The J Design » Computers

Computer Enhancements

Joel — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:49:16 +0000

So as many of you have probably read (at least of those who read this blog), earlier this year I upgraded to Windows 7 and plugged in some extra ram. Well, this weekend I further enhanced my computer. I got a new keyboard/mouse combo. My existing mouse/keyboard was about 4 or 5 years old, and it was just time. So, I’m sure you are all dying to know what I got. Well today is your lucky day.

Logitech ® Cordless Desktop Wave ™

I must say, it’s been quite impressive so far. It’s ergonomic, but not in the way you think. Usually I feel ergonomic keyboards keep me from typing normally. However, this one does something different. Instead of separating the keyboard into two distinct halves, it “waves” the keys. Literally places them at different indented depths and angles. This gives the same benefit of ergonomic keyboards without the hassle. In any case, I’m quite a fan! I don’t know how I feel about all the extra buttons yet, but we’ll see!

Ubuntu Karmic Koala Netbook Remix

Joel — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:49:42 +0000

So, last night I finally installed Ubuntu Karmic Koala’s Netbook Remix on my netbook. I was pretty nervous. For one, I didn’t want to lose my windows installation, more because it has my only fully licensed copy of Office 2007 on it (thanks to one of my sweet friends), and two because I was not completely sure I’d be able to re-install windows on it without a lot of pain if something went wrong.

Needless to say, my fears were unfounded. It was a little difficult to convert the thumb drive I had into a bootable thumbdrive. But once I had done that, the rest was easy. I made sure that my drive was as defragmented as it was going to get, so that I had the largest continuous drive space as possible for the re-partitioning.

The re-partitioning was actually the scariest part. I’ve never repartitioned a drive before without losing everything on it. But, Ubuntu handled the operation with the patience and skill of a well trained plastic surgeon. In the end, I didn’t lose a single thing!

Now a little bit about the remix: I freaking love it. Everything worked and connected right out of the box. Wireless, video camera, sound, etc. The only thing that was tricky was that it took running some updates and expanding the software sources before I could really install much, including adobe flash. But, got it all fixed up and working properly.

This is quite different from any previous distributions of ubuntu that I’ve experienced. For instance, the menu is right on the desktop. I assume this is because its a netbook. I like it though, very clean and well organised.

It also brought in a new instant messaging client. I’m not really sure if I like it or not. It doesn’t seem to tell me if aim people are on mobile or not, which pidgin did. I don’t like IM’ing people on their phones since it could cost them money.

All in all, it’s a great operating system! I think I could recommend that people install this on their netbooks. It’s extremely easy to use, I’d say the easiest yet!

This is a screenshot of my desktop on the new ubuntu distribution. Go to Ubuntu's site (www.ubuntu.com) and perhaps download it for yourself!

My Desktop

Joel — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:47:45 +0000

So I decided to do a post on my computer equipment… check it out!

Hardware
Motherboard: Asus M2A-VM
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.0Ghz
Ram: 2 GB of DDR2
Primary Hard-drive: 300gb Western Digital
Secondary Hard-drive: 1tb Western Digital
Video: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Monitors: Dual 21-inch LCD Monitors (LG and Samsung)
DVD-Rom: 22x Internal Super-Multi DVD Rewriter (with lightscribe)

Software
Operating System: Windows XP Pro, SP3
Anti-virus: AVG 8.5 (free version)
Internet: Google Chrome
Office Suite: Microsoft Office 2007
Media: iTunes
Graphic Design: Gimp 2
Instant Messaging: Pidgin
Burning: Nero 9

The Future
Ram: Old – 2.0gb, New – 4.0gb
Operating System: Old – XP, New – Windows 7