Wine update: Three days into the process I realize there is no way to be discreet about winemaking. It's lucky it is not illegal. We have achieved what is termed in the literature as a rollicking ferment. You could hear the bubbling from across the room. There is a faint odor of sulfide from the first, larger bucket. Rotten egg gas, a byproduct of fermentation. is the #1 problem of winemakers everywhere, but it is not necessarily serious in and of itself yet. I will check again today. The control batch, made with corn sugar, is a day younger and is simply wonderful. It is about 3-4% alcohol and already tastes delicious.
Computer issues: I will be buying a laptop here in the States. It has to be a 15.4" widescreen with excellent battery life. Those are pretty much opposites, of course. (Weight is not an issue. My current laptop weighs 9.5 pounds with the brick and I consider it light enough.)
And it should be under $2000. But really, under $1,500.
Naturally the MacBook Pro is on the shortlist. It is pricey but the OS is of course included, it being a Mac. And it would be virus-free, which may save time in the long run.
But I am leaning toward a ThinkPad T61 or maybe a Dell Vostro 1500. The ThinkPad is ahead because I need a solid, best in the biz keyboard that is good for three years of nonstop pounding. (The Mac is said to have some "flex" in it, whatever that is). The fact that the ThinkPad looks "boring" is actually a pro, not a con, for me. I could care less about what my computer looks like as long as it is a sturdy business class build. Something makes me think that Macintoshes are beautiful, odd, expensive toys for the status-conscious. There are some real issues with Macs that have never been resolved in my mind.
I am typing this on a G4 -- the computers here are all Macs -- but consider:
* The 1992 Powerbook (which originally retailed at $2000, my absolute maximum budget in 2007). This was my road computer for light word processing as late as 2002. Then it suffered a fall of 12 inches from my car while in its case and the screen shattered into tiny pieces. I do not care that this was a machine from 15 years ago. No $2000 piece of hardware designed for portable use should be that fragile. Have things improved?
Contrast that with my current notebook, a $2000 (as marketed in Estonia in 2005) Fujitsu Siemens Amilo, a hot and heavy but powerful 2004 notebook -- I have landed on it with my full weight in a bicycle wreck, it has been nicked and dented and thumped around, yet it still works well. The only problem is that dust clogs the fan and overheated CPU will cause it to shut down without warning, but regular vacuuming resolves this problem.
* Safari, Apple's browser, used to take 45 seconds to boot on this G4. Now it looks like this problem has been fixed. But I don't know why or how.
* On my Fujitsu, I have only lost maybe 8 hours of work in three years of heavy use, even with my bad habits -- such as not saving or backing up as I should. The AutoRecovery utility was up and running on Word when I installed it. Never had to do anything. I am happy with Windows XP. Even adware hasn't been that much of a problem -- maybe an additional five hours of fixing in three years. Nothing that Safe Mode or a System State Restore hasn't resolved. On the other hand, I have suffered just as many application crashes on various Macs, and always the data is gone for ever.
* My wife is unable to access the wireless Internet at Portland's Public Library with her Mac PowerBook 12". In a number of other locations, there have been problems with AirPort.
* I rely heavily on the Delete key and right mouse button. The Mac lacks them. Tapping twice on touch pads (the Macintosh's way around this) doesn't sound like a good substitute to me. I had a problem accidentally brushing the touchpad for the first few months using my current laptop.
* My translation interface is a Visual Basic script summoned within Word -- like a big macro. Would it definitely work on a Mac? It works without a hitch on XP, but it is a Polish written programme that is a reverse engineer of a much more expensive translation programme, Trados.
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5 comments:
Don't know much about wine along the lines of the fifties song "Don't now much about history". Don't know much about the rest of the words either, but here are my thoughts on laptops. My two cents worth. I am grooving on fifties and sixties music in my new truck that has satellite radio
Unless you are into gaming or watching movies on a 15 inch screen, I see no reason to be in the 1500 to 2000 dollar price range when you can get an adequate notebook for around $500 or less. Granted, it might not have the memory or speed you require for your work at $500. I am a satisfied Dell customer and have had several PCs built to specs by them based on talking with a sales rep there about my needs and usage. Also their support has been super, resolving problems, mostly of my creation, quickly. Talk to a Dell rep, get some ideas, and then go on line and build your own computer for comparison and then talk to a rep again.
As for durability. Some years ago Dell laptops came out the best in drop tests. but then again all depends how the computer falls. Just like when we drove a loader through a basement wall knocking over a shelf of wine,including a two or three foot tall bottle of Galliano to a concrete floor, and nothing broke.It's all in the luck of the draw.
I would go for large hard drive capacity, processor speed, and memory. Most notebooks come with Ethernet and wireless cards, but check anyway. As you know both our desktops are Dell, my notebook also, and Judy's as well. If you are going to spend money, get the most for the least and my recommendation would be to get an external hard drive and back everything you wish to save to it. While talking with Dell or anyone, don't give them a price range, but instead see what they can do to fit in your budget per your specs. If you give anyone a price range they will try to fill it.
I had a problem with my display on my laptop, but it was picked up by Dell and returned corrected within three days, all air express both ways. Judy lost her hard drive on her desktop, but that could happen on any computer, and fortunately the fire station computer guru was able to retrieve all her information, even stuff deleted long before. I guess that is why the FBI confiscates computers. What you think is deleted is obviously not so . :-) Even with the change of e-mail servers the automatic notification by the new provider from EarthLink has not only been hit and miss, but some people long deleted from our address books have received a change notification, while others have not. So if you get another change of address, it is not necessarily our doing. :-)
Your new computer, if not an Apple, will probably come with Vista. I don't know if you can still have XP installed, but if you can, go Professional XP. With Vista it is likely that printer, scanner, digital camera drivers, etc. will not be compatible, and possibly, depending on age, might not ever be updated.
That is it, over and out.
Thanks. It is tempting to spend so little.
Didt know Dell came first in drop comparisons. Didnt even think to search for such a criterion.
I may be rethinking the 15.4 inch screen, too, which is more a movie/gaming thing, which I dont plan to do. But it is great for some things like Excel tables and side by side windows.
One of the arguments for the ThinkPad 15.4 inch is that it still has an XP Professional option. No way am I getting Vista.
So does the Dell Vostro 1500.
The Mac can also run XP, with emulation ;).
One head to head comparison says the ThinkPad is a far superior computer to the Vostro, but it was subjective.
The Lenovo would have the highest resale margin -- they are worth almost twice as much in Europe. Dells only cost around 30% more.
The former IBM, now Lenovo, gets good reviews. If weight is not an issue, I would also go for maximum display size, especially if spread sheets are an issue.
I imagine XP will be around for a long time still. But many software packages, including some virus protection programs no longer are supported by Win 95. Win 98 is going the same way for lack of demand. When XP came with our computers, I found that I also had to replace printers and scanners because updates were not available.
This is probably true for all makers, but another thing I liked about Dell was easy interest free financing for a fairly long term, I can't recall how long. We do all our major purchases that way and seems to give more bang for the buck.
Don't know about resale in Europe, but here there is no value for a used PC. Either dump them if you are not environmentally concerned, or donate to some charity
I had a ridiculous time on the phone with Dell yesterday. It sounded like a guy on a cell phone (maybe in India?). His connection kept on cutting out and it was very unprofessional.
But the main problem was that their service is clearly set up to handle a handful of stock queries. They have to follow a script and if they encounter anything that does not compute, they go into an endless loop. For example, I had a configured model ready to buy in my shopping cart under my Dell account but no "customer number" so I could barely even get through the prescreening.
Finally I asked to speak to a manager and I was just left on endless hold. I doubt there was any manager there, it was just some guy in a Bangalore call centre with a room proctor supervising piss breaks or something.
Lenovo, I found out yesterday, is partly owned by the Chinese government. I hadn't followed the acquisition, I didnt know.
I am not naive about China's hand in everything, but I would hate to be supporting the regime so explicitly. Neverthless they do make a good keyboard, still.
Another thought if you have a concern about dropsies is to consider a SSD for our hardrive, That is a solid state drive which has no moving parts, with that for a cost about $500 or thereabouts the only moving parts in the laptop would be your cd/dvd drive. Supposedly the ssd is as fast and with the same capacity as a standard hard drive for a laptop. It is a fairly new development. I guess the cooling fan is another moving part, but neither carry saved information.
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