I work in computers and quite often people come to me with computers to fix. You can understand why they do this due to the fact if they took it to a shop, they would be charged a good chunk of money. For some time now I have been told people  “I do not fix computers” outside of work and for good reason, quite often people wanted to pay the lowest value for the most amount of work. Recently I took on a laptop to fix, a Compaq CQ61, maybe I felt sorry for the guy and maybe I thought it was an easy fix – how wrong I was.

The original problem

The back story was he had spilled liquid over his keyboard and since then most of the keys never worked properly. He was worried about his data and if possible could he get this saved. The other issue was the laptop was very slow indeed and various other small issues.

It started with a backup

The first thing I did when I got this laptop was to back up all his data to an external drive, once I had this, I then started to rebuild the Laptop. I placed Windows 7 on there along with Office 2010, acrobat, flash, Java and so forth. Everything worked fine apart from the keyboard. I pointed him to a site to buy his own replacement keyboard, this was if it does not work – he looses out not me.

Faulty Keyboards

The first keyboard arrived and once fitted, I tested this out – only to find the space bar did not work. I was unsure if the keyboard was at fault or the controller. I advised the owner to send this back and get another. The seller advised him to send the keyboard plus £5 to cover postage and he would send another but this person instead just board another at £14. This took another two weeks to arrive, in all this time the laptop sat built ready just needing a keyboard. The keyboard did arrive, I did fit in and every single key worked as it should.

Putting it all back together

All I had to do was flip the computer over, screw in 6 screws and that was the job done, for some reason though now (as the battery had gone flat) it would not power on. The Power supply led come on the side of the laptop but no other LED came on. This baffled me – this thing had worked all the other times and I had done nothing different. I checked this thing out, had testers on it and still dead, I was baffled for sure.

Paying the piper

Before this thing had broken – we had discussed a price and he felt £40 was fair as he had already spent £28 on parts. To be perfectly honest, the amount of time I had spent on this, if charged by the hour would have been closer to £120. The bad thing now was he gave me the money before getting the laptop back. I had informed him since of the problem but he feels I can fix it.

Stopping the clock

I felt I had spent enough time trying to fix this issue, as I won’t be getting any more money – I put it all back together and bagged it up. I shall give him the laptop and the money back and inform him to take it to a shop.

Conclusion

While I do feel sorry for people paying through the nose, I have not got equipment to fully fix all laptops. If the fix is simple (Software related) then it could be a quick fix but more often than not people want a full-blown fix, often costing more than a new laptop but for the price of a crate of beer. I think I shall stop fixing any laptop, no matter how simple.

A Keyboard and mouse made not out of wood but Bamboo – trust the Asians to come up with such a thing. I cannot imagine the keyboard to be the most responsive of items but at least you can tell people you are more in touch with nature.

I like the idea of a Tablet computer and today I went into Toys-R-Us to look at what prices they were charging for PS3 games and came across a stand offering a 7″ Tablet for £89.99 while they had the much bigger 10″ Tablet for £149.99. I checked the box of the 7″ model, limited memory combined with android 1.6 and not something I wanted. I checked the specifications of the 10″ Model and it had Android 2.1, 1024×600 screen and other good stuff.

Technical Specifications

Looking at the picture above – 10.1″ Screen looks good, 1Ghz CPU should be good, the memory on-board is tiny. It only has b/g wireless plus the rj45 adaptor seems to be an optional extra (which I have no idea where you buy this from). It states 3 hours battery (which is very bad for a tablet device) but I have read about 188 minutes. Notice it only has Resistive touch screen and not captive touch screen.

Keyboard add-on

You can buy for this a case which comes with a keyboard (pictured above) and the price of this is £29.99, this lets the tablet be used more like a laptop. If you installed a VNC client on this device or a Terminal Services client – then you can use this cheap laptop as a means fix a server for example remotely. I have tried this on my HTC Hero and by all means it works but with a larger screen and such – I can see this as a very good device.

Try before you buy

I had read many reviews of these cheap tablet computers and how they all fail to be a good experience. I asked the manager (who happened to be close by) if he either had one on display or we could open up a box to try it out. He informed me that they will not have one out and although they can open on, they cannot switch it on – which I saw as pointless. I tried in vain to look for some reviews on my HTC Hero and never come up with anything conclusive. While I probably could buy one, take it home and test it out to death and then return it when I work out that it is in fact garbage, I did not want to go down that route, after all this would be an impulse buy and something I probably do not need.

What I’ve read so far

On my brief travel around the internet looking for information, I have learned a few things that so far has put me off actually buying this. No word on the elonex site about upgrading to Android 2.2 and above, I have already been through this with my HTC Hero and do not wish to be stuck on this device as well. It does not have mutitouch on the display from what I can see, this is a major thing for me to shy away from the device.The battery life I find really bad – 188 minutes is no use at all and I would be forever having it plugged in, I would much prefer the battery life like the iPad.

My thoughts then on this is while it looks a good deal for the price, you do get what you pay for. This means that NO you will not get a ipad type device for a fraction of the cost, what you will get is corners cut with the display, the wireless and various other aspects (no camera for example. As a portable VNC Device – given the limited resolution, I cannot see this been used as much as I would like to think it would. As a web browser with flash (Skyfire) I could use it to watch live streaming shows and such but given the limited battery life, I can see me going back to a proper computer instead (or even my netbook in that case).

If your looking for some new gear for the PC from the fine hardware people at Logitech, then good news people – they have brought out some new toys for you to buy. We have a wireless headset, a mouse and a keyboard. The Wireless Gaming Headset G930, the Wireless Gaming Mouse G700, and the Gaming Keyboard G510. All three products are currently up for purchase on Logitech’s website, but are also slated to hit retail shelves soon.

Wireless Gaming Headset G930

The Wireless Gaming Headset G930 features “gaming-grade” wireless technology designed specifically for two-way, uncompressed audio streaming. They also provide 7.1 Dolby surround sound support, three programmable G-keys for controlling music levels, voice morphing, and chat client volumes. Memory foam keeps the headband comfortable while plush ear pads ward off any outside noise.

Wireless Gaming Mouse G700

Logitech’s Wireless Gaming Mouse G700 was designed for MMOG players while keeping FPS fans in mind. Its ergonomic design keeps the hand comfortable while 13 “precisely placed” controls offer the user plenty of customization. A full-speed wireless connection–reporting 1000 times per second–reduces lag without crippling in-game performance.

Gaming Keyboard G510

The wired peripheral in the trio–the Gaming Keyboard G510–features 18 programmable G-keys with three mode states, providing up to 54 possible macro settings per game. The built-in GamePanel LCD display renders PC performance data and real-time game stats while the keyboard’s RBG backlighting (somewhat) illuminates the desktop day or night.

Prices

The Wireless Gaming Headset G930 carries a $159.99 pricetag, making it the most expensive in the bunch. The Gaming Keyboard G510 trails behind in second place, priced at $119.99. The Wireless Gaming Mouse G510 falls into third with a $99.99 pricetag.

After speaking to various people and the various hardware i have bought in the past plus stuff I already own, my question is “Can Microsoft actually make good hardware”? There is a very good reason for asking this very question and we go on to discuss future Microsoft hardware, should you trust this Software giant to make hardware that works on there very own operating system?

Keyboard’s and Mice

I bought the BIG (as in size) Microsoft Laser 6000 desktop set which I am assuming is called V1, it has a USB Device which sits on your desk showing you the Caps Lock etc and then we have the keyboard and mouse itself and to say it is big is an understatement.

Were do the problems lie?

It stands to reason that as it has media keys, you would expect it to control the chosen program of choice, be it WMP, iTunes or even WinAmp. Now I use iTunes myself and pressing the Media button does bring this up to a degree but move away from the application and press the back/forward buttons and NOTHING happens – you have to highlight the program! I assumed iTunes was the issue, so I tried the same trick with WMP and the same happened, so basically to change track you have to be in the Application itself – which defeats the objective.

Webcam’s

In my time I have bought (and took back) a whole range of webcams made by Microsoft and I need to say that unless you have studio lighting then expect the camera to pixelate so badly that you may be forgiven in thinking this thing is a 2MP webcam and the image you are looking at is 640×480. Basically when Light is low, a webcam can do one of two things, it can try and bring in as much light as possible which in turn lowers the FPS or in the case of Microsoft, keep the FPS but lower the quality. In the case of Low FPS, you can alter the settings of the camera to balance between light and FPS.

The above picture was taken in a normal lit room at 640×480, it looks green and grainy – so you want an comparison with maybe another 2MP webcam? sure thing:

Same room, Same light but this is from a Logitech 9000 Pro. Maybe you may say though that it’s just the NX-6000? Well I have tried the VX-6000 (Desktop Model), 5000, 1000 and various others and I can put my hand on my heart and say that every single Microsoft Webcam in non-perfect lighting will be as bad as the top picture.

Further testing

What happens when you want to point the Webcam out of the window in daylight for example or a night with just a few street lamps to light up the scene? Once again the Microsoft models will show you a pure white light (as if the sun had fallen and landed in your back yard) or pure blackness.

What annoys me the most is go to any store, pick up a box from ANY webcam and most will have this amazing write up and equally amazing picture showing you how it looks, which happens to be some photograph shot with a 10MP camera I think in perfect studio lighting.

You want more?

I bought this Microsoft Sidewinder Dual Strike joystick a long time back, the concept looked cool and who would have thought I might have trouble running this thing on a Microsoft operating system – even future versions such as Vista and Windows 7? Microsoft gave up on this almost straight away and although the OS might pick up the basic buttons – the advanced software that it used to come with no longer works – way to go Microsoft.

Conclusion

As a software company, I am more then happy with what they bring out but the hardware leaves a lot to be desired. I do not care if they bring out a 20MP webcam – I refuse to buy anything Microsoft ever again, I am defiantly a Logitech Fan now for hardware.

The Keyboard and Mouse that came with the Dell was a funny looking thing and it was not something I had intended to use as I have the Logitech 710 Set along with the Microsoft 6000 Set, so no shortage of decent Wireless Keyboard & Mice. I thought I would share with you though what came with my Dell as I have never seen anything like it nor can I find any images of it on the web or the Dell site….

Keyboard

This is a very slim type model with no extra function keys like volume and the such, the action is very soft, almost like a laptop keyboard if you will. I have seen smaller, such as the Keyboard that came with the iMac for example but it is a lot smaller then say the Microsoft model.

Mouse

This is the funny looking thing – for a start it is Optical not laser, you can tell this as the bottom LED lights up (laser does not). The mouse is quiet Fat compared to a lot I have used, has the normal two buttons and a scroll wheel which sticks out a lot. I am not sure why Dell choose to send me a White mouse for a Black keyboard or desktop but I guess they just chuck anything in there. Maybe this is Dell go at making a Mighty mouse?

I did a quick look around for the price of this keyboard and it comes in at about £20 but I have seen it also for £13, depending on where you look. You may not find this model for sale now as Logitech as always have updated there stock with much different models. It is a USB Keyboadr and advertised as Zero Tilt, this means it sits very flat and is a pleasure to type on. I personally would buy this ove some of the much cheaper ones you see in Grocery stores as you generally get a much better typing experience.

The Logitech Media Keyboard advertises the “Zero Degree Tilt” design, which is all rows are of the same height, instead of rising from front to back. Logitech promotes this no-slope design by saying that it minimizes potentially painful or harmful wrist extension. Logitech has also modified the cursor-control keys, substituting the rarely-used keys with function keys, all in all to make working on the keyboard more accessible. It offers simple, straightforward options for customizing the launch buttons and function keys to load your favourite applications or Web sites or open a file or folder. There are browser back and forward buttons which are convenient to browse through Web sites. However notebook users will be disappointed to know that the Media Keyboard comes with an old-fashioned PS/2 cable and connector, and not even a USB adapter plug. And this will not appeal to our modern users who are internet and music savvy. The media part of the Media Keyboard is the top-centre control cluster that launches a specified media player and offers play/pause, stop, next/previous track, and volume up/down/mute buttons. Other buttons along the top launch your home page, Web favourites, e-mail and instant messaging clients, and Windows’ Calculator and suspend/sleep mode.