I got a new laptop at work today. I am switching from a Thinkpad T61 to a Dell Latitude D430. The 430 is not as fast as the Thinkpad, but it is only 3lbs. Since I am never in the same place two days in a row working it is worth the performance loss to get the portability. I am not a huge fan of the fact that the build I get has XP on it but so did the Thinkpad so I am not complaining that much. I had to spend what little free time I had today moving my stuff onto the new computer so I can give back the old one. I guess it is being repurposed right away. The jury is still out on how good the Latitude is. My D420 at Redcats wasn’t horrible, so I am hopeful this guy is pretty good.
Hardware
Netbook Update
I have had my HP Mini 1000 for about a month and a half now and so far I haven’t had the urge to get rid of it. On the surface that doesn’t sound like a stellar endorsement, but from me it is. The netbook hasn’t changed my life or anything close to it. I am not really even using it for the main reason I got it. I ended up returning the wireless USB card so I don’t lug the netbook around with me everywhere allong with my work computer. What I do use the netbook for is light typing around the house, or when I don’t want or need to carry a regular laptop around I throw it in my bag. It was cheap enough so I don’t regret keeping it and using it like this. It is a nice to have and when I need it I am very grateful I have it.
The screen size prevents me from using it much more than I currently do. That is partly due to the screen being small, and my eyes being not so perfect. The keyboard still kicks ass, and the wifi and bluetooth actually work without any major complications. That is not something I could say for previous bluetooth experiences with Windows XP.
I just recently paired my Jawbone 2 bluetooth headset with the Mini 1000 to use Skype 4.0 on it. I never really used the Jawbone even-though as bluetooth headsets go it was expensive. It is also the best rated bluetooth headset I could find, but I never fit in my ear. I just read a kick ass review by someone at Cnet. The fix was so simple it was almost funny. They suggested putting a Jabra ear gel on the earpiece. I had one from an old Jabra headset and the instructions worked flawlessly. The headset now fits snug on my ear. I will use it with the Mini 1000 for a bit so I can make Skype calls on it. I want to try that out vs my Mac the next time I work from home. I am curious about the call quality differences between the latest Mac version of Skype and the new 4.0 version for Windows.
Printing
I find myself spending money this weekend on a printer and all the accessories that go with it (extra ink, paper, etc) even though I avoid printing at all costs. I currently own an HP LaserJet 1200 that I bought way back in 2002. Back then I couldn’t stand to use an ink jet printer. The Laser Jet still prints black and white copies perfectly 6 years later. That is the problem. It prints black and white copies only. If don’t print much, but more and more the things I have wanted to print are in color. I have recently been thinking about upgrading one of the oldest pieces of gear that I have.
I looked at color laser printers, but decided not to go that route. HP had a nice one that wasn’t much more than what I ended up spending but it was a huge workgroup printer. Laser Toner also would be really expensive especially since I don’t print that much. I looked at several multi function printers and ended up buying an HP OfficeJet J6480. It got really good reviews from Cnet. I liked that it could be used as a flat bed scanner, and it had wireless networking. Both functions I wanted and it worked with my Mac. It wasn’t the cheapest multi-function printer out there, but it had some of the best reviews and the wifi was the final deciding factor for me. I should hopefully have it by mid week.
Its a Netbook
I tried out an Asus eee 10000H back in August. I wasn’t a huge fan. The keyboard was too small and the battery layout was a bit awkward. Those reasons and the fact that at the time my main use for it was minimal I ended up selling the eee PC to Jayson. He loves it and uses it every day on the train to and from work.
With my new job I have had more of a need to have a really small computer that I can throw in my bag for chat and emails when I am out and about. The Thinkpad T61 from work is great (for a windows machine) but it isn’t so great to carry around unless I am going to and from work. For that reason I went back to looking at Netbooks. I looked at the Dell Mini 12, and the HP Mini 1000. The Dell wasn’t available to ship until January (come on dell) and I wasn’t sure if the 12″ netbook would be too big. That was my dilemma. I want a small machine, thus looking at a netbook in the first place, but I also have bad eyes. I want the biggest screen i can get. I think the Dell 12″ would be borderline too big. The keyboard on the HP Mini 1000 also got fantastic reviews for how good it was. I also looked at the Macbook Air. It was still light even though it was physically bigger than the other netbooks I was looking at. The Air did have a 13″ screen. The final deciding factor not to get the Air was price. It cost more than my regular laptop.
I opted for an HP Mini 1000 with a 60 gig hard drive and bluetooth from Amazon.com. Amazon Prime is great. I ordered the computer on Friday and for $3.99 it was at my house on Monday. Along with the Netbook I also picked up a Verizon Aircard for internet anywhere. I opted for the USB dongle device. I could have gotten a built in card for the mini but I wanted the option of using the device on my Macbook or Thinkpad also. So far the combo has worked out. I took the HP to work yesterday and got great signal on the Verizon Broadband.
I have yet to try out office or any real intense applications on the computer yet. One of the guys on my team did try loading videos from YouTube yesterday and said it worked great.
I am giving the computer a run for its money this week when I take it as my only computer to Jayson & Gretchen’s for a few days.
How Some Hardware Companies Can Confuse Their Customers
I wonder sometimes what Technology companies are thinking sometimes. A few months ago I bought a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 to use when traveling with my Macbook. It is a good portable mouse. I had no real complaints about it. That is why when I needed to use a portable mouse with my Thinkpad T61 I wanted to configure the mouse for use with it. The Thinkpad has bluetooth. That is when my problems started.
It turns out that the Thinkpad does not have the control panel option for Bluetooth even though the driver is installed and working. Some forum searches later and I discovered that this is unfortunately common for SP-2 + installs of Windows XP. I can’t really setup a bluetooth mouse without that control panel applet. I then figured I could download the latest Microsoft drivers and mouse software for the Notebook Mouse 5000. I was hoping that maybe I could configure the mouse using the Microsoft Mouse software. This is when things got interesting. When I went to Microsoft’s Hardware site to download the drivers I couldn’t find the mouse I own in the list. I verified that I have the right mouse type and I still couldn’t find it anywhere on the Drivers & Download page.
I then decided to search the internet for references to drivers for this model mouse. After about 15 minutes searching I found several references to the same problem I was having of not finding the drivers. One of the posts was actually on a Microsoft Forum. The answer blew me away. Yeah, there aren’t any drivers to download. According to someone who seems to be working at Microsoft said that since it is a generic Bluetooth Mouse there is not specific driver set for this model. My response to that is, oh I am sorry that I the end user didn’t know that. How can you expect a consumer to figure that out? You sell someone a product but when you can’t find that product listed on support and download lists it is kind of frustrating. I can understand that I don’t need a driver or special software for the mouse. Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to have this model in the list of models to choose from on the support site and when you select it you get a notice about not needing to download anything special for it? Come on Microsoft you can do better than this.
In the end my problem is still not solved since I don’t have any way to pair the mouse to the Thinkpad. Lenovo hasn’t been very helpful either. I am still working on the issue but I thought my little story was odd enough to take a few minutes and write about it
My New Monitor
After searching far and wide for a good deal on a monitor I ended up ordering a Dell 23″ LCD. I got a nice discount and it was the right size for me. It also offered DVI & VGA inputs. I got it yesterday and it looks great on my new computer table add on. I am finally using Outlook the way it was intended (full screen with a nice big 3 pane setup so I can see everything).
Now all I need for the perfect computer setup is a better mouse and keyboard for my Thinkpad. I just got a Microsoft Wireless Laser mouse for my Macbook and it is really nice. Moves really smooth. I might get another one for the Thinkpad, but I can’t figure out what kind of keyboard to get. I love the Apple Wireless Keyboard I use on my Macbook, but I don’t think it will work with a Windows machine.
Black Friday
Yesterday I was really stupid and did what everyone else did the day after Thanksgiving. I went shopping. I know, I always say I avoid all stores between Thanksgiving & New Years. Especially on Black Friday, but I wanted a deal on a computer monitor. Since I have been working remotely from home periodically I wanted a nicer monitor for my work laptop. Going from my 23″ Cinema Display on my mac to a 19″ boxy monitor on my Thinkpad just wasn’t cutting it. I went to Best Buy to look at a 22″ or 24″ HP LCD. Turned out I thought the 22″ was too small, and the 24″ was too expensive. After some quick price comparison on my iPhone I realized that I could get a better deal online so I passed on buying anything.
After my failed attempt at shopping I meet up with Danny and we headed over to Stout for a few drinks and dinner. It was cold walking to Stout but it was a nice to get out!
The Weirdest Technial Problem
On 2nd I wrote about a weird issue regarding my iPhone resetting. Unfortunately since then the issue happened on two other occasions. By the 3rd issue I decided to call Apple and open a ticket on my problem. They couldn’t help me much on the phone so they wanted me to bring the phone in and see someone at a local Apple Store. This is when things get interesting.
A few days before the 3rd incident with my iPhone I noticed that one of the external USB drives I have threw an error when I booted up the Macbook. I was bad and kind of ignored the error since I could see the drive mount and didn’t appear to have any issues. After a few reboots with the sam error I actually read the error and noticed it was warning about a corrput file system. Since this drive was a backup drive and only used as an archived copy of data I didn’t need the data I decided to pull the drive and use a spare I had. The next time I rebooted my computer Sunday night I got the same error, but this time it was on another 750 gig USB drive I had plugged into my Macbook. This time the error was on a drive that I do use and have critical data on. I was not hugely worried since I could still read the data on the drive. I decided to copy the critical data off onto another 750 gig drive that I decided to use as a mirrored copy of the data on the first drive.
Once I moved all the data off of the damaged drive, I formatted it and prepared to mirror all the data on the 2nd drive back over to it. I started off a replication of the good drive using Synk and then went to bed. This was the same night I called in the iPhone for support. I woke up the next morning to find that my Mac had crashed and never copied very much data. Once I rebooted my Macbook I noticed that the one good drive I had was now not visible in OSX. I checked the disk utility and I saw the drive but it was not available. A verify failed telling me the file system was messed up. I began to panic a bit. All my efforts to create a good backup process ruined by some weird fluke issue. At this point I had to take my Macbook and goto work.
After work I went to the Apple Store on 5th Ave and told the Genius Bar guy my woes. He looked over my iPhone and then my Macbook. After explaining what happened to my USB drives they decided that I can hold onto my iPhone but that they want to take my Macbook in to run some tests on.
Now I am without my Macbook, my iPhone works but has no media on it. I was instructed to reset it again, but not restore it. I am waiting to do that when I get my Macbook back. I can’t install anything without all the data on it. After a bit more panicking about the lost data on my hard drives I am feeling a bit more optimistic. I am using Data Rescue II to pull the data off my bad drive. It is taking ages to copy but so far I have been successful. I am about 70% done with my restore. I think the most critical data is already restored onto my good drive. Once I am done I will format the bad drive and mirror the data back over to it. I will then do what Jayson does and physically unplug the backup drive and sync it every week or every other week. Longer term I am looking to get another Drobo or some sort of other solution that does some sort of RAID.
While I wait for my Macbook to return I am not off the Grid. I am using my iMac I typically use for TV, and I have my work Thinkpad.
13 Days With an iMac
As my bad luck would have it I went out and bought a 24″ 3ghz iMac the weekend before the announced the new Macbooks. Now I admit I knew they were going to announce new laptops. It wasn’t really a secret. At the time I had given up hope that Apple would come out with a regular Macbook that could use their 30″ displays. I gave up on an affordable solution to have a 30″ display. I wanted the display but didn’t need the Macbook Pro, or Mac Pro that I would need to own in order to run the display. Since my new job gave me a laptop that I need to use for work I didn’t really need my Macbook as much so I settled on the cheaper option of the iMac. I gave up on the larger screen but got a more powerful desktop.
So when the new Macbooks came out and could solve my original requirements I was not happy. I had already owned the iMac. This was of course the week I was out of work sick. I was contemplating selling the new computer for a loss on ebay and just getting the Macbook. I didn’t realize that I could return the iMac to the Apple store and just pay the high restocking fee. I opted to pay the restock fee since I could never sell the computer for what it was worth. I returned it with 1 day to spare on the 14 day return policy. I went ahead and picked up the low end aluminum Macbook. I thought about the more expensive one, but the hard drive space wasn’t an issue. My extra $400 would get me 400mhz in processor. As much as that would be a nice boost, it wasn’t worth the money. Instead I spent a little over $200 and upgraded the unit to 4gig’s of RAM and put in a 320gb 7200RPM hard drive. For less money I than buying the higher end laptop I think I speed up the unit more by getting a better HDD and RAM.
I just finished upgrading the new hard drive today. It was a as simple as running Carbon Copy Cloner on my old drive to a USB drive. Then I booted to the USB drive after installing the new 320gb drive in the laptop and ran CCC again in the reverse direction. The process took several hours to copy the data, but only required my interaction for a few minutes. When I was done my entire computer was cloned onto the new hard drive. I could never do something that cleanly with Windows, trust me I have tried over the years.
The only downside to note is yes I can use a 30″ Cinema Display with the new Macbooks, however the cable that will allow me to do that is not yet available or backordered that it will take several weeks to get. That means I am still on my 23″ display until I can get the cable and buy the new display. Why is going from 23″ to 30″ so important? My eyes aren’t the greatest, so the more screen that I can get the better!
Technorati Tags: Carbon Copy Cloner, iMac, Mac, Macbook, 30″ Cinema Display
eee PC
Today I got my eee PC 1000h. It is a tiny 3lbs or so mini laptop. My first impressions are mixed. It is small but feels heavier than i thought. The Vaio I have feels allot lighter but is only slightly lighter. The eee PC does feel a bit sturdier. The keyboard seems ok. The speed of the system seems pretty sluggish, but I don't plan on doing intense stuff on it. I bought it mainly tto take notes and blog like I am doing right now.
I want to plug the eee PC into a monitor and see how it performs on a big screen. From what I can tell this is a great little limited capacity computer, but by no way does it replace a full functioned laptop.