Computers

[mmm3587]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Dell must be cranking these out like crazy. They are a pretty good mix of features. I know my organization bought several hundred.

I think it's marketed as the replacement for the A400, which is the little Dell probably 50% of business travelers who want a smaller laptop have. You see it all the time at security. For the A400, the volume discounts were phenomenal, and they are very popular with large entities.

I haven't played with the 600m yet, but the specs look good, and I have always had lots of success with Dell's business lines.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by ilikenewsocks
How long ago was your bad experience? After the HP merger?

They were all pre-merger. The three laptops I had experience with (one of which I owned, another was a workmate's, and another a roommate's) all seemed really solid, with good features when they were purchased. But they quickly started creaking, and keys started jiggling, and harddrives started crashing, and nothing, nothing was standard on any of them, so replacement parts were impossible.

To the extent that Compaqs are now rebranded HPs, they are probably better. To the extent HPs are now rebranded Compaqs, I am a little frightened of HPs.

[Alex_de_Large]

Originally posted by baltassoc
They were all pre-merger. The three laptops I had experience with (one of which I owned, another was a workmate's, and another a roommate's) all seemed really solid, with good features when they were purchased. But they quickly started creaking, and keys started jiggling, and harddrives started crashing, and nothing, nothing was standard on any of them, so replacement parts were impossible.

To the extent that Compaqs are now rebranded HPs, they are probably better. To the extent HPs are now rebranded Compaqs, I am a little frightened of HPs.

I too have a Compaq horror story. I had a Compaq in law school. it was a terrific design, but I had problems with the morher board, power supply, and the hard drive.

Buy a Mac. You won't be disappointed.

[Alex_de_Large]

Fuck Bill Gates.

[Alex_de_Large]

If anyone is interested MacNN is running a real-time blog from today's keynote here. Nothing exciting yet.

[Alex_de_Large]

Originally posted by Alex_de_Large
If anyone is interested MacNN is running a real-time blog from today's keynote here. Nothing exciting yet.

Mac mini in the house! ThinkSecret was right! The Mac mini looks like a 3" tall CD drive; about half as tall as the iPod Mini. A short cube. All the connections, DVI and VGA; fits in the palm of your hand.

1.25 and 1.4 ghz G4 processors.

Will ship in a box smaller than a 20 gb iPod.

Woo-hoo!

[Alex_de_Large]

New ipod: the ipod shuffle. Flash based, it weighs less than one ounce. It's about the size of a USB flash drive, and plugs right into a USB 2.0 slot. 2 models: 512MB for $99 and 1GB for $149.99. Not bad. These will sell well.

[Alex_de_Large]

More Mac Mini pics.

[Alex_de_Large]

[NotFromHere]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Nicholas M. Ciarelli was not even old enough to shave when he started getting under Apple Computer Inc.'s skin.

As a 13-year-old middle-schooler (!), the New Woodstock, N.Y., native built a Web site in 1998 and began publishing insider news and rumors about Apple, using the alias Nick dePlume.

Three years later, ThinkSecret.com was first to report that the company would debut a G4 version of the PowerBook laptop series. The product launched soon thereafter, along with ThinkSecret's reputation among Apple's legendarily zealous fans, generating millions of page views per month.

When Ciarelli scored yet another scoop in late December, by predicting the arrival of a new software package and a sub-$500 computer rolled out at this week's MacWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, the computer maker filed a lawsuit accusing him of illegally misappropriating trade secrets.

Ciarelli, now a 19-year-old Harvard University freshman, is part of a legion of Internet news gatherers whose influence is expanding as concern grows in some quarters about their accountability and journalistic standards.

Ciarelli said he originally chose a pseudonym because he doubted many people would take a teenager seriously. He was publicly unmasked as ThinkSecret's editor in chief by the Harvard Crimson newspaper, which reported on the lawsuit this week.


those wacky Harvard kids

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
those wacky Harvard kids

Be sure to remember to post the follow-up story in three years telling us that he will be enrolling in law school as a result of his experiences.

[NotFromHere]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Be sure to remember to post the follow-up story in three years telling us that he will be enrolling in law school as a result of his experiences.

You can probably read his prison blog someday. Sometimes these kids get carried away.

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally posted by NotFromHere
You can probably read his prison blog someday. Sometimes these kids get carried away.

What exactly are the trade secrets being revealed here? That they have these new products? That Apple just announced and will spend millions more marketing? What would Apple's damages be for a product rumor leaked a couple days before an official announcement? Which one of you litigators thought that this would be a good idea, instead of a bad publicity event?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Flinty_McFlint
What would Apple's damages be for a product rumor leaked a couple days before an official announcement?

They claim it was more than a few days (the rumors were a few weeks earlier), and that it permits the competition additional time to respond.

It's pretty lame, but I'm convinced they're doing it a) to get thinksecret to flip their source and b) to dissuade future efforts to coax breaches of confidentiality agreements.

[NotFromHere]

Originally posted by Flinty_McFlint
What exactly are the trade secrets being revealed here? That they have these new products? That Apple just announced and will spend millions more marketing? What would Apple's damages be for a product rumor leaked a couple days before an official announcement? Which one of you litigators thought that this would be a good idea, instead of a bad publicity event?

There's no such thing as bad publicity.