OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, it's 
£500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.

On the other hand, it has a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM and an 
nVidia GeForce 7200 GPU. Oh, and a BluRay drive. (Though for this price, 
I doubt it comes with the software necessary to play BluRay videos.)

Question is... am I likely to find a laptop with a Core 2 Duo and a real 
GPU in it for less than £400 anywhere? And if so, where?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, it's 
> £500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.

Hahahaha... it's vanished off the website.

Oh well, the next model down (without BluRay) is still there. And it's 
£20 cheaper. (Which is odd, considering BluRay drives still go for about 
£400 each...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

> (Which is odd, considering BluRay drives still go for about £400 each...)

I can't even remember when BluRay drives were that expensive - the PS3 
(which includes a BluRay drive) has been out for ages now and never cost 
more than 400 pounds (AFAIK)!

If you want a reader:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158605

or a writer:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136317

or one for the TV:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blu-Ray-Player-Sharp-BD-HP20S-Full-HD/dp/B000VZGO68

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> (Which is odd, considering BluRay drives still go for about £400 each...)
> 
> I can't even remember when BluRay drives were that expensive - the PS3 
> (which includes a BluRay drive) has been out for ages now and never cost 
> more than 400 pounds (AFAIK)!
> 
> If you want a reader:
> 
> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158605
> 
> or a writer:
> 
> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136317
> 
> or one for the TV:
> 
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blu-Ray-Player-Sharp-BD-HP20S-Full-HD/dp/B000VZGO68

Apparently prices have decreased somewhat since I last checked. I can 
remember wandering around no end of shops where there's a stack of 
CD/DVD burners for £15 each or something, and right next to them is an 
apparently identical device for £500, £600, £700 or similar. And when 
you look closely, the only difference is a big BluRay logo. (But, of 
course, online you could get one for "only" £400.)

Still, I guess BluRay isn't quite so brand-new any more. And with the 
demise of HD DVD and all...

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Apparently prices have decreased somewhat since I last checked. I can
> remember wandering around no end of shops where there's a stack of
> CD/DVD burners for £15 each or something, and right next to them is an
> apparently identical device for £500, £600, £700 or similar. And when
> you look closely, the only difference is a big BluRay logo. (But, of
> course, online you could get one for "only" £400.)

The same happened with DVDs. I remember CD-R drives costing AR$200 and DVD-R
drives costing AR$1800. Now the DVD writers cost 200 and you can't easily
find CD-only writers anymore :P

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, it's 
> £500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.

  I remember the times whem ~2000 euros (~1850 pounds) was a rather normal
price for a desktop computer, and those were (are) much cheaper than laptops.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, it's 
>> £500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.
> 
>   I remember the times whem ~2000 euros (~1850 pounds) was a rather normal
> price for a desktop computer, and those were (are) much cheaper than laptops.

Heh. Yes - I remember my mum buying a £3,000 PC on credit. (5 years of 
repayment, IIRC. Which is crazy really... a PC is obsolete after 5 
years. Well, it is these days anyway!)

But then, I also remember crazy stuff like laptops with blue/purple LCD 
displays that rippled when you touch them. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>>   I remember the times whem ~2000 euros (~1850 pounds) was a rather 
>> normal
>> price for a desktop computer, and those were (are) much cheaper than 
>> laptops.
>
> Heh. Yes - I remember my mum buying a £3,000 PC on credit.

The first PC I got (as in could run DOS/Windows rather than some other OS) 
was in 1997 and it cost 1200 pounds.  IIRC it was a 166 MHz with 16Mb of 
RAM.  Before that I had an Acorn machine in around 1992 that was vastly 
cheaper (I think like 300 for the computer and 300 for the monitor).

> But then, I also remember crazy stuff like laptops with blue/purple LCD 
> displays that rippled when you touch them. ;-)

All my screens still ripple when you touch them :-)

Post a reply to this message

I think you need to live somewhere tech costs a bit less.  I've actually 
got a spare room, if you're interested ;)

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

Chambers wrote:
> I think you need to live somewhere tech costs a bit less.

What, like *China*? :-P

> I've actually got a spare room, if you're interested ;)

Er... I think I'll pass. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

> I think you need to live somewhere tech costs a bit less.  

How can you get any cheaper than living with your mum? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> I think you need to live somewhere tech costs a bit less.  
> 
> How can you get any cheaper than living with your mum? ;-)

Life insurance?

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> The first PC I got (as in could run DOS/Windows rather than some other 
> OS) was in 1997 and it cost 1200 pounds. 

I remember shopping for a PC, asking the price, laughing in the salesman's 
face when he said it didn't count screen, video card, keyboard, or floppy 
drive. It was significantly higher than a maxed-out Amiga of the time.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

>> The first PC I got (as in could run DOS/Windows rather than some other 
>> OS) was in 1997 and it cost 1200 pounds. 
> 
> I remember shopping for a PC, asking the price, laughing in the 
> salesman's face when he said it didn't count screen, video card, 
> keyboard, or floppy drive. It was significantly higher than a maxed-out 
> Amiga of the time.

Dude, don't underestimate what you can do with a maxed-out Amiga...

(OK, maybe today it's not that impressive. But back then?)

I'm sure I *must* have told you guys about the salesman who told my mum 
to "get that one" because "this PC is good, yeah, but *that* one has the 
new 8.2 hyperdrive!"

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Dude, don't underestimate what you can do with a maxed-out Amiga...

I didn't. I bought one.

Indeed, it was a running joke amongst my friends to see something like a 
fireworks show or a beautiful sunset and mutter "I could do that on an Amiga."

> I'm sure I *must* have told you guys about the salesman who told my mum 
> to "get that one" because "this PC is good, yeah, but *that* one has the 
> new 8.2 hyperdrive!"

The difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman:
The used car salesman knows when he's lying. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

>> Dude, don't underestimate what you can do with a maxed-out Amiga...
> 
> I didn't. I bought one.

Mmm... ;-)

> Indeed, it was a running joke amongst my friends to see something like a 
> fireworks show or a beautiful sunset and mutter "I could do that on an 
> Amiga."

My dad has a Zoom guitar effects system. Quite often we hear some heavy 
metal on the radio, and I go "your Zoom could probably do that". And he 
replies "Yeah. By itself."

>> I'm sure I *must* have told you guys about the salesman who told my 
>> mum to "get that one" because "this PC is good, yeah, but *that* one 
>> has the new 8.2 hyperdrive!"
> 
> The difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman:
> The used car salesman knows when he's lying. :-)

LOL! Ain't that the truth?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
>>> I think you need to live somewhere tech costs a bit less.
>> 
>> How can you get any cheaper than living with your mum? ;-)
> 
> Life insurance?

What are you suggesting? o_O

Post a reply to this message

>>>> I think you need to live somewhere tech costs a bit less.
>>> How can you get any cheaper than living with your mum? ;-)
>> Life insurance?
> 
> What are you suggesting? o_O

That there's always a cheaper way? ;-)

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, it's 
> £500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.

Damn it. You know what? I'm just going to buy the thing. Dr Pepper?

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news:
49d4763b$1@news.povray.org...
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, it's
>> £500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.
>
> Damn it. You know what? I'm just going to buy the thing. Dr Pepper?

I see that it has 2 GB of RAM. Put at least 3-4 GB on it, if it's going to
run Vista. 2 GB is enough, but more memory will give you some breathing room
if you want to run some RAM-eating apps or do a lot of multi-tasking. Note
that on a 32-bit OS, 4 GB will translate into "only" 3.2-3.5 GB but any
extra RAM may still be worthwhile if it's cheap. No such limit on a 64-bit
OS of course.

G.

Post a reply to this message

Gilles Tran wrote:

> I see that it has 2 GB of RAM. Put at least 3-4 GB on it, if it's going to
> run Vista. 

OK.

> Note
> that on a 32-bit OS, 4 GB will translate into "only" 3.2-3.5 GB but any
> extra RAM may still be worthwhile if it's cheap. No such limit on a 64-bit
> OS of course.

Hmm, it actually doesn't say whether it's Vista 32-bit or 64-bit. 
Interesting...



Wait, WTF?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149939/show_product_specifications?spectype=extended

"Localisation: Italy"?? o_O

Post a reply to this message

>> I see that it has 2 GB of RAM. Put at least 3-4 GB on it, if it's 
>> going to
>> run Vista. 
> 
> OK.

Anyone wanna take a guess at what kind of RAM it requires?

> Wait, WTF?
> 
> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149939/show_product_specifications?spectype=extended 
> 
> "Localisation: Italy"?? o_O

The product advice representative assures me that's a misprint. 
Interestingly, I did a Google for the product code and found at least 
one other website that also claims Italy. Still, they claim they'll take 
it back if it is wrong, so... let's melt my card! :-}

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> I see that it has 2 GB of RAM. Put at least 3-4 GB on it, if it's 
>>> going to
>>> run Vista. 
>>
>> OK.
> 
> Anyone wanna take a guess at what kind of RAM it requires?
> 

Um, Proprietary notebook memory. The expensive kind.


>> "Localisation: Italy"?? o_O
> 
> The product advice representative assures me that's a misprint. 
> Interestingly, I did a Google for the product code and found at least 
> one other website that also claims Italy. Still, they claim they'll take 
> it back if it is wrong, so... let's melt my card! :-}

Anything to make a sale and get a commission.

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

>> Anyone wanna take a guess at what kind of RAM it requires?
> 
> Um, Proprietary notebook memory. The expensive kind.

Acer.co.uk claims it takes 800MHz DDR2 SODIMMs.

I bought Kingston-brand 2GB and it cost £17.

>>> "Localisation: Italy"?? o_O
>>
>> The product advice representative assures me that's a misprint. 
>> Interestingly, I did a Google for the product code and found at least 
>> one other website that also claims Italy. Still, they claim they'll 
>> take it back if it is wrong, so... let's melt my card! :-}
> 
> Anything to make a sale and get a commission.

Well, yeah. But if it really is Italian, I *will* be sending the bugger 
back! ;-)

(Note that the advisor I spoke to isn't a sales advisor. Whether I buy 
the laptop or not makes no difference to his stats.)

Post a reply to this message

>>>> "Localisation: Italy"?? o_O
>>>
>>> The product advice representative assures me that's a misprint. 
>>> Interestingly, I did a Google for the product code and found at least 
>>> one other website that also claims Italy. Still, they claim they'll take 
>>> it back if it is wrong, so... let's melt my card! :-}
>>
>> Anything to make a sale and get a commission.
>
> Well, yeah. But if it really is Italian, I *will* be sending the bugger 
> back! ;-)
>

Hehe, just wait until you get it and see if the keyboard has lots of funny 
letters you don't understand :-)

Post a reply to this message

>> Well, yeah. But if it really is Italian, I *will* be sending the 
>> bugger back! ;-)
>>
> 
> Hehe, just wait until you get it and see if the keyboard has lots of 
> funny letters you don't understand :-)

More like, the stickers on the front say something that looks like 
gibberish with the occasional "Core 2 Duo" or something thrown in. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

> More like, the stickers on the front say something that looks like 
> gibberish with the occasional "Core 2 Duo" or something thrown in. ;-)

Aww I feel left out now, my laptop didn't have any such stickers :-(  (well 
I assume the tiny "Intel Centrino Duo" will be the same in any language)

OOC I wonder why they put those stickers on there, on my monitor I have 3 
such things in barely readable text size that say it's created for Windows 
Vista (WTF!), energy star, and TCO 03.  Will it make me more likely to buy 
it because of those stickers, or are they hoping someone else will notice 
them on my monitor and say "oh wow that Samsung monitor you have there is so 
cool with its 3 tiny stickers like that".

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> More like, the stickers on the front say something that looks like 
>> gibberish with the occasional "Core 2 Duo" or something thrown in. ;-)
> 
> Aww I feel left out now, my laptop didn't have any such stickers :-(  
> (well I assume the tiny "Intel Centrino Duo" will be the same in any 
> language)
> 
> OOC I wonder why they put those stickers on there, on my monitor I have 
> 3 such things in barely readable text size that say it's created for 
> Windows Vista (WTF!), energy star, and TCO 03.  Will it make me more 
> likely to buy it because of those stickers, or are they hoping someone 
> else will notice them on my monitor and say "oh wow that Samsung monitor 
> you have there is so cool with its 3 tiny stickers like that".

Yes, I especially like the way you buy a laptop and just below the 
keyboard there's a huge sticker saying something like

"Experience the future with the new Acer Aspire 1352642. Fitted with the 
latest cutting-edge technology, this is truely a laptop of the future. 
Fast, powerful and energy efficient, it embodies the Acer vision of the 
digital lifestyle. [etc]"

Seriously, WTF??

I ALREADY BOUGHT THE LAPTOP! How is sticking an advert to it going to 
make me buy it even more?

Now, if the laptop is sitting in a shop window, that's another matter. 
But it isn't. It's sitting in my house, where nobody except me will ever 
see it. Go figure...

Post a reply to this message

Gilles Tran wrote:
> 2 GB is enough,

1 GB is "enough" if you keep a clean install and you don't use it for 
memory-sucking programs like POV-Ray. The laptop will probably come loaded 
with all kinds of "helpers" that for some reason try to replace (poorly) 
what Vista does for you anyway (display controllers, NIC controllers, etc). 
But 1G leaves about 450M comfortably free on my wife's machine, so it only 
thrashes around a little when she has five or six programs open. Of course, 
   a laptop is probably going to have a slower disk, too, so...

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Anyone wanna take a guess at what kind of RAM it requires?

Looks like DDR3 SDRAM SO DIMM 200-pin. :-) It looks like 3G too.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Gilles Tran wrote:
>> 2 GB is enough,
> 
> 1 GB is "enough" if you keep a clean install and you don't use it for 
> memory-sucking programs like POV-Ray.

POV-Ray is memory-sucking? I haven't checked recently, but IIRC last 
time I looked, Explore.exe uses about 30MB to POV-Ray's 2MB. (Depending 
on what you're rendering, obviously.) IE or Firefox also drinks RAM like 
it's going out of fashion...

> The laptop will probably come 
> loaded with all kinds of "helpers" that for some reason try to replace 
> (poorly) what Vista does for you anyway (display controllers, NIC 
> controllers, etc).

Yes. Acer especially seems to like to do this. It's usually easy to 
remove all that stuff.

(I *really* hope this laptop comes with propper restore CDs. I got an HP 
a while back, and rather than give you a restore CD, they make you go 
through the initial Windows setup process, and then order you to burn a 
drive backup to [several] CDs/DVDs. In other words, *you* pay for the 
cost of something to restore from, and you can't restore to factory 
condition.)

> But 1G leaves about 450M comfortably free on my 
> wife's machine, so it only thrashes around a little when she has five or 
> six programs open. Of course,   a laptop is probably going to have a 
> slower disk, too, so...

Yes, 5200 RPM disk. (Like it matters...)

The laptop comes with 2GB, and I've ordered an additional 2GB because it 
was cheap.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> POV-Ray is memory-sucking? 

It does if you programmatically build scenes with lots of stuff in them. 
Aren't there regular complaints about running up against the 2^32 memory 
space in POV?

> (Depending on what you're rendering, obviously.) 

Of course.

You're unlikely to use as much RAM with a Word document as you are with a 
Menger sponge. :-) And your paging is likely to be much less with Word, even 
if you do, due to the way you access memory in the two programs.

Or, more generally, it's not hard to write your own program that will use up 
much more memory than you can use up using non-user-programmed software.

> Yes. Acer especially seems to like to do this. It's usually easy to 
> remove all that stuff.

That's cool.

> (I *really* hope this laptop comes with propper restore CDs. I got an HP 
> a while back, and rather than give you a restore CD, they make you go 
> through the initial Windows setup process, and then order you to burn a 
> drive backup to [several] CDs/DVDs. In other words, *you* pay for the 
> cost of something to restore from, and you can't restore to factory 
> condition.)

The restore CDs one makes this way are usually factory-condition CDs, not 
just a backup. They're actually generating a CD based on the files on the 
disk, not just making an image backup.

The more advanced versions of Vista have a "complete PC backup", which is a 
very nice drive-image backup that will very simply do a full restore from 
the boot CDs.

> The laptop comes with 2GB, and I've ordered an additional 2GB because it 
> was cheap.

Oh. The link you gave (with the Italian) said it came with 3G. Extra RAM 
never hurts, tho. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

>> POV-Ray is memory-sucking? 
> 
> It does if you programmatically build scenes with lots of stuff in them. 
> Aren't there regular complaints about running up against the 2^32 memory 
> space in POV?

Don't look at me. I've never had that trouble.

> You're unlikely to use as much RAM with a Word document as you are with 
> a Menger sponge. :-) And your paging is likely to be much less with 
> Word, even if you do, due to the way you access memory in the two programs.
> 
> Or, more generally, it's not hard to write your own program that will 
> use up much more memory than you can use up using non-user-programmed 
> software.

Well, yeah.

I do recall attempting to use volumetric photon maps and being unable to 
do so because POV-Ray swallowed several times the amount of physical RAM 
on the machine, and then attempted to destroy my harddrive.

Seriously, has *anybody* ever rendered something using volumetric 
photons and had it work??

>> (I *really* hope this laptop comes with propper restore CDs. I got an 
>> HP a while back, and rather than give you a restore CD, they make you 
>> go through the initial Windows setup process, and then order you to 
>> burn a drive backup to [several] CDs/DVDs. In other words, *you* pay 
>> for the cost of something to restore from, and you can't restore to 
>> factory condition.)
> 
> The restore CDs one makes this way are usually factory-condition CDs, 
> not just a backup. They're actually generating a CD based on the files 
> on the disk, not just making an image backup.

Well, we'll see.

I still dislike having to pay for the restore CDs myself. :-P

> The more advanced versions of Vista have a "complete PC backup", which 
> is a very nice drive-image backup that will very simply do a full 
> restore from the boot CDs.

It looks like that's what my mum's Acer did. Does a complete backup of 
your harddrive - although I think you have to run the restore program 
from the PC. (So, if your HD dies, the backup is no use until you 
reinstall the restore program. Nice...)

>> The laptop comes with 2GB, and I've ordered an additional 2GB because 
>> it was cheap.
> 
> Oh. The link you gave (with the Italian) said it came with 3G. Extra RAM 
> never hurts, tho. :-)

I just hope the laptop has more than one RAM slot...! o_O

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> I do recall attempting to use volumetric photon maps and being unable to 
> do so because POV-Ray swallowed several times the amount of physical RAM 
> on the machine, and then attempted to destroy my harddrive.

That's the sort of thing I was talking about, yes. :-)

> Well, we'll see.

Well, that was for HP. Others may do it differently. My Motion Computing 
laptop came with CDs that were the bog-standard XP install CD with a script 
tacked on the end that prompts for the second CD full of laptop-specific 
drivers and patches.

> I still dislike having to pay for the restore CDs myself. :-P

Probably cheaper than Dell manufacturing and shipping them. I.e., you'd pay 
for them anyway, but it would be included in the higher price of the laptop.

> It looks like that's what my mum's Acer did. Does a complete backup of 
> your harddrive - although I think you have to run the restore program 
> from the PC. (So, if your HD dies, the backup is no use until you 
> reinstall the restore program. Nice...)

Ick. That's silly, considering there's a full-backup program in Vista and a 
restore program on the Vista CD they could have used.

> I just hope the laptop has more than one RAM slot...! o_O

It said it has 1x1G and 1x2G included. You *did* read the chart, didn't you? 
Is that the one you ordered?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Will it make me more likely to buy it because of those stickers,

If some corporate dude needs to buy 8000 monitors, it might.

 > I ALREADY BOUGHT THE LAPTOP! How is sticking an advert to it going to 
make me buy it even more?

You bought it mail order. When you go in a store and look at the floor 
models, it's built-in advertising they don't have to rely on the store to 
provide.

 > It's sitting in my house,
So peel it off when you get it home. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:12:35 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

>
> > It's sitting in my house,
>So peel it off when you get it home. :-)

That is a PITA. The sticker comes off and you spend three weeks removing all the
glue. If you don't take it off it slowly uncurls and irritates your hand.

The seventh tier of hell for these guys.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I ALREADY BOUGHT THE LAPTOP! How is sticking an advert to it going to
> make me buy it even more?
>
> Now, if the laptop is sitting in a shop window, that's another matter.
> But it isn't. It's sitting in my house, where nobody except me will ever
> see it. Go figure...

Two more things to what Darren said: They want you to be satisfied - just before
you go through the headache of personalizing a new system.  Something along the
lines of the "thankyou for purchasing our quality product" like in a user
manual.  Also I'm sure they wouldn't want you to think it looked 'plain' after
you open the box ;)
Charles

Post a reply to this message

>> OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, it's 
>> £500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.
> 
> Damn it. You know what? I'm just going to buy the thing. Dr Pepper?

The parcel just arrived. Muhuhuhu! >8-D

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> OK people, so I've found a laptop I like the look of. Trouble is, 
>>> it's £500. Which, obviously, is a hell of a lot of money.
>>
>> Damn it. You know what? I'm just going to buy the thing. Dr Pepper?
> 
> The parcel just arrived. Muhuhuhu! >8-D

So, will be be seeing an OrchidNotebookVista on here, now?

-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

Mike Raiford wrote:

> So, will be be seeing an OrchidNotebookVista on here, now?

I very much doubt it. But it's possible...

Post a reply to this message

It's not Italian. ;-)

I'm blogging all this... I'll post the thing when I'm done.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:

> I'm blogging all this... I'll post the thing when I'm done.

http://blog.orphi.me.uk/archives/350

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/archives/350

Well, since your blog won't let me sign up to comment, and you don't post 
your email address here, I guess I'll put the reply here. :-)

Some hints:  I suggest before you set up anything serious on the laptop, you 
test the recovery disks so you know what they do. :-) Best time to do it, 
after all.  (And yes, I'm guessing with two DVDs it does the same thing as 
the gateway recovery disks do: Puts it back to factory fresh, then uses the 
second CD to install drivers after you "restore" the Vista install.)

As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar. It's way 
way faster than trying to find something in the menus. You want mah jong? 
Type "mah jong" in the search on the start menu. It actually works right.

The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your 
graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc. Go to you start menu and search for 
"welcome", then go to "view computer details", then "Windows experience 
index" if you care. That'll also tell you the OS bitwidth, RAM, etc.

And yes, you can turn off the transparency and put the start menu back. 
Right click on the desktop and pick "personalize", or right-click on a blank 
part of the task bar and pick "properties".

The machine will likely be slow until you leave it on overnight or so, while 
it builds search indexes and recovery snapshots stuff like that the first time.

Sound-wise, you can get "true surround sound" by plugging it into a dolby 
system, even if your speakers aren't good enough. I.e., they're describing 
the audio card, not necessarily the speakers.

eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports USB 
and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.

HTH. :-)


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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Darren New wrote:

> Well, since your blog won't let me sign up to comment, and you don't 
> post your email address here, I guess I'll put the reply here. :-)

Interesting. I have an email from WordPress notifying me that you just 
signed up... ;-)

> Some hints:  I suggest before you set up anything serious on the laptop, 
> you test the recovery disks so you know what they do. :-) Best time to 
> do it, after all.  (And yes, I'm guessing with two DVDs it does the same 
> thing as the gateway recovery disks do: Puts it back to factory fresh, 
> then uses the second CD to install drivers after you "restore" the Vista 
> install.)

Perhaps. I was kind of expecting the second DVD to burn quicker than the 
first one - but no. Exactly the same speed. Both took about 20 minutes 
to burn (and another 10 minutes to verify).

> As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar.

1. What's that?

2. You need to search for stuff = you haven't organised your stuff 
correctly.

> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your 
> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.

Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those 
measurements in 0.2 seconds.

> Go to you start menu and search 
> for "welcome", then go to "view computer details", then "Windows 
> experience index" if you care. That'll also tell you the OS bitwidth, 
> RAM, etc.

For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log 
in and won't go away. Apparently the Windows experience index is 3.6. I 
didn't see any more detailed stats - but those are probably under 
"advanced" or something.

> And yes, you can turn off the transparency and put the start menu back. 
> Right click on the desktop and pick "personalize", or right-click on a 
> blank part of the task bar and pick "properties".

Already found out how to turn off transparency - but I kinda like it. As 
I say, if you give it a slight tint, it makes it visible.

> The machine will likely be slow until you leave it on overnight or so, 
> while it builds search indexes and recovery snapshots stuff like that 
> the first time.

I was wondering why the HD runs *constantly* and never, ever stops, even 
when the machine isn't doing anything. Nice to know that Vista has 
built-in systems to waste my time and computer power on pointless tasks 
that I don't want it to do. :-) Clearly M$ have put a lot of work into 
keeping computers slow to encourage the purchase of new, faster ones.

> eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports 
> USB and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.

Mmm, OK. But... they have the same electrical interface?

Also amusing was the manual's description of the covers on the bottom. 
One is labelled "harddrive" and the other is labelled "secondary 
harddrive". What, you mean you can put two in it? I suspect not! ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:36:42 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
>> As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar.
>
> 1. What's that?

http://images.google.com/images?q=vista%20%22start%20menu%22%20%22search%20bar%22


> 2. You need to search for stuff = you haven't organised your stuff  
> correctly.

You will also find that the start menu in Vista expands sub-menus in place  
rather than to the right. Decide for yourself if this is a good idea or a  
horrible disaster.



>> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your  
>> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.
>
> Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those  
> measurements in 0.2 seconds.

1. It does not take 20 minutes. A few minutes at the most.

2. How else would you perform a benchmark other than running tests and  
timing them?



> For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log  
> in and won't go away.

Uncheck the box marked "Show the Welcome screen every time I log in".



>> eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports  
>> USB and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.
>
> Mmm, OK. But... they have the same electrical interface?

Not quite, but close enough to provide basic compatibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#External_SATA




-- 
FE

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Interesting. I have an email from WordPress notifying me that you just 
> signed up... ;-)

That doesn't help much if wordpress doesn't mail me the password. :-)

> Perhaps. I was kind of expecting the second DVD to burn quicker than the 
> first one - but no. Exactly the same speed. Both took about 20 minutes 
> to burn (and another 10 minutes to verify).

Some DVD burners (software) insist on writing the entire DVD whether there's 
useful content or not.

>> As for the start menu and the control panel: use the search bar.
> 
> 1. What's that?

Open the start menu. See the bottom left, where it says "start search"?

> 2. You need to search for stuff = you haven't organised your stuff 
> correctly.

Perhaps. But since you're not especially in control of how the start menu is 
organized a priori, it helps.

>> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your 
>> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.
> 
> Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those 
> measurements in 0.2 seconds.

Dunno. It takes about 5 on mine, IIRC, but then I have a kick-ass graphics 
card. Much of the time is spent evaluating the abiltiy to scale textures, do 
shadows and lights, stuff like that.

> For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log 
> in and won't go away.

The checkbox at the bottom that says "Show this every time windows starts"? 
Uncheck that.

> Apparently the Windows experience index is 3.6. I 
> didn't see any more detailed stats - but those are probably under 
> "advanced" or something.

See the link next to the rating? Click on that.

> Already found out how to turn off transparency - but I kinda like it. As 
> I say, if you give it a slight tint, it makes it visible.

Yes. It's cool. It confused my wife till we set it to black for her.

> I was wondering why the HD runs *constantly* and never, ever stops, even 
> when the machine isn't doing anything. Nice to know that Vista has 
> built-in systems to waste my time and computer power on pointless tasks 
> that I don't want it to do. :-)

Well, turn it off, then. It stops after it finishes.

>> eSATA: external SATA. If you have an external drive case that supports 
>> USB and eSATA, use eSATA and it'll be about 4 times as fast to transfer.
> 
> Mmm, OK. But... they have the same electrical interface?

As what? USB? No, of course not. Different shape connectors. I'm not sure 
whether it's the same as SATA, but I'm not going to crawl under my desk to 
check. :)

> Also amusing was the manual's description of the covers on the bottom. 
> One is labelled "harddrive" and the other is labelled "secondary 
> harddrive". What, you mean you can put two in it? I suspect not! ;-)

Possibly. Why not?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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>> Interesting. I have an email from WordPress notifying me that you just 
>> signed up... ;-)
> 
> That doesn't help much if wordpress doesn't mail me the password. :-)

OK, that's pretty random.

>>> The "measuring performance" is indeed checking things including your 
>>> graphics, RAM speed, disk speed, etc.
>>
>> Why does that take 20 minutes? memtest86 gives me most of those 
>> measurements in 0.2 seconds.
> 
> Dunno. It takes about 5 on mine, IIRC, but then I have a kick-ass 
> graphics card. Much of the time is spent evaluating the abiltiy to scale 
> textures, do shadows and lights, stuff like that.

Mmm, OK. It just seemed to take an absurdly long time to do whatever it 
was doing. (And nailing the HD while it was doing it.)

>> For some reason, the welcome page automatically opens every time I log 
>> in and won't go away.
> 
> The checkbox at the bottom that says "Show this every time windows 
> starts"? Uncheck that.

Yeah, I already found that. ;-)

>> Also amusing was the manual's description of the covers on the bottom. 
>> One is labelled "harddrive" and the other is labelled "secondary 
>> harddrive". What, you mean you can put two in it? I suspect not! ;-)
> 
> Possibly. Why not?

You mean other than issues of space, battery consumption and heat 
dissipation?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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For some reason, every few seconds the WiFi light flashes. Anybody have 
any idea how I can completely disable WiFi? (If it were up to me, I 
would have purchased a laptop that doesn't *have* WiFi, but for some 
reason that appears to be impossible...)

Specifically, I'd like to make absolutely sure it can't connect to any 
networks of any kind, and that it isn't wasting battery power trying.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Mmm, OK. It just seemed to take an absurdly long time to do whatever it 
> was doing. (And nailing the HD while it was doing it.)

Since the test of the HD takes about 15 seconds here, I'm expecting your 
laptop was doing other things during the test (like building search indexes) 
or was swapping.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> For some reason, every few seconds the WiFi light flashes. Anybody have 
> any idea how I can completely disable WiFi? 

Disabling it in Network Connections doesn't do the trick?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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