The Gadgets Page

Everything about this advertisement for BYTE Magazine reminds me of the Eighties.

It reads:

Expand your knowledge Subscribe to BYTE

The 1980′s are here! The decade of the personal computer has arrived, and BYTE has made it happen! BYTE – the small systems journal devoted to personal computers – has helped usher in the new era. Leading the personal computer revolution, which is already transforming home and personal life, are BYTE’s 160,000 enthusiastic readers. Their enthusiasm has made BYTE the largest computer magazine in the world!

To be knowledgeable in the 1980′s you need to know how to use personal computers. BYTE is your personal guide to the new era. BYTE tells you how to build, buy, and use computers for fun, practical purposes, and profit. With help from BYTE, you can experiment right in your own home with graphics, word processing, computer music, speech synthesizers, simulations, robotics, personal data base management, business computing – and hundreds of other fascinating hardware and software applications.

Resolve now to expand your computer knowledge. Subscribe to BYTE!

I remember when the idea of having my own computer sounded so wonderful that I felt it would never happen for me. I was so jealous of my friend, Mike Moncur, because his dad had bought an Atari 800, just like we programmed on in school.

That old computer lives on even today, stored in our basement with all of its floppy disks. The two of us are unwilling to let it go. I think it represents all that excitement and potential of the “new era” of the personal computer.

I wonder if I will feel the same about my iPhone in twenty years.

Advert via: vintage_ads: LiveJournal

I’m quite a picky mouse user. While I bought a Mighty Mouse when they came out, it was relegated to my laptop bag as a spare. I replaced quickly with a Logitech VX Nano because to be frank, the Mighty Mouse sucked. It’s resolution and tracking was poor compared to modern laser mice. While it played nice with Macs, it simply wasn’t worth the bad tracking in my opinion, and I didn’t like the tiny roller ball. The heavy metal ballistic roller on the VX Nano was vastly superior for scrolling.

The Magic Mouse fixes all of that. It has a high-quality laser optics, high resolution, and is extremely responsive. It slides with noticeably more resistance on wood than the VX Nano, but not so much that it is problematic.

The entire surface of the mouse is a gesture track pad. Sliding your finger around scrolls smoothly and naturally in all directions. It’s so intuitive that you immediately get used to it, and once you start doing it, it’s difficult to go back to a regular mouse. Use two fingers to the right or left to go back or forward in your web browsing. Hold down the control key and the same up/down gestures zoom the screen in and back out.

The design is exceptionally sleek, with an aluminum base and a white polycarbonate top surface. There’s a tiny power switch and LED on the bottom to let you know when it’s off, and due to its thinness it travels very well. It’s the perfect accompaniment to a MacBook.

The VX Nano was by far the best laptop mouse I’d used, until the Magic Mouse, which I strongly recommend for all Mac users. The only problem with the mouse is the tape they use to stick it to it’s packaging, which leaves gummy residue on the bottom of the mouse when you open the package.

I sometimes wonder what our lives would have been like if we had followed the adding machine path for computers instead of computing with tubes and microchips. I love this ad from 1948 for the Burroughs Class 5 Adding Machine.

My grandfather had an adding machine like this in the basement of his house. Stacey and I would play on it for hours pretending to be business people. We never quite learned how to use it. Here is a video showing how it works:

Whenever I start to feel like my computer is too slow or that I want something smaller or faster, all I need to do is look at these old machines and realize how very lucky I am to have a computer that is far more powerful in my pocket.

Advert Via: LiveJournal: vintage ads

I was appalled when I read this article about hard drive shredders.

• A Portable Hard Drive Shredder for Every Office!

I’m reporting to you from the Dutch hacker conference Hacking At Random, where I got to watch CMGG’s Christian Mesu demonstrate its portable hard drive shredder. Mesu said the device is incredibly popular with governments and corporations with classified data on their old hard drives. Just wheel this baby into your office, and it can turn hard drives into powder by cutting them into 1mm slices, or just chop them in half.

I am working with a non-profit agency in Salt Lake City called Electroregeneration Society. Companies donate their old computers to us, we nuke the hard drives and then reinstall the operating system (Ubuntu Linux or Windows) and some open source software to get people started. Those in need can get a working computer by donating 15 hours of volunteer work or paying a nominal fee.

The thought of companies just shredding their hard drives instead of putting their computers to good use made me break out into a cold sweat. A portable hard drive shredder in every office is a horrible waste of technology. Instead of destroying your hard drive, here is a tutorial from CNET to teach you how to nuke your hard drive instead.

The software they are talking about is DBAN | Darik’s Boot And Nuke. This software will COMPLETELY erase your hard drive and you will never be able to recover what was on it before, so make absolutely sure you get all of your important information off the drive before you run this software.

After you’ve nuked your hard drive, you can donate your computer to a charitable organization like Electroregeneration Society or even the Salvation Army without fear of identity theft. If talk of buying a hard drive shredder for your office is thrown around, please be the voice of reason and suggest DBAN and charitable donations.

While studying abroad in Russia, Mutated Jellyfish had a difficult time finding wi-fi, so he made himself a wi-fi antenna using an Ikea strainer and his USB Wi-Fi adapter.

• Study Abroadovich: INTERNETS!

I brought with me a USB wifi adapter, which is just like the wifi card in your computer, but it plugs in to a USB port and can be extended with a usb cable. This card gets the same range on it as my laptop’s internet wifi card, so it can’t see a bloody thing either.

Parabolic kitchenware is well known to some as not only kitchenware, but also do-it-yourself directional dish antennae with which you can augment weak signals with the use of a receiver of some sort. Equipped with my new Swedish strainer, I used some scotch tape and one of my Prismacolor markers that I don’t like to mount my USB wifi receiver as close to the apex of the parabola of the metallic mesh as I could possibly eye-ball. I then plugged it in, held it up to the window, and started refreshing my wifi networks while I pointed it in different directions until I found an acceptable orientation.

Instead of no wi-fi connections available, his increased signal strength gave him four different connections.

Materials:

• A parabolic strainer (from Ikea or Oxo)
• A USB Wi-Fi adapter (Mutated Jellyfish said that the Motorola brand didn’t work, so here’s a link to a different one: Belkin ME1001-USB Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter 802.11g at Amazon.com
• USB extension cord: Dayton USB 2.0 Extension Cable Black 3.3 ft. at Amazon.com
• Popsicle stick or anything to mount the USB adapter: Freezer Pop Sticks at Amazon.com: Mutated Jellyfish used a marker.
• Black electrical tape: 3M 49656 “Scotch” Vinyl Black Plastic Electrical Tape at Amazon.com: Mutated Jellyfish used scotch tape, but electrical tape will look nicer, hold better and last longer.

Instructions:

• Connect the USB wi-fi adapter to the USB extension cable.
• Tape the wi-fi adapter to the end of the popsicle stick.
• Mount the popsicle stick onto the strainer with the USB wi-fi adapter as close to the center of the strainer as possible. Tape it in place wrapping the electrical tape around the stick, the handle of the strainer and the USB extension cord.
• Plug in the USB extension cord into your laptop and turn the wi-fi antenna until you are able to get the best wi-fi signal.

Via: ikea hacker: Ikea strainer Wi-Fi antenna

I am a complete Weird Al Yankovic fan and have been since “Another One Rides The Bus.” His latest song is a Doors style parody with Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist from the Doors, on the synthesizer! You can see it here:

I love it when Weird Al gets technical! For reminiscing appeal, here’s “It’s All About The Pentiums.”

I was finishing up my vegetable stew when the bowl flipped a bit and spilled a bunch of stew and broth all over my computer keyboard. Whenever I make an “Oops!” noise, the dog comes running, in hopes that I have spilled something for him to eat off the floor. I took one look at Sid’s begging eyes and another look and my stewed computer keyboard. As if by habit, I disconnected the keyboard from the computer and placed it on the floor for Sid to “clean up.”

By the time I realized that I had done something REALLY weird, Sid was almost finished cleaning off the keyboard. I grabbed the camera and snapped this photo of him cleaning and Elvis wishing Sid would let him have some too.

Sid’s big, pink tongue cleaned off the keyboard surprising well, but that didn’t stop me from cleaning it again with a good coat of Windex. I haven’t had any troubles with it acting funny, sticking keys or doggy breath.

Who said diamonds were a girl’s best friend?

Marilyn? Hon, you gotta learn a bit a somethin’ from us Geek Girls!

I saw this commercial flash by on my Tivo the other day and stopped to watch it. It’s an advertisement for Microsoft that follows a girl named Lauren who is looking for a laptop for $1000.

The most noticeable thing she said during the ad for me was,

I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.

I was pretty angry when she said that. I would FAR rather sacrifice on screen size and go with the 13″ screen in order to have the easy to use operating system and applications that come with my Mac.

I was about to write a scathing review when I realized that Michael Gartenberg had written it for me.

• Lauren vs. Oscar Wilde while shopping for a laptop « GartenBlog

In tough economic times it’s not just about price but value. Where do I, the consumer, get the most value for each dollar I spend. Or as Oscar Wilde said, “The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Apple’s ads have never been about being the cheapest, they are about the value that comes with owning a Macintosh. The differentiation of the PC/Mac experience through hardware and software design that’s what’s been attracting consumers. Apple’s continued to do well even in these times precisely because consumers are extra careful about where they spend their money. They can’t afford buyer’s remorse.

Microsoft can’t just make this about cost, it has to show value. It has to show a PC experience that can be equal or superior to a Macintosh experience. Only then does price matter in the long run.

Michael quoted Oscar Wilde, but there is another quote that rings true here:

Buy expensive and cry once. Buy cheap and cry a million times.

I fought and FOUGHT with my PC to make it do what my Mac does easily. Macs aren’t perfect. Mine crashes and I get the spinning beach ball of doom every once and a while, but the act of using my computer is so much easier now.

Sure, a Windows machine might be okay for a netbook, but if you need to do anything substantial with your machine (like video editing or photo editing), then you will get FAR more value from a $1000 Mac with a 13″ screen than that 17″ Hewlett Packard that Lauren got. I hope she doesn’t have to cry a million times.

Have I ever told you how much I love Jane from What About Mom? I read her blog every day and she mostly talks about her life, which has very little to do with gadgets, so I guess I’ve never told you how enjoyable her writing is. Case in point is this entry a few weeks ago:

• Everything Zen | What About Mom

Earlier this week I thought I broke my computer, and instead of freaking out, I calmly filmed it so I could show Dick just how placid I can be.

I have NEVER seen a PC do this! I would have been freakin’ out and Jane is just calmly filming so she can show her husband what the computer did. I have never once in my life shown this sort of zen in the face of computer madness. The next time my Mac does something like this to me (Don’t fool yourself, fanboys, Macs DO have crazy problems!), I’m going to remember Jane and how calmly she filmed the problem.

Any ideas on what could have caused this problem?

“You kids use the Internet, doncha?”

It was 1999. Mike and I were visiting my grandfather in Billings, Montana. He handed us a white plastic cat with a PS/2 connector at the end of its tail.

“What is it?” I held the plastic barcode scanner in my hand. My grandpa seemed proud to produce something that we computer kids had never seen. Mike piped up, “Is that a CueCat?” He took it out of my hand and turned it over.

My grandpa smirked. “They sent it to me because I have IBM stock.” Mike immediately explained that we were supposed to connect it to our computer so we could scan in magazine ads and it would automatically load up the URL.

“Why wouldn’t I just type the URL into the computer?” I asked. Mike shrugged and smiled. “I KNOW it’s the most useless thing! I heard some people are taking them apart and using them for normal barcode scanners, though.” Visions of kids playing grocery store at home ran through my head. I looked at my grandfather’s eyes. He was so proud to be able to produce such a strange treasure.

You can find out more about it here:

• CueCat – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The CueCat (trademarked :CueCat) is a cat-shaped handheld barcode reader developed in the late 1990s by the now-defunct Digital Convergence Corporation, which connected to computers using the PS/2 keyboard port and later USB. The CueCat enabled a user to open a link to an Internet URL by scanning a barcode – called a “cue” by Digital Convergence – appearing in an article or catalog or on some other printed matter. In this way a user could be directed to a web page containing related information without having to enter a URL. The system that supported this is no longer in operation.

Because we never throw anything away, we still have our CueCat…

Somewhere…