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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..."

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)
• Asus Maximus III Formula motherboard -- an amazing P55-based mobo
• 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)
• Thermaltake Toughpower 700W power supply. low noise, high, clean, power
• One 500GB Seagate "Momentus XT" hybrid drive, for boot and apps
• 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
• Logitech "QuickCam Orbit MP" USB Webcam
• 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):

• AMD Athlon 64 2800+
• 512 MB PC2700 DDR RAM
• MSI K8mm-V micro-ATX (mATX) motherboard
• 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:

• AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (overclocked to 1.9GHz)
• 512 MB OCZ PC3200
• Biostar M7NCG 400 Micro-ATX (mATX) motherboard
• zalman silent cooler CPU fan
• Any random thermal goop to hold the CPU and fan together
• 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.

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... ;)

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:

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...

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:

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:

1. 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:
   
   

   1. "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"
   2. "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.

   1. 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.
   2. 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.)
   
2. And last, but I was holding out the best for the last:

   1. 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?? ;)
   2. 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..!"

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.

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