Tag: hardware

Second monitor

Being so much at work during the last few month, I’ve noticed that many IT guys enjoy working with a two monitor setup.  I never paid much attention to that fact and thought that those really need a second monitor are a few and that its mostly the show off for the rest.

Last week, in a very spontaneous move, I decided to try it out.  We had a few of those 19-inch AOC monitors around, so I wasn’t exactly robbing anyone or anything like that.  Within minutes I had unwrapped, connected, and configured in my Gnome, and I have to say that that is one of the best technology experiences I had in the last few years!  It’s totally awesome!

Now, having two monitors configured as one huge desktop, I can either keep my browser separated from my consoles, or more code than every before in front of my eyes without switching virtual desktops, or have all my instant messaging at hand without polluting my main workspace.  That’s brilliant, I tell you.

Downsides?  Yes, sure.  I haven’t yet learned to handle the setup properly, so I have to logout of my graphical interface and log back in every time I take my laptop home.  It would have been so much easier if just plugging the monitor in would work.  I hear that a docking station might improve the situation, but that remains to be seen.

And what I want now?  More monitors.  I’d love to have another monitor at work, and I’d really want to have at least one more at home.  But there is no place to put it at home (I’m working on a dining table), and I’m not sure there is a way to connect two additional monitors to a laptop at work.  But overall, multi-monitor setups is definitely an area I need to investigate more.

Lenovo ThinkPad T61

As I mentioned a few days ago, I was looking for a new laptop. Well, I got one last week, and it’s an amazing Lenovo ThinkPad T61 machine. I am still playing with, learning it, and tweaking it, but I think I’m ready for the post now.

The red button

First things first. There weren’t much of an argument for or against each specific model that I found or that was suggested in the comments to my last post. I needed a machine pretty fast, and I was trying to arrange it in such a way so that I won’t pay for it out of my own pocket (my new employer is kind of cool for this sort of things).

Here are the specs for the tech savvy among you:

  • 15.4″ widescreen form factor
  • 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
  • 2 GB RAM
  • 150 GB HDD
  • 3 USB ports
  • some sort of DVD drive
  • 1 Ethernet card, 1 WiFi card, and a whole bunch of other inputs and outputs

Installation process : I did a minimum installation of Fedora 8 from DVD, then copied over my home directory and other important files from my previous laptop, and then installed and upgraded all missing and outdated software. Most of the stuff worked like a charm and didn’t need any sweat.

Issues that I needed time to solve or haven’t solved yet:

  • WiFi switch was off and it took me almost half an hour to figure out. That was probably due to a total lack of sleep though.
  • Fedora 8 has this new pulse audio system, which takes a few steps to setup properly. I had to do this a few times before already, and every time this excellent guide was to the rescue.
  • I still haven’t managed to configure suspend and hibernate functionality. It goes to sleep nicely, but either doesn’t wake up at all, or wakes up with some crucial functionality missing, such as network being totally lost. This is as well the most annoying thing that I miss right now. However, the whole of the Internet suggests that I am doing something wrong and that this stuff should just work.

Impressions:

  • Very fast. This is my first multi-core machine, so I have to get used to it a bit. One thing that I am particularly glad is that it runs Quake 3 at 125 FPS easily. This is the first machine that I have that can do this.
  • Widescreen is the way to go. (And here is the recent Slashdot story to confirm that.) It’s amazing how much difference that little extra space on the side makes. Watching a movie is more pleasurable. Working with images in Gimp is way more convenient. And now I can have a full window browser with a sidebar open, following my Twitter friends. Or an instant messenger window open nearby. Or I can have a really wide console window with plenty of code to scroll through (priceless for vimdiff mode).
  • A little bit heavier than my previous machine. It’s a bit bigger too. But I don’t mind much.
  • A little bit noisier than my previous machine. It feels like the fans are never off. However I suspect there is some great utility software out there to configure and control this.

Overall, it feels like a really nice piece of technology – well built and thoroughly thought out. I need to solve these few remaining issues and it will be a total pleasure to work with.

Laptop size dilemma

A few things have happened recently that caused me to go through available laptop offers, looking for a new one.  First of all, our last desktop PC at home died.   Secondly, my laptop is getting pretty old.  Thirdly, I am switching to a new job, new office, new boss, and I have an opportunity to get a new laptop to sustain all of that stress.

What do I need in a laptop?  Well, my current HP nx6110 has been working pretty good for the last two years.  I am satisfied with its power and features.  The only two things I would like to see improved are battery life (it can survive for about 2 hours without power) and screen resolution (1024×768 is sort of small for me).  Other than that, it’s perfect.

Most of the newer laptops boast better battery life, despite being packed with more powerful processors, more memory, and better graphics cards.  So that looks like to be taken care of all by itself.

Screen resolution, however, is a tricky issue.  Usually, for higher screen resolution, I’d need to get a laptop with larger screen too.  My current laptop has a 15″ screen, which seems just about right. I’d love to have higher resolution on the screen of that size, not a bigger screen with higher resolution.

Bigger screens are nice, especially considering the fact that I work a lot with pictures and use my laptop to watch DVDs.  But moving around with a large laptop is inconvenient.  For example, on a recent trip to a conference in Amsterdam, even my current laptop was a tiny bit too large. It was OK to bring it to Amsterdam, but it was too heavy to carry around to the conference (laptop + power supply + socket adapter + digital camera + spare batteries + the huge bag to fit all that = a lot of weight).

After considering all pros and cons for a few moments, I decided that I don’t need a bigger laptop.  I should get something as close to the current size as possible, but with support of higher resolution (maybe a wide screen too).  For the mobile needs (such as conferences) I should get a new smart phone with QWERTY keyboard.  A combination of a good smart phone and a laptop should cover me from all sides.  I’d bring the laptop to the hotel and use it to watch DVDs and browse the web on high resolution, while I can use a smart phone as a quick Web access tool and note taking device.

With that in mind, Lenovo ThinkPad T61 laptop looks just fine.  There is a 15.4″ widescreen option, which boasts 11+ hours of battery life as well as all bells and whistles that I want.

What do you guys think?  What’s your choice for a laptop these days?  How do you solve your multimedia and traveling digital needs?

Getting rid of my hardware museum

In the pre-Christmas cleanup craze, I cleaned out the bigger part of my in-house computer history museum.   In cold blood, I threw away about 40 kilograms of computer hardware.  Among that were a few kilometers of network wires, all sorts of power and signal cables, power supplies, video cards, sound cards, network cards, keyboards, and more.  There were some really ancient things that no long work, like a 80386 laptop and a 9600 baud speed fax-modem with built-in printer and scanner.

But. I haven’t got rid of everything.  There are a few things which I could throw out just yet.  Such as motherboard with 80486 processor and 16 MBytes of memory.  I think it’s brand new or so.  It is still packed in anti-static envelope.  Also, there are a few cables that I have a suspicion that I might need one day.  Don’t ask…

Hardware upgrades

Small hardware updates: yesterday I have tested GeForce 2 MX 32. To say it short – it sucked against my Riva TNT2. I know that is not scientific, but I completely deslike playing Quake 3 Arena with it and needed some place to share the feeling :)
My new 40GByte hard disk is fine though. HDDs are getting cheaper and cheaper, especially those 5500 RPM ones. I gave my preference to 7200 RPMs though. :)