Tag: computer

#oneaday Day 107: The Box

There was no comic when this post was written due to the fact my Mac's power lead is 120 miles away from where I am, so I'm currently writing this on my phone. Due to the WordPress app's lack of word count facility, this may also be a bit shorter than usual. But I'm sure you'll survive.

I could, of course, use another kettle lead to run my Mac off until mine comes back from its little holiday that it's currently having. But that would involve delving into the Box of Cables.

The Box of Cables is a phenomenon that has grown somewhat over the course of the last twenty years or so. As consumer electronics has become more and more sophisticated, thus has the need for cables increased by a factor of approximately one bajillion. (Interestingly, my iPhone wanted to correct that to "bakillion", which is presumably bigger than a bajillion.) Ironic, really, considering we supposedly live in some sort of wireless age. My phone doesn't have any wires attached to it right now as I write this, but it sure as hell needs wires every night to charge itself, not to mention to transfer stuff to and from the computer. (The computer which is currently sleeping thanks to the absence of a power cable. Not that I'm bitter.)

But anyway; the Box of Cables. Everyone has one, but gentlemen who are prone to gadget-hoarding are particularly prone to developing fine specimens. In an ideal world, the Box of Cables would simply contain cables that you might actually need. In practice, however, you'll find it provides an interesting history of your own computing habits.

In my Box of Cables I have a serial-port sync cradle for a Palm III organiser. The colour Palm I got later used a cable, not a cradle. And the Palm Tungsten I got even later used a USB cable, which made the whole sync process rather quicker. I still have all three Palms, incidentally, though I have no idea how to charge any of them any more.

I also have a wide selection of audio cables, some of which are for an amp setup I don't own any more. Audio cables are the one kind of cable you're likely to have about fifteen of and only one will work. You'll swear every time that you'll clean them out but you never will. And thus every time you come to need one, the same profanities emerge from betwixt your lips, and you wish you'd take your own advice.

Old games consoles video cables are also a perennial favourite. With the widespread adoption of HDMI by many devices, however, proprietary cables are thankfully a thing of the past. I do, however, still have an N64 SCART cable, PS2 stereo SCART cable, Xbox composite cable, Xbox Advanced SCART cable with optical out, Xbox 360 VGA cable, Xbox 360 component cable and all manner of other crap. That I don't need.

Can I find a spare kettle lead to run my computer off until mine comes back though? Can I bollocks. Looks like I'm working on my netbook for the next few days!

[EDIT: As you can see from the presence of the comic, I have now found a power lead. Yay.]

One A Day, Day 29: Netbook 'em, Danno

I bought a netbook today – specifically, an Asus Eee PC 1005P. Why that one? Well, it seemed to have a number of decent reviews around the Net, was reasonably up-to-date specs wise (though it could possibly do with another gig of RAM) and was reasonably priced.

A while back, I was under the impression that netbooks were particularly pointless. I even remember a number of us fairly mercilessly laying into our buddy Luke for picking one up – though this was largely due to the fact that at the time he bought one, netbooks were very much in their infancy, no-one really understood quite what they were for, no-one really understood Linux (which was all you could get them preinstalled with) and, of course, we all worked for Apple at the time.

Nowadays, they're a different beast to what they were. This machine – which I'm typing on right now, in fact – runs Windows 7 Starter (with the opportunity to upgrade to Home Premium) and seems plenty quick enough to do most things on the Internet. The 10-inch widescreen is a comfortable size – not too small to be illegible, yet compact enough to be endearingly cute. The speakers are on a par with most laptops – i.e. shit – but they're plenty loud enough to be able to hear the soundtrack on a video.

The reason I bought this was so that I actually have my own portable computer to take with me to PAX. My wife has a MacBook but I would only be able to pry that out of her cold, dead fingers – and I don't particularly want to kill her purely for the sake of having something to blog on in Boston. We have several laptops in the house right now – my wife's old ThinkPad (complete with that dumb "nipple" pointing device), a Sony Vaio laptop that switches on if it's in the right mood (which it usually isn't) and the MacBook – and now this.

Every time I buy a new computer, it strikes me how far things have come. This thing that's sitting on my lap right now is about ten times more powerful than the first desktop PC that I owned, yet it's an "entry-level" machine with "limited" use. Hell, I remember being excited the day we upgraded our 386 to a 486 DX2 66MHz – finally we were able to run DOOM in high detail mode.

I'll be intrigued to see how well it handles various tasks. It's certainly more than fine for email and web browsing – I'm going to be seeing if latest Squadron of Shame mission Machinarium will run on it as soon as it's finished downloading. Reports will inevitably follow on Twitter.