Solid Block of Ise

I know, I don’t write even remotely as much as I’d like to here. I’m in a bit of a writers slump, I just don’t have the blogging spirit right now. It’ll probably return after I’ve moved house in a month or two. Right now I’m more content with enjoying the cool summer and not worrying about entertaining a bunch of strangers on the Internet.

However, I have two new neat things. The first one is a Logitech Wave keyboard, which I purchased recently and thanks to my aunts generous sponsorship of it. Thank you! It is a bit weird since my previous keyboard was more than eight (!) years old and well worn and used to. But I’m adjusting to it, and it’s quite nice. If you’re looking for a decent, corded keyboard then this is an excellent choice. It’s not a Das Keyboard, but it’s okay. The only major gripe I have with it is that most of the extra-keys only function in Windows using Logitechs proprietary driver. Media control and volume work fine in Linux though.

The other and much neater gadget is also thanks to a generous donation. A few days ago I discovered someone had actually used the Paypal-button to deposit approximately ~500 swedish kronor. I used this to buy a new toy that I’ve been lusting after for a few months.

Previously I had a Zalman ZM-MFC1 to control my fans in my computer. I’ve had this for several years, probably since pre-2004 and it’s not a bad piece of equipment. Sure, it won’t set the world on fire, but it’s a nice way to control the speed (and by extension noise) of fans in your computer.

About two months back I discovered Zalman had produced a new version of this fancontroller - the ZM-MFC2. I knew I had to have this, and thanks to the anonymous donation I now do.

While the MFC1 has a certain geek-appeal having lots of knobs, switches and LEDs the MFC2 is so much sexier. Gone are the knobs and LEDs and instead you get a display with a readout, and a nifty jog-wheel to set fanspeeds. A new trick up it’s sleeve is also that it can measure the power-consumption of your computer, using an included external dongle. Another new trick is that it measures temperatures using four included sensors that you’re free to place anywhere within reach. Mine currently measure the temperature of my CPU-heatsink, memory, chipset-cooler and inside the harddrive cage.

It does the same things as the MFC1, but it does it in a much cooler and more sophisticated way. It also has the added functionality of measuring power-draw and temperature. Currently my computer eats about 200w, and when I fire up Seti@home on three cores this goes up to 220w.

All in all this is a very neat little addition to any enthusiast-computer, and I want to thank whoever donated the money. I have no idea who you are, since there was no message and none of my friends have confessed to doing it. So thank you, whoever you are. Hope you feel I used your donation in a frivolous and unnecessary manner

The only complaint I have about this thing is that the display could have better contrast between inactive parts and active. But it’s a minor concern, and either way it’s not like you’re going to have your eyes glued to this thing much per day. This phenomenon is visible even in my crappy photos below.

Here’s three crappy photos, taken with my phone since I no longer have access to a decent digital camera.

License

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Sweden License.