System of a Down: Mark's 'Puter, Pt. 2

The Speakers

One of my prized possessions, I purchased Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 speakers.  They are by far the cleanest, most accurate and capable speakers I have ever heard for a computer, surpassing many home systems of equivalent size.

If you haven't heard a movie in 5.1 sound, you are missing a great experience.  I own one audio DVD by the Blue Man Group, and it's incredible to listen to. The original plan for these speakers was in a living room environment, with the PC driving the audio/video experience, but I have not gotten there yet. Nor has the technology, if you wanna know what I think.

Storage Devices (CD, DVD, Hard Drive)

Modern PCs support up to four IDE devices.  I've packed my system to the gills quite without trying.  I have installed the following:

Hard Drive

Two of them. One is a Western Digital 120 GB drive, which is the primary, and the second is a Western Digital 60GB model, WD600BB.  If you're shopping for a new IDE hard drive (and the vast majority of people will buy an IDE drive) make sure that you get one that is rated at 7200 RPM.  The slower versions, 5400 RPM, are noticeably slower. Brands...they all amount to the same thing: WD, Maxtor, and Seagate are the most common. Figure out the price per megabyte and get the best value.

DVD-RW Drive

I recently got a Plextor PX-708A DVD rewritable drive to replace my dying Sony CD-RW drive. This thing is rock solid, very fast, and I'm a convert to Plextor's drives. Good stuff. It also burns CDs at a faster rate than the CD-RW drive it replaced, it's the best of both worlds. This thing does it all.

DVD-ROM Drive

I chose a DVD drive so that I could eventually watch movies on my television, although watching them on the computer is pretty nice too.  Coupled with 5.1 sound, it's an awesome experience.  My drive is a Creative Labs DVD-Ovation.  If you do purchase a DVD drive with the intent of watching movies, make sure that your computer can decode the video - an add-on decoder card is nice to have, but I don't have any issues with software doing it for me.  The rest of the system is fast enough that it doesn't create problems.

WebCam

I have a Logitech QuickCam Web that is responsible for the images you see on the home page.  It does the job, and the price was right - but if I ever replace it, I will be looking for something with better image quality.

Printer

I bought an Epson C60 inkjet on the basis of the unbelievably good print quality and the rebate that was available.  However, looking back, I should have spent a tad more and gone with the next one up, the C80, for the simple fact that it has individual ink tanks.  The printer is cheap, folks - the ink is where you get robbed.  The ink cartridges for my printer are thirty dollars US apiece .  I could have bought my printer three times now.  Oh, and don't be too stingy on the ink, either - it will dry out if you don't use it, and then you've wasted your money.  I know.

Scanner

A Canon CanoScan U620, attached via USB, provides a way for me to scan in really old things and embarrass whomever I choose.  I like the scanner a lot - but the software that it came with is, erm, less than user-friendly.  If you're in the market for a scanner, find one with the highest DPI (Dots Per Inch) you can afford, which will result in sharper scans, and look at the software bundle (what does it come with?).  Accept nothing less than OCR (Optical Character Recognition, for scanning documents in) and a photo editing package of some kind.

Other Crap

I also have a few other devices that I plug in from time to time, but they aren't part of the computer itself. One is my LG VX-6000 mobile phone, and I use software called BitPim to modify the ringtones and graphics on it. I bought Verizon's Mobile Office software for the cable and its ability to import from Microsoft Outlook.

I've also got a Handspring Visor Pro, with a USB cradle, and an Olympus D-390 digital camera that I connect. All in all, I've wound up with a ton of USB devices and now I need a USB hub.