Edit: Unfortunately, the images originally included in this post are gone, because of hosting problems in late 2009. My apologies.

Yes, invention is the mother of necessity, and my little XO is proof. Since I got it a week ago I’ve added all manner of doo-dads and thingamajigs, usually keeping to the green motif, and sinking at least another 7500 yen into it (that’s about $75, although that amount changes as the stock market flutters 😉 ).

I’ve added a nifty USB-to-LAN converter — a Buffalo LUA-U2-KTX, which was a completely undeducated purchase that I am almost embarrassed to admit. I literally grabbed it off the shelf without checking the chipset or compatibility or anything, like some sort of Linux newb.

And wouldn’t you know, it works like a charm. Lucky! Network speeds are nothing compared to the megabit connection in my Inspiron, but it’s still downloading at a much higher — and more reliable — pace than the distant wireless site I found the first day.

And of course, I couldn’t pass up a green network cable. 🙂

Since I wanted to be able to restore a full system, I had to get a new USB flash drive, and so I picked a 1Gb Sandisk Cruzer Colors+, in green of course.

This was the first USB drive I had bought in almost two years, with the exception of a short-lived attempt at a 2Gb Transcend stick that needed a high-power plug to function properly. Since all of my machines predate USB 2.0, it refused to work for longer than a few seconds at a time.

The Sandisk drive works fine though, and I should append that statement with a rather arbitrary blanket declaration that all the Sandisk products I ever recall buying worked perfectly for me, in both Windows and Linux. I am a return customer, and will be in the future.

Finally, and this is the most ironic addition to the family, is the only mouse I could find in green and white — a Microsoft Basic Optical mouse. (I told you it was ironic.)

As a mouse goes, it’s OK … I’ve used Basic Opticals before and they have proven acceptable. They’re very light and so I count that as a plus. This one has a tendency to drag a little, which is probably the fault of the desk surface and not the mouse really. Either way, it’s green and it’s white, which means my accessorization is complete.

Good gravy, I sound like a Mac user. 😯