Comments on: Writing tools: a good laptop

By: Matthew Stibbe

Matthew Stibbe — Fri, 30 May 2008 07:11:58 +0000

Sorry Mornay, but I’m not really in a good position to provide technical support for you. First, I haven’t done the XP downgrade (Vista works fine for me, regardless of what Dan thinks). Second, not really my problem - try your company IT department or HP technical support.

By: Mornay le Roux

Mornay le Roux — Fri, 30 May 2008 07:09:32 +0000

HI,
I need help. I got a 2510P laptop that was downgraded from Vista to XP (company reasons) and now the layout of my keybaord is incorrect. What should the language settings be so that it works again.

If I press shift + 9 to get ) on the 2510P i get (

Please help.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:36:53 +0000

Vista? Yuck! I’ll stick with my trusty Macbook.

By: Bad Language / How to keep data on laptops safe

Bad Language / How to keep data on laptops safe — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:16:36 +0000

[...] I write about security a lot now, I am increasingly concerned about laptop security. (See my article about new laptop with a fingerprint sensor and whole disk [...]

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:47:19 +0000

Oooo - check this out: http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook

Although the price is fairly hefty, dare we dream they might eschew the £/$ 1:1 conversion traditional in technology, what with the dollar being so weak?

By: Matthew Stibbe

Matthew Stibbe — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:59:47 +0000

zhasper, quite right. Sorry. Matthew

By: zhasper

zhasper — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:23:56 +0000

/me sets mode +nasty_pedant
I can get online anywhere at about 1.5gb/s. At home, with just one pip showing in the signal strength, I get about 500mb/s.

1.5gb/s is 1.5x faster than the fastest possible ethernet connection. 500mb/s is 5x faster than the more normal 100mb/s ethernet connections. 500mb/s is ~50 times faster than dsl…

I *think* that you mean 1.5mb/s and 500kb/s.
/me sets mode -nasty_pedant

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:07:31 +0000

For internet use (emailing, youtubing, googling, Skyping with vid, streaming music, etc) I just switch on my mini Asus Eee PC - ready to rock in 28 secs from cold

By: Matthew Stibbe

Matthew Stibbe — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:48:05 +0000

I did think about Bootcamp and Parallels but I wasn’t sure if the technology was ready for prime time. Anyway, running VirtualPC on my old Mac was a horrible experience but I think the newer Macs would have done better.

And, yes, OSX is much easier to administer and keep safe. My clients at Microsoft won’t like me saying that but it wouldn’t have taken four hours to download an install 70+ system patches on a Mac before I could use it!

On the other hand, with a TPM chip, full disk encryption and biometrics built in, I think my HP is much more secure - as a laptop - than a Mac. It is also true that if you protect yourself sensibly on a PC, you can have a Mac-like experience with no viruses or whatever.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:25:50 +0000

Fair points all. But as an OS polyglot (from mainframes to CP/M to Sinclair, MS-DOS, Gem Plus, Windows 3.1, OS 8, Windows 95, OS 9, Linux, Windows XP and now OSX Tiger), I’m afraid I do have to say that OSX is by far the best system I’ve ever used. When I’m doing tech support for my wife or in-laws on their various shades of Windows, I just get so frustrated. Mix OSX with the neat design of my MacBook and you have unassailable brand loyalty - for now.

Out of interest, Matthew, did Parallels not satisfy your Windows needs? None of those apps looks particularly system intensive. I take your point about buttons…

Interesting observation about tablet forms, too. But although I’ve never used one for any length of time, am I so horribly wrong to stick with pen and paper for taking conference notes? The tablet doesn’t seem to have taken off in the way many thought it might.