ahamling27

I'd have to say I love both of my jobs. I got a journalism/media production degree and I used it to get a job at a radio station here in Wichita, KS. It's only part-time, but I get to produce and engineer all the Wichita State University sporting events. We have volleyball in the fall, basketball during winter, and baseball in the spring. Our basketball team is actually pretty good and the production for that is the most demanding, but I enjoy it. My favorite job though, was when a representative of Curse.com contacted me about writing and producing videos for them. It's been a dream come true, getting paid to play video games. And it all started out with a silly little game called Terraria, and the official Terraria forums(TerrariaOnline.com, which is run by Curse)...

Jealous! I finally stepped into the world of SSDs. I got a Samsung 830 series 256 GB from NewEgg last week. And it only set me back $189. I just got an email from them today with the same deal, use promo code EMCYTZT1815. So totally worth it in my opinion.

I would boot into the windows recovery screen from the W7 disc and make your way to the command prompt. Then run DISKPART. You can get a list of commands here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=WS.10).aspx But I would select your ssd then list the partitions, you might have a hidden boot/recovery partition that won't be deleted when you format in windows. DiskPart should allow you to delete all the partitions. I hope that helps.

When I purchased my 256GB it didn't come with the adapter, but I knew that and got one on newegg in the same order. It was 4.99 but the difference between the two samsung drives(the one that came with the adapter and the one that didn't) was about $15. I don't think any of them come with a SATA cable so keep that in mind too. The Samsung 830's are one of the best SSD's out there, you're gonna love it!

I just got myself the Samsung 830 series SSD with 256GB and it's a beast. From all the research I've done, the most reliable with great speeds are either the Curcial M4's or the Samsung 830's. The Vertex 4's are fast, but they haven't been out long enough to be able to tell if they are reliable.

I'd like to mention a few that haven't been mentioned yet. Virtual CloneDrive - FREE - It'll mount ISO images and other disk images and your computer won't know the difference between them and an actual CD\DVD. BandiCam - It's not free, but it's the best video game/software recording tool I have used to date. It kicks the crap out of Fraps because it encodes the videos as it records. The files are 1/8th the size of the files you get with Fraps at it's highest setting, 1080p 60FPS at 100 quality, with almost no noticeable difference in quality(especially after uploading to YouTube). FIleZilla - FREE - A great FTP tool. PowerDirector 10 - So not free, but at $100 bucks, it's easily the best bang for your dollar when it comes to semi-professional video editing software. It does circles around Windows Movie Maker, but don't expect Premier Pro like tools. XXClone - FREE - A great tool for cloning hard-drives and if you clone your C:\ drive you can make it bootable.

I couldn't be happier with my G700. The ability to be wired and wireless was big for me. I was also looking for a good amount of extra buttons, you can never have too many buttons on a mouse. Unless you have a Razer Naga, I don't know how you are supposed to get used to 12 buttons in a big grid on one side.....

That's a very good question, but as far as I can tell, I don't know what they could have skimped on. Which leads me to believe that the QPADd's are just overpriced, but even that's arguable. There just aren't enough quality backlit mechanical keyboards around to make a fair market price. I will give QPAD credit though, the MK-85 can be ordered in 5 different languages, with your choice of Cherry MX Reds, Blues, Browns, or Blacks. The Monoprice comes in Cherry MX Reds only and in American/International only. A good trade off I'd say because the MK-85 goes for 149 Euro's or about $187 while the Monoprice is $130.

It seems that Monoprice has actually outsourced this keyboard from the Qpad MK-85 manufacturer. This video from a British fellow shows off his MK-85 with the red backlighting and Cherry MX Reds. Comparing the spec sheet on Qpads website, and the one from Monoprice's website, I cannot tell a difference between the two keyboards except for the logos. The housing is exactly the same, and it even comes with the same 4 red WASD replacement keys and the same key remover. I couldn't find a review of the Monoprice keyboard on youtube, so this'll have to suffice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIql1cHJds0 And here's a picture of my Monoprice keyboard(Sorry for the crappy quality, it's grainy as hell with no flash. Much better picture now.)

I actually just purchased the Monoprice Backlit Mechanical Keyboard and I couldn't be happier. I have no past experience with mechanical keyboards though, but coming from my old a$$ rubber dome keyboard, to this one, is like night and day. I was looking into getting a backlit mechanical keyboard(I had no preference on what kind of switch, be it reds, blues, etc.) but what sold me on the monoprice one, was the red backlighting. It goes well with my Coolermaster Haf X case, all back and red glowing. Anyway, shopping around I learned that backlit mechanical keyboards are very far and few between. I was very familiar with monoprice though, as I have been purchasing cables from them for quite a while. Anyway, more on the keyboard. I'm actually really like it. It's seems to be made of pretty high quality materials. The whole keyboard has a rubberized grip to it, and that makes it feel nice to the touch. The backlighting on the keys has 4 brightness settings, going from off, a nice somewhat dim glow, to a brighter glow, and then to an eye blinding bright setting. The dimmest setting is my favorite, but the 4th setting makes the backlight slowly fade on and off, like it's breathing. It's kinda cool, but in my mind kind of gimmicky. All the keys have their own light, which I think is pretty standard for a keyboard in this price range, and the lighting is even across the board. The keys are all spaced almost exactly like my old keyboard, so from a typing standpoint, I didn't have to adapt to the space between keys at all. But the Cherry MX Reds are some fine actuators. I find myself typing a lot quicker, and I find that I'm not bottoming out the keys too much either. I can rest my fingers on the keys and they don't fall down(I've heard this might be a problem with Reds, less so with Blacks) and I would say that my hands weigh more than the average persons, being bulky, sausage fingers, like my wife calls them. The keyboard's got a Function key to toggle all the media keys found on the F1-F6 keys. Fn+F12 toggles the Windows key on and off for gaming sessions. Fn+F7 through F11 are reserved for the profiles that are saved the onboard memory. The memory also remembers your backlight settings, but is independent of the profiles, so switching profiles doesn't change your backlight settings. You can program up to 10 keys as in each profile giving you up to 50 different configurable keys. Every key on the keyboard can be set as a macro or a list of functions. I've barely worked with the included software for doing all of this and I can say that it's probably the worst part about the keyboard. You don't need to install the software from the included CD though, I just plugged the keyboard in and windows recognized it and installed generic drivers just fine. All the media keys work with out installing the software too. This has turned into a kind of long winded review(and my first post here to boot!), but I think you'll appreciate some sort of review. If you want to know more about it just let me know and I should be able to answer you questions in a timely manner.