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torquillI am now the owner of a new Compaq Presario 2200 notebook computer.
It wasn't the cheapest -- a Toshiba Satellite took that title, at $600 after rebates -- but it was under my $1000 budget, and I'm tentatively happy with it. It has the DVD player/CD burner I've been lacking, the same 40G of disk space I have now, and weighs three pounds less than Hesseth does. Downside is that the built-in wireless uses a Broadcom chipset, a vendor which is actively hostile toward linux and open-source. Oh, and the power cord is three-prong, an inconvenience in my hundred-year-old two-prong house.
It's charging now. I haven't turned it on, knowing that its virginal state is that of XP Home, and I don't feel quite up to facing Micro$oft yet. It will soon get brainwashed and turned into a dual-boot system. I also get to check out the NDISwrapper project, to see whether I can trick the Broadcom drivers into thinking it's a Windows machine. If not, well, I still have the wireless card I'm using right now, which works happily on Fedora Core 2 and should also work under FC4 when it comes out of beta real soon now.
Just what I need -- a new toy to fuss with during finals week. :D At least I still have a working machine to use while I hack on the new one.
I haven't heard back from my summer job attempts (I've been told to wait a couple more weeks to hear back from them) but my video cable conked out again yesterday. My mom, who was apparently tired of hearing me whine, told me to just charge it to the family card and "we'll sort it out" when I do get money. So I got the machine a little early.
I was realizing that this was like buying a new car is for most people. It's a fairly expensive (certainly for me) piece of equipment I'm going to live with daily for the next four or so years, assuming it holds up as well as my current one. That's why I went with the one I actually wanted, rather than just the best deal -- because I don't want to kick myself every day for the next several years. Some things are worth investing in.
I think I'm just in a general state of burnout right now... I'm pleased, but not as excited as I'd expect. Chalk it up to the exam this morning and the fact that the purchase hasn't quite hit home yet. :)
It wasn't the cheapest -- a Toshiba Satellite took that title, at $600 after rebates -- but it was under my $1000 budget, and I'm tentatively happy with it. It has the DVD player/CD burner I've been lacking, the same 40G of disk space I have now, and weighs three pounds less than Hesseth does. Downside is that the built-in wireless uses a Broadcom chipset, a vendor which is actively hostile toward linux and open-source. Oh, and the power cord is three-prong, an inconvenience in my hundred-year-old two-prong house.
It's charging now. I haven't turned it on, knowing that its virginal state is that of XP Home, and I don't feel quite up to facing Micro$oft yet. It will soon get brainwashed and turned into a dual-boot system. I also get to check out the NDISwrapper project, to see whether I can trick the Broadcom drivers into thinking it's a Windows machine. If not, well, I still have the wireless card I'm using right now, which works happily on Fedora Core 2 and should also work under FC4 when it comes out of beta real soon now.
Just what I need -- a new toy to fuss with during finals week. :D At least I still have a working machine to use while I hack on the new one.
I haven't heard back from my summer job attempts (I've been told to wait a couple more weeks to hear back from them) but my video cable conked out again yesterday. My mom, who was apparently tired of hearing me whine, told me to just charge it to the family card and "we'll sort it out" when I do get money. So I got the machine a little early.
I was realizing that this was like buying a new car is for most people. It's a fairly expensive (certainly for me) piece of equipment I'm going to live with daily for the next four or so years, assuming it holds up as well as my current one. That's why I went with the one I actually wanted, rather than just the best deal -- because I don't want to kick myself every day for the next several years. Some things are worth investing in.
I think I'm just in a general state of burnout right now... I'm pleased, but not as excited as I'd expect. Chalk it up to the exam this morning and the fact that the purchase hasn't quite hit home yet. :)
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 01:16 (UTC)