since this is the hardware thread, recently picked up a Logitech G9 mouse after lusting after one for a while. Holy balls this is one high-quality piece of kit. 

I want the laptop for the same sort of stuff I'm currently using my desktop for, except for gaming. My desktop is basically a 2003 PC, just with an updated GFX card and 2gb of ram. I am pretty sure the sort of laptops I'm looking at will not only be adequate but excessive for my needs. I'd rather spend a few quid less than a few quid more.

(And put the few quid towards updating this old clunker (which is still very satisfactory for everything except the Crysis demo)). 

I want one :) 

fair enough. If you aren't using it for gaming and don't want a big screen then that's money wasted I guess. Had another look around and found another Acer for you, coming in at �391. T5800 Processor, 3 GB ram.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-15-6-inch-Laptop-Intel/dp/B001G7PI26/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241196696&sr=1-1

Also, you said you were looking for an optical mouse too, heard this is good on a budget but haven't used one myself:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-OEM-RX1000-Laser-Mouse/dp/B000GQMJ8E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241197519&sr=1-2

Hope that helps.


Ricky
Yeah I know man. Ridiculous how quick components drop in value and your existing kit becomes worthless! That laptop would play current games well, for �448. Crazy talk... 

Yeh, Shambler already proved I've lost 50� in the last 4 months for a start :( 

i see they finally brought back the forward/back side buttons on their mice, instead of just a back button alone.

i might finally buy a new mouse instead of always going back to mx500/518 mice, although i still think the mx500/518 was the best mouse design ever for comfort and utility. 

I'm still using my 510. Lovely blue turtle shell effect too... 

Is fine so far, there's some problems with compatability, but to be honest alot of the crap I'm having problems with was due to change anyway.

Also, I'm looking for a thumbtrack mouse - any suggestions? 

By thumb track I mean those that you don't move - they have a trackball, but a thumb operated one. They're pretty rare it seems, logitech had a few models.

I forked out 50 quid for my last one a few years ago. They're wierd to get used to but the precision and speed is worth it, as well as being able to operate with minimal movement being a bonus. 

I just set my face as my login password. Facial recognition FTW 

or he'll come and cut off your face. 

...set my ass as my log-in password. Or, rather, tried to. It gave me an error: "Password Rejected: Recognition already identified with user: "ijed"". Hmmmm.... 

 

speaking of hardware, my router sucks. It's a d-link WBR-1310, and I'm pretty dissapointed since all previous d-link routers/network adapters i've bought were trouble free. But this one can't keep a goddamn connection for more than a few hours, and needs occasional hard-resets just get re-establish a connection.

Anyone got a recommendation for a good, basic wireless router? I've heard linksys is good, is that true? 

not too basic... i would like a decent web-based admin tool, firewall, packet routing type tools. I just don't need the flashy "Gamer Xtreeeme Routers" that sell for $200 for no apparent reason. 

Will you not be doing any Xtreeeme routing then? 

It doesn't want to work, and is anyway slower than just typing a password since the camera has to power up. Typical wave of the future. 

Recognised me today. I'm guessing this is how I'll feel in a year or so when my kid calls me daddy. 

i was just wondering if anyone had ever seen something like this:

how it goes is that after some hours of use, i start to see wierd things happening with stuff related to the video card.

for example, games, geometry flicker and video files either show up black (with sound) or with a thick pinkish/gray line going horizontally at a random height. the line flickers but stays at the same position.

restarting the machine gets rid of the problem, so it seems it's video ram corruption? 

it would occur more randomly, unless it only happens when overheating, but then I'd expect it to happen quite soon after the restart again. (same with most other problems)

vague idea: bug with mem management in driver? 

is obviously guesswork. I've seen the weirdest stuff happen 

similar stuff happened to with my old card 

looked into it a bit more by running different 3d applications at the same time.

when the problem has started, i've found that running 3ds max will stop the problem from showing up in videos but it will cause the flickering when running doom3 at the same time.
closing 3ds max will stop the problem in doom3, but the lines appear in videos again.

i don't really know all that much about memory management or really video cards in general though. i guess i'll have to spend more time on google. :S 

I would try older drivers (eg half a year old, then a year old). Well, unless your's are old, try the latest ones then. Some similar problems happened to me on Linux and I could fix it with different drivers. 

Here's some great photos and write up about ancient personal computers.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/dawn_personal_computer_altair_ibm_pc?page=0%2C0