Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with peripherals

Hook me up.

po822000 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:06:03 -0800

Laptop dock without the expense? I recently purchased a new laptop, getting rid of my decrepit desktop. My issue is that I have several peripheals that I'd still like to use in conjunction with my laptop (wireless keyboard/mouse, speakers, second monitor, printer, etc.) while minimizing cable clutter and the number of things I need to physically plug in to the computer when I set it down on the office desk.

I looked at a laptop dock, and while it would be an ideal solution, it's a bit beyond my budget for the time being. I have multiple USBs, a VGA input and the power cord for the laptop, as well as the output for the speakers (plugging into headphone jack). Is there anything like a souped-up USB hub that would fit my needs? Is there a VGA-to-USB adapter (and would I really want to do that)? I'm open to any ideas, no matter how hacked the end-product might be.

Playing iPod Videos an TV

gm2007 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:34:42 -0800

How do I play videos from my iPod Nano on my Phillips television? My Phillips is a flat screen and has a USB port on the side, which my iPod can dock to. When I connect them, the television even recognizes that an iPod is connected, but doesn't seem to know what to do with it. Any ideas?

Nomadic computer components must be civilized

saysthis — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:32:22 -0800

I'm looking for inspiration on how to reduce computer clutter. I run a lot of machines and make them do a lot of cool things, but in a 92sqm apartment where we're also trying to manage massive DVD, magazine, and book libraries, and where my previous work station (which was never all that orderly) has been conquered by my girlfriend's rampaging makeup and sewing stuff, it ain't easy. I want to compartmentalize, organize, and speed up the process of accessing my stuff. Ideas? The crux of the problem is that I have a LOT of "computer stuff", and that the network of stuff which we currently have is about to be scaled up, bigtime, due to an impending move to a bigger house. I'll want to include scalability and a solid phalanx of l33t gadgets in the future.

I've just been booted by my fashion designing wife off the corner of the room I used to use for more of her albums of pictures exactoed from fashion magazines. And, in the past year and a half, I've gone from 1 buggy laptop and a big USB hard drive to a substantial accumulation of knowledge and stuff, as I've begun exploring exactly what open source software can really do. I've been suitably impressed made much progress with it, paring down our AV setups from crappy independent DVD players, cords, and all kinds of discs to an interconnected system all controlled from my laptop. Up to now, I've kept the extra stuff in...well, piles. But the recent chaos of her expanding business, my expanding capabilities with hardware, and our impending move is a chance to get this beast under control before it becomes a cancer that conquers all of our available desktop space.

My inviolable principles include:
a) that one of my hobbies is fixing up junk and giving it away. It's an interesting means to get to know people, expand your network, and learn and practice computer skills. Gift economy 4 lyfe.
b) I'm a strong believer in ghettotech, and almost everything I own on the list was inherited. I've spent maybe $500 on computer stuff since 2006. Triple-R 4 lyfe.
c) I take an "appliance" approach to computers - the "all-under-one-box" approach has never worked for me, as something's always gone wrong or I've filled up the hard drive or busted the software and had to reinstall, and I've wasted much too much of my life on downtime and much too much of my money on new machines that proceed to break and not do what it says on the box. Modular single-purpose units 4 lyfe.

We have:
3 desktops
- a sweet media/gaming FrankenPC that gets hooked up to the living room projector
- a gutted box that serves as an uberNAS, with 6 IDE slots, 2 SATA plugs, and 12 USB ports (you bet your ass my data is redundant)
- a clumpy old workstation for volunteers in my organization who can't travel to our main office or the other side of the city; my house is the only locale we have on the east side of the city, and in Beijing, where a lot of the students we rely on to do our volunteer work sometimes don't have computers, or need to work or train with me in person

2 laptops
- my trusty daily driver, from whence I also manage this stuff, a 2005 ultraportable
- my lady's beater, an early 2004 Dell Inspiron, which is likely about to bite the bullet, and will need replacing soon

Peripherals
- bluetooth mouse & keyboard x2, for when I, and the woman don't feel like hunching over my/her laptop
- USB mice and keyboards for the desktops (or laptops if we want to)
- USB bluetooth adapters when necessary, I think we're at 4 now
- an optical drive in an external case - it keeps me from having to buy separate ones for each unit, and we rarely use it, but sometimes I do need to burn things (I work in post-production, clients occasionally just want a multiplexed DVD) or get at something on a disc (rip, mount to virtual drive)
- a grip of thumb drives that I use for data transport, disk images, booting, what have you, all neatly labeled
- a VOIP handset
- CORDS!!! yards and yards of wire in every shape and size, 'cause, y'know, things gotta get linked to things
- a totally sick wireless router
- hard drive USB cases, leftover from the days when I didn't have an uberNAS, and waiting for more hard drives to be connected to the uberNAS
- much of this all needs its own power cord, and I have them in abundance
- the odd RAM & PC card, motherboard, and whatnot waiting for a home in the computers I take home and patch up for friends and family
- various backup hardware in case something important goes kaput
- a couple WIFI cards for laptops, mostly for guests, but the woman's laptop currently needs one to get online.
- 2 monitors for the workstation, gaming machine, and occasional maintenance.

Right. Well, we're moving from a 92sqm apartment to a much much larger one in the coming months (as soon as the decorators are finished!), and we'll be expanding from our current setup of:
- 2 TV's controlled by the media machine
- uberNAS in a corner behind the couch
- laptops on the coffee table
- workstation on a teensy desk in the bedroom
- one phone hookup

to a two-floor apartment with:

- 4+ TV's & audio setups on two floors that all want access to the uberNAS
- a dedicated office for the woman's girlygirl stuff (er, actually, her job) and my own office/den/schmoke lounge for manlyman things
- wherever the uberNAS goes, probably my office
- an upstairs living room with
- the gaming box
- a PS3 (!!!)
- and a downstairs all-purpose studio that wants access to same (this room is a party area, yoga/dance studio, movie screening room, all kinds of fun stuff, but it all calls for proper geekery, and will likely want powered USB gadgets)
- a gajillion phone jacks and in-wall wiring for just about everything but VGA and HDMI
- probably more area and rebar than one wireless router can handle

The wife's hobbies call for lots of shelving and workspace, while mine only calls for a philips screwdriver, voltometer, and lots of teensy compartments. All this stuff, other than the stuff that's actually out and in use, calls for, at most, a dresser-drawer-sized space, but it requires a lot of compartmentalization and protection from dust and spills. I'm looking for inspired solutions on how to minimize and properly store the cords, components, peripherals, and other buildup that goes along with a hobby like this.

The best ideas I've had are toolboxes or tackleboxes for the loose stuff, twist-ties for the cords, a moratorium on any new desktops in the system (any new TV/media hookups are going to be disposable 2ndhand laptops w/ S-video outs and wireless), and a desk area that can be cleared for maintenance if need be. And that might be good enough, but I bet I could improve on it.

I'd love to hear creative, inspired storage solutions if you got 'em!

Where's the Fire? Using Open Ports

sjuhawk31 — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:39:37 -0800

PortFilter: What to do with open Firewire ports. I have two open Firewire ports on the back of my Apple Cinema display...and it seems that any and all peripherals released nowadays come in USB 2.0 versions only. That's fine; I have a nice USB hub that I use for that. But how can I take advantage of the speedy Firewire connections that are currently unused? An ideal solution would be to have a USB hub that connected to the Firewire port. But any cool peripherals would be considered.

Purchasing an external drive. Questions...

dobbs — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:05:38 -0800

Need more hard drive space... am about to buy a 500 or 600 gb external (LaCie) drive and mentioned it to a friend and she said not to go higher than a 320 due to overheating problems. Experienced MeFites, what do you say? Also, being a Firewire person, I have a dumb USB 2.0 question: can they be chained together? Any other drive anecdotes that might be useful in my purchase are appreciated. I'm on a Mac. She also says the 500s are just two 250s in an enclosure. This seems impossible to me as they look physically to be the same size. True?

A Grand Does Come for Free

Falconetti — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:04:36 -0800

If you had $1000 to spend on peripherals/software/extra things for a new MacBook Pro, what would you buy? Assume that you have no need for a printer or really expensive software like LogicPro or FinalCut. Through a generous gift, I find myself in this position.

How many USB devices can be powered by a PC?

gwenzel — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:19:57 -0800

How many USB devices can I power from my system without problems? If USB devices are drawing too much power, which ones are best to off-load on to a self-powered USB hub? I'm trying to figure out a weird USB problem I'm having, and I think it might be related to having too many bus-powered devices connected. My system had a BSOD yesterday with a "USB_BUGCODE_DRIVER" error (or something similar). After a reboot, the system wouldn't start at all - it gave me a "no keyboard connected" error. Rebooting with a PS/2 keyboard plugged in, doing a clean shut down, and reconnecting my USB keyboard seems to have fixed the problem for now. The error happened while a number of devices were drawing power from the USB bus, which is why I suspect that may be the source of the problem.

Here's the system specs: Asus A7N8X motherboard, which has 4 rear USB ports, and two internal USB headers. The internal headers are plugged into a USB 1.1 card reader which has a USB 2.0 port on the front of it. I've also got a generic USB/Firewire card which gives me an additional 3 USB ports on the rear, for a total of 7 in the back, and one in the front. Running XP Professional, SP2.

Plugged into the rear ports are the following:
-USB keyboard (Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000)
-USB mouse (Logitech Mouseman dual optical)
-USB-powered scanner (Canon LIDE 20)
-iPod dock
-Sony Clié PDA cradle
-External HDD enclosure (self-powered)
-Logitech webcam (bus-powered).

I use the front port periodically to plug in a USB keydrive. Basically everything I have plugged in draws some power from the computer itself, with the exception of the HDD enclosure. I think these devices might be collectively drawing too much power, leading to yesterday's BSOD. Any help would be appreciated.

USB 2.0/PCMCIA Adapters?

ruwan — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:21:13 -0800

I've got an older laptop, and would like to connect a couple of USB 2.0 devices to it (the laptop only has USB 1.0 ports). Is there some kind of USB 2.0/PCMCIA adapter? Ideally, it would plug into my PCMCIA socket, and have a cable leading out to a large USB 2.0 hub (with 6-8 USB ports). Does such a thing exist?

Automatic pausing ... because I'm lazy

clearlynuts — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 08:49:20 -0800

Are there such things as automatic-pause headphones? I would like a method for pausing music depending on the state of my headphones. I want to put on a pair of headphones and start iTunes/MusicMatch/WMP and play music. When I take the headphones off my ears (and put them around my neck or on the desk or whatever), it would be neat if the music paused automagically. Does this exist? I could even settle for having to manually pull the headphone jack out of the computer to make it pause.

If this doesn't exist, could it be accomplished?

I have coping techniques for quickly pausing music on my computer, like the FoxyTunes plugin for Firefox, but one would think this would have been invented by now.

Microsoft Office Keyboard on an iBook

synecdoche — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 20:21:17 -0800

I picked up a very cheap Microsoft Office Keyboard today. It works great on my Windows 2000 machine with the software provided, but the Mac software included on the CD is for OS9, and I want to run it with my KVM switch into my G4 iBook (OSX.4). I tried to install Microsoft Intellipoint software from the Mac section of the Microsoft web site, but it has not helped-- so far the only extra keys that work are the volume controls. The standard keys work fine, though.

Now, to compound matters, I can't find any reference to this specific keyboard on Microsoft's website. I was hoping there'd be an updated driver, but evidently the keyboard is discontinued enough for Microsoft to remove any online support for it.

So, the question is, is there anything I can do to get full functionality out of the keyboard on OSX.4?

This is the keyboard, by the way.

My Sony LCD monitor has failed. Help!

mr_roboto — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 00:08:13 -0800

My Sony LCD monitor has apparently failed, in what I think is a very odd manner (details inside). Has anyone else encountered this? It's a SDM-HS73; a pretty standard 17-inch LCD monitor. The failure mode is as follows: upon being powered up, or the computer restarting, or the video resetting (e.g. X windows starting up), or being plugged into a different computer, or having the video cable unplugged entirely, it displays an image for about 2 seconds. It then goes entirely black. In the case of the cable being unplugged or the computer being powered down, the displayed image is the standard "no signal; entering power save mode" message.

The blanking after two seconds is not a power save mode: there's an LED indicating this mode (green=normal, orange=power save), and it stays green. Unless there's no signal, in which case it'll turn orange after the standard interval (about 30 seconds).

This happened suddenly this morning, with no warnings or indications. I can't find any reports of this failure mode on the web. Do any of you know what might be going wrong, and if it might be fixable? It's an 18-month-old monitor, so it's young, but out of warranty.

Help me pick a new monitor

eas98 — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 07:45:41 -0800

My Dell monitor died. Advice needed on its current condition or possible alternatives for next purchase (considering a flat-panel). --> My beautiful 19" Trinitron CRT monitor died. It's only 2 years old (warranty expired), and all it does now when I turn it on is powerup (green light), resolution check (that 'click' sound), powerdown (light off), and then start over again with the powerup. Over and over again. Have tried it both with and without the computer connected, so I'm pretty sure it's the monitor.

Unless someone can tell me how to fix it (I can only hope), I need to consider its replacement. I was looking at the flat-panels, but wonder if they are worth it. Much of my time spent on the system is for gaming, and I wonder about the perfomance and image quality of a flat-panel. I like the small footprint, and would be willing to spend a little $ if its worth it, but I am not sure.

Any suggestions?

help me choose between 2 photo printers

TedW — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 06:58:31 -0800

Printers: I am looking at photo printers and have pretty much narrowed it down to the Canon i9900 and the Epson Stylus Photo 2200. Which should I choose? (Output continues inside) I plan on using this printer primarily for photos and occasional color graphics. I will keep my current laser printer for B/W text, or might buy a new laser printer. My main concerns are quality, works well with OSX, and output is reasonably fade-resistant(>20-30 year). Unfortunately I have found little info about longevity of Canon's inkset for their printer, even at Wihelm Research. Any useful info is appreciated, especially negative feedback about either model. I am still willing to look at other printers too, but am reluctant to stray from one of the major brands due to my experience with an Alps MD-500. Thanks for your help.