02/20/2003

By WALT ZWIRKO / WFAA-TV

Whether you pay $200 or $2,000 for a PC, you'll have to plug things in to it to make it work.

After taking care of the power cord, keyboard, mouse and monitor, there are printers, cable modems, DSL modems, cameras and scanners.

And that leaves a tangled jumble of cables.

What a mess!

GOLDX

While there is no perfect solution, the GoldX PowerCore System promises to bring order to this chaos while conserving desk space.

The half-moon shaped PowerCore ($39.99) is sort of a super power strip, configurable to your particular needs. The standard model has a heavy-duty grounded power cable and provides four surge-protected AC outlets on the rear panel.

A separate kit of snap-in modules is available to upgrade the standard surge protection from 555 Joules to 1110 or 1665 Joules and to provide optional protection for cable modems, phone lines or a local area network (there's room for two of the three options).

But that's just the beginning for the PowerCore System.

Let's say you have a notebook computer you use in your home office. Pry the decorative cap from the top of the PowerCore unit and drop a USB Port Replicator ($69.99) on top. It gets its power from the base unit, eliminating the need for a power brick and power cord. The port replicator has connectors for a mouse, keyboard, printer and modem.

You can add to the PowerCore system's utility by adding other available devices, including a 5-port Ethernet switch ($49.99), a USB broadband adapter ($29.99) and a 3-port FireWire hub ($39.99)

PowerCore is an interesting and elegant way to manage a real problem for computer users. GoldX products are available in Texas from Altex Electronics and online at Tiger Direct.

E-mail: askwalt@wfaa.com