Of course, I should have probably checked to see just what this thing does. The link's courtesy of the iTunes Link Maker, which apparently isn't. Oh well. It supposedly worked at some point, for someone. Maybe.
So, how many of these artists have already made the transition to iTunes? To anyone that might have content on mp3.com: take a look at the iTunes model. You might find a new home for your works.
For example, I can promote a new band I just discovered, Zero 7 by providing a link like this, which should go directly into the iTMS.
What you'll have to do is find an iTunes Music Store Partner. Individual artists will not be able to add their content. However, I think I read somewhere that cdbaby was working on becoming one. Try contacting them.
I've got two tablets: a ProGear which I bought for $600 when the SonicBlew decided to clear inventory, and a Toshiba Poretege 3500. I can tell you that, primarily, the biggest problem with these tablets is a cruddy software interface. I assume you remember the first incarnation of Windows CE, and how much of the interface was a lift of the Windows 95 GUI. Tablet XP is the same way. While the underlying components are all there, they are implemented to allow quick transition from XP to XP Tablet. The interface on these devices should be more along the lines of CE's CURRENT design, which presents much more information on a single screen, with a much more streamlined (read specialized) human-computer interface.
I'm developing software for the Toshiba, but have had a chance to use it for classwork (I'm a Senior in Electrical and Computer Engineering at OU), and I can seriously say that for people like me that take a lot of notes (read digital packrats), tablets have lots of potential. I can search my handwriting for specific keywords, or "print" a document to the Journal and mark it up, which is a great feature for professors that provide notes to follow along with in class. While everyone else is scribbling madly to keep up, I just pick the "highlighter" and highlight the notes, and maybe make some of my own in the side margin.
As far as the form factor goes, they're getting smaller, and lighter. Look at Acer's TravelMate, for example.
Also, what some people fail to realize is that there are two distinct types of tablets. All of the ones I've highlighted, with the exception of the ProGear are "convertible" machines. A second (cheaper) form factor is also out there, the "slate" machines. Check out a great overview at TheTabletPC.Net.
As they say with many other things, don't knock it 'til you try it.
You're partially correct. They are shooting for 100 million in one year from the original launch of iTMS, so the date should be April of 2004.
If my math's correct, that averages to a smidge greater than three purchases per second for the entire 366 day period.
The biggest problem Apple has at the moment is still one of a limited audience. They have yet to open the iTMS to an international audience. Canadians, especially, are really feeling as if they're left out in the cold, and may go to other services (if they haven't already).
I can second that. I've yet to have a problem with them, and they actually helped me out, when a particularly bad web host *cough* dot5hosting *cough* crashed down, hard, for several days, even though it wasn't their problem.
Actually you can burn an MP3 CD quite easily. You can change that in the preferences panel for the program. This is used for MP3 CD players, and apparently works quite well (in my roommate's CD player, anyway).
There's no ripping involved. If you want an MP3, you get an MP3.
The OS requires 64 -> 128. Ever tried to do anything significant with 64 Megs of RAM on an windows 2000 or XP machine, where the OS itself takes up a MINIMUM of 56 megs (56 from my my experiences working with a ProGear Webpad)?
In all liklihood, the keypads are in braille because the company that purchased them was being as cheap as possible, so they purchased only one type of keypad for all ATMs. That way, the only difference between a walkup ATM and a driveup ATM is the software package, which is much cheaper to buy, sell, and repair than two different hardware packages.
Why, oh why would you do this? I fail to see what placing a laptop in the hands of a student would do, aside from give them a very expensive projectile. I'm a geek. I think computers are neat. They're great tools, but they're not a magic cure for bad teaching, and, more specificially bad teachers.
Memphis City Schools tried a similar program through the 1990's, called the 21st Century Classroom. Certain Schools became "21st Century Schools," where EVERY room was a 21st Century Classroom. They had 3-5 computers per room (with 20-30 students per room) and a teacher station with a more powerful machine, large screen TV, VCR, and laserdisc player. Some of you may remember this type of setup.
They had all this technology at their fingertips -- Internet Access, Word Processors, Presentation tools, A/V Equipment -- and almost NONE of the teachers OR administrators knew ANYTHING about how to use any of it. The machines became, essentially, electronic babysitters. A student could finish his or her work, and "play on the computer" with some edutainment program.
Computers for every student aren't needed. They won't use them as they're intended. They have no need for them. Rather than blow ALL this money on machines, they should place, at most, 5-10 machines in a room, and create large labs, available to all students / faculty, and then reallocate the rest of the cash to luring in better teachers, and TRAINING them in how to use the technology. </rant>
Start a coherent discussion around this rant. I dare you.
That's actually an interesting point. I would wonder if, perhaps, Zeitgeist might show a small bump (or perhaps a spike) this morning due to that article. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I, of course, went out to google, and ran a search to see if I was one of the "frequent users."
Actually, I'd argue that Sony, for one, might feel a push from its own consumer electronics division to push out a new device, most likely with high definition video.
Consumers need an incentive to upgrade to HDTV. Sony, I use as an example because of its wide spectrum of products. However, Microsoft, or Nintendo could also feel a push from other display manufacturers to update the hardware.
As it stands, most people won't willingly upgrade their sets (Geeks and Home Theater buffs aside) to watch the latest survivor in HD, or see a shark swim at them in 1000+ lines of resolution. However, given the right incentive (Madden 2007, where you can read the eyes of the oppoent's quarterback, perhaps or some other "neato" must-have feature), people might upgrade.
Maybe I'm just a smidge capitalistic, but, if I had written something, whether it's a song, book, or a piece of software, I would want rights over it. I would be extremely pissed if, say, an essay I wrote appeared in another book without proper credit, or a deritive work was created based on my artwork.
I'm not just concerned about fiscal gain. That's very nice -- in fact, I'm all about maximizing my own, to the full extent of the law. However, there's the issue of recognition and credit, based on your work. If someone else can slap his or her name on my stuff, and do whatever they pleased with it, I'd be extremely pissed. For example, a lot of you coders out there may code and contribute to open source software, not profiting a dime from it. You do, however, get the credit.
That elegant, clean algorithm that found the cure for cancer is yours. You may not care who uses it. In fact, if it was general enough, you might encourage others to use it as well. But you'd still want credit for it. If you can turn a profit while you're at it, great!
So, out of curiosity, are you playing Devil's Advocate, or do you really believe in Information Anarchy?
Reminds me of a short story, "Silicon Follies"
on
Dotcom Era Fads
·
· Score: 1
Does anyone remember this series of shorts? Heck, I'll bet the author reads or has posted on/. before. I remember stumbling on the link and spending an afternoon clicking through the chapters. I believe it became a book at one point, but is still available at Salon at http://archive.salon.com/21st/follies/about/about. html with just a single banner ad, and is not "Salon Premium" content.
<!--Lifted from the front page -->
Silicon Follies is a serial comedy about life, work, love and war in Silicon Valley that follows six characters as they become, or attempt to become, masters of their domains.
The Characters: Paul Armstrong Silicon Valley software contractor who, at the ripe age of 28, finds himself burned out, disaffected and haunted by the creeping feeling that a career in the infotech industry may not be much of a life to speak of.
Steve Hall Paul's childhood friend, master programmer and hacker extraordinaire. Disdains all forms of industrial software development. Believes that all software development should be left to True Hackers and other artists. Revels in taunting "the man," his catch-all nickname for all clueless personnel in commercial computing outfits. Spends his spare time puncturing firewalls.
Liz Toulouse Recent Stanford University liberal arts graduate, reluctantly employed as a marketing associate in a major Silicon Valley company, infuriated by legions of young male techies earning four times her salary while being unable to deploy verbs properly in a written sentence.
Laurel Waites Liz's classmate, roommate and confidante. Unwilling to throw her own humanities degree on the bonfire of infotech, she has settled for work as a caterer and waitress in a fashionable Silicon Valley eatery popular with the venture capital/IPO crowd.
Barry Dominic Megalomaniacal founder and CEO of TeraMemory Inc. Billionaire, workaholic, tyrant, misogynist. Pursues hobbies of extremely expensive and highly visible nature.
Kiki Dominic Barry's mysterious and estranged wife.
Psychrist Cybernetic infiltrator/provocateur/performance artist. The ballistic nature of his work guarantees a large following among Silicon Valley's nerds, techies and otherwise culturally challenged males -- technological demolition derby as conceived by Umberto Eco.
Okay, so, once again, various threads have descended into mini-flame wars over opinion from a bunch of non-lawyers who got modded up because the mods liked their opinions. You know what? I've had it. If there ARE any law professionals here on/. feel free to reply to this with some sort of proof. An e-mail address from your firm. Something. Anything.
I'll add you as my "friends" with some sort of karma modifier, and make the list publicly available. We should be able to improve the SNR that way.
If someone's already done something like this, point me in the right direction.
Check out this demo from IBM. It's rather good, I think. Go to http://www.research.ibm.com/tts/coredemo.html for a realtime interactive demo. Let's see if "On Demand" actually works when the servers get slashdotted.
My favorite movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes collects and normalizes reviews from many different critics to a 100 point scale. Go check out what they had to say about the first movie, and now, the second one.
Out of context quote #01: "At least a bit more comprehensible than its predecessor -- say, a second-rate Indiana Jones rip-off instead of a third-rate Indiana Jones rip-off." Out of context quote #10: "At least now we have a clue about what's in Pandora's Box: It's movies like this." Out of context quote #11: "While there's compelling evidence that Angelina Jolie is a real person, you'd never guess it watching Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life."
Okay, take a look at the ads on that page (assuming you have IE & Windows Media Player). They're blatant rip offs of Apple's iPod ads of yore. Of course, I can't find a link to them on Apple's site.
This reminds me of various posts I used to see on usenet, like this one. Can you say Me too?
Verizon, which has fought the RIAA over the subpoenas with continued legal appeals, said it received at least 150 subpoenas during the last two weeks. There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received three new subpoenas.
So, I'm wondering if users of RoadRunner, owned by Time Warner Cable, are somehow being granted a "pardon" as well by our associates at the RIAA for using TW's services.
Go check out the book Game Over by David Sheff. I'm an avid Nintendo fan (ever since my original NES). I found a 2nd hand copy in a bookstore, and must say it's one of the best looks into the history of the company, the people behind the company, and the games themselves. I'd highly recommend finding a copy on eBay or Half.com or (if you actually leave your computer) at a 2nd hand bookstore.
The riveting story of Nintendo's conquest of the interactive entertainment industry offering true tales filled with cocky arrogance, confidence and international intrigue that rival any novel. Whether it is recounting the struggles over the game"Tetris," offering blow-by-blow narrative of Nintendo's bitter legal warfare or its see-saw competition with other companies for market leadership, Game Over is a masterful piece of business journalism and technical reportage - a book both cautionary and hugely entertaining.
Check out MathType, from Design Science. If you've used the equation editor in MS Word, you've used a VERY stripped down version of this. They have a couple of different products, one of which is 100% free, which generates LaTex. Check them out at http://www.mathtype.com. I like it, and, once you set up (or learn) the keyboard shortcuts, you can bang out equations with little to no effort, and not have to write a line of Tex or LaTex.
I tend to agree with you, but I'm on my 2nd VAIO Laptop, and would happily buy a 3rd. The build quality of the machines is good, but certainly not up to ThinkPad quality. However, the real problem with Sony is technical support policies, and their warranties. If your warranty is up, and something breaks, you're really out of luck. This is why I suggest that laptop owners buy an extended warranty of some sort for their machines. It's not like you can go to your local PC shop and get a new mainboard if this one fries.
I would actually suggest you take a look at the Vaio Village for a very good usergroup. If you've got a machine that needs reparing, check out Sony Spare Parts, a division of UCR, which also runs parts services for several other manufacturerss. I just did business with them to replace a couple of cruddy internal cables on a friend's older FX-series notebook. The prices are a bit high, but they're the same exact part Sony uses, since they're an authorized repair agency.
By the way, I have no financial interest in any of the companies mentioned in this post.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, I should have probably checked to see just what this thing does. The link's courtesy of the iTunes Link Maker, which apparently isn't. Oh well. It supposedly worked at some point, for someone. Maybe.
So, how many of these artists have already made the transition to iTunes? To anyone that might have content on mp3.com: take a look at the iTunes model. You might find a new home for your works.
For example, I can promote a new band I just discovered, Zero 7 by providing a link like this, which should go directly into the iTMS.
What you'll have to do is find an iTunes Music Store Partner. Individual artists will not be able to add their content. However, I think I read somewhere that cdbaby was working on becoming one. Try contacting them.
I've got two tablets: a ProGear which I bought for $600 when the SonicBlew decided to clear inventory, and a Toshiba Poretege 3500. I can tell you that, primarily, the biggest problem with these tablets is a cruddy software interface. I assume you remember the first incarnation of Windows CE, and how much of the interface was a lift of the Windows 95 GUI. Tablet XP is the same way. While the underlying components are all there, they are implemented to allow quick transition from XP to XP Tablet. The interface on these devices should be more along the lines of CE's CURRENT design, which presents much more information on a single screen, with a much more streamlined (read specialized) human-computer interface.
I'm developing software for the Toshiba, but have had a chance to use it for classwork (I'm a Senior in Electrical and Computer Engineering at OU), and I can seriously say that for people like me that take a lot of notes (read digital packrats), tablets have lots of potential. I can search my handwriting for specific keywords, or "print" a document to the Journal and mark it up, which is a great feature for professors that provide notes to follow along with in class. While everyone else is scribbling madly to keep up, I just pick the "highlighter" and highlight the notes, and maybe make some of my own in the side margin.
As far as the form factor goes, they're getting smaller, and lighter. Look at Acer's TravelMate, for example.
Also, what some people fail to realize is that there are two distinct types of tablets. All of the ones I've highlighted, with the exception of the ProGear are "convertible" machines. A second (cheaper) form factor is also out there, the "slate" machines. Check out a great overview at TheTabletPC.Net.
As they say with many other things, don't knock it 'til you try it.
Mike Hollinger
You're partially correct. They are shooting for 100 million in one year from the original launch of iTMS, so the date should be April of 2004.
If my math's correct, that averages to a smidge greater than three purchases per second for the entire 366 day period.
The biggest problem Apple has at the moment is still one of a limited audience. They have yet to open the iTMS to an international audience. Canadians, especially, are really feeling as if they're left out in the cold, and may go to other services (if they haven't already).
I can second that. I've yet to have a problem with them, and they actually helped me out, when a particularly bad web host *cough* dot5hosting *cough* crashed down, hard, for several days, even though it wasn't their problem.
I like 'em.
Actually you can burn an MP3 CD quite easily. You can change that in the preferences panel for the program. This is used for MP3 CD players, and apparently works quite well (in my roommate's CD player, anyway).
There's no ripping involved. If you want an MP3, you get an MP3.
MCH
The OS requires 64 -> 128. Ever tried to do anything significant with 64 Megs of RAM on an windows 2000 or XP machine, where the OS itself takes up a MINIMUM of 56 megs (56 from my my experiences working with a ProGear Webpad)?
MCH
I think you've just discovered the reason some things are being done in software now.
In all liklihood, the keypads are in braille because the company that purchased them was being as cheap as possible, so they purchased only one type of keypad for all ATMs. That way, the only difference between a walkup ATM and a driveup ATM is the software package, which is much cheaper to buy, sell, and repair than two different hardware packages.
Why, oh why would you do this? I fail to see what placing a laptop in the hands of a student would do, aside from give them a very expensive projectile. I'm a geek. I think computers are neat. They're great tools, but they're not a magic cure for bad teaching, and, more specificially bad teachers.
Memphis City Schools tried a similar program through the 1990's, called the 21st Century Classroom. Certain Schools became "21st Century Schools," where EVERY room was a 21st Century Classroom. They had 3-5 computers per room (with 20-30 students per room) and a teacher station with a more powerful machine, large screen TV, VCR, and laserdisc player. Some of you may remember this type of setup.
They had all this technology at their fingertips -- Internet Access, Word Processors, Presentation tools, A/V Equipment -- and almost NONE of the teachers OR administrators knew ANYTHING about how to use any of it. The machines became, essentially, electronic babysitters. A student could finish his or her work, and "play on the computer" with some edutainment program.
Computers for every student aren't needed. They won't use them as they're intended. They have no need for them. Rather than blow ALL this money on machines, they should place, at most, 5-10 machines in a room, and create large labs, available to all students / faculty, and then reallocate the rest of the cash to luring in better teachers, and TRAINING them in how to use the technology.
</rant>
Start a coherent discussion around this rant. I dare you.
That's actually an interesting point. I would wonder if, perhaps, Zeitgeist might show a small bump (or perhaps a spike) this morning due to that article. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I, of course, went out to google, and ran a search to see if I was one of the "frequent users."
Actually, I'd argue that Sony, for one, might feel a push from its own consumer electronics division to push out a new device, most likely with high definition video.
Consumers need an incentive to upgrade to HDTV. Sony, I use as an example because of its wide spectrum of products. However, Microsoft, or Nintendo could also feel a push from other display manufacturers to update the hardware.
As it stands, most people won't willingly upgrade their sets (Geeks and Home Theater buffs aside) to watch the latest survivor in HD, or see a shark swim at them in 1000+ lines of resolution. However, given the right incentive (Madden 2007, where you can read the eyes of the oppoent's quarterback, perhaps or some other "neato" must-have feature), people might upgrade.
Maybe I'm just a smidge capitalistic, but, if I had written something, whether it's a song, book, or a piece of software, I would want rights over it. I would be extremely pissed if, say, an essay I wrote appeared in another book without proper credit, or a deritive work was created based on my artwork.
I'm not just concerned about fiscal gain. That's very nice -- in fact, I'm all about maximizing my own, to the full extent of the law. However, there's the issue of recognition and credit, based on your work. If someone else can slap his or her name on my stuff, and do whatever they pleased with it, I'd be extremely pissed. For example, a lot of you coders out there may code and contribute to open source software, not profiting a dime from it. You do, however, get the credit.
That elegant, clean algorithm that found the cure for cancer is yours. You may not care who uses it. In fact, if it was general enough, you might encourage others to use it as well. But you'd still want credit for it. If you can turn a profit while you're at it, great!
So, out of curiosity, are you playing Devil's Advocate, or do you really believe in Information Anarchy?
Does anyone remember this series of shorts? Heck, I'll bet the author reads or has posted on /. before. I remember stumbling on the link and spending an afternoon clicking through the chapters. I believe it became a book at one point, but is still available at Salon at http://archive.salon.com/21st/follies/about/about. html with just a single banner ad, and is not "Salon Premium" content.
<!--Lifted from the front page -->
Silicon Follies is a serial comedy about life, work, love and war in Silicon Valley that follows six characters as they become, or attempt to become, masters of their domains.
The Characters:
Paul Armstrong
Silicon Valley software contractor who, at the ripe age of 28, finds himself burned out, disaffected and haunted by the creeping feeling that a career in the infotech industry may not be much of a life to speak of.
Steve Hall
Paul's childhood friend, master programmer and hacker extraordinaire. Disdains all forms of industrial software development. Believes that all software development should be left to True Hackers and other artists. Revels in taunting "the man," his catch-all nickname for all clueless personnel in commercial computing outfits. Spends his spare time puncturing firewalls.
Liz Toulouse
Recent Stanford University liberal arts graduate, reluctantly employed as a marketing associate in a major Silicon Valley company, infuriated by legions of young male techies earning four times her salary while being unable to deploy verbs properly in a written sentence.
Laurel Waites
Liz's classmate, roommate and confidante. Unwilling to throw her own humanities degree on the bonfire of infotech, she has settled for work as a caterer and waitress in a fashionable Silicon Valley eatery popular with the venture capital/IPO crowd.
Barry Dominic
Megalomaniacal founder and CEO of TeraMemory Inc. Billionaire, workaholic, tyrant, misogynist. Pursues hobbies of extremely expensive and highly visible nature.
Kiki Dominic
Barry's mysterious and estranged wife.
Psychrist
Cybernetic infiltrator/provocateur/performance artist. The ballistic nature of his work guarantees a large following among Silicon Valley's nerds, techies and otherwise culturally challenged males -- technological demolition derby as conceived by Umberto Eco.
Okay, so, once again, various threads have descended into mini-flame wars over opinion from a bunch of non-lawyers who got modded up because the mods liked their opinions. You know what? I've had it. If there ARE any law professionals here on /. feel free to reply to this with some sort of proof. An e-mail address from your firm. Something. Anything.
I'll add you as my "friends" with some sort of karma modifier, and make the list publicly available. We should be able to improve the SNR that way.
If someone's already done something like this, point me in the right direction.
Check out this demo from IBM. It's rather good, I think. Go to http://www.research.ibm.com/tts/coredemo.html for a realtime interactive demo. Let's see if "On Demand" actually works when the servers get slashdotted.
My favorite movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes collects and normalizes reviews from many different critics to a 100 point scale. Go check out what they had to say about the first movie, and now, the second one.
Out of context quote #01: "At least a bit more comprehensible than its predecessor -- say, a second-rate Indiana Jones rip-off instead of a third-rate Indiana Jones rip-off."
Out of context quote #10: "At least now we have a clue about what's in Pandora's Box: It's movies like this."
Out of context quote #11: "While there's compelling evidence that Angelina Jolie is a real person, you'd never guess it watching Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life."
Oh, by the way, here's a link to some background on the site.
Okay, take a look at the ads on that page (assuming you have IE & Windows Media Player). They're blatant rip offs of Apple's iPod ads of yore. Of course, I can't find a link to them on Apple's site.
This reminds me of various posts I used to see on usenet, like this one.
Can you say Me too?
From this AP article at the Washington Post:
Verizon, which has fought the RIAA over the subpoenas with continued legal appeals, said it received at least 150 subpoenas during the last two weeks. There were no subpoenas on file sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., the nation's largest Internet provider and also parent company of Warner Music Group. Earthlink Inc., another of the largest Internet providers, said it has received three new subpoenas.
So, I'm wondering if users of RoadRunner, owned by Time Warner Cable, are somehow being granted a "pardon" as well by our associates at the RIAA for using TW's services.
Okay, who posting here is ACTUALLY a lawyer? They should get a +1 bonus for actually knowing what they're talking about.
As shown in past episodes, what happens with the mod system is people mod up rhetoric that they like to hear, assuming its presented nicely.
On to the subject at hand: My letter to cognressman Harold Ford Jr. (my rep) is going out Monday. What about you?
WinRar - http://www.rarsoft.com
Compare It! - http://www.grigsoft.com
LimeWire - http://www.limewire.com
Object Desktop / WindowBlinds - http://www.stardock.net
For me, it was the fact that the above applications performed flawlessly, and fit my needs perfectly.
Go check out the book Game Over by David Sheff. I'm an avid Nintendo fan (ever since my original NES). I found a 2nd hand copy in a bookstore, and must say it's one of the best looks into the history of the company, the people behind the company, and the games themselves. I'd highly recommend finding a copy on eBay or Half.com or (if you actually leave your computer) at a 2nd hand bookstore.
The riveting story of Nintendo's conquest of the interactive entertainment industry offering true tales filled with cocky arrogance, confidence and international intrigue that rival any novel. Whether it is recounting the struggles over the game"Tetris," offering blow-by-blow narrative of Nintendo's bitter legal warfare or its see-saw competition with other companies for market leadership, Game Over is a masterful piece of business journalism and technical reportage - a book both cautionary and hugely entertaining.
Check out MathType, from Design Science. If you've used the equation editor in MS Word, you've used a VERY stripped down version of this. They have a couple of different products, one of which is 100% free, which generates LaTex. Check them out at http://www.mathtype.com. I like it, and, once you set up (or learn) the keyboard shortcuts, you can bang out equations with little to no effort, and not have to write a line of Tex or LaTex.
Ah, I got my warranty from CompUSA. I didn't have to pay for anything, their techs took care of it.
I tend to agree with you, but I'm on my 2nd VAIO Laptop, and would happily buy a 3rd. The build quality of the machines is good, but certainly not up to ThinkPad quality. However, the real problem with Sony is technical support policies, and their warranties. If your warranty is up, and something breaks, you're really out of luck. This is why I suggest that laptop owners buy an extended warranty of some sort for their machines. It's not like you can go to your local PC shop and get a new mainboard if this one fries.
I would actually suggest you take a look at the Vaio Village for a very good usergroup. If you've got a machine that needs reparing, check out Sony Spare Parts, a division of UCR, which also runs parts services for several other manufacturerss. I just did business with them to replace a couple of cruddy internal cables on a friend's older FX-series notebook. The prices are a bit high, but they're the same exact part Sony uses, since they're an authorized repair agency.
By the way, I have no financial interest in any of the companies mentioned in this post.