Gadgets: USB Wireless connectors

Gadgets—USB Wireless connectors

When my husband came home from his active duty stint, complete with computer, we had to figure out how to connect his computer to the internet. I had installed a wireless router at home to use with my laptop, which already had wi-fi built in. Jimbo's computer did not have a built in wireless connector, so our choice at that point was running a cable to the DSL jack or install a wireless device.

The cable wasn't an option unless we wanted to run it across our bedroom floor or do something crazy like run it up across our ceiling. Since I have enough coordination to trip over a cable every time I come within 10 feet of it, we decided that wireless was a better option.

Off we went to our favorite store, Best Buy. Well, Barnes and Noble and the local comic book store are probably our real favorites, but we'll say Best Buy for gadgets. Anyway, we were on the hunt for a wireless card to install in the computer when lo and behold, we discovered a USB external wireless adapter. Now, I thought this was just beyond cool because it was a. a gadget for the computer and b. was incredibly easy to use and did not involve actually using tools to open up the computer case. You just plug it into a USB port, and voila, you've got wireless now. Of course, getting the computer to talk to the wireless network was another story, but for sake of a wireless device, you can't get any easier than this.

We have the Netgear WG111T, and it's held up quite well, in spite of the fact that the kids try to insert and remove the thing from the USB port on the front of the computer. Trusty Friend stingerhs insists that an internal wireless card is better because it allows more range. This may well be true (especially since stingerhs works in a computer store and knows a heck of a lot more about these things than I do), but a. we're already paying for our wireless and don't feel like mooching off of bob and jill's unsecured network down the block, and b. our router is about 12 feet away from our computers, and we live in a house that's a whole 1200 square feet big, we happily do not have to worry about range. If we had a bigger house we might have to be concerned about that. There's one advantage to a smaller house....

On a 0-5 scale:
Ease of use for geeks: 5 tech-silver sheep
Ease of use for non-geeks: 5 silver sheep
Features: It only has 1 feature. :)
Value for price: Well, I can't remember what we paid for it, but probably not too much, so I'll give it 5 silver sheep
User-friendliness for parents: 4.5 silver sheep--just don't let babies pull on it or it'll break off in the socket.

Logitech Internet Chat Headset

My Trusty Friend Rogue Nine convinced me to join him (along with his many friends) on Skype, a free online phone program. I discovered that there was no microphone on our desktop, and while Skype has a chat window for those without a mike, it's a lot more fun to be able to talk to your friends. So, off I went on a search for a headset with a mike on it so I could talk to people literally from all over the world at no charge. After checking out a couple different places, I found one at Wal-Mart. The Logitech Internet Chat Headset does a good job for chatting on Skype. It has a decent range of volume and sound quality. I actually use it for listening to music on my laptop, too. It's not top-of-the-line for music. I only paid about $20 after all, which is cheaper than buying it online from Logitech, btw. It's better than the laptop's tinny speakers, though. :)

The headset is very easy to use. It has two plugs, one pink and one black. The black one goes in the headphone socket, the pink plug goes in the microphone socket. Headset goes on the head, and voila, you're ready to go. You can change the colors of the little earphones if you care about that kind of thing, since it comes with 5 different colors. You need the little plastic tab provided in order to snap the colored plastic parts on and off, but it's pretty easy to do, and I'm now the proud owner of a headset with a bit of blue plastic on both earphones. I don't look at those earphones while I'm talking, so I didn't think changing the colors was that big a deal. Some people probably enjoy the small amount of customization this allows, however. It fits over glasses and can be used by people with larger heads. It's quite lightweight. You can bend the headset a little bit to adjust it to your head, but not very much. The foam over the earphones is pretty basic but it does the job of keeping things comfortable unless you plan on using the headset for many hours. The packaging did not specify whether this was a latex-free foam or not, so that may be an issue for those of you with that allergy.

There are only two things I don't quite like. The headset is designed to go behind your head. This works well if you have a big head. I don't, so the back of the headset doesn't rest against my head, and the weight tends to sit on the tops of my ears. It's so light this isn't much of a problem as long as I'm not wearing them for hours. The other thing I don't like is the jacks are about two inches long, which is longer than other headphone jacks. The sockets on my laptop are right in front (kind of a dumb design, I think, but they didn't ask me). Well, those two-inch long jacks poke me in the stomach if I happen to be using the laptop in bed, which is pretty much every night. That's rather annoying. Since I got one of the handy lap desks with the wrist rests, it seems to be less of an issue. It just sticks into the padding now.

There are a couple parent-friendly features I like. First, the volume control is easy to use and has a mute switch. That's handy if I need to talk to my kids in the middle of skyping with others. It also has nine-foot long cord. This means that I can get up and walk around a bit and theoretically get something done in the kitchen while talking, or peek around a door to see if all is well with the kids.

It's not a top-of-the-line item, but I think I got more than my money's worth. If you need a mike or headset, this option works well.

On a 0-5 scale:
Ease of use for geeks: 5 tech -silver sheep
Ease of use for non-geeks: 5 silver sheep
Features: 4 silver sheep
Value for price: 4.5 silver sheep
User-friendliness for parents: 4.5 silver sheep

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Hey, it's Star Wars 30th year celebration. I have to talk about something Star Wars-y, and this is the choice for the day: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game.

Kotor, as it's frequently abbreviated on the forums, is a fantastic role-playing game for PC and Xbox, set in the Star Wars universe about 4000 years before the events in the movies. I prefer the PC version because there are a lot of mods (game modifications) out there to make the game even better--a lot of these can be found at Lucasforums in the Kotor section or KotorFiles, among others. There are a lot of choices for you to make in the game that alter play, sometimes signficantly. You get to determine whether you are going to be good or evil and be a lightside Jedi or a darkside Sith Lord.

This is an older game so don't expect Oblivion-level graphics, but it's still pretty good. I play it for the story anyway, so I'm not that worried about how pretty it looks. The characters can be a bit two-dimensional, unless you talk to them frequently to get their histories and side quests. The dialog is terrific, especially for the witty Jolee Bindo and the smart-aleck assassin droid HK-47. If you're into the story aspects of games like I am, you'll want to play the game several times just to hear all the different things they have to say.

Combat is relatively easy to do (especially after a few tries at it). It's turn-based, so you don't have to worry about memorizing keyboard combos or worry about choosing the right attack mode at the right moment. You can choose several different attacks and Force powers, and it'll queue them up for you. I like the fact that you can pause the game at any moment, make your choices, and then unpause and just watch what happens. I prefer it over action RPGs because I get so busy pressing buttons and keyboard combos with those that I can't pay attention to what it actually looks like on the screen.

The storyline is good, the game has a lot of replayability (I've played it a number of times and still see something new each playthrough), and the combat isn't overwhelmingly difficult.

From a mom standpoint--the language is clean and the combat is not gory, though there is a lot of killing to do. Good and evil are easy to differentiate. There are a couple romance options, but there's not even a kissing scene. The romance dialog paths are optional in any case. Some of the puzzles may be a little difficult for younger players because they involve some math knowledge, but there are ways around that. In all fairness, the game is rated T for teen, so it's not really fair to ding them for not making it elementary level. There's also no game incentive to solve things in creative ways--the only way to gain experience points to level up your character is to kill the enemies. If you sneak past them or find some alternate way around them, you don't get any experience points.

We play together with our kids, and while they may not always be able to do the actual keyboard functions well, they can make dialog and combat choices with no trouble. I also found that when I'm playing, the pause function makes it very easy to stop the game and leave if there's some Real Life problem I need to check out immediately. That way, if I'm in the middle of a battle, I don't get penalized for stopping in the middle of a fight to go put a bandaid on one of my kids' boo-boos. I also don't have to worry about inappropriate language being said in earshot of younger kids.

If you like Star Wars or role-playing games, you'll like this game a lot. If you like both, you'll love this game, maybe as much as I do. :)

Adult game-play--5 tech-silver sheep (out of 5)
Appropriateness for kids--4.5 silver sheep (only because a couple puzzles are hard and you do have to kill a lot of things)
User-friendliness for parents--5 silver sheep

Welcome to the Geeky Mom Gaming and Gadget Guide

My anniversary was the day before Mother's day this year, so hubby and the kids decided to give me one big gift for the weekend instead of a couple of smaller gifts. So, they bought me a Fujifilm S700 7.1 megapixel camera. It's awesome-looking, but I've also discovered it comes with a 100-page user manual--yes, that's 100 pages of English text, not 100 pages of English, Spanish, French, German, and something obscure like Ubuntu (yes, that's a bad joke, I know....). It occurred to me that other moms might have some insight on the gadgets they've used (and this camera in particular), since we do look at these things differently. Let's face it--gadgets are marketed to guys but are used by or given to women. However, we do look at things a bit differently than our male counterparts. When I surfed around awhile on the net, I discovered there's just not a lot out there on how these things are used by women. So, I'll share some of my experiences with tech-y things, and hope you do, too.

I'm including a gaming guide to discuss consoles, games, and women in gaming. I started thinking about this after listening to a Technology Tailor program on WGN radio on women gamers over 35. Did you know that it's women over 35 who are buying and playing the most video games? Fifty-two percent of all gamers are women, according to this article on "Marketing to Older Women Gamers" . Yet who are the games marketed to? If you guessed males 18-25, you're on the right track and you've just earned a tech-silver sheep. :) I even called in to the radio show and talked with the Tech Tailor, which I thought was seriously cool. Again, there's just not much on the net on how women are using or playing these games and what we'd like to see in a good game.

Now, I consider myself pretty geeky, but I'm not that far from the average gal. There has to be other women like me who've grown up with Atari or Nintendo and now are playing console and PC games. If the two-page thread I posted in Lucasforums is any indication, there's quite a bit of interest in the issue of women and gaming. Those of us who are Geeky Moms are also looking at games from two different points of view--not only how we play them but also if the games are appropriate for our kids. Some of the games that I really enjoy are totally inappropriate for my school-age children.

You'll see a lot of gadgets or games that I've used or played myself because I want to share hands-on experience. I'd love to hear your experiences as well.