Lenovo has issued another batter recall. This time it is for batteries manufactured by Sanyo. Systems affected are ThinkPad R60, R60e, T60, T60p, Z60m, Z61e, Z61m, Z61p series laptops.
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Tag: Laptop
Well, as much as I love OS X, the MacBook just wasn’t cutting it for me. The MacBook is a great computer for people who want to get things done and not have to worry about the underlying technology. I need to be able to get things done without futzing with configurations, but I also need a flexible environment where I can work with new technologies, get back to working on my open source social networking project, and also be able to work with Linux environments like Fedora, OpenSuse and Ubuntu.
The MacBook is great for multimedia things and I will probably continue to use OS X for video editing, managing my music collection, and managing the fast increasing number of digital photos that I take. However, it will probably NOT by my MacBook. I have decided to sell my MacBook. It was a tough decision, especially since I bought it less than six months ago and I upgraded the RAM to 2GB less than two months ago. I might try another Apple portable someday in the future but for now, the geek in me is screaming for a ThinkPad running Fedora Core 6, OpenSuse 10.1 and Ubuntu 6.10.
On Thursday, I picked up a Lenovo ThinkPad T60. Sorry, but i was just too excited about getting a new ThinkPad and I didn’t take the required unpackaging pictures. The ThinkPad T60 comes with 1 GB RAM, 120GB 5400 RPM HD, Intel 3945abg Wireless, ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 with 128MB Hypermemory, SXGA+ video at 1400×1050, Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 at 2GHz, DVD Recordable, 56k Fax modem, Infrared, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, Verizon Broadband Connect EVDO, 3 USB, Mic and Headphones, 1 PCI Express Full and 1 PCMCIA Slots, Fingerprint Reader, Security chip, 9 cell battery, and a three year warrant. The only real difference in specs is that the ThinkPad doesn’t have any sort of webcam (Apple MacBook has iSight) or remote control (Apple MacBook has FrontRow).
The ThinkPad has an Intel Core 2 Duo chip, 128MB of video RAM, double the hard drive capacity, double the RAM of the MacBook, and also the Verizon EVDO built-in. That’s a substantial amount of hardware for $1600. The only thing I’ve found so far to complain about the ThinkPad is that the screen isn’t as bright as the MacBook and considering winter is approaching, the ThinkPad can’t double as a heater like the MacBook can.
The 14.1″ version of the ThinkPad T60 is a bit smaller and lighter than the 15″ version. I had considered an ThinkPad X60 or X41 but I decided against it mainly because they both use an Intel 950 graphics chip with 64MB of shared memory, the units in stock didn’t have DVD-RW capability and the HD was maxxed out at 60GB.
The feel of the lenovo ThinkPad T60 isn’t very different from my old IBM ThinkPad T40. However, Lenovo has made a few changes like changing the battery type and the power adapter. I won’t be able to use the battery from my T40 nor will I be able to use the two T40 chargers I have. I presume that dock options are also different for the T60 than for the T4x series of ThinkPads. This ThinkPad T60 also has the Lenovo name displayed prominently next to the T60 logo.
I’ll get into what I’m doing with my new T60 in another post but suffice it to say, I am very happy to be typing on a ThinkPad. However, I do miss having OS X working with such ease and finesse. As much as I love Linux, it is a serious PITA getting things to run and things still don’t run as cleanly or well as they do in OS X. Synchronizing a phone over bluetooth with your PIM is a perfect example … Oh well, I guess that’s part of the fun and challenge of using Linux 🙂
I’ve had my MacBook for over two months now. The more I use OS X, I really like it. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts here, here and here, I like the simplicity, I like the ease of use, I like the *nix foundation underlying the pretty user interface, I like the choice between commercial and open source applications and I love the stability.
I’ve been using my MacBook quite a bit the last few weeks working from cafes, Starbucks, parks, and other places where a wired Internet connection isn’t available. The MacBook has been connecting to the Internet just fine. However, the laptop gets way too hot to hold on my lap for more than a few minutes. The other day, I had to put a piece of wood under my MacBook to protect the plastic table cover from burning.
The sharp edge right below the trackpad…. Ouch! The more and more I type, I find my hands getting chaffed by the edge. It’s fine if i’m sitting on my bed and the laptop is also on the bed (craning my neck downwards becomes a different issue). If I’m sitting at a table or at a desk, and my wrists are resting on the edge of the MacBook, the laptop becomes less and less comfortable on the hands. I’m longing more and more for a ThinkPad running OS X. People have gotten OS X to run on ThinkPads and people are discussing it here.
I might decide to keep my MacBook for non-strenuous short uses and I might decide to either get my ThinkPad T40 fixed, or get an X series to carry around. Not sure that I want to spend the money on a new laptop right now since I just bought the MacBook. I will probably do some research to see if I can get a T60 motherboard with a Intel Core Duo 2 GHz chip put into the T40 chassis. I have no idea what that’s going to cost to do.
Lenovo, if you’re reading this, give Steve Jobs a call ad get him to license OS X for the ThinkPad!!!! You’ll probably wind up selling more ThinkPads than IBM ever did 🙂
technorati tags:ThinkPad, MacBook, os x, Apple, Lenovo, Laptop
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Another Dell Up In Flames
And people as me why I don’t recommend Dell laptops….
Today’s “Dell laptop bursts into flames” story brought to you by “Henrik the Automation Engineer” of Vernon Hills, Illinois. Quick on the draw with his 7.2 megapixel camera, “Henrik” managed to document the amusing / scary saga of his coworker’s notebook, well, pulling a Dell….
Read More on Engadget: Another Dell laptop ignites
technorati tags:dell, flames, destruction, engadget
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Well, I got a little daring last night and decided to compile Postgresql and Apache with mod_ssl and mod_perl on the MacBook so that I can get back to working on The Manusya Project. I got as far as compiling and installing Postgres. Once I was done with Postgres, I decided to get the various Perl components necessary for connecting to Postgres installed.
Here is where I royally screwed up. I configure CPAN to use a bunch of FTP sites. Apparently, there’s some problem with FTP sessions on OS X via CPAN. It’s quirky and doesn’t always work. I was able to install the DBI packages in /usr/local/lib bit I couldn’t download DBD::Pg from any of the mirrors. I decided to download libwww-perl manually and installed it into the /System area of OS X. It was about midnight and this is where I really started screwing up. I had installed some modules into the operating system specific location and other modules in /usr/local – no consistency.
At this point I had libwww-perl and DBI installed but I couldn’t install DBD::Pg manually because it couldn’t find DBI. Hmmmmm. Well, for some reason, I decided to upgrade Bundle-CPAN since the version that comes with OS X 10.4.6 was out of date. This is where everything went to hell. Some things were being installed in /System, others were being installed in /usr/local/lib/perl, others in /usr/local/lib/perl5 and others in /usr/local/System. This was getting too crazy, so I said, let’s clean it all out.
I deleted everything in /usr/local/lib/perl, /usr/local/lib/perl5 and /usr/local/System. I then deleted the CPAN Config.pm in /System and tried to start from scratch. Oh boy. Every Perl script I run now complains that Cwd.pm or File/Spec can’t be found. I got PathTools but even PathTools complains about File/Spec.
I spent quite a bit of time last night looking around on Apple’s site for a fresh download of the whole Perl distribution that they package with OS X. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything. I will be reinstalling OS X from scratch this evening to fix any potential instability I might have caused. It also gives me a good opportunity to install BootCamp and get Linux installed on my MacBook