It’s not often I’ll admit to getting it wrong on issues of technology, but a couple of years ago I would have argued fairly vehemently that HD (high-definition) was a marketing tactic aimed mainly at extracting more money from the idiots who think that having a big TV is an effective form of penis enlargement. My argument used to be that TV was perfectly watchable as-is, and the only real benefit to HD was for football fans to enable them to more easily tell the players apart and see the ball.
After watching the BBC’s new wildlife documentary series ‘Life’ at 1080p, I’m going to have to change my mind. The photography in the series is stunning at standard definition, but at 1080p; it’s absolutely breathtaking. I’m now completely sold on it, and if a TV set were something I actually owned, I’d go out and buy a new one immediately so as to take advantage of it. Of course, TVs themselves are now obsolete anyway and I already own a very good quality computer monitor, so I won’t actually be buying any new hardware.
L1760TR Black
Speaking of my monitor; it’s worth saying a bit more about it – I bought an LG Flatron L1760TR and it’s probably my favourite IT purchase of the last 5 years. In my years of experience with computers, I’ve learned that your monitor is probably the most long-lived part of your computer – the lifetime of a monitor can easily be 10 years, whereas I’ll start itching to get a new computer after 1 or 2 (as I am right now). Your monitor is also something you spend a bloody long time staring at – it’s one of the most important interfaces between you and your computer. On this logic, I figured it was worth getting a bloody good monitor.
I picked the Flatron because it had a very high contrast ratio – the best available at the time (without resorting to ‘dynamic contrast’, which I don’t trust) and a decent resolution, it also has a fairly quick response rate which is useful for watching films and playing games. It’s a standard 4:3 aspect ratio – I don’t like the current tendancy towards wide-screen aspect ratios in computer monitors – while this may be more appropriate for watching films; for software development, photo manipulation and web browsing, to me at least, a more square aspect ratio is clearly a better choice. I’m also not fond of huge screens on a PC – I like to sit fairly close to my screen, between 2 and 3 feet away. Having a larger screen requires that you either move further away, or physically move your head in order to look to the corners (or move your eyeballs outside of their comfortable range). For these reasons I think that 17″ is the correct size for a PC screen.
After having had my Flatron for a couple of years I can say that I’m very happy with it – it was well worth every penny I spent on it (and there’s actually relatively few high-value purchases I could say that about). Compared to a cheaper monitor of the same size, the difference is drastic – at the last company I worked for I was given a laptop with a very poor quality screen and I would have found it completely unusuable for anything other than reading and writing text (fortunately that’s all I was ever required to do). I would encourage anyone buying a new PC to do as I have done and really splash out on their monitor – the rest of the computer is basically disposable, but a decent monitor is for keeps.
Just to give you an idea of how highly I’m praising my monitor I’ll compare it to my other most prized posession – my camera. I paid £500 for my current camera second-hand, if I’d bought it new I would’ve paid closer to £1000, and at that price I actually would have felt a little cheated – let me explain why.. I used to have the Canon 400D, which is basically Canon’s consumer-level SLR – when I bought mine (new) they were retailing for something like £450 – What I have now is the 40D, it’s like the 400D’s bigger brother; it’s basically the same camera except that it’s slightly larger, slightly heavier, more of it is made out of metal (rather than plastic) and it has an extra dial to allow you to control two variables at once instead of one. In terms of image quality, they’re basically the same. The point is, the 40D is almost twice the price of the 400D, but it’s only a ~20% better camera – that’s why I’d have felt cheated if I’d paid the full retail price. This is the case with many electronics products – as you spend more money, the return you get in terms of a better product are diminished. That’s why I’m so happy with my monitor – I could have had a 17″ monitor for half what I paid for mine, in other words I paid twice as much as I could’ve done, but unlike with my camera, with the monitor I actually got a monitor that was twice as good as one that’s half the price, in fact I’d say it’s more than that – maybe even three times as good.
While I’m on the topic of human-computer-interface – I place a lot of importance on the two other interfaces – the keyboard and mouse. My preference is for a “clicky” keyboard – this probably sets me apart from a lot of people because clicky keyboards are very much out of fashion at the moment and getting hold of one was problematic for me. The most well-known example of a clicky keyboard is the IBM Model M – in my opinion this is The One True Keyboard, every modern keyboard is shit in comparison. Sadly, you can’t seem to buy a new Model M anymore – they are apparently still made by a company called Unicomp, but when I attempted to buy one from them they never returned my e-mails. I ended up paying quite a lot of money to have an old one imported from clickykeyboards.com in the US – it’s dated 1996 and was still in its original packaging unopened and unused. Apparently a pallet of them had been found at the back of a warehouse somewhere – that’s a bloody long time for stock to go completely unnoticed in a warehouse!
IBM Model M - US Layout
This is exactly how my keyboard looks – it’s a US keyboard layout and it lacks the Windows keys. I don’t mind the US layout too much although the lack of a pound key is sometimes a little annoying – most of the time I’m typing £ instead of £ anyway. If I’m chatting to you online and you wonder why I keep saying ‘quid’ when referring to money, it’s because I don’t have a pound key. The only other minor annoyance is the lack of a Windows key, but the only thing I actually regularly use that for is Windows+D to hide all open windows, I do very occasionally use Windows+R to open the run dialog but I don’t really mind opening the start menu for that. I have an icon in my quicklaunch to minimise all windows so I’ve got used to the lack of a windows key now. I would’ve preferred a UK keyboard layout with a backwards-L shaped enter key and the Windows keys like the ones apparently sold by Unicomp, but Unicomp don’t seem to actually be in business anymore.
The technical name for the mechanism that causes the click is a “Buckling spring” – basically what it means is that there is a physical change in the amount of return pressure you feel from each key at exactly the point at which the key press is registered – if you gradually depress a key, the key becomes progressively harder to move until the point at which the key press is registered, at which point it immediately travels to the bottom of its movement and an audible click is heard (hence the name ‘clicky keyboard’). It also clicks again at the same point when you lift your finger, so for each key press you actually hear two clicks which makes it sound like you’re typing at twice the speed you actually are.
Actually the clicking is a mostly unwanted side-effect of the tactile feedback that you feel each time you press a key. Ideally the clicking would be a quite a lot quieter than it actually is – I simply wouldn’t be able to use this keyboard in a quiet office environment, it would piss too many people off. Similarly, using it at night in a house full of people who are sleeping can cause problems. However, to me tactile feedback is a very important part of human-computer interface design – I want to be able to feel whether I’ve successfully pressed a key or not – having that feeling allows me to type quicker. I’m a very fast typist even on a cheap keyboard, but on a clicky keyboard my typing speed is pretty close to the maximum achievable speed. I don’t doubt that the buckling spring technology could have been refined to make it quieter and more suitable for an office environment if it had remained in fashion. I’m hoping one day it will come back in, perhaps when IBM’s original patent expires. The Steampunk Keyboard might help with that (by the way, if anyone wants me to love them forever, buy me one of these).
HTC TyTn II
It’s the lack of tactile feedback that makes me so dead-set against iPhones – I hate them. In my opinion typing is something that should be done with physical buttons, not on a touchscreen – touchscreens are a decent replacement for a mouse on a mobile phone but they’re not a decent replacement for a keyboard. iPhone users claim that you ‘get used to it’, but I suspect that they are simply slow typers who are content with the fiddly practice of jabbing at tiny letters on a touchscreen. That’s not good enough for me, and that’s why I have an HTC TyTn II – it still has a large touchscreen like the iPhone, but it also has a proper QWERTY keyboard with actual real buttons that move when you press them.
I’m equally fussy with my mouse – while I don’t require one specific model, I do believe that there is one correct shape for a mouse and all other mouse shapes are wrong. Obviously a laser mouse is an absolute requirement – I couldn’t believe ball mice are still being made given the obvious advantages of optical technology, but surprisingly my dad’s PC came with one! That went straight in the bin. My mouse has buttons on the side for web browser forwards and backwards which I very rarely use, and it’s also possible to scroll left and right by pushing the mouse wheel with the side of your finger – I absolutely never do that and think it’s a pointless feature. However, another area where tactile feedback is necessary is the wheel – it should gently click as you roll it up and down.
The buttons on a mouse should click at exactly the point at which the mouse click is registered – obviously most mice do this, but that is because each button has a standard microswitch under it – funnily enough the mechanism inside the microswitch in a mouse is actually remarkably similar to the mechanism inside each key of an IBM Model M keyboard – in a mouse it was judged necessary to have that ‘clicky’ tactile feedback in the buttons – so necessary in fact that it entered the terminology as “clicking on something”. I really don’t understand why the clickyness was deemed necessary in mice but dropped in keyboards in favour of cheap and nasty ‘rubber dome’ technology, actually I do.. it’s because it’s possible to manufacture rubber dome keyboards so cheaply that they can retail for less than £2, a buckling spring keyboard will never be that cheap.
Logitech M400
Above you see the correct shape for a mouse, unless you actually have no right hand (in which case you probably want a mouse that is the exact mirror image of this one). Even as a left-handed person (which I am), it is incorrect to attempt to use a mouse with your left hand, even if you reverse the order of the buttons; for the simple reason that you’re breaking the de-facto standard and will consequently struggle to use anybody else’s computer.
I don’t believe in cordless mice or keyboards because I don’t like it when they run out, which they do, a lot. Either you have to replace batteries, or you have to dump the thing onto some kind of charging station, both of which interrupt you from whatever it is you’re doing. I do not like to be interrupted when I’m in the middle of a train of thought, in fact it’s a surefire way to put me in a very irritable mood. I won’t have a wireless keyboard or mouse until someone invents a power source that never runs out, or at least has a lifetime measured in years rather than days.
Clicky keys are lush! My love for typing on my desktop clickies over my laptop hushies are pronounced.
As for pc mice, left handers and right handers,… it’s the first time i thought on this subject as a very ambidextrous person.
Is there such thing as a mouse for left-handed people!?. It would be the same as a mobile phone charger and having to take it everwhere to use it on another persons pc.
Isnt it annoying and down right frustrating when youve forgotten your charger and phone dies with an emergency and no-one around has a charger likes yours to charge it up.
I think i heard that now there is some kind of aggreement to standardize mobile chargers across all phone manufacturers.
You can get left-handed mice – they’re basically the mirror image of a normal right-handed mouse, you can also get ambidextrous mice that are symmetrical so they’re equally uncomfortable in both hands. You can also configure your computer to swap the left and right mouse buttons so that when the mouse is in your left hand the main clicky button is on the right, under your index finger. As a lefty myself, I consider all of the above to be pretty stupid – being different from everyone else in the world is generally a bad idea when it’s something that you have to learn to use like a computer mouse. Try using a mouse in your left hand, if you’re spent any significant amount of time using computers, it’ll just feel wrong, and that’s how it would feel for a person used-to a left handed mouse every time they used someone else’s computer!
I’d heard about the agreement from mobile phone manufacturers too, definitely a good thing – it looks like they’ve agreed on USB Micro-B – this has been emerging as a de-facto standard in the last couple of years – my mobile and camera both use this connector as do quote a few other devices and it’s very handy to be able to use the same cables interchangably. It’s also handy that my mates have pretty much always got a Micro-B cable too – a lot of the time it doesn’t even occur to me to bring a cable with me, I know there will be one when I get there.
Interestingly – if you look at the picture of the HTC TyTn II above you can see an example of a slightly unusual modification to the Micro-B connector – notice how it’s square on one side – this allows any normal Micro-B lead to be plugged into it, but it also allows HTC to make their own accessories that will only plug-in to the TyTn II. This is used for the hands-free kit – it plugs-in via the USB Micro-B connector, but it’s not actually a USB interface and wouldn’t work if connected to anything other than the TyTn II – but of course you can’t connect it to anything other than the TyTn II because of the square corner on the connector. Doing this means that HTC can get away with only actually having one connector on the phone – everything plugs-in via the Micro-B connector.
I’m actually surprised that Apple is one of the companies that have agreed on the USB charger standard – the tendancy for each manufacturer to invent their own connector is a type of vendor lock-in called “The connector conspiracy“, and Apple have historically been particularly guilty of it (another reason I hate them).
The concept of an actual mobile charger is pretty much dead for me – I charge my phone using a USB cable connected to my computer, and I suspect everyone will be doing this soon enough.