I highly recommend it as a remote control for a MythTV box. It’s a good small size (it’s smaller than it looks in the picture), the integrated trackpad is responsive and large and has both mouse buttons. There’s zero config needed for Linux (at least in Arch Linux). The range is good. There’s no useless extra media buttons that no-one uses. In short, it’s perfect.

Link to product on Logitech website.

It wouldn’t sit on the CPU properly because some capacitors on the motherboard got in the way of the cooling fins. It was also very hard to to install the motherboard anchors that the fan screws into. Be sure to avoid this fan on this motherboard.

For £30, in my opinion this is MUCH better than a iPod because it can play ogg vorbis files. I use it to listen to podcasts at the gym and it’s ideal – it remembers where you got to so you can easily listen to hour long files and the fast-forward is perfect. The clip on the back is the best feature – really handy for cliping to the exercise bike or the ergo handle.

It has 2GB internal memory and a card slot to increase the space if you need it. I have found a big flaw though – if you put too many large files in the memory it freezes when you unplug it from the computer with a message on the screen: “Refreshing your media.” – I have waited for hours for the message to go away but the only way to fix it is hold the power button down for several seconds until it turns off, then plug it back into the computer and remove some of the big files and see if it’s ok again when unplugged.

Wireless mice are good for cat owners because cats love pouncing on moving wires.

The one pain about this mouse is the battery life – it isn’t good. It seems to last about a month, tops. You have to remember to turn it off every time you stop using it which I find a headache – It would be good if it could turn off automatically when it has been stationary for a few minutes.

However it’s branded, it is brilliant!

What’s Good?

• It is so extremely vibrant and bright that it makes our Panasonic LCD look very dull.
• It only uses <0.1 Watt while on stand-by. So efficient that there's not even a proper "off" button.
• It “Powers up” really fast. There is a picture on the screen about 8 seconds after pressing the Power button on the remote.
• It’s got a good resolution (1080p).
• It’s thin (but, who cares unless you wall mount it?)

What’s bad?

• There’s no HDMI button on the remote – to select HDMI 1 for example you need to press 5 buttons (Source, Down, Down, Down, Select). This is really annoying because I need to do it every time I turn the telly on.
• Don’t bother connecting it to the Internet – it’s boringly slow and it can’t download firmware updates.
• It’s not Wii friendly. It’s too thin for the Wii sensor bar to sit on top of the TV but it also can’t sit at the bottom of the TV because the black base is so shiny that it disperses the IR and makes it inaccurate.
• The sound volume doesn’t have enough different levels towards the quiet level.

Our TV came with a free Blu-ray player (Samsung BDP1600XEU). I don’t recommend this player. Blu-ray movies often freeze and it takes ages to connect and disconnect with the TV. If you pause the movie and switch to watching TV for even a few seconds, when you come back, you’ll find the movie stopped and your position lost.

Actually, you are wrong – The internet does need another cat picture.

• Specs:
  • CPU: Intel i7-920 Quadcore incl. Hyper-Threading Technology.
  • RAM: 8 GB DDR3.
  • Disk: 2 x 750 GB SATA II (Software-RAID 1).
• Features:
  • LAMP – Full root access.
  • 24h Reset service via Webinterface – I already had to use this once due to a typo I made in the firewall configuration!
  • 92 GBit Bandwidth
  • Unlimited Traffic Usage – but the connection speed is restricted to 10 MBit/s if more than 2000 GB/month are exceeded.

Full Motherboard details: ASUS P5N7A-VM – micro ATX – GF 9300 / nForce 730i – LGA775 Socket – UDMA133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID), eSATA – Gigabit Ethernet – video – High Definition Audio (8-channel).

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (UK)

Price: £29.99

(186 customer reviews)

42 used & new available from £14.99

I looked around for quite a while to try to buy something non-Microsoft branded because I didn’t want to “feed the hand that bites us” but at the end of the day one has to be a bit pragmatic?

I highly recommend this keyboard – Everyone should upgrade from a standard keyboard because it’s not all that expensive and risking RSI is stupid (especially as a software developer I’m attached to my keyboard for more than 10 hours a day).

This is my list in order of importance when it comes to a happy computing experience (I could go on extensively about each point but won’t):

1. A machine with decent performance – the machine should always “think” faster than you?
2. Lighting fast internet connection – should be faster to Google something than disturb your co-worker to ask them?
3. Software freedom – should be able to choose your own tools.
4. Screen size – should have enough screen real estate to prevent the overhead of unnecessary window switching.
5. Comfortable keyboard and mouse – should try to prevent future RSI problems.