Hardware Insights Forum

Like the "best-of-all" world, but on a new level. You may want to state some of your personal preferences here...

For me:

• All noise-producing devices should be regulated, and A-weighting should be banned (this is why). Can I just say that I detest loud lawnmowers. It's my understanding that they make them loud on purpose, because customers equate loudness with power. The same goes for motorcycles.
• I can't say I get the point of "girly" stuff...
• I can only say people wear way too much make-up. To be fair, unlike jewellery it has a use, but do all women have to wear lipstick??? I think not.
• I'd prefer (LED, probably) lighting with the best attainable colour rendering and a colour temperature around 4000K.
• I would probably like the interior of my house to be light grey. Something of a light grey theme, I suppose...
• I would like a PC that's quiet, power-efficient, and has a lifespan of at least 10 years (preferably 20) with a high-resolution (at least 250PPI) monitor (with 4:3 aspect ratio), and probably a laser mouse (and perhaps a clicky keyboard. I don't have one yet though. My only "clicky" experience so far is with the buttons on Nintendo DSi and 3DS systems. The thing about clicky keyswitches is that, if you're used to the rubber-dome type, it's easy to get the impression that you need to press hard, which you shouldn't do...). (It's just unfortunate that so much software has been designed (and will probably continue to be for some time) around fixed resolutions...)

And, of course, to get rid of crap caps.

Dark grey colour cars should be banned too as they blend in too much with the road. I've had a near miss with one before as it blended in so well.

LongRunner wrote:It's my understanding that they make them loud on purpose, because customers equate loudness with power. The same goes for motorcycles.

Maybe, but main reason is because motorcycles are harder to see on the road as they are much smaller than cars. At least if you can hear them, then other drivers know there's one around.

c_hegge wrote:Dark grey colour cars should be banned too as they blend in too much with the road. I've had a near miss with one before as it blended in so well.

Oh really? Damn it. That's the same colour car that my mother has (I don't have my own yet).

Maybe, but main reason is because motorcycles are harder to see on the road as they are much smaller than cars. At least if you can hear them, then other drivers know there's one around.

Well, yeah… Still annoying, though.

On the subject of keyboards, I would like to also have a "Special Character" ("Spec Char." for short?) key that, while held down, swaps the letters for some of the more commonly used characters that aren't available from a conventional keyboard:
… (usually, people just type 3 periods in a row, me included)
µ (while I stick to the proper symbol myself, many people just type "u")
° (people often just type an *)
± (plus/minus sign)
− (the minus sign, for your convenience, as it's not easy to tell from a hyphen; this, × and ÷ could alternatively replace -, * and / on the number pad)
× (multiplication sign; usually an *, or sometimes an x, is used)
÷ (division sign; usually a / is used)
≤ and ≥ (less than or equal to/greater than or equal to)
™, © and ® (often typed as (TM), (C) and (R))
Ω (ohms; R is generally used instead)
≈ (approximately/almost equal; often a ~ is used)
≠ (not equal) (sorry if it doesn't render well in the font here)
– (en dash) and — (em dash)
‘ ’ “ ” (smart quotation marks)

Its second function would be to enter fractions: Hold it down, type the first number, press the / ? key, type the second number, and release the new key to finish.

I would also require forums to provide support for superscript, subscript, and tables, with the staff being able to use strike-out to mark reported wrong information (without having to remove it outright or place an awkward text warning).

Yup. Another thing I've never seen on a keyboard (but would like to see) is dedicated cut, copy and paste buttons. Surely, it wouldn't be that hard to include them with the multimedia buttons.

Another thing I would like is if most laptops had 3-button trackpoints like Dell Latitudes and Lenovo Thinkpads.

c_hegge wrote:Another thing I've never seen on a keyboard (but would like to see) is dedicated cut, copy and paste buttons. Surely, it wouldn't be that hard to include them with the multimedia buttons.

An interesting suggestion — but at least Ctrl + X, Ctrl + C, and Ctrl + V aren't too bad once you've learned them: One extra keystroke each time and that's all. With special characters, on the other hand, all of the four available options are more time-consuming:

• Open up the character map and manually select the character you want each time, which of course is very tedious.
• Keep a document on disk that you have manually added the characters to. A somewhat easier, if ghetto, option, which I have used for some time (but will remove in due order).
• Install a clipboard enhancer. I currently have ClipX on my system. With the stickies plug-in, you can keep the more oft-used special characters on a permanent list. Although not the most advanced such tool, and no longer under development, it at least integrates pretty much seamlessly. (Note: Some characters will display wrong when configuring the stickies, but don't worry about that. The pop-up menu displays, and the tool pastes, the correct characters.) I have tried some other utilities in that category but have not been satisfied with any of them.
• Hold down Alt, type an obscure four-digit ID using the number pad (doing it with the regular number keys won't work), then release Alt to place the character… (EDIT: Also, what I didn't mention before is that this only works for a small range of the available characters.)

And on the topic of the clipboard, I think it's just plain silly that the built-in clipboard functionality hasn't been improved already. A single entry held in RAM only?! That's so 1990.

I would also require all editions of all operating systems to provide the means to retain past versions of user files, and allow the user to switch the function on and off at will on a file-by-file basis (and on folders, determining whether it will be enabled on newly created files) for any file/folder that they are the owner of.

Just for the record, I haven't used the "My" folders (as they were known prior to Vista) myself for quite a while. In my current setup, documents, pictures, software installers (and practically all software that doesn't undergo installation procedures), and most of the rest of what I create myself is in appropriate subfolders under D: (the second of the two WD800JD-00LSA0s installed, with the first being C:). E: (the lone ST31000528AS) has DVD and CD rips and a bit more, including compressed disk images of a 4R080L0 and an ST3250820A (which of course can't be squeezed onto the smaller drives). That's how I like it, so it's quite annoying whenever an application reverts back to looking in the "My" folders. Yes, I know they're what most people use. But for my own systems, I'd prefer the flexibility of being able to swap data drives between systems with relative ease.

The large "Calorie" (actually a kilocalorie) is, without a doubt, the silliest unit ever. And all food packaging must be fully recyclable.

More:

• Regarding the PC sound system… And I would require graphic equalisers (done most likely in software) on everything high-tech with audio outputs, not just PCs (including the dual-EQ system for anything with a separate headphone output).
• And, of course, PCs in this world would have to have reinforced I/O shields as mentioned in the post below that one.

I have actually considered recapping a spare sound card, just so I can use it to independently (from these high-end headphones) operate a small(ish) speaker set (which will probably be a DIY build) as desired. The card in question is an AV512-A built by AudioExcel I believe, using C-Media's CMI8738-LX (not a fantastic chip, I believe, but at least it's not a SoundBlaster [the last SoundBlaster worth using, so others say, was the AWE64, which was a long-obsolete ISA card]). It has all five 3.5mm jacks required for 5.1 surround, though of course I will only actually be using the front(/headphone) output in this arrangement. The PCI connector is too dirty to actually use the card now, so I'll have to clean it later, but at least it's plated with gold instead of cheaping out and using tin or (worst) bare copper. The (17 in total — 3 × 470µF [2 for the front/headphone output and I don't know what the third is for], 11 × 10µF [4 of which are for the rear and center/subwoofer outputs] and 3 × 1µF [2 of which are for line-in]) electrolytics on that card are all G-Luxon, which I intend on replacing with Nichicon PW. Capacitors taller than 12.5mm will not be used, as I don't want to risk shorting to an adjacent card should one be installed; the 470µF units are 8mm diameter and the smaller ones are 4mm diameter in 5mm PCB positions.

It would be a much better use of the audio circuitry, of course, to simply enable independent operation of the front and rear audio jacks, as I also suggested in that other thread. But working within reality will be the best I can do for the near future.

• No smoking under any circumstances.
• No "metallic plastic" (plastic coated with metallic paint to try and look like metal).
• A language that actually makes sense, as opposed to the weird jumble that is English.

Is reality being unfair on purpose?

LongRunner wrote:No smoking under any circumstances.

100% with you on that one. There's no reason why anyone should buy lung cancer (and not to mention give their second hand smoke to those around them)