Category Archives: Computers

Computers, dell

XPS 17…sad good bye

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Well, I had the XPS 17 for a few weeks, however I must say good bye to a very nice performing laptop.

Why am I returning it? Well here are few reasons:

1) Being a gamer, I wanted something nice, fast, but cheap. The XPS 17 fit the bill nicely, so I tried it. It played well, but when it came to FPS, I felt it was lacking. Granted there are ways to overclock it, but stock wise IMHO it didn’t do well.

2) I didn’t like the screen too much. Granted you will have different opinions all over, but to me I felt like it was a bit washed out. I possibly could of corrected it via a ICC profile, but I didn’t have experience making them nor could I find any for the 3D screen at the time.

So there are my reasons. The main reason, for gaming, was the biggest overall reason.

Other than that, it was solid built laptop and it would work well for many people. However, sadly, it wasn’t for me.

Computers, dell

Dell XPS 17 Mini Video

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Well, I finally got it – and here is a short video 🙂

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIfZ2L_rlrM]YouTube – XPS 17 Box Opening[/url]

All and all, I am pretty happy with this laptop. I made a few mistakes in the video though. IMHO, the top and the palm rest seem to be made of a metal of some sort. Not sure if its aluminum, but its something like it.

The keyboard is interesting to type on. The keys are nice, kind of reminds me of the MBP. However the space bar is kind of hard, like a older style KB. Guess since the KB takes the most abuse, so its probably better that way.

The mouse pad is decently responsive. It has two finger scrolling and etc which I kind of miss when I gave my older MBP a few weeks back to my one of my family members.

The fan is not bad. It is loud when at full blast (prime95, picture at the bottom), but if you have a pair of headphones or maybe watching a movie, you shouldn’t be able to hear it that much, if any.

The sound I find to be pretty darn nice coming from a laptop. I’m no audio expert, but it sounds more than decent enough for pretty much anything 🙂

The LCD is nice, and more than enough area. However I have a slight issue… it seems the LCD is a bit washed out. Maybe it could be me, or my lighting (CFL 500K daylight), but I don’t see why a color profile or some adjusting won’t fix it. The LCD model for me is LGD02C5 – I think thats the same one they used in the M17XR3 as well.

The design is nice, easy on the eyes and is pretty solid. However we have one slight exception, the LCD lid. Its solid, don’t get me wrong, but its feel a bit if’y especially when you grab both sides at the top (while open) and try to push one side and pull the other. I know people will say, well its a 17 – and yes I know – but it feels a bit too easy in my opinion.

Any questions – let me know!


Computers

Many new things that happened

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Last year was a pretty big year for me in a sense that I found out that I will be a father soon. Granted there was some other things, but this definitely takes the cake. Other than that, I have a had a few interesting moments.

Just recently someone cracked into this server and accessed the www portion of this site and added a few directories. Nothing major, just a few scripts, and a other things. The DB was never accessed and the user was walled in. I have already reported them a few days ago to the authorities and thats being taken care of as we speak. Now why didn’t I say hacked? Cause quite honestly, I don’t consider using a automated system that does a brute force/directory attack a hack. That will change soon enough though and oh, the user account has been changed…so good luck next time 🙂

Another thin that happened is one of my HD finally kicked the bucket and thats why I am in linux right now getting everything from the drive. Why linux? Well for one, I know how to use it pretty well for data recovery, and two, its not freezing every 2 seconds trying to page/access the files. I have another HD from WD on the way to replace it, but I need to implement another solution cause I see another HD’s SMART values are starting to go down which mean drive failure soon 🙁 I had a 20MB hard drive last me like 10 years, but yet I can’t get any new HD to last a few years.

One more thing, I have to fix the site in regards to the pictures not being displayed. Sorry for that and that should be fixed soon 🙂

Computers, dell

Its been awhile…

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I know its been awhile, but I had quite a few family issues to work on. However that should be straightened out, and now I can blog a bit more 🙂

Anyway, ever since I sold pretty much everything I had to make some money, I was left in a void of nothing.

I sold the Alienware for a custom AMD system and OC’d it to 3.6 GHz. The camera was never really replaced, as well as the camcorder, but I can make due for now. So the only left was the laptop. I sold a Dell e6400 for a nice price on ebay, but I was wondering what to get next. After looking around around for some time I found the vostro series.

The vostro series, to me anyway, was something in between a inspiron and a latitude. So therefore I never really looked into it, and just never crossed my mind…until recently. When I saw the new 3000 series, I was impressed with the looks, and the colors of the system. So I decided to try it out and I placed my order with my account rep. A few days later, I thought I made a mistake, and cancelled it cause on outlet, they had a nice studio xps 16 for almost the same price. However I was too late and the I wanted was gone. So I replaced the order again. The problem now was the color choice. Red, being the color I wanted, was on backorder for at least 10 days at the time (now 8). So now I had a wait.

The wait wasn’t that bad, but I really hate waiting…

Order Date: 3/25/2010

3/25: Pre-production
3/26: Pre-production
3/27: Pre-production
3/28: Pre-production
3/29: Pre-production
3/30: In Production – build stage
3/31: In Production – build stage
4/1: In Production – build stage
4/2: In Production – build stage
4/3: In Production – boxing stage
4/4: In Production – boxing stage
4/5: In Production – boxing stage
4/6: Shipped!!!

These are my specs:

224-8458 Vostro 3400 Laptop
317-3846 New 2010 Intel Core i5-520M (2.40GHz, Turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz, Dual Core/4T, 3MB/L3) Vostro
317-3852 4GB,DDR3,1066MHZ, 2 DIMM Vostro
330-8216 Dell Keyboard 86 Backlit English Vostro
330-8088 Vostro Documentation and Documentation Tech Sheet Setup English
313-9450 Nvidia Geforce 310M, 512MB Graphics Vostro
342-9965 320GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive Vostro
421-2281 Dell,Software,Digital Persona Inc,Fingerprint Reader,4.0,Factory Install, Vostro
330-8224 Palmrest with Fingerprint reader Winery 14 Vostro
320-8919 14.0 inch High Definition LED Display (1366 x 768) with anti-glare Vostro
421-1553 Windows 7 Home Premium, Media, 32-bit, Notebook, Vostro, English
330-6322 Genuine Windows 7 Label, Latitude, Vostro and Mobile Precision Notebooks
421-0320 Windows Live Search,Multiple User Interface,SMB
421-2231 Dell Data Back-up and Recovery Manager for WinXP,Vostro
330-8236 Dell Resource DVD, Vostro 3400
330-8223 90W AC Adapter for Vostro
430-3747 Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth 2.1 Module Vostro
313-9428 8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+/-R write capability, Vostro
421-2223 Cyberlink Power DVD 8.3 Vostro
421-1188 Roxio Creator Dell Edition 10.3 Media Vostro
421-1006 Dell Webcam Software 1.4 Application Kit Vostro
313-9468 Bezel, LCD, with Camera Winery 14
313-9457 Lucerne Red Vostro
313-9463 Lucerne RED with DVD+/-RW Vostro
410-1736 Trend Micro 16.6 PC-cillin Internet Security, English 30-day, Subscription, for DellVostro DT and NB
312-0995 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery for Vostro
421-9888 No Productivity Software Vostro
925-3810 Basic Support: Next Business Day Parts and Labor Onsite Response Initial Year
908-8047 Dell Hardware Limited Warranty Plus Onsite Service Initial Year
988-7347 No Warranty beyond 1 year
983-3920 Warranty Support,Initial Year
900-9987 Standard On-Site Installation Declined
986-5010 CompleteCare Accidental Damage Protection, 1 Year
988-7689 Info, Complete Care
468-4927 Lucerne RED Vostro

Computers, dell

New laptop?

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Well, after my old IBM x31 kicked the bucket I bought a D410 for very cheap. However now that I gave that one to my brother (needed something light and portable) I may purchase another one. I am currently looking a portable laptop, around a 13″ display and pretty decent specs. After looking around on Dells site, I found the E4300. It has the power and the screen size I was looking for and it looks like a pretty decent machine. However like anything else, I did my research.

Well, as it turned out, people had issues with this laptop freezing. A nice long thread can testify to that. Also, here is nice article with comments.

I am going to keep on looking, but this looks promising now that the bugs are out of the system (hopefully).