It was called the Picturebook and was quite useful for me. Very lightweight, battery life was comparable to laptops at the same time, a little over 2 hours IIRC. There was no wireless then but I had a 3COM 10/100 PCMCIA with an XJACK so there was my ethernet without a dongle. I used a USB to Serial for programming routers and used the onboard camera to take pictures of datacenters.
This was a notebook that was supposed to appeal to realtors because of the onboard digital camera.
What sucked was that it came with WinME. I didn't order the memory upgrade to run Win2000, I installed it anyway and went back to ME. Only time I'll say that ME was better. There was no Win98 drivers for the unit but there was an older model that ran Win98. I did get RH7.2 to install on it so yes, it did run Linux. Mandrake failed to install.
I was actually referring to the LED readout on the back of the machine. I've always built my own in the past and I've been asked to trouble shoot some Dells recently that wouldn't power on. The LED codes were a time saver.
Because Best Buy, Fry's, Circuit City, Dell, and any other retailer that matters don't have a demo unit setup nor do they advertise that is is sold.
Don't give me this BS that Dell offers Linux because if it isn't here, it doesn't exist.
I'm about as anti-MS as one can get but I also reailze their importance in the marketplace. MS is obviously crippling 3rd party malware protection yet their own package fails to make the mark even though they have the advantage.
I've consistently said that MS has crappy programmers and this proves it. That comment is not an attack on the employees but a dig at the finished product which is a reflection on the programmers. The individuals who program may have talent but when it comes to the committee that puts it all together, it's a mish mash of crap.
I setup an OEM Vista installation last week which was my first exposure to Vista. Is it better than XP SP2? Didn't seem so to me. Visually appealing theme wise? I think so. Much better than the default XP theme. I didn't get all those annoying permission popups when trying to create and delete files that was reported earlier. The popups I did get I didn't feel like it was an intrusion as I didn't get too many unless I was trying to install something. With 2Gigs of ram, it did seem to perform slower than XP SP2 with 512MB of ram. Wow. That's the perception that matters to the end user too.
What's wrong with Vista is that it's too wordy. The security center is too confusing for the end user and too wordy. The popups are too wordy and not intuitively selectable. You get 2 or so choices on popups that don't appear to be decision making selections yet it is asking a question and awaiting an answer.
The other thing that really never bothered me before but Vista does it wrong (on my first impression) is the left-mouse/right-mouse selections. I don't remember exactly but I was trying to look at network properties or something like that and double left click was different than right click > properties. Much different than XP and before. What I remember was that what I wanted didn't happen when I selected it making me to have to remember how to get the proper properties of a particular object. At that moment I finally realized why the Mac had only 1 button on their mouse.
I was given a Hitachi 43FDX10B because the digital convergence was off. I fixed it for $30 in parts and 2 hours of my time to replace 2 ICs and a handfull of resistors. It's great as a free TV but I have no idea how to get rid of it other than sell it cheap while it's still working and somewhat still marketable.
I think you're missing the point of the parent post.
If we have the cost of disposal built into the purchase price, what is to stop a corporation or university just dumping old electronics in the middle of the highway? It's effectively what the cost is going toward.
I wonder how consumers will dispose of the current flock of big screen plasma displays, and projection TVs without just taking it to the dump anyway.
The only e-recycle/disposal program I know of takes old eletronics and ships them to India for dismantling. Other than that, it's landfill.
Believe it or not, I had a farrier teach me how to shoe a horse. Summer camp taught me how to provide basic care for a horse, a girlfriend that owned a horse really taught me how care for a horse. I have done my time at 2AM with a colicky horse and had to have the displeasure of being present of putting a horse down that had navicular. That was an experience that will never leave me.
I can repair a car and if I had the parts and tools, I could probably build a car. I chose not to do major repairs mainly because of time, tools, and expertise.
I have built cabins before (on horse farms nonetheless) and a home is really no different. I would take longer than a crew of trained assemblers which boils down to time, tools, and expertise. I am not afraid or intimitaded of high voltage, plumbing, roofing, masonry (not quite as good as the pros at that), or carpentry.
Building a tube amplifier requires proper environment and tools. I can build a power supply without consulting any outside media and I've built a music synthesizer from as basic materials as eletronically possible (Bob Moog as the inspiration).
Rewiring a home for service depends on the market. Telcos usually only provide service to the box outside, everything inside is up to you or you can pay installation or pay some $100/year extortion for inside wiring protection. When I used to have BellSouth, they would never come inside unless you had the $100/year extortion fee or paid $200 for inside installation. In the case of my mother, she wanted 2 lines, they wired the box for 2 lines, the installer only tested one jack and put a splitter on it. I came in and split the 2 pairs and replaced the single jack plate with a double and brought the outside pair to the inside pair for the second line and wired the other jacks for service.
Some of us that are 40 and under (and I imagine 45 and under) grew up building this tech and are very effective multitaskers to level of competence that this 25 and under (Generation nexters) aren't able to comprehend.
I can rewire a home for phone service. I imagine that most./ers can too. I understood how the telephone worked at around 10 years old and was hacking calls with just a speaker and 2 wires ripped from a taple player to call my friends when I had no phone in my room, only a jack. There was a time when I memorized all the Bell codes (in my area) for redial, dictate phone number, delay dial, etc... all before this caller ID crap.
My nephew is 17. I had him accompany me to rewire my mother's condo for 2 lines of phone service. The telco only wired one jack and put a splitter on it. I was rather shocked when he stood in amazement watching me remove the plate from the wall and rewire the wires. Up to that point, the phone is simplay just a magic box that communicates to another magic box (phone) to him. Something so simple that you can pulse dial with a speaker and 2 wires and get a connection for simple communication was such a mystery to him that I had to rethink what todays youth is into. He can turn on a cell phone, IM, use all the features but if you ask him how many volts his cell phone battery supplies, he's quite lost.
These Generation Nexters will be able to multitask with the tech presented to them but how many will know how to fix the tech?
My context would indicate Xtreme but my message (poorly communicated) was in regards to 'X' in everything 8 years ago. After Y2K, everything was X this and X that.
I only fault MS by not actually coming up with a modern OS that is on par with the other available OSes in terms of security and run legacy apps in a VM - similar to what Mac did 6 years ago.
They would have the upper hand if they did that but it appears that they are only a 'Me Too' OS and still running the tired old bloated code base.
You can either use the iPod as an external hard drive or you can use iTunes music store service that only works with the iPod. The user experience is handled 100% from Apple from purchase to usage.
Granted (and I don't own an iPod) there is not a single mp3 player that is like the UI of an ipod. There are many like it but none with a 3 and only 3 move selection to get music.
My spouse is studying for a payroll class for CPP certification. Microsoft is a case study for something they did in 1996.
IIRC, they classified foreign contract workers as full time employees to the feds and paid contractor wages. The end result was massive fines to Microsoft and they had to retroactivley offer stock options and benefits to those employees.
Like triple breasted women, a baby that is conjoined with an adult that has wisdom of the ages, an elaborate fat suit with an exploding head, a martian atmosphere that somehow brings sustainable air pressure to a planet within seconds from a frozen water source?
Doesn't really matter, that movie kicked some major ass. Double crosses, cat fights, a female midget with a machine gun, severed limbs, and using a body as a shield - just brilliant.
Slashdot Mirror
It was called the Picturebook and was quite useful for me.
Very lightweight, battery life was comparable to laptops at the same time, a little over 2 hours IIRC.
There was no wireless then but I had a 3COM 10/100 PCMCIA with an XJACK so there was my ethernet without a dongle.
I used a USB to Serial for programming routers and used the onboard camera to take pictures of datacenters.
This was a notebook that was supposed to appeal to realtors because of the onboard digital camera.
What sucked was that it came with WinME. I didn't order the memory upgrade to run Win2000, I installed it anyway and went back to ME. Only time I'll say that ME was better. There was no Win98 drivers for the unit but there was an older model that ran Win98.
I did get RH7.2 to install on it so yes, it did run Linux. Mandrake failed to install.
I was actually referring to the LED readout on the back of the machine.
I've always built my own in the past and I've been asked to trouble shoot some Dells recently that wouldn't power on. The LED codes were a time saver.
Do you know where I can get those motherboards they have that has the self diagnostic codes?
I haven't seen that anywhere.
Because Best Buy, Fry's, Circuit City, Dell, and any other retailer that matters don't have a demo unit setup nor do they advertise that is is sold.
Don't give me this BS that Dell offers Linux because if it isn't here, it doesn't exist.
I'm about as anti-MS as one can get but I also reailze their importance in the marketplace.
MS is obviously crippling 3rd party malware protection yet their own package fails to make the mark even though they have the advantage.
I've consistently said that MS has crappy programmers and this proves it. That comment is not an attack on the employees but a dig at the finished product which is a reflection on the programmers.
The individuals who program may have talent but when it comes to the committee that puts it all together, it's a mish mash of crap.
I setup an OEM Vista installation last week which was my first exposure to Vista.
Is it better than XP SP2? Didn't seem so to me.
Visually appealing theme wise? I think so. Much better than the default XP theme.
I didn't get all those annoying permission popups when trying to create and delete files that was reported earlier. The popups I did get I didn't feel like it was an intrusion as I didn't get too many unless I was trying to install something.
With 2Gigs of ram, it did seem to perform slower than XP SP2 with 512MB of ram. Wow. That's the perception that matters to the end user too.
What's wrong with Vista is that it's too wordy.
The security center is too confusing for the end user and too wordy.
The popups are too wordy and not intuitively selectable. You get 2 or so choices on popups that don't appear to be decision making selections yet it is asking a question and awaiting an answer.
The other thing that really never bothered me before but Vista does it wrong (on my first impression) is the left-mouse/right-mouse selections.
I don't remember exactly but I was trying to look at network properties or something like that and double left click was different than right click > properties. Much different than XP and before.
What I remember was that what I wanted didn't happen when I selected it making me to have to remember how to get the proper properties of a particular object.
At that moment I finally realized why the Mac had only 1 button on their mouse.
I noticed that PROJECTION TV'S are not accepted.
I was given a Hitachi 43FDX10B because the digital convergence was off. I fixed it for $30 in parts and 2 hours of my time to replace 2 ICs and a handfull of resistors.
It's great as a free TV but I have no idea how to get rid of it other than sell it cheap while it's still working and somewhat still marketable.
I think you're missing the point of the parent post.
If we have the cost of disposal built into the purchase price, what is to stop a corporation or university just dumping old electronics in the middle of the highway? It's effectively what the cost is going toward.
I wonder how consumers will dispose of the current flock of big screen plasma displays, and projection TVs without just taking it to the dump anyway.
The only e-recycle/disposal program I know of takes old eletronics and ships them to India for dismantling. Other than that, it's landfill.
Believe it or not, I had a farrier teach me how to shoe a horse.
Summer camp taught me how to provide basic care for a horse, a girlfriend that owned a horse really taught me how care for a horse.
I have done my time at 2AM with a colicky horse and had to have the displeasure of being present of putting a horse down that had navicular. That was an experience that will never leave me.
I can repair a car and if I had the parts and tools, I could probably build a car. I chose not to do major repairs mainly because of time, tools, and expertise.
I have built cabins before (on horse farms nonetheless) and a home is really no different. I would take longer than a crew of trained assemblers which boils down to time, tools, and expertise.
I am not afraid or intimitaded of high voltage, plumbing, roofing, masonry (not quite as good as the pros at that), or carpentry.
Building a tube amplifier requires proper environment and tools. I can build a power supply without consulting any outside media and I've built a music synthesizer from as basic materials as eletronically possible (Bob Moog as the inspiration).
Rewiring a home for service depends on the market. Telcos usually only provide service to the box outside, everything inside is up to you or you can pay installation or pay some $100/year extortion for inside wiring protection.
When I used to have BellSouth, they would never come inside unless you had the $100/year extortion fee or paid $200 for inside installation.
In the case of my mother, she wanted 2 lines, they wired the box for 2 lines, the installer only tested one jack and put a splitter on it.
I came in and split the 2 pairs and replaced the single jack plate with a double and brought the outside pair to the inside pair for the second line and wired the other jacks for service.
Some of us that are 40 and under (and I imagine 45 and under) grew up building this tech and are very effective multitaskers to level of competence that this 25 and under (Generation nexters) aren't able to comprehend.
./ers can too. I understood how the telephone worked at around 10 years old and was hacking calls with just a speaker and 2 wires ripped from a taple player to call my friends when I had no phone in my room, only a jack. There was a time when I memorized all the Bell codes (in my area) for redial, dictate phone number, delay dial, etc... all before this caller ID crap.
I can rewire a home for phone service. I imagine that most
My nephew is 17. I had him accompany me to rewire my mother's condo for 2 lines of phone service. The telco only wired one jack and put a splitter on it.
I was rather shocked when he stood in amazement watching me remove the plate from the wall and rewire the wires. Up to that point, the phone is simplay just a magic box that communicates to another magic box (phone) to him.
Something so simple that you can pulse dial with a speaker and 2 wires and get a connection for simple communication was such a mystery to him that I had to rethink what todays youth is into. He can turn on a cell phone, IM, use all the features but if you ask him how many volts his cell phone battery supplies, he's quite lost.
These Generation Nexters will be able to multitask with the tech presented to them but how many will know how to fix the tech?
Because artists from the big four don't own their music. They're hired to write music for the big four.
And weight is measured in stone (in the context of body weight) which happens to be a setting on my digital scale sold in the US.
If it's going to come to State tax, you might as well do Craigslist and avoid the Ebay tax altogether.
He'll probably want to carve his name on the moon's surface so everyone can see it.
Most of us had spirographs when we were kids too.
My context would indicate Xtreme but my message (poorly communicated) was in regards to 'X' in everything 8 years ago.
After Y2K, everything was X this and X that.
Everything was "eXtreme" hence XP. They jumped on that bandwagon 6 years ago.
Hyper was 3 years ago and 'Ready' is so 90s.
I only fault MS by not actually coming up with a modern OS that is on par with the other available OSes in terms of security and run legacy apps in a VM - similar to what Mac did 6 years ago.
They would have the upper hand if they did that but it appears that they are only a 'Me Too' OS and still running the tired old bloated code base.
Cue Vista copying the Mac.....
It proves my point.
You can either use the iPod as an external hard drive or you can use iTunes music store service that only works with the iPod.
The user experience is handled 100% from Apple from purchase to usage.
Granted (and I don't own an iPod) there is not a single mp3 player that is like the UI of an ipod. There are many like it but none with a 3 and only 3 move selection to get music.
Apple has always been about the user experience, even from the unpacking of a piece of hardware with their brand on it.
These carriers and Microsoft included are all about using their products and services.
Apples side of the diametric is that you use their services on their product versus using the product with the services that are included.
It's a known fact that the magnetic poles switch every so often. How do you know that the magnetic shift isn't the cause?
I wasn't aware of that.
My spouse is studying for a payroll class for CPP certification.
Microsoft is a case study for something they did in 1996.
IIRC, they classified foreign contract workers as full time employees to the feds and paid contractor wages. The end result was massive fines to Microsoft and they had to retroactivley offer stock options and benefits to those employees.
Hasn't it been years now?
EA today isn't the EA of 5 years ago.
Sony today isn't the Sony of 2 years ago.
Micosoft today isn't the Microsoft of 5 years ago. Oh wait, yes they are.
I had one of those Sony Vaio Picturebooks a while ago.
Came with WinME which I put Win2K in it's place.
It also worked with RH7.2 but not Mandrake.
Great little fully functional notebook.
Like triple breasted women, a baby that is conjoined with an adult that has wisdom of the ages, an elaborate fat suit with an exploding head, a martian atmosphere that somehow brings sustainable air pressure to a planet within seconds from a frozen water source?
Doesn't really matter, that movie kicked some major ass.
Double crosses, cat fights, a female midget with a machine gun, severed limbs, and using a body as a shield - just brilliant.
I'm a little leery about buying something that
A) may not play in DVD players I have
B) not distributed in the US even though it was made in the US*
I also would love to get a copy of Mansion of the Doomed
It appears to also be in Region 2 limbo.
*That doesn't really bother me that much. I just want it to work with no hassles.