Monday April 04, 2005

Confessions of a Keyboard Snob

I love loud crunchy clicky keyboards. First keyboard I can remember using was an Apple ][ and it had a loud crunchy keyboard. You knew you were typing because you could hear the joyous cacaphony. Life has since provided a cavalcade of keyboards, some not as good as others. Recently I was forced to give up my favorite keyboard ( an IBM bazillion-key monstrosity manufactured in 1993 ) and embark on an epic tale of discovery, disappointment and technolust. And who said being a geek isn't saucy?

Ode To A Keyboard

In no particular order, my favorite keyboards down through the ages have been:

1. IBM RS/6000 105 Key keyboard
2. Apple Extended Keyboard II
3. NeXT second generation keyboard with the pipe in the right place.

OK, I fibbed about order. The IBM was really my favorite and I went to great lengths to keep using it. We first met as a co-op at IBM and it wasn't quite love at first touch. I had just come off a recent relationship with an Apple Extended Keyboard II ( the kind that shipped with the early generations of MacIntosh IIs ) and I was still pining for that beauty. The IBM quickly woo'ed me though with its springy keys and satisfying clickiness. As an employee, I bought several of these keyboards at the IBM Employee store ( alas, an era gone by ) for a couple of dollars a piece. When I joined Sun, I went to heroic efforts to keep my keyboard of choice. I wasn't kidding about heroic. The dongle for hooking up PS/2 style devices to Sun hardware was not cheap ( Thanks boss! ) and Stop-A was a hideous production involving an auxillary keyboard kept under the desk.

As I mentioned, I also had a fling with the Apple Extended Keyboard II. A fine keyboard with a somewhat softer touch than the IBM, but a satisfying type regardless. I often found myself thinking about this keyboard, but given it's strictly ADB implementation and my Apple sticker shock it seemed we would never meet again.

Through the Desert to An Oasis

Circumstances beyond my control required that I give up my trusty keyboard companion and find a new pointboard to ride the crystal wind with. I'm not sure how many cyberpunk metaphors I just fractured, but I do know that I hate Sun Type 6 keyboards with a hot seething undying hate which brooks no argument. They are too mushy and the layout is abominal. Apologists will point to the PC style Type 6 and I will laugh the laugh of the righteous. Sun Type 6 keyboards are icky and I don't want to use one. You can't make me.

So I tried to use the USB keyboard that came with my Sony Playstation 2 Linux kit. It was relatively crunchy but still the touch was not anywhere close to my beloved IBM. I tried to use the Sony for a couple of months, but my accuracy suffered from the poor feedback of it's mushy keys. I wanted my noisy clicky crunchy keyboard back.

With the help of Google, I began searching for my next keyboard love. Long story short, I found the Matias Tactile Pro keyboard. It is a revival of the Apple Extended Keyboard II updated for our modern times. You can google up several glowing reviews of the Tactile Pro which talk about it's style and manufacture. What you need to know is that it is clicky crunchy and glorious! These keyboards aren't cheap and it took alot of typing on crappy keyboards for me to gather my courage and order one sight unseen. I'm so glad I did, it was love at first type!

I'll miss you my old IBM friend. But I, for one, welcome our new keyboard overlords.

-ejo

(2005-04-04 12:46:48.0) Permalink Comments [3]

Tuesday August 24, 2004

X10: 1 Erik: 0

So in a previous entry I mentioned my triumph over an X10 appliance module by cutting a trace on the circuit board to disable local control, thereby allowing the module to control a florescent light for a fish tank. I did my testing in the daylight, and thought everything was A-OK. Wrong. One late night last week while stumbling around the darkened house, I noticed a strange flash coming from the fish tank area. It was periodic, every couple of seconds. Further investigation revealed it was indeed the tank light and I'd just subjected the fish to a week of light torture. I mostly don't feel that bad for fish, but that periodic flashing all night for days on end couldn't be good for the light or the fish. So I gave up. I found a Christmas light timer to replace the appliance module, and now it just turns on and off on a mechanical switch. Phooey.

-ejo

(2004-08-24 08:19:52.0) Permalink

Friday July 23, 2004

Friday Gadget: Double Whammy

I've got two new gadgets that I'd like to talk about today :)

Gadget 1: Dell Inspiron 8600

My previous laptop was really showing it's age: .5Ghz CPU, .128GB of memory and .080TB of disk. And no built-in networking (modems do not count). So of course I needed a new sexy laptop. The Alienware Sentia was my first love, but after mooning over it for months I realized there were some problems with it that would affect my future feelings for it. First, the keyboard. The control and the function keys were transposed. If you are a heavy emacs user (like me), this is a deal killer. Ok that was the only problem with the Sentia. Otherwise it was perfect. Excpet the new Dothan (Pentium M with 2M cache) hadn't quite made it into the product yet. Other than that, perfect.

So next I flirted with the ABS Mayhem. The Mayhem had so much potential: a great name, a good keyboard layout, a Dothan CPU, 802.11a/b/g, and a DVD-RW. And the gaming rags gave it such high marks! But, the resolution of it's 15 inch LCD was a disappointing 1280x800. My old and busted laptop sported a 1400x1050 resolution, it didn't seem right to settle for something less when I'm going spend that much cash.

So I looked at Dell, and before long I found the laptop I wanted ( even if it didn't have a glowing alien head on it or a terror inducing product name ). The Dell Inspiron 8600 had everything I wanted in one package:

• 1.8Ghz Dothan ( 2M caches! Power frugal! )
• 802.11a/b/g
• CD-RW / DVD-RW
• 1680x1050 Resolution
• Control key in the right spot!
• USB 2.0, Firewire
• Capable of holding 2GB of RAM
• Radeon 9600 Mobility Pro w/128M ( a real 3D card! )
• Integrated 10/100 Ethernet

Ordering was breeze, and it was one week from order to delivery. Which isn't too bad considering it was manufactured in Malaysia! It always strikes me as strange when I order something from Dell, whose corporate headquarters can't be more than five miles from my house as the crow flies, and they ship it to me from anywhere but Roundrock.

The Inspiron 8600 is great! The screen is bright and completely free of dead or stuck pixels. The keyboard touch is shallow like most notebook keyboards, but crisp enough that I could stand to type on it for long durations. The thing boots up fast. Not just whatever OS ( XP or Linux currently ), but the BIOS doesn't spend alot of time messing around. The wireless is currently only working on Windows, but I've been able to connect to my home G and B networks without any trouble. In fact, the wireless is the only hardware feature I don't have working under Linux.

About the only downside that you could possible attribute to the 8600 is it's size. While being about the same weight and depth as my previous laptop, the 8600 is probably an inch or more wider. This makes finding bags that fit it alittle challenging.

I specifically bought this laptop with the smallest harddrive and least amount of memory configurable, since I can easily upgrade those two things over time. ( And Dell gouges it's customers when it comes to RAM ).

I love this machine. I can't wait to see how cool the next laptop I buy will be in four or five years if this machine is an indicator!

Gadget 2: Samsung LTP1795W 17" HDTV Monitor

After the great home office remodeling adventure, I decided it would be nice to have a flat panel TV in there. I could move my Playstation 2 up there and free up the downstairs TV, and perhaps even do double duty as a computer monitor. I wanted something with: 16:9 aspect ratio, component inputs, computer connectivity ( 15-pin or DVI ), and less than $1000. After much searching and review reading, I found the Samsung LTP1795W. This 17" wonder has two component inputs, 15-pin monitor input, TV tuner, 16:9 aspect ratio, builtin speakers, headphone output, and under $1000. Of course it has alot more, but those are the reasons I bought it.

The day it arrived, I thought I'd been ripped off. The box didn't feel nearly heavy enough to have a monitor in it. Going back and looking at the specs, I shouldn't have been surprised. The monitor without stand weighs something less than 17 pounds.

After carefully unpacking it, I was amazed at it's simplicity and graceful design. It is a beautiful little unit. And that was before I turned it on and plugged in my Playstation. The connections on the back of the unit are all very well labeled and oriented up and down, so it would be possible to mount this screen very close to a wall. The controls are on the top of the unit, and the remote control is very functional.

I've spent a couple hours using it to play SOCOM II ( I don't think I've gone a post witout mentioning SOCOM II ), and I couldn't be more pleased. I was worried that moving from a 36" Toshiba CN36X81 to a 17" screen might be an issue, but that hasn't been the case. About the only thing the Samsung is missing is the simulated 5.1 provided by the Toshiba ( it has a big ole subwoofer inside it's cabinet ).

I would have loved the 37 inch big brother of this unit, but the price scaled with the screen size. Maybe later that will change.

There you have it, two gadgets.

-ejo

(2004-07-23 12:28:11.0) Permalink

Friday July 16, 2004

Friday Gadget: XM Radio & the Delphi SKYFi Receiver

Being a geek, I love gadgets. I also love music. So XM Radio is a geek dream come true. For a small monthly fee and a modest investment in a XM reciver, you can listen to commercial free CD quality music almost anywhere. I've been an XM customer for about a year and half, and I'm completely spoiled.

The Gadget

I have a Delphi SKYFi XM receiver which is the embodiment of flexibility. I can listen to XM radio in the car, at home, and at work. All using the same receiver and a series of kits available from Delphi. As long as you can arrange for the antenna to see one of the two satellites ( Rock and Roll appropriately enough ), you can get XM. I personally have a home kit, a car kit, and a boombox. The home kit is.. at work. The car kit is installed in my truck and the boombox is used by my wife at home. Delphi has a new compact quasi-home stereo kit that my wife is drooling over. It reminds me of mid-80's Bang & Olefson designed CD players, which I guess is cool :)

The Pros

The Delphi SKYFi is just a nifty gadget.

• Compact.
• Sturdy construction.
• Reasonable ergonomics.
• Flexible beyond expectations.
• Did I mention over 100 channels of commercial free music?

The Cons

As neat as the SKYFi is, it's also a first generation product. So it has a few nits that need picking:

• The display is bright and clear, but has a limited viewing angle (important in the car). It also appears to be polarized, so polarized sunglasses cause the display to appear blank.
• Song titles are often truncated due to a 20-odd character limitation, presumably a deficiency in the receiver and not the data transmitted by XM.
• The antenna for the home kit has a tuned cable, so you lose signal strength and quality if you build an extention cable for it.
• The big scrolly knob on the front of the unit makes things happen in a counter-intuitive way (for me). I turn the knob one way expecting things to scroll up or down on the screen and the opposite happens. This is bad in the car. Presets go a long way towards ameliorating that problem, so it doesn't often annoy me.

XM radio has totally spoiled me. The range and variety of programming is truely astounding, as well as the responsiveness of the XM staff to email and phone calls.

XM Radio and the Delphi SKYFi rate 10/10 in my book.

-ejo

(2004-07-16 07:45:51.0) Permalink