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Christopher F.

Christopher F.

Joined on 12/12/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 8
Most Favorable Review

Great

Wacom CTE650W 8.5" x 5.3" Active Area USB Bamboo Fun (Medium, White)
Wacom CTE650W 8.5" x 5.3" Active Area USB Bamboo Fun (Medium, White)

Pros: Hover over guiding, paper like drawing feel, handy little buttons, beautiful design, easy install (nearly plug and play), quick learning curve, great deal.

Cons: mouse? I find it useless. The zoom in controls (glowing blue circle, if you run your finger counter clockwise or clockwise it zooms in, respectively, but it can be finnickey. USB output on the tablet is awkwardly placed if you want to run it to the front of the computer.

Overall Review: I've never used a tablet in my life, but i was interested in getting one for some flash and paintshop projects. I can't imagine i could have been any happier. The size is perfect, and you catch on how to use it right away. My main concern, having never used a tablet before, was how you would guide and know where you were drawing. Holding the pen over the tablet from 1mm-1/4" will let you move it around as if it's a mouse, not drawing. Better yet, since you'll probably be zoomed into your picture, if you need to grab and drag the picture to look at something else you just press one of the buttons on the mouse at that height and move it wherever you want. The whole guidance system is great. Within 15 minutes i was navigating and working Flash as fast, if not faster than ever, all with the tablet. I reccomend it to all!

Most Critical Review

Disappointing Signal

Rosewill RNX-N300 Wireless N Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI (1T2R) Up to 300Mbps download and 150 Mbps upload Data Rates/ WPA/WPA2 (AES, 64,128-WEP with shared-key authentication) Cisco CCS V1.0, V2.0 and V3.0 compliant/ Vista/ Win7
Rosewill RNX-N300 Wireless N Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI (1T2R) Up to 300Mbps download and 150 Mbps upload Data Rates/ WPA/WPA2 (AES, 64,128-WEP with shared-key authentication) Cisco CCS V1.0, V2.0 and V3.0 compliant/ Vista/ Win7

Pros: Easy install, Cd worked on windows 7.

Cons: Signal was lacking.

Overall Review: I bought this with hopes of improving my signal. I did update the drivers. It only got 2-3 bars, kind of unreliable signal as well. The PC is under my desk, against a wall, only 25 feet from the router, but there are some pretty thick walls between it (doors however). Was expecting a better signal from this card, but it was no better than my previous with only 1 antenna. I ended up buying a competitors card that comes with an antenna base with a long wire. That card works great. I'm sure Rosewill's with their extended base antenna would have solved my situation as well.

Lovin it.

Panasonic VIERA 42" 1080p 600Hz Plasma HDTV TC-P42G10
Panasonic VIERA 42" 1080p 600Hz Plasma HDTV TC-P42G10

Pros: Motion looks great on this TV. Great Picture. Easily updated firmware. Stock sound was nice (while i used it). The Price (I bought it on sale too) When set correctly, Great picture quality.

Cons: I found it difficult to tweak the picture settings to really get the best out of it. The presets were ALL too dark, and Vivid was a little too vivid. Would be nice if the Vieralink was wireless, but they'll get there. Kinda silly the PC connection is on the side... for those of us who want it always hooked up, having it in the back would have been a little more convenient. The picture quality tuning is not all you might desire, most TV's i've used, even 5-8 years old have more customizable features than this.

Overall Review: I shopped long and hard for a Tv to mount in my room and finally settled on this one. After i ordered it i got disturbed by how many people were saying the color qualities were really lacking, but i disagree, if tuned correctly it looks great. The THX mode seems pretty useless to most, it's suppose to replicate exactly how the THX tuners meant it to be when they made movies... everything ends up looking like it went through a dark green filter though. The firmware update does modify it a bit, Panasonic claims they tweaked it, but I'm not sure helped much. Anyway, I bought it at 839$. For that price anyway, this TV is an absolute steal.

Finally, a good card.

EDIMAX EW-7128G Wireless Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Wireless Data Rates
EDIMAX EW-7128G Wireless Card IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Up to 54Mbps Wireless Data Rates

Pros: This card will get you reception, if not just from the higher quality antenna than most cards, it's the fact that the 10 foot cord will let you position the antenna in the best part of the room for reception.

Cons: The CD included doesn't work on Windows 7 64bit

Overall Review: I've gone through several cards when I switched to wireless. The pc is under a desk only maybe 20 feet from the router, but with very thick heavy walls. The first 23$ card, purchased at a competitors local store, was complete garbage, 2 bars. Then the RNX-N300 (30$?)was slightly better, 3/5 bars. Still not reliable though. Even with it's 2 antenna's. Instead of buying rosewill's corded antenna I went for this one. Great decision. Despite that i had to use my laptop to get the driver for it like I said, it has a 96% signal. I just ran the antenna to a shelf a couple feet from the roof, perfect. If you've got your PC under a desk and your worried the little antenna in the back is blocked, this is definitely a great choice. Even if your pc isnt blocked, I'd still suggest it.

Quality card, Pain to set up

JATON GeForce 6200 128MB DDR PCI Low Profile Ready Video Card Video-338PCI-DX
JATON GeForce 6200 128MB DDR PCI Low Profile Ready Video Card Video-338PCI-DX

Pros: -Cheap card -Low profile two output, which is hard to find. (It comes with the normal face bracket, and a low profile bracket) -Great Tech Support -Powerful for what it is

Cons: -Installing it on a 2000 OS was an absolute pain... -Manual tells you to switch bios to PCI (if you are running from the MB's VGA), but doesnt tell you the rest of the steps... -Why not two d-subs? quality doesn't seem to be lost through adapter though.

Overall Review: I probably should have figured out how to do this myself, but it certainly wasn't self explanitory. The process for hooking it up when your running from your MB's VGA is so: Just put the card in and hook up your monitor (or monitors). Change bios setting to 'vga: PCI'. Run in safe mode, disable everything that has to do with your MB's VGA, in driver manager. Run the cd and install new drivers on the new device. Restart. The dualview didn't automatically setup for some reason either... but it can be done.

There are better harmony remotes out there....

Logitech Harmony 659 Universal Infrared Advanced Universal Remote
Logitech Harmony 659 Universal Infrared Advanced Universal Remote

Pros: It is a universal remote and universal definitely means universal. The software/online database, comes with everything you could imagine and is fairly simple to program.

Cons: The screen only holds 3 devices... if your looking to switch between devices quickly, i.e. to do three things at once that you don't have programmed as a 'mode' (like watch tv button can be programmed to turn tv on, home theatre on, delay... switch to dvd on home theatre, dim lights, but there are going to be times where you don't want to dim the lights... or the tv is already on...). You want to be able to turn the tv in less then 4 buttons sometimes, then to do something else, not 4 more. The screen just isn't that accessible.

Overall Review: It might be worth the money - and the time - to go to a store and check out all the features the harmony series has. They will be able to control any device you want (except playstation 3) it's just the controllers accessibility that changes.

11/25/2007