For the observant, you’ll notice that a ton of computers are made in the nation of China these days. This is occurring so much that some people absolutely refuse to buy anything made from there, similar to the all-too-familiar MADE IN TAIWAN labels on so many products of the 1980s and 1990s.

On the computing front, many refer to Chinese-made computers as "those Foxconn-made pieces of sh*t".

The Mac mini, Macbook Air, Macbook, iMac and Macbook Pro are all manufactured in China. For those who have ever ordered one of the aforementioned direct from the Apple Store and had it shipped to you, you’ll notice the shipping process starts (the last I knew) from Shanghai.

The Dell mini 10v I just bought has a MADE IN CHINA sticker slapped on the back of it. Other Dell models follow suit.

It is totally possible (and this is a guess) that Dell and Apple PCs/laptops are manufactured right in the same city – and possibly even the same buildings.

Still think Apple-branded computers are better than Dell-branded now?

As to why so much of our computer stuff is made there, the answer is simple: Cost. It costs less to have electronics made there than in a Western nation (and yes, this also leads to serious e-waste problems in China).

The question however is this: Is a Chinese-manufactured computer "bad"? No, because it all boils down to design and manufacturing processes.

If a laptop has a bad design that’s been finalized and sent to production, the end result will be a crappy product no matter where it’s made.

Example 1: The Macbook (not the Macbook Pro). It is commonly called a Crackbook. Why? Because of a design flaw in the palm rest that literally causes the unit to crack even when just sitting there neatly on a table with it running – even if was never dropped, never abused, etc.

(Side note: Apple still sells this same model with the same design flaw. It can be fixed under warranty, but if your warranty runs out, you’re screwed.)

Example 2: The exploding batteries in Dell laptops that happened a few years ago which prompted a massive recall. It wasn’t the laptop that was the problem here, but guess where the battery was made?

Even with these examples, I don’t deem a product "bad" based on where it was made. I have owned several Chinese-made electronics products over the years. One company which I know has a major manufacturing plant in China that is Behringer – and I like Behringer products. A lot. That’s because they manufacture solid well-designed stuff.

If you’re going to blame anybody for poor quality computer stuff, blame the brand (like Apple, Dell and/or Foxconn). They don’t need to move their manufacturing facilities elsewhere, they just need to more thought into design for better electronics products.

What do you think?

Does the country of origin concerning where your computer stuff was made affect your purchasing decision?

The best box that Apple makes is the Mac Pro.

The best box that Dell makes is the Precision Workstation, commonly abbreviated as PW. Both are business machines first and foremost.

It is very easy to configure either to run you $20,000 for final cost.

How to do it? Simple. Check off every single possible option you can throw in when configuring it.

First, the Mac Pro.

This is an 8-core system (two 2.93GHz Quad Core Intel Xeons) stuffed with 32GB of RAM, 3 1TB hard drives, two optical drives, two 30-inch flat-panel displays, wireless everything, fibre channel, a bunch of preinstalled software and of course the AppleCare Protection plan.

And now, the Big Dell, the Precision Workstation T7500.

The screen shot of this would have been too long, so here are the specs:

• Windows Vista 64-bit Business Edition
• Dual Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processors W5580 3.20GHz, 8M L3, 6.4GT/s,turbo
• 48GB, DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1333MHz, ECC (12 DIMMS). You read correctly. 48 gigs of RAM. This is an $8,000+ option.
• 4 Year ProSupport for End Users and 4 Year 4HR 7×24 Onsite Service
• 4.0GB NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 5800, DUAL MON, 1DP & 2DVI
• Microsoft™ Office® Professional 2007
• McAfee® Total Protection for Small Business,15 Month Subscription,Eng
• Drive 1 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
• Drive 2 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
• Drive 3 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
• Drive 4 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™
• Drive 5 – 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst Cache™ Yes, this is 5 1.5TB drives for a total of 7.5 TB space.
• 16X DVD+/-RW w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD™ and Roxio Creator™
• Monitor 1 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
• Monitor 2 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
• Monitor 3 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
• Monitor 4 – Dell 24 inch UltraSharp™2408WFP Widescreen, Adjustable Stand, VGA/DVI
• Chassis Intrusion Switch

There are many, many different ways I could have priced out the Dell.

Instead of the four 24-inch monitors, I could have gone with three Dell 30-inchers (which I probably would). That would be a separate purchase albeit from the same company.

In addition, the Dell costs more mainly due to the extra 16GB of RAM, the four monitors and the extra two hard drives. Mac Pros at present cannot be configured from the OEM to go beyond 3 internal hard drives or 32GB RAM, and that’s by design.

What’s the Super Dell best suited for?

AutoCAD or high resolution medical imaging. With CAD in particular, this is still PC-only world.

And not gaming, you dope.

What’s the Super Mac best suited for?

HD/Film/Video editing suite. In a separate purchase I’d tack on either Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere or Media 100. Whatever had the most local (important) support. And when I say local I mean other shops in the area you live that support what you have. Some places favor Final Cut while others Media 100, etc.

Does anybody actually buy these things?

Yes, and routinely. Neither OEM would build them if there weren’t a market to buy them.

In medical, industrial design and research facilities you will see these Dells.

In pro video houses/animation studios, you will see these Macs.

Of course, neither looks any different from their lower-cost same-model boxes, but it’s what’s on the inside that counts obviously.

Could you build a PC with the above Dell specs for cheaper?

Yes. And in fact you can go higher than 64GB RAM.

How about 256GB RAM? Sound impossible? It isn’t. You have to use a server motherboard instead of desktop, like this one.

Ridiculous for a home PC? Very. And totally unnecessary. Sure, you’ll be the coolest nerd in town, but you’ll be paying a loan off for all that RAM for the next 10 years.

On the desktop side, the most RAM supported if you bought the motherboard thru NewEgg is 24GB. This is a bit crappy because there should be 32GB RAM support options for PC builders. Alas, there isn’t. Yet. Maybe there will be come 2010?

At present you’re best off using a board that supports 8 or 16GB. And you’ll obviously have to use 64-bit Windows (or Linux) to access all of that.

Is there any way to get the cost of the Mac Pro down?

Several ways, actually.

The first rule to buying Mac is to purchase as little as possible from the Apple Store concerning the box itself.

Instead of ordering your Mac with 32GB, order with 1GB. Fill it up with RAM from another vendor. Just remember to specifically order Mac Memory.

Instead of Apple 30-inch Cinema Displays, use 30-inch Dell UltraSharps. Even Mac people know that those are awesome monitors.

Instead of ordering 3 hard drives, take 1. Like with the RAM, buy the others from another vendor and install it yourself.

This is essentially no different than configuring the Dell. You put the money into the processors more than anything else. For the rest, you go with other vendors.

The only drawback to this is that the other-vendor stuff isn’t supported under OEM warranty. This can be said for either OEM.

The original Sony Walkman is 30 years old as it was originally introduced in 1979. I do distinctly remember these things from my childhood. I never specifically owned a true Sony model (only the cool kids were able to afford one), but the word Walkman was so widely used that it was the standard term used to describe a portable cassette player. In today’s age this hasn’t changed, except that we call any portable MP3 player an iPod whether made by Apple or not.

The Walkman was originally blue, however this didn’t last long as the vast majority of models were gray. And for whatever reason, Sony was able to make gray look cool in the 1980s.

As a sorta/kinda experiment, a teenager was asked to use one of these clunkers for a week instead of an iPod to see if he could figure it out.

A few quotes from that article:

• "When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks…"
• "It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape."
• "I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser…"
• "I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly…"

Go ahead and rest the rest from the link above. Good stuff.

As an interesting end note, audio compact discs were released to market only one year after the Walkman was introduced – and it’s still the standard audio format sold today.

Being that I hadn’t used Apple’s Safari browser for some time I decided to check it out again. It’s now at version 4 beta. This is the exact version I have:

The install completed easily, however on attempt to load www.google.com (yes, that Google), this happened:

Not good.

Everything with my internet connection was fine as my other browsers worked with no issue. Eventually Safari started working properly. Must be a beta bug thing (it is a beta browser, after all).

When you first start Safari you are presented with “Top Sites”, which is a paneled/skewed thumbnail collection of the sites you visit the most.

The panels are clickable, obviously. And yes, Apple thought enough to put an “Edit” button at the bottom left to edit out sites you don’t want to appear here.

If you’re saying to yourself, “I’ve seen this feature somewhere else..”, you’re right. The Opera browser has had this for a while. Safari’s Top Sites is just a fancy version of Opera’s Speed Dial, with the difference being Safari fills in the panels automatically whereas Opera doesn’t (and if I’m wrong there, feel free to comment and correct me).

Tabs in Safari are placed on the very top of the browser. You will either love or hate this. Users of Safari on OS X give mixed reviews on the above-bar tab placement, so you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you like it or not.

The Flash plugin works fine and I didn’t have to install/reinstall anything from Adobe. Browsing YouTube or any other Flash video-enabled site won’t be a problem.

The menu bar, like in Internet Explorer, is hidden by default and is accessed by pressing ALT. However you will probably never need to do this since everything important is accessed via the sprocket-looking icon.

From that menu is all the necessary stuff, like preferences, Private Browsing and so on.

Speaking of which, Safari’s Private Browsing is nice to have but the problem is that there is absolutely no confirmation to let you know it’s enabled after the OK, other than going back to the menu and looking for the checkmark next to the phrase.

By comparison, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 make it very obvious you are have private-mode enabled.

If you used Safari on Windows before, you’ll immediately notice the browser now uses Windows font smoothing (OpenType/ClearType) by default and not the thicker Apple-style font rendering. Is there a way to enable this, which was arguably its best feature? Yes. Go to Preferences and then Appearance and you’ll find it there:

Compared to previous versions there are now several different types of smoothing to choose from. Windows Standard is the default choice, but if you want the fatter/thicker style, use Medium or Strong. Light (at least to my eyes) tends to be too “fuzzy” looking.

If you have bad eyes, you will really like Safari set on Strong. Here’s an example:

“Windows Standard”

“Strong”

It does looks a bit “smudgy”, but for those with bad eyes this may really make a big difference when reading web pages.

If you use “Strong” in combination with increasing the size of a web page (CTRL and plus-key to enlarge, CTRL and minus key to reduce), the larger the font, the better it looks.

Will this browser switch anyone off of what they normally use?

Save for Mac people who want a Mac look in Windows and people who want a browser that renders thicker fonts, not really.

Safari is a decent browser but is trounced by other offerings. It’s not as extensible as Firefox (FF is king of the add-ons, no question). It doesn’t have as much support as IE 7 (and soon to be 8 once more market share is gained). It doesn’t have any super-whiz-bang features no other browser has like Opera does (such as voice  recognition).

Simply put, Safari is at the back of the pack. But as said above, it is decent. Version 4 brings good new stuff to the table.

Try it out, you may like it.

And by the way, the claim of “world’s fastest web browser” isn’t exactly true. That honor belongs to Lynx. A GUI-based browser cannot outrun a text-based one, period.

If posed the question as to what you think the worst possible thing could happen to a PC is, your answer would probably be, "when the hard drive dies".

Wrong.

The worst possible thing that can happen is fire. This is when something in your computer overheats, catches fire and starts melting the "guts" (motherboard, chips, etc.). Fire is the worst because it makes any computer literally unusable – and that’s far worse than a hard drive that croaks.

A small and true story before continuing:

Years ago I was working for a large corporation and the LAN Administrator was delivering a brand new laptop to one of the six-figure guys in the corporate office in Boston Massachusetts. The laptop in question was a Texas Instruments TravelMate 5100. This was at a time when the Pentium processor was still new and laptop makers didn’t really know how to cool those things down just yet.

The guy goes into the six-figure employee’s office, sets up the laptop, plugs it in, presses the power button, and..

POP.

Sounded like a small gunshot.

Smoke comes streaming up from the keyboard. The smell of burnt silicon stunk up the office and more or less the whole floor soon after that. The stench stayed there for a week it was so bad.

Modern-day PCs and laptops thankfully rarely if ever catch fire and start melting stuff, however the threat of fire is not 100% out of the question.

Two common situations that may set your PC ablaze

1. Unbound wires/cables

Dangling unbound wires in a PC case is a fire threat. This is because a wire can get too close to a fan, a fan blade chops the wire, that sets off a spark and if that spark hits the right spot (which it always does), it’s burn city.

Or..

A wire gets too close to a hot item in your case, the wire wrap melts, wire is exposed, throws sparks and produces the same disastrous result.

I cannot stress enough that you should never have dangling wires in a computer case. Ever. Bunch your cables, keep them as far away from fans and sources of heat as possible.

2. Dead fan(s)

A fan’s job is to cool. If a fan dies and for some crazy reason the computer doesn’t shut off like it’s supposed to when it gets too hot, whatever it was cooling will overheat, burn up and possibly take the whole computer with it.

Indicators that your computer is running too hot

1. When you touch the side of your case, it literally feels hot to the touch.

This is bad news. It is normally okay for a case to feel slightly warm to the touch, but if hot, that’s a problem.

If you have a laptop, that’s a different story. Many laptops run hot on the backplane (a.k.a. the bottom) due to the very limited space inside the chassis and there’s really not much you can do about it other than deal with it, or use a laptop stand with built-in fans.

2. Your computer randomly shuts off for seemingly no reason.

There probably is a reason – it’s running too hot. And your computer is saving itself by powering off to prevent itself from burning up. The solution is more fans or better fans if you can’t add any. Maybe a cooling system if you’ve got the cash for it.

What type of PCs have a higher risk of fire?

Custom built. Many people who build their own PCs cut corners and this can lead to disastrous results like fire later.

Bear in mind that I’m not talking about just high-powered gaming rigs here. Any improperly wired/fan’d PC box can burn up.

OEM boxes on the other hand, be they by Dell, Apple, Gateway or the like almost never have fire threat issues, much less actually catch on fire. The manufacturing process is done in such a way where extra special attention is given to ensure fire (almost, repeat, almost) never happens.

Got a disaster story with a computer burning up?

Whether it’s your story or someone else’s box, let us know in the comment section. Bonus points if you have pics (although not required).

Over the weekend I had a discussion with a friend who has recently switched to Mac, and he brought up an unbelievably good – and I mean good – point. I’ll get to it in a moment.

The friend I speak of is a Mac convert. He switched over, is very happy about it and has nothing but nice things to say about Apple. Granted, there are a few things he doesn’t like, but overall he’s satisfied with the way his Apple boxes work.

He knows that Microsoft is a software company and Apple is an OEM (something many Mac vs. PC debaters always forget). The super-good point he made is this:

"I have only one product made by Microsoft in my house, and it’s an Xbox 360. If Microsoft built a PC as good as the 360 like Apple builds a Mac, it would be the best PC made."

And he’s right.

Microsoft’s "PC" is the Xbox. It runs like a top. Gamers of all ages love it. Microsoft controls every bit of hardware and software that goes into it. It’s ultra-proprietary being that it’s a gaming console. And the fact it’s proprietary in and out is a huge reason why it runs so well – just like a Mac.

It should be noted that many Mac fans do own an Xbox. These people who positively can’t stand PCs will applaud the Xbox for working properly just like their Macs do; it is the single product made by Microsoft they don’t complain about.

I had to sit back and realize that yes, being proprietary does have its advantages, with the main ones being stability and reliability.

With Xbox, you pop in a game, turn it on and go. Simple as that. No fuss, no muss. It just works (and doesn’t that phrase sound familiar?) It’s networking also works without any hitches to speak of.

When you’re the OEM and control both the hardware and software, the box does what it’s supposed to do. There are no questions involved, such as, "Do I need a driver for this?" or the like. Everything is ready to run. When you’re not the OEM, yes, the box will crash. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but it will do it.

If Microsoft did actually manufacture a PC, and it was as good as the Xbox is, and it was priced right, they’d probably put Dell out of business.

Fervent Mac users are quick to say, "You get what you pay for" to justify the price of owning an Apple Macintosh computer or portable Macbook computer.

Laptops are outselling desktops like crazy right now and have been for some time – and this counts for Apple as well. Their desktop line, like all other computer manufacturers, have taken a huge hit sales-wise.

In the "get what you pay for" realm, with the Macbook line the one thing you don’t get for the money is screen size – and that matters. For many people that’s the make-or-break decision on whether to buy a laptop or not.

If you want anything over a 13-inch screen on a new Macbook, it will cost you over $1000, period.

Microsoft has capitalized on this:

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

BUT… and this is a big BUT…

A 17-inch screen on a laptop is just too frickin’ big for most people. Yes, the display is nice, but it’s when carrying it around that it proves to be quite cumbersome.

The be-all/end-all perfect laptop screen sizes are 14-inch normal aspect and 15-inch widescreen. There has not been a size before or since that matches up for more people’s eyes better. It’s also more portable and lighter.

Those laptops can be had for under $400 new.

That’s less than half the price of a 13-inch Macbook. Now that’s a deal.

For the Mac fans that would say, "I don’t care, it’s still got crappy Windows on it", shaddup. It’s $600 less, the screen is a full two inches larger and if I don’t feel like using Windows I can put Ubuntu on it.

The best line from the commercial above is, "I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person."

In today’s economy, nobody wants to be "cool". If to be "cool" you must shell out $1000 for a Macbook with a 13-inch screen while other makes are larger and less than half the price, you can take your "cool" and shove it.

Three Mac computers from Apple’s line have been refreshed recently, that being the mini, iMac and Mac Pro.

Odds  are you’re probably not interested in the Mac Pro because it’s out of the range of what most people can afford these days ($2,499), however you might have been interested in the other two.

The new Macs don’t bring any significant design changes but do put more horsepower under the hood. The iMac in particular gets bumped to a 320GB hard drive and has better processor offerings, but for some strange reason still only offers a 8x speed SuperDrive.

It should be noted that Apple’s Macbooks are far outselling the desktop versions, and to be honest are a better deal. People are switching more towards laptops these days compared to desktops. The entry level 13-inch Macbook is priced correct at $999 and will hold higher resale value compared to the desktop version, so not only is it lower in price but will sell for more later when you trade up.

The Iphone is just cool. Calling it a phone is almost a disservice because what it really is is a full mobile computing platform. And in that vein, it can also be a mobile GAMING platform.

Now, I’m not a big gamer (my regular readers know that). But, I did spend a little time playing around in the App Store looking for some decent free games for the Iphone. I wanted to see what the phone could do. And I came across Maze Finger.

This game is simplistic as hell, but the graphics are pretty cool. I decided to create a quickie video to show you. NOTE: I was using a Flip Video in the dark to record this, so yeah, it is kind of out of focus. But, you’ll get the idea.

What do you think? Do you think the Iphone and the Ipod Touch could be Apple’s competition to some of the other popular mobile gaming platforms? I do.

Mandriva Linux 2009 now available

Back in 1998 (a long time before many people ever heard of that thing called "Linux"), Mandrakelinux (sometimes just called "Mandrake") was released. People liked it. A lot. Well here we are ten years later and Mandrake, now under the name Mandriva, has a new release.

It’s packed with GNOME v2.24, OpenOffice 3, Firefox 3, kernel 2.6.27 and a bunch more stuff. Read more about it (and by all means, download and try it out for yourself).

Google will (finally) get RSS for web search results

With just about any Google service you can get an RSS feed for it. That is everything except the one thing they do best – web search.

In about a month or less you will finally be able to get search results as RSS feeds. This is great for those of us who use RSS often (such as yours truly). Read more about it.

YouTube puts in audio preview feature for comment posting

As many people are aware, YouTube has the absolute worst web "community" on the face of the internet. It’s horrible. Actually, scratch that – it’s beyond horrible. So horrible there is absolutely no possible way it could ever be fixed.

However, YouTube (owned by the GOOG) continues to try to make sense out of that mess and has put in a new button when you go to post a comment called "Audio Preview". It’s exactly what you think it is. Write a comment, hit the button and the site speaks back what you typed.

And no it will not pronounce "OMG WTF THIS IS SO STOOPID GIVE ME MY 2 MINUTES BACK" correctly. Read more about it here (or go try it out for yourself).

The Woz says iPod is a dead horse

Do you know who Steve Wozniak is? If you’re an Apple fan you do.

Well anyway, he basically more or less said the iPod is dead. Yep. Woz also thinks the iPhone is going to live a very short life also. Read more about it here. (Be sure to read the part about how Apple’s stock is completely in the toilet too.)

I’ve mentioned on the PCMech Live show many times my disdain for the fact that if you’re one of the few running a 64-bit processor, your options for native 64-bit applications are few and far between on the consumer end.

Chances are very high that the computer you’re using right now has a 32-bit CPU in it.

Here’s the short-short definition of the difference between 32 and 64 concerning your CPU: Continued

Continued

For development and testing reasons, I wanted to set up a local server on my Mac Pro so that I could operate a local copy of PCMech.com. I thought I would document how I went about it for the benefit of others down the road.

The easiest method to set up a quick LAMP server under OS X is to use MAMP. MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL and PHP. Now, both Apache and PHP do come bundled with OS X, but you’re going to get into command line hell if you want to set it up. MAMP is much easier because you just download, drag to the Applications folder, and you’re done.

Once you’ve done this, let’s do the following:

1. Navigate to the new MAMP folder and start the MAMP app.
2. Change any preferences you might want to change, but otherwise go ahead and click “Start Servers”.
3. Click on “Open Start Page” and your default web browser will load up the default homepage at localhost. You will see a menu of options, too, because MAMP has PHPMyAdmin and other utilities built right in.

Being that MAMP is completely independent, it does not run in the background. So, you’ll need to start up MAMP like any other application in order for your server to be operational. To remove MAMP, just drag the MAMP folder to Trash. No config files for OS X are altered, so a simply drag to Trash means everything is gone.

To work with any files, you will need to place your website files into the “htdocs” sub-folder off of the MAMP folder. Yes, this means your website files reside in the Applications folder which is  odd. But, this is how MAMP maintains its independent nature.

Lastly, you might want to get command line access to MySQL so that you can run MySQL commands via Terminal. For instance, I needed to import the PCMech database into my local database and it was way too large to be imported via PHPMyAdmin. The tedious way would be to manually split up your SQL file. The much easier way is to set up the MAMP version of MySQL to be able to take commands via Terminal. To do so, execute the following commands in Terminal:

sudo mkdir /var/mysql
sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock
sudo chown _mysql /var/mysql/mysql.sock
sudo chmod 777 /var/mysql/mysql.sock

Once that is done, you can import an SQL file via the following command via Terminal:

/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql -hlocalhost -uroot -proot [DBNAME] < ‘/Users/[USER]/Documents/Database Backups/[NAME OF SQL FILE].sql’

Replace [DBNAME] with the name of your local database, [USER] with your username under OS X, and [NME OF SQL FILE] with whatever the file name is for your SQL backup from which you want to restore. You’ll want to make sure the file path for your SQL file is correct, too. I use a folder called “Database Backups”, but that’s me.

With this, you should be good to go. I now have a copy of PCMech.com running locally on my Mac.

Continued

One of the most exciting things you will ever read in the world of technology is a keyboard review. I was, however, super interested because my Microsoft keyboard failed – yet again. What to replace it with? And this time, no Microsoft crap.

Continued