Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 20:59:47 +0800 From: Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [LIB] My baby is poorly!! - L70
>I am the proud owner of a garbage fit PC. The monitor, the only item of >value, blew up yesterday. I'm sure you can find a use for the rest of the PC ;-) >I am planning a huge cycle tour which will, hopefully, be documented by >updating a website while on tour. Good idea! How are you going to update it though? Connecting back to an ISP through satphone every night is bound to get expensive. >Trouble is... I need to get the ball rolling while still at home. I plan >on using hotdog/FrontPage and the like [any recommendations welcome] I'm a Dreamweaver fan myself but once you get into the hang of it, just using a syntax highlighting text editor (GVIM for Windows is good and free but its a little tricky to set up and learn if you're not familiar with the VI UNIX text editor, other editors include UltraEdit and Editeur, both of which are shareware) then load it up in IE every once in a while to see how it goes. Most of the time I use DreamWeaver as a glorified text editor anyway. >Will my P166Mhz/ 64Mb/ 20 GB Lib 100CT be able to cope with these web >design programs? Plenty. A 486 could do basic web pages with graphics. Just don't expect to do Macromedia Flash or anything like that (although a P166 should also be able to handle say turning a few snapshots into a GIF movie and things like that ... Frontpage may freak a bit though but thats just Microsoft) >Are there any difficulties I may experience if I use the Lib as my main >computer for a few months? Depends how big your fingers are, how good your eyes are and how well you like the accupoint. I can't say I've used the libby for long enough to know but I used a Portege for a few months and the keyboard on that is a bit bigger than that on the Libby, it was annoying for the first week but then I stopped noticing it and could type at almost my straight-keyboard speed (I had the added disadvantage of being really used to those Microsoft Natural keyboards - did wonders for my wrists but didn't help my straight keyboard speed). Of course, if you're a keen CounterStrike (or other 3D shooter) player or something then you'll really REALLY miss the 3D accelerator. If you're also a monitor freak like I am you'll also miss the big screen. If thats you then perhaps a Portege is more suitable as it has a respectable screen size and has enough oomph to run 3 year old or older FPS games in software rendering at a decent speed (see below). >Should I close down the lib's screen when connecting to an external >monitor?.. If yes... how? Differing schools of thought there, the screen will very slowly deteriorate but it depends what percentage of time you spend with the thing plugged into the monitor port. Personally I don't bother as I figure by the time it dies the computer as a whole would be long gone anyway. Of course, if you're paranoid you could disable the screen by simply closing it (but make sure hibernation mode is OFF otherwise you'll put it into standby!). >What state of charge should the Lib's battery be stored in?.. How is >this state achieved? How often do you use it? I generally keep all my regularly used (ie. more than once a week) batteries topped up on a trickle charger or (in the case of my mobile phone) I plug it into the charger whenever it drops to half charge (I'd let it discharge more often but I'm paranoid about being stuck in a situation and running out of battery power, I feel comfortable only if I've got a good half hour or so of emergency talk time). Other batteries I just let discharge naturally and leave them. Bear in mind that LiIon packs generally flatten themselves over a week or 2, NiMH in about the same time and NiCad perhaps a little longer anyway. >Should I fork out for a new PC? If your budget stretches enough and you're going to be doing a bit of design work (touching up pictures perhaps or whatever) then one of the new Porteges will suit you well. They've all got USB ports so that'll suit if your digital camera is a USB one. They also have full magnesium cases so they'll handle the treatment (one of very few new laptops that you can pick up from one of the front corners without the case distorting) plus they come in (I think) up to 800MHz/512MB RAM/30GB HDD so theres plenty of storage. The screens are actually a polymer based screen so they can flex quite a bit more than normal glass based screens without breaking, an invaluable advantage if you accidentally drop it or place something heavy on top of it (at a Toshiba marketing event here, one of the reps actually grabbed the top corners of a Portege screen when it was running and flexed it a good 3-4cm from corner to corner without apparent ill effect - he was bouncing it around by holding onto the screen and everything). Its also nice and thin (2cm thick as I recall). Like I said, the keyboard isn't too hard to get used to and the screen is very nice plus its got enough power to play games ;-) If your budget doesn't go quite that far, the Satellite 30CT is also quite nice, its only a Celeron but its still plenty fast enough (although a word of caution, don't expect more than 10fps in the heat of battle if you play Unreal Tournament at 800x600 ;-). Its slightly thicker than the Portege (about 2.5cm thick) but it does have a slightly bigger screen and keyboard plus it uses a capacitive trackpad (which may be a good thing or a bad thing, its surprisingly easy to get used to and has nice scrolling functions but it IS impossible to use with gloves on). It has a PLASTIC case but a magnesium inner frame. I've personally seen one of them after coming out of a person's backpack when he fell off his bike (I used to do some tech support at a school where the teachers have laptops and a good number ride to work). The case (like the rider!) clearly came off second best, missing a good 5mm from one corner and having one of the (metal!) bolt points on the frame snapping off (and shorted out part of the mobo for a while, removed it and it worked) but it had no screen (it was lucky, it landed base first in the front left corner as I recall), HDD or apparent motherboard damage and is, as far as I can tell, still working fine. >Also, Mediaplayer has difficulty in playing back the only item of music >stored. Is this due to a lack of spec.? I think its MediaPlayer, its got a nasty habit of doing stupid inefficient things in my experience. My Libby50CT, even before I clocked it to 100, was able to play MP3s quite well using Winamp. Just for laughs I also played a couple of music videos (.AVI files) on it, they actually played at a respectable rate (full screen dropped to 4 or 5fps but at proper size they were quite watchable considering its a 6 year old laptop). Hope this helps and as usual, if anyone sees anything confusing/incorrect/misleading do speak up! - Raymond --- /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\ | | "Does fuzzy logic tickle?" | | ___ | "My HDD has no reverse. How do I backup?" | | /__/ +-------------------------------------------| | / \ a y b o t | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | | HTTP://www.raybot.net | | ICQ: 31756092 | Need help? Visit #Windows98 on DALNet! | \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/ ************************************************************** http://libretto.basiclink.com - Libretto mailing list http://libretto.basiclink.com/archive - Archives http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/portable/faq.html - FAQ -------TO UNSUBSCRIBE------- Reply to any of the list messages. 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