I don’t like using college PC’s and other people’s laptops to do work on. They’re generally slower than my own, have default versions of everything installed on them and i end up wanting to ‘fix’ their PC before i start working with it.
- Image by ibarakaldo via Flickr
Any default vista PC drives me mad. I disable all security alerts, re-arrange the admin/user restrictions and do away with that damn sidebar. So much better, faster, smoother. I also enable ‘single click‘ and get rid of all of that crap which starts up at start up…. anti virus, cleaners, msn, spyware, software that’s never used… it all goes which speeds everything up nicely too and makes me feel at home.
Of course i can’t bring a second monitor or a surround sound system around with me all the time, so i can only go so far before i have to make do with these inferior setups. My current laptop runs XP at the minute, it’s 4 years old and slow. ‘Unusable’ would be harsh, but with a 20 minute battery life & faded, flickering screen, it’s on it’s last legs and has been for about a year. I rarely use it these days, maybe gets a run out once a month. It’ll be retired now for good and tucked away to gain value as a collectors item 😉
My new samsung nc10 will be replacing it. Up to 8 hour battery life, 2.9 pounds in weight (my ferrari was over twice that weight), 160gb hard drive (my ferrari had 100gb), bluetooth, memory card reader, webcam & mic all built in…
Style wise, it’s not as eye catching as my old laptop, but it’s simple & classy. Black my colour of choice. White is too ‘apple’, blue would do but black always looks more menacing and slick.
Of course a new laptop means a new mouse & bag. They’re already on the way. I’ve ordered a logitech VX nano which the eagled eyed amongst you will notice is NOT bluetooth. The NC10 has in built bluetooth so why not opt for a bluetooth mouse? First of all, battery life – bluetooth uses more juice than a wireless usb receiver. Secondly, the receiver with the VX nano is so bloody small that it may as well be integrated 
I can also use it on the college PC’s and any PC for that matter… with a bluetooth mouse, i’d need bluetooth. So that explains that decision. Plus bluetooth tends to be that fraction of a second slower and of course i already have a logitech mouse & keyboard with my desktop and have been mightely impressed with their ergonomics.
- Image by bangdoll@flickr via Flickr
As for a bag, well i don’t really need a bag as i’ll be carrying this around in my normal college bag or my old laptop bag which will now have room for books & my NC10 🙂 but i do need some sort of sleeve or tight casing for peace of mind… this is expensive stuff and it’s extremely easy to just fling your bag down as you normally would without thinking about what’s inside it. So this bag from ebay will do the job nicely. Small enough to fit inside another bag, but also big enough to carry around by itself…
The size & battery life of this NC10 will mean i’ll have access to a word processor and the internet for 2/3 hours during the day where i wouldn’t normally have it or would spend most of it reading rather than writing and working. I’ll also, probably, go to bed earlier every night by an hour or so and just write.
The silence and releaxed mental state of mind leave me at my most productive around that time (12-2am). With my desktop, it’s impossible to switch off mentally when i’m at it and using it. It’s just too loud (fans), too bright (dual 20″ monitors at max brightness), plus i know in the back of my mind i can’t switch off an fall asleep as i’ll have to go to bed at some stage, so i must remain awake.
With a netbook, i don’t have to worry about that… noise isn’t a problem (or shouldn’t be – i’ll have to wait and see), i only have one small 10 inch monitor so realistically i’ll be doing things one step at a time, one window at a time. It will act as a ‘warm down’ before i finally go to sleep at night time. Similarly, at college, my netbook will act as a ‘warm up’ to the hardcore work that will take place on my home PC system.