[clue-tech] Need new hardware (was two monitors)

[Jack Parker]

Current client has provided me with a thinkpad T30.  Piece of junk, nice
box, but has been dropped on it's head once or twice too many times, the USB
ports drop a lot.  Otherwise it does the job.  Still, I've got 3 19"
monitors spread all over the home office, I don't really need the dual head
or care to pay for the power and deal with the extra radiation (I'm half
blind already).  I have to play windows to make nice with everybody else -
but do the real work on a dinky linux box in back (cygwin and ssh).

So now comes the question:

I need something with a little more oomph in the Linux department.  I do a
lot of database work, I'm self-employed (i.e. not a lot of excess cash).  At
least 4 disks and 2GB of RAM.  I've got my eye on a Dell PowerEdge 830 for
about $900 (P4 2.8Ghz - single core, 2GB, 1 160GB SATA drive (I'd plug in
three more I have here)).  What would the group look at in my shoes?

(The 4 disks is to spread the load across spindles.
 I am currently using a P3 with 700MB of RAM and three disks.
 CPU is 90% idle.  Disk and Memory are bottlenecks)

j.

-----Original Message-----
From: clue-tech-bounces at cluedenver.org
[mailto:clue-tech-bounces at cluedenver.org]On Behalf Of Nate Duehr
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 12:03 PM
To: CLUE tech
Subject: Re: [clue-tech] two monitors - the new fad


Jack Parker wrote:
> I've used a dual head setup for much the same reasons and with much the
same
> success.  My only beef with the setup is that I move from client(s), to
> hotel, to office, to home.  The physical side of the laptop that the
monitor
> is on varies from place to place - if one is available.  If I'm in a
> situation where I don't have the second monitor hooked up, and I foolishly
> opened something like Winzip on the other screen when I last had it hooked
> up - W2KPro cheerfully keeps it on the screen which is not hooked up.  In
> other words I have no access to that app until I find a monitor and hook
> back up to it and drag it back to the right screen.  Hard to do in a
hotel.
> Since I keep moving around like this, it's obnoxious to try to remember
when
> shutting down/hibernating - to drag everything back to the main screen -
> especially when you've worked with a dozen different applications and you
> have to remember to do each one.
>
> In other words, not something I'd recommend for the road warrior.
>
> j.
>
You definitely should look into XP and a ThinkPad.  This is wandering
off the topic of Linux, but I definitely don't have this problem.  I set
up IBM's Presentation Manager to have two settings, one with internal
screen and one without and just hit Fn-F7 to switch.  Everything gets
moved over to the active laptop-only screen by their switching
software.  Works flawlessly.

ThinkPads are popular in the Linux world for their Linux compatibility
and support, but it's rare to see a reviewer bother to mention the nice
work IBM's done on the "add-ons" they always provide for Windows users.
Their monitor switcher even understands how to change power settings for
presentations, etc... it's well thought-out for road warriors.  Their
"location switching" software for networking is also brain-dead
simple... icon in the task tray, click it, change network profiles,
everything gets set correctly... or you can just wait and it'll figure
it out on its own.  Docking station always seems to "just work" too,
which is more than I can say for Dell or Compaq docks.  ;-)

I'm kinda in hog-heaven right now as far as hardware goes... work
provides an ThinkPad T43, and after I got over my issues (GRIN) with my
first MacBook, I replaced it.  Now the problem becomes... which laptop
to use?  And lugging both of them around...

The screen on the MacBook blows the screen on the ThinkPad away.

Nate
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