This page details some of the favorite non-sentients in my life, from my "baby" (a Mavica FD-81) to my collection of computers, and other wonders of technology.
My Baby - A Sony Mavica FD-81 Digital Camera
I do a lot of photography (purely amatuer stuff, but it's better than shooting people with projectile weapons), and was getting annoyed by how much I had to scan in order to put my pics online. (And I didn't even own a scanner. I can only imagine how my friend Wally felt about me constantly calling him up at 2am to use his scanner.) So, eventually, I got myself a Sony Mavica Digicam.
My first Mavica was an FD-7. I loved it. I shot pics of everything. Oh, the freedom of being able to see instant results, instead of waiting a week for developing only to find out the subject closed her eyes during the pic! I played with the 'negative art' option, and the 'Black and White' effects, and with my zoom, and all kinds of fun stuff. I found it was great for taking pics of birds, too, because pointing a little gray box at them didn't make them as nervous as looking down the barrel of a 35mm SLR.
After a while, I decided to sell my FD-7 and pic up one of the newer FD-81s, so I would have the option of doing mpegs (also good for capturing birds) and fun options like disk-copying. (A lot of friends ask for copies of the pics I take, and it's so cool to be able to say "Just a sec" and hand them a copy. Yeah, I could email the results to them, too... but instant gratification has its own rewards.)
Right now, I use my FD-81 mostly for taking pictures at Live Action Role Playing events, and for posting pics of friends to my web page.
Icarus - My Compaq Presario 2200
Icarus is completely black. CPU case, monitor, keyboard, mouse.. everything. (Actually, the mouse is now beige because the original needed to be replaced. I'm still looking for a black replacement). Being black was a big selling point for Icarus when I was looking for a new IBM. I've since had occasion to wish I'd been a little more practical and paid for quality instead of color, but it suited me at the time.
I've learned a thing or two about Compaqs since buying Icarus. Mainly, they deserve their rep for being "Disposable Computers". Icarus worked fine, right out of the box - it did everthing I wanted it to at the time, and it did it well. However, it has NO room for expansion. I could put some more memory in, and upgrade the modem from a 33.6 to a 56, but that's about it. It doesn't have the room required for a network card (at least, not without losing the printer), and I can't hook up a CD burner, scanner, and Zip drive to it (all of which I want my next computer to handle without needing to switch ports and rebooting).
Oh - one little amusing quirk about the Compaq Persario 2200: it has a programming error which won't allow it to accept new fonts. I had to get one of my techie friends to do some miracle modifications before I could add any new fonts and get them to work. (When I update this, I'll include a blurb about what mods needed to be done, in case I ever need to do another scrub&reinstall, and have to make the adjustments again).
Icarus is used primarily for:
- Word Processing
- Creating Web Pages
- Some Image Processing (with Adobe Photoshop)
- Playing Warcraft
- A number of Solitare games
- Printing anything in the house which needs printing (its the only computer with a printer attached, at present).
- Playing CDs when the ghettoblaster is in a bad mood.
Bond - My iMac DV
"What color?"
That's the first question most people ask when I tell them I bought an iMac. And, in response, I get to grin and say "Graphite."
I originally wanted a Bondy-blue iMac, but that was back when the fruit flavors didn't exist. When they replaced Bondy with Blueberry, I was tempted to find an old iMac to work with, just because I didn't like the new color. However, the sorts of things I wanted to do were better done with a newer generation iMac than the old Rev A's, so I waited. And waited. And waited.
I don't regret the wait, either. The DV is a very nice machine, and can do things I haven't even realized yet that I might want to do with an iMac (but Wally keeps telling me about them, anyway.) I suspect that as time goes on, I'll be doing less and less on my IBM, and more on the 'Mac.
Bond is primarily used for:
- Looking Cool
- Scanning pics
- Digital Image Manipulation
- Playing DVs
- Web Browsing (Mmmm.. I love my ADSL connection)
- Answering Email
Kakakiw - A GRIDcase Laptop (IBM 386)
How Kakakiw came to me is an odd story. It belonged to the sister of a friend in the States, living along the East Coast. I went to visit him a few years back, and he had recently picked up a decent computer for himself, and no longer needed to use his hand-me-down laptop. Besides, it wasn't working properly anymore. The C: drive wouldn't read properly. So, he burned an 'A' chip and the laptop booted from that.
Since it wouldn't run any programs from C:, the beast could only run stuff small enough to fit onto a 1.4 meg floppy disk. Luckily, my favorite DOS-based terminal program (Procomm Plus) fit just fine. The laptop functioned as a portable modemming terminal.
(I use the term 'portable' with a grain of salt. It's one of those old laptops which takes up about as much space as a VCR, and is much heavier.)
It was exactly what I needed while I was on the road, though... and it was "loaned" to me, to take back to Canada. It did a good job of being a terminal once I got back home, too, and my old IBM (Nyx) decided to have "issues". It also was a lot easier for me to set up and use when I had to move back into my parent's basement and still wanted to be able to access the internet from my bedroom (the family computer was stationed in the dining room on the main floor of the house - not a good place to answer personal email from).
When I moved out again (and got a new computer), Kakakiw was relegated to 'doorstop' status. It wasn't until another techie friend of mine got a look at it that I discovered it was actually a cool computer.
(Eventually I will insert a paragraph here about NASA taking Gridcases into space, and all that other stuff which Maskwa babbled about)
Anyway, Maskwa was able to find a new battery for Kakakiw, get the C: drive to work, and even poke around through the old stuff still sitting on the hard drive... a functional version of Word, a program manager, some old games... and basically made the machine borderline useful again.
Kakakiw is currently being used for:
- A 'Portable' word Processor and Modem Terminal
- Running old games like 'Collosal Cave'
- Being loaned out to a mechanic friend to run a diagnostics program on his truck.
Nyx - My 386 patch-job
Nyx was the first computer I ever bought. I picked it up for something like $500, and used it for over 5 years. It ran Word, it played Solitare, and it handled Procomm Plus just nicely. The monitor had a bit of a glitchy connection in it, so it was sauldered to a permanent "on" status. (If I wanted to turn it off, I flipped the switch on the power bar it was plugged into.) The A drive didn't work at all, and I've got a 5 1/4 inch diskdrive in the B slot. It's equipped with a 2400 modem, which I doubt I'll ever upgrade. And to top it all off, the entire computer is housed in an old 8088 case.
Nyx decided to go on the fritz sometime in '96, and it needed a lobotomy. A memory sim was fried, so one of my techie friends removed it, and the one paired to it, and that solved the problem for a while... althought it's been kinda stupid since being reduced to 16mg of memory. It just started to misbehave at odd times, for no particular reason. I eventually bought a new computer and dumped Nyx in the closet.
I'm kinda hoping to turn Nyx into a Unibox someday. Mostly because I've never had a Unix computer and would love to muck around on it. Partially because I could use an old computer to act as a network server for the house. I've also toyed with the idea of putting up a MUSH on it. And last but not least, I'd really love to use it to run Pine & Pico and all those other great Unix programs.
Riccar - My Riccar 750 Sewing Machine
Yes, one of my favorite toys is a sewing machine. But it's not just any sewing machine! It's about the best kind of sewing machine you can buy without getting into the industrial machines (those table-mounted monstrosities which kids in third world countries use to sew Reeboks together). It was recommended to me when I told the guy at the sewing machine shop that I wanted a machine which could sew two layers of denim onto a moving blanket, sew that back onto itself, and then sew two pieces of leather onto that.
The Riccar can do all that, and more. I know. I've put it through the sort of torture which has killed lesser machines. (Sewing gambesons for SCA armor is not an easy thing). It can also sew through 6 layers of cotton twill to finish the hems on a cloak, and can sew boot leather onto heavy canvas.
I love my Riccar. (And if I can't impress dates with my ability to cook, at least I can sew.)