In short: Use Garmin if you can afford it. The problem with Polar devices is that they are not only proprietary themselves but you can’t operate them without using additional proprietary software. If you don’t like the default Polar M460 sport profiles and screens (and no, you won’t like them), you must find someone with… Continue reading Using Polar M460 on GNU/Linux
Category: Hardware
I think I want that keyboard (and mouse)
KeyMouse keyboard looks interesting. It seems to be better than any of the other ergonomic keyboards I looked at as it provides all of the following: Everything seems to be reasonably reachable (maybe after remapping some keys). It’s curved. The left and right parts of the keyboard are completely separated, permitting to position the hands… Continue reading I think I want that keyboard (and mouse)
Driver info update
Updates on my driver info pages: Updated information about Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 keyboard, especially a link to a guideline how to make the zoom key working was added. Added information about Genius G-Pen F610 tablet.
New hard drive
In the last years adding new hard drives to desktop computers running GNU/Linux used to be very easy. The drive was just connected to the computer, partitioned, formatted and it worked well. It seems it may not be that easy now again. I’ve bought a new Western Digital Caviar Green hard drive some time ago.… Continue reading New hard drive
Are AMD processors of any worth?
I looked at a price list of PC CPUs after some time and wondered what AMD Phenom is. So I looked at the AMD website. To keep the story short I’ll limit my experience to a single FAQ entry labeled What is the AMD Phenom(TM) processor?, well representing overall information provided there. The first part… Continue reading Are AMD processors of any worth?
Microsoft user
I’ve been a user of Microsoft products for some time now. No, I didn’t install their operating system on my workstation of course. But I started to use their Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 wireless keyboard + mouse set. When looking for an ergonomic wireless keyboard several months ago I’ve found that the Natural 7000 set… Continue reading Microsoft user
Scanning films with flatbed and film scanners
Film scanners are often claimed to be superior to flatbed scanners when scanning 35 mm films. The harder thing is to find actual facts supporting such claims. Actually it’s possible to find samples suggesting there is no significant difference between the scanners. And even Minolta was able to find the only relevant argument for film… Continue reading Scanning films with flatbed and film scanners
Proprietary drivers and Linux
ATI graphics cards suck and I can’t recommend buying them. I’ve spent significant amount of time trying to get run their proprietary drivers on Linux and the conclusion is that the X.Org free drivers are dozen times better than those from ATI, despite 3D acceleration and TV-out don’t work with my ATI card. Effectively, my… Continue reading Proprietary drivers and Linux
AMD64 dual core as a power saving solution
One of the interesting features of the AMD64 X2 architecture is that its declared power consumption is not higher than of single core AMD64 processors running on similar frequencies. So if you perform significant amount of tasks that can be parallelized (e.g. running a build daemon), you can choose between two different advantages of the… Continue reading AMD64 dual core as a power saving solution
AMD64 performance
Having finally an AMD64 system in my hands, I’m positively surprised by its performance. When I switched from a Duron 650 MHz to a Celeron 2.6 GHz a few years ago, the performance increased much less than I expected. This applied to Sempron 2400+ (~1.6 GHz?, Socket A) as well, it ran only slightly faster than the… Continue reading AMD64 performance