Laptop Essentials ?

[blackadder]

http://www.atomtime.com/
Keeps your laptop or PC's clock accurate to the second.
http://www.worldtime.com/ http://pawprint.net/wt/ (best) http://www.davecentral.com/6437.html (download)

Quick View Plus http://www.davecentral.com/9052.html
Opens any attachment (safely)

ICQ http://icq.com
http://www.teleadapt.com
Overpriced telephone adaptors and electrical plugs.
Well made though.

MasterCard/Cirrus ATM Locator http://www.mastercard.com/atm/

Visa/Plus ATM locator http://www.visa.com/pd/atm/main.html

Laptop Cases incl backpack style. http://www.targus.com/
Well made kit, I bought one!

Steve Kropla's Help For World Travelers! http://www.kropla.com/
Excellent site.

Weather?
I use Yahoo :) http://weather.yahoo.com/

Enjoy!

[This message has been edited by blackadder (edited 18 May 2000).]

[Slasher]

Laptop essentials?

1. Spare 50 foot roll of electric cable to get your power pack to reach that one and only power point in the hotel bathroom.

2. Spare 50 telephone line to get your modem to reach the one and only phone outlet behind the hotel room fridge in the next room.

3. Cellular telephone and modem connecter for hotels without telephones.

4. Battery charger kit for above.

5. Satcom cellphone and modem connecter for hotels located in communist states where the internet is banned because its violent capitalist borjwaar propaganda. Same needed for ME places because of the internet being an infidel instrument of satan.

6. Another battery charger kit for above.

7. Plenty of US$10 notes to pay off any commie/ME hotel staff who catch you using satcom internet and want to dob you in to the local army/mosque chief.

8. Various intl electric socket adapters for your power pack.

9. Heavy chain and padlock around the laptop case to prevent your underpaid crew/pax from stealing your expensive stuff out of it (or copying your hard looked-for porn pics).

10.Another overnight bag to carry all the sh*t specified in 1-9.

Right then your all decked out. (Dont forget to bring your laptop!) :)

[CrashDive]

Top tip #9187 !

Never ever buy a 'Gateway Solo 9100' - they're crap; at least mine was (Don't even ask - I'm still in councelling about that piece of sh!te !)

Back in January, the beast cost my company £2800 (it was very high spec model).
In mid-july it went tits up for the for the last time (there were 4 previous occasions before that).
I was then laptopless for the next two months - this must surely say something about Gateways very expensive premium support; and I'm still laptopless.

We've since asked for our money back and inspite of more prommises of early payment, from Gateway, no sign of the cheque.

Want my advice - buy Dell !

[What_does_this_button_do?]

Dell laptops are ^&*#, i.e. not very good. Where I work we bought 100 of them. 100 of them just returned, love and hugs, the company.

Tosh seem to have the laptop market sawn up. My choice however would be Compaq, not the cheap ones though. Expensive it is, but it seems to last forever and all the Operating Systems detect what's in it (i.e. in some kit I could mention you receive 2 CD's and a floppy for all of those devices which Windows doesn't seem to understand, i.e. the laptop supplier has done it "on the cheap", not good me thinks).

[blackadder]

I admit to buying the "U-beaut" model from Gateway recently, at £3k + the u-beaut service package for another £300, main reason was their previous service history for my PC over the last 2-3 years which has been good.
I wanted a Dell until I found out that the screen overlaps the base when closed, not good in a drop!
Hope I don't need the extra cable lengths that Slasher suggests as I'll only be in SGN for a few days, the other spots are Oz, BKK and Koh Samui (a month :) )

SLASHER.
What's it like trying to connect with a mobile, slow as a wet week in Hanoi I guess? (9600) I'll have a Nokia 6150 dual band with me.

[This message has been edited by blackadder (edited 10 October 1999).]

[Nightrider]

I do not want to circum-navigate Capt. Blythe income, but what do you think about this
PII-366, 128MB, 6.3 GB HD, DVD drive, Floppy, Battery 4 hrs, 8 MB Video (ATI), V90 Modem, 14.1 TFT Monitor, floppy can be removed to give space for second battery, HD interchangeable, IR sensor, 2x Com, 1x parallel, 1 USB, speakers fitted and ext. connector, mic fitted and ext. connector,
built in the UK but, if bought in Germany it costs £1700. I am very satisfied and happy with it.
Address on request available.
(Also bought in Germany, service is available in the UK as well...)

[blackadder]

Sounds good Nightie,
too late for me though.

Maybe because I was already a client, Gateway threw in 288mb RAM when I mentioned Dell, for £71.00 extra.

Can also recommend JFAX.COM For faxes to and from yr PC/LT. FREE if you don't mind a US#.
US$12.50/MONTH for the country of yr choice.

Also, the little Canon JBC-80 portable printer.
Shop around for a demo, I bought mine for £50.
List: £200.00, all I had to get were the drivers from the Canon site, dloaded free.

[Slasher]

Nightrider sounds like my new lappy arrived at YOUR place instead. It hasnt %&#@$ arrived HERE yet!
Blacky you should get 14.4 ok but theres only one government cell server down there I recall and its non GSM. But Ive been using Iridium satcom for 2 years now so Im a bit out of the loop in that dept. Iridiums going down the crapper but the rates are only 20c a min now ISO bloody near US$8 a min a few months ago.
Worst laptops Ive had were Acer and Texas (whos laptop dept was subsequently taken over by Acer). Acer has that stupid suspend to disk 'swap file' it creates itself and theres nothing you can do about it. Pain in the a rse. Texas Extensa was ok but the monitor mounts will eventualy freeze up later and break from the main chassis. The removeable HDD will slowly get lose even if you never remove it and you have to continualy belt the chassis on bootup till the HDD ident is seen. Ive ordered a 400 PE 128M IBM thinkpad from Malaysia (the well known Inbi plaza in KL) at a fraction of the cost elsewhere. Came to 12000 ringit which is just on 1900 quid. Freebies and tons of free (but safe "arrr Jim Hawkins arrr!" type) software thrown in as well as freebie spare hardware (spare power pack DVD drive etc) Quite happy. Downside is it takes bloody ages to ship it out to the workers paradise. Blacky I recommend a visit to Inbi if you sidle into KL on your way to SighGone and check it out. Its very good.
PS Koh Samui? Try Phuket (Patong Bay) instead. Much better place IMHO. BTW what dates you in SayGorn?

[blackadder]

SGN, late January, anytime, open ticket. Suggest a time/date by email.

[WX Man]

Hello? WDTBD, you'd voluntarily buy a f*cking COMPAQ? they have to be the biggest pile of sh!t computers I have ever had the displeaseure to use, and I use them absolutely everywhere now, work (new job), home (dad got ripped of at PC world), and at my girlfriends (her dad got ripped off at PC World).

If I were a thug I'd leave it at that, but I must back up my criticism with evidence. Basically Compaq install Pentium (or AGP, whoever) chips on their motherboards, using their own Cache and memory systems. And that is the problem! Rarely does the motherboard's specs match up to the processor's specs... result? Computers constantly having to access the cache, at an INCREDIBLY slow rate.

EXAMPLE: my old laptop was an AJP 6200, Pentium 200MHz MMX with 32MB RAM. My girlfriend's is Compaq 266MHZ P2, with 64MB RAM. Why does FS98 run at twice the speed on my AJP? Why is the internet connection, using THE SAME external modem half the speed on the compaq?

EXAMPLE 2: this piece of sh!t computer that I'm using now has the most godawful systems software installed on it (Compaq's easy access/ homebase etc) to complement Windows. Why does this 166MHz 32MB RAM machine run at less than half the speed of my mate's laptop, 133MHz 32MB RAM, made by AJP again?

Why, when you double click on the 'My Computer' icon on a compaq machine does it take nearly 3-4 seconds to bring up the directory, when on nearly every other computer in existance the result is damn nearly instaneous?

And why has it taken me twice as long to type this than it would have done on any other keyboard? Why? 'cos it's made by COMPAQ.

Answer: steer clear of Compaq. Buy AJP, or their new subsidiary, Ultra.
http://www.ajp.co.uk/

[blackadder]

Essential if you are in remote areas :)
Extended Power Packs & Solar Panels for laptops.

The PowerBase extended power pack gives you 10 hours
of computing and only weighs 3.5 pounds. It recharges from
an AC wall outlet or from the cigarette lighter in your car.

Mercury Solar Panels weigh as little as 3 pounds and keep your laptop operating wherever the sun is shining.
http://207.44.37.49/accessories/powerbasesolar.asp

[Feline]

Most useful accessory I carry for my laptop when travelling is a bottle of scotch (preferably single malt). That way I can get quietly pissed while simultaneously getting pissed off trying to log on through hotel switchboards. I now limit logon attempt time to about thirty minutes to avoid hangovers in the morning.

This is an accessory you can get most anywhere (even duty free on some routes)and installation is absolutely painless.

BTW BA - didn't you run this thread a couple of month's ago?

------------------
Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)

[blackadder]

Date at the top says Oct 8, so, yes. :)

[ExSimGuy]

Slasher, you mentioned the various power adapters, but you forgot about the telephone sockets!

I recently "invested" in a "road warrior's travel adapter kit" from CompUSA (while travelling with my laptop!) All in a nice case, marginally smaller than the one for my laptop (plus modem cable, mouse - I HATE "scratchpads" - charger, cellphone, charger for same, cellphone modem adapter - won't work in USA of course, different cellphone frequency)

There's power adapters to cover MOST countries - not Dununda as they have a plug that NOBODY else uses! - but a really impressive selection of TEN different phone jack adapters - many of which I have NEVER seen before! There's also a nice little card to tell me what countries I have to visit to try out the phone adapters that I have never seen before!!

CompUSA - How about sending me a $50 voucher for the advertising? (advertizing?) Please mail it via my postbox in PPRuNe Towers!

[blackadder]

I have to admit getting stung by Teleadapt with their RJ11 adaptors, what I paid £9 for in the UK was £1 in Pantip Plaza.
Same brand etc.

Electric adaptor plugs from WONPRO, the same deal.
see http://www.wonpro.com/

I agree with comments about Oz phone plugs, they must be the weirdest on the planet. :)
I wonder why.

[Lurk R]

Got it wrong - Oz plugs are normal. All other countries around the world have the weird ones. :) :) :)

[Slasher]

ExSim not exactley. The Oz electric power plugs are the same in Argentina! I discovered this on a charter to South America a couple of years ago (that trip in itself is a 10 x six-pack story!)
The weirdest bloodey power plugs are in Seth Effrika.

[blackadder]

Is anyone using Laplink?
Is it any good?

TIA.

[Feline]

BA -

Highly recommend LapLink - have been using it for years and it's rock solid. I don't use any of the bells and whistles, just use it to transfer files between laptop and desktop. Am currently using Ver 7.5b (Win 95) and haven't had any good reason to upgrade. Think the latest version (Win 98 or 2000) incorporates PC-Anywhere and enables you to use it over a modem-to-modem link (if you remembered to leave your desktop switched on that is!)

BTW - Love the way you keep on resurrecting this thread - are you going for some kind of longevity record? I like it - I pick up something new (?!) every time I get into it!

------------------
Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)

[foxmoth]

If you want a good laptop for our job try a toshiba libretto (if you can get hold of one anymore). Small,light and it seems to work pretty well - the sony viao seems to be the equivalent now, but i dont know how good that is ?

[Seaeagle109]

I'm considering purchasing a laptop to keep in touch on the road, and I was just wodering if anybody has heard any bad reports on the IBM 149M Notebook and the Canon BJC-80 printer?

Thanks for any info.

[Mice]

I am mortally wounded by the reference to the Orstralian plug being odd! Why they have the very same plug in all recent installations in China also!! (Never been to Argentina).
As this little pissant country gets most things from China because they are cheap and nasty, it is only fair we set the balance of trade right by giving them our odd-ball electrical plug.
Have seen these plugs on occasion in Singapore too.
Cheers

[blackadder]

Dear Feline,
No, not going for a record, it's just that I know zilch about PCs and Laptops and this thread keeps me up to date on Laptop suggestions etc. :)
I'm paranoid about Virussss and If I got one I'd be out of business for quite a while... hence my posts about warnings of new virus.
Cheers.