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dean's
toys updated 08/21/2011
a
long, tiresome, incomplete, but ultimately
pointless diatribe about the tech toys that
I love, hate, break, fix, use, and misuse...
(And oddly, this is the most
linked-to-and-read page on this website.
Huh? I can't even read it, but, so
it is... )
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Broken
Stuff : |
At
the end of my "toy" description is a rant on
how some of this stuff here, and other "stuff" just
doesn't work, or more precisely, stops working
("breaks"). If you wanna read my rant, click here,
or just read on about the "good stuff..."
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Home
PCs: |
"bubbler" -
Homebuilt Intel i5 quad-core system
To
start this off, Here's "Bubbler 7," or some-such
version. There have been a number of "bubbler's," the
name I always give to my main computer. (And,
I like to give a "budda" name to my others, no
real reason outside of a shot at consistency; I knew a
guy who named all of our lab's computers after fish, or
project lines product names taken from breweries, so on).
SO,
bubbler is the most-current (built around 10/2010) in the
line, replacing it's Athlon-based
predecessor that was fine "in the day," but
the sea-song of "You need a dual-core dean... dual-core..." kept
whispering in my head... So I built a dual-core intel system,
"Bubbler 6," but, as always, you wanna keep upgrading,
and now I have "bubbler 7" as my main system. Bubbler 7's
upgrades from the previous system include a quad core Intel
CPU, twice as much memory, and I slapped in some extra
large disks.
And,
that's what this is, my first "line" of home-build using
an Intel processors -- previously I built them using AMD's
excellent chips. The system is not top-of-the-line by any
stretch, but much faster than any previous "
bubbler." Besides, I make it a pretty strict rule to never buy "bleeding-edge" hardware,
due to cost; buying a CPU or video card that's one or two
grades down from the top saves you a ton of money, and
I found it hard to rationalize buying those top-of-the-line
pieces that stay at the top for only a month or so when
the new "top" product is released. That all said,
here are the specs on bubbler (And, see some detailed specs here):
-
intel
i5-750 "Lynnfield" quad-core
processor @ ~4GHz (depending on my mood about overclocking)
-
8GB
RAM (4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1333 + 4GB G.Skill Trident
DDR3 2000)
-
-
Corsair
H50 water-cooler (CPU)
-
Any
random thermal goop to hold the CPU and fan together
(In a "thermal sense," that is, epoxy,
for instance, is probably a bad idea)
-
-
-
two
Western Digital 2TB, 7200RPM, 32MB buffer SATA disks
-- one for backup, one for additional storage
-
Other
500GB-1TB disks for various tasks (as needed, they
slide in)
-
EVGA
Nvidia 8800 GTS 512MB Video card
-
Windows
7 Pro, 64bit (FINALLY! No more $#*@! VISTA!)
-
HP
f2304 23" LCD monitor , 1920x1200 resolution.
Sweet!
-
A
second 24" "unbranded" HP LCD monitor
that swivels, allowing you to rotate to either landscape
or panoramic view. Got it for cheap, but it's great
and it's great having two monitors. It's also 1920x1200
resolution
-
LG
blue-ray reader/writer DVD with Lightscribe
-
LITEON
SATA DVD/CD LightScribe drive
-
Logitech
MX5500 keyboard and Mouse, Bluetooth wireless
-
JBL
mini-satellite speakers and woofer
-
-
HP "all
in one" 7410 Printer/scanner/fax/copier
-
HP "all
in one" L7750 Printer/scanner/fax/copier
-
Lexmark
X9350 printer/scanner/fax/copier
-
HP "all
in one" L7780 Printer/scanner/fax/copier
-
Tripp-Lite "OmniSmart" uninterruptible
Power Supply (UPS)
so,
this is the latest evolution of my first homebuilt, AMD
K6 system. I'm pretty happy with it. Granted the 8800
GTS video card isn't top of the line, but it's still
pretty good and more than good enough for everything
I do. I'll upgrade it sometime, but for now my upgrades
are complete after I swapped in the new Asus motherboard
(INCREDIBLE!) and the i5 processor (and the cooler, can't
forget that baby since the stock Intel coolers are, um, "sub-par.")
The CPU easily takes overclocking, and I keep it around
4.0GHz, but the REAL gain is in bus CLK speed, over 210MHz
which both bumps the CPU, but makes my 8GB scream. It
was kinda odd having to buy a SATA DVD/CD drive (no IDE
on the new mobo) and tossing the admittedly obsoleted
floppy (no floppy connect; not needed in the 21st century.)
But it's MUCH cleaner without those old cables, and everything "just
works." OH! And the system is amazingly QUIET, especially
given five fans and three disks; the new power-features
of the mobo, coupled with Win 7, work wonderfully. (This
mobo was a replacement for three -- count 'em -- three
BAD MSI P55-GD65 mobos I suffered through. The 1st wouldn't
POST, the 2nd saw only one memory stick (2GB,) and the
third I limped along with, eventually getting it to recognize
3.6GB out of 6GB installed. It wouldn't POST with my
8GB, and with the 6BG ("3.5GB usable" by Win
7) it only ran in single-channel mode. Not acceptable.
I RMA'd the previous two boards, but gave up on this
3rd board (so much for "3's a charm") and just
ate the cost and got the Asus. While buying the MSI was
clearly one of the dumbest things I ever did, throwing
in the towel and going with the Asus was one of the smartest.
The end-result? VERY happy with this upgrade.
Oh!
I just upgraded (08/2011) my main "C:" disk to the Seagate
Momentus XT hybrid, and ... it's SWEET! 32MB RAM cache,
7200 RPM, and a 2.5" form-factor (faster seeks.) But while
these are impressive specs, what's really "sweet" about
the drive is the 4GB of "Adaptive SSD" built into it. Now,
4BG is pretty small, but somehow, it works! My boot times
went from 7 mins (or more) to 2:30 with the new drive.
ANd everything is just "snappier." I'll eventually go with
a pure SSD for boot (again, "C:") but for now, this drive
is amazing, and costs a ton less than an equivalent SSD.
The 500gb size is fine for me since I keep all my main
data on the other 2TB disks.
The
rest of the system is either just functional (e.g., the
DVD/CD burners,) the cordless keyboard/mouse are great,
and the fun/luxury stuff such as the good-sized monitors
or JBL sound are great. I'll keep this "bubbler" for
some time, maybe bumping up a few parts such as video,
then an i7 (in that order,) and throwing more good or
fun SW onto it.
Errata
The
700W power supply is somewhat of a "luxury" item,
but in actuality a necessary one. I had a 500W PS on a
previous system, and it struggled at times. The extra quality
of this PS, and the extra watts and rail current solve
all that and more. Plus, it's quiet, and the modular cabling
is nifty (although the "heavy duty" cables can
be a tad thick). I don't expect to need a 1KW+ supply anytime
soon. At least until I upgrade my video card, but even
that's a "maybe."
On
power... Boise, while it's gotten a lot better,
a few years back it was horrid compared to other places
I lived (well, except for Wisconsin where the 3 ft snow
dumps or near-tornados would knit the power lines into
balls and blow them down the road). So some time back I
opted for a ups.
Grantedmy current UPS is a "bit" smaller than
the 4 ton units I got used to in "real" computer
rooms, but it's still good enough to keep the system running
for 8-10 minutes, giving me enough time to shut the system
down. While it provides some nice features such as emailing
me when the power goes out (or sending a text msg to my
cell), and automattically shutting the system down, I haven't
taken the time to set it up. I bought this one because
it had a lot of capacity for the dollar, while still minor
league -- real UPS's spin their own power from gas generators
and hold a charge with a ton of batteries. But my little
system gives me some security, and most power failures
here only last a minute or five, giving me a hedge and
keeping the system spinning through it.
The
HP f2304 23" LCD monitor deserves special recognition.
Not cheap, of course, but HUGE, with 1920x1200 native
resolution. I just love it! I AM ticked that the current
discount price is LESS THAN 1/2 the price I paid, but
such is buying at the "state of the art..." But
I got a deal on the unbranded 2nd HP monitor.
You
probably noticed the strike-throughs on a couple HP
printers ("All-in-one's," to be exact). That's
because they're sitting around, broken. And they broke
waaay too soon. The first one, the 7410, died (wouldn't
feed paper, the roller mech went "blooey"),
and HP sent me a replacement under warranty. What was
cool is they sent me the upgraded version, the L7750.
Nice of them, but it too decided to keep paper to itself,
insistently wrapping it around numerous rollers deep
inside of it. I didn't bother to call it in, instead
I went with a low-end Lexmark All-in-one. Ernie used
it via the network (it supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB,
and ethernet cable connect), and she was happy with
it. Me? it was, at best, flakey, jamming too often,
wireless would disconnect, etc. So I called HP and
they sent me ANOTHER replacement, this time the 7780,
and it's been working fine; occasional paper-jams,
but not often at all. Kinda sucks, though, having to
go through so many printers to find a good one though.
Now,
the Cooler Master "Cosmos" case is ... Amazing.
I've used maybe 8 or more cases in my PC-building endeavors,
and this one wins hands-down. It's roomy, as you'd expect
in a full tower, but with the Cosmos it's "more so." It
has six removable drive bays -- you just unscrew one thumbscrew
and slide the disks out. The front drive bays (there are
five total) come out just by pushing one button! A
lever is supplied. The sides come off by pushing one lever
on the back, and pop out and in with more ease than I've
ever seen. Note I said "sides"; both the left
and right come off giving you clean access to pretty much
everything. The side panels are are lined with sound-deadening
foam and are sealed by rubber gaskets.
The
power supply (not included) mounts in the rear/bottom,
and vents down. Putting the PS on the bottom doesn't make
much sense to me vis-a-vis cooling (something I heard about
heat rising and all). But it seems to work, and gives the
system stability (something else I heard about --"low
center of gravity," although I think it's more important
in cars and high-wire artists), and gives you more room
to work. It comes with three 120mm, low-speed fans which
cool wonderfully and keep the case quiet. THere's also
a removable air-channel that runs the length of the mobo
to help keep it cool.
The
top front panel slopes slightly toward you, and conveniently
hosts four USB ports, one e-SATA port, one firewire port,
a headphone and a mic jack, power and disk LEDs, and power
and reset buttons. Nice layout indeed. The front is covered
by the currently-trendy door to hide those yucky DVD/CD
drives and floppy, which, in a home system is for looks
only; those of "youth" might find it sexy and "professional-looking"... "C'mon
over Billy, I built a server!!!" (Of course, real data-center
servers are rack-mounted and have no covers of their own
in the name of accessibility). For a home system, where
you'll use those yucky drives often, a cover is just in
the way. But, on the cosmos the cover is removable, or
if you want to keep it you can easily choose if you want
to open it on the left, or on the right. Nice touches,
both. Another nice touch are the sleek top-mounted bars
you use as handles, a bonus on a case that weighs 37lbs,empty
(nope, this isn't an aluminum case, "all steel baby").
There are similar bars on the bottom that act as Feet/stabilizers
(both sets run the depth of the case). Thumb screws abound
-- aside from mounting the mobo and PS it's hard to find
a place where you can use a screwdriver. The sheet metal
is all rolled edges.
This
case design is so good it makes me want to tear it apart
just for the fun and ease of it. I can't say anything more
about it than I love this case, and did I mention it's
just plain gorgeous? I might buy another one just to put
on display in the front hall. With the nifty front door
installed, or course...
My
OS "experience"

I've "done" various
operating systems over the years, from very simple board-based
assy-language, to "Commodore 64" or "Sinclair
zx" type OS', to various DOS, then Windows, OS/2,
proprietary OS' (MPE, HP-UX, other UNIX-based OS's, embedded,
etc.,) paltops, BEOS, Linux and it's many variants, so
on. Not much "Mac" experience though; I leave
that to Ernie ;) I still like and prefer the concept
of Linux, but find it still too much of a "hacker" OS.
So now, for longer than I can recall, it's really been
Windows that dominates my "user experience." For
good or bad, that's almost all of what I "do" now.
I'll still dabble in Linux from time-to-time, and now
just getting into Android because of my Droid X, but
99% of the time, it's ... Windows... With that, here're
my current thoughts.
With
the various "bubbler evolutions" I took the
plunge and bought Windows Vista, "Ultimate," no
less, to replace XP. I just naively thought Vista would
be a Good Thing to try and use.
Dumb
mistake. Dumb choice. Dumb waste of money and dumb operating
system. The list is long, but key are too much time trying
to get things running (the famous and vast Vista incompatibilities
with software and hardware; old programs and drivers just
don't like it, or visa-versa). Not to mention that Vista
is the orneriest, most nagging and unstable OS (I can't
count how many times basic "programs" like WIndows
Explorer or Windows Internet Explorer" just "stop
working," followed by either my need to hard-kill
them via having Task Manager beat it out of the system,
or watching a Windows popup tell me, yet again, that the
programs "Stopped working, WIndows is trying to find
a solution or "The program has stopped responding
and must be closed," or "An unexpected program
error has occurred and must be shut down," or they
simply "pop" away with nothing said about it.
These are fundamental programs in Windows for
gosh sakes! I won't go into detail about how "non-fundamental" programs
crash/disappear/hang with regularity).
Not
to mention it was just a resource hog, and an absolute
bear to work with (CONSTANT nags along the line of: "Are
you sure you want to run this program?" "Are
you really really sure?" "Windows requires
your permission to run 'xyzzy'. "Windows doesn't know
who wrote this program, click 'Yes' to thrust pain and
suffering on your family and tear your ancestors souls
from the graces of heaven.." And so on. I could go
on, but I already have, here,
if you want to read it. Last, you know an OS has
problems when they recommend you stick with, or roll back
to the previous version (xp.) (Just look at how many computer
mfg's now offer XP (or, Win 7) -- typically at more cost
-- as an option over Vista). Oh, did I mention that Vista's
main architect voiced some juicy thoughts about Vista and
its problems, and later quit over it, saying Microsoft
had lost it's way?
Enough
said except that if I had any inkling of the depth of Vista's
problems, problems that are known but continue and proliferate
un-addressed, I'd have stayed on XP. But I didn't and battled
through it, mostly because I bought THREE copies of Vista,
another dumb idea, for WAAAAY too much each (not keeping
count, is that "dumb idea #3?) So, I bagged Vista,
finally, and bought Windows 7. Granted, Win 7 should have
been a PATCH for Vista, but hey! How's MS going to make
any money? SO I bought the "patch," and I'm actually
delighted with it. Sure it still has problems, and MS still
hasn't figured out how to make their products less susceptible
to virus'. They try hacks (how do you spell "UAC?" Fun
to install 70+ security updates right after a clean install,
and answer "Yes" dozens of times so you can run
any program that dares to access the "interweb." So
on.) But, it's head & shoulders above Vista -- how
could it NOT be? I'm happy with it, and actually, if you
shop around it's not all that spendy.
So
that's "Bubbler" (#6-ish). I'm very happy with
my main toy. But, there are others, like the following...
;)
"little-budda" -
Homebuilt AMD 64 2800+
It's "cute!" I
found a cool SFF case and a deal
on a motherboard/CPU combo (AMD 64), ran home, and screwed
it all together (stealing some parts from other systems that
I need to replace now). It was cheap for me to build since
I had most of the extra parts (disk, video, RAM, so
on) lying around collecting dust. It
fired up 1st-time, and I installed XP and a bunch of drivers,
apps, etc. I can't say it all went smoothly -- SSF cases
are just hard to work in due to the cramped space,
and the VIA chipset/audio drivers were a mess to get right
(one of the reasons I'm a big nVidia nForce fan). But it's
all working now, and will replace Sitting-Budda as my server.
The nice thing about it is that it's small, about the
size of one and a half shoeboxes, and quiet! due
to the Antec "Aria" case. The case, BTW, is great-looking,
and sports some nicely-understated blue LED front panel lighting,
just ONE 120MM fan (for quiet), and even includes a front-panel
mounted 8-in-1 USB card reader. The downsides of this system
are:
-
The MSI
K8MM-V microATX motherboard sports a lot of neat
features (Socket 754, 8 USB ports, SATA and RAID,
800MHz DDR support, built-in audio, LAN, and video).
one key exception? it is not overclockable!
(uh, this IS MSI, right?) So, the performance is
far less than it could/should be. I'll probably (almost
certainly) upgrade to an nForce-based motherboard.
On the other hand, it's completely stable
-
This
was my first venture into 64-bit processors, and I
jumped into buying the Athlon 64 2800+ (as part of
the mobo/CPU deal) without doing any real research
(my fault). I'm disappointed in the benchmark performance,
I expected it to be faster than the Athlon 1900+ in
Sitting-Budda, but it isn't. I don't know why. Part
of that, of course, is the lack of overclocking capability
on the motherboard, but the chip just seems ... slower.
I need to investigate a bit more. Then again, it really
is fine for most anything I need to do, benchmarks
aside
-
The
motherboard doesn't support firewire (the Aria case
has a front-panel firewire port). I don't use firewire,
but it'd be nice to have regardless
That
said, I love this little thing! It's quiet, completely
reliable, and looks nifty. Yeah, but current standards
this is a meager config, but it's fine for what I need
it for. I loaded up Serious
Sam 2nd Encounter and it ran smoothly with all the "eye-candy" at
1024x768. I plan on putting it into my home theater after
tweaking it to work as a PVR and MP3 player/streamer. or, lately
I've been wanting a system in the kitchen, for web-surfing
while cooking, and to use as a TV there. Coupled with a
17" LCD monitor (bought a HD LCD @ 1280x768), and
a good tuner, it could work! (and the Netgear wireless
LAN card will let me plop the system anywhere I want it
without worrying about cables). I popped in my existing
avertv stereo TV decoder and PVR ("Personal Video
Recorder") as a test, but I'd want a better, newer
card (and one that the vendor actually supports).
I suspect little-budda will be gathering crumbs and caked
with cooking grease in the near future...
Here
are the specs (detailed specs here):
-
-
512
MB PC2700 DDR RAM
-
-
Western-Digital
120GB disk
-
Stock
AMD cooling fan
-
ATI
Radeon 9800 SE Video
-
WinXP
SP2
-
Westinghouse LCM-17w7 LCD
monitor (1280x768)
-
a "no
name" CD-RW DVD
-
A
wireless keyboard and mouse
-
Avertv
Stereo TV/PVR card
-
Netgear
wireless LAN card (802.11g)
"Alexa-budda" -
Homebuilt AMD Athlon 1700+
What
a time we live in! For Alexa to play her latest Barbie games,
her old 400Mhz PII system fell to the ground and went into
cardiac arrest. So, what to do? I let her play on my main
system, but ... hey! It's MINE!
So
I built her a new one. It's not a bad system at all. In
fact, it's pretty darn nice. Here are the specs:
-
-
512
MB OCZ PC3200
-
-
-
-
Nvidia
GeFOrce 3 Ti500 Video
-
Windows
98SE/WinXP
-
HP
D1193A 17" monitor (1024x768)
-
Sony
CD-RW/DVD (via USB 2.0 and external case so she can
access the CD on the desk)
-
Some
cheap Labtech speakers
-
A
cheap wireless keyboard and mouse
-
Linksys
WMP11v4 wireless LAN card (802.11b)
I
chose the mATX form-factor to have a small system for her,
but with expansion capabilities (1 AGP port, 3 PCI). I
installed it in a case (a no-name brand I don't remember
now) that was recommended in a review (and if I ever find
the guy who gave it a positive review I'm going to toss
him down a long flight of stairs -- it's a LOUSY CASE!
But it does work). The BioStar motherboard is a good one,
albeit though it turns out it simply doesn't work if
you set your IDE disks/CD-ROMs for "master/slave".
Doesn't work, it'll let you install, but then can't find
the disk it just installed to. Actually, it often just
hung or failed to even FIND the drives. But putting it
into "Cable Select" mode solved all those problems.
Truly odd . I initially
set it up with a Vantec
AeroFlow VA4-C7040 CPU fan, but it sounded like a vacuum
was running all the time, so I swapped in the zalman
silent cooler instead and set it to "silent mode".
The CPU temps actually dropped from the vantec. Now life
is ... quieter. Recommended. Now I need to install a similar
(but "better") quiet-fan on my main
system to quiet it down.
So
Alexa now has a "power system" to play her games.
I chose to add Win98SE because, heck, a lot of kids games
aren't ready for XP or certainly Win2K. I have an extra
Hitachi 19" monitor sitting around, and might swap
that in, but she's got great eyes, and a 17" monitor
works for her. I'll see. So, now she's got a system that
will (hopefully) suit her games for the near-future. "She's
got game..."
UPDATE
02/2008:
Alexa
likes my laptop better, and it's faster
and smaller and therefore easier to keep around. So I'm going
to toast Windows on "Alexa-budda" and throw on
a copy of Linux, just for fun. Years ago in "the day" when
you hacked and compiled your own drivers I kept a Linux box
around. Now I'd like to try a couple distros to see how its
changed and improved.
Abandoned "others"
While
I could say there are a few other systems in the house,
that would be at least a half-lie. At least one could be
revived by slipping in a video card and hooking up a keyboard
and mouse, but the others would require me to dig through
my spare parts bins and do a bit more work. All-in-all,
while I could get them running, there's really
no need. With five systems now up & running (including
laptops), I think I've got most of it covered. I am thinking
about reviving one or two and giving them away -- to school(s)
most likely -- but that's for later, I'm busy tinkering
with the the running ones right now. |
|
There
have been a lot of laptops over at Casa de Cashen.
Here's most of them, and all of them are working. Now, I
don't have a lot of day-to-day use for the 20 pound 286 or
the monochrome 486/8MB system, but they work! The others
are being put to task, though.
Read on.
"tubbler" -
HP TouchSmart tm2 Tablet/Laptop PC
I've
been eyeing tablet laptops for some time, and HP came out
with a new & improved model, the "TouchSmart tm2." Operates
just like a laptop, but you can swivel the screen and flip
it down and viola! A tablet PC! I upgraded it a bit; 6GB
of RAM, 500GB disk, 3G networking, WiFi 802.11 bgn, blutooth,
webcam, fingerprint reader, and an extra battery. It's screen
is only 12.1", to keep the size down, but it's 1280x800
resolution, and of course, multi-touch with a built-in stylus.
Intel core duo 2 SU7300, 1.3GHz which is more than fast enough.
It's light and handy, with a 6+ hr battery life! The only
real downside is that if you put it to sleep it tends to
lose all WiFi connect, a known problem that HP just doesn't
seem to want to fix, despite that "known problem thingy." Disappointing
that HP would leave so may Customers like that. The "fix" now
is to reboot. Also, due to its size it doesn't have a built-in
DVD drive, but I have an external USB LightScribe USB DVD
drive that works fine. Came with Win 7 Pro 64-bit which I'm
getting used to; hard not to, it's one HECK of a lot better
than Vista ever was. And the aluminum case w/engraving looks
kinda cool, and makes it feel sturdy. I really like it.
Asus
Eee PC 1005MA
Decided
I needed a really small PC, and the Asus Eee PC 1005MA filled
the bill. Light, white, etc. Only a 160GB disk, but then,
I only use it for light work such as email and surfing. Came
with WinXP which is fine for me, and a webcam. Two problems
with it though: I didn't get blutooth, but that was easily
fixed with a mini-USB blutooth "dongle," and the
1024x600 screen is kinda small (the "600" part)
so you do a lot of scrolling. But it's great for travel,
and it was pretty cheap at less than $250. It gets almost
9 HOURS of battery life! Pretty amazing. Odd though, I looked
at buying a spare bat, but at the time they were $179 each!
That's just crazy! So in the meantime I'll "suff through
with the 9 hr one-battery solution :).
HP
dv9000
My
This is my new "hot" laptop, an HP Pavilion, dv9000 "entertainment" notebook.
It's pretty fast, for a notebook, with its core 2 duo CPU,
2GB of memory, two hard drives, 17" display, etc. There's a
lot more to say about it, but since I haven't gathered all
the specs and such, so this is more-or-less a placeholder
until I can say more about it...
HP
NC6000
My
old work laptop (when I worked prior to early-retirement)
replacing my desktop system. It's a 1.6GHz system, and from
that single spec isn't the "fastest" system available,
but that's mostly wrong... It uses the new Intel "Centrino" CPU
and chipset which provide more "computation/cycle" than
previous versions, and increases memory bandwidth (DDR/400Mhz)
to the point that it's faster than a 2+GHz system. Plus the "M" chipset
saves power. A lot of power, and it'll run over 5 hrs on
a charge. I like that. a lot.And
it has so many new features over my very-old ThinkPad 600e.
Such as, both a touchpad and a tracking point. Dual USB 2.0
(one powered), Firewire, ATI Radeon 9600 32MB video, 60Gb
drive, 512Mb of DDR memory, DVD/CD-RW drive, built-in b/g
wireless, Secure Digital memory slot, dual PCCARD slots,
14" XGA display (1024x768), and weighs 5lbs. My only
disappointment, and a significant one, is the XGA display:
I wanted higher, 1280x1024, but that's how it's shipped.
Odd given the technology put into this. I use it mostly in
a docking station to a monitor at 1600x1200, so that moderates
the disappointment. It came with Windows XP (Pro), another
disappointment, Win2K is just better. As I had with my old
ThinkPad 600e, I share it at home via a KVM switch to my
main monitor. I sometimes do work lying on the couch, wireless
to the internet, listening to music. Sweet. Did I mention
it runs for 5+ hours at a time? :)
IBM
ThinkPad 600e
I
loved my previous Thinkpad, and when
technology rose I had to find a new laptop, and IBM was at
the top of my list. I chose the IBM Thinkpad 600e, a 366Mhz
PII system that weighs less than 6lbs, and sports at 13.3" display,
6GB disk, DVD drive, docking station, Trackpoint,
and dual-battery support, among it's features. I specifically didn't want
a larger display, 13.3" is big, and anything bigger
means the whole system has to be larger -- this is bad on
an airline when the passenger in front of you reclines their
seat. Besides, 1024x768 resolution is terrific on the 13" display.
And I wanted a lightweight system, portable and powerful.
This has it all although, now after many years, it's specs
(CPU and disk capacity) show their age. my new
system has replaced it.
IBM
ThinkPad 760CD
About
ten years ago, my company bought me a ThinkPad.
And I think it was, and is, just dandy. Now, that was ages ago
in tech-time, and it's obsolete (P90, 2.1GB disk, 56MB).
But the 12.1" TFT display and TrackPoint pointing
stick made it a joy to use. (Trackpoints should be required
by law to be on every keyboard made, they're that
good). The Thinkpad also allows you to swap in a CD ROM,
Floppy drive, or an extra Li-Ion battery, and it has other
built-in features like an Mwave sound
card and modem, and TV/video input and output. IBM makes
some nice gear. When I bought it I planned to upgrade to
a 120Mhz processor, but that wasn't reasonable given the
progress in laptop development, and the price of the IBM
upgrade (over $1000). It made more sense to buy another
system instead. Shame.
Zenith
486/25 sub-notebook laptop
It
was just a wonderful little machine "back when," but
the years have caught up with it, and it's little CPU, 8MB
of memory, 8.5" STSN B&W display, and 170MB disk
limit it's use. And, I made the mistake of upgrading it from
WFWG 3.11 to Win95. Now it spends all of it's time swapping
to disk. It really needs another 8MB to support Win95, but,
well, IMHO, Zenith falls way short in the support category
(read just about any magazine review), and they made it it
hard -- nearly impossible, actually, for me to get memory.
I used to like their products, but after dealing with them,
I didn't even consider Zenith when I was shopping for a laptop
(this was, of course, when Zenith was selling laptops,
they ain't no more, not surprisingly).
Zenith
286/12 laptop
Okay,
so I dump on Zenith above, but this unit, from Zenith's heyday
as a laptop vendor, holds a place in my heart. While nonfunctional
by today's standards, this was one of the first 80286 laptops,
and ran at a "screaming" 12Mhz. It came with a
20MB disk, but mine was upgraded to 40MB -- a lot for the
time. It also had 1MB RAM (upgradeable to 2MB), a 10" CGA
LCD, near full-size keyboard, and a built-in 1200 baud modem.
I hauled this 15lb thing around the country for a year or
two, probably doing damage to my arms and shoulders in the
process, but I couldn't imagine going anywhere without it,
and everywhere I went people huddled around just to look
at it. (Now they'd huddle around to see what that big ol'
monster was!)
The battery pack (which alone weighs as much as many of today's
laptops) is dead, but it still works using the AC adapter.
Not that there's anything I really want to do with
it, but I like keeping it around nonetheless. |
|
Internet
is fed by a cable modem today. After years of slow dial-up,
I'm not going back to it except under threat of decapitation.
Cableone's been very reliable (it wasn't at first so I
picked up a dial-up service, "just-in-case," but
haven't used it in months). I use a Netgear wireless-G
router to provide internet access to all PCs with just
the one cable connection, and it further adds a firewall
to keep out the bad guys. It support wireless B&G,
so I can plop my computers anywhere in the house and get
network access without cables. Not to mention, it provides
NAT, DHCP, and DNS services so networking to it is a snap
(or should be, Linux gave me fits, but then, it IS "Linux!").
I like this router, and it's great having all PCs "securely" connected
to the 'net.
The wireless protocol used by
the Netgear is the IEEE 802.11b & G standard, also
known as Wi-Fi. And it works just fine, as long as you
aren't overly worried
about security, that is I use a WIFI card in my laptops
and alexa's computer as well as little-budda.
|
|
Motorola
XOOM Pad PC
I
held off on buying a pad since they only became "desireable" when
the first iPad came out, and I both don't want 1st gen,
and I know I don't want Apple. When Motorola came out
with the XOOM, it seemed to be just what I was looking
for, a well-established OS (albeit, Android 3.1 is kinda "cutting
edge" right now,) and well thought-out hardware.
So, I wanted one, and Ern broke down and got it for
me. And yep, I love it, here's why:
A Great form-factor, small and light
enough, with good (but not great) port options (I'd like
to see a docking port, and, of course, a corresponding
dock like the Toshiba now has,) along with a full-sized
SD card slot, and a user-replaceable battery.
- android (3.1, "honeycomb.")
Sure, it has it's kinks, but it's incredibly extensible
and rapidly improving. Multi-tasking is great.
- The screen, while not the "latest & greatest" out
there, is very good, crisp, good colors, bright, and
the touchscreen is very responsive. And of course,
due to Android, if you rotate the pad the screen will
rotate with you, including landscape and portrait.
(However, not all apps allow that, some displaying
the odd restriction that you can only watch landscape
or portrait in one axis, but not both; you're left
looking at an upside-down screen. That's just dumb.)
It's light-responsive, which is nice. Smudges too easily
though. And it has multi-touch and "pinch" features.
- The "internal guts" are great
as well with a dual-core CPU, "adequate" GPU,
good internal storage (32GB) and available external
microSD storage (which is a HUGE gap as it still hasn't
been "enabled." I have a 32GB microSD card
installed, but the OS won't recognize it! How does
THAT happen?) Dual, front & rear cameras with good
resolution, dual LED flash, and a light detector. Dual
speakers. Microphone (with voice commands that seem
to work quite well,) HDMI (micro) output, headphone
output, etc.
- Accelerometor (of course, and they're
cool!)
- GPS (also cool.)
- Connectivity is good with USB (2.0 only
though,) HDMI, WiFi (802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth. Ern
didn't buy me the 3G model, but that's ok.
- As with most Android products, the "Android
Market" is pretty good. The selection keeps growing
every day, and many, but not all, are good apps; my
random guess is about 1/4 are really worth pulling
down, but that's the problem with markets like this;
Verizon and Motorola really have to "quality Control" in
place for apps, so any kid can hack something together
and post it. And hacker kids aren't exactly known for
their "Architectural brilliance." But you
can always try 'em and delete 'em if they suck. Apple,
of course, goes to the other extreme and developers
have to bend over backwards to get through their certification
process (or so I'm told.)
- Battery life seems to be quite good.
They claim 10hrs of use/video, and that seems about
right, although, as I mentioned, I'd like to be able
to swap batteries on my own, and have a spare on hand.
- Verizon. I've always been happy with
Verizon, and I'll stick with them, even though this
ISN'T a cell phone.
There's probably more, but aside from the
non-functional microSD slot, no Netflix support ("yet,")
non-user-replaceable battery (BIG issue for me: I always
buy an extra battery for my "stuff," and when
one dies I like the option of stuffing a newly-recharged
spare in, and I absolutely HATE having to send it in
for "service." "Service should be when
it's broken, not when a battery wears out. Do you have
to send in your inkjet printer when it runs out of ink
or paper? "Don't THINK so." Love to have a
full docking station as well.
So, for accessories all I've gotten now
is a leather cover for it that's fairly nice, a
bluetooth keyboard designed for Android, and it works
great. and a 32GB microSD card for when (If? I'm crossing
my fingers) it becomes enabled. I already have some great
bluetooth headphones that work "well," but
not all the controls work as expected; they WORK, but
it's "iffy." I have the same problem with my
Droid X as well, along with my PC using bluetooth. I
think the control implementation of Bluetooth for media
is still a half-baked solution.
So all that said, I love this thing. Spendy
(should'a put that in the above bulleted list,) but not
terribly so. Of course, in a year or two I'll be able
to buy "smaller, faster, better, cheaper" pads,
but that's how the electronics industry goes. Heck, back
in late 1990 I spent $3K to have a custom PC built: 33MHz
CPU, 1MB memory, DOS, 104MB disk, no sound, no modem,
14" VGA display. Now just look at what three grand
will get you TODAY! :)
|
|
Overview/History
I first bought a cell-phone
back, oh, around 12 or 14 years ago, an analog Motorola
StarTac, which, at the time, was all the rage. I kept it
for a year or so, but stopped the service when my company
gave me a phone, a Nokia 6000-something. I had that for
a few years, but in "reinventing" the company,
it was decided to pull cell phones from most people, me
included. I settled on a plan that gave me a bunch of minutes/month,
and a huge bunch of minutes in "nights and
weekends". The "weekends" part is fine,
but like most cell plans, the target market for "night" use
seems to be Vampires, or simply people who work graveyard
shifts. But it's pretty cheap, and I'm okay with the minutes.
and I get a company discount and free US roaming.With my
plan I got an LG TM-510,
a small clamshell phone that I liked pretty well. But the
UI was just awkward, and heck, it was "only" black
and white and horrors!, didn't support polyphonic ringtones!
(while the UI was clunky, it's nothing like the user-hostile
and convoluted UI of the Siemens
Gigaset 4210 that I owned for a very short period
of time. Don't get me going on that, the UI had to be written
in pieces by engineers who were mad at one another...:)).
Anyway, I went through several upgrades, and here's a couple
of them.
Motorola "Droid
X"
Every
seven years or so I like to upgrade my cellphone, whether
I actually need to :). So I did, and I'm glad
I waited.
My new & current phone is
the "much anticipated" "Droid
X." Frankly, it's less of a phone than it is a "media
center," or computer. I actually use a cellphone almost
not-at-all, and carry one only "just in case" I
need one. That's why I held onto my old
phone (motorola e815) for so long. And while the e815
did have text and email and web access, it was meager so
I really never used it.
But, over those years, obviously,
many "smart phones" came out, notably the ubiquitous
iPhone (Ern has one,) and they seemed kinda neat. But Apple
products never much appealed to me; more "style over
substance," with WAY too much planned obsolescence
(You can't replace the BATTERY? C'mon!) When the Android-based phones
came out I did a bit of study on them, and really couldn't
find anything I didn't like. But I put it on hold until
I heard of the forthcoming "Droid X." It seemed
to promise, well ... a lot. Fast, feature-packed (phone,
video, wireless (3G, WiFi, & bluetooth,) LARGE hi-res
touchscreen, excellent camera, expandable memory (take THAT Apple!,)
replaceable/upgradeable memory (Take that Apple, again!,)
open-source, plenty of apps, extensible OS, and uses Verizon
and NOT AT&T (sorry Apple.) so on. All those
were big sellers to me, but the biggest was the screen,
4.3", much larger than most all other smart phones.
That, however, is one of its downfalls for many people
who find it makes the phone just too large. plus it has
no hard keyboard which a lot of people like. Well, if I
didn't have large hands and still had my 16 year old eyes,
I might feel the same way! But I've tried those "chiclet" keyboards
-- no go, I "fat-finger" them way too much. and
small screens are there because of portability, and of
course cost. But for me the cost is in visibility; I wanted
BIGGER! So, although the phone IS large compared to most,
it's just the right size for what it does and has, it's
thin and light, and (something I really like,) Motorola
got it right. I'm more than comfortable slipping it into
my pocket and I really don't even know it's there, and
feels great in my hands. I can even use the touchscreen
keyboard! But, As I told a friend interested in getting
an "X," that with her small hands she might want
to look at the smaller smartphones out there.
So now I'm hooked! I still rarely
use it as a phone, and almost never text, just because
I find being shackled to a phone "24/7" just
isn't fun; I really don't need to be at the beck & call
of a chunk of hardware. That said, I REALLY dig the other
features! I can check my email, surf the web, keep notes
(text, voice, web-snips, and text-to-voice and voice-to-text,)
play music, watch videos (online or from my DVDs or any
others. It takes unusually vivid pictures and video, both
in HD, and there are apps galore! Want to check your biorhythm?
No problem. What's the weather tomorrow? Easy. Want to
scan a barcode to find the best price on a product? Just
takes a couple clicks. Take a epic and update it to your
blog? Looks GOOD! Did I mention the built-in GPS? Great
for finding your way around, tracking down an Indian restaurant
nearby, and replaces my dedicated GPS. I love using the
bluetooth headset I have for listening to music without
wires, or answering and making calls, all controlled by
the headphones! The feature-set and OS are just incredible
and go on and on. I'm gonna keep playing with this thing
for a long, long time. But probably not another seven years...
:)
Motorola
e815
This
was the previous phone I had for 7 years or more, the Motorola
e815 phone. Dang nice. The battery life is just incredible,
and it has all the "bells & whistles" you
expect like text messaging, voice dialing, captures both
pictures and video (with sound), etc. I bought a bluetooth
headset for it that works perfectly. On the "less
practical" side I've added background images, both
images I've found on the net as well as my own pictures
(for example, the phone now has a screensaver image of
Alexa). I've also added ringtones, my favorites being the James
Bond and Mission Impossible Themes
(although my current ringer is the "Communicator" sound
from Star Trek). YOu can get Destiny's Child or DMX ringtones
if you want (I don't. Well, Ok, I like some of DMX). There
are literally 1,000's available. You can buy a ridiculous
number of accessories for it. I bought a spare battery
and belt-clip, and the bluetooth headset as well as a 512MB "Transflash" memory
card for it that's silly-tiny. I don't know exactly what
to do with it, but I have a half-GB in my phone
now..! You can get good prices on cellphone accessories
if you look around and buy from a good
vendor.
The phone also supports "Get
It Now," a service/feature that lets you browse for
and download ringtones, backgrounds, games, and so on.
I've used it a couple of times, but frankly it's really
a way to get money from you: First, simply to use Get
it now you have to burn up your own airtime! To me that's
unbelievable, it's like amazon.com charging you a per-minute
fee for browsing their site. Beyond that, everything you
download ("most" everything, some are free) costs
you. The charges tend to be minimal, from $1.50 to around
$5.00 (added to your phone bill), but could add up (I'm
sure the providers hope so at least!). Downloading 3 apps
a month would add half-again to my current bill. But I
have tried the free apps, and paid for one. Actually it's
kind of neat searching for apps and downloading them, but
I just don't want to incur the (albeit minimal) cost for
it -- especially the charge to "shop" their wares.
Just Plan "Dumb"... The phone also has a web
browser, but I'm not interested in using it. I am interested
in text messaging, however,
and I do use that. I've even set it up so I get daily stock
updates and bank transactions, so I can track my losses
more closely... ;) |
|
HP
iPaq hx2415
As
a gift from my company for working a lot of years, I chose
the HP iPaq hx2415 "Pocket Computer." I'm a long-time
Palm user (below), from the first "Palm Pilot" that
was released, and I've come to rely on having a portable
organizer. I wanted to know how moving to a "Pocket
PC" would be . A disappointment...The
problem isn't with the HP HW/FW side of it, it's extremely
well-designed, sturdy, feature-filled, and looks dandy.
The problem is Microsoft's "Windows Mobile" OS.
The iPaq came with version 4-dot-something, and I sprung
for an upgrade to version 5.0, but I see little difference.The
problem I have with it is complexity: it's a Windows OS,
which tries to do "everything," and in the process
is complex, cumbersome, slow, and inconsistent. The Palm's "just
work," and work right, and you don't have to dive
through layers of menus and configurations just to do something
useful. I'm sure a lot of people like their Win Mobile
systems (My wife lives by her iPaq cellphone/PDA), but
I'd bet most of them haven't used a Palm. I keep tinkering
with it, but I think it's badly designed from a usability
perspective.
palm
Zire 71
I
rely on my Palm PDAs. I've been a long-time user of Palms
(since the original Palm "Pilot" Pro). I upgraded
to the Palm
Zire 71 from my previous Palm V because of the Way
Cool display, 16MB of memory (from the measly 2MB of the
Palm V), the new 5.0 Palm OS, and ... it's got a camera!
It's fun. I bought a 512MB SD card for it so I can play
MP3's or watch movies (not likely). It syncs with PC's
by simply dropping it into a cradle and pushing one button.
I like this thing, and, because it's so small and easy-to-use,
I actually DO use it, everyday. (I could never get motivated
to keep a daytimer, I need something more "fun" than
that). There's also a wealth of third-party hardware accessories
and software for it, not to mention a loyal following of
users and their many web-pages. I had a Casio "Zoomer" PDA
some years back, but there was little industry software
support for it, and it never evolved with the times. I
still have the original "Palm Pilot," and keeping
it only as a relic.
|
|
My
Software
Of
course, computers without software aren't much good. Here's
a list of some of the applications I use or play with:
- Web Browsing (Chrome, my current default
browser, IE 8 (yuck,) Safari)
- Eudora (email)MS
Office 2003/2007
- PHPApache
Web Server
- vi (can't get away from my U*IX roots!)
- Webcam32
- Games
- Quake II, Quake Arena, crysis, Doom
III (a system demolisher!), Half Life 2 (even MORE
of a system demolisher!), NOLF (No One Lives Forever), Max
Payne, 007 Nightfire
- (A terribly supported, barely operational game.
stay clear, a waste of $50 when I bought it)
- Duke Nukem MH,
Serious Sam (both these games crack me up!), GTA
III, GTA Vice City
Various P2P Winamp
- Seti@Home (almost
14,000 units! Whoo Hoo!)
- VNC ("Virtual
Network Connection" - remote PC access utility)
- GRAPHICS
- Macromedia Dreamweaver (web
development, i.e., these pages)
- Various video utilities (AVS SW
is by far my fav right now (have a look at their "use all of
our SW for one license option, "darn cool!").
stay away from 123 Copy DVD Gold though...)
- Ulead PhotoImpact
(graphics)Ulead PhotoExplorer
("Explorer" for graphics files)
- Recolored
- This program is amazing! See
a "Before and After" here,
and here
- Neat Image
- Qimage Pro (yeah, right. "Pro." Read
on...)
- (well,
I used to use this. I went to upgrade
and found their "Purchase Agreement" actually
says (and I'm not making this up) that if you
don't speak "nicely" to them when requesting
support, they'll invalidate your support and
purchase agreements and will refuse to
allow you future upgrades. I wrote an
email asking if this was so, and essentially
the reply was, "If you're going to ask this,
then you're not a customer we want to have".
I guess after spending 25+ years in customer-support,
I'm biased, and simply stunned at such an attitude!
I only deal with professional companies, so
they got their wish... I'm no longer a customer)
Various security programs (dammit! "Can't
we all just get along...?")
- Nero (CD burning)
- Weatherbug (monitor
your weather real-time)
- Windows XP, Windows Vista,
Linux (various distros)
- And many other toys and tools (WCPUID,
Tntclk, ICQ, TZO, Borland JBuilder, Delphi, SiSoft
Sandra, 3DMark200x, ViCam utils, MS PWS, GameSpy, MGI
PhotoSuiteIII, etc.)
|
cameras
(top) |
Nikon
Coolpix S550 Digital Camera
Ernie
bought this for me because she figured I needed an upgrade
from my other small cam, the Casio EX-Z57 below. Not much
to say except it, too, is small -- not the smallest, but
good enough, and it's got all the features you'd want (except
HD, but my Droid X more than covers that now.)
Not really much
to say. 10 megapixels (IMHO, overkill for the necessary
small lens on these type of cameras,) relatively fast,
lots of shooting features, good battery life, optical zoom
(nice,) and so on. I figured, though, I'd get a newer-sleeker-"better" small
cam at some point, but: 1) I really don't use it much,
and 2) the Droid is with me all the time, and that baby's
cam is pretty darn good. So this might be the end-of-the-line
for quite a while, although I'll still use it to take more
important pictures, when needed.
Casio
EX-Z57 Digital Camera
After
struggling through the slow speed-lag of my Casio QV-4000
(below), I decided I'd never buy another Casio camera.
Apparently I was wrong. After some research and reviews,
I bought the Casio
EX-Z57, a very tiny 5Mpx 3x zoom camera, with incredible
battery life. And most important, FAST shutter-times. My
QV-4000's slow response allowed me to miss many of Alexa's
antics, but this one is ... quick. And, again, tiny, so
I can carry it around easily. The "selling points" were:
1) Fast; 2) Tiny. Even though it's 5Mpx, as opposed to
the 4Mpx of the QV-4000, it's image quality just isn't
as good (small lens = poorer snapshot quality, a matter
of physics). But it's still pretty darn good, and the huge
(for a credit-card-sized camera) 2.7" LCD is incredible.
I like it. I stuffed it with a 1GB SD card that'll hold
400-or-more pictures. More than enough.
Canon
A620 Digital Camera

My latest digicam,
the Canon A620. It's a "Prosumer" digital, 7
mega-pixels. I bought it because the Casios below were
just ... slow. I missed too many shots of Alexa while the
camera decided to snap a picture (Well, the EX-Z57 isn't
too bad, although you can't count on it all the time. The
QV-4000? It's just plain ... slow!) Now, I do find some
problems with this camera: Low-light photos aren't as good
as the EX-Z57, and it sometimes too is slow. But in good
light, and in general use, it's great. Now I still use
the EX-Z57 because it's about 1/2 the size of the Canon,
so small in fact that I sometimes forget I have it in my
pocket. No such trouble with the Canon, although it's still
quite compact. And with the Canon you can attach additional
lenses such as macro or zoom (which I also have). The ring
you see on this photo is the adapter, and it comes off
when you're not using lenses.Oh,
a neat thing on this camera is its display. While not nearly
as large as the EX-Z57's (which is simply HUGE for such
a small device), it flips out, and swivels so you can hold
the camera in almost any position and see what you're shooting.
I got some great pics of Alexa's black-belt test using
it. It comes with no internal memory, but I have a 1GB
SD card that holds all I need. Last, it uses 4 AAA batteries
(NI-MH rechargeable) which allow you to plug in other batteries
should you lose charge (unlike the EX-Z57 which uses (out
of necessity due to its size) a proprietary Li-Ion battery.
Battery life seems very good, not quite as good as the
EX-Z57, but good enough. Oh, and the camera's fairly inexpensive
to boot! Reviews
rave about this camera, and it's justified. Here's
one if you're interested.
Casio
QV-4000 Digital Camera
Several
years ago we bought one of the first "Megapixel" digital
cameras, the Kodak DC210. The camera was good, perhaps
not great, but we used it for many years. A lot
of the pictures you see on this site were taken with the
DC210.But, time moves on, and I decided to buy a "state
of the art" digicam, but stay right off the cutting
edge -- what I mean by this is that you can buy the current
latest&greatest, but you'll pay a premium, and in 6
months will be regretting it because your "latest&greatest" will
be discounted for the next "latest". I've been
down this road, as we all have.In Feb 2002 I stumbled across
a deal that was too good to ignore. Walmart was selling
(only via their website) the Casio QV-4000 for $300-$400
below list. I was looking at the current cream-of-the-crop
camera, the Canon Powershot G2, but the Casio was nearly
as good, and $400 less. I bought one online, and had it
shipped next day. Fun...! It's
a very good camera, for a way-cheap price (at least, I got
a great price! For now, that is.... in a couple years Albertson's
will be giving them away when you sign up for their video
rentals). BUT, the problem I'm having is "lag," the
time it takes to snap one picture for another, sometimes
10 seconds or longer. When you're taking snaps of a 5 year
old running, that's an eternity. I'll be upgrading shortly
because of that.Some examples of the camera's output can
be seen by this snapshot taken of Alexa in Oregon (low
res, 70KB, medium
res 256KB), or you can look at my mom's
page, and finally, a "mini-gallery" I'm
putting together. Pretty good pictures, aren't they? I'll
be having a lot of fun with this!
Aiptek
Pocket DV 3100
Fun!
This little thing (reviewed
as the "GrandVision CoolDV 350," same thing,
different vendor) is just FUN! It's a very small ("pack-and-a-half
of cigarettes") sized video recorder, voice recorder,
webcam, and digital camera. You can record videos on it
(small, 320x240, ".avi" with sound), voice, and
take pictures at 3.1 megapixel resolution. The Aiptek
Pocket DV 3100 stores all this on Compact flash cards
(as well as some 16MB internal memory), and downloads via
USB. It has an LCD display (see it flipped out in the pic)
and a wonderful and simple menuing system. Who can't love
a camera this small that does so much?! Ok, the resolution's
kind of crummy, the video's only suitable for web-display,
and the pictures are grainy outside of bright light, but
it does so much and is so convenient that it's
a gem. I waited until Aiptek increased the resolution,
and picked one up. I've been using it to "tape" Alexa
doing her "acting" (You can see a short
video clip (.avi) of our cat "Wizard" doing
nothing special at all).Digital
camcorder
Currently
I have an analog Canon Super 8mm camcorder, but it's time
to update, especially since I want to start making DVD's
of Alexa. But, I haven't yet, and am starting to look at
digital camcorders to get the "lay of the land" on
the technologies and features, as well as prices. I'll
almost certainly go with "MiniDV", but aside
from that I'm not certain yet what the important features
are. Video quality will be #1 in my book, and second to
that will be a compact size. Firewire or USB 2.0 connectivity
is a must so I can transfer the videos to my system. Beyond
that, I don't know yet, and frankly, don't want to spend
the money, right now...
|
|
Logitech "Harmony
one"
Here's "the
one," Logitech's "Harmony one." It replaces
(as of Feb '08) the very successful "880" remote,
and for me, it's the one... There's a lot to say about
it, but two things stand out. First, ergonomically it's
excellent; the color touch screen, the button layout (reportedly,
Logitech spent 6 months in user tests to tune the layout),
and in shape it's just darn great. The touchscreen is clear
and bright, and responsive, and the key layout makes a
lot of sense (the keys are grouped according to general
functions such as menu keys, channel/volume keys, play
keys (DVD, TiVo, so on), and a number pad. Of course the
touchscreen is another "set" of keys that you
can program as needed, download new key images, download
photo slideshows (hmmm, nice, but is it really necessary?),
and load custom backgrounds (again, necessary?). In short,
it's well-designed and as a result, easy to hold and use.
The second thing, and the "winning
ticket" for me is the versatile and amazingly comprehensive
programming. You set up the Harmony by running their "Logitech
harmony remote software" app, create an account (user/pass,
some other info, most optional), and then get started.
Getting started is very easy. First you gather all the
make and models of the equipment you want/need to control,
then plug them into the app, and if the model is in their
database (probably so, the support a dynamic ~250,000 different
models and growing) you set up "Activities." These
activities are actually macros (the term used by most other
more-advanced remotes call them) that automate tasks by
issuing multiple commands ("turn on TV, turn on DVD
player..." with one button push). Creating activities
is amazingly simple, much more than any other controller
I've programmed. An example would be a macro an
activity for "Play DVD." You tell it what equipment
you want to control when the "Play DVD" touchscreen
button is pressed (e.g., DVD player, amplifier, TV), and
it guides you through the process, asking you if you want
to turn the non-used boxes off, which inputs to use (example:
use the HDMI input on the TV, and the HDMI output from
the DVD player), and it figures out how to set this up
for you. After it's done you simply have to touch the "Play
DVD" button on the touchscreen and (in my case) it
turns on the TV, amp, and DVD player, sets the input/outputs
as needed, and ... you're watching a DVD! when you're done
you push one hard-button, a power button, and all the equipment
that was turned on goes off for you.
More than that though was that
it could identify all my components, including my ridiculously-complex
Yamaha receiver/amp. More than just identify it, the software
was able to find "hidden" commands that give
the activity the control it needs to really work (example,
I was unable to use either the zenith remote nor front
panel button to "jump" right to the HDMI input,
I had to hit "TV/Video" on the remote, then scroll
through the many inputs manually until I found the one
I wanted. The Harmony knows these hidden "discrete
codes" that let it just jump right to the needed input
source automatically).
THere's a lot more to say about
it, almost all good. THe interface used by the remote software
is "ok," and allows you to tweak settings and
buttons and settings, but it could be easier in those cases
where you need or want to tweak: 1) To layout the buttons
(accessible by touching the "Devices" touchscreen
icon) on the touchscreen you use a "customize buttons" feature
in the SW. THis works, but if you want to move the displayed
buttons around (you can have up to 6/"page," where
a "page" is one screen-full, and you can have
multiple pages) you need to go through a pretty awkward
job of moving them up or down, one button at a time. it "nudges" the
button up or down, and to move it, say, from page 5 to
page one is a tiresome task. The Pronto and the MX-700
allow you to just drag the buttons to where you want them,
taking 1/10 or less time to do the same work. And there's
no "undo" feature, so you have to reverse what
you did to fix mistakes (and this doesn't always work.
If you delete a device button that you don't need or can't
use there's no way to undelete it aside from loading in
the entire default set that Harmony found initially). These
are small gripes given that the basic setup "Just
Works," and the rest is just tweaking.
Other nifty things are a motion/touch
activated backlight (the touchscreen and the buttons),
a recharging base (also lit), USB connect for updates,
learning remote, almost complete customization of the button
functions and touchscreen labels, "beep" button
press feedback, rechargeable, and others. Plus, the manual
and software are clear, albeit lacking in "nitty-details" that
might be nice to know. Also, they're written well, the
SW installs without issue and is easy to use, and, in my
case, presented in fluent english (not a "given" by
any means) So, while not cheap, this control is a beautiful
piece of engineering that does more than you'd expect,
shows a lot of attention to detail, and works
where others struggle.
HTM
MX-700 Remote Control
(02/2008:
This was my previous "really-cool" remote. We
still have it, but it's now been replaced by the logitech "Harmony
One" that I describe below.
Technology moves on, after all...)
I've been a "remote
control freak" since early on, and I have many universal
remotes, from the ground-breaking "GE
RRC600" remote, the first truly programmable,
to the "CORE
CL9" remote (designed and built by a company founded
by Apple's Steve
Wosniak), to many other remotes along the way. (Incidentally,
I still have the GE and the CORE!). In the MX-700 I've
now found my "remote control nirvana" (for the
time-being, at least). So let me tell you something about
it. First, it's a "Professional" remote,
only sold to professional installers for use by their clients.
As such, you're not supposed to be able to buy
one if you're not "in the business," but there
are ways
to find them. And that's just what I did. When I bought
mine they retailed for $499, but if you look around you
can get them for much less. YOu can now buy the "Solo" model
(without the accompanying, and nearly-useless MX-200 "Sidekick")
for $349. In any case, it's a luxury buy.But what it does
is allow you to program it, using your computer, to do
... anything. I won't go into details since it's quite
extensive, but you essentially have a remote with hard-buttons,
as well as an LCD display, and they're all programmable.
Of course it has "macro" capability, and has
a database of IR codes to download to it, and supplements
that with learning capability. But it's well laid-out and
once set up can function as your only remote control, no
matter how many components you have (it supports 20 components,
but that's arbitrary since you can program them into the
MX-700 any way you wish).I've set mine up by capturing
all of my existing (7, at last count) remotes into it,
then mapped them to some easy-to-use pages. The main page
I use I called "Sys," and I can control virtually
everything from there.If you're tired of a table-full of
remotes, and like gadgets such as this (and have a couple
hundred dollars laying around), buy one. (Actually, I now
have two, my original died and I couldn't recover it, so
bought a 2nd one, but come to find out the first one came
back alive! So now I have two, or "had," it died
again... sigh) A great review of this "Ferrari of
remote controls" can be found here.And,
actually I've been eyeing the "ProntoPro
NG TSU7000" remote -- way cool. But, the darn
things cost a lot (currently $450 if you shop around).
Hard to justify (for me), but I'd love to get one, someday.
I'll wait 'til the price drops a bit more. m original remote
to the Pronto," I just didn't "feel like it." Then
again, I thought I'd try the Logitech Harmony series, and
found a winner (below)...
Pronto
Pro NG
I did by
the "prontopro NG (TSU7000)" mentioned above.
However, I never really used it. Certainly it's got a ton
of very cool features, but the problem is/was that it didn't
understand some of my components, and in particular my
Yamaha amp/receiver. That receiver is quite complicated,
and while I could have done the "copy IR
from old remote to this" dance, I found an easier
solution. That's not to take anything away from the
Pronto; it's an amazing control, and for what
I paid for it I'd better use it! But for now it's
dormant...
ROBOTS!
Robosapian
Robosapian. Need I say more?Ok, this thing is just a toy,
but a very COOL toy! It's an amazingly articulated and
programmable "cheap" robot. It walks, "talks" (grunting),
dances, and can pick up and throw things. It's about
14" tall, houses 7 motors, and is somewhat hackable.
You can program it or control it with an infrared remote
control. I programmed my MX-700 to
work with it. I SHOULD say I bought this for Alexa, but
the fact is, DAD NEEDED IT! So it goes. But she loves
it. More info on Robosapian is available here,
and here, and here,
and here...
This one was the 1st generation of Robosapian, and my
first one.
the "next" Robosapian
Robosapian Version 2. Bigger, smarter, better speaking, so
on... I like the taller size (10 inches taller) and the
new features. Alexa took it to her "show day" at
school and the kids loved it.One
thing odd about it is... it's not entirely stable while
walking! The guy will sometimes just fall over! On the
other hand, the cool thing is... he can get back up on
his own! All-in-all, a very fun toy..
Robopet "
Robopet is
a ... dog, who pretty much does what he wants, but will
listen, sometimes. He's cute, and Alexa loves him. The
cats, on the other hand, don't know what to make of him. "deal
with it" I tell them, but they just look at me and
blink. Robopet rolls over and scratches himself. .
Roboraptor
(and Roboreptile)
Roboraptor," another
in the line of "wowwee" robot products. I have "him" along
with his smaller sibling, "Roboreptile." Kinda "scary," but
utterly harmless. Minja (our dog) really doesn't know what
to make of them....
Roboquad

"Roboquad," another
in the line of "wowwee" robot products. He's
kinda creepy, watching him slither around forward, backwards,
and sideways like a crab on its pointed feet.
But that makes them kinda cool. And of course he can do
most of the things that make the "robo" series
fun.
Dragonfly
"The "Dragonfly" is
a bit different from other WowWee "robots" since
it doesn't have arms, etc., or eyes, hearing, or a "brain" to
allow it to do the things the other ones can. But it makes
up for that by being able to fly! It does that by flapping
its wings. Pretty cool, but it's actually hard to fly (for
me, at least); I can't seem to get it up in the air for
any length of time. I bought it's "cousin" the "Bee," (after
some recent movie) that does the same thing. I must be
doing something wrong since I've seen them fly, on videos
at least. I want to give it some real try and see if I
can't' get it working and flying like I'm sure it can.
i have one or two other "roboXXX" products
(read that, "Toys!"), but I won't bore you with
them. If interested, go to Wowwee's website.
All of the full-sized robots show differing levels of intelligence,
responding to sounds, "sight," some can see colors,
go on guard duty, or just run around the house doing "whatever." All
of them are remote controlled, and programmable through
the remotes (and through some available hacker programs
so you can set them up on a PC). Next I want to buy one
of those small indoor helicopters (not from WowWee) that
I've been seeing. Good thing I have a lot of time on my
hands!
AR.Drone
Ern got me this too, because
she knew I wanted it. It's a fairly spendy helicoptor,
but with a TON of features. First, it actually FLIES, unlike
many of my other toy helicopters. It has 4 props that lift
it, and you control it remotely using either an iPhone,
or in my case, my Motorola XOOM. The thing will actually
land itself, and has two cameras so you can see, (on the
XOOM) what the helicopter is seeing! Brilliant device...
flashlight
yeah, I'm boasting here about
a flashlight. but not just any flashlight,
it's the "Surefire
L4 Digital Lumamax." It's small, about 5" long,
and doesn't weigh much. you can carry it in your pocket,
and I often do. you can do that with a lot of flashlights
that cost less than a small TV, as this one didn't. so
then, what's the big deal? well, it's small, light, bulletproof
construction, and bright! really bright.
as in, don't point it at anyone's eyes, bright.
but then, as a tactical
flashlight, that's what it's designed for, to turn
an attacker into a stumbling boob probing in the dark with
his/her eyes only showing purple spots for a moment. especially
so if they're creeping into your bedroom at night, in the
dark. there's a reason police keep those big flashlights
with them, both to help "light the way," but
also as a blinding tool, and a "baton". this
is a smaller version of that, but just about as bright.
That "just about as bright" thing is what sold
me. the source of all this brightness comes from the 5
Watt Luxeon Star LED as the lightsource (yep, a 5 WATT
LED!), and powered by the ubiquitous 123a Lithium batteries
(2). Now, I didn't buy this to blind and pummel people,
as fun as that might be. I bought it both as a great
and bright flashlight that I can carry with me, as
well as because it's just a cool gadget! so sue
me. My next gadget/carry-around flashlight will be the
superb "Arc-AAA",
another albeit too-expensive but mighty cool thing...
laser-pointer
I
don't want the Surefire LED flashlight to feel alone, so
in a different kind of "light"...I found a great
deal on a 5mW green laser pointer. For those that don't
know, green lasers are far more powerful and visible
than the standard red ones. So much so that this has a
projected distance of two miles. AND, you can see the beam
itself in the air! Now, you can get 20mW, or even 350MW
green lasers that can cut through things, but I don't really
need to do that (although I want to!) The problem
is money -- those very-high-powered lasers can cost a couple
grand (I got mine for $45). It's fun, the cats love it,
and ... it's another gadget to play with.
Video/Music
Watch
I
have a fair collection of watches, mostly "gadget" types
such as the standard workout watches, heart-rate monitors,
ski watches, hiking, so on. But this is my favorite "gadget" watch,
but probably not for the reasons you'd think. Nor did I think
of those reasons before I bought it ... I got
it at "Thinkgeek.com," a cool place for a lot of
simply weird stuff. This is the metallic version, they sell
an all-black one as well, but I thought this one looked better.
Before I go on, here are the
specs as written on Thinkgeek's site:
-
Built-in 2GB flash
memory
-
Plays videos in full color on 128x128
pixel screen. Impressive crisp, bright display
Clock displays time and date (day,
month, year)
Plays MP3 and WMA music
View images (thumbnails, slideshow,
manual)
Voice recording and playback with
built-in microphone
5-equalizer modes, super bass 3-D
sound effect playing modes
Battery charges via USB
Leather band
USB 1.1
Dimensions: 1.6" x 1.5" x .5" thick
(4cm x 3.8cm x 1.2cm)
-
Band Length: 8.66" (22cm)
- Includes: earphones, mini CD with
video conversion software, user guide, USB cable,
Wall AC-to-USB charger
|
Pretty impressive specs and
features (perhaps outside of the antiquated v1.1 USB spec),
but the specs are real, and at a cost of just $80, a pretty
impressive feat to accomplish! Since
receiving my toy, I charged it, then loaded some pics (more
on this later), and converted and downloaded some videos
(my wedding video, to be exact), and although the screen
is tiny (pretty-much mandatory in a reasonably-sized watch),
it's clear, the colors are very good, and it doesn't skip
or have sync problems. The really neat thing is
the time display: it's a gorgeous analog watch-face (hrs,
mins, secs, date) all in color and utilizing the capabilities
that its screen allows. So, you'd
think the specs and features, and low price are "the" reasons
why it's my favorite, right? Nope, not really (I'll talk
about those in a bit). It's that I can't help but laugh
out loud at how this thing is "supported." I've
really never seen anything this ... hacked together:
-
It's boxed pretty nicely, albeit in a
somewhat cheap'o box, and shipped with all the necessary
things you'd generally want, although I'd like to see
them throw in a video cable that could allow you to hook
it up to a TV or monitor.
Included is an (oh!
this will be hard to use these terms!) "Instruction
manual," and "installation CD." (There!
I said it!) Let me try to describe these...
THe "Instruction manual" is
something I've come across, albeit in a much more refined
form, from other imported products, but not quite like
this. First, they supply a printed manual, and one on
the CD ... sort-of. The "manual" explains the
workings of the watch, but skips some things like ...
how do you install or download pics, MP3's, or videos?
They tell you how to convert videos into the
semi-proprietary " .smv" video
format (a converter IS supplied on the CD), but not the
basics on how to get them into the watch (simply, you
plug the watch into the PC using USB, the watch becomes
a removable disk, and you drag & drop them into the
watch).
Second, The manual was obviously written
by someone who's native language isn't English, and who
didn't think the terms "document review" or "peer
review" applied to them. Here are some examples
that made me giggle:
- "Clock Showing: In off status,
press "M" and after enter clock showing
or press "<< and >>" at the
same time, press "M " long enter clock
showing, After 5 seconds enter the non-time display
monitor to guarantee the condition automatically" "Third:The
use of the convert tool. The copy stochastic compact
disk in Executable folder to the hard disk, moves
in this folder video2smv.exe, appears the following
picture:" [no picture shown] "clock
the right button of Input video in the upside chart
(the position of the mouse pause),appear the following
dialogue box of file selection" "#Support
lyrics synchronization showing simultaneously, put
the correct lyrics documents (the LRC form) and the
songs in the same content" "4.the damage
by the transportation or move from the agent to the
customer, namely the non-product itself quality questions"
- "Tacitly approve setting:
press ">|" all the settings replace
to the tacitly approve settings such as language
setting and back light hypothesis. #This operation
not delete the files of mp4"
And there's more, much more, but you
get the point. I don't mind some errors in translation
-- if I had to translate a doc into a language I hardly
knew it'd be a horrid joke. But then again, it's not
my job to do this. BUt I would think they'd
run it by someone who both knew how to write product
docs, and who knew the language it was translated into.
That said, for the most-part I can figure out what
most of this means; if this was intended to teach you
how to write C++ code, or fix a jet engine, well...
Third, the manual is in places just incorrect
or inaccurate (or maybe just meaningless in context),
and clearly incomplete. THey claim support for Win/Linux/Mac,
but the only conversion code for videos is a Windows
.exe file, and they later note that Linux is supported only
if you can find a driver on your own, and they won't
help you get a driver nor will they support it using
their "stochastic cd." They make no mention
of how to support it on mac. Or, they describe the FM
radio specs and use, but the watch doesn't have a
radio. there are a few other minor gaffs, but overall
it seems fairly accurate.
It's just plain confusing. along
with the content and translation problems, they never
really describe or reference the "human" interaction
with the watch, namely, which buttons are which (the
supplied picture in the hard-copy manual doesn't line
up with the text in the manual, for instance).
Here are two "real kickers:" THe "Installation
CD" is one of those 3 1/2" CDs, and I slipped
it in only to find nothing happened. I opened explorer
and looked at the CD contents, and found no autorun or
setup files. Just a readme.txt (not helpful) and some
directories where they put the Win98 USB driver, the
documentation directory, and the conversion utility directory.
- The conversion utility works pretty
well, but I haven't been able to convert long video
files, the program aborts with an obscure error.
I tried various formats to convert from, avi and
wmv, with the same results.
- The documentation directory just
blew me away. The "manual" is actually
a set of .jpg files! Ten of them, named
(informatively) as "MP4-01, MP4-02, etc. jpg
files?? I read somewhere there's this thing
called "windows help," or "html," or
.doc files, or even .pdf. Who in their right mind
would scan a document (which differs from the included
hard copy) and convert it to a graphic file?? Here's
one example. I'm just stunned by that...
It claims to charge via USB, but I haven't
found that to be true.
I don't have a clue what the settings
for "backlight" or "Power Saving" do,
changing the settings seems to have no effect on anything.
There's no indication of battery level
and, as such, the watch has died on me a few times; the
battery life seems meager, but I haven't really
timed it and the only way you know it's gotten low is
when the watch turns itself off, briefly displaying a
low-battery icon.
As a "watch" it's nearly useless.
It turns off after a few minutes, and the only way (that
I've found) to tell the time is to hold a button for
a while, watch it boot up, then either navigate to the "Time" menu
and display the time, or wait until it defaults into
time-mode, which lasts only a few minutes. One of the
quotes I put here from the manual seems to suggest you
can manually set the watch to display time permanently,
but I haven't figured out if that's so, and just how
to do it. (Update: After reading "4.1" above,
and reading it again, and again, and ... I found a way
to speed this up by holding the "M" button
for 5 secs. This displays the time for a few seconds.
I was hoping to find a way to keep it on all the time
(OLED displays don't use much power), but haven't found
out if I can or how, just yet)
In the time-display mode (or when setting
it) there's a mysterious number "0" through "6" that
you can set or see. No real idea of what that means,
my only guess is it's the day of the week (Sunday = 0,
Monday = 1, etc.)
-
And last, but I
was holding out the best for the last:
- They provide a 1 yr warranty, the
conditions of which aren't quite clear in the Warranty
form they provide in both the hard-copy and jpg "instruction
manuals." But that doesn't matter because, as
the warranty form clearly tells you is you need to
fill in the form and mail/send it to them. That's
a problem. You can fill out the form, that part's
ok, but they never once tell you who they are,
nor give any address to mail it to! Likewise,
there is no email link/address, phone, and of course,
no company name! Geez, why not make the warranty
100 years and promise to buy you a new house should
the watch fail?? ;)
- And the best for last, on the CD
they include more than just the "instructions," driver,
and utility, they kindly package two copies of a virus (a "philis" variant)
in two "_desktop.ini" files burned into
the disk! Obviously "quality assurance" isn't "Job
1" with these guys
So those are my thoughts on
this gadget. It's cool, for what it can do and (mostly) what
it does. It's cheap, not exceedingly well-built but good
enough for a $80 "thing" that does all this. I
guess in that light something had to give, and "give
a lot" they certainly did! It's hard to get upset about
the "amateurishness" of the product, support and
supporting documentation, no doubt to short-cuts being taken
to deliver a cheap product at an even cheaper price. Almost
all of it literally made me laugh (well, aside from hiding
their identity, that's probably illegal, at least in the
U.s.), and a product that mostly works, looks cool, and shows
a good deal of "engineering cleverness" is hard
not to like If it cost more I'd be taking hostages, but I'm
more than aware of "You get what you pay for."Nope,
I wouldn't recommend anyone else buy one of these, there
are (I found out later) a good number of better quality MP4
watches available, but the gaps I found in mine weren't enough
to get me riled up or want to return it. Plus, I got a good
laugh out of it, so ... for now this is my "favorite
watch gadget..!" |
mp3
players
(top) |
iPod
touch
I
have an ipod touch, now. I kinda wanted one, but
wanted to wait 'til they bumped up the storage (the originals
were a measly 8 or 16 gb). They came out with a 32 gb model,
but given that I owned a perfectly-acceptable ipod video
with an 80 gb disk, that seemed like a good step down,
despite the nifty (and many) new features. Plus, they unashamedly
charged $499 for it... I can wait, thanks.
BUT, after our trip to Singapore in March of '08, and mostly,
after a 22 hr fight back, for a guy who's terrified of
flying, and can't sleep on airplanes, I seem to have
left my old and trusty ipod video in the seat pocket
of the plane. I called the airline, but (surprise!),
no one found it. Chuck that $350 sliver of hardware and
look for something to fill in its place...
I did, the next day ("day" being
relative given the flight time and timezone change) I waltzed
into Best Buy and plunked down a large sum for the "touch."
without a doubt it's just cool.
You get music of course, and videos, also of course. But
you also get internet access (wireless), and with that
web surfing, email, youtube, IM, and so on. It's actually
amazing. No, it's clearly amazing. It's tiny, the same
basic width and height of my previous iPods, but it's skinny...
it's sitting in my back pocket right now and I only know
that because I remember putting it there; I can't feel
anything more than a credit card. The screen is incredible,
and it uses the display as a complete touch screen to maneuver
the device. Mostly, that's great, but there's some more
that I'll touch.
The problem(s) I have though
are that it's only 32gb. That's trouble for a guy with
over 1000 CDs and 550 DVDs. My first MP3 player was the "FIRST" mp3
player, the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300, with a native
capacity of 32mb (I "upgraded" it to all of 48mb,
the max). Back then it was fine, so I shouldn't complain
that my new toy is 1000 times the size (or is that 1024? tech
vs. marketing). But then, back in 1998 32mb was a ton
of space. I had to trip down my mp3 collection to fit,
and cut out most all of my videos, which is a shame since
I really like the screen on the "touch." But
I can't complain, I knew that coming in, and I'm well aware
of the cost of flash ram (and the sluggishness of Apple
to apply new hardware technology to their products, while
they excel in software innovation, iTunes aside. iTunes
is clearly a work-in-progress, as it has been since day
1).
My major concern is how to WORK
the thing. Yep, the touch screen is nifty, but when I'm
playing an mp3, and decide to use safari (web browser),
and then want to go back to my song, it's not clear how
to know what you're playing or how to get back to it. There's
a "Now playing" button that usually works fine,
but sometimes not, and I wind up with a generic "Playlist" screen
when I try to return to "Music," and getting
to where I was is hit-and-miss. Also, unlike EVERY other
iPod, the song title doesn't scroll for long song titles.
That's a very real problem. I like to listen to Glenn Beck
(radio talk show), and download his shows each day. But
he names them like "The Glenn Beck Program - May 10
2008." This is too long for the ipod display, and
again, unlike previous iPods that dealt with this by scrolling
the name, the touch doesn't, so my ability to "select" is
among: "The glenn beck program...", or I can
choose "The Glenn Beck Program...". It puts "..." after
a long name, so you never see the rest of the name. period.
For all of Apples "usability" claims, they often
settle with code you'd expect from a 16 yr old hacker.
I drove, with Ernie, to a strip-mall,
to get a Blimpie's sandwich and later to hit Blockbuster.
In this mall there's a Starbucks, and excited because I
know they have WIFI, I pulled out my ipod touch and tried
to see if it would connect. And it did! unfortunately,
when I fired up Safari as the browser it asked which WIFI
network to hook up with. I found five, and chose one that
was unlocked (no WEP or WPA), but it was a user service
that required login. I could find NO WAY to change my provider
using Safari. Ultimately I used the "Settings" control
to manually select new networks, but ... why? If it fails,
why doesn't Apple allow you to find some way to
change your network? To me that's just meager programming.
So yes, the touch has a lot
of nifty features, but in typical Apple style they assume
it Just Works, and if it doesn't they leave you to hang
or flounder around. I almost hate to say this, but Microsoft
understands "imperfection" better than Apple
does.
Would I buy one again? No. I'd
wait 'til it's improved, more user-friendly, and I'd wait
for the 64gb model that I'm sure is coming.
All that said, it's still just
amazing, in size, capability, and potential. But it assumes
too much, making mistakes in the process, isn't very user
friendly for even basic needs, and it's spendy. I'd go
with the previous versions.
iPod
Video 30 gb
I
wanted to replace my "old" iPod (in
Apple-terms that translates to "Last month")
with the video/photo version, but I held off because these
things aren't cheap. But, when my iPod photo died, the
2nd time, Apple kindly sent me this (I bought the extended
warranty, a good idea).
the 30GB video version 5.5.
It does everything the old one (iPod Video, v4), but plays
videos, and holds 2.5x of the old one. And it's black.
The details aren't too important beyond that, but read
about the iPod Video below to get some idea. The one "major" nod
I made for this was to buy the "Griffin TuneCenter" dock
for it. The dock allows you to play music, videos, and
pictures through a stereo or on a TV. While the operation
of the TuneCenter is pretty "clumsy" (you have
to do everything Just Right and in the right order to get
it playing), it works, and it's handy to have. We keep
it in the kitchen to play on the LCD TV we have mounted
over the stove. Convenient.
Along the way I bought a Belkin
car doc/FM transmitter that works flawlessly. I bought
a few videos from iTunes, just as an experiment (I think
the prices they charge, $9.99 each) is simply too high,
even ridiculous. So I rip and convert movies from my DVD
collection. That'll be handy for the 22hr flight to Singapore
we're planning. Nothing like almost two dozen hours flying
over nothing but ocean to keep a raging acrophobic who's
also terrified of flying on his toes... I'm hoping a movie
or 10 might keep me from leaping out the window.
SO where's the old iPod photo?
I traded it in when it broke and they sent me the above
video (apparently even Apple deprecates their
repair supply for the latest equivalent versions. Ernie
gave her brother her old iPod nano, so she took this when
I upgraded to the iPod video 80 gb model.
iPod
Video 80 gb
same
as above, just larger (capacity, and it's thicker). I wanted
the extra space and I wanted Ernie to have a "better" unit
than her nano, so I sprung for this.
Of course, I stupidly LOST IT
on a flight back from Singapore, so now I'm onto the iPod
touch, with mixed emotions...
iPod
photo

Yep, I found a deal on the latest
("G4," or Fourth Generation) iPod
photo, with the (then) new color screen! A great display
is what attracted me, and it sported a 30GB drive instead
of the 20GB I went shopping for. Of course it's got all
the standard "cool" of the iPod family, sleek
design, small size, that wonderful thumbwheel, and holds
a lot of songs (my entire MP3 collection, around 5,000
songs). Apple-math says it should hold 7,500 songs, but
the disk is now almost full, but I blame that on my ripping
MP3s at 192kbps instead of the common 128kbps; hence, larger
(but better-sounding) song files.The "photo" part
is a bit, oh, I dunno, "hokey." While it's got
a nice display, it's only 2" in size, so any photo
you see is teeny-tiny. But, you can hook it up to a TV
(with an optional cable) and display them full-res. Oh,
and the battery life is claimed to be 15 hrs now, the longest
of any iPod to date. Obviously it's nice to hold a few
thousand songs on one small toy, and the Apple interface
makes it easy to find and use them. I especially like the "Rating" system
provided by iTunes that puts songs you like into one folder
to play. To synchronize you just plug it in. I recently
bought the "Altec
Lansing inMotion" base for it, essentially a couple
speakers and a slot for the iPod in the middle that lets
you turn the iPod into a small stereo. It even has a remote
for volume, FF, RW, so on. Pretty cool, and the sound for
such small speakers is surprisingly full. Oh, and I bought
the "Griffin
iTrip" which is a small, cool-looking little thingy
that plugs into the top of the iPod and turns it into an
FM transmitter. It's range isn't vast (maybe 10 feet),
but good enough to let me toss the iPod on the passenger
seat and listen to it through my car's FM radio. I also
have a non-name set of very-small speakers that plug into
the top of the iPod that lets me listen to the (admittedly
tiny) sound when I don't feel like wearing headphones.
The speakers are a small "tube" that plug on
top of the iPod and are unobtrusive (no wires, etc.) The
speakers use a single AA battery to power them. WHat don't I
like? iTunes. I once remember Steve Jobs presenting the
iPod at a conference, and saying something like "iTunes
is the best PC application ever written!"Steve, you
kidder you! It's not a terrible application, but
it's far from intuitive. Case-in-point: So, this is both
a music and photo player, right? well, fire up iTunes and just
try to figure out how to load a photo! There's no
clear icon or button to do so, you have to pull down (of
all things) the "Edit menu," then select (again,
of all things) "Preferences," then select an "iPod" tab,
then the "Photos" tab, then go through an arcane
slurry of finding a folder you had to previously deposited
the pictures into. arduous. Oh, and during installation
iTunes said my new iPod had to be formatted, started the
format, and after a couple hours I gave up and exited the
("non-responding") program. It left a few dozen
garbage directories and files all over the iPod, and refused
to let me format it again. (I got around this by disabling
iTunes which prevents you from accessing the iPod as any
other USB disk, then using Windows to do the format, then
reinstall all the music. Oh, and there's more! iTunes likes
to either "lose" MP3s, or double-them-up; I had
to "clear" my file list and reinstall, and in
the process lost the music I bought on the iTunes store!
THere's an option to reinstall the purchased music, but
iTunes tells me that I can't re-download music I bought
and previously downloaded, even though it's GONE! ha ha,
those zany Apple engineers..!Aside from iTunes, I love
this thing. Given that it's disk-based, and given my problems
with disks recently, I opted for the $50 extended warranty,
something I never do. Well, almost never, but I wanted
the peace of mind. Also, the warranty will give me a battery
replacement when this one dies, and since Apple charges
(hold your breath) $100 to replace the battery, I figured
it was a good idea to get the warranty.
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| video |
Zenith
Plasma TV
We
stopped
by
the
local
CompUSA
(when
they
were
still
running
brick & mortar
stores)
to
buy
some
small
item,
a
memory
stick
or
something.
But,
in
strolling
through
we
spied
a
great-looking,
and
even
greater "costing" plasma
TV
by
Zenith.
After
some
research
and "fiddling," we
would
up
having
it
delivered.It's
a
dandy
TV,
the
picture
is
2nd
to
none.
Samsung
DLP
I
definitely
needed
a
new
TV.
I
don't
actually watch any
TV
(I
stopped,
quite
literally,
when
they
took "Miami
Vice" and "Moonlighting" off
the
air,
so
it's
been
a
while!),
but
I
like
movies,
and
have a
lot
of
them.
My
previous
TV
was
a
20" Panasonic.Well
...
I had a
35" Mitsubishi
tube
set,
and
bought
it
for
a
lot
of
money
because,
when
it
came
out
it
was
the
largest
tube
ever
made.
That
TV
still
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