I bought a new Mactinsoh in September, 2006. It was an unavoidable waste of money.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Kensington used to make the best mice and deliver the best customer service in the computer industry. My trusty old Thinking Mouse was ultra-reliable and ultra-comfortable. My new computer’s Kensington infra-red mouse failed in short order. I replaced it with another Kensington mouse, the only brand I could find whose software was compatible with the Macintosh OSX operating system, and it generally works right most of the time. After two decades in the market, Apple has finally come up with a two-button mouse; unfortunately, it behaves like a Microsoft mouse, and can’t be reconfigured to suit users. Ludicrous!
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ My two-year-old Adesso split keyboard lost so many keys, I finally had to replace it. The replacement includes 25 extra buttons along the top and some software to let people navigate the internet from the keyboard. That impressed me as a silly idea, but I’ve encountered sillier. Before I could even try the software, I discovered three peculiarities about the keyboard: the right shift key has been shortened to make room for a key that’s normally placed in a distant corner, since it’s hardly ever used; the left shift key works only when one remembers to use its outer left edge, and the function and arrow keys have been jumbled together to make room for the extra keys at the top. This is the most ludicrous, user-unfriendly excuse for a computer keyboard I’ve ever seen! Save your money!
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ The only problem I’ve ever encountered with a Wacom tablet and digitizing stylus was a G.O.M., (gross operator malfunction.) If I’d bothered to read the manual that came with my second tablet, I’d have spared myself a call to the firm’s technical support people, who patiently explained that installing the new driver didn’t automatically over-write the old driver and its preferences. I don’t know that tablets and styli from competing firms aren’t equally good: I’ve been so happy with Wacom’s I’ve never felt inclined toward trying others.
I’m now using my third, largest Wacom tablet. It took about a minute and a half to install the software, which works perfectly. Adjusting the stylus settings took about three minutes. It’s a joy and a delight to use, and is far and away my single best designed, best made piece of digital hardware. After a year and a half of use, my Wacom tablet and stylus are the only components of my computer system that haven’t failed, flaked out, broken, ceased to work, let me down, insulted my intelligence, or broken.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ I added a Seagate Barracuda internal 2-gigabyte drive to my computer—now my old computer—shortly after I bought it. It’s significantly faster and quieter than Quantum drives. A sizable file copying operation that took 91 seconds on my computer’s internal Quantum drive took 70 on the Barracuda. I’ve encountered a few bad Seagate drives over the years; this one, however, is a champion, and remains a champion after four years’ heavy use.
I added a Seagate Barracuda to my new computer about a year months ago. It’s faster and significantly more reliable than the replacement I.B.M. hard drive, which I now use merely for storage. I’d have bought a third, but couldn’t find an external fire wire hard drive with a Barracuda mechanism.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ I used to buy and recommend Sony monitors. I have three of them on my desk: two for my new computer, and a new seventeen-inch monitor for my old computer. The first two are very good, reliable monitors with clean, predictable color. The newest included a dark blotch on the left side of the screen. I called MacWarehouse. After being bounced around the telephone tree half an hour or so, I was informed the company doesn’t support Sony monitors. I called Sony. After being bounced around the telephone tree about forty minutes, I was finally able to speak with a “technical support representative” who spoke semi-intelligible English. After I insisted upon speaking with two supervisors, the “technical support representative” conceded that I might not have to pay for shipping the brand new defective monitor across the country, after all. By and bye, a replacement monitor was delivered. Its screen had a large light greenish spot in the center. Once again, I navigated a slow way through Sony’s hellish telephone system, waited the larger part of an hour on hold, and dealt with indifferent “technical support representatives,” some of whom spoke intelligible English, some of whom didn’t. The second replacement monitor is of acceptable quality, but of course, Sony neglected to send me the promised shipping form to return the first replacement monitor, so I had to waste another three quarters of an hour on hold while waiting to be connected with a self-important nitwit who was authorized to issue the form.
Will I ever buy another Sony monitor? Will I ever buy another Sony anything? It might snow in Phoenix on Independence Day, too!
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Instead of another Sony to replace the $1,100 monitor that lasted scarcely three years, I bought a LaCie. It has both vertical and horizontal streaks, and a large dark patch on the left side. It has begun flickering after a year’s use. Save your money!
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Sad to say, I can’t recommend a single removable storage device supplier: I’ve never owned one of these gadgets that lasted longer than two or three years, and one Zip drive didn’t even last a month.
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