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Mac Book Pro 15"

I have been in the market for a new laptop for a while.  The primary machine I had was a Lenovo w500 and before that a Lenovo t42p..  But both of those machines were property of IBM..  I didn’t own them, and I had to keep IBM software installed, as well as generally not use the machine for personal stuff..  It was time for a new machine.

Now I will say that the Lenovo machines were okay.  Not horrible.  But I did have a lot of issues with them, and the t42p just up and died one day.  It was only 3 years old when it died which I felt was an extremely short lifespan for a laptop.

I have a Sony Vaio that I got in 1999 that still works, it’s just really old at this point.  But that’s the kind of life time I expect of a piece of hardware like these. The only issue with the Sony is it’s age and it has a really small screen.. But still!  These are expensive machines and they should last.  It was completely unacceptable to me that the Lenovo’s didn’t even come close.  And most people I have talked to who had Lenovo’s of their own had a similar experience.

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BN.com Nook

So I have been in the market for an e-reader for a while.  I do a lot of reading and thought it would be darn handy to have a single device that could carry multiple books, and have the ability to order new books at any time, anywhere.  I like real paper books, but the ability to carry many books in one small device is appealing.  And despite what my sister in law says, I think they are generally a good idea and can only encourage reading..

Everyone I know swears by the Amazon Kindle, and while the device works just fine I just didn’t much like it.  I got my paws on a friends and it felt cheap to me, plus I really didn’t like that keyboard down there.. The Kindle DX looked really nice, but it’s big and really expensive.. I could have purchased an Apple IPad for the cost..

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LightScribe Label Example

Back in 2004 Hewlett-Packard engineer Daryl Anderson had the notion that if you can burn data on to a disc, why couldn’t use use that same technology to burn the label?  And thus the LightScribe burner was born..

I had always wanted to pick one of these suckers up and never got around to it because I already had a CD/DVD +/- burner and didn’t need a new one..  I couldn’t reason the cost of getting a second burner when I didn’t really use the one I had all that often..

Well about 4 months ago my old burner went off into the weeds and never came back, enabling me to buy a Lightscribe external burner and bid all my labeling woe’s goodbye! Sorta..

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Sony DR-BT21G

In 1994 Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson has a stroke of genius when they invented the personal area networking (PAN) protocol known today as Bluetooth for Ericsson phones.   By the year 2000 it was pretty widely known that Bluetooth was something hot!  A lot of major companies jumped on to the Bluetooth Special Interests Group with the intent of developing some really neat technology..  And ever since I heard about the protocol I immediately though, “they need headphones that use those!!”..

Well set the way forward machine to 2009 and I FINALLY have a set of stereo headphones that use the Bluetooth protocol!  Yay!   I know they have actually been out for over a year but it took me this long to find a pair that I thought would be worth having, AND I had a device that would actually support it.

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Razer Mamba

Update (Jan 23, 2011) :: So several months ago the mouse optics just up and quit.. Everything else worked, but slowly over the course of a couple days the optics got less and less responsive and then finally stopped all together..   I had put the mouse in the closet on the shelf which is generally where hardware goes to die at my house..  Today I went in there to do some cleaning and putter around only to find that the mouse battery cover had been forced off by a battery that had swelled to more than double its original size!!

My opinion on this thing is back to “avoid at all costs”..  The level of support being what it was and the number of other folks who have similar issues tells me that this thing sucks bad.  Add to that the random deaths, the number of folks who have similar optical issues, the battery swelling issue, the very short battery life and it’s inability to work on some surfaces… yeah.. don’t buy this mouse.

Update (Nov 1, 2009) :: After all is said and done, I have the mouse back from Razer and it is working as I think it should.   It doesn’t do the sleep-death thing it was doing previously which implies to me that the old firmware was horribly buggy and the newer firmware is required for sure..  That was the number one issue previously and it appears to be resolved..   The Razer management team that I dealt with were nothing but professional and courteous though I am still concerned about the “standard” support they are providing as those folks didn’t give anywhere near the level of support that I got directly from the president and his main man (of course)..  My over all opinion on the device itself has gone from “avoid at all costs” to, “okay its not bad so long as you get the most recent version”.  I still find myself occasionally using the G7 which I still find telling but I am not sworn off Razer products as I was previously..  And no they didn’t pay me or make me say these things..

Now on to the original post ::  I was pretty frustrated and angry when I initially wrote this.  The tone is a lot harsher than it should be and for that I apologize, but the message is still basically what I want it to be..

As I have said previously, I’m a pretty hard core Logitech fan.  I use a lot of their hardware, and am always very happy with it..  I have used several Logitech mice in my day (corded and cordless) and up until fairly recently was using a Logitech G7.   The G7 is one of their cordless gaming mice and I have used it for a while.   I really like it, it’s a wonderful mouse and I highly recommend it.  My only complaint being that I wish it had 2 thumb buttons instead of one.. that was it.. my only complaint..  I managed to break the mouse wheel on mine though due to my own stupidity and being a bit rough with it, so it was time to replace it..

A buddy of mine has a Razer mouse and loves it, so when I was at the store and saw the Ferrari of the Razer mouse line; the Mamba wireless gaming mouse — I went ahead and picked it up..

At $129.99 I expected this thing to perform like no other..  In fact, at twice the cost of my Logitech G7, I expected it to perform twice as well..  It came in a really nice box, with a lot of high and mighty claims on the box so I was thinking I had a winner..

Let me be clear here – this mouse is the biggest piece of shit, I have ever.. and I mean.. EVER used..

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I have discovered as I have gotten older, and more experienced in the ways of computing that I just don’t care what operating system I use. I’m a software guy — having said that, sometimes I feel that I need to give a particular OS a nod — and in this case, a piece of hardware too.

I have 2 main computers that I use at home (beyond my work laptop, my home server and my firewall proxy box).. One is my super uber game machine, and one is my catch all play around machine. The game machine is a windows box because I don’t have much choice — you want to play games, you use windows. Go Win-tendo!

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