Aug 06
2
Laptop mouse
Unlike most people, I really do like touchpads on laptops. I think they’re an intuitive way to use a pointing device. Because of this, I’ve exclusively used the touchpad on Camilla in the time I have had this laptop.
However, once in a while, I really do a lot of work in one sitting on my laptop. For instance, if I work from home, or if I take the laptop on a trip and it becomes my primary computer. In those cases, the “intuitiveness” of the touchpad is overshadowed by the discomfort it causes after extended usage.
For these times, I decided to buy a Logitech Notebook Optical Mouse Plus. It was the top-rated corded optical notebook mouse on NewEgg and Amazon, and was only $11, so I figured it’s a good deal. Why not cordless? Mostly because it’d be just one more battery to charge. Also, with a laptop, I don’t forsee the need to require the mouse to be far away from the computer. I love the wireless mouse I have for my desktop, but it just didn’t make sense for a laptop.
Seems pretty good. Smaller than a desktop mouse, but not as small as some Microsoft notebook mice I have seen, so it’s still comfortable to hold. Cord wraps around the bottom and snaps into place. Feels pretty sturdy and solid overall, even the scroll wheel. Not a terribly exciting upgrade, but worthwhile and a good deal. Nice.
The other day, my Cyber Power uninterruptible power supply suffered a horrible death. We lost power for just a moment, but rather than supplying power to Fozzie through the loss, it shut the computer off. Then, when the power came back, the UPS would maintain power to the computer for about 3 seconds, then drop power, then bring it back for 3 seconds, then drop it. My computer kept being turned on and off — not very good for it!
So I declared this the death of my UPS. This is actually the second UPS I have had die a horrible death — the other one was a Cyber Power model as well. I’m not sure if this shows that Cyber Power is a bad brand, or that UPSes are fault-prone. It’s definitely one of the two, though.
So, I have replaced it. This time, with a good-reputation APC model. APC costs just a little more than brands like Cyber Power, but if the unit lasts longer than 2 years, it’s worth it. Already I like it more — 10 outlets rather than 6, 5 battery-backed outlets rather than 3, better software, and USB connection rather than serial.
I really find UPSes to be incredibly useful, particularly for those quick little “hiccups” of power that you get every now and then. I hope this APC unit meets my expectations!
As mentioned in my previous post, my old Labtec headset, which I’ve had since 2000, broke recently. So I have now replaced it, with a Plantronics MX-505 headset.
It’s interesting to note that this new headset is actually designed for mobile phones, which use a 2.5mm headset jack. I’m able to attach it to my computer via the Radio Shack headset / speaker switch I recently bought.
Now, the question you might wonder is, why did I go through the trouble of getting a phone headset, rather than just buying a regular PC headset. Well…
There were several different approaches I could have taken with this headset needing to be replaced. For one, I could have bought a high-end USB PC headset. The problem with these is, mainly, that they cost too much. At a minimum of $40, I just can’t justify that. Additionally, USB headsets sometimes conflict when used at the same time as a web cam. My primary use of a headset is for videoconferencing, so I didn’t want to take this risk — especially since it would be at a premium.
So I looked at regular PC headsets that plug into your sound card. There are lots out there, and at reasonable prices. However, every single one of them was big and bulky. They seems to be mostly designed for gaming / listening to music. In the time I have had my computer, not once have I used my headset for those purposes. I have only ever used it for VOIP or videoconferencing. I don’t need stereo sound, and I don’t want a big bulky headset that makes me look silly on camera. I considered those behind-the-head headsets briefly, but couldn’t find a set that were well reviewed — they all seemed to have a hard time fitting people correctly.
So, I had decided that I wanted a small, discrete headset, for under $30, that has good (but not necessarily amazing) sound quality. Plantronics makes a wireless PC headset that almost fits this bill — except it costs over $200. So, I started at this point to look at Bluetooth headsets. Bluetooth headsets are mostly designed for use with Bluetooth-enabled cell phones. But, for $20 you can get a Bluetooth adapter for your PC and, theoretically, use them on your computer. Bluetooth headsets are almost universally small and discrete. However, the more I read about them, the more I got the sense that lots of people seem to have problems trying to get them to work with PCs. There’s a fair population out there that are successful, but I don’t want a battle with my computer over a headset.
So I thought I had ruled out every possiblity (and probably at this point would have ended up buying a standard PC headset). However, I realized that there are lots of regular, wired, mobile phone headsets out there that are < $30, and are also inconspicuous. I was lucky to find the Radio Shack switch (apparently one of the only ways to make this sort of connection!). I did some research on Amazon, and managed to find this great little headset. I was leaning from the beginning towards buying a Plantronics headset, since I know they are a good brand. This particular headset was very well reviewed, so I gave it a shot.
I haven’t had it long, but the connection works flawlessly, and upon inital experiments, the sound quality is quite good, both the speaker and the microphone. And it’s a really nice looking headset, and doesn’t stand out on the webcam. Plus, it looks high-tech when you wear it. All good things! And, last but not least, I did something “interesting” with my computer, rather than taking the “easy” route. 
There has been a flurry of small changes with my computers lately.
First, I recently decided to take the wireless NIC (a new Linksys WMP54G) from Waldorf and put it in Fozzie. I built Waldorf mostly to try and use the old parts I had hanging around, as well as to have a Linux-only desktop. However, since I built Waldorf I haven’t used it a single time. It was a fun project to built, but not very useful. If I want to run Linux I can boot up my laptop, and Waldorf was too underpowered to really use for much. So I took the one new component from Waldorf, and put it in Fozzie.
I took this as an oportunity to remove the modem from Fozzie. This is notable in that the modem is one of the oldest components in Fozzie, dating all the way back to December, 1999. It’s not really needed, though. I haven’t used a dial-up connection in several years, and don’t foresee myself using one again. So, it was easier to just swap the modem for the wireless card, rather than adding another PCI card to the system.
Also, it seems that I added my headset to the page just in time. It just broke the other day. It’s still useable (sort of), but the plastic bends when you wear it. Not bad for $15 six years ago, though. I plan to replace it in the very near future. My current plan is to replace it with a mobile phone headset, rather than a traditional PC headset. When/if I actually do that, I’ll give more explanation here. But for now, I’ve added a Radio Shack computer headphone/speaker switch, which lets you switch between speakers, computer headset, or mobile phone headset, which is a really neat feature. I sort of wanted a switch anyways. It’s tough having both speakers and a headset and trying to switch between them. My previous solution was to set my sound card to 4-speaker mode, and use the headset as the “rear” speakers and my real speakers as the “front” speakers. It works, but it’s not clean. Now I have a switch for that purpose.
Today I upgraded Camilla to Fedora Core 4. The only reason she was running Core 3 was that, as of July, I couldn’t get wireless networking to work under Core 4. But since then I’ve gotten it working — largely because of building Waldorf. This was actually just part of re-building the operating systems on Camilla. I also re-installed Windows XP. I like to start from scratch about once a year, for several reasons. For one, it helps to get rid of the “cruft” that builds up over time as programs are installed and uninstalled. Also, it gives you the experience of having to re-install an operating system, so that you a) know how to do it in your sleep, b) know what needs to be backed up in order to do it successfully and c) aren’t stressed out by doing it.
Also, to Fozzie‘s page, I added a headset. This isn’t a new component, though. I’ve had this headset since August of 2000. For some reason, I just had never listed it on this page. But it’s certainly a part of Fozzie. This headset has enabled me to use Dialpad.com (back when it offered free calling), Skype, Stanaphone, and, currently, SightSpeed. Quite a lot of use for $15 six years ago.
Today I added one 1GB module of Crucial PC3200 RAM to Fozzie, bringing Fozzie’s total to 1.5GB of RAM.
1.5GB is quite a lot of memory for a desktop system, so you might wonder why I added 1GB rather than, say, 512MB. The reason is, even though the Asus K8V motherboard has three slots for memory modules and supports PC3200 speed RAM, you can only achieve that maximum speed in the event that two or fewer slots are in use. As soon as you put a third module in the system, the speed of all memory drops to, I think, PC2700. I’d rather keep the speed high, so, thinking ahead, figured it’d be better to put a 1GB module in and then not need more for a long time. When the time comes to upgrade memory again, I’ll replace the pre-existing 512MB module with another 1GB — and then stop memory upgrades, so as to not lower the access speed.
Yesterday I added a Logitech Precision GamePad 2 to Fozzie. Now, I actually don’t play games very often on my computer, so why would I want a game pad? Because, every now and then I do enjoy playing emulated games. Classic games, like Mario and Sonic, that sort of thing. Every now and then, I’m just in the mood for playing Mario Kart for 15 minutes. But, it’s quite horrible to do that with a computer keyboard. So, I’ve been looking and looking for a good, cheap, PC game controller. I don’t need a joystick, analog pads, or rumble features, because I’m only going to play older games with it. But at the same time, I don’t want a really cheaply made controller that will fall apart after a few months. The Logitech Precision GamePad only costs $10, and has really good reviews on Amazon. Thus far, I’ve agreed with the reviews — it’s a really comfortable, sturdy controller, that really does just “plug and play” — no drivers or anything required. Recommended if you want to play emulated games. Probably not so good if you want to play modern flight simulators and first person shooters.
This was actually a great birthday present from my wonderful girlfriend. Thanks, Leslie
Over the weekend I did something I’ve been planning to do for a long time: increased the amount of RAM in Camilla. I swapped out one of the 128MB modules, and replaced it with a Kingston 256MB PC2100 module, bringing the total to 384MB.
It may seem odd that Camilla had two 128MB modules rather than just a single 256MB module, but at the time that I bought Camilla, there was a substantial financial savings by going the 2x128MB route. I knew that 256MB wasn’t a whole lot for a laptop to run Windows XP, but I decided that I would save the money in the short term, and then upgrade one of the modules within a year. Well, now, 2 years later, I’ve finally done it Even 384MB is a little low for a laptop — when you’re dealing 5400RPM hard drives, you don’t want the OS to swap to disk very often! — but my plan is to upgrade the other 128MB module within a year.
So look for that upgrade in November 2007….
I built a new computer! However, this computer, “Waldorf“, is not intended to replace either Fozzie or Camilla. Waldorf is built (almost) entirely from parts that have been cycled out of other computers — mostly from Fozzie. One of my big motivations for building Waldorf was simply that I had enough parts lying around to build another computer — so why not?
Of note, Waldorf is Linux-only. I quietly removed Linux recently from Fozzie. Fozzie’s goal is to be a computer that constantly meets my needs and is constantly relatively up-to-date. But, by dual-booting Windows and Linux, it was frequently a chore to pick out compatible hardware, which sometimes kept Fozzie from reaching its full potential. I also had been having problems getting XP and Linux to dual-boot from my new SATA drive. And also, I just simply don’t like dual-booting to begin with. It’s nice having a large pool of applications available, but it’s annoying to have to reboot in order to use something in another operating system (especially if you run servers on your computer, which I do). A better solution is to just run Cygwin under Windows, which gives you a Linux-like environment and pool of applications. So, Fozzie is now Windows-only, and Waldorf is Linux-only. Since Waldorf is largely “aged” hardware, this seems to make sense.
The one new piece of hardware in Waldorf is a Linksys PCI 802.11g wireless card. Since there is no room in my computer room for another computer, and that’s where the router is located, I either had to get wireless for Waldorf or run cabling around the house. Luckily, the Linksys card seems to work with Fedora Core 3, by using the infinitely useful ndiswrapper program.
I had some problems with IRQ conflicts relating to running FC3 on this older hardware, but those problems strangely only occur on reboots, not fresh startups, so the rule is to not reboot Waldorf… just startup and shutdown. Other than that, Waldorf is functioning execellently.
Got a new printer today, a Canon Pixma iP6600D. This is to replace my 5-year-old HP DeskJet 932C. The 932C had served me very well over the years (all of college and grad school), but was very obviously starting to die. Whenever I’d print with it, it would emit crazy squealing and grinding noises like no printer should ever do. And it seemed to be jamming more lately. So, I got this new Canon. I’m very happy with it so far. Borderless photo printing, LCD preview, memory card slots. A lot has changed in printing in the last 5 years! I really wanted just another simple printer, but it seemed like all the “simple” printers had bad print quality as well. The 6600D is sort of new, so there aren’t lots of reviews online for it, but the ones I found were positive, and I know that Canon has produced several of the best printers out right now (iP4000 and iP5000), so it seemed like a safe bet.