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PeteC2
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
 ·AT&T Yahoo
edit:
May 26th, @08:46PM
| The time has come...no desktop!
The process which started back in November, changing my primary system from a desktop, to laptop, has now become complete, as I had to "retire" my last desktop, a home-built P4 (2.6ghz Northwood) that served me long, and well, running 24/7/365 for several years.
My wife and I both have notebooks (hers, a Sony Vaio lightweight 12.1 screen, mine a HP Pavillion dv 15.4"), with a networked HP AIO printer, Linksys "N" router . We also share an external drive for backups and extra storage, and a USB Okidata laser for those bigger printing jobs.
Amazing how much space just opened up in my small home office set up!
I really have pretty much made the "switch" a few months ago already, but still had the desktop operational, but the motherboard gave up the ghost, and I had no motivation to spend any money on reviving an older desktop, so now it is "official"!
One nice aspect to this: It is a really nice evening here, and I'm typing this from my deck outside 
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...something is happening here but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones? | |
AdamB
join:2001-01-07
Westerville, OH
 ·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T Yahoo
edit:
May 26th, @09:41PM
| Congrats! I would like to do the same eventually, I'm just waiting for the perfect time. Maybe when Nahalem comes out so I can get a beefy machine. I think I would upgrade my network to N too since I plan on using my desktop case to make a home server for my media. I also want to get it to condense the size of my computing area, definitely downsize my desk. | |
KickMe
join:2001-10-03
Lancaster, OH
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to PeteC2
I love my lappy and like you enjoy surfing from the patio.
However there are just some things that a laptop can't do.
I just built a complete desktop for under a grand, and it's as fast as greased lightning. Overclocked CPU to run @3.6ghz, geforce 8800 that will play any game without lag, and 8GB ram, so no HD swap file slowing things down. | |
PeteC2
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
·AT&T Yahoo
| said by KickMe  :I love my lappy and like you enjoy surfing from the patio. However there are just some things that a laptop can't do. I just built a complete desktop for under a grand, and it's as fast as greased lightning. Overclocked CPU to run @3.6ghz, geforce 8800 that will play any game without lag, and 8GB ram, so no HD swap file slowing things down. Yep, no disagreement there! If I were a gamer (used to be, but not now), although there are a few decent gaming laptops, they are waaay too expensive compared to what I could build for myself in a desktop configuration.
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...something is happening here but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones? | |
dadkins
Land of Confusion
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
·Comcast
| reply to PeteC2
Welcome to mobile computing!
All I have is laptops(you know this I'm guessing).
Not being tied to a desk is priceless!
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Think outside the Fox... Opera | |
dadkins
Land of Confusion
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
·Comcast
| reply to KickMe
I'll live... |
But, can you sit anywhere and have all the perks with you?
Ya really don't want to know where I am ATM, and I have *Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within* Blu-ray paused so I can type this.
Not all laptops are created equal. 
For clarification, the video card has 256MB dedicated and will dynamically allocate upto 1.5GB if needed.
Yeah, I can play Crysis... 
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Think outside the Fox... Opera | |
PeteC2
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
·AT&T Yahoo
edit:
May 27th, @08:33PM
| reply to dadkins
said by dadkins :Welcome to mobile computing! All I have is laptops(you know this I'm guessing). Not being tied to a desk is priceless! Yep, I think that you know that I have been going in this direction from previous posts, but if I was not already pretty much into my notebook as my "main" system, I don't think that I could have let the desktop go without replacing it.
My first computer dates back to 1980, and I have not been without a desktop since then, so this was a big leap for me!
I am certainly not knocking owning desktops, and/or both, but I am at the stage where I do not want a lot of clutter, and the allure of not just being able to take it with me, but even the luxury of not being tied down to one room in the house is just great! In fact, it was my wife getting her first laptop, and seeing how nice it was to be able to connect on line, and print from anywhere in the house/deck that opened my eyes!
The greatly lowered costs and increased power/capablity of notebooks in recent years made this a much more attractive decision. It was not that many years ago that the cost for a notebook, with limited upgradability just did not make it an appealing option, but that has really changed!
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...something is happening here but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones? | |
weaseled386
join:2008-04-13
Port Orange, FL
 ·Verizon Wireless B..
 ·mybrighthouse
| reply to PeteC2
If you don't have one already, invest in a mirroring RAID NAS. It'll make things even nicer.
My girlfriend has a Dell Latitude D620 and I have a Dell XPS M1530. We keep our laptops to ourselves, but we like to keep our files on a shared & secure server. I have 200 gigs of music & video, and almost the same in personal digital pictures. We didn't like the idea of this stuff sitting on our laptops because that made it next to impossible for the other to view it. If one of the laptops died we would have been out of luck. Now we can stream from any where in the house to any device in the house. Depending on the box you pick, I have the Synology Cube Station 407e) you can set it up for outside access.
Welcome to the world of laptops. After being a die hard gamer for years, and upgrading 2 or 3 times a year to keep current, I could never go back to being tied down to a desk. Right now I'm in Panera's enjoying a cup of coffee. Yesterday I was at a public park, and two knows where I'll be tomorrow.
Before anyone suggests otherwise, I can watch and write Blurays, my display is 1920x1200 and I have a dual core 2.6GHz Intel chip. | |
PeteC2
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
·AT&T Yahoo
| weaseled386, a NAS drive is something that I am very curious about. I have an external drive, that I back up stuff on now for both laptops, but it is USB, not networked, which for what we have now, obviously would make a lot more sense.
I have a networked printer (works great!), but I know nothing about networked external drives, can you give me any pointers/advice?
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...something is happening here but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones? | |
weaseled386
join:2008-04-13
Port Orange, FL
·Verizon Wireless B..
·mybrighthouse
| As stated above, I just wanted something that was easy to access & if a hard drive were to fail I wouldn't lose all my info! One day I was thinking, "How much would I lose if my HD fails?" My music & movies arn't that big of a deal... I have the originals of both. However, pictures of my 2 year old daughter, mother & father, my two Naval cruises to Europe, etc. cannot be replaced. At first I threw a laptop harddrive into a USB2 external enclosure. This worked great, but I had to sync things up on three devices: gf's laptop, my laptop & the external drive. This proved to be a real PITA. My gf's laptop usually suffered with few to no updates.
When I first bought my older house I ran CAT5e throughout -- every room has 1+ drops & every wired device is wired. Furthermore I overlayed two wireless networks: a open G network to share ~500' in every direction from my property & a secured N netwok for my personal use. Having this infastrucutre I wanted to be able to stream to my PS3, Xbox360 & all my laptops.
I guess I searched for about a month looking at all possible, and affordable, solutions. My prereq's were: 1G network interface, RAID 0/1 & ability to specify shares/permissions on each folder on the NAS. HP makes a good system for home use, but the main drive isn't replacable by home users. Theacus makes some great units! Best in read/writes, but highest in price. I then ran across the Synology products on Newegg. FTP, HTTP & BT servers, RAID5 and the rest were just nice perks. I ended up setting up the HTTP server just because I could, and the FTP server to access everything while on the road!
Just think what you want to do. I have several accounts setup with read/write/hidden permissions setup for each user: admin, me, my gf, guest/annonymous, friends half way across the world! Just make sure to look towards the future: 1G NIC, ability to add a second volume if you fill the first & it has a interface that is easy to use by you AND your wife/kids. For example: the Synology products just changed over to a Windows clone OS thats REAL easy to work around. Oh, and as far as what it looks like within each laptop, it's treated as a standard network drive. I usually set it up a Z: and XP/Vista treats it as a local volume!
I hope this helps. | |
weaseled386
join:2008-04-13
Port Orange, FL | reply to PeteC2
I forgot to mention! The network printer is the icing on the cake. It's the one step that makes each computer 100% independant! It would be a pain if you had to dock each time you wanted to print out a single page! | |
evgray
join:2003-05-19
Fort Scott, KS | reply to PeteC2
I agree on not using a desktop anymore. I also have pc set up with ftp and it to run back ups with raid 1 when needed. I also set up my printer on there so I can print when needed. | |
PeteC2
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Premium,MVM
join:2002-01-20
Bristol, CT
clubs:
·AT&T Yahoo
| reply to weaseled386
said by weaseled386 :I forgot to mention! The network printer is the icing on the cake. It's the one step that makes each computer 100% independant! It would be a pain if you had to dock each time you wanted to print out a single page! Yep, in fact, it was the networked printing that really "sealed the deal" for me! Even my printer is wireless, so the flexibility in how I utilize my home office space is just great!
Funny thing, my sister in law and her daughter have notebook computers, and yet they only connect directly to the modem (one at a time!) via cat V, and hard-wire into their printer...seems positively pre-historic! My going from a USB External drive to a NAS will be the next step for me...
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...something is happening here but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones? | |
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