Flutterby™! : Laptop woes 2002-07-07 21:12:11+00

Laptop woes

2002-07-07 21:12:11+00 by Dan Lyke 31 comments

My Compaq Presario 1247 that I bought for $750 two years ago has had a progressively flakey power connector. It got bad enough that I took the whole thing apart, took the power connector off, and resoldered it. Of course now it doesn't seem to work at all, and CompUSA just quoted me $900 for a new motherboard (which is better than anything I can find at the Compaq site). So I'm off to search for a new one.

I have a list of features I want. It'd be nice to go to a vendor, click "Linux", "802.11b", "10/100baseT", click off "modem", select a few other things, and be able to order the results by things like screen size, or battery life, or weight, or even price. Dell asks me if I'm a home office or corporate user, and I have no idea what feature set that gives me when I click on either. Sony gives me two sample items on their page, and has a nice comparison chart which would make me have to remember all sorts of product numbers as I go try to find pricing and other configuration info (rather than making it a JavaScript pop-up, how about having the labels on your graphic linked to products?). Besides, I have no idea what I'd do with a MemoryStick^tm reader, do you have one with a CompactFlash reader? Dell, Sony, and Compaq sites have all given me 404 errors off of various links within the last half hour.

LinuxVoodoo allegedly has a laptop called the "Silver Bullet" which looks promising, but when I click on "Compare", the search results gives me a list of Bob Seger albums. I kid you not.

How the hell do most people shop for laptops? Brand name or stupid-ass product number first? And what sort of incompetent morons are keeping up these sad excuses for a web site?

I've been quite happy with my 2.5 year old Dell Inspiron, though it isn't running Linux. I saved a few bucks by going through Dell'outlet store. Next time, though, I'm going with an iBook.

The Dell outlet store sometimes has good deals on laptops. I picked up an Inspiron there a few years back, and have been happy with it. Next time, though, I'm going with an iBook.

Yikes. The first comment above has a bogus URL (unterminated string), which renders it impossible to edit using IE. The textbox and the submit button are treated as part of the URL. Blimey.

I have always bought laptops 'in person' at Office Depot or Circuit City. Never been extremely picky, and have ended up with great deals on my last two Sony's.. 'open box' on one, and a one day old return on the other (her husband freaked, she was in tears and I was standing there while the credited her credit card.. I made an offer, they accepted.).

Fetish items (like Laptops, Palms, Bicycles, Whips and Chains, Rubber Catsuits.. ) should be bought, or at least examined in person. Feel, weight, keyboard, mouse, finish and strength of the screen hinge should be examined closely. You should still like having it in your hands after using it for 10 minutes, maybe longer.

And.. I've never had a broken link on one of my sites.. (ROFLMAO!!) But you would think the vendors mentioned would do better. But then, you should try managing a website designed by and maintained by a committee. Ouch.

If you don't need to run intel-only binaries, the i/TiBooks are actually really nice unix laptops. And you can install Linux on them if you want. A number of folks in my local Linux users group have gotten ibooks since doing most anything with a laptop with Linux is a royal pain in the neck.

dws: Youch. I'll try to get in and fix it in the morning, and as soon as I've got an operational laptop again I'll fix that bug and the one Dori found...

here's another iBook vote. they're fairly close to price/performance competitive with wintel hardware, they come with a *nix already on them (not a negligable concern if your time is very valuable), you can get a port of debian's package tools, so you can install the good gnu cli tools (see http://fink.sourceforge.net/), and they're supposedly really easy to linux-ize, if you want -- and there's a debian powerpc port. i haven't bothered, because it's nice to have a portable machine that trivially plays dvds...

This one came from the Office Despot, I didn't realize the deal I got but as I was bouncing about I saw that Radio Shack had a 400MHz Athlon on the shelf for $699. Figure $50 depreciation over two years ain't bad for a computer. I'm actually considering wanting a dual-boot box now that I'm doing Windows work, and I've heard such bad things about getting stuff running under OS X that's a package on Debian

, that I think an Intel machine is a necessity.

As scary as it seems, look into the VIA C3 line of processors... on Pricewatch a 1Ghz C3 is $649 with a 14" screen, 20gig hd, etc.. And it won't need a fan or use lots of battery life because the C3 is performance just a smidge under a P3, but uses like 1/8 the wattage.

Off Topic, Kinda. I just helped setup a Apple/Mac rack mount X (10) box. Nice hardware, and a really nice gui with a seriously usable Unix core. I could live with a Max using OSX.. if it had a compiler. I have not checked out the 'Developers Kit' CD's yet. But I will. And the 'Titanium' laptops are sweet. Unfortunately, most of the reasons I boot Winders are work ($$) related to run Winders only programs, so I'd still have to have an intel style laptop.

There is an installer for the Developer Tools in /Applications/Installers/Developer Tools/ ; Apple doesn't have a Dev Tools CD anymore. (If the performance wouldn't bother you, you might be able to get away with Virtual PC on a TiBook, so you might not need an Intel laptop after all. Still, Actual PC is always faster that Virtual PC.

And what sort of incompetent morons are keeping up these sad excuses for a web site?

I've come to the conclusion that, in the current economy, nobody is maintaining sites any more. They've all been laid off to save money.

I'm becoming a SONY biggot and perhaps all the things I dislike about MAColites but the systems work well are resonably tough and a certain cool factor that remains ineffable. Knowing that this is about a likely as your buying a Volvo, here are the next 3 toys you should buy.

although I'd seriously consider waiting for 802.11b to be built into the PDA probably <6months away

I need to see if the keyboard is big enough, but the Fujitsu P2000 series look like a set of compromises that match my use pattern; the screen seems small physically, but 1280x768 is decent, people have installed Linux on it, built-in 802.11b, and by all reports it's got a completely rockin' battery life.

I've looked for the Via C3 based machines, but the ones I've found have been ultra-light pluggables, with no, or an external, battery. Need to think about an external battery a bit, because I've no objection to running a cord from my bag to my computer, but all the products I've run across seem a bit kludgey.

If I decide to go bigger, the Asus notebooks look reasonable. I might try to get over to Central Computers at lunch to look at them. It'd be really sweet if I could just buy something without a hard disk right now to transfer my old one into, but if I'm going to buy something with a hard drive in it, it'll have Windows 2k or XP Professional so I can drop Visual Studio .NET on it. No XP Home (part of what turns me off from the Vaio series is that they all seem to start with XP Home. I have enough problem with getting Pro into unstable states).

But, as Meuon pointed out, the best laptop deals come from shopping in the right place at the right time.

Sorry, Todd, while a Clie will probably be my next PDA, after playing with the Canon D30

here at work for a bit my next camera will definitely be more along the lines of a Canon D60

. But the recent camping trip convinced me that film is not dead; disposable lithium batteries are available everywhere, have a long shelf life, and thus it's much easier to deal with running down the battery on the film camera than the digital. The other purchase of the next few weeks will be a small inverter to run all these bizarre odd chargers in the car. (Yes, I've got the Honda EU2000, but that's overkill for charging camera batteries).

Y'all have convinced me that I also need to go look at the (t)iBooks a little more closely. I have all my anti-Mac biases, but some of them seem to be a decent feature set for a decent price, if I can deal with the idea that they're to be treated as disposable appliances and not computers (which is more what I want from my PDA than my laptop).

ohmigod, Dan's seriously considering a Mac laptop? It's another sign of the apocalypse.

Tom has an iBook and I have a TiBook. If you want to spend some hands- on time with them before making a buying decision, c'mon up (although I'll be at Macworld Expo NYC all next week).

Advantages of the TiBook: faster chip (G4 v. G3), bigger screen, bigger keyboard, PC card slot, larger RAM capacity (1 Gb v. 640 Mb).

With either one, make sure you get the combo drive and an Airport card. Oh, and the 14" iBook is a waste of money unless you have bad eyesight (the screen is bigger but the max resolution is the same), so if you go with the iBook, get the 12". And of course, they're both compatible with the iPod.

Most of the UNIX/Linux users I know are moving over to OS X. They're tired of having to deal with Office document incompatibilities and they want to be able to watch DVDs without jumping through hoops. OS X gives them all the compatibility and features that they want, which, combined with Terminal and O'Reilly's tons of good new books, makes it a competitive machine.

ohmigod, Dan's seriously considering a Mac laptop? It's another sign of the apocalypse.

Tom has an iBook and I have a TiBook. If you want to spend some hands- on time with them before making a buying decision, c'mon up (although I'll be at Macworld Expo NYC all next week).

Advantages of the TiBook: faster chip (G4 v. G3), bigger screen, bigger keyboard, PC card slot, larger RAM capacity (1 Gb v. 640 Mb).

Okay, Dori, I can't tell if the iBook has a PCMCIA slot for reading CompactFlash cards. That'd be a deal breaker, otherwise it's smack dab in the same price and features range as some of the other ones I'm looking at.

And is IE as bad on Mac as it is on Windows? I've switched to Mozilla in the Windows boxes I don't have Opera licensed on to give me better control over JavaScript gone wild, but I prefer Opera, and it's been Beta on the Mac for a loooong time.

I wandered down to the Metreon at lunch today and played with a Sony Vaio SRX, and I think I could really get used to that form factor. Heck, it might do wonders for my time from 7^th and Harrison to the Ferry Building. That, or the Fujitsu 2046

with the high density battery and on-board DVD/CD-RW drive at about the same weight(!) with lots of Linux users and support, is looking really attractive, with more resolution in a smaller space than the iBook.

At least it's gone from being a hassle to being fun window shopping, thanks for all the suggestions.

Nope, no PC card slot on the iBook, sorry. It's easy enough to get a USB reader, though, if that's the only thing holding you back.

IE on the Mac is, imo, much better than IE/Win. Opera on the Mac is only beta for the OS X version, so it hasn't been beta for that long (there's a final release version for OS9 and previous). If you use Mozilla on the PC, you might want to use it on the Mac, too. And finally, you might also check out iCab. There's plenty of OS X browser choices.

Oh, and both the iBook and TiBook have DVD/CD-RW drives (aka the "combo drive" I mentioned above).

I stopped at Office Despot, Staples and CompUSA on the way home last night to play with a variety of laptops, and this morning I broke down and ordered a Fujitsu P-2110. Less than 3lbs, 867MHz Transmeta Crusoe, 1280x768 10.6" screen (more pixels than the Vaios or the iBooks), 384M memory (not gobs, but my old laptop had 96M, and that did me fine), 30GB hard drive (enough for 15GB each for Windows and Linux, which should be overkill), high density battery (some claim this gives up to 7 hours run time, I'd be happy with 4 like my old Fujitsu Milan had), DVD/CD-RW (can be pulled to put in a second battery, for PDA like run-times), wireless built in, a spare PCMCIA slot for CompactFlash reading in a small form-factor and no extra cables, with XP Professional on it.

And lots of Linux folks running stuff on it. Eventually the thought of adminning another OS, trying to get X and packages and all that stuff running on OS/X, made me go with an Intel architecture machine.

Definitely not a desktop replacement machine, the CPU and video are a little slow for gaming (here Todd pipes in "you haven't looked at Tropico yet, what 'Gaming' are you talking about?", although it should be fast enough for that), but should make a great commute and digital camera management device.

Of course I'm really missing having a laptop; if Fujitsu doesn't ship it within the next few days I may cancel the order and look further at the Vaios.

Since your teasing about going back to the StyleStore some bits of advice. Let the super model sales associate help you and tell you what she knows and let here buy you a coffee (there is a Starbucks in the back of the store) while your pondering your purchase. She'll know actually less than a clerk at Fry's but will be much more entertaining. When your in buy mode talk to the manager and she'll know pretty much what you need to know about. Ok nitty gritty details are Sony sells some models through that store at a loss for various reasons (ask which units) and about what Sony is doing for Linux. The rumour I got was SOny was developing linux video drivers for some of the laptops because the community was producing inferior results (don't know if it's true or what stage they ar at). DOn't buy the sony wirless card it's only 40bit.

Haven't played Tropico yet?!? you are falling behind we are in the WarCraft III era now

Warcraft III, OMG, don't get me started... The Kid talked me into taking him to Fry's at midnight the night it came out, and I've barely been able to pry his cold, clammy hands off the keyboard for dinner and a potty break ever since. At least it came out over the summer...

We currently estimate that the items in this order will ship by approximately 07/19/2002.

I'd bet is had more to do with the editor they are using. I copied a BUNCH of my Linux perl to a Mac OSX box last week, it just ran.

It was all perl scripts I got from somewhere else--some files worked, some files didn't. I couldn't figure out what the difference between them, was, but once you know, (as Mars says) it's trivial to fix.

I've encountered a similar problem moving perl scripts between Windoze and Linux boxes. The EOL issue would occasionally result in a script not being able to execute when called directly because the #!/usr/bin/perl line would run on to the next from Linux box's perspective.

As Dori and Mars both point out, it's trivial to fix. That's not my issue: There are lots of little niggling differences that are trivial to fix. Finding each one of those takes a few minutes here, an hour there, and that's bad enough with the 2 classes of OS I'm currently up on. I don't need to be devoting yet more neurons to one more set of differences, especially since that would be strictly for the sake of a laptop.