Dead Dell Precision M70

by | Nov 28, 2005 | Blog, Computer Hardware

MobileServerDellM70
We have a project going at work where we need several higher-end laptops to act as mobile servers. So we purchased a Dell Precision M70 (2.26ghz, 2gb ram, 80gb HDD, extra 80gb HDD for backup purposes), PowerNotebooks NP5720 (same specs as the Dell), and a IBM Thinkpad T43 (similiar specs except only 1.5gb ram). Up until Saturday I have been highly impressed with the Dell laptop. It has a solidly built, good design. Remember that I am a super picky user any wierd creaking or excessive fan noise or heat etc. I will notice and complain! The performance from the Dell has been super. Running Photoshop with full sized raw images went smoothly. Heat tends to be an issue that I’m particularly sensative to and the Dell certainly got warm as you’d expect but the heat is situated in the lower back section so if you use a laptop tray like I tend to use then I don’t even notice the heat. Many times to combat the heat there will be loud annoying fans and that isn’t the case with the Dell either. There are fans of course but they aren’t noticeable. So all this good news and then Saturday comes along and the Dell quits working.

I used it for a couple of hours Saturday morning with no problems. Then I went to turn it on Saturday afternoon and nothing. How often do we tell people to always backup their data? I have a program I’ve been working on for days and I hadn’t done any backups. I thought I was going to cry. I found the hard drive, removed it from the laptop and connected it to an external USB enclosure. These USB hard drive enclosures are great. If you haven’t tried one you should. I had an 80gb laptop hard drive laying around so I got one of these enclosures for $15. It’s awesome for fast portable storage.

Anyways I took the hard drive from the dead Dell and it fired right up in the USB enclosure. I got my files off and was safe.
So I called Dell support on Saturday and sat on hold for 45 minutes before I hung up irritated. This morning I called and was talking to a person within 5 minutes another 15 minutes of trouble shooting and the support guy came to the same conclusion that I had…it must be a circuit board of some sort within the laptop that was fried. He gave me a dispatch number and a case number and said someone should be out tommorrow to get it fixed. Check back later tommorrow for the results. Considering the quickness of the support I’m still hopefull on the Dell’s being a good solution.

Brandon is going to write up his review of the PowerNotebooks laptop and we just ordered the IBM Thinkpad the other day so we’ll write up something when we get it.

And it was good…

by | Nov 27, 2005 | Photo - Sky, Photoblog

And it was good...

Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” Together these made up one day. Let their light shine down upon the earth.” And so it was.
For God made two great lights, the sun and the moon, to shine down upon the earth. The greater tne, the sun, presides during the day; the lesser one, the moon, presides through the night. He also made the stars. God set these lights in the heavens to light the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:3-18

Casper the Friendly Ghost

by | Nov 26, 2005 | Blog, Miscellaneous

casper
My son’s birthday was a couple of days ago and he got a radio controlled hoover copter. It was interesting for a couple of minutes, but all it really did was go up and down and could only go a couple of minutes before it needed recharging. After two days it almost quit altogether, so we took it back to Walmart and he decided to get something different. He knew he had $15.00 to spend and wanted to get the most for his money. This is something he picked up from his mother I suppose. She is the queen at getting the most for her money whether it’s clothes or grocery shopping. So he got a Matchbox Semi-Truck, a Fly Wheel thing (pull the cord and a wheel that takes off, and he got 5 DVD’s with different cartoons all for $15.00! The cartoons are older ones, like Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Woody Woodpecker and Casper the Friendly Ghost. It was interesting watching these cartoons that I watched so many years ago. It’s funny how cartoons have changed. There are so many cartoons these days that I won’t let my kids watch. Shows like Sponge Bob Squarpants and others are just too crude. I find them amusing and I’m not so nieve to think that my kids will be protected from crudeness all their lives, but there are certain things that just aren’t appropiate. What I find so ironic is parents who let their kids watch that stuff and can’t figure out why they talk the way they do and do some of the things they do. Duh…

White tree

by | Nov 26, 2005 | Photo - Nature, Photoblog

White tree

Yet another shot from my nature walk day from a couple of weeks ago. It’s time to get out and do some shooting. I did some snapshot kinda stuff of family over the past couple of days. Nothing I’d really post though. This shot struck me because of the sharpness and colors. I didn’t do anything apart from resize it for the web. I need to learn to slow down and be more aware af settings and such so I don’t have to do much editing. Not that editing is bad, but I tend to shoot away and go to fast. I think it’s probably one of the downfalls to digital photography because there is no worry about wasting money on film. This is a good and bad thing in my opinion. Brandon and I attended a meeting of a local camera club and one of the ladies said something that has stuck in my mind. She said to use your tripod as much as possible because it helps your shots be more sharp and it causes you to slow down.