As I mentioned before, I’m not much of a computer gamer, except for one title: Microsoft Flight Simulator (FS).  I’m also a private pilot, and there’s one thing about FS that really bugs me; in a landing pattern, you have to push buttons to see around you. What I mean is that to look left, you push a button and see a left view out of the cockpit, and so on. In real-world flying, you look around without pushing buttons, and still have your hands on the throttle and yoke or stick. In FS, you’re pushing buttons to get a view, and it’s terribly distracting, at least for me.

That’s why my next FS-related purchase  will be NaturalPoint’s TrackIR. TrackIR is a device that grabs on to the top of your monitor and tracks your head movements. It then sends that information to the game (it can be any kind of flying or driving computer game). That means when you turn your head right, the game will follow your head movements to the right.

It’s kind of difficult to explain, so it might be best to watch a YouTube video of TrackIR in action to get a better sense of what I’m talking about. For me, this will revolutionize my flight-simming. Takeoffs and landings, in particular, will become much more realistic, and therefore help my real-world flying. Even if you only fly virtually, the TrackIR shouild be at the top of your list of gadgets to enhance your gaming.

To go with my new laptop, I decided it was time to upgrade my monitor (the laptop has a 13-inch screen; great for portability, not so good for working on all day, every day). I wanted something that wasn’t too expensive (i.e. less than $200), had HDMI inputs to get a very sharp picture, and at least 20 inches wide.

After some Internet shopping, I decided that the Acer H233H had the best combination of price and features. So earlier this week I headed to my local Best Buy and picked one up for the exceptional price of $179.

I’ve been using it most of this week, and have been very happy with it so far. Some of the features include full HD 1080p resolution, 40,000:1 contrast ratio and a maximum resolution of 1920×1080. All that means that the picture is extremely sharp and vivid. It also has DVI and HDMI interfaces, making it compatible with most modern desktops and laptops.

I had no problems setting the monitor on the base, even without looking at the directions. It worked immediately, and hasn’t caused a moment’s worth of trouble. The colors look true, and the glossy black frame helps the screen pop. My sole complaint is that the base doesn’t raise the monitor up higher. It sits fairly low on the base, and I had to put it on a small platform to get it to a comfortable eye level for me.

That’s a small nit to pick, though. On the whole, I’m quite happy with the Acer. It’s been easy on my eyes, and that’s what I need in a monitor.

I recently reviewed my new laptop, the Dell Studio XPS. I gave it a strong thumbs-up, but I may have spoken too soon. Soon after arriving, the laptop started acting up; bluescreen crashes became regular occurrences, then it started freezing at random times.

I contacted Dell support for help. To the company’s credit, tech support was for the most part knowledgeable and fast. We ultimately determined that there was corruption in the Windows Vista operating system, and a complete hard-drive wipe and re-install was necessary. Not fun at all, but worth a try.

Those are things I can do myself, so I did them, including re-installing a host of drivers I knew very little about (drivers are tiny programs that tell your hardware how to interact with your operating system). That seemed to cure the problem, but alas, it was only a tease; after another day or two, the problems (crashes, freezes) came right back. Grrrr.

I wasn’t about to go through another re-install. I told Dell to ship me out another unit, one with a properly-installed operating system. I got the new computer this afternoon, and have been installing programs like Microsoft Office yet again and using it all afternoon and evening. So far, so good; it looks like (knock on plastic) this one might be a keeper (of course, I’m undoubtedly jinxing myself by even saying it.)

My lessons learned from this: computers can be fragile things. Back up your data often (and hit “Save” often). Just because you spend a lot on a gadget, it doesn’t mean it will work out of the box (although you should be able to trust that). And Dell’s tech support, at least in my case, was very good.

I know others have had poor experiences with Dell support, but mine has been just the opposite. Yeah, I wish they’d built the computer right the first time, but they worked hard to solve the problem, and were unfailingly polite. That doesn’t often happen with computer-related tech support these days.

Anyway, I’m now happy with my Dell purchase. I hope to have another positive report in the near future.

Have you seen Star Trek yet? The answer from me would be a big YES. In fact, I’ve seen it twice. Let me give it a one-sentence review for those of you considering it? It’s awesome, it’s fantastic, it’s incredible. Go see it — now (how’s that for a bite-sized review?).

One of the things that’s always distinguished Star Trek, since the William Shatner original series days, is the gadgets. The futuristic feel is significantly enhanced by the phasers, tricorders, scanners, etc. And given the renewed popularity that the movie has brought, it’s natural that those gadgets would be reproduced and for sale. Over the next week or so, I’ll be giving you a taste of some of the best gadgets.

We’ll start with an original series Communicator. This one features sound effects and clips from the series, and a pop-open design. The company says these are a limited edition item (unfortunately, it also says they’re currently out of stock. Since that’s likely due to the interest generated by the movie, be patient for a little bit and they’ll be available again.)

Check back soon for more Star Trek gadgets. And go see the movie!

Continuing on my journey through gadgets to go with my new Dell XPS laptop, we come next to a USB hub. Why a USB hub? Simple: my laptop has just one USB port on it, and I plug many things into it. For example, my keyboard and mouse, flash drive, digital camera, etc. In other words, I need interfaces!

The one I chose was the Gigaware 4-port USB hub. It appears you can only pick these up at Radio Shack. Fortunately, there’s one nearby.

USB hubs aren’t exciting, but often necessary. One reason I chose this model was that I wanted all my ports on one side. When you go USB hub shopping, you’ll see many models with ports on multiple sides (i.e. front and back.) For space considerations, having them all on one side worked better for me.

Using the Gigaware hub was absolutely simple. I just plugged it into my lone USB port, and plugged in my peripherals. Windows Vista recognized it instantly and installed the drivers, without my having to install them myself (which isn’t hard, but is another step that increases the hassle factor.) Everything worked without a hitch, and I have had no problems with the hub whatsoever. That’s what I like in a gadget; simple to install, works flawlessly, and I don’t have to think about it again.

Works for me!

Following my recent misadventures with the Rocketfish keyboard/mouse wireless combo, I decided to go with a Microsoft solution to replace it. At my local Office Depot I found a Microsoft wireless combo set that was about the same price: the Wireless Laser Desktop 6000 (version 3).

It consists, like the Rocketfish setup, of a keyboard, mouse and USB dongle. Unlike Rocketfish, it’s a wireless trio rather than Bluetooth. There’s not really any functional difference in how they work, for most uses.

The keyboard on this set is ergonomically designed — at least that’s what it says on the box. The keys have a curve, which you can see in the picture. It’s taken me a bit of time to get used to, and I can’t say I’ve noticed any big improvement in comfort. It is comfortable, however.

There are plenty of keys for special purposes, like zoom keys, volume keys and so on. There are also a number of programmable keys that you can set up for individual functions. I like the keyboard very much.

The mouse is taking some getting used to. It may be hard to tell from the picture, but the mouse is big and heavy. It’s taken me some time to acclimate to the size and feel of it. It has the standard two buttons and wheel, plus several thin buttons on the left side that are also programmable.

One very cool thing about the mouse is a small compartment on the bottom into which the USB key fits. It’s a small thing, but it makes the dongle easy to transport and not lose. I move around a lot in my house with my laptops, and having the space for the key is very handy, and a thoughtful touch.

I’ve been using the combo for about three days now, and have no connection problems to report. This is big, since I was constantly losing the connection with the Rocketfish set.

The Laser Desktop 6000 set is definitely pricey, but I think it’s worth the money, given my needs for efficient computing.

I’ve had my new Dell Studio XPS laptop for four days now, which is enough time to give a preliminary review. I’ve used it for work, written stories on it, and used a lot of its abilities.

First off, it’s a beautiful machine. Glossy black, with brushed metal and leather accents — yes, leather on a laptop. It’s just a strip on the top cover, but it’s cool. The 13.3″ screen is awesome; very clear, sharp and bright. It puts the screen on my lower-end HP dv4 to shame (yeah, I have a few laptops — more than a few, actually. The dark side of being a gadget geek.)

The keyboard is extremely solid, and backlit. That’s a significant bonus for me, as it means I can work in a dark room or area and still be productive.

With a Core 2 Duo processor, 8 GB of RAM (I need lots of it for my job), and a 500GB hard drive, the specs on the machine are top of the line. It has had no problem handling any of the tasks I’ve thrown at it so far, and I haven’t pushed the RAM or processor near its limits yet. Of course, you pay a premium for this kind of setup, but for me, it’s worth it. Programs open very quickly, and Web browsing is extremely fast (assuming a fast connection, which you can assume if it’s me we’re talking about).

I’ve come across one drawback so far: there’s only one USB port on the thing. It’s a pretty serious oversight, especially on a laptop, which generally needs a lot of USB ports. I’ve bought a 4-port USB hub (coming in a future review), but those can be unwieldy. It does have a 4-pin firewire port for transferring video to the hard drive. That can be a dicey proposition on some laptops, but not this one. It handled the video my kids and I shot without a hiccup.

The touchpad and mouse buttons are top-flight, sensitive and accurate. I also love the small form factor. The less-than-generous screen size for me isn’t a problem; when using it in my office, I simply plug it into my large monitor, which it handles well, thanks to a 256MB separate video card. I move around a lot with my laptop, and will be traveling with it often, so having something very portable works well for me.

Ultimately, buying a laptop is a very personal decision, and you should never buy more laptop than you need. For my needs, I need a lot of laptop. If that describes you, give the Dell Studio XPS a try. It’s a serious machine for serious productivity.

To go along with my new Dell laptop (reviewed later), I wanted a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Bluetooth, you may know, is a wireless technology that connects devices — in this case, my laptop with the keyboard and mouse.

So after looking around, I ended up buying this bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo from Rocketfish.

It comes with a full keyboard, mouse and bluetooth USB dongle that acts as the receiver for both devices (I prefer my MacBook Pro laptop, which doesn’t require dongles to use bluetooth). After plugging in the dongle, you push a button on the bottom of both devices, which connects with the dongle attached to the computer. I had some trouble getting the devices to show up in Windows Vista, the operating system for my laptop. The instructions weren’t very clear, and were out of date.

Eventually, though, I got everything working. The keyboard was comfortable to use, and had keys for often-used functionality like volume controls, on each side. The mouse is not particularly solid; I found that the back battery cover kept coming off, not wanting to stay set in place.

Problems began the day after I first installed the devices. When I fired up my computer, Windows didn’t recognize the keyboard and mouse anymore. They reverted to generic, default devices with limited functionality. For instance, the scroll wheel on the mouse no longer works. When I went to the Rocketfish Web site to get the latest drivers to hopefully cure the problem, I found that there were none.

Given these problems, along with poor product support and documentation, I can’t recommend this bluetooth combination. It has promise, but that promise is so far unfulfilled.

Few things excite a geek like me more than a brand-spanking-new laptop. See, in my day job, I edit a computer-industry magazine that’s read by system and network administrators — those folks who run datacenters.

Given the demands of my job, I need a real fire-breathing computer. I also need something really portable (I don’t like lugging around laptops that weigh a ton), and something Windows-oriented (as opposed to a Mac. I love Macs, and have a MacBook Pro I use often, but a lot of the software I need to use is Windows-only).

So after much looking around, I settled on a Dell XPS Studio laptop. It’s got a Core 2 Duo processor, and I maxed out the RAM at 8GB. That’s extremely important for what I do, and there just aren’t many laptops on the market that can handle that much memory.

I also like the small form factor. I outfitted it with a wireless 802.11n card (”n” is the latest version of wireless cards, with the greatest range) and bluetooth, to add more wireless gadgets like a keyboard and mouse.

I don’t have this laptop yet — I ordered it awhile ago from Dell, and it should be arriving in my happy little hands in about 10 days. It also wasn’t cheap — not at all. But it’s not uncommon for me to have six or seven applications running at once, and 10 Web browser windows. I’m not a casual user who can get by with a netbook, although I’m a big fan of netbooks and what they offer at a low price. Since I need mucho processing power and gobs of RAM, my options are, ironically, far more limited. But I’m happy with the specs of my new machine, and can’t wait to put it through its paces.

I’ll give a fuller report once I’ve played with it awhile.

When I recently wrote about the Belkin Skype phone, I didn’t realize I’d be writing about Skype again so soon. But when Skype releases an app for the iPhone, it’s worth writing about again.

Skype, for the unfamiliar, is a service that lets you make phone calls through the magic of the Internet, using a technology called “Voice over IP”, or VoIP for short. If you call someone else with Skype, the call is free; there is a small per-minute charge to call someone without Skype. (Skype itself is a free application.)

One important point to notice is that you can only use the Skype app to make calls when you’re in range of a wi-fi network; Skype does not use cellular networks, so you can’t use it in your car or other places that are out of range of wi-fi.

iPod Touch owners can also use the Skype app, but they will need to use headphones with an included microphone to make or receive calls, since the Touch doesn’t normally have phone capabilities.

CNET is reporting that the Skype iPhone application will be available Tuesday, March 31. I’m assuming the Skype app is free, although news reports don’t specifically state that information.