laptops

On laptops in the classrooms

I came across an interesting opinion by David Cole regarding the use of Internet connected laptops in the classrooms, during lectures.

study found that laptop use was significantly and negatively related to class performance

While I was reading the article, I kept nodding my head a lot. Yes, if I was back in college and I could have an Internet connected laptop on my desk, I’d be even worse of a student than I was. YouTube, forums, emails, Twitter, and a whole lot of other attention grabbers would not leave much for plain old college education. At least in my case. I know.

But then, I started thinking if that was true for other people I know. And I couldn’t be so sure anymore. A few guys I know literally can’t stay for too much long wihtout a computer and some sort of Internet connection. It’s like food or oxygen – they just have to have it. And when they have access to a computer, it’s often amazing to see them use it. Lots of interesting, topic related stuff coming up. Fact checking. Exploring the topic deeper and wider. With quotes and all.

And that got me into this idea of a new generation. Younger people, who grew up online. Web is in their blood. A desktop computer as an ugly concept, and an offline computer as a useless box. This kind of people. I don’t think they would be much distracted. In fact, quite the opposite – I think their grades would go up with better Internet connection and laptop-friendlier environment.

And that’s where I started worrying a little bit about the studies that were mentioned in the article. These studies may be very accurate now. And they are performed by bigger universities and colleges. The results of these studies will take a few years of propagating into smaller colleges and universities. And that’s where the problem will arise. By that time, most new students will of the web native generation, but their alma maters will be choosing to disconnect them and ban their laptops. Even though it probably won’t be too relative by then.

But then again, isn’t it like this most of the time? I think it is.

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.

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?

Looking for a notebook

I’ve never particularly liked notebooks. They are clumsy, uncomfortable, hot, slow, weird, and hard to fix or upgrade. And expensive, of course.

But circumstances are changing now in such a way that I’ll need to have a notebook pretty soon. We can’t manage on a single computer nomore, and there is no place to put a second one. Plus I am way too often moving around.

I am not in a hurry yet, but I can’t delay the purchase for another six month. Tha gives me enough to time to study the options and compare the prices.

So far I haven’t done any research what-so-ever. And with this knowledge I am looking for the following:

IBM ThinkPad T41 notebook (I’ve heard lots of positive comments about this particular line of products, and it supports Linux pretty good too.)
Fast CPU is not an issue. Even 1 GHz will be enough.
RAM is good, so I’ll need more. 1 GByte is pretty close to perfect.
I don’t want an elephant in the bag, but I want something bigger than my mobile, so the ideal size of the screen is 15″.
Well-supported video card – NVidia MX-series or something similar.
CD/DVD/DVD-RW is a must.
USB is a must.
WiFi card, supported by Fedora Linux 4 or later is a must.
10/100 (or maybe even 10/100/1000) Mbit Ethernet adapter is a must.
Soundcard with line-in (read: Skype) is a must.
Battery life is not essential – if it can live and work for 2-4 hours, then it’s good enough. Usually, I am pretty close to power lines.

That’s pretty much what I have thought of at this moment. Any suggestions, ideas, or pointers are very welcome.

P.S.: The system will be running Fedora Linux and Fedora Linux only. No dualboots to Windows or anything crazy like that.

P.P.S.: Notebook can even be second-hand, if in good condition.