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For now, this
page just consists of brief discussions of these parts and certain
companies to look for when shopping for them. Don't expect in-depth
discussions for most of these though.
Cases:
- The
cases that you use can be more important than one might think.
They don't do much electronically other than supplying the power to
the components, but they do need to be designed well enough to allow
heat to flow through them and out. They also need to be easily
accessible and not cramped on the inside. The more expansion
bays they support, the better. Size is also important.
The different sizes are Mini-Tower, Mid-Tower, Full-Tower, and
Desktop cases. My pick for the best case is Addtronics' Server
Tower case. Although it's pretty expensive, it will provide
great cooling and a lot of expansion space. It has a total of
8 exposed bays, front panel pops off, side doors swing open, top
pops off, motherboard tray slides out, it has space for at least 8
fans, it has air filters for the fans, and many other nice features.
There is also a Mid-Tower version of this case. Other good cases are
made by InWin, CalPC, and PC Power and Cooling.
- My
favorite case is made under several different names including
Addtronics and SuperMicro SC750-A. It's an expensive server
tower case, but it is very well-made and easy to work with.
There's plenty of room for expansion and extra cooling fans.
- 1/17/00
Update- InWin has improved on the design of the MidTower, and I
would suggest it as a good, low cost case. Their Full Tower is
also pretty nice and inexpensive (Q500).
Mice:
- 3/1/00
Update- Microsoft's IntelliMouse Explorer uses a miniature digital
camera type tool that takes 1500 pictures per second, comparing each
to the last, providing for great accuracy. It also has two
additional buttons that can be configured for Back/Forward,
Copy/Paste, etc. which come in really handy. This mouse is not
the greatest for games though as it doesn't respond well to quick
jerks of the mouse across the surface. That is the word on the
street anyway. In my own experience, this mouse has performed
very well in demanding games like Quake 3 with very smooth movement
throughout the game. Another complaint is that the mouse has
been reported to have problems with the left click button going bad
and double clicking everything. While I have not experienced
this yet, it sounds like it is a common problem. Conclusion:
It's a nice mouse for doing 2D work, but not for your gaming.
You must also be aware of the potential problem of the mouse's left
click going bad.
- Microsoft's
IntelliMouse has a nice shape and is very useful in browsing the web
with its wheel. It allows you to look up and down web pages
without moving over to the scroll bar or using the keyboard (yeah,
we're getting lazy). It can also be found under $20.
- The
USB version of this mouse is even better as it has a higher sampling
rate. This allows it to have very smooth movement in computer
games among other things. However, don't count on support
during Windows '95/98 setup or SafeMode!
Keyboards:
- 3/1/00
Update -- Microsoft has a new version of the Natural Keyboard Elite
- the Natural Keyboard Pro. There are a few
improvements that really make this a great keyboard. First,
the arrow keys are back to normal size. Second, this keyboard
is built like USB components are supposed to be with a port for
another USB component to be connected to it (called daisy chaining -
and there's actually 2 extra ports). It also has a lot of
great hotkeys for forward and backward in your browser, launch My
Computer, play your CD-ROM, etc.
- Microsoft's
Natural Keyboard Elite is a very nice keyboard. It has a great
ergonomical design and can be used as PS/2 or USB. In less
than a week, you will grow to love the "natural" design of
the keyboard. A newer version of the keyboard has a 2 port USB
hub on it as well as hotkeys for going forward and back in your
browser and much more.
- Logitech
also makes a nice "regular" keyboard that comes with an AT
and PS/2 connector. The keys are soft, and the shape is
smooth.
Removable
Drives:
- My
favorite pick is Iomega's Zip Drive, but not necessarily because
it's the fastest. It is the most widely accepted removable
drive, it's fairly quick, it has a fairly large capacity, and it
comes in a variety of interfaces (parallel port, SCSI, and IDE).
The Plus! drive is supposed to work with SCSI or parallel port, but
I tried one and couldn't get it to work properly with my SCSI
card. It also won't allow you to daisychain SCSI devices,
even though it originally claimed to. Other drives to consider
are the LS-120 SuperDrive and SyQuest's drives.
- 10/10/99
Update- A new drive, the Castlewood Orb 2.2 GB, is the best,
cheapest removable storage out there. The disks are only about
$25 - not bad for 2.2 GB!
- The
Jazz 2 GB removable drive is also a good, fast drive for larger
storage. SyQuest's SparQ drive is also a good buy, because of
the price. The only problem with it is that there isn't a SCSI
version of the drive.
Scanners:
- Scanners
allow you to turn photographs, etc. into a digital format so they
can be used in your documents, put on the Internet, etc. The
main thing to look for is the DPI that the scanner will scan at.
The higher the better. Hewlett Packard's scanners are probably
the best you can get, but they are also quite expensive (for their
better ones). One of the best I've used is the ScanJet 6100C.
Comparable is the older ScanJet 4C. Be VERY careful with
off-brand scanners. Usually they aren't of very good quality
and will produce poor images. A lot of it depends on what you
are going to do with the pictures. Most home use will not
require a scanner to scan at incredibly high resolutions... In
my opinion, you should avoid a Parallel port scanner unless you
don't have a SCSI card or don't want to pay
the extra money for one.
- 1/17/00
Update- MicroTek's X6EL is probably the best scanner to get for
speed, features, and price. It's one of the few affordable
scanners that also does a great job of scanning.
Video Capture:
- These
cards have a lot of different aspects to consider. I'd advise
looking at different reviews of the cards as opposed to just their
specifications (which don't usually give you all the necessary
information). You should consider capture size, number of
colors supported, compression ratios, input and output capabilities,
frame rates, etc. Definitely the best value is the Iomega Buzz
which costs under $200 and does video capture as good as cards that
cost $1000 or more (Miro's DC30 Plus). If you can afford it,
the high-end Targa cards are about the best you can get (most are
over $2000 though). Some all-in-one video
cards like Canopus' Total 3D do low-resolution video capture as
well.
10/10/99 Update- Asus now makes TNT2 Ultra based video cards that
will also do video capture, but at low resolutions.
Considering it is one of the best video cards out there, I would
highly advise it if you are wanting cheap video capture also.
Digital
Cameras:
- 3/1/00
Update -- The recommendations below (DC260, DC210) still hold, but
if you have the money, the newer Kodak DC290 is the one to get.
It features 2.1 megapixel photos for incredible quality.
- 1/17/00
Update -- The DC210 listed below is still a great camera, but there
are better ones out there. Among those are the Kodak DC260,
Nikon CoolPix cameras, and many others. I'm not a photography
expert, so I won't go too much into these. I have used a lot
of the Kodak cameras though, and I do like the quality pictures they
produce.
- Here,
I'm only going to discuss cameras I've used. My favorite pick
here is Kodak's DC210 camera. It has several slots for memory
expansion and produces very high-quality, high-resolution images.
Another good (old) camera I've used is Kodak's DC120. Avoid
the Apple Quick Take cameras as they have all had poor quality and
drain batteries in a few hours. Also, the Casios that I have
seen aren't very high quality either.
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