Tech I Use
Most people love a cool gadget and I’m among them. Over the years I’ve bought plenty, probably way too many and way too soon. Therefore, I’ve changed my buying habits a bit and lately have been keeping my impulse buying in check, waiting for the item(s) to get some reviews under their belt and then deciding to pull the trigger (or not).
I’m limiting this list to those items I like and use fairly regularly - in other words, items that I feel I’m getting my money out of and would recommend to others…
This list will change, but not every day. Take a look for yourself and see if you agree with my reasoning.
First off, my cell phone: For work I was recently issued a Blackberry 8830. Overall I like the phone better than my old Treo, but having briefly used the Blackberry Curve, I think that the Curve is the best phone overall to use. Shortly after getting my 8830 I hated the crappy keyboard and the fact that the silver model has a blue backlight filter for the keyboard making it completely unreadable except in pitch black conditions. So, I replaced it. There is a distributer in China where you can find almost every cell phone part imaginable and the replacement black keyboard with a white backlight filter for this phone was only a few dollars. It makes a huge difference and even looks kinda cool. The keyboard is still difficult to use, but at least I can read the keys and at it’s far better than an iPhone “keyboard”. The form factor is nice and sleek, the new theme I installed is superior to the original, the screen is very bright and detailed (although it’s no iPhone) and the trackball is surprisingly useful - I just wish it had the camera and keyboard that the Curve has. Better yet, I wish I could have been issued the Curve…
For my personal phone I used to be a happy Treo user since I bought my first one in 2005. however, at the moment I am using a very capable Motorola RIZR. If I didn’t have the BlackBerry issued to meI likely would own an Apple iPhone. Like many gadget fanatics I was really impressed by Apple’s new iPhone product and I am in no way an Apple fanboi [sic]. The iPhone’s very cool user interface features are, however diminished (for me) by the fact that it does not have a thumboard/keyboard, is locked to a crappy carrier (AT&T), does not have a removable battery or flash memory and only limited memory for the media player functions built into it. It also lacks many common cell phone features like voice dialing, flash for the camera and the ability to record video from the camera. However, I am looking forward to what the new Google/Android phones have to offer. Woo hoo!
The most used piece of tech I use daily is my computer. The brand I buy is TORBETTECH - in other words, I build my own. Right now I have three primary computers, one modest PC running WinXP for daily chores, one fairly speedy gaming rig running WinXP (of course) and one Linux PC that I’m using to learn more about the Ubuntu fork in Linux distros.
For my WinXP rigs I have them in what I consider the best tower case made to date - the SilverStone Wind Tunnel Temjin Tower case. They are large, easy to open, have a clear side panel, plenty of room to accommodate multiple hard drives (RAID 0 for gaming and RAID 1 for work), optical drives and the Thermaltake Big Water liquid cooling systems I have installed in each. I regularly upgrade and update components as I see fit, so I won’t bother with the specs - they’ll just change next week.
For the Linux rig I am trying something off the beaten path (as if using Linux wasn’t far off the path enough). I am using a pile of spare parts I have on hand as well as a low-power, modest CPU/MoBo package from VIA, the VIA PC-1 which uses a VIA PC2500 CPU and has on-board everything - video, audio, Ethernet, serial, USB, PATA IDE and SATA IDE. All for $60!!! It even ships with a copy of gOS, but I am running Ubuntu. My plan, when I’m finished, is to have this running as my “home server” and NAS so I can retire my Dlink DNS-323. I will also get more than just a few additional services out of it as well.
Software is tech. Has been for years now. It is the magical code that brings our electronic bricks to life. Therefore, I feel it’s only appropriate to share several useful programs and bits of software that I find useful and effective to performing any number of tasks:
First of all, I have to give serious props to the guys that make my new site look and work so well, Wordpress. My site is created by using Wordpress to manage a mySQL database on a hosted site and is written to accommodate weblog posts and arrange them in a coherent manner. I have “skinned” the Wordpress software with the Daleri Dark theme, just one theme out of thousands written for the Wordpress platform, to give my site that special look and feel (which I’ve tweaked a bit). I’m a poor coder, but using Wordpress, a little patience, and no small amount of trial and error, it’s possible to build an amazing site.
My second mention isn’t software per se, but 1AND1 used to be my site hosting provider for years and I was being regularly frustrated by both their quality of service as well as their poor reliability. I recently changed to LunarPages hosting and I have noticed a more robust package of services that allow me to micromanage my sites better. It was a pain migrating from 1AND1 to LunarPages and I wound up having to change Worpress themes because the new version wouldn’t support the old theme, however I believe I’m better shape now than before.
Next has to be Ubuntu Linux. This is a fork in the Debian Linux distro that has really gone a long way to making what used to be a geek’s-only venture into an alternate operating system to a very viable alternative to the various flavors of M$ Windows or the Mac OS. The beauty of Ubuntu is that they commit to a fixed release schedule of a major release every six months. In between those releases there are regular software package and security updates that the system can download automatically, very similar to the WinXP Update service. Other pluses are that there are almost no viruses written for Linux, the system is extremely stable with up-times measured in months or years and it is free for anyone who wants it! Free as in beer! Get some!
