qptech blog

My old laptop "Kate" is starting to show her age. Other than making a lot of noise with the massive cooling fans running all the time, she overheats and dies a lot.

So, I got a new one. I spent 2 hours researching current technology to see what's available, what I want, and what is the best balance of price and features. I came up with a list of 5 or 6 current models of various brands that I would settle for.

I wanted to get it now. I travel a lot and if I had one shipped somewhere, it might be many weeks before I could get it in my hands. I did most of my research on Office Depot's website. They seemed to have a pretty good selection and pretty good prices. So I located a local store and drove there.

The first Office Depot only carried one of the models that was on my list (even though they all were available on the store's website), but they were out of stock on that one. They checked their computer and found one at another store in the area. I got directions and drove there. When I got there, they were out as well. But right next door was Circuit City. I hate that place, but I'm desperate for a new lappy.

Circuit City managed to validate my opinion of the store yet again. They were busy, but I caught one of the sales associates and pointed out the laptop I wanted to buy. I'm not buying a $15 mouse here, I'm buying a $1200 laptop, but I never saw that associate again. Then I was ignored for about 2 hours while half a dozen employees passed through - obviously already engrossed in some serious business. So I played with the laptops. I may as well have been invisible, so I went ahead and had at the machines. I changed settings, added user accounts, opened and closed lids, turned over machines (none too gently mind you), fiddled with switches and covers, and rebooted a couple machines. I didn't have any live CDs on me or I could have booted linux on all the machines in the section (I booted the Knoppix live cd on a machine at Bestbuy once - in copy-to-ram mode so's I could take the cd with me and leave the machine in the linux environment).

Finally, I got another associate to notice me and pointed out the lappy I wanted. They were out of stock. I pointed out my second, and only other choice. And they were out of stock. No, they couldn't sell the display models. So I walked out of the store.

Before the guy checked on the availability of the first machine, he was already into his spiel to convince me to buy the $450 extended warranty and their software pack. I was like, "No." He was like, "You need anti-virus." I said, "I already got it." He wanted to be sure I could handle the install. I said I could. He wanted to be sure I could handle the install on Windows Vista. I said I could. Then I mentioned that I was interested in Adobe Lightroom if they carried that. He didn't know. And that's about the time he figured out they didn't actually have any laptops in stock.

Bestbuy was just across the street (yes. Office Depot and Circuit City on one side of the street and Bestbuy on the other. I parked at Office Depot and didn't have to get back in the car to check the other stores). Bestbuy had a better selection and more competent sales associates. I was ignored for a while there as well, but it gave me a chance to check out the new MacBooks which I would be interested in if they weren't a bit overpriced - and the speakers seemed to be pretty crappy (except on the pro model). But I got all 3 display models playing the same song in iTunes with pretty good sync and all at full volume. I was a bit rougher with the notebook PCs here than at CCity and eventually got a sales associate to actually try to sell something - hm, they really must have been busy because you usually can't walk past a Bestbuy without being accosted by a sales associate trying to sell you something. So I pointed out my first choice. It happened to be in the "Business Center" section of the store. The guy was like, "I don't know if I can sell you that, you may have to buy it through the business center - but I'll check." He checked - with the assistance of another associate and they eventually managed to decipher the labels on the box to determine that they did have it in stock and could sell it to me after all. They weren't too pushy with the service plan which is pretty strange for BBuy. After CCity, I was all prepared with "I definitely do not need the extended warranty as I intend to void the warranty as soon as I get this puppy home!", but I didn't have to use it because they weren't too pushy.

I ended up with an HP Compaq 6510b (I like how HP acquired Compaq and now uses the name as a model name). Core 2 Duo T7100 with 2 gigg-a-ram. I already swapped out the 160 GB hdd with the 250 gigger that I had in an external enclosure (I was sure to get a lappy with SATA for this purpose). Before the brain transplant, I cleaned out all the pre-installed software except for the fingerprint scanner stuff (dang is that thing surprisingly awesome). The HP fingerprint software doesn't look as cool as what was on the Sony Vaio at CCity, which I investigated thoroughly. I read some description that said the fingerprint scanner could double as a scroll-wheel-type-thing, but the HP software does not have this feature. Though it does show a pretty cool graphic of your fingerprint as you scan it during the setup - it actually shows a picture of the fingerprint it just scanned rather than a generic fingerprint image - which I thought was pretty cool.

I did manage to derail the DVD drive tray within 20 minutes of ownership. No worries though - I got it back together.

I have Gentoo Linux installing on the 250 gig Hdd right now. It should be finished in a couple of days.

I had to edit some kernel source to get my camera to work. It wasn't much. There's a bug in Nikon's camera firmware. It didn't make any difference in older kernels, but the recent ones handle usb storage or scsi emulation or something a bit differently so Nikon's bug is preventing the device from working properly. I searched bug reports and everything to find a solution. Most of the Nikon SLRs use the same guts, so the problem exists in all of them. The D50, D100, D70, D70s, D200, etc are all already handled properly in the kernel, but not the D40. It was a simple fix. I just had to copy the code from one of the other camera's section and change the product ID to that of the D40 along with the name and all that.

Now to compile and see if it worked.

I should probably submit a formal bug report somewhere, but that's too much work.

If you want a digital camera that takes interchangeable lenses, your only option is DSLR. But perhaps not for long. Apparently several manufacturers are looking into developing Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens (EVIL) cameras. They will have no mirror or optical viewfinder. They will have an electronic viewfinder like SLR-type consumer point and shoot cameras, but lens mounts like SLRs. I have to assume that the lens mounts will be compatible with current SLR systems, though it is possible that manufacturers would design special mounts for these cameras.

I was hangin out on day last week and heard a knock at the door. I was like "WTF?" 'cause nobody ever knocks on our door and I was not expecting anyone. So I answer it. It's the lady who just moved into the house across the street.

"Is that your car?" she asks.
"Yes, that is my car?" I ask.
"Would you mind moving it? We just moved in across the street and my husband almost hit [your car] backing out of our driveway."

My car is along the street on the opposite side of the road from their driveway. Granted, the street is a bit narrow, but there is legal parking on both sides of the street.

But I am now parking elsewhere because I really don't want them to hit my car when they are backing their Canyonero.

nah, it's not too easy to implement in blogger - they do not allow javascript in the posts. It may be possible to do something with scripts entirely outside the posts, but I'll just give up now. I may play with it a little later when I'm bored or something. It still may be possible to do what I'm intending without too much trouble.

I looked at the tiddlywiki source and concluded that, for my purposes, it would be easier to start from scratch.

Tiddlywiki is a non-linear microcontent browsing/editing system. It is possible to implement such a system in a single html file using html, css, and javascript with no dependence on server side scripts or non-standard browser features.

I am going to attempt to incorporate a similar, but simpler system into my craziness blog. Until now, I have not altered the craziness template except to add links in the sidebar.

I was using Mozilla when it wasn't even a blip on the radar screen of browsers. Before there was a stand alone browser project. And when the stand alone browser came out - initially called Phoenix - I started using it.

Mozilla has always been better than IE - except that at first, a lot of web pages still used "features" of IE that didn't work out as intended in Mozilla - because Mozilla tries to follow W3C standards.

Tabs were great when they first appeared - now IE has them too (or at least you can get them in IE somehow - I don't know 'cause I don't use IE). MS always copies their ideas from others - they never come up with anything innovative themselves.

Mozilla will always be ahead - it's open source so ideas come from all over the place and it's always improving. People write all kinds of extensions and ideas from the really good ones can be incorporated directly into the browser. A long time ago, I used a tab browsing plug in that added a few features to the tab capability - now I don't have to because the most useful features are now standard.

I think I used tabs in IE once and it sucked. Even when the steal features from someone else's software they always mess it up.

MS will always be copying ideas from others and Mozilla will always be innovating.