Computers – New Adventures in Technology

Journal Fragments

Excerpts from my journal over the last few days that fit the themes of this blog.

Technology

I have my full travel setup operational now. I did start with my small computer, but found myself missing the extra screen and the familiarity of the laptop. So the laptop is once more the primary computer for non-work stuff, which makes it easier to swap in the other laptop after Easter when I need to do some work here.

I didn’t intend to bring my docking station here, but as it was still in my bag I thought I’d install displaylink-debian to make my life easier. I have it running on my other laptop, and as of this morning I have it running on this one too.

I think I have a good understanding of what technology I prefer to use now, and as a result have an idea about what I would like my next computers to be. Right now a single USB-C cable for everything is where I’m at; especially as I have several docking stations which make this possible wherever I am.

Based on my usual criteria for laptops, and assuming I was buying new, the models I should be looking at are:

Thinkpad X13
Thinkpad L13
Thinkpad L13 yoga
13″ MacBook Air

But none of these are upgradeable, so I am seriously considering getting something slightly bigger so that I have the option to upgrade the memory later on. Or I might just go down the refurbished route again and get something that will last me 2-3 years.

Looking at the 14″ laptops, the E14 and L14 are both very customisable, and meet the specifications I’m after on everything except for size and weight. The prices to add extra memory are really reasonable as well, so it might just be that we go for something that meets the specifications we need now, with anything else being a stretch goal. I don’t need 40 or 64 Gb of memory in a laptop, especially when I have that in my desktop and rarely use more than half of it.

Books

I finished The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow last night. It’s a really important book that anyone who uses the internet should read. Today I’ll start Dead Centre by Tim Farthing, which is the only other book I bought with me. I have my Kindle though, with a huge backlog of fiction, so it’s not like I won’t have things to read.

Music

I am listening to the new Jiin record, although once I start the book I will switch to Dead Centre by Reigns. I am also feeding Spotify with music for the family playlist. I only listen to Spotify whilst walking the dog, but it’s good to hear a few new favourites making their way into what we listen to in the car.

There is a new record shop in Newport, that has only been open 2 weeks. I bought Dresden Dolls and East India Youth CDs, and resisted buying a lot of expensive records. This is a shop I will definitely support, and will return to again in June.

New ways of doing old things

This weekend I decided to try and use different tools to perform my usual computer-based tasks.

Yesterday, I tried to do everything in Mac OS X (Leopard), and also tested out Thunderbird 3. I reckon I could live with a Mac as my only computer, and the only thing that bugged me was the speed (my Mac is somewhat ancient now). I especially liked iCal, and how it integrates perfectly with the Google calendars that map out my whole life, and I love the way OS X renders fonts and colours. Thunderbird 3 was a nice surprise, and I love the way it integrates with Gmail. Maybe I’ll consider switching back to Thunderbird the next time Evolution does something to annoy me.

Today I’ve been using the daily build of Chromium on my netbook. It’s seriously faster than Firefox, and I’m finding that I can do pretty much everything I need to do without a plethora of extensions. This might be one to keep I think.

I’m also having monitor envy. Or possibly screen resolution envy. I think I may be nearly ready to consider spending my day looking at something larger than a laptop screen.

So you want to buy a netbook?

One question I get asked a lot is some variation on “what computer should I buy?” My answer usually involves asking what it is going to be used for, what the budget is, and if the user has any preconceptions regarding the OS of the machine.

Increasingly I get asked about netbooks in particular. I dislike the term netbook, but I’ll use it because people know what I mean. And because I get asked about them, I try and stay up to speed with what is on the market, which in turn makes me carefully sum up the pros and cons of each one. The things I look at tend to be:

Physical size – small is good, but I totally see how something as small as my EeePC 701 is not to everyone’s taste. If I was buying one now, I’d want a screen size of at least nine inches, with a resolution of 1024 by 600. The larger EeePCs are good in this regard, but I think the Dell Mini beats them all with a 10″ screen pitching it between the EeePC 701 and my (once again) dead 12″ iBook.
Hard drive size – the hard drive can be anything from a 4gb solid state to a 160gb laptop hard drive. I use mine as my 3rd machine, with all my files living on my main laptop and the important ones synched via dropbox. But if you’re going to use it as a main (or even second) machine, then get a big hard drive. With all the major manufacturers you can now choose between a small solid state drive and a larger hard drive, so this shouldn’t influence choice too much.
Battery life – 3 hours does me fine, but if you are going to travel with it then this becomes important. I’m sure I’ve seen a couple with with 7 hours of battery life (although I might be thinking of the new Macbook Pro).
Price – You can get a first generation Acer Aspire One or EeePC for under £150 now, and even some of the slightly larger netbooks come in at well under £300 (which would be my personal price limit). Some of the mid range EeePCs (the 1000H for example) are quite reasonable, as are the Dell Minis (before you add too much customisation that is).
Operating System – Some come with really dire versions of Linux, some come with XP, the Dell Mini and Lenovo Ideapad actually ship with decent Linux distros (Ubuntu and Suse). I’m not too bothered, because I tend to reformat and reinstall everything I buy, but for non technical users this has to be a factor. Now, I love Linux. But I’d think twice before advising anyone to try and use the versions of Linux shipping with the EeePC and the Acer Aspire One. They are a bad advertisement for something that is great, and for that reason I’d say that if you want something with Linux on then choose something with one of the big distros (anything in the distrowatch top 10).

So yes, that’s what I tend to look at. If I was buying one today I’d probably go for a Dell Mini with a large hard drive, Ubuntu preinstalled, and as much Ram as I could fit in it. My second choice would probably be an EeePC 1000H, although I’m loathe to pay for a Windows licence when I have several I don’t use already. If price was more of a factor than it is, then I’d go with an Acer Aspire One (which I’ve just discovered I could get for £160 with a 120gb harddrive and 1gb Ram, which is actually really tempting if the noises my EeePC is making mean what I think they mean).

Computers and productivity

Every few months I like to change my working area around, and try undertaking familiar tasks in a new way. Having a new office has intensified this, and has lead to me re-evaluating my working area at home as well.

And once again I seem to have settled on a very similar setup in each. I’ve not got photographs of my desk at work, but I have taken a couple of pictures of my desk at home, which should demonstrate what I mean.

My desk (Linux laptop on the left, iMac on the right).

I am trying to use this laptop for everything at present.

And yes, I gave up on KDE4 after a few hours. While I’m more than happy to bounce between several different operating systems, I do have very definite preferences regarding how each one should look.