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>d DON'T plan on using a wireless mouse or keyboard - those things are so range-crippled now that unless you are within a couple of feet of the receiver (and I mean that literally: less than 4 feet!) they won't work (and that's not some no-name keyboard: that's a Logitech).

I have an el cheapo Microsoft wireless keyboard that gives me over 6 feet. At work I bought the IOGEAR long range wireless mouse/keyboard combo. Gets at least 20 feet, probably a lot more but I never bothered to check. Costs around the same price as a cheap wireless keyboard too.

http://www.iogear.com/product/GKM541R/

We use IOGEAR's USB-to-VGA adapters at work with our laptops for a 3rd monitor. It works great, and uses the DisplayLink software. They also make a USB-to-DVI adapter.

I get USB chargable devices.

First of all I try to get things that will charge via USB.

For instance your Nintendo DS IS USB chargeable. I don't have a DS, but I do have the GBA equivalent to this nice Pelican charger kit. I use the cigarette lighter to USB adapter to charge other low wattage devices, like my iRiver when I'm in the car, not just my GBA SP and GBA Micro (it wasn't powerful enough for any of my previous phones though).

I bought a PSP a few days ago, I know it's also USB chargeable, I just haven't picked up an adapter yet.

My Jabra JX10 doesn't take much wattage to charge, neither does my Skype phone I use the USB ports on the back of my KVM to charge those. The KVM is powered, so thats 1 power port for 3 devices.

I've changed phones many times in the last year, my company keeps swapping them out on me. All three of the phones they've given me in the past year, an older Motorola Q, a Blackberry Curve, and now the older model iPhone all use USB to charge. For the iPhone I actually bought an alarm clock to handle charging that.

I used to think the idea of using USB to power things was ludicrous, mostly because the first things I saw utilizing USB power were fans, lights, and mini vacs, just stupid little power suckers. Now that I've actually been utilizing it I've been freeing up the power strip. Things like this and this actually seem worth buying.

Most of my Latitudes (work computers / ex-work computers, etc.) have both. Inspirons (home line) tend to only have touch pads. I prefer an external mouse in any case.

This. I keep one of these with my notebook, which connects to it with the built-in Bluetooth without any problems on Windows or Linux. It runs on a couple of NiMH AAAs, which it can recharge over USB (or you can just pop in another set and recharge them elsewhere).

Before that, I packed a Microsoft corded optical mouse. They're nice (they're what I use at home) and don't cost much, but they take a bit more space in the notebook bag.

This IO Gear wireless keyboard and mouse set works VERY well. In our conference room we had a standard set, and even a Gyration, before getting this, nothing compares. We were constantly loosing mouse movement or missing keystrokes. Most of the desktop wireless keyboards and mice are made to work well within 6ft of the computer, the IO Gear will easily do 25ft without loosing keystrokes.

Memory stick, SD card, whatever you want, our friends like IOGear make this a moot point - eg. http://www.iogear.com/product_images/main/format3/GFR202SD.jpg

Old doesn't mean inferior, that's a new (and often incorrect) idea.

However maintaining legacy technology adds unnecessary overhead and can lead to unstable products and is therefore bad.

There's plenty of devices that require a serial port to plug into. Also, how are USB keyboards/mice better than the PS/2 versions? I've got a KVM switch that uses PS/2 ports, not USB, so I simply wouldn't buy a computer without it.

So buy a new KVM switch?

I don't have much use for PATA, a floppy drive, or a parallel port. For a server I wouldn't buy one without a floppy drive (BIOS flashing, driver disks).

Use a bootable CD for flashing your BIOS and most driver disks nowadays come on floppy disks. For that matter, isn't it just that much more convenient to take 20 drivers and concatenate them all onto a single CD-R for each workstation?

here you go

and then I got rid of it.

Fricken' batteries dieing all the time. Who needs it?

When the batteries in this mouse need a charge, you use the (included) USB cable to recharge. You could bring spares if you want, but why bother?

Why didn't you go with a USB to Parallel adapter.

IOGear 4D Cruiser is a pretty nice mouse but not wireless yet. This uses a track ball rather than a touch pad for scroll directions (horizontal and vertical). I've been using it for about a 1.5 years at work and have seriously considered getting one for home (if my mouse ever dies). I seem to recall the price being under $20 (USD).

Iogear has had a 2D scrolling trackball mounted on an optical mouse for years now. See http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GM E421&PHPSESSID=6375c6dc2f0083e0512b2b3078a7b759 Sheesh; someone puts a touchpad on something and all of the sudden it "new hotness".

i love this mouse. the little ball lets me do horizontal as well as vertical scrolling. works under X as a 7button mouse without additional kajiggering. i only wish the scrollball were also optical, since it's a pain to clean.

I purchased an IOgear Smartlink cable. I had to use USB 1.1 due to OS and hardware inadequacies, but there may be a USB 2.0 option (though I don't see it on the IOgear site). The connection software is pretty crummy-looking, but it works, and their site claims that it supports Macs as well Windows (although I have not used it on a Mac). Since it's USB 1.1, it is as slow as molassass for entire-drive transfers, and you may prefer a different method.

Another option I looked into was an ethernet crossover cable, which, I believe swaps two of the wires over the course of the cable run. This was available at RadioShack (and I am sure other places). I decided not to go down this route, and it sounds like a no go for you as well, but I'm including it for the sake of completeness.

The third thing that might work is an external harddrive. I didn't use one because of the expense, but it may be worth it if you don't want to wait while your files transfer via USB. If you're doing smallish (less than 1GB) transfers, a thumb-drive may be the easiest way to do this.

It is VERY important that you do not try a straight USB to USB connection without the bridge cable. I understand that it can fry the USB ports on the machines. If you look at the image of the Smartlink cable on the page linked above, you'll see a bulge in the middle of the cable. That's the USB 'slave' that allows both computers to act as masters when doing the file transfer. FireWire may be a different story though, as you may just be able to plug it right in (no guarantees, though).

While you're patching your lovely Windows box and doing the reboot parade, why not switch over to your Mac Mini and catch up on some Ruby tutorials? =)

non-mac user people I know still have PS2 keyboards and often PS2 mice

I got a KVM that uses PS/2 keyboard & mouse & connects to the computers via USB. (iBook & PC @ home, G4 MDD tower & PC @ work)

If my Expert "Mouse" trackball goes nuts or gets unplugged I can power-cycle the KVM by unplugging it instead of rebooting the computer.

Also, you can use Screen Spanning Doctor to run displays at higher than built-in display resolution from iBooks and eMacs. Now that you can get SuperDrives in iBooks, they look pretty nice.

so? IOGear had 4 port PS/2 kvm switches available with cables like this one for around a $100 a few years ago on various retailers or ebay. You can get a refurb one for about $70 from them.

I have a 2-port IOGEAR Miniview USB KVM switch that was about $100 with cables a couple of years ago. It works excellent.

Like the IOGEAR SmartLink? True, it's not just built-in, but it is possible.

I use this for presentations with powerpoint, works great and its PS2, so it should work with anything.

"Never had a problem with it. Be aware, though, that if you are using it with KVM, that Win2K/XP boxes need to have access to said devices while they power up, or they won't be recognized until you reboot."

I've had problems with it sometimes "forgetting" that there were devices attached. That would happen under Windows W2K and Linux. ONLY a rebbot would fix it.

We use the IOGear GUC100KM.

These are both larger and more expensive (List price $50) than the adapters mentioned in the original article, but they work, and are supported under Win 98, 98SE, 2000, ME, XP, MAC OS 8.6 or greater and SUN Solaris 8/9.

... and works just fine: IOGear's PS2-USB adapter

Never had a problem with it. Be aware, though, that if you are using it with KVM, that Win2K/XP boxes need to have access to said devices while they power up, or they won't be recognized until you reboot.

There are devices designed for just this purpose. They will allow you to send video + USB (+ maybe sound) over a single Cat 5e cable. They seem to work pretty well too. Here's one such device, though I've also seen them from Compaq and others:
http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&product _id=380
--Quentin

Well, here's what's in the cavern I call a backpack:

A Mini-Mouse
I don't know about the rest of you, but for me a button pointer or trackpad just can't beat the feel of a mouse. MacAlly makes a niftly little mouse called the iOptiJr, which is just the smaller version of the iSweetNet. Nice and small, thus very precise; two buttons, wheel button, and programmable, and it's Mac/PC compatible. But... you'll have to get used to it being so small. I think other mice are big and bulky by comparison now, but that's because I got used to this one. You may need to install drivers, depending on your machine. You can get a wireless version, but then you have to worry about batteries. Optical is WAY better than your basic mechanical ball... unless you're using it on the surface of your laptop, or another shiny/sparkly surface. Think ahead.

A Mini USB Hub
Here's a slick one by IOGear. This has proved useful occasionally, but I haven't used it in over six months. Buy at your discretion. Mine (Not the IOGear one; a different brand) came with a cable that was split into two USB plugs; one to provide basic functionality, and one to provide added power, so you could use more power-hungry devices (like external USB floppy drives, scanners, etc.) without needing to plug the hub into the wall. But... this can drain the power of your laptop if you aren't careful.

A Wireless Network Card
If your machine doesn't ship with one (or with functionality on the motherboard), buy yourself an 802.11g PCMCIA card. They're backwards compatible with 802.11b, and network access (copying files, etc.) is up to five times faster. However, this won't matter for internet access unless your sitting behind a T3. If you aren't planning on networking large files EVER, than spend half as much on 802.11b. Definitely get one though, because most internet cafes and hotspots are swithcing to wireless-only access, if they haven't already.

A Portable Flatbed Scanner
Obviously, this'll only matter if you need one. But I've found Canon's LIDE series (I've got the LIDE 30)to be a nice addition to my bag. Good quality, fast, small (same footprint as my 17-inch powerbook, and only 1.5 inches think!), and it's powered by the USB cable!

A Webcam
there are about a billion and a half of these out there. Think about what you're actually going to use it for, if anything. Don't spend extra because it's detachable and can take still photos. You're better off buying a digital camera. I've never needed one, but you might.

A Bluetooth Adapter PCMCIA Card or USB dongle.
This may be a non-issue for you, but if you have or think you might get any bluetooth devices (such as a wireless mouse or Bluetooth-enable PDA), this could well be worth the money. Again, it may already be on your motherboard.

Cables! (Oh, and a cable bag.)
Okay, one USB cable, normal-sized, and one of the mini-plugged ones, for digital cameras and other devices. Although... I've never needed to use this. (I try to stay as modular as possible, and use things that work with more standardized cables, etc.) A firewire 6-pin to 6-pin (for large devices such as drives), and a 6-pin to 4-pin, for smaller devices such as DV-camcorders. Other cables (such as a USB light, A/V and monitor cables, etc.) are up to you.

A Digital Camera
Obviously, not a necessity for a laptop user, but usually pretty handy if you don't have one. Buy one that uses Compact Flash (cheapest memory, MB/dollar), and AA batteries. Buy rechargables, highest capacity you can find... usually around 1800-2200 mA. Oh, and you can get a great 30-minute charger by Energizer for about $40 at Best Bu

Yeah, I haven't been a fan of Belkin since having to use their KVM stuff back in the days of ADB. While their PC KVM stuff was far from cheap, they charged (and still charge) absolutely extortionate prices for Mac KVM equipment. Also, their solutions were sloppy-- if you wanted to switch between an ADB Mac and a PS/2 PC, it required a ridiculous mess of cables and adapter boxes with ports on multiple sides that was completely impossible to set up neatly, especially in limited space like your average office cubicle.

These days we just get an IOGear MiniView Micro and a cheap PS/2-USB "Y" adapter (and for older Macs, a cheap USB PCI card), and all of those combined cost a fraction of what we paid Belkin for just their Mac ADB KVM adapter back in the day.

You mean like this?

Here's Iogear's mouse with a trackball in the top of it. I checked it out about a year ago. It's not a bad product but the ball is so small it's difficult to maneuver precisely with it (not that there's much call for that, but anyway)...

4D Optical Web Cruiser by iogear. Granted, it's not the exact same thing... it's far superior. Wonder why IOGear didn't get a BBC feature?

"How long before I get a trackball embedded in my mouse?"

a company called iogear make a mouse with a trackball for scrolling.

www.iogear.com

GME421

"How long before I get a trackball embedded in my mouse?"

a company called iogear make a mouse with a trackball for scrolling.

www.iogear.com

GME421

1600 x 1200 resolution at 75 Hertz refresh rate is: 1600*1200*75 = 144 MegaHertz. The video system bandwidth must be much greater than that to avoid ruining the video quality. That's why even the $30 nVidia video adapters have a 300 MegaHertz RAMDAC (digital to analog converter).

19 inch CRT monitors with a 1600 x 1200 resolution cost as little as $225, so that resolution is becoming a standard.

It is a big technical achievement to switch 1600 x 1200 resolution without video degradation. IO Gear does it by having special video processing amplifiers inside the KVM switch. Building a KVM switch is not something most people would want to attempt, because it would cost so much in time.

As was mentioned above, #5923272, a tuner is a good cheap solution. They can be had at garage sales for considerably less than $50 sometimes. Mostly you don't want to switch the audio when you switch computers. It interrupts whatever you are listening. For example, presumably you want only one computer signaling if you have email.

IO Gear is a little bit flaky at times. Notice that their GCS1714 KVM switch is listed with a "case weight" of 27.25 pounds, but the weight of an entire package is listed as 4.7 pounds. Presumably they mean the weight of a case of KVM switches, but the quantity is not specified.

1600 x 1200 resolution at 75 Hertz refresh rate is: 1600*1200*75 = 144 MegaHertz. The video system bandwidth must be much greater than that to avoid ruining the video quality. That's why even the $30 nVidia video adapters have a 300 MegaHertz RAMDAC (digital to analog converter).

19 inch CRT monitors with a 1600 x 1200 resolution cost as little as $225, so that resolution is becoming a standard.

It is a big technical achievement to switch 1600 x 1200 resolution without video degradation. IO Gear does it by having special video processing amplifiers inside the KVM switch. Building a KVM switch is not something most people would want to attempt, because it would cost so much in time.

As was mentioned above, #5923272, a tuner is a good cheap solution. They can be had at garage sales for considerably less than $50 sometimes. Mostly you don't want to switch the audio when you switch computers. It interrupts whatever you are listening. For example, presumably you want only one computer signaling if you have email.

IO Gear is a little bit flaky at times. Notice that their GCS1714 KVM switch is listed with a "case weight" of 27.25 pounds, but the weight of an entire package is listed as 4.7 pounds. Presumably they mean the weight of a case of KVM switches, but the quantity is not specified.

"There is no more comfortable keyboard, I hope someone makes a ps2 keyboard to usb adapter, so they dont become obsolete."

Like this PS/2 to USB adapter?

And yes it does work with the IBM "M" keyboards. One issue I did have, not certain if it was just this particular MB (Kt7a). But the system would occasionally forget about the keyboard, and a cold start would be needed to bring it back. This happened under both Linux and W2K.

Look around there are some more interesting accesories there as well.

It seems to me that, if you are using Windows XP and a hardware firewall, it is better to use the ZoneAlarm software firewall. Then you can run VisualZone, and quickly see whether anything has gotten through your hardware firewall. Don't worry about ZoneAlarm's RAM use. RAM is cheap.

ZoneAlarm works well with Windows XP. It is necessary to disable Microsoft's firewall, of course; you don't want the wolf to guard the henhouse. (See the section Windows XP connects to Microsoft's computers in at least 17 ways. in the article, Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going..)

A lot of us need to run programs that don't have Linux or BSD versions. For us, Microsoft has an absolute monopoly. It's hopeless being involved in adversarial behavior with Microsoft. The company has $40 billion cash in the bank. I have ... (Looks in billfold... Moth flies out.)

One way to cope with the situation is to use two computers connected to one keyboard, mouse and monitor. Run Mozilla on Linux on a computer that is connected to the Internet. Disable internet access on the other computer running Windows XP by removing the TCP/IP protocol. Use another protocol, such as NETBEUI, for file sharing. (IOGear seems to make the best KVM switch. My experience has been that there is no video degradation with IOGear KVMs.)

My experience, and the experience of others, is that Windows XP doesn't crash, it just becomes less usable. Windows XP becomes shaky when enough programs are loaded that all of the installed memory is in use. There are other situations where Windows XP begins malfunctioning, but these are not well characterized. (Can anyone help me here?) The symptoms of the malfunction are slowness to respond to the keyboard, and disk thrashing caused by virtual memory use that sometimes takes 45 seconds or more.

The consensus seems to be, however, that Windows XP is Microsoft's best OS. The only other candidate is Windows 2000. Any comments?

The single biggest cause of instability in a system that was once stable is bad connections. Just open up the case, pull out all connectors and adapter cards a few millimeters, and push them back. That cleans the contacts.

(Download ZoneAlarm FREE for personal use.)

Ad-Aware is excellent for use with Windows XP. It gives a list of all running processes, who made the software, and where it is located on the hard drive. It's main purpose is to check for spyware. (Virus program software does not check for spyware, so you need a separate program.)

In Portland, Oregon, USA, the best Internet connection is Hevanet DSL with a Cisco 675 router from the phone company, Qwest. The Cisco 675 can be put into mode in which it is a true hardware firewall, not just a NAT device. (My only connection with Hevanet is as a satisfied customer.)

Be careful!

All the units besides the IOView degrade the video quality, I understand from long conversations with sales people. The IOView, with a Hitachi Elite 751 19 inch monitor and a Matrox G-450 video card at 1600 x 1200 and 75 Hz, actually gives slightly better quality. Odd result, I know, but I'm testing the IOGear MiniView SE 4-port as I type this.

The Tech Report article about 4-port units says, "The other units lack explicit video signal enhancement features, but their quality was the same on both a 17" Trinitron and a 19" NEC AccuSync 95F. Note that this does not mention the video card or the resolution or the refresh rate, indicating that the reviewer was probably not thinking that these were critical. Also, many people are just not good at seeing degradation.

The IOGear MiniView SE 4-port has a VERY funky way of switching between computers. One way, to press a control key twice, is okay, but only goes to next computer in line. The other is amazingly foolish:

[alt]+[ctr]+[shift]+[1 or 2 or 3 or 4]+[Enter]

(See page 14 of the MiniView SE 4-port manual (NOTE: .PDF file)

According to Samantha Martinez of KVM Switches Online (Samantha@kvm-switches-online.com Phone: 303-604-0237 Fax: 303-604-0724), "The only manufacturers that hold that resolution at that refresh rate are Aten/IOGear and Avocent." (They don't sell the Belkin unit, apparently. Aten makes IOGear. You can buy Aten units directly, but they are a worse buy.)

Note that you get 2 4-foot cables and 2 6-foot cables with the MiniView, not 4 6-foot cables.

You mean like this IOGear product announcement for a USB 2.0 host-to-host link? Many such devices are already supported under Linux with the usbnet driver, though currently only at USB 1.1 speeds. (It should be easy to tell that driver how to handle one more device ... :)

I'd expect it to be 2-3 times as fast as a 100BaseT link, without too much trouble, even on early USB 2.0 implementations. Bridge it (Linux will do the spanning tree stuff for you!) and make it be a relatively cheap 480 MBit/sec Ethernet style LAN.

That product might be based on the NetChip TurboConnect2 device. For USB 1.1 speeds there are a bunch of such custom devices, resold by many companies. I'd be rather surprised if that didn't happen with USB2.

I have a few USB kvm switches in my home

I believe it's exactly the same as this model from IOGear, although that's not the name on the box. They cost just over $100 and switch 4 computers each.

On the back, there's a USB port and a video port for each computer. Then there's another port for the monitor and 4 ports for any USB peripherals. I use a sun type-6 usb keyboard, a microsoft optical usb mouse. I believe this should work with a mac too.

Now here's the reality of working with this setup: when you switch between computers, the USB devices are disconnected on one system, then enumerated on the new system. On windows, you get the busy cursor for about 2-3 seconds before the mouse and keyboard become active. On linux or solaris, you get a bunch of new devices in the log appearing or disappearing every time you switch over. Also, on redhat, it seems that if I boot the system without being switched to the keyboard and mouse the window system may not start until you log in and say startx.

Now belkin makes a USB & PS/2 kvm switch. It will even switch audio as well. I bought one of these, only to find out that I can't use my USB keyboard. What it does is accept a PS/2 style keyboard and pass those signals on to computers that need PS/2, and pretend to be a USB keyboard for the other systems. This could eliminate the switching problems (the systems never see a disconnect/reconnect), but you don't get the benefit of a USB keyboard.

Also, for what it's worth, Network Technologies makes a bunch of KVM switches. I had one of their rack-mount switches a while back and it worked fine. I could use a sun type-5 keyboard and mouse with lots of suns and PC's.

I use an IOGEAR MiniView USB KVM 2-port switch at work to switch between a PC and Mac. I've been real pleased with it so far. It can be had for $110 (including all cables) at Data Comm Warehouse. Of course, if you need PS2 ports, this model won't do you much good...

• It works GREAT
• It included 4 sets of cables
• It was under $150 (including mail-in rebate)

-the packet man