Da-Banana

Over a month ago I purchased a Samsung 940BX. I had the 15.4 inch widescreen monitor but I just wanted something a little larger for my main computer. I did some searching around but I eventually settled down with the Samsung. It was highly regarded and seemed to be the best priced for the quality. I must say, I'm quite impressed. It has a height adjustment that that allows you with enough room to get it as high or low as you need it. The colors on the monitor are quite bright. I noticed a difference in quality the second I booted it up. The screen also auto-adjusts and I've never even had to manually adjust it. Way better than my old CRT monitor which I had to adjust every time I changed resolutions. There is no annoying notification either, it just handles it perfectly. As for games and movies, I haven't had any issues. It has great picture and response time. I haven't noticed any ghosting or issues with it not refreshing fast enough. The viewing angle is also quite d...

I love using Linux. Earlier this year I purchased Doom 3 for the sole purpose of being able to play a high end game in Linux. I finished that game up a while ago and was once again wanting to have something in Linux. The next game I naturally chose was Quake 4. I love ID software for producing everything needed for these games to run native in Linux, and for that I'm gladly willing to support them so that they keep creating wonderful Linux games. I hope that other company will follow there example. The game arrived and I was very eager to give it a try. Once I installed the game I remembered that a major thing had changed in my computer since I had ran Doom 3. This change was my video card. I had changed from my Nvidia card, known for its quality driver in Linux to an ATI who hasn't had, in previous years, the greatest Linux drivers. Well, I installed the game and tried starting it up. I received then an error stating 'GL_ARB_texture_compression not found', then I would...

I've had a Gravis controller for several years. It was a nice contoller with two analog sticks and buttons galore but it had one major problem. Its drivers were horrible. I would install the drivers and the contoller would work for a while, but eventually it starts acting up. I'll plug it in but it wouldn't work until I would reboot the computer. Just recently I bought the new game Marvel Alliance. When I tried to start the game with my Gravis, the game just crashes. To start the game I had to make sure the contoller was not plugged in so I could at least play using the keyboard. This was very hard though. I couldn't easily do a lot of the needed combos. So my search began for a new controller. The battle was between two. I was looking at the Logitech and the Xbox 360 controller. I went with the Xbox 360 controller because I'd seen that there were drivers for it in Linux. I wasn't able to find anything for the Logitech. I don't have any current games in Linu...

I now have two computers up and running so naturally I needed a KVM. I looked around, but there are so many and they are all mostly the same. I had previously gotten a Zonet wireless card and loved how nicely it worked in Linux, so I looked at what Zonet had to offer as far as KVMs went. I looked and they had a new KVM model listed and it was listed to support Linux. It was a small sleek design and supports switching between 4 computers. It even has a button for each computer so you can move from one to another directly by hotkey or button. The one problem with it, as some might say, is that the cables are custom. They hook into the KVM using just the 15-pin VGA connector and then branch off at the end to hook up to the computer. I don't have a problem with this, but some people might. I've been using the KVM for over a week now and its working great. So, if you're looking for a great KVM for 4 computers, but don't wanna fork out tons of cash, then look not further. 4-p...

So, I decided to upgrade my video card. My old card was fine, but this card had VIVO and I thought I would be able to use it to do some neat things. The new card is an ATI X800 GTO VIVO built by Sapphire. It is in AGP form and has the R420 chipset. The card is fast, much faster than my previous nvidia Geforce 5900se. I can now play Call of Duty 2 in DirectX9 mode instead of having to bump it down to DX7 to get playable frame rates. The main concern of mine was how this would affect my Linux experience. Seeing as how I'm dual-booting Windows and Ubuntu, I was hoping this card wouldn't cause a problem. Much to my surprise, the card is supported now in Linux very well. ATI has come a long ways in the last several years. It was no trouble at all to get the card up and running with OpenGL support. All in all, the upgrade was quite worth it. Even though my processor is quite behind my video card, it still works fine. I was afraid that the CPU would be to much of a lackluster and not ...

I ordered from Amazon.com a couple of weeks ago a PCI wireless card for my computer. It arrived the day before Thanksgiving so I didn't get a chance to open it until I had gotten back from visiting family. I did a bit of searching to find the one I wanted. I ended up choosing Zonet because they like to use chips that work in Linux. The model is the zew1601 and it is a 54 mbps with WPA2 support. It has the RT2500 chipset and is supposed to work "Out of the Box" on most Linux distributions, specifically Ubuntu. I opened the box and got the card out. Installed it without a problem and hooked it up. Started the computer up into Ubuntu and checked the wireless cards and it was listed. Worked like a charm. Now all I had to do was connect it to the router. The problem is that the router is setup to use WPA. I already knew this though and had a guide ready for setting up the card. I followed it, copying the text into the interfaces file and then had it connect. Unfortunately, it ...

Earlier today I was browsing the web when I saw a deal on OfficeMax chairs. They had one of there Leather EZ chairs marked for a $50 dollar instant savings. I just had to check it out. I'd been planning on getting an office chair so I'd been on the lookout. Could this be the one I was looking for? I wanted something that was comfortable and could tilt back. I didn't think these were to large of requirements. Well, I went to Google Maps and searched for the nearest OfficeMax. I found several and chose the one to drive too. I got there, found the office chair section and began browsing for the one I was looking for. I found one I really like, but it was out of my price range and I knew it the second I saw it. The one I liked next though turned out to be the one from the website I saw. I sat down and it was very comfortable. It also rocked back just how I wanted. I looked around and only one other chair caught my eye. It was the same price, but had a massage built into it. I s...