23 Apr
2012
23 Apr
'12
2:35 p.m.
On 04/23/2012 10:47 AM, David Riley wrote:
On Apr 23, 2012, at 11:29 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
The older netgear stuff isn't too bad - I do remember it being boxy (and
possibly the cases being metal). Still a bit of the small side for my
'tastes' though; I think I find that if things have to be on the desktop at
all, they should have the footprint of a piece of paper, so that I can
stack real pieces of paper on top.
There's a Netgear router close to to where I'm sitting; rounded edges to
the case, vents on the top, and so lightweight that if anyone so much as
sneezes near it, it'll fall off the desk under the weight of the cables
connected to it. I should probably screw it to the underside of the desk or
something, but it's handy being able to get at the ports easily.
Mind you, I like devices in big heavy square-ish
boxes on the desktop
- small items just fall over easily, or get pulled off the desk by
their own cables, or still occupy space but with the downside that I
can't stack other items on top of them. The majority seem to think
that miniaturization is the holy grail though (and I suppose the
smaller the case, the less material used, so it appeals to the
manufacturer too)
I don't mind miniaturization, as long as it's done intelligently. I
like my Netgear 8-port switch that's on my desktop an awful lot; it's
the size of about two packs of cards, and it has a nice, solid- feeling
metal case. It's also totally square, so I can stack other things on
top of it. The only irritant is that the power inlet from the
wall
brick and the ports are on opposite sides, which would be great if it
were a rackmount switch, but not so great for a desktop one.
I don't think the Raspberry Pi's been given much of an airing here
(http://www.raspberrypi.org) but I've mentioned elsewhere that it's one of
the problems I see with that particular gadget: the connectors line all
four sides of the PCB, so you either live with a miniature system with
wires going off in all directions (ick!), or you put in a larger case with
trailing wires to ports on the rear (and/or front) - which of course pushes
up the cost of a final 'product' quite a bit.
On the other hand, I remember my 56k modem from the
end of the dial- up
era; I think it was a Global Village one? In any case, it was nice and
small, but (as you said) so light that the cables tended to pull it off
the desk, and they made this "cute-looking" little bulge at the top for
the speaker, which meant you couldn't stack anything atop it.
Infuriating. I think I ended up just stashing it under the desk.
I still much prefer big old CRTs to modern LCD displays, and it's rare that
there's not a stack of stuff parked on the top edge of the case. :-)
cheers
Jules