Canon IXUS 75

One of my more recent tech purchases has been a digital camera.

I went for the Canon IXUS 75 as it seemed to have a good review to price ratio, it is small and it looks sexier than your standard all-silver digital camera.

I have had plenty of chance to test it out on my two recent holidays and so far I am impressed. It has lots of different settings to let you (try and) get the shot that you want but also seems to do a good job in automatic mode (although it is better at this in the daytime).

On the downside it does not have image stabilisation, so on slow exposure you have to try and improvise a tripod. Although, this is kind of a good thing as I have already dropped it once, it doesn't seem to mind a beating but I doubt this would be the case if it had a gyro.

A new interface for audio

I got an Ipod nano for my birthday. I had been debating getting one for a while because of the small size and slick user interface, I was just a little put off by the jump from Microsoft to Apple. As it happens, iTunes is only a bit worse than Media Player. Also, I don't intend to buy any DRM protected music so I should still be able to use Media Center to access my music collection elsewhere in the flat.

One really nifty thing Apple have done, that I didn't fully realise until I got my hands on an Ipod, is to provide an intelligent interface to the device. Portable audio devices have typically always had an analogue output for audio (the old 3.5mm jack). More modern players have come complete with some sort of digital input (usually no more functional than a USB mass storage device). Apple have created a new control interface, and opened it up to third party manufacturers so that you can get cool things like this low power FM transmitter.

Wii

As a birthday present to myself I have brough a Nintendo Wii. It was a choice between a Playstation 3 and a Wii. The Wii had benefits like being much cheaper, having more innovative controls and being able to play classic Nintendo games. The PS3, I thought, was made for more hardcore gamers (not me). Also if you asked me to bet on which format was going to win the current format ware, I would say Blu-Ray; but I wouldn't bet ~£600 on it! So far I am very impressed with the Wii. The controls are fun, it has a very good web browser (based on Opera) and it is great playing the downloadable older games. However Wii Sports is only really good for multiplayer gaming or it soon gets boring. Also the console is the wrong color (something based on Black would look much better next to my existing AV setup) and looks a bit uglier than it seems in pictures.

One Laptop Per Child

The "One Laptop Per Child" inititive is a project to get 50% of the world's population connected to the Internet by distributing very low power, low spec laptops to children in 3rd world countries via their governments. I haven't kept up to date with its development at all but the hardware and software is getting close to being finialized and I found this summary very interesting to read.

New Monitors and PSU

It was about time for a monitor upgrade.

I now have three Samsung 203Bs and an LG L203WT. Both are 20" TFT screens but the LG has a widescreen aspect ratio and a much higher contrast ratio, I will be using it mainly to watch videos. The Samsung screens can be rotated through 90° which I am experimenting with at the moment on one of the screens, it is a bit unusual at first but I think it is better for word processing and reading articles on web pages.

I also took this opportunity to change my PSU to a near-silent model. The one that came with the computer was a bit noisy but now all that can be heard is the gentle whirring from the water cooling radiator.

GPU Water Cooling

Both graphics cards in my computer are now also water cooled. I purchased two GPU cooling blocks and fitted them on each of my graphics cards (in place of the stock Nvidia fans) and daisy chained them with my existing CPU cooling block. So now water goes out of the radiator into the case (just under the PSU), through the CPU cooling block into the first GPU cooling block, then into the second GPU cooling block back out of the case and up to the radiator.

Now there are only two fans running in the computer, the one built into my PSU (maybe that will be the next change!) and the quiet one built into the water cooling radiator. I have the fun in the radiator set to its slowest speed and have a CPU temperature of 27°C, GPU temperatures of about 46°C and ambient case temperature of 44°C.

Water Cooling Update

I have received and fitted my water cooling kit. Everything went smoothly and it is working great; I have not seen the CPU temperature exceed 30°C, and this is with the radiator fan running at low speed. I chose to unplug some case fans to decrease the running noise of my computer further, the motherboard temperature is now 46°C though which may be a little too hot. What is your motherboard temperature?

Water Cooling

The recent hot weather coupled with my moving back to my small bedroom in Evesham has made me notice more the loud fan in my computer. This and fear that my current computer will suffer the same overheated demise of my last machine has prompted me to look into water cooling. I have just ordered a Corsair Nautilus 500 water cooling kit from Komplett. After reading two reviews it seems that should be a good purchase. I should be able to easily fit it without removing my motherboard and expand it at a later date to also cool my graphics cards. Being easy to drain should be handy too seeing as my computer gets moved around a fair bit. How easy it is to fit will be revealed in 3-4 days...