Feb 09
4
For many many years now, I’ve had a tiered approach to backups. On one tier, I do automatic nightly backups from one hard drive to the other, protecting against drive failure and accidental deletion. On the next tier, I have done manual monthly backups to DVD-RWs (and CD-RWs before that), protecting against power surges, malware that may corrupt all attached disks, and physical damage to the computer. On the last tier, I do manual yearly backups to DVD-Rs, which are then stored off-site, protecting against fire, flood, and natural disaster. I pretty much have all my bases covered.
Except for the troublesome middle tier — the DVD-RW backups. Since I do it every month maually, I don’t want it to be too involved or take too much time. So, to cut down on the number of discs required I’ve usually just backed up my regular data, minus music and movies. That cuts it down a lot. But, even that subset has grown and recently has spanned 4 DVDs, which is just time-consuming to do every month. I had a similar problem several years ago when I used to back up to CDs, which prompted me to move to DVDs. Logically, I could progress now to Blu-Ray discs, but I think history is telling me that moving to new media will only buy me a couple years before I exceed the capacity again. It’s a flawed process.
So, I recently decided to switch my middle-tier backups to a big external hard drive instead. This way, I can do a full backup every month (rather than a subset), and all I have to do is start the backup process, and then let it go. No switching of media. And it’s important to note that this external hard drive will always be disconnected from the computer, sitting in a drawer, so it is as safe as the DVD-RWs. The whole point of this backup tier is to be easily accessible, but generally disconnected, and this still satisfies this requirement.
You can buy pre-made external hard drives, but after much research I decided that it was more cost-effective to build my own, not to mention that doing so means I can get more capacity, and in the future it is easier to upgrade just the drive if needed. Plus, I like building stuff myself.
For the external enclosure, I decided on a Rosewill Aluminum 3.5″ SATA-to-USB enclosure. It’s made of aluminum, which helps dissipate heat generated by the drive, and had overall very good reviews on NewEgg. External enclosures can be a hit-or-miss category, and this particular one seems to be a best-of-breed component.
For the hard drive itself, there was a lot of drama. I had initially decided on a 500GB Seagate drive. I’ve always been a big fan of Seagate, historically they seem to make the highest-quality drives. However, in the last month or so they’ve been having many firmware issues with a particular subset of their drives, and this 500GB model was within that subset. As I was deciding on hard drives, Seagate had yet to resolve the issues they were having with this drive. So, I decided on a 320GB Seagate model, which was unaffected by the firmware issue. However, looking at the reviews on NewEgg, an amazing 40% of the reviews were 1-star, and they all were experiencing the same issues — drive completely dies within 2 months or so. You expect some reasonable failure rate — maybe 5% — but having 40% of reviewers report failure is amazing. So, that drive was out.
I finally decided on a 640GB Western Digital drive, which actually cost the same as the 320GB Seagate. It’s been a long time since I’ve owned a Western Digital drive, but they really seemed like the best option right now. Maybe they will become the new Seagate in terms of reliability, or maybe Seagate will recover from this.
At any rate, the external hard drive assembled very easily, and seems to be working great so far. I’ve added a new page to this site of “Shared Resources“, which allows me to show and track components which aren’t really a part of any one computer, but are shared amongst several, such as this drive.
Jan 09
22
Clementine finally got an uninterruptible power supply. Specifically, an APC Back-UPS ES BE750G. I’ve long planned to add a UPS to Clementine, and finally got around to doing it. I think a UPS is a great addition to any machine; it adds an extra layer of reliability, and it just feels great when the power goes out and your computer keeps going. Adds to the mystique of a custom-built machine. Not to mention the wear-and-tear it saves you by allowing for a safe shutdown (even if you’re not around!).
This is pretty much the same UPS as Fozzie has, although it’s a slightly newer version. Slightly slimmer and nicer looking, but effectively the same specifications. I’ve been well-served so far by APC (better than the two previous CyberPower models) and I look forward to having it as a part of Clementine.
Fozzie got a new set of speakers. I’ve been wanting to upgrade Fozzie’s speakers for several years now, but year after year I had a lot of trouble trying to find a new set that I thought would be a good replacement for what I had. Fozzie’s old speakers were a Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 set, widely considered to be one of the best-sounding sound systems available for PCs. This set was starting to crackle when the volume was adjusted, which was annoying (and, from reading forums online, common for this set). Additionally, the satellites are rather large and take up significant desk space. Lastly, this was a 4.1 set, but in the entire time that I’ve had them, I’ve only ever used the 2.1 configuration (due to space constraints and not really needing surround sound on my PC), so I’ve always had an extra two satellites just taking up room in a box. So, I wanted to get a new set which addressed these three concerns.
I eventually decided on the Altec Lansing FX4021. This is a 2.1 setup, so it matches my desired configuration. The satellites are significantly smaller in every dimension than the Klipsch ones were. The subwoofer is smaller length and width-wise, but is taller — but that’s OK, at least it takes up less floor space. Sound quality is very good — it’s really hard to tell much of a difference between these and the Klipsch set.
One interesting note here is that the Klipsch speakers were the single oldest part of Fozzie, and in fact were the only component left that dates back to Fozzie’s original December 1999 configuration. So, this upgrade is historic in that Fozzie now shares nothing with that original Compaq Presario 5900Z I got for Christmas senior year of high school.
Another recent change — Waldorf has been decomissioned and replaced with a Dell Inspiron 530. Waldorf, for those that don’t know, was a computer who’s original goal was to be completely built out of parts cycled out of Fozzie. Originally Waldorf was my Linux computer. I didn’t use it much, though, and it eventually became my mother’s computer. For this transition, I dropped the “recycled-only” requirement, and began replacing its peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer) with new parts. The computer itself was still very old (700MHz Athlon CPU, for example) and was running very slowly. So, the decision was made to replace Waldorf with a new pre-built Dell, which I custom configured for my parents, and re-use the new peripherals from Waldorf. So, Waldorf is no more, but that’s OK — it was only ever intended as a transition computer anyways. The more significant fact is that this marks the end of the usable line for several old components in Waldorf — the aforementioned CPU, the motherboard, the TNT2 video card, and the Sound Blaster Live sound card.
Dec 08
5
New laptop! My existing laptop, Camilla, is going on five years old soon, and is starting to show her age, so it was time for her to be replaced. The new laptop — named Beaker — is a Dell Inspiron 1420. As a 14-inch laptop, it’s slightly smaller and lighter than Camilla, but also significantly more powerful, with a modern Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
Bunch of neat integrated features: webcam, Bluetooth, wireless, card reader. And it meets my number 1 requirement for laptops, in that it has a standard S-Video/component/composite connection for TV-out capabilities. Lots of smaller laptops either drop that feature or have moved to HDMI, but I place a value on being able to connect to a wide range of TVs as opposed to the smaller percentage supporting HDMI.
Another cool thing is that this is the only 14-inch laptop I found which supported the 1440×900 resolution, every other was a lower resolution. Since I do development, I greatly value having more screen real estate, and this resolution really does not seem too high for this size screen. Text is still crisp and readable.
Lastly, this laptop is my first exposure to Windows Vista. So far, I’m not-unimpressed. Lots of small changes to the GUI, but overall I think they are positive changes. It resolves many long-standard pet-peeves I’ve had with the XP interface: the term “Start button”, preceding everything with “My”, and over use of primary colors. Other than that, lots of configuration options have moved around, mostly in ways that are neither good nor bad. I haven’t had negative experiences so far with it. It’s not earth-shatteringly amazing, but it’s not horrible either. Just some slight improvements. I’m OK with that.
Overall, I am very happy with this laptop so far. It does everything I need it to, performs well, looks pretty sleek, and was a good value. Farewell Camilla, you’ve served me well the last five years.
Nov 08
9
Well, after a year of experimenting with using a Bluetooth headset on my primary desktop, Fozzie, I’ve come to a conclusion — the technology isn’t quite there yet. Even after adjusting to ensure line-of-sight with the receiver, the sound quality was never consistently good enough to rely on. When it was good, it was really good. But when it was bad — it was horrible. So that headset now will become solely for cell phone use, where it seems to work perfectly fine. But not with a computer.
So, after re-evaluating all of my options for headsets, I’ve decided that I still believe the previous configuration to be the best. That is, a good mobile phone headet connected via a Radio Shack headphone/speaker switch that allows mobile phone headsets to connect to a PC. And after re-evaluating mobile phone headsets for this purpose, I’ve similarly decided that headset I used to use is still the best available — a Plantronics MX-505. Currently my old headset and switch are being successfully used on my wife’s computer, Clementine, so I’ve acquired a second Radio Shack switch (hard to come by now, they’re no longer manufactured) and a second Plantronics MX-505 headset, this time in black.
Waldorf got a new keyboard — a Microsoft Wired Keyboard 500. It’s a pretty nice keyboard, simple, but effective. It’s wired because this particular computer has no need for wireless peripherals, and the addition of batteries would really just be detrimental. And the keyboard is simple, no LCD screens or multitudes of media buttons which no one would ever use. Just a good, soft-touch, quiet, keyboard. Which is surprisingly hard to find nowadays.
This replaces a generic Compaq keyboard, which dates back to the earliest days of Fozzie (1999!). In addition to just being generally old, the keys were starting to lose responsiveness. I think it’s understandable that it started to die after almost 10 years of use.
This keyboard marks one of the last components of Waldorf that can be upgraded without a major renovation — everything else is tied to the motherboard in one way or another. This computer was originally built from parts cycled out of Fozzie, and I have been systematically upgrading all of the individually replaceable parts ever since. Now we’re at the point where the next step will be to renovate the remaining parts of the computer — motherboard, CPU, PSU, case, video card, and memory.
Mar 08
6
Got a new monitor for Clementine – a 19-inch Samsung SyncMaster 940BX. Great monitor: 1000:1 contrast ratio, adjustable height, and can be rotated.
Attentive readers may remember that this is actually the same monitor I added to Fozzie back in December 2006. Even over a year later, I still couldn’t find a better monitor than this, particularly at this price point. I didn’t start out saying that I was going to get the same monitor, but after looking at all of them, this one still won.
It’s also worth noting that this replaces a Samsung SyncMaster 570VTFT that Clementine was using. Before Clementine, this monitor was used with Fozzie, and was in fact the first LCD monitor I acquired, back in July of 2001. I am amazed at how well this monitor has held up over time. Other than being a slightly small 15 inches (which is still a common size), it has otherwise been great monitor to use over the years. That monitor — and the 4 subsequent Samsung monitors I’ve purchased — has made me a big Samsung fan. I’m continually impressed with the quality of their monitors. 5 LCD monitors and no dead pixels!
Dec 07
27
Fozzie just got a Christmas upgrade — a new Seagate Barracuda SATA 120GB hard drive, to replace the existing Maxtor 80GB drive.
This serves as my secondary hard drive; it only stores my user data. That’s why it is smaller than the other hard drive, which is 250 GB. I need to be able to back up my secondary drive onto my primary drive, so my primary drive needs to be big enough to hold both the contents of the secondary drive as well as the operating system and applications. So, when I upgrade my primary drive, I can buy one as big as I want. But when I upgrade my secondary drive, I have to keep it smaller than the primary drive.
The biggest reason for doing this upgrade at this time was that I plan on renovating Fozzie again sometime this summer. When I do so, it’s quite likely that whatever motherboard I end up buying will only support one IDE channel (2 devices), as IDE is being phased out. My current board supports 2 IDE channels (4 devices), and my existing setup was 1 SATA hard drive, 1 IDE hard drive, and 2 IDE optical drives. So, I felt it would be prudent to replace the IDE hard drive with a SATA drive, so now I only have 2 IDE devices.
I’m very impressed with this new drive. Yes, it’s bigger (120 GB vs. 80 GB) and faster (SATA vs. IDE), but what really impresses me is how quiet it is. As I soon I turned my computer on for the first time with this drive in, I instantly noticed that the noise level had dropped dramatically. I assumed that my older drive was causing some noise, but not nearly as much as it actually was. And I always like to make computers as quiet as possible, so that’s a great benefit.
Nov 07
5
Ever since I got a Bluetooth adapter for Fozzie, I’ve been interested in trying to use a Bluetooth headset with my computer. So, I recently decided to go ahead and try it out. After reading tons of reviews of headsets online, it was clear that the universally best reviewed headset was the Plantronics Voyager 510. No other Bluetooth headset had anywhere near the positive feedback that it did. So, it was the obvious buy.
I’m happy to say it works great with my computer (and with my cell phone, too!). One change I had to make was that I needed to move the Bluetooth dongle from the back of my computer to my desktop, using an extra USB extension/stand that I have. It seems that line of sight is very critical to Bluetooth working correctly, especially for real-time audio. But once that change was made, the audio is very clear in both directions, and I have continued to reduce wires!
With this change in place, I was able to move my existing headset setup (a wired Plantronics MX-505 and Radio Shack speaker/headset switch) to Clementine, which had lacked a headset. That’s still a pretty recent headset model, I only got it about a year and a half ago.
Oct 07
16
Waldorf had a hardware change a while back that I completely forgot to post about here. The new Logitech mouse that we got for it turned out to be a piece of junk — which is surprising, as I’ve generally been happy with other Logitech mice. The cursor was very jumpy, which made it hard to point at anything with precision on screen. Tried more than one mouse, and all of them had the defect.
So, we quickly replaced it with a Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000, which seems to be working great. Goes to show that even companies with good histories can make mistakes!