My "New" Laptop

It's probably been nearly ten years since anyone has raved about laptop specs like 366mhz Pentium IIs, but I recently received an old Compaq Armada 7400. What the heck would anyone want with a laptop that old? I had originally thought that I would see if there was anything that I could salvage off of it and then I would scrap it. I was surprised to find out that someone had installed Windows XP on it and upgraded the RAM to 128mb. I figured that I would give it a chance seeing that it was in excellent condition. So let me tell you about my new laptop.

The Good

It has been a while since I have spent any time with a computer running less than 1GHz so I was expecting an excruciatingly slow experience (especially after using my Intel Core 2 Quad rig that I built for myself last Christmas.) I was very surprised that it was quite peppy. I will never be able to watch video or play any graphical games on it but for normal office work it is perfect. The keyboard is my favorite part. It has a very nice tactile response and natural feel something lacking in many of the new laptops I have used. Even with it being 12 years old its battery is in better shape than my Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro. After having used wide screen laptops for the last four years has made me forget the advantages of the old 4x3 display. The extra vertical screen real estate lends itself to working with text and web surfing. Because it is so old I didn't have to install any 3rd party drivers. Once XP was installed everything (except my wireless card) worked perfectly. That's something I miss, normally I spend 3 or more hours installing and upgrading drivers on new computers.

The Bad

Touted as a "desktop replacement" back in 1997 the 366 mhz Pentium II struggles with most of today's programs. The original 6gb hard drive could barely hold XP without any other programs being installed with it. I upgraded it to a 30gb hard drive that I had on hand. Since I don't plan on using this for video, pictures, or music I will probably never fill it. Having only a 4mb video card built in, YouTube videos look like slide shows. Nearly everything that I have installed so far has taken an unearthly amount of time. I think most of this is due to the speed of the hard drive (it's only a 4200rpm drive). The laptop originally came with only 64mb of memory and would only hold up to 128mb sticks in each slot, allowing a max of 256mb. This is quickly used up, but the larger hard drive allows for a larger paging file (unfortunately the slow speed of the drive causes massive slow downs). I cannot install any real time scanning antivirus program because of the performance hit on the system.

Why????

I do computer repair for a lot of people who can't afford new computers, so I am always looking for ways to get the most out of older systems. Having a laptop that is this old forces me to look for ways to get the most out of the system as well as gives me a challenge and I like old computers for some strange reason. Also I am trying to teach myself a new programming language and I want a system that is small enough that I can take it with me easily and not worry about losing it or having it broken. (plus who would want to steal it???)

Over all, this will be a good project and a fun gadget until it dies.

**Update: The back light for the LCD is dying quickly... CRAP!**

Portable Computing with PortableApps

A few years back jump drive manufactures started making jump drives that were "U3 Enabled". These drives would auto start a Start Menu like program that listed portable applications that would run off your drive without needing to install your programs onto the computer. This was a great idea but there was some major problems. First, most of the software was proprietary and the free software was mostly worthless. Secondly, the drive took a long time to startup because of the way the software was implemented. Thirdly, it only came on select jump drives and couldn't be installed on any other jump drive. The free alternitive called PortableApps, has fixed all of these problems with an installable application that would work with any jump drive as small as 64mb and they offer their own launcher tool that takes much less time to load. Unlike U3, PortableApps has a ton of free, useful, software. You can install many of your favorite free programs such as OpenOffice, the Gimp, Notepadd++, Firefox 3.0, games, even software that can make your jump drive into a full web server and many more.
Having all these apps on a jump drive may sound nice but what is the real practical use for it? Think about it this way, you are on vacation and you are forced to use your cousin Lou's piece of junk computer. He doesn't have any of the software you need and his hard drive is so full that you can't install anything on it. If you have your trusty jump drive on you then all you have to do is plug it in and start up Thunderbird and check your email then if you use the Foxmarks add on for Firefox you can surf the internet with all of your bookmarks right there on your jump drive. While you are surfing you can start up VLC and listen to your music that you have on your jump drive. Then when you are done you can payback your cousin Lou by letting Clamwin clean out his virus infested computer because his OEM copy of Norton's has expired and he has been "Reminded Later" for the past 5 years. Then after his computer has been saved from every virus known to man you can start up VirtualDub and start making your vacation video and burn it to a DVD with InfraRecorder. Then, leave his computer completely unchanged (except for having removed his viruses). That is why everyone should be using PortableApps!

Internet The Way It Should Be

I am always looking for the next new thing that will change how we interact with information. We have more at our finger tips now than any other generation has had in the past. The more information we have the more difficult it is to access it. Ubiquity is attempting to fix this problem. Check out this video to explain more.
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Has Firefox Finally Been Beat?

A few days ago, some one leaked information about a project that Google has been hiding for several years. Google Chrome is Google's answer to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Chrome is a totally redesigned web browser; built from the ground up it aims for speed and security. I have been a fan of Firefox back in the days of 1.0 but after trying Chrome I have to say I'm reluctant to going back to Firefox for several reasons.

1. Speed - Incredible, unadulterated speed! One of my biffs about Firefox has always been the slow start up times. General web surfing has always been faster than IE but the start up times have at times taken longer than 30-40 seconds on an older PC. Chrome is faster than even IE with start up times and surfing is even faster than Firefox 3.

2. Memory Usage - One of the negative things thrown around by IE Fan boys is that Firefox is a resource hog, and to a degree they are right. Most of these problems have been fixed with 3.0, IE has been shown to use more memory than Firefox has ever. Chrome continues to run smoothly even after marathon surfing.

3. Secure - Chrome was built from day one with the thought of security. IE is not secure due to some short sightedness from the beginning of the project. Active X controls allow someone to take control over your browser with relative ease.

Even with these advantages over Firefox I think that power users will really struggle to cross over the the shiny side. One of the biggest disadvantages to Chrome is that unlike Firefox there is no add-ons for Chrome. Also right now Chrome is only available for Windows XP and Vista. Lastly, Chrome has few options available for power users to tweak.

Over-all, Chrome is a very good browser. I will be watching it's development in the future. I think that for the everyday user Chrome will be a perfect replacement for IE. For the power user, I think that it will be a while before we will cross over to Chrome.

If you have not yet tried it, give it a chance before you write it off as a fad or just not for you. Click here to go to the download page.

What do you think? Comment and let me know.


UPDATE:

After having used Chrome for a while I have just a few things to add.

1. Flash is not as fast as in Firefox. I have an older PC that I use at work (2.0 Ghz, 2.0gb RAM, on board video). I found that Chrome makes all Flash (youtube.com, dilbert.com/animation, any flash based games) drop frames.

2. Java based apps are much faster than in Firefox.

3. I miss my Ad block Plus add-on.

4. Spell checking does not work everywhere it should. (such as while I type this blog)

5. It works best in google based apps (gmail, google docs, etc...)

Microsoft to Replace Vista in Late 2009

Microsoft has just released some footage of a preview of Microsoft Windows 7. From the looks of it it looks like Vista mated with a MS Surface Table and was installed on a laptop. Is this touch screen toy the answer to our Vista woes or is it just more unnecessary features that will suck our system resources away from more productive programs? We will see soon... Until then check out the video. Just a note, the video has no sound until the last 15 seconds. This is not an error it is the way it was the way it was made.

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

Real Time Stats and Communication for Your Blog or Site

I love trying new things to make my sites more interactive and cool. I recently found a cool app that allows you to have real-time stats on your site as well as the ability to chat with a specific visitor on your site.

Woopra is the first step into what will be the future for websites and blogs. Imagine being able to see who is on your site, where they are from, what operating system they are using, and how long they have been there in real-time. Woopra uses a desktop client to monitor your sites.

INSTALLATION

Installation is very easy. When you get your account they give you a small piece of Javascript to put on your site. Once the script is on your site you will instantly start receiving information about your visitors.

USE

The desktop client is easy to use and looks great. It gives you as much information as any other stat tool but it allows for real-time interaction with your visitors.

PRICE

Currently the beta is free. They plan to have both free and paid services.

Currently it is still in private beta but if they let me have an account, they should let anyone have one. (Actually these invites are so hard to get that someone sold theirs on Ebay!) If you are interested check them out and sign up.

Automatically Synchronize All Your Firefox Browsers

If you use multiple computers and have several Firefox browsers that you use on a regular basis you will know the headaches caused by having different settings, bookmarks, history, cookies, and saved passwords. I actually use about four different Firefox installs. I have three computers I use on a daily basis and a USB thumb drive with a portable Firefox install. I needed all of these to automatically sync with each other. This is how I did it...

Get a Google account

The add on that syncs your browser uses a Google account to store the sync info. To do this click here then fill out all of the information. Make sure your account is active and then move on the the next step.

Get the Addon

1. Click this link to go to the download page for the Firefox add-on.
2. Click on the link that says "browsersync.xpi"
3. Click "Agree and Install", then click "Install" on the next window that pops up.
4. Let the program install and then let your browser restart.

Activate the Addon

1. Make sure you have your Google account information available because you will need it.
2. Follow the on screen instructions that will appear before your browser starts back up.

Add It to All of Your Firefoxes.

If this is going to help you at all you must install it on all of your personal browsers.

And that's all. Right now this only works for Firefox 2. Support for Firefox 3 should be coming out soon.


***Update***
If you are only interested in syncing your bookmarks, then check out Foxmarks. The version is still in beta but they are allowing anyone to sign up. I use it now and it works great. Click here to create an account.