the lawyers at one of my clients is offering me his ancient laptop for quite a reasonable amount and at 3 gives (is ‘gives’ exclusively Pinoy? in case there are any foreigners wandering about, its aka ‘installments’). At any rate, specs:
ibm thinkpad 600e, Pentium III 363mhz, 6gb HD, 128mb RAM, cdrom, pcmcia, earphone/mic, modem, 1 usb, 1 parallel, 1 serial, 1 ps2
i was never into laptops. nor gadgets for that matter. i remember being issued both in former employment which i often left neatly tucked away in my drawer, partly due to fact that either item was more expensive than my then car, partly because i found them bulky, partly because i felt i couldnt be bothered maintaining/using a desktop PC and a notebook at the same time, and partly because i did not see the point in bringing my work anywhere outside of where i was supposed to (the office). Not at office = not working. Seems logical.
however, the relentless 37.9� heat, occasional boredom at the house-office, and the availability of free hotspots around the city have changed this somewhat. Due to fortuitous offer above, i now imagine myself happily firing away at nearby rockwell mcdo, where i gather a signal from some nearby cafe spills over. FTPing/terminaling/photoshoping with glee, writing better, more complete articles, making fantastic websites, completing past projects, rubbing my chin slowly as I dream up of exciting internet ideas as I sip a refreshing beverage in a balmy commercial establishment’s atmosphere. Ah, the promise of a fruitful, more fulfilled life beckons – or so the brochure I’ve made up in my mind says.
At any rate, we’re still talking about a 6 year old notebook here, but at the price offered and the great condition it’s in, I’m fairly convinced. After of course, a few necessary embellishments, namely a P1,650.00 PCMCIA WiFi G Adapter, a suitable RHEL, a bigger hard disk, possibly a new battery, one of those cheapo usb splitters, one of those cutesy usb mice, but most sought after upgrade of all, MORE RAM. The good news is, Thinkpads are a fairly popular brand, and RAM may just be a matter of searching around ABC Computers (the local standard Thinkpad repair place) and other similar establishments. The bad news is, how many memory slots does the 600e have, and if there’s only one slot and I do find RAM, will I find RAM bigger than 128mb (the standard config for this model), and of course, how much will this all COST.
hmm..
Outside of the blurry parts however, the purchase is likely a go. I just read preceding paragraph and I thought to myself, that kind of info I mentioned: ie, what i need to buy, where to buy it, how much will it cost, what is it i dont know and what can I do to compromise, etc. means that after xx years of doing this, I think i know what im doing – buying an old clunker of a machine and making it suit my purposes. Besides, he’s selling it real cheap.
Do I sound convinced or what? Fresh beverage in balmy commercial establishment atmosphere here I come.