Randomn3ss

For the last few months I have been shopping for a laptop. Knowing that I have rather specific requirements for what I wanted from the hardware and within a certain budget, I’ve been pretty picky. All this, and I told myself I would either wait until service pack 1 of Vista was released or try to pickup a refurb Dell unit still running XP. Since I wasn’t in too much of a hurry, I could take my time and really get a feel for what I wanted. This usually meant playing with whatever laptops the big box stores had while I was there for some other purpose and looking for deals online. From a tactile feel, I’ve always liked Sony Vaio laptops, however they are way over priced for what you get. HP seemed to have everything I wanted, however their 15.4” models only run a screen resolution of 1280×800, I wanted better than that from a 15.4” and they didn’t offer much in the 14” and smaller line that was anything near affordable. Back to Dell. Dell offers some sick screen resolutions on their 15.4” lines, but the price goes through the roof when you add the video card to drive them, and they don’t come with bluetooth or a web cam by default, they are about a $100 add on. I can live without the web cam, who would want to see me anyway, but I want bluetooth for easy synching with my phone and for a wireless mouse. The added video card and bluetooth put me over the budget I had of around a grand.

My hardware requirements are:

• Intel Core 2 duo
• At least 1GB of RAM installed
• At least a 120GB hard drive
• DVD burner – double layer doesn’t much matter to me
• Extended battery
• Bluetooth
• Under 5lbs

Looking at a refurb site, I thought I found a 13.3” Vaio that fit my needs and an older 1.83 core 2-duo processor. It had everything I wanted and a few things that were nice add-ons, but only came with a 90-day warranty. The company selling the laptop offered a 3-year on-site warranty for an additional $99, but it was done through a third party, something I’m not fond of. I was still very interested in it though and asked some co-workers their opinion on the hardware setup. All agreed that it was a lot of computer for the money, but asked if I looked into the Macbook refurbs, there was one that was about $50 more but had a 1-year warranty.

Reluctantly I went to the Apple site and clicked on the refurbished section. Sure enough, they had a 13.3” Macbook with a better, 2.15 Core 2 duo processor and everything else on my want list. Black would have been my first choice, but they only had white in stock. The next 2 hours really had me pondering what to do. A co-worker has been running Tiger on his new (refurb) 15” Macbook Pro with VMware Fusion, allowing him to also run Windows and Ubuntu all at the same time without rebooting. This sounded great, although I can only think of one application that I have that is Windows specific that they don’t have a Mac version for. At least the option to have Windows is there.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a fan of Macs, most don’t understand why though. I think OSX is a great operating system but I don’t like the overpriced hardware one needs to buy to run the operating system. Up until this point, one can almost always buy more hardware for the money and run Windows than OSX, I still feel this is true with most of the desktop units that Apple offers. In my case, laptop to laptop, the refurb Macbook is in the same price range with the same features as Windows based ones and the ability to run Windows and Ubuntu on it is very attractive.

The laptop is supposed to arrive tomorrow, we’ll see if FedEx ground comes through or not, but several of my friends that know its coming are more excited to me. In telling a few Mac using friends that I ordered one, their first question back to me has been nearly identical, to the word, do you love it?

I can’t say that there is any proper way to answer that, even after I get it and start using it on a regular basis. I’ve never said, Wow, I love Windows! Nor can I say that about nearly any product I use on a regular basis. What makes Mac addicts so into their hardware? Some of these friends who know it’s coming bought a Mac because it looks pretty, which in most cases, it does, some are programmers and designers who have been using Macs so long that they are just more proficient with them. Where does all this supposed love come from though? Why do Mac fans get all excited in the pants at the announcement of a new keynote speech by Steve Jobs?

My main computer uses are

• Internet
• Email
• Photoshop (most RAW processing digital photos and adjusting for output)
• Minor coding (usually in Dreamweaver or Scite)
• Writing / blogging
• Bittorrent

My hope is that none of these tasks are drastically affected as I make the transition to a Mac. I have no intentions of moving entirely, my XP based desktop is still plenty fast and will serve for grunt work with specific Photoshop work that requires a higher resolution than my laptop will provide me with.

Expect updates on how my introduction into OSX goes as well as other learning curves, widgets, and other Mac anomalies go. Wish me luck!

Way back in March I installed Ubuntu onto a spare computer, mostly to play around with it, partly because I was intending on using it for a PVR. The computer was up and running on my [only] monitor for about two days, then I needed to access files on my Windows computer.

Since that day, the computer has not been booted up, four and a half months later. I just can�t find a convincing reason to switch totally and my efforts for building a standalone PVR have been put on hold because my Internet connection is garbage at my home.

As it stands, I still really like the operating system and think it has a place, just not in my home right now. I will be pulling the hard drive from that computer and installing it as a slave on my main Windows computer to use as a secondary place to store files and will re-explore PVR options when I have a more stable connection to the internet.

On a brighter note, my work is slowly upgrading some of our workstation computers; the older units in some case are 7+ years old and just can�t function in productive ways for our company anymore. Some of these older units are running Pentium II and Pentium III processors, 256mb of RAM and 20GB hard drives, nothing to be proud of. The company does have a need to run a simple terminal piece of software and browse the internet in certain locations of the store, this is where Ubuntu comes into play. I will be installing Ubuntu on at least one computer sometime in the next month for the sole purpose of running terminal software and browsing the Internet. Ubuntu tends to run faster than Windows based operating systems, like Windows 2000, on these older pieces of hardware. This will hopefully get my fingers using the operating system more frequently and get me to possibly consider dual booting my home machine.

I�m interested in feedback from anyone who has either:

• Made the switch from Windows to Ubuntu (or other distro of Linux)
• Is in the process of switching
• Tried to switch and went back to Windows

Please share any speed bumps, hassles, workarounds, etc. that you have dealt with in your decision making process and final switch.

There is still no official statement or press release on this, but word hitting the blogsphere right now is that an insider from Ubuntu has leaked the information. Dell will be offering computers with the Linux distro Ubuntu preinstalled.

I�ve played around with Ubuntu and really like it, but admit that I haven�t fired up my Ubuntu box since installing it close to a month ago already. What this should mean for everyone though is a lower priced, rock solid computer from Dell, even if the customer support is a bit wishy-washy.

Without having to pay the bloated price for Windows (Ubuntu is free), it should drop the price of an average home computer by at least $75. This is also a great solution for people who want to get their parents or grandparents who need to do nothing more then email, get on the Internet and look at their digital photos.

Ubuntu isn�t the answer for me yet; no Photoshop, no Dreamweaver and a few other programs I use are still Windows only, so I won�t be making a full switch anytime soon. This is really exciting news though and should really make Microsoft wake up and figure out some of the Vista bugs that still exist.

Source: Gizmodo

I use Windows on a daily basis at home and work; I am one of the few who admits I actually like it. Recently I have played around with Ubuntu however it is still lacking some core things I need to do on a daily basis. Until the price of Mac computers comes back down to reality, I won’t even consider spending 5 times the cost of a comparable Windows based computer for what is an otherwise great operating system.

So what do you do when Windows isn’t enough? Someone has decided to take a brand new Dell core duo laptop and load it up with 6 different operating systems, simply boot into whichever you prefer. Are six really necessary though? What on earth can anyone try to accomplish with one version of a Linux distro that they can’t in another? Whatever, to each there own.

eBay auction here.

This is the first post on Randomn3ss that I am writing from my first install of the Linux distro Ubuntu. I’ve been playing with Linux here and there for the last 8+ years, starting with early versions of Mandrake and then moving to Red Hat, however they never did what I wanted them to, or at least not without a lot of configuration. The nice thing about Ubuntu is that is everything most Internet users want and need all on one CD and can be installed in less then 15 minutes.

Most computer users need to:

• Browse the web
• Use email
• Store files
• Create text based documents
• Edit images
• Chat on instant messenger

Ubuntu does all of this, right out of the box. It includes some of the most popular applications:

• Firefox
• Open Office (very similar to Microsoft Office)
• Gaim (chat client, similar to AIM)
• Gimp (similar to Photoshop)
• +even more fun stuff

I won’t bother linking you to the Wikipedia pages for each of those items, you can find the information on all of them on the Ubuntu homepage.

In the last 30 minutes of playing around I’ve installed most of my favorite Firefox extensions, played with Gimp and been browsing the web. I should also mention I am on computer that is nearly 5 years old, an AMD 1.2ghz box with 256mb of RAM and everything is running smoothly. This box is my test bed and over the next week or so will become my PVR.

So why am I not running Ubuntu as my primary operating system? Simple, there are still many Windows based applications that I need that are not yet available to Linux based computers, such as Photoshop, which is essential for post processing RAW files from my DSLR camera. My mother wants a computer to pay bills online, surf the web and look for recipes, a prime candidate for a Ubuntu as she isn’t computer savvy. She is getting a similar setup that I have laying around and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be installing Ubuntu on it instead of Windows 2000. I won’t have to worry about her getting a virus or any of the other things that can be quirky in Windows. At this point, I am extremely pleased with how it runs and the functionality that it provides.

I’d recommend that anyone looking for a Windows alternative check it out, download and burn a CD, you can run it on it’s own without installing it (called a Live CD) and play around with the setup. There are a few quirky things once it is installed, however the documentation is amazing and there are a good number of forums dedicated to Ubuntu fans.

Ubuntu Desktop
Ubuntu Forums