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Desktop Replacements and the 11 Pound Pencil
Marco Ramius writes "Tom's Hardware Guide has an article up entitled 'Unwieldy Laptops or Portable Desktops?' in which the author lugs an Alienware Area-51m desktop replacement to a 32 hour LAN to assess what advantages and disadvantages desktop replacements have over desktops themselves." They also have a related article entitled The Case of the 11 Pound Pencil where an office adopts a desktop replacement solution to unsatisfactory ends. Both interesting looks at appropriate uses for hefty hardware.
Had you RTFA'd, you would know that the "11lb Pencil" is a name that the editor from THG gave a HP laptop (can't remember the part number) that was given to employees to replace forms which were previously filled in with pencil. The new laptops and the associated changes with "going digital" were of little practical use. In the end, the things were no more useful than a pencil for the application they were purchased for, but much bulkier, hence the term 11lb pencil.
I'm not sure if the parent post was just unfunny or ignorant, but it's definitely -1 overrated.
When my old Sony VAIO died, I cried. It had no CD-rom, no floppy, and was so thin and tiny that it went everywhere. It barely had any ports. When I needed to burn a CD or connect a peripheral, the network or USB gave me the option, which I rarely used. Now that Sony is on my hit list, I couldn't find a decent replacement, so I bought a reasonbly tiny Compaq (yes, shudder, but it works great) until someone releases a real "on the go" laptop that works well.
I always get aggravated the the market for desktop replacements is to totally replace everything you'd do on a desktop. For me, I prefer a memory stick over a CD-R. I don't need video outputs, and the need to shove every port into a portable machine doesn't seem cost or space or energy efficient.
How many of you with desktop replacements are really using all the options built into it? Hasn't the Internet mostly reduced the need for all these external connection points? For me, I set up a private WiFi AP at every location I visit, and I never have to worry about anything but battery life (I hate plugging my laptop in even to the AC outlet).
of how NOT to do an IT project. (No talking to end users before implementation, questionable usage of laptop, wrong choice of laptop for use if OK, and no benefit to effencies or data retention.)
The Desktop Repleacement Laptop, is an interesting read: The machine held up in the LAN Party (E.G. Extremely heave use) for the first 2/3 of the party, then started giving some errors that they have seen in desktops as well. The Machine itself appears to be a desktop shoehorned into a LARGE laptop case.
While personally, transportable computers are anathama to me. (I don't want anything over six pounds (3Kg.) If you really want to run fraggers that most of my machines will choke on... more power to you. No, literally - remember to bring an extension cable.
my $.02
"they have had something of a mixed reception among IT professionals."
Since when did any "IT Professional" ever consider purchasing a fucking AlienWare machine? A laptop that has "a little alien head on the back"? Or is someone trying to convince me that gamer kids should now be considered "IT Professionals"?
...George Carlin's theory of stuff. I have a desktop computer at home, and then I go on vacation with my laptop, which I leave in my hotel room. I leave my hotel room with my PDA, which I leave in my car. My PDA stays in the car, and I bring a pencil and notepad to the park where I scribble my deep thoughts.
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." -- Albert Einstein
This happens all over. I've fought with more small businesses about spending a little bit of extra money to test a "solution" now rather than scrapping a "solution" later than I can count. It's absurd, and it's something I'd assume advanced business degree wielding managers would understand. As a result, many places I've worked have had their own versions of 11# pencils... like printing one copy of a several hundred page document for each region to be mailed to a print shop in that region so that photocopies can be made...
Frustrating.
He also mentioned showing them how to flip the page.
I have an old HP 682C. When I first got it for a Windows 95 system, HP's driver had a duplex feature built in. When you selected duplex printing, it would prompt you with a picture showing you exactly how to flip the pages around and insert back into the machine to print on the other side.
Now, on XP, I have to use the MS driver. It doesn't have a duplex feature so I have to do it manually, remembering that when printing even pages only that I have to set the "print in reverse order" check box. Sometimes I forget and waste a tree. And for some wacky reason, I just can't get MS Word to do this correctly. It's like it ignores the check boxes or something - Arrg!
My point is: doesn't HP's drivers come with this "manual" duplex feature anymore? That way, these folks on really tight budgets can get a much cheaper machine and still print "duplex" without having to remember or read notes on exactly how to position the paper. Yeah I know, it does seem like an incredibly stupid thing to deal with. But when you have a lot of shit going on, it's really easy to screw it up.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Having that said, I'd like to say that I agree with this article. I think a lot of laptop use does not offer any benefits. I also think a lot of laptops are overkills.
Examples:
Now before anyone goes jumping down my throat, I'm only saying that most people don't seem to understand that buying the biggest, most expensive laptop isn't always the right choice. I don't expect a lot of those people to be reading this article right now, and I do think that laptops can be used effictively and efficiently by people who know what they are doing. I just think that 90% of the time, this is not the case.
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
The nice thing is, the 2.8 GHz processor and constantly running fans literally warm up the entire room where I happen to be working and provide a pleasant, white-noise droning all the time. My hands stay nice and toasty because there are built-in handwarming areas. Plus I can keep my coffee reasonably warm by resting it on top of the power brick.
All in all, no complaints from me.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Some geeks actually like to leave the house and meet other people once in a while.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
In the final third of the LAN, however, we began to notice increased instability that was not allayed by restarts. All the games we played would switch to the desktop, though strangely not crash entirely, at random intervals. This was an annoyance, needless to say, and damn well fatal during one or two of our more infamous matches.
We can only put the instability down to sheer wear and tear.
Wait a second. This machine got a positive review. I'm sorry, but I don't see how instability after 24 hours of usage on a brand new machine can in any way be considered tolerable unless usage involves throwing large blunt objects at the thing. What am I missing here? I can think of a lot of processor intensive tasks that take longer than 24 hours to complete, and I *really* do not want to see any instability while they are in the middle of running. Are my expectations out of line here?
The high-speed connection at home can never replace the feeling of being in a hall with 150+ other nerds.
Also, a LAN tends toward rock-solid near-zero latency. I know that many FPS gamers appreciate this.
I know that this is a shocker but many people only have one computer. For those a desktop replacement laptop can be a good option. I know that many of us have at least a whole room dedicated to their computers but we are the minority.
For some home users the fact that they can just put it into a desk drawer when they are "I know this part will shock you all" not using it is a big plus.
What is even more strange is some people don't think that computers are an attractive part of their home decor and want them out of site when not in use.
That ideal set up is a small light notebook for portable use and a desktop for heavy use but for many they have to find a one computer solution.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I know ppl on DSL and Cable, and lag is occuring spuriously and even disconnects
as the internet traffic is continuing to rise , but the backbone Infrastructure
is not receiving upgrades at critical points .
This is causing slow web browser loads, intermittent disconnects, and ping times
that spike from time to time at predictable points along a trace route .
The choke points are literally choking, and you can run network monitoring
tools to see where various ISPs and long haul providers are skimping
on spending and it is causing odd behaviour from our broadband .
It doesn't happen all the time, but at peak usage times it is more prevelant .
Ppl in online games like everquest often type in messages to ppl on different
ISP networks the question "lag???" and get a chorus of resounding echoes "yes" .
Some of this could be blamed on the game servers, and networks til you look at
a test that was done by myself .
Different game, Different provider, Different ISP, corresponding lag spikes .
Key points of DNS or routing is reaching critical mass .
It could be the massive increase of p2p apps, it could just be total traffic,
I do not know, but it does pose a important question.
How bad is this going to get ?
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
My Alienware laptop has been doing stirling service for more than two years. They use high grade components with good build quality and the highest performance in a laptop at the time, just what I was looking for.
I've been an IT professional since well before it was 'trendy'.
My question is why would someone NOT buy a laptop because it had an alien head on it ?
Link Whore.
Now, I now we all need to pay for our precious little websites somehow, but if the real estate is 90% advertising and 10% "original content" -- and a one-page article is spread across five, I stop reading...well, lately I don't even start. The advertisements wouldn't bother me as much if people would just keep the article all on one page. You know, we do have these things called "scroll bars," so we don't have to load the same 1MB of crap five times just to find out what happened to sister Debbie's "11lb pencil."
Honestly...
This is the scenario for an iMac.... replace a tower + screen with a small footprint all in one. Laptops don't make for great desktop replacements... they are too cramped, not ergonomic... display is too small, etc. etc. for day to day office use. They are even less expandable and upgradeable than an all in one type pc, the list goes on.
iMacs are wonderful for desktop use and relatively portable when it comes down to it... ie: you can move them around by yourself... all the connections are easy to get to, they have built in wireless so no need to rewire or extend the network to a new space.. if you have a wall port for ethernet no problem... built in speakers and headphone jacks for privacy... the new ones have the built in iSight for video conference and all have a built in mic for audio conference. New ones have bluetooth built in for use with wireless input and for synching up your pda with entourage or ical....
Bonjour is a god send for IT... just buy a printer that uses zeroconf and you'll never have label another ip address on it again just 'add printer' and pick bonjour , voila.. the printer shows up and will work without special drivers, though you may want to download them for extra features for special people...
So many nice things to say about the combo of OS X and iMac for office use.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Yes slashdot....a female
Hosts Mom?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Both the Americans and the Russians used pencils in orbital flights in the early days of the space race. However, they both realized that it was kind of a bad idea to be using something that shedded little bits of graphite or lead into a zero-G, high-oxygen, stuffed-with-electronics environment. So a company, Fischer maybe, not the US government, spent about a million US dollars developing the "space pen" which was then sold to both the Russians and NASA.