There is no escape and it was only a matter of time. My Xbox 360 just succumbed to the dreaded Red Ring of Death today. I'm kind of bummed, but it's fortunate since my system's manufacture date on the rear indicates it was made September 5, 2006. I dodged a bullet by less than three months here.
Here's hoping I get a Jasper-based system in return.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Do you have any TP?
While I was recovering from my surgeries, I bought a ThinkPad X41 Tablet to play with. Well, it didn't arrive until I had already gone back to work.
While the unit came with a Windows XP Tablet Edition license, I couldn't get the version I had on-hand to install. Okay, so it was for HP machines. With that being the case and me unable to pirate (is it really pirating when you have the license?) a system restore disc, I was left with one option: To test Windows 7.
A DVD and a couple of hours later, I was running 7 and it actually worked with little trouble as it was. With the wired network chip identified and installed from the get-go, I plugged it into the network and hit Windows Update to see if it had any drivers for me. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
The only things I don't like at all about Windows 7 right now is the fact that ClearType is not only Tablet-impaired in that orientation of the screen really screws with the Nyquist stuff at work in ClearType and, unlike XP, there is no ClearType Rotator (which is worth the Earth in XP), but it also can't really be turned off!
Other than that, there's the switch to Tablet mode and the snail-pace of the automatic rotation. 30-40 seconds to switch? I'd rather do it manually, thanks. When I switch, it's because I'm doing it to save time. Microsoft would do well to take another page from Apple's book and put effort into streamlining the bullshit of the interface if they want people to upgrade from XP in a direction that doesn't involve Linux and OpenOffice.org, which I use.
Sun really should have the OOo folks come up with something like OneNote. That app is just plain nice.
The X41T came to me with a bad battery that actually saved me about $90 off of the sale price versus the others offered by the same seller. I was planning to buy a third-party pack anyway. I did have a scare for a moment where I thought the charging system of the machine was burned out when the battery was showing as good, but after examining the pack, I found that a fuse was blown inside it. I was able to get it working enough to test the system on battery power, but it wouldn't charge due to the way the unique fuses trip interlocks in the circuitry. Clever, but annoying for people like me who know WTF they are doing poking around in an explosive battery pack.
I will say this: The display is the highlight of the machine. Boy howdy, I had heard of the awesome that was the IPS panels in ThinkPads, but I wasn't expecting the improvement brought on by AFFS. I will forgive the fact that the panel is only XGA for image quality like that. It reminds me of the image I got from a Trinitron CRT I had the better part of a decade ago. It's just that nice. And this was new tech in 2005. I hear improvements have been made and are featured in later models.
I wish I could try this machine outdoors, but I need a battery for that... and good weather.
I was able to get the machine maxed out at 1.5GB RAM with a 60GB hard disk. I'll be pulling and selling the hard disk to fund an upgrade to a solid state disk. I want that surreal effect only a completely silent computer can provide. I remember when I had my old Toshiba T1850 set to shut the hard disk off after a certain amount of time and would work in silence until it was time to save the file I would be working on. No fan to make other noise. While the X41T has a fan, it only very rarely turns on in stock form, let alone after I installed RMClock and dropped the operating voltages down to hilarious levels.
Were it not for the chipset, I'm dead-certain this machine would run as cool as that T1850 did. And that's saying a whole hell of a lot as it has never happened since that machine. I might change the thermal compound on the chip if it won't cause the fan to come on more often. No machine I own has ever gone unmodified. This will be no exception to that rule.
In fact, I must try the 2GB RAM upgrade some people were having success with. While it's only another 512MB, that's my entire base RAM usage from boot in Win7 as extra memory.
While the unit came with a Windows XP Tablet Edition license, I couldn't get the version I had on-hand to install. Okay, so it was for HP machines. With that being the case and me unable to pirate (is it really pirating when you have the license?) a system restore disc, I was left with one option: To test Windows 7.
A DVD and a couple of hours later, I was running 7 and it actually worked with little trouble as it was. With the wired network chip identified and installed from the get-go, I plugged it into the network and hit Windows Update to see if it had any drivers for me. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
The only things I don't like at all about Windows 7 right now is the fact that ClearType is not only Tablet-impaired in that orientation of the screen really screws with the Nyquist stuff at work in ClearType and, unlike XP, there is no ClearType Rotator (which is worth the Earth in XP), but it also can't really be turned off!
Other than that, there's the switch to Tablet mode and the snail-pace of the automatic rotation. 30-40 seconds to switch? I'd rather do it manually, thanks. When I switch, it's because I'm doing it to save time. Microsoft would do well to take another page from Apple's book and put effort into streamlining the bullshit of the interface if they want people to upgrade from XP in a direction that doesn't involve Linux and OpenOffice.org, which I use.
Sun really should have the OOo folks come up with something like OneNote. That app is just plain nice.
The X41T came to me with a bad battery that actually saved me about $90 off of the sale price versus the others offered by the same seller. I was planning to buy a third-party pack anyway. I did have a scare for a moment where I thought the charging system of the machine was burned out when the battery was showing as good, but after examining the pack, I found that a fuse was blown inside it. I was able to get it working enough to test the system on battery power, but it wouldn't charge due to the way the unique fuses trip interlocks in the circuitry. Clever, but annoying for people like me who know WTF they are doing poking around in an explosive battery pack.
I will say this: The display is the highlight of the machine. Boy howdy, I had heard of the awesome that was the IPS panels in ThinkPads, but I wasn't expecting the improvement brought on by AFFS. I will forgive the fact that the panel is only XGA for image quality like that. It reminds me of the image I got from a Trinitron CRT I had the better part of a decade ago. It's just that nice. And this was new tech in 2005. I hear improvements have been made and are featured in later models.
I wish I could try this machine outdoors, but I need a battery for that... and good weather.
I was able to get the machine maxed out at 1.5GB RAM with a 60GB hard disk. I'll be pulling and selling the hard disk to fund an upgrade to a solid state disk. I want that surreal effect only a completely silent computer can provide. I remember when I had my old Toshiba T1850 set to shut the hard disk off after a certain amount of time and would work in silence until it was time to save the file I would be working on. No fan to make other noise. While the X41T has a fan, it only very rarely turns on in stock form, let alone after I installed RMClock and dropped the operating voltages down to hilarious levels.
Were it not for the chipset, I'm dead-certain this machine would run as cool as that T1850 did. And that's saying a whole hell of a lot as it has never happened since that machine. I might change the thermal compound on the chip if it won't cause the fan to come on more often. No machine I own has ever gone unmodified. This will be no exception to that rule.
In fact, I must try the 2GB RAM upgrade some people were having success with. While it's only another 512MB, that's my entire base RAM usage from boot in Win7 as extra memory.
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