrive and GameDrive, along with a very handy product, RestoreIT, are available now.

Kingston And Iogear

Kingston came with their latest HypeX memory modules. Clad in a colorful blue container, these modules come in two 1 GB kits and can run at 750 MHz for the most demanding gaming and overclocking situations. Mike Sager, Senior VP of Sales and Marketing for Kingston, says they are working on 800 MHz chips as well, and will announce them soon.

Kingston has re-introduced Intel part numbers for their memory products to make it easier for system integrators to purchase and specify the products in their systems. "We are trying to take the guesswork out of choosing the right memory part," said Sager, "especially for the guy who is building 500 systems a month and doesn't want to take any chances."

Kingston continues to push flash memory densities higher too, with new Mini SD cards up to 256 MB, and full SD cards up to 4 GB available sometime this fall.

In addition to announcing a new partnership with Toshiba to sell their network switches and wireless access points, SMC also came by to talk to us about several new products in their pipeline.

Iogear came loaded with numerous KVM switches that offer a number of space-saving advantages for multiple-computer households. They are also useful for situations such as those we find at our own labs, where we tend to stack the gear densely and need to share keyboards and monitors. All of their switches can work with USB ports on Windows, Mac, and Sun boxes. Keith Renty, the company's product manager, told us that the Mac mini is "giving KVM a lot of play, since it doesn't come with a mouse, keyboard or monitor."

Their switches use spare pins on the standard VGA D-shell connector to condense the cable clutter, and some models come with USB and Ethernet hubs too. Many of their announcements are embargoed until Networld+Interop in early May, but look for our articles then on new routers and network-attached storage.