I just got myself a wireless mouse to complement my notebook. Using the touchpad that comes with my notebook just isn’t as intuitive as using a mouse. And you have so much more control with a mouse. I’d only use the touchpad as a last resort when it comes to getting that all-important cursor to do my bidding.

So what got me to choose this mouse over many others I’d considered? Well, I’m the type who doesn’t buy things with features I don’t think I’ll ever need. I look for simple things that do what they’re supposed to do and do it without too much of a fuss. Call me mediocre or unexciting… boring. Just like this mouse. It’s sort of what a Toyota is to automobiles. Staid, sober in design, but as dependable as the mortar and pestle. If you want to crush stuff into a powdery consistency, the mortar and pestle is the way to go. If you want a notebook mouse that you can depend on to work as advertised, get the Logitech V220 Cordless Optical Mouse.

Design

Like I said, the V220 doesn’t break new ground in terms of looks. But it’s totally functional. It was made mainly to use with a notebook and when you think of notebooks, portability is a necessary goal. It’s “tall” enough for your palm to have something to rest on yet small enough to fit nicely into your bag’s pockets. It’s made to fit the hand of a lefty or uhm righty. It has a bit of heft which I appreciate. The weight makes it easier to control. The V220 has rubber side panels which make it virtually impossible to slip out of your hands. Though I don’t see that possibly happening unless your hands were the only part of your body with sweat pores. The scroll wheel is ridged, again for better “grip” and control.

Features

Aside from the usual left and right click functionality, the aforementioned scroll wheel also has a side-scroll feature for those mile-wide spreadsheets or 10-megapixel photos. This feature can only be enabled if you’ve installed the Logitech SetPoint software which is readily downloadable from the Logitech site.

This mouse doesn’t use a laser to verify it’s whereabouts on your table but an optical sensor which has the sensitivity of 1000dpi which is 2.5 times more accurate than sensors on standard optical mice. With the optical sensor, you can even use the mouse on your curvaceous lap and still do something useful on the screen. Quite handy when there isn’t a flat surface to rest it on.

The V220 comes with a USB mini-receiver that you can clip into the bottom of the mouse when you’re done using it. Doing that also turns the mouse off.

This mouse is powered by a AAA battery so it’s easy to find a replacement whenever the time comes which shouldn’t be that often as the battery is supposed to last at least 6 months. The SetPoint software even comes with a tab that let’s you see the battery status. Simply pacing your mouse over the SetPoint icon on your taskbar can reveal battery status as well:

Conclusion

Overall I’m happy with my purchase. Logitech is well known for their high quality and well-designed mice, keyboards, and hi-def webcams. So I feel this was money well spent. I don’t need a mouse with all the bells and whistles. If you want that then get the Logitech MX Revolution. But be prepared to pay a pretty penny too. The V220 goes for about $30 which is a reasonable amount if you expect quality and dependability which this mouse has serves up in spades.

Dell Latitude E6400

The Dell Latitude E6400 is no slouch when you take those virtues into consideration. One of Dell’s offerings in it’s newly revamped Latitude E-series business laptop line, the E6400 is covered not in flimsy plastic but magnesium alloy which is light and highly durable. This 4.3 pound beauty is a Centrino 2 platform based laptop that has a base 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU with RAM starting at 1GB (max 5GB) . A 14.1-inch widescreen display with a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels upgradeable to a brighter and sharper 1,440 x 900-pixel LED-backlit display powered by Intel’s GMA 4500HD IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) which shares memory from the main RAM. There is, however, an option for a version with a discrete Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M1 with 256MB of dedicated video RAM.

Connectivity will be no problem as it has Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi radios, 4 x USB 2.0, 1 x eSATA, mini-FireWire ports a GPS receiver as an option and a VGA-out. Too bad no HDMI connector for the Hi-Def crackheads out there. The base 80GB hard drive can also be replaced with a 64GB solid state drive which preempts data loss or storage device damage from a normally heart-stopping accidental drop from a table top.

Dell has all the bases covered on the Latitude E6400 when it comes to security features an afore-mentioned Dell virtue. Starting with the fingerprint sensor, TPM security chip to SmartCard slots and even contactless SmartCard. Then there’s something called ControlVault technology. Similar to the TPM chip, ControlVault stores sensitive encryption keys in the hardware. But while TPM requires software be installed on the hard drive to work, ControlVault uses the BIOS to store the application on. This eliminates the software layer as a potential avenue for a malicious attack.

But what really stands out about the Latitude E6400 is the unbelievable battery life. Your run of the mill laptop can give you 2-4 hours of battery life; probably 6-7 hours if you have a high-capacity battery. However, with this Dell, put in a let’s say 9-cell battery, then add an external 12-cell battery ’slice’ and up to 19 hours of true unplugged mobility is a possibility. Now that’s a lot of juice allowing the mobile worker to get a whole bunch of work done and still have the oomph to play a movie on a cross-country flight without having to worry about looking for a power-socket.

Look at the accessories Dell offers with their E-6400 which starts at $1,139 for the base model all the way to over $3000 for the give it all you got, money not an option perversion.

Dell Latitude E6400 Accessories

Go to the Dell website here to check out their new Latitude E-Series lineup and choose your pick…

Blaze Media Pro Video converter

Ever tried downloading the video file of a much-awaited episode of your favorite TV series only to realize your system doesn’t have the right codec (coder-decoder) to play the video. One solution to this issue would be to use software that can convert the file to a format that your video player supports.

One piece of software I highly recommend is Blaze Media Pro 8.02. It canconvert WMV to AVI for example among a long list of other formats namely MPEG Layer-3 (MP3), MPEG Layer-2 (MP2), OGG Vorbis (OGG), Active Streaming Format (ASF), MPEG Video (MPG, MPEG, MPE), Windows Media Audio (WMA), Apple QuickTime (MOV, QT), Windows Audio (WAV), Audio CD (CDA), MP2 (MPEG 1/2 Layer-2), VOX (Dialogic ADPCM), RAW audio (PCM, A-LAW, U-LAW), MPC (MusicPack), G.726, G.723, G.721, Video CD (DAT), Media Playlists (ASX, WAX, M3U, WVX), MIDI, AIFF, AU, SND… you probably tuned out a few formats back.

So, not only can Blaze Media Pro convert video and audio formats, it also has full-featured audio editor’s capabilities, advanced Audio CD burner features, and a complete and powerful digital video editor.

If you’d rather not have multiple programs installed on your clunker of a PC just to satisfy your audio/video format conversion and audio/video editing needs, it’s always best to get all that functionality in one program. Blaze Media Pro 8.02 would be the prudent choice in my opinion.

Check all the features of this powerful solution out at the Blaze Media Pro website here.

ZoneAlarm Forcefield

ZoneAlarm Forcefield from Check Point (makers of the extremely popular ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall) literally keeps your browser in a so-called “protective bubble” isolating it from important areas of the operating system like the registry or system files. So, if ever you make the mistake of downloading malware through the browser or visit a website with malicious code, the bad stuff gets trapped within that bubble. This ensures your system is safe from any possible attacks through a browser. Forcefield uses some of the most powerful anti-phishing technology and a virtualization engine to keep your system safe while you surf the web.

ZoneAlarm Forcefield normally goes for USD29.95. But for a very limited time, that is from 6am PST August 12 ‘08 to 6 am PST August 13 ‘08, Check Point is offering Forcefield as a FREE download. After registering at the Checkpoint site, you will recieve an email with the download URL and a License Key to activate the software. The license key is valid for one year for use on one computer.

Get ZoneAlarm Forcefield here before the offer expires!

Having owned my own little corner website for the past few months, I’ve experienced some ups and downs when it came to the reliability of the service provided by my site’s current host. But hey, I’m paying a dollar a month for crying out loud. But I’m pretty happy with support so far. Up time has probably been 95%+ over the four months I’ve been using my current webhosting service.

Looking for a good webhost can take a good chunk of your time. Imagine having to go through forums asking folks what they recommend, emailing friends who may already have a website, and reading through reviews scattered all over the Internet. All of this because you want to plunk your hard earned cash into a webhosting service that’s worth every penny.

I’ve come across a website that has a pretty extensive database of webhosting reviews all in one place. Here you can read through opinions of folks who have used the webhosting services of tens of providers represented in this site. Head on over to the Webhosting Geeks website and find that gem of a webhost which can spell success for your online endeavor.

It may not be much of a big thing for a lot of you bloggers out there or most likely for you non-blogging visitors but it is for me. It’s sort of a validation of how important this blog is in the vast expanse of bits and bytes called the internet. Finally after three months of work the Google PageRank cometh. And a 3 at that! I don’t know how long this will last, but I’m revelling in the experience all the same.

You can get the stats of the webpages you visit by using the Firefox add-on Search Status.

Now I hope I can maintain or even increase this as the days go by. Man, It’s like I got an adrenaline injection. I feel like posting more often.

A lot of reviews have highlighted how difficult it is to get much work done with the tiny keys and how the keyboard layouts on some netbooks are making it an exercise in futility to churn a medium-sized document out without cursing every now and then.

Well who said touch-typing and making use of ALL your fingers was the only way to get that report or thesis out in a jiffy? Watch the video below as Jenn from Pocketables types at a very respectable 62 words per minute on a keyboard that’s even smaller than the ones found on the Acer Aspire One and Eee PC 701/900/901. She’s typing on a Kohjinsha SC3 by the way. One of the more expensive ultraportables out there.

Kohjinsha SC3 typing speed test from Jenn Lee on Vimeo.

Now that’s touch-typing.

I like the Dashboard layout better:

It just seems cleaner is all.

If you want to catch up on the new features available with this new iteration of WordPress just watch this video:

The upgrade process was again painless for me thanks to the help of the Automatic WordPress Upgrade plugin. No more than three minutes after initiating the upgrade process I was good to go.

I so dig the “Theme Preview” feature. Without it I wouldn’t have dared change my old theme. What do you think about my new theme?