Our last post looked at a gaming keyboard and today I thought I would look at another peripheral for the gaming enthusiast.  When I was quite a bit younger than I am today I was quite keen on the flight sim games, or more specifically space flights sims like the classic Wing Commander. Unfortunately they don’t really make many of these games anymore!

Something that one really had to have to play these games was of course a joystick as playing these games with a mouse was never easy or particularly convenient.  A joystick was perhaps the first accessory that I ever bought for my computer. Joysticks have come a long way since the one I first purchased which just about had the directional control and a couple of firing buttons. They now often come with separate throttle controls, multiple buttons and switches.

A good example of what is available of the market these days is the highly rated Saitek X52 Flight Control System. This beauty comes with a separate throttle control which includes its own set of buttons and can act as a mouse for easy in game control.  The joystick unit has plenty of programmable buttons and two “hat” controls for point of view control.

Do you use a joystick for gaming? Which joystick do you prefer?

We have talked a lot in the previous series of posts about gaming and in particular gaming with laptops. If you read those last posts you will know that my personnel recommendation, if you are looking for a computer system for which the main use will be gaming, is to go for a desktop system. This is because you will get a much better price performance ratio, more bang for the buck.  And the money you save on the key components, CPU, GPU and memory for the desktop system can then be put towards gaming peripherals, like gaming keyboards, mice, joysticks etc.

Good gaming peripherals essential

Now I cannot  profess to having a deep knowledge or experience of gaming, apart from the odd long game of Civilization. But having talked to some gamers and my own sons they tell me that good gaming peripherals can make a big difference.  Take keyboards for instance, they need to be good quality to take all the bashing that a gamer is going to give it, but they also have to be responsive and easy to use.  While the best often provide gaming specials like programmable keys which can be assigned on an as required basis to command macros. These can be extremely useful to the under pressure gamer.

Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard

One really good and rated gaming keyboard is the Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard which has nice big responsive keys,  and a whole array of programmable keys and provides the tools to get the best from these.  If you are looking for a gaming keyboard it may be worth taking a good look.

Have you bought a keyboard specifically to support gaming? Do you want to tell us about it?

One thing about using a laptop with other peripherals such as an external screen,  mouse and keyboard is that it is such a pain to have plug all these external devices into the various slots in your laptop. Once answer used by a lot of corporate workers, especially at work is to have a docking station or port replicator that you can just plug or slot your laptop into and away you go.

Laptop ergonomics

You should be doing this by the way, especially  if you use are essentially using your laptop as a desktop replacement, either at work or at home.  Spending significant amount of time each day using just your laptop without an external screen etc. breaks just about every rule in terms of ergonomics, and could lead to significant health and posture problems later on.

Universal docking station

However the majority of docking stations are proprietary to a specific manufacturer and even to specific models. So what can you do if you are looking for another port replicator at home, and would like one that could handle all makes of laptops?  Well one answer could be the Toshiba USB Dynadock Port Replicator.  We have all heard of the universal remote well this device attempts to be the universal docking station.  It handles the connection to multiple makes and models of laptops by using a single USB connection rather than any proprietary connection slots. You have your monitors, external drives, sound systems, key board etc, permanently connected to the Toshiba USB Dynadock and then when anyone wants to use their laptop they just attach one USB cable (assuming they got the drivers installed).   It is also a very stylish looking device which won’t look at all bad on the desk.

How do you manage docking you laptop with your external devices?

In the last post we looked at laptops for gaming and when I was looking around for good examples I found quite a few.  I thought I would share today what I think must probably the ultimately gaming laptop that I found.  Have a look at the Rock Xtreme SL Pro XSLPRO-TL60 Laptop.

Gaming Power

If you remember that for gaming the most important requirements are a good fast processor, a fast GPU (graphics card) and plenty of memory. Well the Rock Xtreme SL Pro comes with a massive 20 inch screen, a fast AMD dual core CPU,  two SLI Nvidia graphics cards and two hard drives.  This should be more than able cope with any game that you chose to play.

True gaming value?

Of course while the Rock Xtreme SL Pro is obviously a very capable computer, it comes with quite a hefty price tag and with a 20 inch screen it is beginning to move from portable to a “luggable” computer.  In other words it can be lugged around if required, but it is hardly something you are going to carry around everywhere you go!  These aspects also illustrate nicely the point I made in my previous post that laptops are the not in my opinion the way to go for the dedicated gamer.  Just imagine the desktop gaming rig you could put together given the same money, probably something with even better components complete with large screen, awesome sound and good gaming peripherals.

Do you have examples of what you think is the ultimate gaming laptop?

We have previously looked on this blog at computers for gaming. In that previous post we looked at a desktop computer as an example of a possible gaming rig.  But as laptops these days are outselling desktop computers it is probably about time to have a look at gaming laptops.  So what is a gaming laptop and what makes a good one?

What is a gaming laptop?

A gaming laptop is essentially a notebook computer that is both portable but also plays games as well as it does any of the other things you want a computer for.  A laptop that is as happy playing the latest game as it is for writing emails and running office applications.

What makes a gaming laptop?

Most modern games require power, so just like in our previous post a gaming laptop will have to have a powerful, near top of the range components.  The single most important component is the graphics processor, look for the laptop with the best you can afford.  Next important is a powerful CPU followed up by us much RAM memory that you can get.  Essentially there no such thing as a specialist gaming laptop (although there are some that are marketed as such), it just needs to have sufficiently high specification components to be able to meet our gaming requirements. A great example of a good gaming laptop would be MSI GX700-204 UK which comes with a great graphics card, an Intel dual core processor and 3GB of RAM.

Desktops still better for games

In my opinion though, unless you spend a lot of time traveling and need the portability that a laptop gives you, a gamer is going to be far better off with a desktop. Why? Well there can be big downsides to these laptops in that, they are inevitably big & heavy,  get very hot and can be very expensive.  Often for the same price as the laptop you can buy a desktop with a great screen, even better core components and this coupled with high quality peripherals such as joysticks, keyboards would ultimately deliver a superior gaming experience.

Do use a laptop for gaming? Why did you go for the laptop rather than a desktop?

Just recently the newest release of the open source browser Firefox has been released with quite a bit of coverage in the media.  The Mozilla Foundation the organisation responsible for the development of the browser, has claimed a record number of downloads for Firefox 3.  So just what is all the fuss about? I thought I would post a quick review of the benefits that I see in Firefox that might be of some help if you are thinking of trying out the new browser.

I use both Internet Explorer (at work) and Firefox (at work and home) so I have the ongoing opportunity to compare the two browsers.  At work where it is a Microsoft dominated environment I often use IE 7 to get the most out of the integration with Microsoft Office applications.  Tellingly though, if I had to choose just one it would be Firefox and this is my browser of choice at home.

Top 5 reasons to try

Firefox 3 provides a lot of new features but here are my top 5 reasons for trying the new version out, whether you are a Firefox 2 user or are currently using another browser;

1. Excellent rendering speed (how quickly it displays a web page) - It is noticeably faster on complex websites such as web applications like Gmail.
2. The smart location bar (also known as the “awesome bar”) - Which provides a easy way to find the websites you have previously visited.  As you begin typing into the location bar, the browser will immediately provide a list of suggested web sites. These suggestions are drawn from your browsing history and are based on a combination of how frequently and how recently you have visited various sites. This really works well and will usually find where you want to go after only typing a few letters.
3. Built in security - The new browser has been designed to help it users browse more safely, with lots of integrated security features such as anti malware and phishing  tools, and an improved password manager.
4. Improved bookmarks management - The browser comes with nice bookmarking and bookmark management features included smart folders and a tagging capability.
5. Improved download Manager - A new download manager that lets you pause and resume later and cope with system crashes or forced shutdowns.

There are plenty of other new features to look at as well including the thousands of third party add-ons that are also available through an improved interface. In my opinion Firefox 3 continues to deliver innovation in the web browsing arena that would be missing if IE was the only option.

Do you use Firefox? What do you think of version 3?

As I have discussed in the previous few posts, my family now is the proud owner of an Asus Eee 4G PC. This is used primarily by my youngest son, but has proved to be quite popular with all the family. However as we said in my last post the Eee 4G PC comes with only 4GB of solid state storage, and since the majority of that is used by the operating system there is not much room for other content. In the previous post I looked at adding extra storage via a SDHC memory card but in this post I thought I would look at external hard drives.

Eee External hard drive

As the external hard drive is designed to be used with an Eee PC, I really wanted one that would fit well with the “small is good” theme that the Eee stands for. So any external hard drive had to be as small as possible, but still provide a good amount of storage, look good and work easily with the Linux operating system installed on the Eee.

After searching around I manage to find something that seems to fit the bill. Take a look at the
Passport Essential from Western Digital which is neat looking, small enough to fit into a shirt pocket, and has plenty of storage space. As it is a USB drive it will be supported by Linux and should therefore work fine with the Eee.

Check Linux compatibility

This last point is an important point that one needs to be careful off when buying equipment for a Linux PC. Thanks to the Linux community most devices will be supported by Linux, even if the vendor does not provide drivers. However this takes time and so when buying for Linux and especially for new devices it pays to do some research on the Internet first. In this case although the manufacturer does not state that it supports Linux, a quick search of the Internet shows that a number of people haved confirmed the Passport Essential working with the Eee.

Do have an Eee PC? Do you use an external hard drive?

We now have an Asus Eee 4G PC in the family. We are still very happy with the Eee 4G PC sub notebook and would recommend it to anyone looking for a starter computer for a child or for something small, capable and very easy to carry around. The Eee 4G is limited on the storage side though as it has no conventional disk drive and coming with 4GB of solid state storage only.

Limited storage

The solid state storage is nice and robust, but a significant amount of the 4GB is used up by the Linux operating system leaving only about 1.5 GB for user content. Now for my son’s homework and other text files this would probably be fine for the foreseeable future, however he already wants to store some music and digital images on the computer. My wife also uses the Eee a lot and so we are shortly going to have to think about additional storage.

Interface and storage options

Fortunately the Eee 4G PC comes with plenty of interfaces. There is the wired and wireless networking, a good number of USB sockets and a media card reader that excepts SD and SDHC cards. So there are plenty of options to access external storage. The Eee can always access a shared drive on our home desktop PC which also acts as our server, but this of course is only usable when at home. One approach that I have been looking at is to maximise the use of the SD card slot. I investigated and found this very useful SanDisk 4GB Extreme III SDHC Memory Card & Card Reader, which I think is just the ticket for an Eee owner. Why the card reader as well as the card? Well this would make it easy to transfer content from the Eee to other computers who don’t have card readers.

I have also looked at external hard drives for the Eee, which I will cover in the next post.

Have you got an Asus Eee 4G PC? What do you use for external storage?

I was taking a short cut through an electrical goods shop at a shopping mall last weekend and was intrigued to see a very large group of people crowded around something in the area where the shop sells its laptops. When I went over to have a look at what all the fuss was about, I found one of the sales assistants demonstrating the Asus Eee 4G PC. The Eee had finally arrived in the Emirates and was causing quite a stir.

Asus Eee 4G

I returned later on the way home to have a play and to show it to my wife. I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed at first. I think the small size of the screen was the main cause of this, however the Eee obviously worked fine and after playing with it for a while it was obvious that screen size was not really an issue. The demonstration model was logged on to the store WiFi and using Firefox I was able to view and use websites effectively. OpenOffice is preinstalled and opened quickly and easily and worked well and did not appear to tax the processor at all. The keyboard while on the small side for adult hands was perfectly usable and for kids would be fine.

Reactions to the Eee 4G

My wife was completely smitten and was immediately talking about buying one for our seven year old as his first computer, and if he didn’t want for some reason it, she would love to have it! This sort of reaction is probably one of the main reasons why the Eee has become so popular and remember this is before the exceptional price is discussed. It is a very powerful combination and the price was a tipping point for my wife and we bought one on the spot.

Eee 4G user experience

After a few days of having it at home, the experience with the Eee has been really good. I configured the system, the WiFi for the home network and installed our printer in minutes. My son is overjoyed with it and my wife uses it for email and surfing once he has gone to bed. I don’t think either of them has noticed it is not using Windows, the only comment I have had about the interface is how nice and easy to use it is. So my conclusion is that the Asus Eee 4G lives up to its reputation as a fun, easy to use and cheap ultra sub notebook.

Do you have an Eee? What do you think of it?

Webcams are now standard on a significant proportion of the laptops available on the market. But what do you do if you have an older laptop or have just purchased one without a Webcam? The answer of course is to invest in a standalone webcam.

We have had two new recent additions to the growing family of laptops that cohabit our house. Both of these came equipped with a webcam. Sadly we also had one of the older generation pass away, but I guess that is the circle of laptop life. OK, so now I am at risk of sounding like I’ve escaped from a Disney cartoon, but it has been quite interesting to look at the evolution of this family over the last few years. The old laptop that finally passed on, had a CD drive, two PCMCIA card sockets and only a solitary USB socket. The latest addition has a DVD RW drive, four USB drives, a media card reader, a webcam and significantly more processing power and memory. I would guess there is about 7 year age gap between them and USB has become the connection interface of choice.

But I digress, as a family we have never really used webcams. VoIP applications like Skype might have pushed us that way, but the use of Skype in the U.A.E is not really that reliable. However having them available on the new laptops have prompted a surge in use, so much so that we are now looking at equipping our older laptops with one. I have investigated whats available and have found a few that interest me, the pick of the bunch is probably Microsoft’s LifeCam NX-6000 which is small, light and has a good image resolution for a webcam.

Do you have a webcam to recommend?