Pants pants pants

[bunn]

The power socket for my laptop has really truly finally died this time, and after a new power cord, a new keyboard, sugru to hold the disintegrating case and power socket together, I think the dratted thing is finally on the way out this time.   Who knew a Vaio would be so fragile?  Although I think it's lasted me since 2011, so I suppose that by modern standards its lifetime was not excessively short.

Laptop purchasing is a horrid nightmarish confusopoly, even choosing with the help of Pp who builds his own machines.  In the end, I have ordered an Asus N550JK.   It will come with Windows 8*, oh no, and it will no doubt take three days to ensure it is all set up as I want it. Drattitude.

* Before anyone pops up to say 'why not another OS'...- I'm sticking with Windows.  I fully expect Windows 8 to be baffling and horrible, but any OS I don't know is bound to be baffling and horrible, and this way at least I should be able to keep most of the software I know how to use.  Just the idea of going through it all to find out if it will all run on anything else fills me with dread, let alone the idea of having to find non-Windows alternatives and learn their quirks.  I like learning, but not that kind!

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux as a server OS, everything I build is hosted on Linux and I turn away any work that requires a Windows server.  But for a desktop machine, I want my oooooold familiar horrible applications that have calcified habitually around me like a shell over the years.  I did briefly consider going cloud-based with a Chromebook, but I have enough hassle with Google randomly changing their mind about their web interfaces all the time, I would like to keep some control!

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

10 days! Eeek! Good luck with the setup.

I always thought netbooks were a good idea, but I tend to want to do everything on the same device, and some of the things I do I need more processor power for, so working on a minidevice never quite happened. I do have a phone which in theory I should be able to work on, it's quite a powerful little computer, but in practice I never do, and the poor thing has been relegated to being a small camera that occasionally takes phonecalls or is required to display a recipe when I'm cooking.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I like my netbook, as it's a bit more portable than a full laptop but perfectly good for browsing, office stuff, and simple games.

I think the problem these days is that you have a spectrum of devices available from basic phone through smartphone, tablet, netbook, laptop, to desktop, with each of them available in various sizes and strengths. The only sensible thing to do is to pick some convenient points and ignore the ones in between.

So at the moment I have a basic (not smart) phone (with a week of battery!) for keeping in touch, a desktop for day to day purposes, and a netbook for travelling, whereas LoA goes for intermediate steps: a smartphone and a laptop (as well as the desktop for writing on and killing me with).

My phone contract is up for renewal and it seems sensible on one level to go for a smartphone, but that's a move up the spectrum: I'd lose the battery life and portability of my existing phone, but the gains in terms of web access aren't great as my netbook covers off most of that. Maybe I should have both phones and just swap SIMs about so I can pick and choose :-)

What I really want is a coherent modular suite, where say a very basic phone connects to a laptop to make it a 4G device, and the laptop docks with a proper monitor and keyboard to make a desktop. Shouldn't be hard to do technically, but I bet it'd be expensive :-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I am something of a dinosaur; I don't *like* using multiple devices for anything more than the most lightweight web browsing and email. So I have one heavy, large overpowered laptop which I use for everything and lug about regardless of weight.

Thinking about it, this is probably an evolution of the way that I didn't like leaving books in a locker at school, so would carry a huge bag full of books from lesson to lesson. Consistency above all!

At the moment I am on one of Pp's desktop machines. It isn't set up right, nothing is in the right place and it makes me snarl. :-/

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. Everything is on the desktop: the phone is just for calls and texts, and the netbook is for specific things (mostly through the web) when the desktop isn't available.

I don't like the idea of a phone that can do stuff, because it's one more thing to keep track of.

I have moved over to using OneDrive to keep documents synched across the desktop and netbook, and accessible from other PCs too. But it's not very reliable :-(

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I like my netbook, as it's a bit more portable than a full laptop but perfectly good for browsing, office stuff, and simple games.

I think the problem these days is that you have a spectrum of devices available from basic phone through smartphone, tablet, netbook, laptop, to desktop, with each of them available in various sizes and strengths. The only sensible thing to do is to pick some convenient points and ignore the ones in between.

So at the moment I have a basic (not smart) phone (with a week of battery!) for keeping in touch, a desktop for day to day purposes, and a netbook for travelling, whereas LoA goes for intermediate steps: a smartphone and a laptop (as well as the desktop for writing on and killing me with).

My phone contract is up for renewal and it seems sensible on one level to go for a smartphone, but that's a move up the spectrum: I'd lose the battery life and portability of my existing phone, but the gains in terms of web access aren't great as my netbook covers off most of that. Maybe I should have both phones and just swap SIMs about so I can pick and choose :-)

What I really want is a coherent modular suite, where say a very basic phone connects to a laptop to make it a 4G device, and the laptop docks with a proper monitor and keyboard to make a desktop. Shouldn't be hard to do technically, but I bet it'd be expensive :-)