Matt’s Desk: Editor’s Blog

I had never given much thought to my home’s thermostat; it was there on the wall, turning on my heat when the house was too cold, or the air conditioner when steamy southern summers made it too hot. I’d adjust it now and then (mostly in the summer), but for the most part it was ignored.  And for good reason: the conventional thermostat is dumb-tech, doing what it’s told and nothing else, and offering nothing in the way of intelligent assistance or control.

But modern technologies – namely online weather information, Wi-Fi, smartphones, and intelligent software – have made it possible for the boring ol’ thermostat to become something else entirely.  Something smarter and better.  And something that can even save you money.

Meet the Nest Learning Thermostat.

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When the MacBook Air debuted in 2008, I wanted one in the worst way. I had been considering moving from a Windows laptop to a MacBook for some time, and the commercial showing the ultra-thin Air being pulled out of a manila envelope had me at “hello.”

Using one, though, shattered any hopes I had of actually owning one.

The first generation MacBook Air and the two revisions that followed were, for my purposes, virtually unusable. Slow and sputtering, they offered sexy sleek, a high price tag, and little else. So I passed in 2008 and went with a unibody MacBook instead. 

But time passed and hardware improved. Last year when the Air moved from the Core 2 Duo to the Intel Core i5, I tried one again, and was blown away with the improvements in performance.

The 2011 MacBook Air was the best laptop I’ve ever owned. It was blazingly fast, had great battery life (at least for me) was thin and light, and did everything I needed a laptop to do as well as I could imagine it being done.

But time passed and hardware improved. I’ve just upgraded to the new 2012 Ivy Bridge MacBook Air and it’s even better than last year’s model, and with a lower price.

Here’s a brief rundown of the improvements:

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Logitech has long been my mouse and keyboard maker of choice, and I’ve used their input peripherals for as long as I can remember.  So, when I recently had an opportunity to try out the Logitech M600 Touch Mouse I seized it, and wanted to briefly share my thoughts.

Apple was the first big-name company to release a touch-based mouse, the Magic Mouse, in 2009. In typical fashion,  Microsoft released a similar product shortly thereafter, the Microsoft Touch Mouse.  Logitech’s M600, therefore,  is the latest arrival to the party, released in early 2012.  So, does it bring anything new to the table, desk or sofa arm?

Not really.

Product Brief

The Logitech M600 is similar to both Apple’s and Microsoft’s offerings in that its surface is touch-sensitive (conductive).  But’s it’s also more limited; the mouse offers touch-based up and down scrolling, and swiping back and forth between web pages.  That’s about it.  There are no gestures – configurable or otherwise – though you can swap the left and right “button” functions in the SetPoint software should you wish to. Left and right clicks are achieved by physically pressing either side of the M600 where traditional mice buttons would be located, which produces an soft, well-oiled pop-pop.

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Earlier this year I decided to ditch my Core i7 cooler and look for something quieter.  I work in the office hours each day, and keeping my working environment quiet, though a longtime desire, had become a growing concern – my CPU fan was getting older and starting to rumble a bit.

Originally, I had planned to gather several cooling solutions in the $60-$80 range to determine which was best; but in the end I decided to put just two in a head-to-head matchup:

The Noctua NH-D14 (above, left) , a whopping cooler with fans and fins and pipes galore, and a contained liquid cooling system, the Antec KUHLER H20 620. 

I spent weeks with each, tweaking and measuring, and made my choice.  But my choice may not be yours; the answer to which solution is best for you depends on several factors.

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