Mark W. Kaelin

The holiday season is a big deal here at the TechRepublic Offices — that is to say we like to celebrate. One way we show our festive spirit is with a Holiday Technology Tree. Our techie tree features gadgets, gizmos, cracked open equipment, and TR swag strung up on a tree-like structure created with a camera tripod and lots of Ethernet cable. It is a site to behold as you can see in this TechRepublic Photo Gallery.

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The Acer Aspire One netbook is an ultraportable netbook a cut above what we have seen so far. With a almost standard sized keyboard, Intel Atom CPU, and 160GB hard drive, the Aspire One is a netbook that you can actually take on the road and get real work done. TechRepublic took a First Look at this netbook and reviewed it for the Product Spotlight even as we make plans for a Cracking Open gallery in the near future.

For some World of Warcraft players, the launch of the new Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack is a big deal that is to be celebrated. One way to celebrate is with a midnight Launch Event. There were thousands of these events taking place as midnight rolled around across the planet. In San Francisco, one retailer held a street fair at its Powell Street location where around 600 people gathered. Gamespot and CNET News took some photos and we created a TechRepublic Photo Gallery to commemorate.

Members of Technologia are poised to take on the Wrath of the Lich King, the latest expansion pack for the World of Warcraft. Our friends over at GameSpot provided us with a preview.

The Apple iPod Touch is more than just a media player. With built-in GPS and WiFi capability this media player can keep you connected to your social network. And with the additional benefit of downloadable third-party applications, the iPod Touch is capable of much more than merely playing MP3s.

The Classmate 2GoPC from CTL Corporation is an ultra-portable laptop computer designed to be used by students in elementary and secondary school. We put the 2GoPC’s ruggedness to the test in this TechRepublic Cracking Open Photo Gallery.

The fourth generation iPod Nano from Apple is taller and thinner than the previous generation and more difficult to crack open, but that didn’t stop us from trying — even if it meant sacrificing the device’s ability to operate.

The Area 51 ALX systems from Alienware are their cream of the crop, flagship, desktop computers. Our review unit came with three nVidia GeForce 280 GTX video cards, each carrying 1GB of dedicated GPU RAM. We had to crack open the case to see what a case full of video cards actually looks like.

TechRepublic has been examining ultraportable PCs throughout this year and the 2GoPC is the latest one. This Classmate PC laptop, manufactured by Intel and marketed by the folks at 2GoPC, is an ultraportable with a twist — it is designed for the children market. It is much more rugged than the ASUS EEE, runs Windows XP, and costs about $100 less.

One of the first “killer” game applications for what was the nascent personal computer gaming market in 1983, was Microsoft Flight Simulator. While the graphics weren’t spectacular by today’s standards, they were graphics which were a change from what had come before. With the IBM PC Jr. up and running, it turned out to be a good time to take a look at this dinosaur application.

One of the most engaging activities in the World of Warcraft are what are know as Worldwide Server Events. These events aspire to involve the participation of all players of the appropriate level in a storyline that plays out for the entire game universe. The more participation of the population, the faster the story advances, and the faster everyone can get to the rewards. One of the most successful of these Worldwide Events has been the Shattered Sun Offensive. The main area of focus for this event is the Isle of Quel’Danas, which was inserted into the game world specifically for this story. Elkwinkarma and Ramekinwalk, took part in this adventure and we have the images to prove it.

The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing began on Friday, August 08, 2008, but just because you were not there doesn’t mean you can’t participate in your own version of the international event. Through the magic of your game console and personal computer you can guide your avatar athletes to victory, glory, and gold medals inside numerous games celebrating the Olympics. Here are just a few of the games we found over on Gamespot.