Mice are small and warm and fit in our palms cozily. Some have three buttons, some have two and a wheel, some have three buttons where one of them is also a wheel. Some have only one ball, like Hitler, and some don’t even have that.
Computer mouse, the pointing device, celebrated its 40th birthday sometime during the last week. I wish it many many happy returns of the day.
In 1968, Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute first created a carved wooden block mounted on wheels, with a long cable trailing out the back. Xerox developed the …read more

I told you about my recent interest in netbooks. I want to test if it sufficiently supports a writer’s lifestyle, which I’ve been embracing slowly. I had an eye on the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 in particular. Today, I ordered one at $434.
The best thing about Dell is the customizations available during purchase, and the upgradability and extensibility options later. The following are the initial features I went for: Ubuntu OS, 1GB DDR2, 16GB solid state drive, 1.1M pixel webcam, Obsidian black. Of course, the most important default feature is the Intel Atom Processor which is 100% lead free and …read more

E-waste recycling is a multi-billion dollar market today. We have fallen into the mindset of accepting that replacement is cheaper than repair, at least for electronic goods. That means, we get rid of our computer equipment more often than we used to. This is a difficult task mentally and environmentally.
A laptop that served you, that kept with you in good times and bad, deserves a good send off. If not a wake, a private “I will miss you” would be nice. The riddance itself could mean careful planning. Dumping the computer dude in a dump is a serious offence, just …read more

I use an old Lenovo T60 and like to grumble about its performance. I’m sure the feeling is mutual. I also use a docking station at work. Makes life simpler. Recently, I had a problem with the way it powers the laptop.
The laptop had been docked, but the power supply unplugged due to some neighbourly reasons. When I restarted the laptop, it simply shutdown. When I powered it again, it brusquely answered with a series of flickers across three of its LEDs (power supply, battery life and something else that I don’t remember now) in a most NSFW manner. The …read more

‘Obama’ viruses are fast spreading. Reports of spam that Bush killed Obama are being circulated.  Emails with “special videos” of Obama’s victory speech are trolling around the Internet too, which when opened aim for any personal information. Unsolicited world news is usually spam, and don’t open these mails (and don’t forward them) even if they say that Bush killed Osama.
Basic users have always been Microsoft’s target audience, unlike some other operating systems that seem to be cut out for power users. In this tradition, Window 7 is apparently going to have troubleshooters in eight categories, to enable users use diagnostic …read more

Recently got hold of an ACER Aspire One, ACER’s landmark device that marks its entry into the ultraportable market. So there they are with the likes of HP and ASUS. One thing’s weird though. In the tech specs of the Aspire, it says that with the bundled 1GB of RAM composed of two sticks of RAM, one half is actually soldered into the device while the other 512MB is expandable. Now here’s the thing – the RAM is expandable to a MAXIMUM of 1GB which means that you have an odd assembly of 1.5GB of RAM for an ultraportable. Damnit! …read more

Size doesn’t matter… Or so they say but the Eee PC could be the exception to the rule. A fellow blogger, Lia, wrote about the HP Voodoo, the Mac Air Rival. I say phooey! We don’t need a $2100 lightweight laptop, we need a 7″ computer that can handle the everyday tasks that we’ve all come to know and love (banking, email, document writing and more)!

One of the necessary things to do when you first set up your network is to make sure that you have shared the printer.
Having several computers in your home or office doesn’t mean you have to buy several printers, too. If your PCs are connected via a wireless network (or a wired one, for that matter), you can easily share them by turning on Sharing in Windows. To get started, open the Printers and Faxes control panel in Windows XP (simply called Printers in Vista). Right-click on the printer you want to share, and choose Sharing.

You might be wondering what is the difference between SATA and traditional IDE hard drives? The first thing you’ll notice is the interface/connectors of the drive itself. SATA drives have a single cable with a small connector, while an IDE drive will have a wider flat ribbon cable. SATA drives also boast faster data transfer rate but read your motherboard’s manual if it does support SATA drives. Otherwise, you’re stuck with an IDE drive.

For casual computer users, a new keyboard is a frivolous luxury; the one that came with your PC works fine, right? But you and I know that a good keyboard can boost your productivity, save your wrists from repetitive-stress injuries, and add a little style to your desktop. No matter which of these are important to you, we’ve reviewed a keyboard that’s a perfect match.