This is an about face for me. As an appreciator of the latest technology I always want to have the latest technology but I can’t always justify the cost. As a result of this appreciation of technology so I have gone through a number of devices. As a child losing devices is a good excuse to buy a new one. As a grown up though desire is enough. I really like the n97 and what it could be but it didn’t live up to my expectations.
kcarruthers - 7th of Dec, 2009
One benefit of a netbook you might not have discovered is that it fits really easily into a woman’s handbag - very convenient ;)
kcarruthers - 7th of Dec, 2009
One benefit of a netbook that you might not have discovered is that it fits neatly into a woman’s handbag - very convenient ;)
I like smaller and smaller machines. I’m now enjoying the use of an eeepc, the 1000hg. It has inbuilt 3g modem and a 4.5hr battery life. It’s a nice change to use a small laptop because it does the basic things. It allows me to tweet, read e-mail and fail at Nanowrimo. The keyboard is fast for typing. I was able to type over 20,000 words without finding the keyboard to be a hindrance.
I haven’t blogged in a few months but I have been tweeting, and working full time, and I’m attempting Nanowrimo once again this year. Last year the process was easier as I had a lot of free time. This year I need to make time. I did get to over 20,000 words but inspiration is slower to come. The meetups are still going on. We’ve had two in Lausanne already, one in Zurich, one in Bern and the next will be in Basel.
No doubt you remember that my laptop motherboard died. The effects are still being felt today. When you have applications, and when you have several computers you authorise them in order to have access to the same applications and music on more than one machine. This works fine most of the time. You can easily authorise and de-authorise a machine depending on necessity. The problem is when you have hardware failure though.
One of the great things about devices failing is when you’ve got other devices you depend on to keep everything synced up. In particular today I’m seeing another reason never to get an Iphone. If your computer goes down for any reason syncing between the phone and the computer is screwed up. You could, if you’re not careful lose all the apps you paid for, all the music you paid for and all other data you have on the iphone/ipod touch or other device.
There is a known issue with the Nvidia 8600 video card. That issue is that the card fails faster than average. There are two common problems with this video card. The first is that the screen is just messed up. That’s not the issue I have. The issue I am having with the macbook pro is that the screen just goes dead. The failure rate is around once per year. It failed a year ago.
If I had a perfect laptop it would be shaped just like the N97 but larger. I’m saying this because of how much I love having a keyboard and a touchscreen in such a small package. Now imagine if laptops did away with all that wasted space at the bottom, where the trackpad goes. Back to the matter at hand. The N97 is a great little device that can survive about a day with my use before needing a charge.
For the second time in a little over a year the video card on my macbook pro has failed and I am left with the black screen of death. As a result of this I will have to send the machine off for repair for a second time. Luckily the machine is still under warranty so the only challenge is finding a day off and bringing it for maintenance. It had to fail this weekend, on Saturday afternoon only once all the shops had closed.
Working at the Global Humanitarian Forum today, providing the live streams, was fun as some interesting conversations took place. Among the people present we had Micheline Calmy Rey, Kofi Annan, the writer of the wikonomics book (which I have as an audio book and haven’t finished yet), Nik Gowing, and a few more interesting people. Whilst I was working I didn’t have time to listen to the discussions that were taking place but they ranged from new media and communication to providing funds for organisations and the aspects to be taken into account, managing displacement, demographic dynamics and many more topics.