Archive (and other old stuff)

Archive for July, 2008

Mouse Hunting

Sunday, July 20th, 2008

Ever since my girlfriend showed me her brother’s wireless mouse, I wanted to buy one for my self! I was drooling over the “Wow! No wires!” factor of the little thing. Quite frankly, it was also my first time to see one in action! I’ve been meaning to replace the mouse I am currently using which is, a.) not an optical mouse, b.) not a wireless mouse either and c.) It’s not even mine! (it’s rb’s!)

I also wanted to use my… er… rb’s old mouse at work ever since the company I am currently employed gave me a laptop for office use. I have been using the stupid touchpad which is as fun as eating soup with a fork. So I requested for a mouse, even a sucky one at that and fortunately, they gave me one. I am not quite happy with it though because it’s small and uncomfortable to use and rb’s mouse is really comfortable and I want to use it at work to reduce stress and all.

Thus the mouse hunt began! I started my hunt in SM Baguio and only on SM Baguio because they have shops that accept credit cards for payment. There are shops outside SM Baguio of course, unfortunately they don’t accept credit cards. I only found 2 shops that sells what I am hunting for, Octagon and Gigahertz. The first one offers a modest variety (overstatement) of wireless mouse than the latter one (Octagon with 4 models and Gigahertz at only 2).

I saw two models with a price tag of PHP750 and PHP850. I could buy that since it’s cheap and it’s the exact type of mouse my girlfriend’s brother have and… well… it’s cheap! But the plastic also looks cheap and I fear I may break it just by sneezing on it.

I decided not to get the cheap one so I checked the other one’s and they are shiny, cool looking and the size ain’t so bad and brand is Logitech.

Unforunately, they only have 2 models, one is Logitech models V320 and V470.

Here’s what they looked like:

Logitech v320
Logitech V320
Logitech v470
Logitech V470

V470 is out of the question because it doesn’t have a bluetooth receptor so probably you need to have a bluetooth transreceiver built in into your notebook (or desktop) in order to use it. It eliminates the possibly of it being useful in any notebooks or desktops the doesn’t have a bluetooth connection so I have no choice but to get the V320 model.

Before buying the sweet little thing, I wanted to check the prices on the internet, mostly in Villman’s website for comparison and was surprised by the difference of the price.

At Villman, the price for a V320 is only 1795 pesos and for the V470, 2095 pesos while in Octagon Baguio, it costs 2395 pesos for the V320 and 3250 pesos for the V470 model. The difference in price is really huge! I checked on Amazon.com for the prices of the mice. V320 which cost around 1780 pesos ($30.50 + $9.00 shippng). The list price is 2205 pesos ($39.99 + $9.00 international shipping). For the V470, it costs 2350 pesos ($42.24 + $9.00 shipping) with a list price of 3000 pesos ($57.40 list price + $9.00 international shipping).

I don’t know why they won’t lower their prices despite their price tag on the items looks really old and dusty and looks like it’s on their shelf for more than a year. I wished they’d lower their prices to match the current prices. This is exactly what would happen if there are no shops that could challenge their prices. The other shops only carry 1 brand of wireless mouse and it’s A4Tech. A4Tech is great and all but the designs are not that sleek and not as sexy as compared to Logitech’s designs. I just love monopoly!

Cd-r king should open a shop here in Baguio and wreak havok among the other shops. I am actually interested in opening up a franchise and even went as far as contacting them. I did get in touch with them but they don’t seem to be open for franchising. Too bad, the market here in Baguio would be great even my boss buys our accessories in Cd-r king and there are plenty of internet cafes, IT firms and call centers could benefit from their low price.

It’s a Brown Huntsman Spider!

Monday, July 7th, 2008

I’ve finally found out what kind of spider that lives in my apartment. It’s called a Brown Huntsman Spider (Heteropoda venatoria). I really didn’t research on it. I just read it in a book about keeping tarantulas as a pet while waiting for Resie at the National Bookstore. There is this part in the book about tarantula look alikes and I saw one look-alike on the book that matches the one in my apartment. So I did a little bit or research to verify this, and when I say little, I just visited Wikipedia about it.

I know that seeing a spider this big (with a legspan of 5-6 inches) will really give you a scare. but is it dangerous? The answer is: NO! Here’s what Wikipedia says:

“In general, Huntsman spiders are not regarded as dangerous, and can be considered beneficial because they feed on insects (Many Australians will relocate Huntsmen to the garden rather than kill them).”

Brown Huntsman SpiderBrown Hunstman Spider

“Brown huntsmen are welcomed in many homes as they feed on pests such as cockroaches and silverfish.”

So I just let those spiders go around the apartment and surprisingly, there aren’t any roaches and other crawling insects. Hopefully this information would be helpful in case you see one and let it live an eat roaches instead of kill it for it’s horrendous look.

Brown Huntsman SpiderBrown Hunstman Spider

By the way, one brown huntsman spider lurks in my girlfriends house. It actually tried to bit me when I poked it. Hahaha! There are no roaches in my apartment. Don’t kill it, it’s a natural anti-roach.