Miscellaneous Hardware Page

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.