I love encyclopedias. The whole idea of so much to know organized alphabetically is just really appealing to me. I really liked having Encyclopedia Britannica on Silvastone. The kid’s version was very useful for learning all kinds of stuff and having it explained clearly. Then if you got really specific you had to go to Mom and Dad’s encyclopedia which was always much harder to understand.
Category: Computers
Great Quality ZX-5572
Last night, after shopping online for Dells all day, Mom and I went to Fry’s Electronics to buy a cheap no-name laptop (the brand name is “Great Quality” or just “GQ” and is only sold by Fry’s and their website, Outpost.com). It is actually pretty decent. It doesn’t have built-in wireless but she can get a USB thumbdrive type of adapter for $30 (on sale) if she ever needs it. The silver chassis looks great and is thin and lightweight. Because the notebook was so cheap ($500) already and was no-name I recommended she get a 3-year extended warranty for $130. So it was $670 for a 1.3 GHz Celeron 256 MB 40 GB notebook with a 15-inch screen and a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, including tax. The equivalent Dell was $783 and only had a 90-day warranty, but included an internal wireless card. When buying a cheap computer $100 is a lot of money. Plus Dell’s free printer used Dell cartridges you can only get from them and this free printer is a Canon (iP1600) so cartridges should be widely available.
There was still foam paper wrapped around the notebook, so even though the box had been opened, it looked like it was in mint condition and had never been started. It started up without any trouble, I got MS Office installed, transferred some files from their old computer with my thumb drive, and dialed in to the internet to start downloading Windows XP patches. That tested most everything on the computer and it all worked flawlessly.
The Fry’s store was actually pretty nice inside even though it was enormous. The salesmen were reasonably honest and readily available though they weren’t particularly knowledgable (they didn’t know about the newspaper ad and said USB wireless adapters weren’t available). They didn’t push extras too hard or try to upsize us to a more expensive computer. We had some trouble at checkout because they had given us the wrong free printer and had to go back and get the right one (about a mile walk, so it took a while). Their checkout process is horrible where the salesman has to write a quote and then the cashier rings it up. It took at least half an hour to check out. I found out later that all of this fits perfectly with Fry’s reputation. I found a great web page about how to shop at Fry’s and a Salon article about Fry’s as well. The first guy likens shopping at Fry’s to competing in an Olympic event.
Mom didn’t realize she could use the notebook as her primary PC at home. She just figured it would be good to take to Florida. But I told her she could hook up an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor if she wanted. Their desktop monitor is only 1 inch bigger than the screen on the notebook though (Mom measured it).
New Computer
I decided to go on a 4-year cycle for replacing my home computer. I bought my first desktop computer (my first computer was a Powerbook 100 in 1991) in 1996. It was replaced in 2000. So I was due for a new computer last year, but I decided it was working pretty well and I could wait (I almost replaced it when Susan gave me the iPod because I didn’t want to pay retail for a Windows upgrade that I needed). But since June last year, I’ve been pricing computers at Dell. I wanted a DVD writer, support for two monitors, 80 gigabyte hard drive, and 512 MB of memory. I also wanted to get another 17-inch monitor, preferably a flat panel, though that wasn’t mandatory.
Fixing a computer
Back in August I wrote about working on a co-worker’s home computer that was attacked by viruses and Trojans. At the time I wasn’t able to really fix it, just make things a little better. After a few months the computer became so busy running all of its viruses and processes that it ceased functioning and you couldn’t even start any programs. I knew this time that rather than try and fix the computer it was time to reformat the hard drive and start over with a fresh installation.
Powerbook 5300c
As I mentioned in my ice storm entry, my Powerbook 520c died and I figured out the problem with the Powerbook 5300c adapter. I went to Radio Shack and bought a pack of butt connectors (despite what it sounds like they are plastic-coated metal tubes that you crimp on to wires) and was able to connect the wires to a standard power adapter tip that came with my Recoton Universal Car Adapter power supply. It is surprising that Apple would settle for a standard power adapter tip for one of their pieces of hardware. I got the adapter crimped on, tested the polarity twice, and hooked it up. The laptop, which probably hasn’t started in five years or more, made some awful beeping noises, and started right up. And the clock was only a little over a year off, stating that it was 1/1/04.