Wire Less

It never really occured to us about how old the computers we use (both our home desktop and our laptop) were. Well, that's not entirely true. We know the desktop and the laptop are both 7 years old, just how slow it can be to start it up Windows XP (we'll turn the thing on and then go do something else for about 10-15 minutes), how at times programs will hang up on us for no apparent reason, how we constantly turn on the Windows Task Manager to check on running programs and which ones we can safely terminate, and how it taught us patience.

So, let us rephrase our starting sentence. We have forgotten just how fast computers can be nowadays.

That is, until recently where we've gotten a new laptop. It partly reminded us of when we were getting our desktop 7 years ago, because of one thing: the graphics card. Not keeping in developments for graphics cards meant we have no idea of the difference between the bloody model numbers that they're named. Hence we resort to checking the hardware requirements for games for a rough idea.

Other than that, we know our own minimal requirements for the processor and memory etc, and we got ourself a little beauty that made us feel pretty suaku about technology!

Imagine, Windows 7 has been around for a year and we've only started experiencing it now, going, "Gosh it does this! OMG it does that!" Very undignified, but hey, we're enjoying our new toy and it wasn't even an Apple product. Yes, rather amazing, as normally it's Apple who's able to wow us with it's marketing hype and great aesthetics while with Windows we just go, oh, ok. This time what we feel with Windows 7 is more of like how we feel when the iPod Touch and iPhone gets an iOS update, say from iOS1 to iOS2.

Thankfully we'd Lifehacker to help out with the new features and keyboard shortcuts, as well as some other program suggestions to install other than those that we already use, like iTunes, Handbrake and Dropbox.

We almost digressed into the topics of Nokia vs Apple with regards to things like advertisements, software updates and the likes.

Anyways.

Since our new toy is a laptop, the next step towards making it more useful to us for playing Starcraft 2 is to get ourself a mouse. And quite likely a keyboard too, as we felt the chiclet keyboard took some getting used to (plus not to mention we worry if it can handle the abuse). In our haste we dragged the Chief to Low Yat to see what was currently available. Only, after a couple of hours it was pretty obvious that we were only ever considering Logitech or Microsoft (no, we weren't keen on shelling out for Razer) while the Chief thought any brand would do so long as it met our specifications.

Our specifications? Well, near impossible to meet, probably.

Firstly we hadn't decided if we were going to get a wireless keyboard and mouse, or a USB cabled one. After some mulling we were leaning towards getting a wireless set as that would only use a single USB port rather than two (one for keyboard, one for the mouse). Also, we had some other project in mind that required the wireless keyboard and mouse.

We wanted a keyboard with the numeric keypad intact, after all, what's the point of a bigger keyboard if it's just similar to the current keyboard as on the laptop?

We were also looking for a keyboard that wasn't large and bulky. Yes, well, we were really pushing our luck with that demand. We actually even considered getting a laptop bag just slightly larger than the current one that came with the laptop, just so that it could accommodate such a keyboard.

Somehow that first day shopping we had an image of Nokia's wireless keyboard imprinted in our brain, a model of the sort of keyboard we were looking for. Well, nearly the sort of keyboard we were looking for. All that was missing was the numpad. Otherwise, it was ideal, being foldable for portability.

The Chief did point out some admittedly usable options for whatever we were looking for, by brands we've never heard of before this, but we always found some excuse why we weren't interested.

Yes, admittedly we're a brand whore.

But a poor brand whore. That puts Apple's wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse, both costing RM229 each, out of the picture. Not to mention the keyboard doesn't even have numpad. We could get a rather good wireless keyboard and mouse set from the others for less than that price. We haven't really a budget but we get rather hesitant when the price tag reads over RM100. That rules out keyboards akin to the Nokia one as those won't come cheap too.

Oh there were a few more bits and pieces to pick on when it came to deciding on the keyboard and mouse, and in the end we didn't get any and the Chief loaned us an old Logitech wireless mouse (not the birthday gift from the TTDI gang, though!), which so far serves us well.

We probably will skimp and save for the Logitech Unifying series when we can.

The project? We kinda fancy plugging up the laptop to the telly with a HDMI cable, followed by some serious sofa slouching with keyboard on lap and mouse beside us as we play Starcraft 2 enjoy the big screen!