It’s ‘different’ than the previous laptops. Weighs more. Has a monster power adapter–3x the size and weight of the previous. Keyboard is much the same. It’s supposed to be lighted, which requires a bios adjustment—granted you have the hardware. I asked for ‘no camera’. I see no need for one, and imho, they are exploitable. Why should I have one and have it cluttering up the system?
I strongly suspect this was one of the delays. Dell’s Precision division has one major customer who makes the same demand—the Federal government and US military—and the ‘case’ issues that twice delayed the computer might have involved not having Property of the US Government tattooed on my camera-less case. But it WAS an option on the ‘build your own’ screen.
Faster. The hybrid solid state drive does speed things up. The screen is a tad larger, and HD—it is quite a screen.
I’m going to take my time switching over to the new machine, because I have time; and the Latitude will become my travel computer. I plan to straighten out some of my duplicated files and move them into unified folders before they even go on the disk. There’s a nice little freeware called Duplicate Cleaner, and it does seem to work well: helped me straighten out my photo files. I am asking myself if I dare turn it loose on my text files. Not without backing up to DVD I don’t.
The new machine is an i7 Intel type, of a recommended version of the i7, drive is part regular with a solid state ‘card’ for system files.
It doesn’t have a massive hard disk. It doesn’t have a massive amount of RAM—I can add that as needed, which I don’t think it will be. This handles graphics better than the Latitude.
And I hope to goodness it’s going to serve me for years.
One strategy I’ve found useful with a new computer is to relocate all my important data to one master folder.
I create a single folder for all my personal data, then move the Documents, Pictures, etc. folders to sub-folders inside it.
This is how you change the location of system folders:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-move-windows-7-personal-folders-my-documents-another-drive.htm
I also put all my portable programs and everything else that’s important to me in sub-folders inside that one master folder.
That way I know that if that one folder is backed up, I have all my personal data backed up. It makes it easy to do backups, and easy to transfer everything to another computer in future.
My master folder is currently about 6GB in size, so it’s easy to back it up to a flash drive regularly, rather than having to back up the whole computer. To set up a new computer I just have to copy that folder to the new computer, and install a few other programs, and it’s done.
I really hope that new computer does what it’s supposed to do without problems.
Also, that sounds like a great machine. My Win7 laptop, circa 2010, will remain green with envy. (It’s actually more of a dark blue-black. 😉 )
But I don’t expect to replace it or a desktop machine for a while yet. Hoping to delay that as much as possible. My desktop (an iMac, circa late 2011/early 2012) was flaky at the end of last month / start of this month, but has been behaving itself nicely since, so I’m no longer so concerned. (I’d love to be able to afford a Mac Pro tower, but that’s not happening any time soon! A Mac Mini might happen in another year or so, or else a new Win7 (or Win10?) laptop, when the time comes.)
My Mac’s old enough I’m beginning to see lag issues, but it’s livable.
Have fun with your new computer! That sounds great.
If, every now and then, you get the strong urge to sling the platen arm over and hear the carriage return bell go “Ding!” well, I think that can be quite understandable.
Hah, I shopped for a *fountain pen* recently. Now those, they still make.
They do still make portable typewriters, oddly enough, but you pay about what you’d pay for a very low-end laptop now. — And I was both puzzled and amused to see, apparently, the keys are the very old-style pre-computer layout, not the modern computer keyboard layout. That is, no 0 and 1, no brackets, braces, vertical bar and backslash, greater-than and less-than, and the quotes in the old 50’s/60’s places, above the numbers. I would have thought that would’ve updated with the times, but no. Oh, you do get the 1/2 ans 1/4, and maybe the cents sign, again, old-school. — I learned on an old IBM Selectric typewriter, and have used my mom’s old college manual typewriter, the kind where you get your fingers trapped if you type two keys at once. I also learned on computers, when they were first coming in in the md-80’s. So a typewriter isn’t a strange beast to me, and an old Apple IIe and Mac Plus used to be trusted friends. 😀
You might not type faster on the new computer, but you’ll look cooler and it’ll work faster than before. 😀 That, and GW2 should run faster, with smoother, better resolution graphics. 😀 These things are important. Both work and play.
Aaah, keyboard nostalgia. The clunk, tap, crash, ding when you depressed the shift and raised the carriage for a capital, hit the letter key, released the shift so the carriage came crashing down, causing the bell to echo faintly. I had a budgie whose cage hung above my old Underwood and he could imitate the whole sequence superbly. Actually if anyone still wants to acquire a manual typewriter, garage sales and thrift shops are usually brimming with them, no need to buy new. But new electric typewriters still have some work applications (one-off labels and cards) and are expensive. Around work we defend ours fiercely.
But here’s a blast from the past: does anybody remember using a script l typewriter? (This was a conceit from the library world where the problem of 1 vs l was solved by a lower case script l installed as the shift of something I can’t remember)
Anyhow I hope CJ and the new machine have a long and productive relationship!
Leroy Anderson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZCh4EY_kug
I don’t do Youtube, but I know the piece, and haven’t heard it in years. I suppose the millenials that fequent Youtube must be mystified. 😉
¡Olé! ¡Bravo el dactylo!
That was super. It’s been a while since I’d heard it.
(There are times I still miss my old IIe and AppleWorks!)
I’m in the middle of a certain scene in Chanur’s Venture, involving getting a certain perishable item out of a canister.
I am waiting for my iPad to recharge. I may become old-fashioned and resort to a “pbook,” an old copy of the Chanur Saga (first 3 volumes) in one.
It’s been long enough since I’d last read the series that it’s like reading it anew, almost. I’m picking up things I’d forgotten, and I’m seeing it from my new perspective at this point in life.
I swear Pyanfar Chanur can say more in one “Huh” than most people say in paragraphs. I can only aspire to be so concise and yet nuanced.
Back when I still was not reading regularly, I’d made it up to Inheritor, but now that I’m reading closer to my old normal rate, and since it’s been a while, I will restart the book, in order not to miss anything. I’m not sure if I can get it and the second trilogy read before Tracker comes out, but it’s at least a goal to which to aspire.
What wonderful books!
And that’s one reason paper books will never disappear.
Can’t you read while recharging? I can on my Kindle.
Actually, it’s the Kindle app on my iPad2. When the iPad goes below 10% charge, it warns you, and again at 5%. When it thinks it’s run out entirely, it powers down, and won’t power up again until it’s above 5%, while recharging. So I tend to leave it alone to recharge then.
I have one of the now very old Kindles, first or second generation. Since I use the iPad, I haven’t seen a real need to get a separete, new Kindle pad, and I won’t get a newer iPad for quite a while, another year or so.
I may replace my old iPhone 3gs later this year, if I can squeeze it in, but more likely, it’ll wait until next year too.
Well, Afghanistan has just beaten Scotland in the cricket world cup. It was a dramatic match which went right down to the wire. The game could have gone either way right to the the last few balls. Both sides are minor teams in the competition, but it was a brilliant match. Afghanistan deserved to win. They played their heart out, and came back from being well behind.
Yesterday there was another dramatic match between minor teams, where Ireland beat United Arab Emirates by a slim margin. Tomorrow it’s two major teams – South Africa vs. West Indies (i.e. Caribbean).
Cricket is a game I have watched, with perhaps the same confusion with which other people watch baseball. But it is an exciting game even when you don’t know the rules. I can understand its popularity.
It’s a game where there’s a lot of subtle strategy. The ball bounces on the ground before being hit. Since the playing surface is rolled grass and earth, the nature of the surface varies on different fields, and even over the course of a day, and affects the game. It also matters how ‘old’ the ball is, because there is wear on the ball as the match progresses. Then there are different styles of bowling, and the ball can be bowled closer to the batsman or further, low or high, fast or slow with a spin that makes it curve deceptively.
A bat with a flat surface allows a good batsman a reasonable amount of control over where and how he hits the ball, and there are many different types of shots. The position of the fielders is important, and can be changed (within limits) by the fielding team. The order that the batsmen go in to bat matters, as does which bowlers bowl when.
All this makes for a complex and varied game, which requires careful thought and changing tactics as the match progresses. A game can also swing fairly quickly in favor of one side or the other, and then back again.
Here’s a video of the last few minutes of that Scotland-Afghanistan game. It looks like the video was made with a phone camera from a TV screen, so it’s not very good quality, but it still shows how close the game was.
At one point the batman starts to run, then realises he’s not going to make it, and tries to run back again, while the Scottish fielder throws the ball at the wicket. It misses by inches, but the game was at such a critical point and so finely balanced at that moment, that if it had hit, Scotland would have won the match. Instead, on the very next ball, Afghanistan hit a boundary (4 runs) and won instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZwjHnxmYFQ
Interesting! Clearly complex and tricksy.
The team sport I follow, baseball, can seem static, but in effect, with modern displays that show you what’s going on, as the pitcher works on tricks of perception, body mechanics, and psychology to get the batters out, I can sit there quite satisfied, not to mention base-stealing and such. I think learning the finesses of cricket would need a while, but it is a fastmoving game, and I like the fact that it’s also played, like baseball, with an emphasis on accuracy and quickness…very little gear, a lot going on. YOu can enjoy it before you quite understand all the moves.
Remember back six weeks or so ago when I goofed and wiped out the existing Stage 2(*) build of a new version (the Christmas & New Year’s version) of my Linux system(s) I’d been working on since before Thanksgiving? Because I still had the wherewithal to build it, it took less than 48hrs to get it back. It didn’t happen again, but I did take to backing it up on the tiny little USB “thumbnail” I’d plugged into the back of the case.
I was building it on a dual-core “Conroe” box. Since then I’ve got lots of ancillary stuff that makes a system livable, e.g. a working GUI. Earlier this week I was ready to compile Firefox from the original source code–that’s how I do things. So it started grinding away, while I was enjoying seeing both cores at 95% CPU utilization, but after 75 minutes in it stopped with an error.
I’m not making it for just that box! I need to be able to take all the pieces and reassemble them into functioning systems on different boxes. I figured it was time to try moving it to a faster four core i7 box, so I could get to the errors faster. (Yeah, that does sound daft!) That always turns up some glitches, and did, but it limped into life. Last night I think I finally got most of the (major) glitches found and fixed. So shortly I should be able to find out what’s missing from the Firefox prerequisites in, say, 20 minutes! 🙂 And eventually, get a working Firefox I can carry back to the Conroe box, and everything else I’ll want to install POD-4.0 on. 🙂
(*) Stage 1 is when one uses the facilities a “host” system to “compile” the bootstrap versions of the new programs, that will be used in a “clean room” environment to recompile everything, Stage 2, with all the new versions without any “contamination” from the original host system.
p.s. As I’m sitting here composing this, with just WWAS in the browser and nothing else that should be using the network, I’m seeing the lights blinking as if I were downloading a massive file on my WiFi router. What’s WP doing?
It kept doing that when I wasn’t here. I finally discovered FF had retried downloading a massive file that failed yesterday, but it wouldn’t let me purge from the download list for some reason. Gone now. Lights are still when they should be. 🙂
You have to wonder.
My own new machine has a good graphics card and an i7 that was recommended by the Dell agent—Since they managed not to send me a total accounting of all that went in, I’m going to have to get it to print out a system report. It’s pretty much like this:
Intel® Core™ i7-4710MQ Processor (Quad Core 2.50GHz, 3.50GHz Turbo, 6MB 47W, w/HD Graphics 4600)
Operating System Windows 7 Professional English64bit (Includes Windows 8.1 Pro license)
Display 15.6″ UltraSharp FHD(1920×1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit with Premium Panel Guarantee
Memory1 8GB2 DDR3L at 1600MHz
Hard Drive 500GB 2.5″ 7200rpm Hard Drive
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW Drive Slot Load
Graphics Card Nvidia® Quadro® K1100M w/2GB GDDR5
Warranty 3 Year ProSupport with Next Business Day Onsite Service
System Weight 6.35 lbs
I opted for no more than the 8 gig memory. I word process and play games.
The six pounds is pretty heavy for a laptop. I may get a lap desk to hold the thing. They don’t even call it a laptop. It’s a ‘mobile workstation.’ And it’s not a huge hard drive, but then, it’s huge for text files. Some leave out the DVD drive, but I’m just not ready to go with only flash storage, be it thumb drives or whatever.
I think mentally I’ve never gotten over my experience with early computers, in which you protected them from phones and vacuum cleaners and other potential sources of magnetism and didn’t even walk heavily around a Winchester disc. I know it’s different and all solid state and such, now, but I still want something more than a flash drive, which is hard to id visually—I have a horror of losing one of the little things.
Check where the intake vents are. On my Dell, they’re on the bottom, so they’re easily obstructed. It has to be on a hard surface or it’ll overheat. I just use a cutting board.
Also, I use a $5(?) insulated Trader Joe’s bag for transport, with a terrycloth towel for extra padding, instead of a $50 laptop case. Aside from cost, it doesn’t appear to be a laptop case–few thieves target groceries. I find writing out of the house a nice change.
I have some of those wire racks they sell for sinks, so that there’s drainage space under stuff. They produce about a half-inch of clearance under a laptop or other device, which helps a lot. (Cheap fix, too.)
I just have a pair of otherwise useless plastic chopsticks in the bag.
I used wooden napkin rings for my desktop machine. Filled the holes with plastic wood (or something similar) for the feet to sit on. That got a good half-inch of air space under the box. (Also made it possible to retrieve pencils that rolled under it. A quarter inch is enough for them to get under, but not enough to retrieve them without a tool.)
Good point!
For my laptop I use a flat plastic tray from xpad4laptop.com. The laptop sits on rubber rests that raise it above the rest of the pad so there is air circulation. It’s lightweight enough so I have traveled with it. My Dell laptop ran hotter than this Samsung does, especially since I put a solid state drive in it last year, so right now I’m not using the Xpad at all. The way it sits on my lap the vents are not obstructed.
I was on the Dell website trying to figure out what you had bought to replace your Latitude, and had decided that you must have gone the “mobile workstation” route since that seems to be the only thing that’s fully customizable these days. I’m not very happy with that; I didn’t see a Latitude that I was completely satisfied with.
While Bren has used a laptop for the entire series, Ms. Cherryh has not given us any specifications on it other than to occasionally comment on its security.
I have a feeling it must be lighter than six pounds. But not necessarily, since he lately has Jago carry it.
I figured it was undignified for Bren-nandi to carry it.
To identify USB flash drives, the little “pack of chewing gum” sized thumb / stick drives:
I recommend colored string or (heh) ribbon might work. Or a dab of paint, permanent marker, or nail polish would work.
I like the form factor, but really wish they had a label. — What I imagine is that the form factor will stay around in some way, and eventually, when e-ink / e-paper gets out of the R&D lab stage, they’ll have an easy way to add cheap, thin, rewritable labels to things like flash drives.
What’s e-ink or e-paper? — It’s similar to technology they tried for Kindles, but that wasn’t far enough along yet to be mroe practical in contrast. It’s a thin sheet of plastic (or something) with a thin layer of “e-ink” on it. The e-ink layer has tiny spheres or flakes embedded in a medium. When given one charge, the bits turn over to “blank” (white or black or the “paper” color, potentially). When the other charge is given, the bits flip over to their color, (black, white, one of the primary RGB or CMY colors). The neat thing about this is that the tiny beads or bits stay that way, even without power, until a new charge is applied. So these are low-power, and as good a contrast and color sensitivity and as high a resolution, as the R&D guys and girls can whip up.
That’s an actual product you can do a web search for, in R&D since a year or so before the first Kindles came out. (The Kindles are not related to the research, but I think they tried using an early version of the technology.)
The problems are how to get really good high contrast, and how to get good color from the things. But the idea is, the stuff can be used for point of sale signage, labels, screens, and so on, a replacement for paper in some situations. Lab versions had two colors when I last looked about it. Production versions still had poor contrast, not as good as black on newsprint grey. But they say the idea, the concept, is very promising. Oh, one other application: foldable or rollable screens. You could roll up the screen like a newspaper or scroll. Heheh.
Neat stuff, if and when they really get it going.
To identify USB drives, I use a key chain with a label you can write on, one for each drive, like this:
http://postimg.org/image/yiji6nkmb/
You can write a description, or just use color-coded tags. It also makes it much easier not to lose them – especially if they’re very tiny like this Kingston drive.
I have thumbdrives with cardboard labels. I also have some where I simply wrote on the plastic case with a Sharpie. (I also have a USB cable for my reader where I wrote ‘up’ on the reader end, so I can insert it without having to peer at the connector.)
Remember Minnie Pearl used to have the little price-tag label on a bit of string hanging from her hat? It was iconic. Most office supply stores have them.
Some USB thumb drives come with little lanyards, many just have a little hole. At a craft store, I bought some 5mm rings that I can usually work through the hole. And I bought some little clips to put on them, in a variety of metallic colors, gold, silver, bronze, black, copper. I can clip them onto my keychain. I’ve also used simple paperclips. With the little “thumbnail” thingys having something like that to hold on to makes them easier to extract.
Ugh. DH was having computer issues (online gaming freezing, stuttering, involuntary shutdowns), so installed a new upgraded video card. Went into Star Trek Online last night (RIP, Mr. Nimoy 🙁 ) to stress-test it. Discovered that the problem was NOT the video card, but the other thing pegged as a potential issue, the power supply. Back to the drawing board!
See the Dilbert cartoon today
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-03-01
Also note the XKCD cartoon in the comments to that Dilbert cartoon. Heh. Must be a Cylon-Borg Hybrid Toaster!
Yep. 🙂