Don
Linux, Loss, Laptops, and Lower Costs. Oh, and value too.
Feels like forever since I posted here. It was last year as I recall which means it's a new year. Happy New Year, everyone!
Last year was also when things started going wrong with my Toshiba notebook.
On the surface it might seem like a tragic loss, but I find it hard to get upset since I've had the computer for two years now, which is pretty much how long I expect any of these things to last. It was (still is, I guess) a Satellite P200-AB1 with a Pentium 4300 dual-core chip that came with 160 GB hard drive and 1 GB of installed memory. The latter I boosted to 2 GB when Best Buy or Future Shop -- can't remember which -- had a deal on notebook memory. The whole thing cost me $700 plus donations to the government. My first notebook, many years ago, was a Dell Pentium 150 top of the line unit that set me back nearly $8000 (that's eight thousand dollars) when all was said and done. My new top end price for a notebook is $800 or less. And I won't pay for the ridiculous extended warranties.
Anyhow, just before Christmas, it started making occasional strange noises (never a good thing) running rather hot at times, and on at least three occasions over less than a week, something in the hardware just shut down. Once, I got up for a coffee and came back to find the unit completely powered off even though it was plugged in and the battery was charged. Most recently, the screen just went black. Powered right off. This despite the fact that the notebook was still running and I could SSH over to it from another machine. It was obviously time to retire the unit while I could still do it gracefully. Sure I could take it in, wait two weeks while I get it repaired, assuming it was worth the cost to do so, but I need my notebook. It's my work and an important part of how I earn my living. I really can't afford to wait two weeks. So I went shopping.
Marcel's new notebook, an Acer Aspire 7535
The whole boxing week thing is interesting in that I'm not sure how much I believe the 'sale prices'. There are always sales and I happen to like shopping for its own sake. I blame my French Canadian background for that one. We all like to shop, men and women alike. I started looking at flyers, then Websites, then found myself in Best Buy. They had an Acer Aspire 7535-5415 with a AMD Turion dual core ZM-84 chip running at 2.3 Ghz, 4 GB of memory, a 500 GB hard drive, a 17.3 inch 16:9 HD LED display, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, HDMI outputs, and a bunch of other things. It's loaded. The only thing I miss is a FireWire port which I used to connect my old Sony HC40 Handycam. And I suppose a Blu-Ray player would have been cool though not necessary. It also came with something called Windows 7 Home Premium, whatever that might be [ insert appropriate smiley here ].The "special boxing week price" was $599 Canadian.
I don't know about you, but that seems like a lot of machine for $599 which is now my new high price for a notebook computer. After checking that the processor did indeed hardware level virtualization, I bought it. I would probably still have bought it even it it didn't do VT. I got the unit home, installed Kubuntu 9.10, 64 bit edition, and proceeded to move my data from my old notebook over my wireless network. It took a few days since I had a lot of data and quite the environment to recreate but most of it took place in the background so I could still work. For the record, I'm writing this blog entry on the new notebook.
It's blindingly fast. It's beautiful to work with. It even looks pretty cool with a metallic blue case and design that borrows a page from the Apple 'hardware can be beautiful' handbook. I can't yet speak about the long term quality, but the desktop unit that lasted me the longest number of years, many many moons ago, was an Acer 486. We'll see how this holds up over time.
So where is this going, you might be asking. It's about the money.
Read more...
http://ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Marcel-Gagne-Orbiting-Planet-buntu/Linux-Loss-Laptops-and-Lower-Costs.-Oh-and-value-too
God Bless,
Don
Check out my Web Pages and Blog’s too...
Don's Music and Poems at DonSongs.com
DonSongs! Download Both Albums in MP3's Free! Also, there's Pages of my Songs, Poems and Pic’s of me and friends:>) www.DonSongs.com
DonSongs New Site With Music Players for Both Albums and New Page Design...
Download The Whole Living Beings - Climate Control Album Free!:) We have our New Album Out Now! With me, Don Bishop doing Vocals and Lyrics and Marty Splawn Playing all the Music! And You can Download the whole Album Free!
http://bishopco.com/LivingBeings/LivingBeings-ClimateControl-mp3.html
And here’s an alternative Living Beings download site that also has smaller 64Kbps M3U versions for Dialup connections and it has Streams of the complete album too if you just want to listen online without saving the MP3’s. http://www.archive.org/details/DonBishopLivingBeingsClimateControl
Living Beings Blog has some MP3 Song clips from our Living Beings - Climate Control album. Also, I put up some of my favorite Pic’s. http://livingbeings.blogspirit.com/
And here’s an alternative DonSongs download site that also has smaller 64Kbps M3U versions for Dialup connections and it has Streams of the complete album too if you just want to listen online without saving the MP3’s. http://www.archive.org/details/DonBishopDonSongs002
CMU - Christian Music Underground
CMU was started by Don Bishop to share the music of myself and of course the rest of you guys who are among the non commercial artists out there who work hard at their music and want to Glorify, Praise and Share the Love of our Lord Jesus.
http://christianrocker.com/index.php?mode=player&type=radio&id=79
DonSongs Blog... This is a Collection of Songs written & Sung by Don Bishop from 01-1991 to 03-2002.http://donsongs.blogspirit.com/
I need help starting a ministry for Kids. Do you love Kids and Teenagers? If you feel a calling on your life to help the least of these grow up and learn to live and love and believe in Jesus, then please check out our vision.
Psalms 68 Ministries http://www.Psalms68.com
My Web Site’s Business Page, the Entry Point for all the rest. My New Site is at http://bishopco.com/mambo/ and my old faithful is at http://www.BishopCo.com
Classified Ads, Place Your’s for Free Here! Try out my free Classified Ads Site.
Don's Deals Free Classifieds http://epage.com/js/csp/c44364/b44364/r571658/?csp=44364
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