Looking for a multi-tool

Hi Paul,

Thanks for all the very interesting info! I guess my maglite will be retired very soon and my Vic will have put up with a formidable competitor :) I really look forward to comparing these two!

Kind regards,

TN
 
well, yeah, windows was freindly because it liked my games (i have an ATI card so i am 100% SOL with linux), and also, I was not constantly fixing something. I never made it past the month spent getting everything to work right. I will definately go linux, when it can support my games. Hell, I might go dual boot sooner for fun.

Glad to hear that linux has fixed NTFS writes and reads. When I ran my dual boot, I had to have a Fat32 partition to move files from one install to the other.
 
I had friends running win32 games hacked to run on GNU/Linux (Unreal was one) but I personallu never looked into the issue. What is certain is that there are far more games written for win32 than for GNU/Linux and that the GNU/Linux ones are not as impressive as the win32 ones (the GNU/Linux community does not see games as its primary interest I suppose). There are a couple of good emulators out there (Wine, Crossover, etc.) but I do not know how they would work for games.

I am not much of a games person do I don't really know.

If you want to dual-boot go for Mandrake or, as it is called now, Mandriva. It comes with the best partition tool I have ever seen (DiskDrake) and is ideal for dual-booting (it resizes NTFS very well, including partitions with data on it!). It is also does not require any tweaking. For more serious use I would reccommend Debian (which you can install with Knoppix, Kanotix or with the new installed called Sarge). But "spending a month to get things to work" should not happen any more with GNU/Linux. 5 years ago maybe - but not anymore: you should pop in the CD, run the install with 2-3 clicks and that's it :-) (unless you do a advanced, more fancy, install).

In my case, I began with live-CDs, then with dual-boots, and now all I use is GNU/Linux (for 4 years now) and I never, ever, want to come back to the horrors of the proprietary software world. From time to time I have friends and relatives asking me to fix their computers and each time I have to use Windows I cannot believe that I used to use it for years and that I even coded for it (SQL/VB6). I bet you that once you are really comfortable with GNU/Linux you will never want to switch back ;)

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Kind regards & much fun with your computers!
 
Nite-Ize also has an LED upgrade for the Mini-Maglite. At approximately $8 it's a relatively inexpensive upgrade to your existing Mini-Maglite.

 
how does this product compare in terms of emitted light (rather than life duration) with the original maglite incandescent bulb and to the LEDs wallyrulz mentioned? Would that give me a real increase in performance?

Cheers!
 
Without reflectors, the night-ize is not going to be much use past about 4-5 feet, though that may be just the ticket for computers.

The MJled is brighter than the incan right off, and the drop off of the incan is pretty steep, meaning you have much more useable light, and it has a reflector, so it has plenty of throw, or flood. Because it is a drop in, you can still adjust like you can with the original bulb, you can't with the night-ize.

At $3.25 it's a steal.

One thing to mention though, some have reported a green tint in some of them. By themselves, this is hard to tell, but next to a really white led, it can be seen more dramatically.

hth
 
Well, i had a few specific problems with my dual boot. I used fedora core. First off, my forward and back buttons on my MX500 never worked, couldnt find a fix for that. Also, it was a big pain to get the internet working, because it did not like my onboard nic. However, overall it did work decently out of the box.
 
OK, back on topic.

I have carried a Cybertool 29 for a couple years now in the same pocket (left front pants) with a Palm Tungsten T. It is a comfortable combination in both jeans and khakis. The pliers suck and the the scissors are of limited usefulness, so going with the thinner 29 made the most sense to me.

I combine it with an old style Leatherman WAVE in my laptop case and between the two of them can usually handle most tasks.

For Christmas I got a Charge Ti and it's waht I usually carry on my person when I'm not working and carrying (or rolling these days) my laptop case. I've been thinking of adding the optional bit set to the Charge and planting that combo in my laptop case as that and the Cybertool would give me the most complete away from home tool set I can think of. Especially if you add in the Radio Shack micro auto ranging multi-meter. I'd have bought a Fluke or something, but nobody seems to make a multi-meter as small as Radio Shack. I looked.

For illumination, I usually have a single AAA based Arc LE LED light on my keyring, an Inova X5 in my laptop case for extended close up work and a Surefire L4 in my left rear pocket for when I really need to see what's going on.
 
jmxcpter said:
The pliers suck and the the scissors are of limited usefulness, so going with the thinner 29 made the most sense to me.
Click to expand...
I personally find the Vic's pliers very useful, I use them a lot. the scissors are good too, I often use them too, even if sometimes a knife blade would fill the bill just fine.

I'm very happy with my Cyb 34, I just wish they made one with the metal file, but without wood saw. I still may take a Cyb41 if I don't success modding one to my needs (blade / combo tool,bit holder,pliers,metal file. no scissors to keep it quite thin)

did you try the pliers or did you just look at them to tell that they suck?
 
Zerileous said:
Well, i had a few specific problems with my dual boot. I used fedora core. First off, my forward and back buttons on my MX500 never worked, couldnt find a fix for that. Also, it was a big pain to get the internet working, because it did not like my onboard nic. However, overall it did work decently out of the box.
Click to expand...

<begin a little more off-topic>

I have always found Fedora over rated. Sadly, its sort of the "default choice" in the USA. If you want to go the RPM way I would reccommend Mandriva (which, at least, has URPMI & Drake Tools). Otherwise, you might want to consider a DEB -based distro such as Debian. Lastly, get a really recent version of Knoppix (3.7 or 3.8) and see if your problems are still here. Good luck!

<end a litte more off-topic>
 
jmxcpter said:
OK, back on topic.

I have carried a Cybertool 29 for a couple years now in the same pocket (left front pants) with a Palm Tungsten T. It is a comfortable combination in both jeans and khakis. The pliers suck and the the scissors are of limited usefulness, so going with the thinner 29 made the most sense to me.

I combine it with an old style Leatherman WAVE in my laptop case and between the two of them can usually handle most tasks..
Click to expand...

Two short questions:

1) what tasks did your Cybertool 29's pliers fail to adequately perform? (I understand that Leatherman pliers are stronger - but for fixing computers I cannot imagine where the Vic could have failed you)

2) Again - what tasks did the Vic scissors fail to perform adequately? Are the Leatherman scissors stronger?

Cheers!
 
My Cybertool has neither scissors or pliers. I did have an older Mechanic, and found the pliers to suck (same pliers). I can't think of what I'd use the pliers for fixing a computer. The scissors just seem too small for me. The ones on the Charge are a little bigger.
 
ok. then not for computers, but more generally - how did the pliers fail to meet your needs?
 
tnozh said:
ok. then not for computers, but more generally - how did the pliers fail to meet your needs?
Click to expand...

I know I'm not the one you're asking, but I'd like to comment...

As much as I love SAKs, I have rarely found the pliers useful for much of anything I would use a pair of real pliers to do. They just don't provide enough leverage for work on anything bigger than small electronics gear. I'm sure there are people out there who can use them to repair bicycles, lawn mowers, and cars, but I'm not one of them. For anything like that I need something that fills my hand.

For me, the SAK pliers are more like super tweezers.

--Bob Q
 
bquinlan said:
I know I'm not the one you're asking, but I'd like to comment...

As much as I love SAKs, I have rarely found the pliers useful for much of anything I would use a pair of real pliers to do. They just don't provide enough leverage for work on anything bigger than small electronics gear. I'm sure there are people out there who can use them to repair bicycles, lawn mowers, and cars, but I'm not one of them. For anything like that I need something that fills my hand.

For me, the SAK pliers are more like super tweezers.

--Bob Q
Click to expand...
What he said.
 
well, knoppix has always worked nicely, i blame fedora. Mandrake (or whatever its called now) was my pick until i got a pretty affirmative recomendation from fedora from a very helpful guy (who also helped a whole lot with my problems). I think I will try Mandrake sometime in the near future, I might like to go with a linux based laptop. The lappy I am planning on will run an nvidia card and will not really be for gaming anyhow (other than the random occation) so i might just be able to go 100% linux.

Strange to talk about computers on a knife forum. Now i just have to go to OC forums and talk about knives...
 
if you want to GNU/Linux your laptop please be aware of the friggin winmodem problem. out of the box, Mandriva will probably not be able to use your winmodem for purely legal reasons. you can easily download a linmodem patch which is a GNU/Linux reverse-engineering hack with dubious legal status, but which works just fine (I have been using one for 3 years without any problems). Just google "linmodem", or go to the Penguin Liberation Front site and you will get the needed RPM. Of course, if you use an external modem or a netcard you can ignore this.

BTW -GNU/Linux is lightening fast on old computers. I have a 450/128 Dell clone with Mandrake 9.2 installed on it and it is really fast. This is because Windows code is grotesquely bloated (to sell more hardware and because the source code being hidden coders can afford being sloppy) whereas GNU/Linux code being totally public is rather lean and optimized (after all, when you release your code openly the product is attached to your name forever and you want to avoid looking incompetent in the eyes of the community). If you use light window managers like FluxBox (my personal favorite) you get even more speed!

It is really neat to put a GNU/Linux 450 and Windows 1,5G computers side to side and compare their speeds. Says more than any words could...

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back to knives now ;)
 
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