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June 15, 2005
A Notebook lifestyle
When we were in the process of moving, work was kind enough to loan me a notebook that Dawnise could use in the apartment. The convenience of "compute anywhere" quickly became obvious, and she's had a habit of commandeering my notebook on occasion ever since (see my previous entry about getting Serenity tickets for a recent example).
A couple weeks back Dell had another $750 off a $1500 notebook event, and I decided that was probably a good time to get her a machine of her very own.
Yesterday (a day ahead of schedule) her shiny new Inspiron 6000 arrived (already obsoleted by the new models, of course), and we spent a couple hours last night setting it up.
After removing most of the crap that Dell so helpfully pre-loads for you (AOL, Earthlink, NetZero, MusicMatch, QuickBooks, WordPerfect Office, blah, blah, blah) and installing a few key apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, Rhapsody, Real Arcade (she's the main demographic)), she's off and running.
For the moment she's using Remote Desktop to talk to her machine downstairs in her office, and depending on her usage patterns over the next few weeks, she'll decide if she wants to make her notebook her "primary" machine.
It's not a bad box - especially for the sub $1k price paid. It's got a dual layer DVD burner, a nice 15.4" widescreen TFT, and enough storage (60G) to keep her happy for a while. The jury's still out on battery life, but I suspect it'll kick ass acting as a dumb terminal - the current estimate is over 4 hours on a single battery ;) It's got crappy integrated graphics (which is what they changed in the model refresh they were clearing out inventory for) - so no heavy-duty gaming, but that's not what it was purchased for. It definitely feels a bit heavier than my 15" powerbook, but not obnoxiously so.
I ended up working from home today - had to get new front tires on both bikes and the shop hours and ferry schedule don't really mesh well, so we're both sitting in the front room, notebooks on our laps, tapping away...
Ah, togetherness in the high-tech age... :-/
Posted by dberger at June 15, 2005 10:12 AM
Comments
Heya! Glad you're happy with your new hardware...sounds like fun!
One question -- I figured out how to add your syndicated feed to my LiveJournal friends list (http://www.livejournal.com/friends/add.bml?user=missives6th) so I can keep up with you that way; now I'd like to know if there's a way to remove my name from the email reminders list?
Thanks!
Posted by: Catherine at June 15, 2005 1:59 PM