Artificial Cheese

A few months ago, Ilamor purchased an LCD television. This television came equipped with VGA input for use as a monitor. Upon hearing this, Ilamor’s mind went wild. For her birthday, Ilamor requested (in lieu of the annual birthday hug) that I turn her television into a computer.

As nebulous as this request sounds, I found the prospect intriguing. My first instinct was to talk her out of the idea. Ilamor said that she wanted it to watch movies, to which I responded, ‘get a dvd player.’ But the movies Ilamor was referencing were those on Netflix’s new Instant Viewing system where a viewer can watch movies streaming over the Internet. For a moment Ilamor’s intentions became clear, but then when I asked, “is that all?”, she responded, “No, I want to use it like a computer”, thus setting us back into the crazy vague request state.

I decided that gathering requirements wasn’t that important. If my job has taught me anything, its that people don’t know what they want. They just want. Once they get something, THEN they’ll tell you want they want. So its my job to give it to them, and wait for feedback. So off I went, gathering parts for the job.

The Computer - Compaq Presario F572US Notebook PC

For this project I needed a cheap, small, unsophisticated computer that has very limited capabilities. The obvious choice would be a Micro ATX PC. Well, there’s an old uncredited saying that goes, “If you chase two rabbits, you’ll lose them both”, obviously in criticism of the whole “two birds with one stone” thing. So I had to choose my proverb and go with it, and I chose the later. Ilamor has been complaining about her old iBook for years and I figured that new laptop would cease the complaints. So I chose the $600 Compaq.

The negatives about this laptop were bad battery life, and it doesn’t matter in this case because it will be plugged in all the time. Another sticking point was 1gb of ram with Windows Vista, which might be a bit low but hopefully it won’t be unbearable. I figured that buying a 2gb laptop would certainly be faster, but it would cost just as much to upgrade the 1gb to 2gb if we needed it, so buying a 1gb laptop gives us the option to upgrade. In any case, this machines does the trick. Its quiet, doesn’t take up much room, and runs smoothly.

The Controls - GO 2.4 Optical Air Mouse and Compact Keyboard Suite

I know how Ilamor thinks. She wouldn’t be content with a simple wireless mouse and keyboard. She wants a device that would give her absolute control and not be restricted to moving it over a flat surface. Its the same principal that attracted her to the Nintendo Wii, so it became clear what I needed to buy. A wand of sorts. But the options are limited. The first device that I came across was the Logitech MX Air.

The Logitech MX Air has the sleek design and a big name, but also came with a $150 price tag for JUST the mouse. This is also the first attempt at an air mouse for Logitech so the product may be more experimental than I would have liked. I decided to look for other options, and I came across a lesser known company called Gyration. This company knows exactly what I needed. They make the product for demonstration purposes but it really fit the need that I had. The mouse itself is very ergonomically designed (one of the flaws of the MX Air is that it wasn’t comfortable), and comes with a cool blue glowing charging cradle. The Gyrotools software gives you a lot of options, more than I could explore, to customize your Gyroperience. I just made that up. It even works great in Vista.

The only drawback of this mouse/keyboard suite is that the keyboard uses standard AAA batteries. So you’re on your own there. It would have been ideal if the keyboard could some with some sort of rechargable docking station. Aside from that, the movement is silky smooth. It does not operate exactly like the Wii, in that the position of your hand is the exact position of the cursor. It operates by simply tracking the movement of the air mouse, and moving the cursor in the appropriate direction. The result is the ability to put your hand anywhere, and in any direction and move the mouse, ideal for lying in bed and moving the mouse without the tedious task of aiming.

The Sound - Sennheiser RS130 Wireless Headphones

Watching movies in a bedroom has a few drawbacks. The biggest of which is the possibility of one person sleeping and another watching a movie. I knew that headphones would be the ideal way to get sound from the laptop to the viewer. So I started my search for wireless headphone solutions.

The first one that I came across was the Sennheiser RS130 headphones. This model has since been replaced with the RS140s but the differences for this project are negligible, aside from price. After reading some glowing reviews, it became obvious that these were the headphones that I should buy. I ordered one full set with the transmitter, and another add-on pair in case two people wanted to enjoy the sound.

After assembling the system, I came to the conclusion that this was the worst hardware choice amongst the three items that I purchased. Its not to say that they are terrible, because the RS130s are good at what they do. The sound quality is not bad, but the connectors provided are not very high quality. In my case, I needed to turn a stereo headphone jack into a L/R component audio. The connector provided needed to be twisted and pushed in order to get both channels working properly. When the connector was secured properly, the hissing went away.

The reason that this was a poor choice was a design issue with the RS130s. The same piece of hardware was used for the charging stand and the transmitter. This is not so bad for a single headphone setup, but when you have two headphones, they must share the same charging stand, or you need to have two transmitters, neither of which is ideal. Also, transmitter is usually next to the television or the device generating the sound. I would like to have the charging stands near the place where the viewing is taking place, like the couch or the bed. Since the two functionalities are placed in the same device, this is not possible.

If this becomes an issue, I will think about finding an alternative solution to the sound. I already have a request to have the sound come out of the television speakers, so I will need to find a solution that will incorporate that. If you plan on buying the RS130s, keep these issues in mind.

The Assembly

The assembly went just as expected, no hitches or surprises.

The first step was to get the laptop up and running. This was a piece of cake, it just required me to plug it in, turn it on, and go through a few simple Vista setup screens. Once it was running, I took my VGA cable and plugged the laptop into the TV. After going into the video options and enabling my extra monitor, I was able to view the desktop on the television. I had to turn the resolution down to 800×600 to make the text easily readable, 1024×768 is bearable but stretching it. Due to the low resolutions, this is not a good solution for much other than watching movies and browsing the web. Now it was time to plug in the other two devices.

The Gyration wireless devices simply needed a small USB adapter plugged into an open USB slot. It looks like a Wireless USB Network adapter. Once this was plugged in, the wireless mouse needed to be charged and it worked perfectly. I was sitting across the room and working on the laptop. Now for the sound.

I had to keep the headphone charging stand right next to the laptop. This was going to be bad, especially if you know the way Ilamor treats their rechargable devices. If the cradle is not easily accessible, the device remains on a desk until it beeps to be charged. The only input provided to the RS130 transmitter is the L/R component audio. The inputs are not directly on the device, but on wires coming out of the device. The headphones come with some adapters, unfortunately they are not very good quality. I had to struggle to get both channels working with the component-to-stereo jack adapter. Once everything was in place, the sound was streaming directly into the headphones, no channel setup required.

Conclusion

Was it worth it? From my point of view, it was certainly worth it. It was a good exercise in finding an alternative to the usual desk/mouse/keyboard that I’ve grown used to. For Ilamor, I’m not sure how long this experiment will last. I’m sure there will come a point where the laptop will be unhooked and used for its portability and never returned to the room. The wireless headphones will be used elsewhere and the Gyration products will sit in a box somewhere. But as far as I’m concerned, its a success.