From: Dan Kohn (dan@dankohn.com)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2000 - 08:43:43 PDT
One thing makes it worthwhile: W2K. I've had it for 6 months, but I didn't
start using it as my primary computer until Shiva VPN came out with a beta
for W2K so that I can get through our firewall. All of your problems are
resolved with W2K. There's a great setting under the Power control panel
where you select for each of pushing the power button and closing the lid
whether the computer should do nothing, suspend, hibernate, or shut down (I
choose hibernate and suspend, respectively, because with hibernate I believe
there is never a reason to shut down).
I haven't used a floppy disk in over a year (except once to update the
BIOS). I just email everything these days, which is why a wireless link is
so critical.
W2K enables the infrared port, so I can use the cool GSM modem, and the USB
port, so you can hookup a USB mouse and keyboard (which is now no more
expensive, and many USB keyboards include an extra USB port for the mouse
<http://www.allusb.com/Products_Keyboards.html>). Also, the DVD drive now
can play movies. In general, I think this machine and the light Vaio
(they're nearly identical, down to the magnesium casing), are the best road
warrior machines available.
BTW, I've gotten used to 768x1024, but would love higher resolution if it
were available in a subnotebook (<4 lbs.) In fact, the reason I didn't get
the original Vaio is that it only supported 800x600. Do you know of any
subnotebooks that support higher resolution?
- dan
P.S. The only thing I'm lacking is for Entrega to publish their damn W2K
driver for their USB to serial converter
<http://www.entrega.com/con_serial9.html> so that I can log on in the States
using my Nextel i1000plus, which has a serial cable
<https://nextelonline.nextel.com/NASApp/nol/ProductDetailServlet?skuIdentifi
er=NTN1010&type=accessory>. Once I get this working (the driver has been
three months away for three months), I don't believe I'll need to use the
port replicator again.
P.P.S. Also, check out Mossberg's review of the new Portege 3440
<http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB956194813106113284.htm>, which seems
cool.
-- Daniel Kohn <mailto:dan@dankohn.com> tel:+1-425-602-6222 fax:+1-425-602-6223 http://www.dankohn.com-----Original Message----- From: klassa@mail.com [mailto:klassa@mail.com] Sent: Tuesday, 2000-04-18 06:20 To: Dan Kohn Cc: Fork (E-mail) Subject: Re: 21st century
>>>>> On Tue, 18 Apr 2000, "Dan" == Dan Kohn wrote:
Dan> through the Chunnel. I'm typing this on my new Toshiba Portege Dan> 7020 running W2K, communicating via infrared to my Ericsson T-28
Out of curiosity, why'd you choose the Toshiba 7020? I have one (it's one of Cisco's standard bundles), and have been fairly unimpressed with it... The power switch isn't a proper switch, but more of a "soft switch" (it asks the computer to do something, rather than turning the power off, *now*). It has no built-in floppy... You can't hook up an external mouse and keyboard at the same without using the docking station (and heck, to hook up a mouse you have to use that silly port adapter thing that hangs off the side). The integration with NT is spotty (though, thankfully, I don't do that much as I have linux on the box, also). :-) The built-in video hardware is fairly low-end (I think it has 2.5MB of video RAM, and won't do higher than 1024x768 unless you trade bpp).
Anyway, you're somebody whose opinion I respect... What am I not seeing on the 7020? What made it a good buy for you? :-)
Thanks, John
-- John Klassa / klassa@mail.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Apr 20 2000 - 08:58:07 PDT