The Technicist

Musings from the earbud chronicles

There are headphones and earbuds strewn on my desk, in my desk, behind my bed, in their cases, in plastic bags, in plastic bins, in the trash can, in the closets, on the bookshelves, in the cupboards, in the drawers, on the floor, and in my ears.  Roughly half of them are functioning; a quarter desperately need disposal, and the remaining I'm too sentimental to trash.  As far as I know, they span creation dates from around the late nineties to winter of this year.  They range in worth from nothing to more than I would ever spend, which is why most of my friends are technology collectors who can apparently spare the extra set or two that doesn't fit into the iPhone. [Don't look at me like that... -Tech]

I like music immensely.  I have a soundtrack running in my head, one that doesn't stop even when I sleep.  Given that I can't live without some sense of melodic sound in my head, it's pretty important that I have something to listen to music with.  I can recall enough sadly quiet days when I've left my headphones in my desk but managed to sling my Sansa into my bag all the same.

But all the same, even though I've been listening to music daily since the fifth grade (yes, I was using one of those godforsaken CD players with whirring noises and whiny buttons, along with a pair of clunky over-the-ears that were guaranteed not to damage my hearing, and thus made my music unintelligible.  I survived by listening to classical until I learned about speakers), I wasn't picky about sound quality or leakage until I started riding the bus in my first year at university.  I quickly learned that I hated iPod headphones. They looked uncomfortable, they screamed MAC! RICH! APPLE!, and they made percussion instruments sound like a symphony made of angsty toddlers with pots and pans.  However, as I realized one day as the brunt of a very malicious stare from a heavily lipsticked fellow bus-rider, my over-the-ears 90s-style headphones were leaking pretty badly too.  I'll admit that when I took them off and had a good secondhand listen, I wasn't too fond of Clay Aiken anymore (that might have been sarcasm). 

I switched to earbuds.  I figured that if my spongy 90s-style cuffiete weren't going to seal in sound,I might as well use more compact ones.  I've never been good with cords with wires in them, and the idea of not literally tearing up the wires was a pretty nice one.  Those earbuds gave me earaches; they were hard black plastic with no cushioning and five little drilled holes for sound.

Then my Faustian contract with the earbud devil ended, or at least something bad happened and they split into several pieces, potentially taking parts of my soul with them.  I moved on to a pair of sony somethings that had little hooks to go over my ears.  I left them in a lounge at university and, naturally, did not find them the next day.  I made do with my old clunky headphones.  College students do have budgets... at least, the ones who aren't majoring in engineering, such as the lenient TechniMaster, who allows repressed linguistics students to post random novice musings.     

It was another half a year before I bought myself a pair of knockoff "nice" earbuds from Ross for a grand total of 3.99 + WA state tax.  They squished in my fingers and actually let me turn the volume down to the third notch on that outdated Sansa.  Then they spontaneously combusted one day, and I found half of a small metal something in my left ear a few hours later.  Where the rest went...

Then the TechniMaster lent me a pair of iPod earbuds, and I succumbed to looking like an Apple fanatic, only to disappoint the Macfans when I pulled out a scratched little Sansa c250.  Or maybe I had the e200 by then.  In any case, I maintained my status as an anti-iTunes Seattlite only internally.  I still didn't have enough money to buy an iPod... and I still don't.  Grad school calls.   

Those were replaced by another round of the same, presumably just to make me the saddest technology poser.  Those, in turn, were sporadically deposed by a funny little keychain-earbud-explosion-of-pink-things ensemble that were actually a bit fluffy and kept my ears from being scratched--I suffer from small ears, which makes most earbuds of low quality relatively painful... and completely unstable.  My career as a runner ended when they refused to quietly live in my hearing organs.  

Finally, through some random turn of luck, I walked up to my doorstep with a pair of Shures in ear.  They have an odd tendency to pick out the conversations I want to hear least and cancel all other noises, but given that I can finally put the volume on the lowest setting and still be groaning a little about the reverberation in my head is quite fair.  Considering that my playlist includes some Japanese and Nordic metal, that ringing is well justified.  The Shures are so far indestructible, boasting insanely thick wires that refuse to abandon their phone-cord ringlet shape and guarantee to last for anyone other than technology impossibles (read: me). [And me, apparently...she got the replacement set Shure sent me for the E2c's I broke. -Tech]

However, I consider myself a social climber on the ladder of headphones, and if I've accepted some welfare along that way, it's worth the maintenance of my 24/7 soundtrack (the costs have been minimal).  Even if I've been banned from Ross for bringing back crumpled receipts and shattered earbuds.

W3J Updates, and I'm an idiot

Updates on the W3J: I've had it running Vista Ultimate 32 bit for the last week or so. For the record, I still don't see the difference between Vista Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business, even after running all three on my personal systems (W7S has Business, the now dead MSI GX600 has/had Home Premium). Anyways, I am now comfortably running 32 bit and have all the drivers properly working, which is nice after the driver hell that was Vista 64.

I've messed around with the Synaptics settings for my touchpad, and after increasing the speed and sensitivity, I am finding it easier to use. The pad surface itself is quite nice, with a more textured feel than the W7S touchpad. I still love the metallic ring around the pad. The mouse buttons, on the other hand, still suck, though the one button look is pretty sweet. Keyboard is still mediocre, but I am starting to get used to the Fn key in the corner thing. Weird, but I can deal.

My biggest problem with the keyboard is the layout of the volume functions - the Fn key is on the opposite end of the keyboard, and there are no simple volume shortcut buttons or a volume wheel like there is on the W7S/every consumer grade laptop made since 2005. Not too big of a problem, since the W7S is still my primary music/video machine, but with the W3J being my main computer at school, the volume needs to be changed often enough to be annoying. Also, the speakers are just as mediocre as the W7S, and don't have much volume in them. I put the W3J next to an HP dv2500, playing the same Linkin Park song at max volume...The W3J may as well have had a mono speaker, it was that bad. Yeah, well, I have a brushed aluminum lid, so HA! Or maybe I'm just bitter.

I got BatteryBar working again - I find it very convenient in that I no longer have to mouse over the sys tray battery icon to know how much battery I have left. Originally, Battery Bar was getting screwed up with the dual batteries, but has since fixed itself. Speaking of which - I LOVE the dual batteries. I'm averaging just about 4 hours of battery life in normal usage, and I've not missed the optical drive yet, so I'm pretty pleased.

Weird stuff though - the first time I wrote this post, the W3J froze up and died, so I lost the whole document. It didn't blue screen, or black screen or anything, just froze with the screen still displaying the desktop. Completely unresponsive, so I just hard reset the system. Weirder - three days later, while playing a Youtube vid in Firefox, it BSOD'd and dumped memory. I don't know why this occured, so I'll keep an eye out for it happening again.

Also, the W3J has "woken up" from sleep in my backpack a couple of times, so I've started putting it in hibernate instead. I don't know why, but I think it may be due to the side hotkeys that are very easy to accidentally press and are exposed when the laptop is closed. Kind of annoying, actually, especially since there aren't any volume hotkeys, and the keys themselves are usually only used when you've accidentally pressed them and disabled the wifi, touchpad, and bluetooth at the same time.

Essentially, the laptop is fantastic, other than a couple of "wtf" concerns (hotkeys, volume buttons, speakers) and the odd instability. And from the realm of "I'm a #$%&ing moron who mistreats his computers", I've just put a small (.5mm) chip in the finish of that beautiful brushed almunium lid by tossing my keys onto the bed, before realizing that I just put my laptop there after taking it out of my bag. I'm a genius, I swear.

Wibrain M1 UMPC is hot, and now real

I love designs like the Wibrain M1. There was an Averatec UMPC concept some years ago that had a similar touchscreen slider design, and I have a thing for the the Sidekick Slide and AT&T Quickfire. Its so....useful - you get all the benefits of a keyboard and a large screen in a smaller footprint device. Sure, it might be thicker, but that usually makes the device easier to hold. Mark me down as a fan.

So naturally, when news hits that the Wibrain M1 has been greenlighted for production, I'm pretty excited. To refresh your memory, the M1 has a 4.8" 1024x600 touchscreen, Atom Z530 processor, 1GB of memory, 16GB SSD, WiFi/Bluetooth/HSDPA, what appears to be a touchpad on the right side, probably a webcam, and the sliding keyboard. While the membrane keyboard might not be the easiest keyboard to use, it is probably better than a touch-based keyboard, so I'll take what I can get (the only one I've used thats any good thus far is Apple's; touch keyboards are really easy to screw up). The M1 will run either Linux or XP, as showin in the photo above. I'd expect it to come in at between $599 and 699, provided it is priced similar to the upcoming Wibrain i1 UMPC. The price is on the higher side, but still significantly lower than the (admittedly more upscale) OQO 02+. For a truly pocketable mobile device, I'd say it is worth it.

Asus has terrible x64 driver support....

As I noted in my last post, I installed Vista x64 on my W3J. Most of the devices and hardware works on the default driver, but everything else is kinda iffy, and all of the Asus utilities are x86 only (including, most importantly, Power 4 Gear Extreme). So....no go on Vista 64 bit, essentially. I'm waiting on a friend to loan me a copy of x86-based Vista 32 bit, and once that happens (probably on Wednesday), I should be in business. 

Even with the generic drivers, performance-wise I'm not seeing any problem with Vista, it runs very similar to the W7S. The Windows Experience Index scores are all in the 4.5-5.0 range, pretty much the same as the W7S, other than the far more powerful graphics (the W7S has a low end 8400M, which nets it a 3.1 WEI score.) Switching from XP to Vista makes me notice that regardless of how everyone hates it, Vista still looks nicer than XP, and barring inadequate hardware (like a netbook, for example) or a specific compatibility problem, there isn't any reason to run XP over Vista. I've really gotten used to some of the UI enhancements in Vista as well, starting with the search mechanism built into the Start menu. Very convenient, and just reinforces in my mind that Vista is highly underrated and got shafted early on by nVidia's driver issues and Apple's marketing machine.

At this point, I'm almost wondering if all of this is for naught, since by the time I get Vista properly working on the W3J, the Windows 7 Release Candidate will be almost out. Maybe I'll dual boot or something...we'll see in the future.

So about that Vista....

My plan to install Vista on my W3J isn't happening as I planned it...I can't find my copy of 32 bit Vista, which is what the Asus drivers are written for. I have a 64bit copy of Vista Business, but I don't think I want to use x64 right now, especially since the W3J's chipset can only support 3GB of memory, making the benefits of x64 pretty much...nothing.

However, since I do have the x64 disc anyways, I might as well just use it, see if 64 bit works on the W3J as is. Updates will be posted as news warrants. :P

I got my W3J!!!

The W3J arrived on Friday, and it is HOT. That brushed aluminum lid alone makes it worth the purchase. And the hinge-mounted power button - I think those are awesome, and very few computers designed in 2006 have them.

Close-up pics of the bamboo hinge and power button.


The W3J has an Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor, a 1.66GHz dual core with a 667MHz front side bus, along with 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM, 100GB 5400RPM hard drive, the awesome 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600, a 14" 15:9 (weiiiiiiird ratio) 1280x768 screen, and XP Pro (more on the OS in a minute). I'm a bit disappointed with the processor's clock speed, I'm thinking I might upgrade to a faster T7400 or T7600 (2.16 and 2.33 GHz respectively) when prices on those fall to below $100. However, for now and for what its doing, I probably don't need to.

First impressions of using it: the keyboard is pretty mediocre, and the touchpad isn't great either. Both are decent, but not that fantastic, or even as good as my Asus W7S. The mouse is interesting in that it has two buttons, but they are connected, so it only looks like a single button mouse. The bamboo hinge feels very awesome, but it adds height to the notebook when open, so even with a lower profile 15:9 ratio widescreen, the W3J feels pretty tall. The screen is pretty decent, not much to report there. I'm happy that its a 1280px width screen, since that lets me get any wallpaper from Autoblog or Wallpaper Garage. The hotswappable modular optical drive bay is pretty awesome, and I currently have the second battery in there, which gives me some more battery life to work with. With the 8 cell main battery alone, the W3J is getting around 3.5 hours of battery life, add in the second bay battery and I'm looking at above 4.

There is a problem though. Whenever I unplugged the laptop from AC, no matter how much battery there was, Windows would shut down. Like, log off and shut down, not just power off and die. It was ridiculous. I ended up figuring out that it was because of Asus' Power4Gear utility manager screwing itself, but I can't seem to fix Power4Gear. Actually, I don't even want to, since P4G's UI looks like it came from 1996, as do the rest of Asus' notebook controls/utilities. This is a stark contrast to the very sharp, very modern utilities in the W7S, and the extremely user friendly nature of Power 4 Gear Extreme. I'm betting that all the utilities were overhauled for the transition to Vista, so I'm thinking of putting 32bit Vista Business on it over the XP Pro install (I've got a spare copy of Vista laying around somewhere.) I mean, heck, at this point, Vista is stable and nice to use with some customization, so I might as well. Better than living with the terrible utilities on XP, which I might add, after so much time in Vista, feels kinda antiquated on a full sized computer. Ultimately, this computer will get Windows 7, probably when the Release Candidate comes out, so its only a matter of time. 

Friday was apparently tech delivery day, since I also recieved a replacement pair of Shure SCL2 headphones to replace my broken Shure E2g earbuds. Just a pic (along with the laptop cooler that came with the W3J):

OK, time to go install Vista. I'll keep the blog updated as to how that goes...

The Adamo's weight problem....

When I first saw the Dell Adamo at CES 2009, I fell in love. The silver and white model was one of the best looking systems I have ever laid eyes on, and the black aluminum one was very stylish as well. I thought, "dang, this computer is going to blow the [MacBook] Air out of the water....I can't wait!"

And then, we got the full details, and I fell out of love very, very quickly. 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo ULV, 128GB SSD, 13.4" 1366x768 LED backlit, 0.65" thick, 4.0 lbs, $1999. Say whaaa? FOUR pounds? Are we certain that isn't a typo? Sure it looks fantastic, and it is arguably the thinnest notebook out there, but 4 pounds is the nearly as much as my 13" W7s, which is twice as thick and has a dedicated graphics card. Not cool, my friends, not cool at all. Why is the Adamo so danged heavy? Similar notebooks (more on those in a second) weigh around 3 pounds, so the Adamo clearly heavier than it should be. Its constructed out of one piece of aluminum, similar to the MacBook Air, and the Adamo is, according to Dell, the thinnest notebook ever, so...something is clearly wrong here. It even has a standard SSD, so no mechanical hard drive to blame the weight on, and Dell lists a (definitely optimistic) 5 hour battery life, implying a 6 cell battery (couldn't find the Adamo tech specs on Dell's site), so its not that either....The Adamo looks to be made out of the lightest components - supermodel thin aluminum body, SSD, LED backlight, ULV processor and integrated graphics means small fan/heatsink, no internal optical drive - and yet, its closer to MacBook than Air in terms of weight....Uhh, Dell, care to explain?

Now back to the competition the Adamo faces: the aforementioned MacBook Air, HP's Voodoo Envy 133, and the ThinkPad X301 - all feature LED backlit 13.3" screens and weigh roughly 3 lbs. The Air and Envy have faster Low Voltage Core 2 Duo processors and mechanical hard drives, with the Air even packing an nVidia graphics chip, whereas the X301 has the same ULV/SSD combo as the Adamo, but features a high res WXGA+ screen, an internal DVD drive, and the famed ThinkPad build quality and keyboard. All start at around $2000.

Where does the Adamo fit in all this? Its by far the heaviest, it should have build quality on par with the others (all four are built to exceedingly high standards), its the slowest, its not even the nicest looking in this group (Envy...really, best looking laptop out there at the moment), and the cheapest as equipped (with an SSD), though if you look at the higher end Adamo with the faster processor and larger SSD, its also the most expensive. So, looking at the most equivalent configurations, the Adamo is the heaviest, slowest, and most expensive. Congrats Dell, you've given us a brick - literally! And as nice looking as that brick is, it still is just a brick.

Comparison table after the break.

So I bought my new device.....

....and you know those requirements I had? The whole "notebooks are kind of big though, so lets look smaller" idea? How "if I was in for a 14" notebook, but really, a 5lb unit just isn't what I'm looking for right now. I want something lighter and smaller so that I can leave the Asus at home, and preferably a business ultraportable"....yeah, no, that all is out the window.

I bought an Asus W3J. For those of you who didn't closely follow Asus notebook lineup circa 2006, the W3J was like the Holy Grail of notebooks, similar to what the MacBook Pro became. It packed Intel's Core 2 Duo processors and ATI's vaunted Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card into a thin and light 4.8lb package, and featured a 14" widescreen and a brushed aluminum lid. It had a standard 8 cell battery and a modular bay, meaning that the optical drive could be hot-swapped out for a second battery or second hard drive. The unheralded feature in the W3J was its special "bamboo" hinge. The circular shaped hinge design meant that the force loading applied to the hinge when the lid is being opened or closed is distributed evenly across the full circle, as opposed to a normal notebook hinge where the load is applied to a single point. Because of this, the bamboo style hinge is incredibly durable, and can last for far longer than most standard hinges. (Ok, I'm an engineer - fatigue cycles make me happy.) The W3J's combination of performance, build quality, and portability is still excellent, even three years after the W3J debuted, not to mention that it is still one of the sexiest computers ever made. With the regular 8 cell and the modular bay battery, it'll give me around 5 hours of battery life, which is a full three times more than my current Asus W7S.

Honestly, the W3J is my favorite laptop of all time. Bar none, including the new MacBook, the Santa Rosa MacBook Pro, and the rather obscure but no less beastly LG P310 (13.3" screen, nVidia 9600M GT, 3.5lbs, 3 hours of battery life). The last time I was in for a laptop, two years ago, I tried really hard to get a W3J, but it proved too costly for me, and after it went out of production in 2007, it was nearly impossible to find used. It is still nearly impossible to find used, maybe even moreso now, since its an older model, so I jumped at the chance to pick one up, especially since I was in the market for a new device.

So, after all that "I want something more portable" business, I went out and bought a larger and more powerful laptop. Was it worth it? We'll find out shortly.

To: Macs. Re: Glory days are over, Windows.

This is a piece written by a friend of mine, since she felt like ranting about Macs. Not to start a Mac v PC debate (there are enough of those elsewhere on the internet), but its a pretty interesting read from the perspective of the average computer user. -- Vivek

Now, I'm no Vista-hugger. I don't wear stickers on my forehead that say "I'm a PC." I'm also not a techie. I don't code. In fact, I think the only kind of coding worth really having is color-coding (or color coordination, because there are too many colorblind geeks in the world). So if anything I say is wrong, the TechniMaster will correct it.  [You know, I think I like this new title, TechniMaster....I wonder if I could get people to refer to me as that in real life -VG]

Macs, to me, are like indie music (hordes of over-metaphored, over-cliched blog-readers, shut your tender ears). They were awesome before your little sibling started using them. Before the world realized that alternative meant "mainstream in a few years." That, my friends, is where PC and Mac differ.  Not in the shiny software or build or whatever. In their marketing... and, to be honestly mainstream and cliched again, consumption.  What is with the economy obsession...?

But let's be real. Admittedly, I bought a Vista-toting Vaio because my XP-toting Toshiba was, frankly, toting XP. I had the choice to endanger all those aging files by sticking them on another outdated computer, to render them useless by my media-changing unsavviness, or to use Vista. Vista, bubbly, happy, cute Vista. But hey, at least all the icons on the start menu looked the same. Unlike on those Macs in the UW computer labs, where contorted W's denoted Word (how convoluted is that, please?) and that demented smiley face was staring at me as though it were a program -- by way of update, the TechniMaster informs me that the smiley face meant Finder in OS X. Isn't that so.... intuitive?  I really want to click on happy faces when I'm madly searching for something. I'd prefer to click on evil faces, ala Cyanide and Happiness.

Let me give you an anecdote. Over the summer, I tried to put some lovely old Abba tracks on my Sansa e250... from a Mac. I can handle media messiness in Windows and in Ubuntu-like things, but I couldn't even find the Music folder on my mother's friend's Mac. I couldn't even find something vaguely like "My Computer." I love "My Computer." It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, as though I were really keeping track of everything I possess (don't I wish?). But I was telling a story. I couldn't figure out where exactly I'd attached my Sansa and I was seriously confused. Even in front of some non-techie forty-somethings, I felt so inadequate. I even googled (yes, I google with an uncapitalized g) "how to get mac to recognize and show me where my Sansa is." Inane thing about that... Google told me that it was a problem with my Sansa.  Because-- guess what-- my Sansa was formatted for Windows and things of that ilkage, and I should have changed the setting before blindly stabbing it into the Mac and hoping for a familiar window to pop up. 

Right now, that should just tell you that I don't know much about my Sansa. But it also says that Macs really are alternative music. The minute you start paralleling pop/rock and alt/indie, you're going to have to codeswitch. Okay, I used the word code for something other than computer-lingo and color-coordination. I'm a linguist, and the TechniMaster knows that. The analogies are on his head. [...good to know -VG] PCs and Macs are prettymuch dialects with little inter-intelligibility, talking to some poor sap with native fluency in PC and second-year level in Mac (in case you need help with random analogies, I'm that poor sap. Pity me). 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Macs are not my computers of choice. When it all comes down to brass tacks, I'm technologically a bit racist.  I choose my native technology. Although, if indie's mainstream now, and pop rock never stopped being mainstream, doesn't that mean...they're just one lovely inter-musical couple? I'm perfectly happy streaming Matchbox Twenty and Regina Spektor at the same time.

Oh, yes, I'm waiting for a technologial lovechild (would that be the AnthroPC?).  [or Linux.... -VG]

The Dealicist: Dell Latitude E6400

Dell's outlet store is a fantastic place to buy computers, offering great pricing on refurbished and newly returned notebooks. Add in perpetual 20% off coupons (sometimes more), and you're talking nearly brand new computer for easily 40% off the new price. This gets better with the Business outlet, where you can find refurb Latitudes, which are at the moment my favorite business laptops (more stylish than ThinkPads, more solid than HP Compaqs, usually cheaper than both).

Particularly appetizing is the Dell E6400, the 14"/5lb mainstream staple in the Latitude lineup. In base configuration, it has a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400, 1GB RAM (easily upgraded), a smallish 80GB hard drive, the Intel Montevina platform with the GM45 chipset and GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics, a 14" LED backlit WXGA screen (with a matte finish, too), great build quality (brushed aluminum lid!), very good keyboard, and a trackpoint mouse.

What can all this hotness be had for? I've seen base E6400 refurbs go as low as $569 on the Dell Outlet, which, with the current 20% off coupon, comes out to $455 plus tax (free shipping too, bless their souls). Depending on how much tax is in your state, thats right around $500 for a well built and well designed business laptop that will last you for quite a while. Whats the catch? Its refurbished, but with a computer this recent, that doesn't really mean much. From what I've seen and heard, Dell factory refurb units are famed for their quality and condition.

I'm in love. I would do this in a heartbeat if I was in for a 14" notebook, but really, a 5lb unit just isn't what I'm looking for right now. I want something lighter and smaller so that I can leave the Asus at home, and preferably a business ultraportable that can take a beating. This is why the E6400 still attracts me - even if it is bigger, I know that it can take whatever I throw at it (or whatever I throw it at....not to imply that I abuse my laptops or anything.)

On a related tangent: The ultraportable Latitude E4200 (2.2lbs, 12" screen, no optical drive, 64GB SSD standard; just to refresh your memory) starts at $849 on the outlet store, with the base specs of 1.2GHz ULV processor, Montevina/GMA 4500MHD, Vista Business, and that sexy, sexy 64GB solid state drive. Add in the coupon and tax, you're looking at roughly $750 for an ultraportable that can slaughter any netbook. I mean, just compare it to the (admittedly overpriced) $699 Asus EEE S101 - double the computing power, double the amount of flash memory, better keyboard, and significantly more screen real estate in an enclosure that is just as thin and light as the EEE, for only $50 more? Sign me up, please.