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I was spring cleaning the garage this morning when I made an incredible and important find. Inside an old suitcase, under a mouldy stack of Wired magazines, I found a mysterious manuscript bound with a simple extension chord and a few paperclips for extra stability.
As I delicately unfolded the yellowing reams I made a quick scan of the Comic Sans text and realised something truly astonishing – what I had in my hands was from the days of web 1.0! Speechless with awe I carefully attempted to read the full document, but without the reassuring backlight of my Apple iPad the task was nearly impossible.
With the help of a team of crack scientist I have now successfully analysed the document and can reveal that it dates as far back as possibly 2008 and is the journal of a typical 21st Century man, detailing his exploits as he tries to find a decent laptop . Working in my free time I have successfully transcribed the fascinating journal onto my computer and here, for the first time, I can bring you a rare peek into this forgotten treasure:
Monday, Friday, January 18, 2008
Today is probably the unluckiest day of my life considering how dreadful it’s been. Went to work in the cold and rain, came home in the cold and rain. As I was crossing Kew Bridge I thought I saw a member of the Royal Family wielding a frozen carp looming towards me through the downpour. As I leapt for cover I tripped over a swan nest and my laptop went flying over the side into the bubbling river water.
Lying in the gutter, having just thrown two-year’s worth of work to a watery grave, I looked up to see my would-be assailant was merely a waffle seller in a cape carrying a portrait of Terence Stamp.
When I got home we were out of Angel Delight, must remember to buy some. Guess I’m going to have to spend my weekend getting a new cheap laptop then. At least I had nothing else on.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
I was all set to leave the house and embark on a spot of laptop shopping this morning and was just studying the atlas to find the best way to my local high street (I may have walked it hundreds of times, but you can never be certain) when I noticed a spelling error in the labelling of nearby Great Milkwaffle Street. Well, you can imagine my horror.
I immediately concluded that is was my duty to assess the entire A to Z in search of mistakes, document them and send a comprehensive missive to the publishers. At 2am I finished my task and returned to bed, there were only three mistakes, including a picture of a goldfish wearing an eyepatch in place of Westminster cathedral, but I think the public will benefit greatly from this correction.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Came exceedingly close to buying a new laptop today, I made it to the High Street and everything.
Unfortunately by that time I was bleeding quite furiously from the bites round my ankles from the tiger I’d annoyed when I accidentally stood on it’s tail whilst hiding in the undergrowth from a particularly aggressive squirrel. Also, the shop was closed. Went back to bed after a brief visit to the hospital.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Went online and bought a laptop, LCD TV and extra laptop memory.
An extraordinary tale, I think you’ll agree. I’m heading to a museum now which has expressed interest in my finding as part of an exhibition on diaries of liars.
Tags: cheap laptop, Cheap Laptops, laptop, laptop memory, Laptops
Posted in Laptops · June 27th, 2010 · Comments (0)
Great news, Amazon is now offering Brand New laptops, Notebooks, and desktops at rock bottom prices, I have had my Acer Aspire for all of three days now, for $300 with these advertised features:
Intel Pentium SU2700 1.30GHz Processor (2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB)
3GB DDR3 1066 SDRAM
320GB 5400RPM Hard Drive, SuperMulti Drive,
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium, 6 Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
14.0″ WXGA TFT LCD Display (1366 x 768), Intel Graphics Media accelerator 4500MHD
and am quite happy with it. Some observations:
The keys are spaced very well for me … the keyboard has an excellent exceptional . The glossy black finish is a bit unfortunate, as they instantly show smudging . The track pad mouse button does indeed require Thumb of Steel, but nicely accommodates left- and right-clicking without being separated into two buttons.
I’m amazed at how happy I am with the screen. I don’t like the glassy displays, but as long as the backlighting is strong , it can be used in fairly bright light. That’s the case with this screen. The resolution is very crisp. I have not had any need or desire to adjust the color settings.
Speakers are not great in terms of volume, but I just can’t imagine docking a review for that quibble. The laptop is thin and light – get some headphones!
The battery life is phenomenal, as advertised; the first time I’ve ever had a laptop that performed within 50% of the advertised battery life.
The brain chip is probably a little underpowered for Vista, but not terribly so. I’m sure that I will be happier with Windows 7 when it comes out.
Now for Linux. I shrunk the Vista partition down drastically using GParted from an Ubuntu 9.04 live CD. After that was done and I rebooted, Vista determined that something was wrong and launched a repair process that took a very long time to complete (2 hours+). It then came up into Vista and I have had no problems with it.
I formatted most of the freed space to give over to Ubuntu. I was completely floored by how much worked immediately: sound, wireless, keyboard control of volume, webcam, USB … wow. After upgrading to a slightly newer Linux kernel (2.6.30), wireless now comes up correctly after being suspended, and keyboard control of screen brightness works. I can’t think of anything that doesn’t work other than multi touch gestures on the touchpad. Battery life seems to be as good as when running Windows. Speed for the tools of my trade is great when running Linux: emacs, X windows, SSH, Firefox and Flash.
I am in no sense a “casual” user; I do software development and am always a power user of software. But not a gamer or graphics guy who needs PhotoShop. I tend to view my laptop as a window to development servers using X and SSH, and a window to the Web using a browser. For those uses, this little laptop is entirely capable. So both the casual and the geeky can find happiness with the Acer 4810.
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Tags: best deals on laptops
Posted in Laptops · June 24th, 2010 · Comments (0)