Archmaille

I’ve been laughing at the stock market over the last couple of weeks. It’s interesting to see how different companies are effected by the “crisis” you see a lot of very stable companies that have been smart with their money making huge bank right now (giving out loans to other corporations, buying back their own stock, companies obtaining other businesses at a huge discount). The rest… are well… suffering, being bought out, having lay offs, etc.

Because I focus mostly on the technology aspect of things I’ve really enjoyed watching what Microsoft has done in this time. The day we dropped 777 points in a single day I saw Microsoft sustain value, only dropping maybe half a percentage point. It is true that part of the reason they didn’t drop very much is because of a huge stock buyback they did. When their stock started going down they used the money they had reserved to purchase Yahoo! to buy back some of their own stock… which will make them tons of money when the market climbs again. They also still have TONS of cash on hand that they’ve been looking at other acquisitions with. Google on the other hand who’s been fighting with Microsoft, and operating stock prices way above their earnings dropped like a rock on that day.

I know it’s the cool thing to do for the media to freak out and scare everyone about out “failing” economy… but in all honesty I’m really not freaked out in the slightest, nor do I believe you should be either. Microsoft is proof that the drops you see, though they may effect a lot of corporations, are only temporary, and they effect the shotty companies most. It’s the natural way of our system to purge itself of bad banks, bad businesses, and sketchy tactics. The market will stabilize by itself, if we let it, some businesses will not be around next year, but how many of you would like to have your ice delivered to you every day instead of a refrigerator? Some businesses are outdated, others are just bad, it’s okay for them to go under and be replaced by something else.

written by Archmaille

Ergonomic keyboards are nothing new, though Microsoft has had the market cornered for years (which I don’t know for sure, but I suspect has to do with patents).  One issue has never been solved with the older ergonomic keyboards though, granted they are better than straight keyboards, is the issue of finger length.

Wave Keyboard from Logitech

The Wave Keyboard from Logitech promises to fix that.  The wave is the first ergonomic keyboard to have lowered keys that are struck with the middle and ring fingers.  This design from the wave ergonomic keyboard helps to relieve stress that is presented with the forced straightening of your fingers.  Some of Microsofts ergonomic keyboards do this as well, however they tend to do so because of an extreme angle of the keys… I find this angle to be too drastic and puts stress in other areas.  I like a keyboard with a slight angle and never really thought about it, but there is still stress being put on your fingers when they’re forced to be flat which is why I like the design of the Logitech Wave Keyboard.

Logitech Wave Keyboard

I guess that is why I’ve always liked a little bit of both the extreme angled keyboards from Microsoft that help to relieve the flat finger stress, and the slight angled ergonomic keyboards from Microsoft that help the wrist pain.  I generally go for the light angle ergonomic keyboards, but now I no longer have to choose between the two I will have the best of both worlds.

This is great news for someone like myself who types about 100,000 keystrokes per day.  I’ve already killed off my Logitech G15 keyboard and it’s not even that old.  So it’s about time that it gets replaced, and this time not for gaming, but for comfort.  I would gladly get a DAS Keyboard, but even if the DAS does last longer I can get three Wave’s for the same price and be back at the same level of longitude as far as keyboard lasting time period.  I also don’t yet have the keyboard so I will tell you all how it goes… might make First Person Shooter gaming a little awkward, but we’ll see here soon enough.

written by Archmaille

Microsoft Zune 1.8″ Green 4GB MP3 / MP4 Player

Green 4GB Zune, with originals art

Wahoo!  I feel so cool, I just got a Zune!  Funny thing is, a lot of people asked me before-hand “why didn’t you get an Ipod… I’ve never heard of a Zune before” now many of those same people are saying things like “Jeez, I wish I would of known about the Zune when I got my Ipod.” Learn to do some product research people!  Besides I hate copycat products so there was no way I was getting an Ipod!  I mean seriously, just look at them they’re designed almost exactly alike, especially as far as looks go.  (And yes, the Zune was first, there are several beta product photos out that pre-date the Ipod by a long shot, before the Zune even had a rightful name).

Anyways, at a decent quality setting ripping my CD’s to my computer I’ve only been able to fit around 1,000 songs, both Charlie the Unicorn videos, and a few photos on my Zune, but that’s not so bad.  It’s only a 4gig one so I can’t say too much.  I was just kinda looking for something that I could listen to in the car when driving home from taking Rose to her house (no radio in car), and have a decent song collection when I am away from the computer (God forbid I should ever leave the computer!) the Zune has filled those tasks quite nicely!

written by Archmaille

CORSAIR Flash Voyager 4GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) Model CMFUSB2.0-4GB

Corsair Flash Voyager 4GB Flash Drive

It’s really nice having a flash drive with 4 gigs of storage space, but that’s not why I bought this drive.  Well it is, but only partially.  I bought a larger flash drive primarily for ReadyBoost Windows new technology to help speed up your computer!  Instead of using swap space on your hard drive, or taking up valuable RAM windows will now use a flash drive (if you’ve designated it) to work as a cache, it’s also supposed to help speed up your system.

I looked into a lot of different drives, some cheeper, some more expensive, some claiming to be faster… but what really got me was I found a few different lists of people who show you how to find what speed your drive is running at for ReadyBoost and record it.  The Corsair Flash Voyager series seemed to hold the crown for every list I looked at.  How accurate those lists are I don’t know, they’re not really scientific, and no one really verifies results, you just plop your results into a database and vuala so in actuality people could say whatever they way.

We’ll see here in a few weeks how things actually work out.  And if Windows Vista really does have a nice trick up their sleeve.

written by Archmaille