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RIP Stinky 28 Nov 2003

My computer at work, a T23 StinkPad, is on its way out… it’s not that old, but it’s had a hard life, so time to replace. I have to say, the iMac (switched on 24/7) makes all these computers look like real wusses. In the time I’ve had my iMac I have had at least six laptops at work. Six! Having said that, ThinkPads are good machines in terms of build and durability. I suspect the OS is the main problem here…

Anyway, the StinkPad is dying. Oft-times I rouse it from its slumber to find that it just cannot wake up. I have to do a hard re-boot to get going again. In addition, certain keys are extremely worn on the keyboard. The machine is barely a year old, but can you guess which keys have had it?

Yup. CTRL. And ALT. And… well, DELETE is pretty knackered, but actually the SHIFT key on the left side is worse. You can always tell a Notes developer too: not only is CTRL getting fuzzy, so is the PAUSE / BREAK key ;-)

Oh well, such is life. Hopefully I’ll be upgrading to a T40 with twice the memory — half a gig should keep WinXP a little happier I hope. And maybe I won’t have to re-image the machine quite so often (roughly every three to four months at the moment).

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Comments

  1. Thinking about WebSphere Studio? Double that memory for a minimum setup and go to 2 Gig if you want to get something done.Volker Weber#
  2. Aye, and everyone thinks Eclipse is bad! I don’t have WSAD yet, and don’t think I will have it for some time, but if / when it comes, I shall definitely upgrade.

    At the moment, my main concern is getting WinXP to run half decently (yeah, I know… :-D )Ben Poole#
  3. I must be doing something wrong. I have had the same 850Ghz 256MB Dell Inspiron with W2K for …well it'll be three years in March and I have never needed to re-image. It has served me well since day one. Sorry no Windows complaints at my house but then again, I have yet to own Mac ….Curt Carlson#
  4. My T23 is 18 months old. The case is cracked, the "C" "M" "." and "," keys are worn, and there are lots of crumbs in the keyboard :) I would like to think I'll score an upgrade in '04…Ed Brill#
  5. Well, in fairness to Windoze, one has to bear in mind that this is a work machine, and therefore has a work image on it: lots of particular bits of software, and ongoing updates. So I guess the stuff piles on, and over time the machine doesn’t like it. I usually re-image in a bid to get performance back up to par: by far the most sluggish element of WinXP for me is explorer.exe and the start menu. They’re just so unresponsive.

    I also have the temerity, as a developer, to add software to the machine. For example, my non-standard stuff comprises Notes 6, Spybot, TextPad, Eclipse, Cygwin, Pixie, iTunes (sssh!) and the Java development kit.Ben Poole#
  6. They don't make-em like they used to.

    My old 600 (that's pre T days), with PII 233mhz and 160mb Ram, is still going strong. True its not used for development (for that I use a fully loaded T30), but it makes a great test machine on the basis that if it runs on the 600 it'll run on anything. And, its still got the best keyboard on a laptop I've ever used including the new T41's.AJP#
  7. Oh the 600, I remember those! I think that was the model we got after the 365 (now that was an interesting machine. It rattled like nothing on earth).Ben Poole#
  8. And another thing about with the old days. The old TP AC adapters would accept any standard power cable, be it a monitor power cable, an unused PC or even a kettle cable. Now you have to carry a special IBM power cable which, if left behind at a client site, means a frustrating search on the IBM web site for a replacement. Not to mention the morning ritual of 10 minutes on your knees fumbling around under desks trying to find a spare socket.AJP#
  9. AJP, I still have one of these. Make a bid. :-)Volker Weber#
  10. Our laptop standard is a Gb of RAM (its dirt cheap so why scrimp). XP + a few apps (Notes Client/Admin, SameTime, NotesBuddy, Mozilla, VNC, Putty, and an RSS Reader) and your 512Mb RAM will be gone in no time.

    Also consider VMware for R & D - keep your environment in a virtual environment you can move from one machine to another + it has nifty features like roll-back.

    You do take a 10% performance hit but the advantage is you abstract your working environment from the machine itself.

    Raj.Raj#

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I’m a developer / general IT wrangler, specialising in web apps, the mobile web, enterprise Java and the odd Domino system.

Best described as a simpleton, but kindly. Read more…