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
the coolest thing ive seen on the net for months.
http://arje.net/rasterbator
after reading this.
to go up against big ol MS.
gabillion dollars involved.. something to do with PDF.. adobe reader and flash. I think freehand’s probably gonna get canned in favor of illustrator, and golive might be discontinued in favor of dreamweaver (personally i still use the simpler homesite, from macromedia’s earlier purchase of alaire).
but thing is, when o when is adobe going to come up with a lin version of photoshop?
This week marks the 3rd wifi installation i will do for a client who does not need wifi, but just wants it installed. period. never mind if they never venture from their desks when they work. Never mind if all the computers in their office have been running on a very reliable 100mbits wired LAN for years.
For these discriminating people, i have accumulated tips designed to assist them in the pursuit of their.. rather unique.. goals. To wit:
Continue reading wifi advice for the pretentious and assuming
youd think by now after spending so many hours on the new PC, i’d have something else to talk about by now, such as being ‘featured’ on one of the magazines i write for (more on this later), but nooo.. Continue reading dude pare were like, wifi nahh…
being exposed to the speed of the new PC, I naturally got envious and resolved to reformat/reinstall my own old PC to better be able to experience once again the performance of a freshly baked computer – a feeling I’ve not had since it’s last reformat/reinstall many months ago.
reason why Ive delayed of course is because it just seems so… complicated.
motivated as such, i hunkered down and readied myself for the ordeal, which all but took – 3 hours. More or less, probably less. And with most of that time watching tv no less.
In other words, I was in a huff over nothing. I got on it around 6pm, occasionally getting up from the couch to press a button or insert a cd, and by 9 i was finished. By morning I put in the finishing touches, and by mid-morning I was working already. No prob.
And by afternoon the fact was sinking in. All these months letting myself get weighed down by an ever-slowing PC (due to some adware and a possible virus or two) was stupid. It was just me, complicating things.
btw my PC’s faster, but still nowhere as fast as the new one. sheesh.
absolutely, positively, need to get the ultimate high in modern digital design, download New WebPick, a 40mb .exe that’ll absolutely, positively knock your socks off.
been checking these guys out since Vol. 1, and my gawd do these artists know their stuff. I mean, it almost makes me wanna cry looking through it. Page after page of bang – your – head – on – the – wall, throw – a – fit, cry – home – to – your – mommy – because – you’ll – never – be – good – enough – to – even – try – to – do – half – of – what – they – can type of design.
Man it hurts. Ouch.
Elite l7vta2 kt400/ddr/agp8x/sound/lan motherboard 2150
AMD sempron 2200 +333mhz processor (box) 3350
Western Digital 40gb 7200rpm Hard Drive 2750
Generic 512mb PC266 DRAM 2200
Inno3d FX5500 128DDR(8x) 128bit TV-out/DVI Video Card 3350
Sony 1.44 FDD 420
AOC 7vlr 17″ Silver Black Monitor 5300
Lite-On 52/32/52 (burn proof) Black CDR 1500
Reflex AMP 706 P4 300w (blue) casing 1550
SG 4100 keyboard (black ps2) free
Generic Scroll Mouse Black ps2 free
Mouse pad free
Colossus 693 180watt black speakers free
total Php 22,770.00
using it now to post this, and i gotta say, its pretty fast for most our purposes, and we’re a happy lot now at home. Wasn’t able to get the MSI AP11b Wifi Access point yet. They had only 1 unit left and when we opened it to check, it was grimy, and when I pulled it out the box the antenna fell off. likely it was a showroom unit, but its definitely seen better days, causing staff to issue me one of the rarest events in my many years of buying PCs – a cash refund.
At any rate, it’s the cheapest WAP out there, or at least in PCExpress’s pricelist to date, others being the P4,500.00 Surecom EP-9600GP and the P3,850.00 Cnet CNAP-711. The MSI unit costs only P2,950.00, and I have instructed my sister to look for one at Gilmore as we speak.
Other points of note is the incredible drop in price of a quality CDR in the Lite-On 52/32/52 unit above. I remember distinctly saving up for a P5,000.00 or so 24x unit not too long ago. At P1,500.00, CDRs should be standard equipment by now (and likely, Nero Burning Rom as de facto burning software, as well as .nrg, Nero’s proprietary disk image format), so I was surprised a bit when I compared PCExpress’s bundled promo options and found some units without one, so these are likely extra inventory. They also dont stock 5400 rpm drives anymore, and at P2750 for 7200rpm 40gb that is a good deal.
i opted for a blue version of my Reflex 706 casing, which other than having tons of space for air to circulate around, and space for another fan (just comes with one), just plain darn looks good in my opinion. I also bought a black/silver monitor AOC monitor, actually a trade-off from buying what I really wanted, a 19″ flat unit. If I didnt have to get the WAP I’d have gone for it and still stuck to the 25k ceiling, but as it is, no go.
And finally, the mobo/processor selection. Although ECS isn’t a highly regarded brand, I took a risk on it 2 years ago and my unit is still going strong (knock on wood). Except for a few ‘cannot find hard disk’ issues which turned out to be defective ide cables, the thing is still ok. I could probably have done better than a Sempron 2200, but the closest Athlon at 2800mhz is P6,250.00, 2x the price. And as processors go, Id likely not find much difference in 2200 to 2800mhz, so I went cheap and again, stuck with the budget.
I’ve stuck to the philosophy of pouring on the RAM and Video Card, and ‘scrimping’ on the processor (and in this case, had to with the mobo as well). So far it’s worked out for me, but the best affirmation of this was when the guy helping me select parts blurted out a “tama yan bossing buhos mo sa ram at vidcard, itong mga ‘to (points at mobo/proc) pare pareho lang naman e”. nuff said.
incoming UP freshman niece should have any of the below by end of weekend:
option A Php 26,340
Intel P4-2.26 Box 512kb 533mhz 6400
ECS 661FX-M7 Vagp8x/Sata/S/Lan 2750
512 MB PC266 DDR 2200
40 gig Western Digital 7200 2750
Inno3D FX5200 128ddr tv-out 8x 64bit 2600
Sony floppy 390
17″ Boka 17NF 4350
Lite-On 52x/32/52 1450
Reflex725/ Casing w/supply & Kybrd 1750
option B Php 22,290
Sempron 2200+ Box w/ fan 3350
ECS 755A2L agp8x/S/Lan/sata/R 3450
512 MB PC266 DDR 2200
40 gig Western Digital 7200 2750
Inno3D FX5200 128ddr tv-out 8x 64bit 2600
Sony floppy 390
17″ Boka 17NF 4350
Lite-On 52x/32/52 1450
Reflex725/ Casing w/supply & Kybrd 1750
option C Php 22,390
Intel Celeron 2.4D Box 4150
ECS 661FX-M7 Vagp8x/Sata/S/Lan 2750
512 MB PC266 DDR 2200
40 gig Western Digital 7200 2750
Inno3D FX5200 128ddr tv-out 8x 64bit 2600
Sony floppy 390
17″ Boka 17NF 4350
Lite-On 52x/32/52 1450
Reflex725/ Casing w/supply & Kybrd 1750
the budget is 25k, which was supposed to be 30k except I think she opted to buy nike sneakers with the difference. Silly Girl. just kidding.
nwyay this also includes btw a MSI AP11B WiFi Access Point (P2950), which i will immediately swap with a client’s wifi router – bought mistakenly on a whim by one of their senior staff when he thought that was what they needed.
Anyway, he’s willing to swap me what they really need with the router, a savings of approx. 2.5k. Smart and lucky. What can I say.