My Computers

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:49:00 +0000

I recently added a new computer my family -- a home theater PC named Scooter. I've been planning on getting a home theater PC for over a year now, but it was a long process of finding just the right device that met my needs. I had two main use cases for this PC: 1) To be a computer that is permanently attached to my TV so that it's more convenient to watch Netflix streaming moves and other video content on my TV, rather than manually hooking up a laptop on-demand, and 2) To also be attached to my wireless speakers that I have sprinkled throughout the house and provide a music-control interface on the first floor, rather than running upstairs to the office whenever I want to change playlists. Although these are my current primary use cases, I really wanted a computer that, as much as possible, would not restrict me down the road, as I have no idea what services I will want to use in the future. So I wanted it to support these use cases well, but not be too specialized.

Due to being permanently attached to the TV and thus becoming part of my home theater, aesthetics were important to me. I didn't want to just set up a regular desktop next to my TV. And input matters too -- my couch is about 10 feet back from the TV, so wireless is a must, and I don't want to just have a full keyboard and mouse sitting on my coffee table. Aesthetics were important to this project.

My original plan was to built an HTPC myself. I looked into Micro-ATX motherboards, and was able to piece together a decent system at a reasonable price. The sticking point, though, was case design. I really wanted something compact and discrete, but micro-ATX cases are still, on the whole, much larger than what I had in mind. The best ones were roughly the width of a cable set top box (foot and half, perhaps), but were suprisingly tall -- on the order of 7 inches. That's quite an imposing box, and none that I saw really looked attractive in terms of home theater equipment.

So I scrapped that idea and began to consider pre-built systems. There is a new desktop form factor recently called "Nettop", which is inspired by Netbooks -- very small cases with reasonable, but lower-powered hardware. For the most part, nettops are designed for exactly my scenario of a home theater PC.

The problem was, when I started looking into nettops from manufacturers like Asus and Acer, they were either too low powered (I want to make sure the machine can grow somewhat with my needs) or, again, too ugly.

Until I discovered the Dell Zino HD. This computer is exactly what I was looking for -- small and compact (8 inches by 8 inches, about 3 inches tall), attractive (you can pick colors, but mine is glossy black with a minimal number of ports on the front), and reasonably powerful (mine has a 1.5GHz dual-core AMD CPU, and runs Windows 7 just fine).

On the input side, I looked at tons of small keyboards and remotes, and decided on the Logitech diNovo Mini, which is a really compact wireless keyboard/touchpad combination. It's about the size of a Blackberry, and is great if you're OK with thumb-typing. you certainly wouldn't want to type a thesis on this keyboard, but it's perfectly fine for typing in URLs, movie names into Netflix, and that sort of thing. And the touchpad works well too. This way, I have full control over the computer, but in a nice little input device that doesn't look out of place in the family room.

On the software side, I was open to the idea of all-in-one media center packages, like Windows Media Center, that provide a 10-foot interface and provide easy access to all your media, but I couldn't find one that really did a good job of integrating with both Netflix and iTunes. So for now, I am just running iTunes and accessing Netflix through a web browser. Since I have my full input device and this is a decently-spec'ed computer, this works just fine, although I am still passively on the lookout for a great media center software package.

In the end, I love this setup, and have no real criticisms for either the Zino HD nor the diNovo Mini. For my purposes (wanting a relatively general-purpose computer), I think they are a great combination and are easy to use. For people who had already bought into a particular media center software package, there may be other better options of lower-powered computers and specialized remotes. But even in that case, I would argue that, based on what I've seen, no nettop computer looks as good in a home theater as the Zino HD.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:10:00 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, Clementine recently evolved from being a computer just for my wife, into being a computer for both of us. As a result, she needed a boost in a few areas to better suit the needs of both of us combined. Also, with all the stuff going on over the last few months related to buying a house, I haven't gotten to do much computer work, and was starting to feel the itch to do some upgrades!

First, I added memory. I had long intended on increasing Clementine from 1GB to 2GB, and finally did it. The memory module that came was, apparently, low-profile. It's about half the height of a regular module. I didn't know this when I ordered it, but it doesn't really affect me, for good or bad. Just have never seen that before.

Second, I added a Firewire card, which provides a 2 external Firewire ports (one 6-pin, one 4-pin) and 1 internal port. This was desirable because my wife's digital camcorder is able to connect to computers via Firewire, but we've never had a firewire port. Now we can back videos up to the computer. The firewire card with a cable, which is nice, but it turned out the cable was defective. I ordered a $3 cable from Amazon, and now it works great.

Third, I replaced both hard drives. The old 120GB data drive is now replaced with a 500GB drive, and the old 160GB OS/backup drive is replaced with a 750GB drive. Both are Western Digital drives.

Lastly, since I was going to need to re-install Windows anyways due to the hard drive replacements, I upgraded the computer to Windows Vista. Of course, this was just days before Windows 7 came out, but oh well. I don't like adopting an OS until a few months after release anyways. But I think this computer is well-suited to Vista, so it's nice to finally have a modern OS on here.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:26:00 +0000

Life has been busy recently, and as such, I've been lax in updating this site. But here's a recap of the last couple months:

My wife and I bought a house (hence life busy)! Which has resulted in several computer changes. Most importantly, we decided that instead of each having a separate computer, we'd consolidate onto just one computer, in order to make the office more manageable. Since Clementine, my wife's computer, was overall newer than my computer, Fozzie, we decided to consolidate on Clementine.

This lead the significant event of Fozzie being decommissioned, after a lineage going back almost 10 years. Of course, nothing remains of the Fozzie that existed 10 years ago, but along the way it's just been incremental upgrades, and so I still view it as the same computer. This was a big deal to me, as Fozzie was the first computer that I really did significant upgrades to and built myself. But, the decision to move towards Clementine makes sense. And Clementine holds a special place in my heart as well -- it's the first computer I built entirely from the ground up, rather than upgrading an existing computer. So I bid a sad farewell to Fozzie, but not too sad, as I look forward to the future with Clementine.

However, consolidating also meant taking components out of Fozzie and installing them in Clementine if they're better than what was already in the computer. This lead to several upgrades to Clementine. Her existing 80GB data drive just didn't cut it anymore for two people, so I replaced it (temporarily) with Fozzie's 120GB data drive. Even that is tight; I intend on upgrading soon. Fozzie just recently got a new Altec Lansing speaker set, so I used that to replace Clementine's existing speakers, which were the oldest componet in Clementine. Clementine also gained Fozzie's Canon printer, Epson scanner, and Logitech gamepad, as she lacked those components. And lastly (and coolest), I now found myself with two identical, great, monitors. So I added Fozzie's 19-inch Samsung to Clementine, resulting in an amazing dual-monitor setup at home. I've gotten used to this sort of setup at work -- it's hard to explain why two monitors are so great, but once you experience it, you'll never go back to just one.

With the two computers merged, now I plan on doing some specific upgrades to Clementine to make her better suited to serving the needs of both me and my wife. Look for those soon.

Also, my trusty D-Link wireless router was replaced in favor of an Actiontec router provided to me as part of my new Verizon FiOS service. It wasn't necessarily by choice, but the new router actually seems quite good -- better than the wireless router Verizon provided me as part of DSL, which I ended up not using. And it's necessary for some FiOS features, such as On Demand, so I might as well use it.

Overall, a busy few months, both in terms of computer upgrades and general life events.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Fozzie got upgraded to Windows Vista recently, sort of by accident.

It all started with the fact that I had been running Vista within a virtual machine for awhile, and wanted to finally try running it on the base hardware to see if my beloved computer could handle the notoriously resource-hungry Vista. So, I started with a dual boot setup of XP and Vista. I was happy to discover that Vista actually perfectly fine on my computer, even getting a respectable 4.0 Windows Experience Index score.

The dual boot worked fine for awhile, with me occassionally going back and forth between the two OSes. But one day, I booted into XP and scandisk gave me a message during boot that one of the hard drives should be scanned. I skipped it. Then, the next time I booted into Vista, it gave me the same message. This time, I said "OK" and let it scan and fix the drive. Which proceeded to take on the order of 3 hours. During this time it processed through every file on my hard drive, saying they all had invalid security IDs and replacing them with default IDs. When it finished, Vista worked fine still, but XP was competely unusable, with tons of odd problems -- the taskbar has half it's normal height, open windows didn't appear on the taskbar, copy and paste didn't work, drag and drop didn't work, the sound system didn't work, and probably lots of other things I didn't get a chance to notice before giving up and booting back into Vista.

After some research online, I discovered that I was actually not the first person to have this problem. It appears to be somewhat common when dual-booting between Vista and XP. The problem lies with the NTFS file system. In NTFS, all files have security permissions (such as, everyone can read/write the file, or only a certain user can write it, and so on). Additionally, all files have owners, which is the user that has the ability to set the permissions on the file. Some permissions can refer to the owner indirectly, such as "only the owner can read this file, whoever the owner is right now".

Internally, the operating system associated an ID with each user of the system. So, say, the user "Greg" might be assigned the ID "1234". This association is store within the operating system. The ID is what is stored in the filesystem to identify the owner of a particular file. So, the file system may say that the owner of "test.txt" has an ID of "1234", and the operating system is then able to figure out that that means "Greg". You might now see where I'm going with this.

The problem appears to be that since the association is stored within the OS, the IDs that were set by XP don't mean anything to Vista, and vice versa. So, these appear to be invalid. So, the OS tries to fix them, which makes things work that operating system, but completely breaks things for the other operating system. Especially if the read/write permissions on the file referenced the owner -- the OS may now be unable to read its own files.

At least, this is what I can decipher from what I observed and what I read online. There must be a way to successfully boot between the two operating systems -- maybe the problem only starts to occur if you access files on one system drive from the other operating system? I don't know.

At any rate, I decided to wipe out both installations and just go with Vista, since it seemed to work fine on my computer. No data was lost (my data is kept on a separate physical drive, and has loose permissions set so that owenrship issue didn't really matter). However, I was hoping to soon do a similar dual-boot setup on Clementine to test it's Vista-readiness, but now am very reluctant to do so until I can figure out a solution.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:10:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:28:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:53:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:56:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:46:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:37:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:33:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:14:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:32:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:12:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:22:00 +0000

Waldorf just got a new mouse -- a Logitech LX3 Optical Mouse Blue. This is an upgrade from it's previous non-optical OEM Compaq mouse, so it's a big step forward.

It's corded, because this computer doesn't really require a wireless mouse & keyboard. I was surprised when we went to a certain big-box retailer, and there only 2 corded mice, and 1 corded (no-name brand) keyboard. I didn't realized wireless had become so pervasive (although I do love the wireless sets on Fozzie and Clementine, but Waldorf just didn't need one).

Luckily, one of the two corded mice was this Logitech LX3 model, which is very similar to the mouse that's part of my highly-recommended wireless set -- the Logitech LX7 -- except it's a) corded and b) optical in stead of laser. Great high-quality mouse.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 19 May 2007 20:36:00 +0000

BIG change to talk about -- I built a new computer!

My fiance's computer has been seemingly dying a slow death recently, so I decided it was time to build a new one to replace it, and include it in my family of computers. The new computer's name is Clementine, and you can read all of the detailed specs here. You can also see images and commentary from the building process by going here.

As a quick summary, this computer is centered around an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ processor -- dual core and quite powerful, but also very reasonably priced. We've got a great Asus M2N motherboard, and a fanless, silent, EVGA GeForce 7100GS video card. The card is not super powerful, but this computer will not be used for gaming at all, so sound level of the card (and computer in general) was more important than power. And at any rate, this card is still quite capable for simple 3D tasks and even high-end games from a couple of years ago.

Two SATA Seagate hard drives, totalling 240GB of space, and a Plextor DVD burner. Also, we've got a Logitech LX710 cordless desktop set (same as in Fozzie, excellent set!), a completely silent Enermax case fan, and the 15-inch Samsung LCD that was previously used on Fozzie. Check out the specs, it's a pretty decent machine for general tasks, with a lot of room to grow.

Also, at the same time, I remove the StarLogic floppy drive from Fozzie, and instead bought a NEC USB floppy drive, which I'll share amongst the three computers I have here (Fozzie, Camilla, and Clementine, none of which have built-in floppy drives). Floppy disks are used so infrequently nowadays, I felt it was better to not build a drive into every computer, and instead just share a USB drive. However, I took this StarLogic drive, and installed it in Waldorf. Waldorf is not physically located here, so would not benefit from my USB floppy drive. Also, the floppy drive that was previously in Waldorf did not work, so this gives Waldorf a functioning drive at least.

So, we welcome Clementine to the Greg Leedberg family of computers!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:04:00 +0000

As part of a push to "refresh" the capabilities of Waldorf, I recently replaced its aging 17-inch Compaq CRT monitor with a new 17-inch Samsung SyncMaster 720N LCD monitor. The Compaq it replaces is a massive monitor, so the switch to a flat panel is a definite improvement in desk space utilization.

Waldorf is currently my mother's computer, although I still consider it part of my "family" of computers. When I first built Waldorf, I built it entirely out of used parts, and intended for it to be a secondary computer to Fozzie. Fozzie is still my primary computer, but now that Waldorf is my mother's primary computer, I'd like to try and update some of the hardware components. I'll focus first with the most pressing needs -- like this monitor.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 14:37:00 +0000

I recently bought a new cell phone (an LG VX8600) which supports Bluetooth. As you may know, I'm a big fan of Bluetooth technology, so I took this as an opportunity to add Bluetooth connectivity to my desktop, Fozzie.

After reading lots of reviews on Bluetooth adapters, I found that they range in price from $7 all the way up to $60 or more. But, they had almost universally bad reviews, except one -- the Anycom USB-250. It seemed that for most adapters, no matter the price, some people could get it to work, while lots of people could not. To be fair, Bluetooth can be complex because compatibility depends on both the adapter as well as the device you're connecting to (in my case, my cell phone). There are so many possible combinations that it's not surprising that there are compatibility problems. But, it seemed that more people had success with the Anycom adapter than with others.

Since I got it, I have found that it works perfectly with my phone. I am able to transfer files, use my phone as a modem, and use my computer as a speaker phone. Some of it was non-obvious (step #1: Get rid of the CD that comes with the adapter and download the latest software from Anycom's web site), so I may end up writing a how-to for my blog.

Now that I have Bluetooth connectivity on my computer, I am excited to start getting more Bluetooth-compatible devices. Printers, mice, keyboards, media players... lots of things are supporting Bluetooth nowadays. And now I can take part in the wireless fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:00:00 +0000

Well, you should always expect unexpected problems when upgrading computers.

Case in point: In my last post, I talked about adding an XFX GeForce 7300GT video card to my computer. However, at that time I had not really pushed it very much. I played Doom 3 for a couple of minutes, was amazed by the quality of the rendering, and posted to this blog. Later, I continued to play Doom 3, and found that, consistently, after about 5 - 10 minutes of playing, the computer would lock up. So, I downloaded a video card stability tester, and the card would fail the test (i.e., crash the computer) within just a few seconds of the test running. After reading online and reviewing the specs for the video card, I began to suspect that the card was attempting to pull more power than my 400W power supply could, well, supply.

So, I went onto NewEgg, read some reviews, and ordered an Antec TrueControl 550W power supply. This time around, I wanted to go with Antec since they are consistently well reviewed and have a very good reputation for producing high-quality power supplies.

A few days went buy, and it came. I installed it, and it completely solved the problem. Doom 3 runs perpetually, and the video card stability test runs without crashing. However, this is not the end of the story.

The TrueControl line of power supplies come with a control panel you can mount on the front of your computer. This panel has several dials which allow you to tweak the voltage and fan speed of the power supply. I have two issues with this control panel: One, I don't overclock so I don't need to tweak my voltage levels. Two, the panel is incredibly, incredibly, ugly. Perhaps if you're one of those people who put neon lights in your case, it wouldn't be so bad, but that is not the look I'm going for at all.

When ordering the power supply, I assumed that if you didn't set up the control panel, the power supply would just run like a normal power supply and produce the rated voltages and whatnot. However, it turns out that without the front panel connected, the power supply actually runs all the voltages at their minimum rated levels, and fans at full speed. Incredible.

It's perfectly safe to have voltages at the bottom of the rated range, but the problem is that if that voltage were to fluctuate at all, you'd suddenly be outside of that safe range. I didn't want to pay top dollar for an Antec power supply, and always be worried about my voltage levels. Nor did I want to have to install the horrible front panel.

So, I returned it to NewEgg. Luckily, they are good about things like this. In its place, I ordered a standard TruePower Trio 550W power supply. No front panel.

Upon installing this power supply, the video card still functions correctly, and voltage levels are where they should be. I'm pretty impressed with the Antec power supply so far. It's quiet, powerful, and puts out incredibly steady voltages.

But in the end, this is a lesson -- always assume that something is going to go wrong when upgrading parts. Not that that's bad -- you'll learn a lot along the way -- but it's just important to keep in mind.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 18:08:00 +0000

As is always the case with Christmas, I have had a series of changes in my computers over the span of the last few days.

The biggest change is that I've upgraded the video card in my primary desktop computer, Fozzie. The new video card is an XFX GeForce 7300GT, replacing the existing PNY Verto GeForce 5200FX. The reason for this upgrade is that my system is AGP-based, and the graphics card industry has recently switched to PCI-Express, so AGP cards will be becoming more rare. As such, I wanted to put a rather high-end AGP card in Fozzie, effectively maximizing its graphics capabilities, until the time comes that I upgrade the whole system to a PCI-Express-capable motherboard. I'm very happy with the GeForce 7300GT card so far. It runs Doom 3 amazingly well, and also lets me use the digital connection to my recently upgraded LCD monitor.

On Fozzie, I also upgraded both the keyboard and mouse with a new desktop set, the Logitech LX710 cordless desktop. There were several motivations for this upgrade. On the keyboard side, the keyboard that I had (a Logitech Cordless Access keyboard) was relatively low-end when I bought it, and the "feel" of the keys has significantly degraded over time. Since I am a software engineer, I do a lot of typing, and the feel of the keys is very important to me. This new keyboard is a slim profile, with quiet keys. On the mouse side, the mouse I had (a Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse Blue) was getting to be 4 years old (the longest I have ever had a mouse!), and was showing significant wear-and-tear on the surface. Additionally, in the four years that have passed, new optical mouse technologies have come out, most notably laser mice. I am quite impressed with this new mouse -- with the laser technology, it seems to perform almost identically to a corded mouse. I always felt that my previous cordless mouse was very, very good for a cordless mouse, but it was noticably different than using a corded mouse. Not so with this laser mouse. Also, going to this new set allowed me to consolidate the two different wireless receivers I had into just one. And, this one receiver is just a USB dongle, so it doesn't even need to sit on my desk. Amazing.

Lastly, Waldorf saw an upgrade in that I added a printer, a Canon Pixma iP4200 to it. Waldorf previously had no printer. Waldorf is a computer I originally built out of spare parts for myself, but now it is serving as my mother's computer, so it warranted having a new printer. The last three printers I have purchased have been Canons, and I have been consistently impressed.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 20:24:00 +0000

As an early birthday present, today I upgraded my current 15" LCD monitor to a 19" Samsung SyncMaster 940BX monitor. This new monitor is absolutely amazing -- 1000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms response time, no dead pixels, adjustable height, and can be rotated. Those are feature normally found in very high-end monitors.

This replaces a 15" Samsung SyncMaster 570V, which I've had since sophomore year of college. I still remember when I first got that monitor, it was a big deal because at that time not many people had LCD monitors. That monitor was very good for its time, and is still actually a very nice monitor (no dead pixels there either!). My primary reason for wanting to upgrade was because I wanted a little more screen real estate than a 15", 1024x768 monitor can offer. So, that monitor has been moved to my fiance's computer, which is a nice upgrade from her previous CRT monitor.

The monitor was one of the three oldest parts of my computer, upgrading it now puts my >4 year old, 80GB secondary hard drive into that category.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 15:33:00 +0000

Another series of not-too-interesting computer part swaps amongst my computers.

Waldorf was without a sound card, while Fozzie had two (a Sound Blaster Live as well as the on-board sound on the motherboard, which is actually rather good). So I took the SB Live card from Fozzie and put it in Waldorf, and am currently using the on-board sound with Fozzie. Due to this, a top-priority upgrade for next year will be to buy a new sound card for Fozzie. The removal of the SB Live card from Fozzie is actually rather "historic", in that the SB Live card was one of only 2 components left in Fozzie that date back to when I originally bought that computer in December, 1999. Now the only remaining component from that date is the speakers.

With a sound card, Waldorf also was in need of speakers. So, I pulled an old set of Labtec speakers from my very first computer, an IBM PS/ValuePoint. These speakers are now the oldest component I have in use in any computer. I am not sure of the exact date they were acquired, but it was sometime when I was in middle school I believe (so, mid-90's). Suprisingly, despite their age they still sound great and work fine.

It also has become desirable for Waldorf to have wireless networking (as it did when it was originally built!) due its location. So, a new Linksys WMP54GS was purchased and installed as well. This is the only truly new component in Waldorf, all other parts have been "inherited" from other computers.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 22:11:00 +0000

Nothing too interesting has been happening with my computers, but there have been several swaps of parts between my computers.

First, the wireless NIC I had been using in Fozzie was removed, and installed instead into my fiance's computer. Fozzie now is back to using its on-board wired LAN. My fiance and I are moving into an apartment together, and the layout of the place dictated that her computer would have to be the wireless one, and that mine would be close enough to the router to be wired. That's fine -- I don't care either way. It was a life saver to have the wireless NIC, though, it really gives you some freedom and makes it easier to set up multiple computers in a room.

Second, Waldorf (which has been mostly usused for the last year) has been revived as a "starter" computer for my mother. So, I wiped out the Linux installation and installed Windows XP instead, since it is a easier operating system to use. I also swapped the 15-inch monitor for the spare 17-inch Compaq monitor I have, since 15 inches is almost unusable for a CRT monitor nowadays. It's a pretty good machine for learning, I think. What's interesting is that after all of this swapping and inheriting of parts, Waldorf is now almost exaclty the same computer as the original Fozzie from 1999. Waldorf now just has 128MB more RAM, and is lacking a sound card and speakers. Other than that, all the original Fozzie parts are now humming along in Waldorf.

Ah, the circle of life.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 22:34:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:04:00 +0000

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!