K
keith
Just to follow up on this last slam... I read later today that according
to Carly, HP's printer revenue is 30% of HP's total, but accounts for 80%
of its profit! Ink is expensive.
Just to follow up on this last slam... I read later today that according
to Carly, HP's printer revenue is 30% of HP's total, but accounts for 80%
of its profit! Ink is expensive.
G
George Macdonald
Hey, maybe IBM should buy back Lexmark.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
K
keith
Come on! Cordless mice are the "cat's" ass. Optical *and* cordless is
even better. The neat thing about the Logitech MX700 is that the NiCds
are standard AAs and are *easily* replaced, if need be. It's a great
design.
I think I've used a floppy drive a *total* of once in the past three
years. I'm not even sure why a put a floppy drive in this system, other
than I had it rotting on the shelf. Email is easier than floppies, and
flash drives now make them totally useless.
The "facts" are now out. I think they'll keep the "Think" brands, though
the IBM logo is another thing entirely.
T
Tony Hill
Blame it on reading news offline! A throw-back to my days gone by of
using a modem to access the internet (aka "the dark ages").
Hmm.. for some reason I had thought that IBM had discontinued those
systems along with their consumer line. Guess I missed that... I sure
don't see many companies buying these anymore though!
Yes, but they're a third that might actually try to compete with Dell
and HPaq on desktops, unlike IBM (or at least IBM in North America).
That depends on whether or not you're using an HP printer :>
C
chrisv
keith said:
Optical is much better, for sure. Not so sure cordless would make my
life any better...
T
The little lost angel
Personally, I'm not going back to a wired mouse for sure
pPpPp--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code
J
Joe Pfeiffer
chrisv said:
I just didn't notice the extent to which the mouse cord was dragging
until I got a cordless; now, the difference between my machine at home
(cordless) and my machine in my office (cord) is like night and day.
I don't see a whole lot of use for cordless keyboards, though (I've
got one of those, too). For me, the best of all possible worlds would
be a cordless mouse and cord keyboard, with the mouse receiver in the
keyboard.
C
cquirke (MVP Win9x)
Cordless and ball is really tragic - I had a client who spent up on
exactly that; geez, the shop must have been happy. I'd rather live
with a cord than have to add batteries, and at least one Logitech
keyboard+mouse stings you there. The blurb made big noise about
rechargable mouse batteries, with charging station etc., but guess
what? The keyboard's batteries weren't rechargeable!
We're still in transition on that one. You can't use email to boot a
PC, recover data from it, and clean up malware
More to the point, the NT installation procedure still prompts for
boot-needed drivers (S-ATA, RAID, SCSI etc.) off diskette. Until BIOS
support for USB is solid enough, I can't see a fix, as the optical
drive may well be on the same controller you are trying to drive.
Once USB sticks are as cheap as 1.44M (they are already for laptops,
but that's because laptop 1.44M are so costly) then we may see the
shift - but there's another gotcha to be fixed first.
If a USB stick is bootable (as would be more often the case if we
ditch 1.44M) and is in the PC on boot or when OS is installed, it
sometimes scrambles drive letter allocation.
Tech Support: The guys who follow the
'Parade of New Products' with a shovel.
G
George Macdonald
Yep, to me this is the interesting part of the deal - I'm sure they're
crunching numbers at Dell right now to figure what kinda price Lenovo is
going to hit the U.S. market with and what sectors they'll go after
aggressively... and of course Lenovo has recently signed up for AMD CPUs.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
G
George Macdonald
Optical is the only way to go now but... sorry but I can't get past the
idea of batteries. When the 'phone ones go low we always seem to be out;
often as not we don't have a working flashlight when we most need it and
have to search out the candles... in the dark
; the digital camera oneseems to spend more time plugged in the wall than it does in the camera. I
don't need another device which goes "hungry" when I really need it... when
the cord is no inconvenience to me.
Yeah we're almost there on elimination of floppies but the USB ones are
$25. or so, *if* you really need one. When they offer you a T42P I'd say
"yes please".
BTW we have two dead A2x models in the office. Similar symptoms: lock-up
after they get warmed up; I've had the CPUs out, since I read at
www.thinkpads.com that this can be a badly seated CPU but... no joy.:-(
They both had a hard life and for all I know have had a coke, coffee (or
even whisky or beer) bath so I'm not agonizing over them.
From what I read, it seemed we'll be able to buy IBM branded Thinkpads for
5 years or so at least - IOW Lenovo is just taking over management of the
U.S. operation and the already exisiting sub-contracted mfr. in China.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
K
keith
I went to cordless long before optical. I can't stand rat-tails. They
keep getting hung up in the stuff on the desk (or in the crack between the
desk and wall).
K
keith
Hey, maybe IBM should buy back Lexmark.
....and what's in it for Lexmark? Remember, they escaped once. ;-)
K
keith
No batteries in my keyboard. It's a '91 vintage Model-M. ;-)
The mouse I replaced (both at home and work) was a M$ cordless. The
balls were starting to act up and I got tired of feeding them AAA
batteries. The nice thing about the Logitech 700 mouse batteries is that
they're standard NiCd AAs, thus easily and cheaply replaceable.
We're still in transition on that one. You can't use email to boot a
PC, recover data from it, and clean up malware
One can boot a PC off a CDROM, so where's the beef?
Again, CDROM.
Dunno, a friend snagged a 256MB USB stick from Staples for $10. Last I
checked that was pretty close to a floppy drive's cost and a tad larger.
SMOP. But again, don't all systems have CDROM drives? DOn't 90% of the
new ones (where floppys could be eliminated) have CD-R or CD-R/W drives?
K
keith
Optical is the only way to go now but... sorry but I can't get past the
idea of batteries. When the 'phone ones go low we always seem to be out;
often as not we don't have a working flashlight when we most need it and
have to search out the candles... in the dark
seems to spend more time plugged in the wall than it does in the camera. I
don't need another device which goes "hungry" when I really need it... when
the cord is no inconvenience to me.
Hang up the mouse when you're not calling, err mousing. It's
rechargeable. I've also noticed (because I don't always remember to hang
it up) that it will run about a day (at least eight hours) begging for a
recharge. There is a blinkin' red LED on its back to signal when it needs
a fix.
As far as cords go, I'm always getting them tangled or wedged between the
desk and wall. They're kinda like the old-style automobile seatbelts.
Rather pythonesque (and it's not at all funny).
Yeah we're almost there on elimination of floppies but the USB ones are
$25. or so, *if* you really need one. When they offer you a T42P I'd
say "yes please".
As I said in another article, a friend snagged a 256MB stick for $10
at Staples last weekend. At the stores here they were $30. I'll take
the T42p IFF my dock still works (or they fork over for that too). ;-)
May they rest in peace.
The issue of the "Think" brand was murky, IMO. It was clear that
Lenovo was going to use the color IBM logo for five years. BTW, they
also get the manufacturing iin Mexico (I think it's still there for the
'T' series) and the Sanmina-SCI sub-contracts.
C
cquirke (MVP Win9x)
I also get fed up with dragging mouse cord, but I just snag it under
the monitor's foot to stop it escaping over the back of the desk!
It's inefficient to keeop an av on CDR updated for field work (this is
where bootable or reachable USB stick is better).
CD-ROM's also not a great place to do BIOS flash from, if this changes
the status of the UIDE interface.
If the boot HD's on a fancy interface that needs special drivers,
guess what interface the CD-ROM's likely to be on too?
Prices here are dropping, with regular specials, but nothing as cheaop
as that. Best is typically 128M at R 150 or so, which is about $25.
As I say; it's in transition. At present I still find 1.44M useful
for various maintenance tasks, including av, and obviously so when
dealing with older PCs (here, we see right back to DOS 3.3)
the monitor's foot to stop it escaping over the back of the desk!
It's inefficient to keeop an av on CDR updated for field work (this is
where bootable or reachable USB stick is better).
CD-ROM's also not a great place to do BIOS flash from, if this changes
the status of the UIDE interface.
If the boot HD's on a fancy interface that needs special drivers,
guess what interface the CD-ROM's likely to be on too?
Prices here are dropping, with regular specials, but nothing as cheaop
as that. Best is typically 128M at R 150 or so, which is about $25.
As I say; it's in transition. At present I still find 1.44M useful
for various maintenance tasks, including av, and obviously so when
dealing with older PCs (here, we see right back to DOS 3.3)
Trsut me, I won't make a mistake!
G
George Macdonald
Only a day - fahgedabatit... for me.
That's what Scotch tape was invented for.
If the dock is a 2631, it won't work - you'd need a "Dock II" or Mini-Dock,
which are backwards compatible with A2x models. There must be something
about the new models' connector which is electrically different enough that
they made it so T4xs won't physically fit in the old Docks - the shape and
form of the connector is the same though... or it's just gouging.
Here's the cross-reference:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4NXNTP
If you don't need a drive bay in the Dock, the Mini-Dock looks good.
Somehow I don't think the Chinese are going to get along with the Mexican
work style, as I've heard it put.;-) From the blurb at the IBM Web site,
IBM seems to be falling over itself to push Lenovo as a worthy, reputable
inheritor. It appears that in China they are considered a top quality
brand so things may work out well. It's also possible that the association
gives IBM some leverage to build out its services contracts business in
China down the road.
Did you catch Mikey's take on it:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118868,00.asp ? He's gotta be
worried about this. I dunno how Dell sits in China just now but I'd think
the IBM brands must add some cachet to the Lenovo line in their home market
and maybe the Pacific Rim in general.
Rgds, George Macdonald
"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
T
Tony Hill
I throw my $0.02 (CDN dollars) into the fry and say that I'm rather
happy with my cordless mouse. Optical is a *MUST* IMO. At work we've
got absolute crap equipment from about 50 years ago (corded ball mice,
most of which don't even have scroll wheels), and it's definitely a
pain in the ass.
I didn't think too much about cordless until I got one, and in fact I
only got a cordless because my corded mouse died on me just a couple
months ago. I was looking around at mice and found a cordless
Logitech Click Plus! was only a few dollars more than a similar corded
mouse so I figured "what the heck, I'll give it a shot".
After trying it I don't think I would ever go back to a corded mouse.
I'm still a bit worried about the (non-rechargeable) batteries.
Haven't had to replace them yet, but I've only had the mouse for ~2
months. Still, I should probably grab a spare set of batteries
sometime, just in case.
T
Tony Hill
It's a lot less efficient to use floppies in my experience. The disks
cost more than CDRs and floppies might as well be one-time use only
since the die so often. These days I typically find at least one out
of every 3 floppies I try fails.
I'd MUCH rather do a BIOS flash from a CD-ROM than from a floppy. FAR
less chance of getting a corrupt image due to a bad floppy disk.
Besides, no one uses the BIOS for IDE interface after bootstrapping
anyway, that's why almost all BIOS updates now can be done in Windows
(not always ideal if you have Linux box).
Most likely plain old IDE. The percentage of CD-ROM drives that are
hanging off some obscure interface is pretty darn low. I know I was
definitely in the minority when I had two CD-ROMs hanging off a
non-bootable SCSI drive about a year ago. Fortunately I have now
replaced one of those drives with an IDE one and the other will
probably go when I can afford the $75 or so for a new DVD-RW drive.
USB drives are the sort of thing that you can often get really good
specials on and more than once I've seen them thrown in as a "free"
gift along with another purchase (ie printers, monitors, etc.).
Sure, archaic PCs might still require floppies, but modern ones? By
default many (most?) new systems no longer ship with floppies, and to
that I say "good riddance!" Probably at least 99.9% of all new
systems have bootable CD-ROM drives that are FAR more useful than
floppies.
Any time I still need to use a floppy disk these days I always make
sure to have AT LEAST two copies of the same disk because the chance
of one failing is so high. That's something I almost never have to
worry about with CDRs (sure, they do die, but at only a very tiny
fraction of how often floppies die).
I've still got a floppy drive in my system, but I think I've used it
only once (to update a BIOS) since getting an IDE CD-RW drive almost a
year ago. If I need to update the BIOS on my new boards (one of which
does not have a floppy drive plugged in to it), I'll probably just
grab a bootable CDR instead though. Cheaper and more reliable.
T
Tony Hill
I like how Dell continues to talk the talk against outsourcing without
mentioning that pretty much all of their tech support has been
outsourced. I don't know for certain, but I'd be willing to bet that
the much publicized move to bring corporate support back to the US
after a failed attempt to outsource in India still ended up at an
outsourced company; probably Convergys, SITEL or Stream.
I don't know how much of their manufacturing has been outsourced, but
definitely some of it has. On the flip side, the bulk of HPaq's
business computer line are manufactured (err.. assembled) in the US as
well, so they really aren't all that different from Dell here either.
I'd be fairly confident that IBM is in the same boat as well.
Well I'll be... I was just doing a bit of digging for some market
share numbers and I found this little bit:
"Several years ago, Michael Dell was quoted as saying the greatest
threat to the Dell direct-to-consumer model came from Lenovo."
Ref:
http://www.china-ready.com/news/Jan...essureOnLegendInChinaDomesticMarket012904.htm
This is especially interesting because that article was written almost
a year ago, long before anyone got wind of this new deal between IBM
and Lenovo. No idea where the original quote came from though.
K
keith
Only a day - fahgedabatit... for me.
It's (at least) a day *after* the thing starts complaning. It's more like
a week between required fixes.
Gack. That's even worse. I used to tie everyting up with cable ties so
it was neat. What a PITA when one wants to rearange things, or even clean
(heaven forbid ;-).
I *think* it's a Dock-II, but I'd have to pull the thing apart to find
out. I tend to only take the thing out of the dock every week or so
(usually not that often) since the ThinkPad must be powered off to get it
loose.
I've seen some that are physically not compatable. The TP has a wart
sticking out the back that interferes with the back of the dock and
even a replicator. ...wonderful design!
the shape and form of the connector is the same though... or
it's just gouging.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4NXNTP
If you don't need a drive bay in the Dock, the Mini-Dock looks good.
I don't need a drive in the Dock (though I would like a CD-R/W) but I *do*
need the PCI slot.
Not everyting is darkness.
That's sorta what they've been feeding the insiders too. Everything is
peaches and cream! ...it may just be.
There must be something in it for 'em. ThinkPads are a great line,
but the rest is rather weak, IMO. We'll see.