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.

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 1440x900 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.