I have been reading about netbooks as of late. For me, the thought of an ultra portable laptop that will allow me to access the internet and use tools like ssh to manage linux systems sounds like a great idea. If you add Bluetooth support, I will be able to tether my AT&T Tilt to the netbook and use my netbook anywhere I have cell coverage!
Over the last 2 months I have researched many netbooks and with my brother in-laws input, I decided on and MSI WIND u100. Ultimately I went with the WIND over the HP mini because of disk size and price. For $439, I purchased the MSI WIND u100 (black) with 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drive, Bluetooth, Windows XP, and an upgraded 6 cell battery. The HP maxes out at 60GB hard drive and they only offer a 3 cell battery.
I plan on testing the usibilty, battery life, video playback, etc. I will post a 2-3 part review in the coming weeks. If you have someting specific you want me to review on the device, please let me know.
Since my last post about Cyberpower, I have continued to experience issues with my system. First, something was seriously wrong with my video system. After a lot of diagnoses and downloading EVGA Precision, I determined that one of my two 9800GX2 cards was running hot (WAY HOT). At idle, this card was running @ 70(c) and at load it hit 112(c)! I pulled one card and then the other to determine which one was bad. Now comes the moment of truth, a call to CyberpowerPC tech support (dum dum duuuuuum!).
At first, I sent Cyberpower an email explaining the issue and asking for help. I received no response. Once I became convinced the issue was a bad card, called and left a message, again, no call back, however the next day I received and email (addressed to Dear Mr./Mrs.). I played phone/email tag with them for almost a week(In fairness, I was out of town for two days). Finally Zakary called me and it was a simple process. They needed a credit card number for a cross-ship (They send me a new part and I return the old one in the box I received the new one in). They ship the part ground, which would really suck if it was a part I needed to get my PC running!
Read more…
After the grand unpacking of the system (see the review part 2 HERE), I was very excited to power on the rig and see how the box performed! I attached a keyboard and monitor, watched the POST screen flash (with me rubbing my hands in rapt anticipation), waiting for this beast to jump into Windows Vista! Then, suddenly a flash and a screen appeared….”No Operating System Found”! I was thinking, “You have got to be kidding me”.
It is an ASUS motherboard and I had lots of little issues with my old ASUS. I rebooted and jumped into the BIOS configuration, hmmmm RAID is turned off on the SATA controller. Since I ordered the box with RAID-0, either CyberpowerPC never configured anything, or the BIOS got messed up.
Read more…
Oh, joy is upon us, dear readers! I FINALLY received my PC from CyberpowerPC. Read Part 1 HERE
I received the PC on the revised date that Cyberpower had promised (10/15/08). I arrived home to find a single HUGE white box, which looked quite beat-up. In case anyone was unsure of the contents of the box, the big “PERSONAL COMPUTER” stamped on the side was sure to clear up any confusion!
Beat-up big white box
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I have read MANY advertisements for Cyberpowerpc.com, though I have never paid much attention to them. I generally buy high-end Dell PC’s, or I build my own. I read MaximumPC magazine religously and I was surprised to see the high marks they gave the CyberPower Gamer Ultimate SLI QUAD. I currently have an aging home built dual core E6700 oc’d to 3.06Ghz with an NVidia 8800Ultra. One of the biggest issues I run into is drive performance, since I am running dual 400GB drives in a RAID-1 configuration. My ASUS mobo basically sucks and the RAID performance really sucks. I am going to turn this box into my new sever at home.
Back to my CyberpowerPC.com story. I spent the last few weeks pricing out rigs and looking at many PC manufactures, I also looked at parts to build my own. I came to the conclusion that I could buy a system from CyberpowerPC.com cheaper than I could build one, plus I get VIsta (I already have XP for a new PC if I need it) and some nice freebies. Read more…
I admit it, I am a phone geek. I love my phone and the accessibility a well designed phone gives me and the productivity lifts I enjoy from said phone. I have been using an AT&T Tilt aka: 8925 aka: HTC Kaiser. The stock windows mobile 6.0 ROM is really quite terrible, but with a custom cooked WM 6.1ROM, the phone is quite excellent. It does just about everything I need it to do. With the new Opera Mobile Browser, the browsing functionality is more akin to the Iphone.
6 Weeks ago, my boss decided he needed a new phone. While he was happy with his Samsung Blackjack, he wanted an Iphone. I ordered him one and went ahead and ordered one for myself. My IT guys support everyone else, but my boss views me as his own personal IT person, so I figured I might as well be familiar with the device and I thought it would be nice to eliminate the need to carry my trusty Ipod Nano. Here is what I found:
Pros:
- The web browser is totally AWESOME! Opera is nice, but I never have experienced such seamless web browsing from a mobile device.
- The new Exchange plug-in is pretty, reading email and displaying attachments is pretty darned slick.
- Once you get the hang of the layout, it is fairly easy to navigate the phone.
Cons:
- You MUST have Itunes to activate your Iphone (We have a corporate account, so we did not need to go to an AT&T or Apple store). This is a pain in the butt in a corporate environment. There really are no management tools for Itunes, so I doubt these phone will make it across our corporation.
- No wonder there is a program called “jail break”. I felt like I was in jail using this phone! There are limited applications (most a not free), you can not edit Word documents, Excel files, etc. etc.
- Notes do not sync with Outlook, that totally sucks
- The phone crashes more often than my Windows Based phone (WOW!!)
- The Ipod functionality IMHO sucks, I prefer the interface of the wheel over the touch interface.
- I could find no functional voice dialing option. I love Microsoft Voice Command, it works in conjunction with my Motorola H700 Bluetooth head set seamlessly (until the H700 died last week!)
- You cannot add attendees to a meeting you set up on your Iphone (total suck)
All and all, I liked the Iphone, but not enough to keep it. If you want a read only device that displays thinks beautifully and you do not need a mobile computing platform, the Iphone is the bomb. If you need a mobile computing platform, the Tilt with a custom ROM is AWESOME. I can recommend a ROM if you want!
