Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Setekh on June 04, 2004, 10:39:11 pm
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...and went halves with my brother to buy a laptop. :) In fact, I'm posting from it right now. It's pretty sweet. :D
Here are the specs:
[q]From this Aussie vendor: (http://www.tpg.com.au/online/)
15.4" Widescreen XGA TFT Display (1280*800)
Wireless-54Mbps 802.11g (PCMCIA)
Mobile AMD Athlon XP-M (45W) 2400+
512MB DDR memory for optimal performance
30GB HD
DVD/CD-RW drive (24x/24x/24x/8x)
ATI Radeon IGP 320M
Built-in 10/100 Ethernet
56K bit/sec V.92 modem
Microsoft Windows XP Home
1 Year RTB Warranty[/q]
AUD$1575. It rocks. It's ridiculous, I'm going back through my download directories and playing demos of all these games I've never been able to run before... :p
Anyway, does anyone have suggestions for must-have useful software to put on this new install? Oh, and here's what it looks like:
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Ooooh, nice little shine up top...
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Not a bad choice of processor. For the GPU I would have gone for either a GF Go5700 or a Radeon Mobility 9700, but still not bad.
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*orgasm*
Have fun cleaning that up... :drevil:
You need a larger harddrive though. :) You'll find you run out quite quickly with a high-end computer.
So much stuff you should get I don't know where the begin.
And now you have no excuse not to render some more goodies :p
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Thanks a lot, DC. :p On the note of space, though, I think I should be able to survive on the 30GB just fine. What easily takes up the most space is games, right? And pretty much the only thing I have on here permanently will be FS2, so that'll be okay. (Maybe Halo PC as well.) In any case, I use an external HD to ferry stuff to my desktop PC where I store most of my stuff, so it should be okay I think. :nod:
Yeah GW, I was considering changing the GPU, but that wasn't an upgrade option when I was purchasing. Maybe a little further down the road. :)
No ideas for software, anyone? :D
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Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird
That way you can ditch IE and Outlook.
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And get OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) instead of Microsoft there too.
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Spire :D
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Firefox is already on. :) OpenOffice... I'll set that to download now. And SPIRE... yes yes, well, I need Linux (or at least WINE) working for that first. It's on the to-do list. :D
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An IrfanView.
great rig Setekh, I'm so jealous :p :p
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:drool:
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looks good enough ^^
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Originally posted by Setekh
Thanks a lot, DC. :p On the note of space, though, I think I should be able to survive on the 30GB just fine. What easily takes up the most space is games, right? And pretty much the only thing I have on here permanently will be FS2, so that'll be okay. (Maybe Halo PC as well.) In any case, I use an external HD to ferry stuff to my desktop PC where I store most of my stuff, so it should be okay I think. :nod:
Yeah GW, I was considering changing the GPU, but that wasn't an upgrade option when I was purchasing. Maybe a little further down the road. :)
No ideas for software, anyone? :D
You would be frightened at the horrendous sizes my FS2 folder has been swelling up to.
It had reached about 11 GB when I decided I needed to act.
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
It had reached about 11 GB when I decided I needed to act.
/me checks his FS/FS2 mods/files.....1.34 GB, Not bad considering there are prolly tons of duplicate/backup/old version files. :P
:nervous: [EDIT] Nice Laptop Setekh! :D Though /me wonders why you and your brother didn't go for a desktop instead.
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Woah!! Sw33t laptop man!! O_O
Space seems bit small though..the FS2 folder can go to ~huge sizes though...the hardrive mine is on is 3GB or so, and i only have 400MB free space left, with FS2 and associated modding tools o_O
rich bugger
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Whoa! only 3GB? Get a new hard drive. Im thinking about soon getting a new HD soon maybe 60GB Im also thinking about getting a new motherboard maybe a combo. Though I have come across an obstacle: should I get Intel or AMD hmmmmm..... I hate making choices....
Oh nice Labtop Setekh.
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Actually, that's just one of the HDs I have. Its dedicated only to Win2000 and FS2 (3GB for each), whilst my other games are on a larger HD, 40GB in size :)
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Oh....... well you made it sound like your only hard drive was 3GB be more specific next time or I will be forced to hurt you either by using haikus of evil or sending you expired spam pie.
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Originally posted by Falcon
Oh....... well you made it sound like your only hard drive was 3GB be more specific next time or I will be forced to hurt you either by using haikus of evil or sending you expired spam pie.
It isnt too far from hte truth, since for a while, that was[/u][/b] the only hard drive I had.
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Originally posted by Thorn
Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird
That way you can ditch IE and Outlook.
I've come to the conclusion that ditching IE for Mozilla was completly stupid, Mozilla is nothing like people say, and outlook is much better than the Morzilla mail thinguy ( where the hell is my contact list? I mean WTF? ).
I'm anti MS only when the other stuff is actually better, not just for the hell of it.
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Nice laptop Steak:)
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Hmmm talking about new toys eh? Well my Epson C900 AcuLaser finally arrived last week - I got truly sick and tired of all the inkjets I've bought lasting either before they break down or have their printheads so misaligned the banding becomes ridiculous after just 6 months. The print quality isn't on par with the better photo inkjets when it comes to hi-res prints, but you can't really tell the difference past 1 foot anyway, plus it prints about 100x faster than any inkjet I've seen. I do a fair amount of amateur digital photography and it's perfect for doing decent prints.
Everyone thinks I've got more money than sense for buying such an 'overkill' bit of hardware, but I'd say it's one of the more practical pieces I've bought in the last year. My Palm Pilot is just sitting around most of the time, likewise with my laptop (although it is very useful on campus). I'm hoping I can find a Linux driver for it when I reinstall it next week. The only downside of the printer is its immense size and bulk; I'm not looking forward to lugging it into the car to take home this summer. ^_^
EDIT: Cool laptop Steaky!
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Originally posted by Nico
I've come to the conclusion that ditching IE for Mozilla was completly stupid, Mozilla is nothing like people say, and outlook is much better than the Morzilla mail thinguy ( where the hell is my contact list? I mean WTF? ).
I'm anti MS only when the other stuff is actually better, not just for the hell of it.
Under Windows, IE is the best browser you could use (despite it's obvious flaws) 'cause it's built into the OS. Nothing will thus ever be faster.
Outlook on the other hand, is the worst thing you might ever come across.
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
Under Windows, IE is the best browser you could use (despite it's obvious flaws) 'cause it's built into the OS. Nothing will thus ever be faster.
Outlook on the other hand, is the worst thing you might ever come across.
Wrong, Opera is much faster performance-wise than IE, especially when you're looking at multiple websites simultaneously. The only reason IE is the 'best' is because 99.999% of websites are written to render correctly in it. From a UI perspective IE is also pretty lacking and its standard featureset is laughable.
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Glad ya like it, folks. :) As an added bonus, it makes a really nice lap-warmer since it's Winter right now. Just the right temperature to not burn my legs. :p
And yeah, I guess I'll have to think about the bigger HD later. But I think I can survive for now. I'll just have to see how small I can get Debian so I can put it next to XP and get a build of SPIRE going. ')
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Originally posted by SadisticSid
Wrong, Opera is much faster performance-wise than IE, especially when you're looking at multiple websites simultaneously. The only reason IE is the 'best' is because 99.999% of websites are written to render correctly in it. From a UI perspective IE is also pretty lacking and its standard featureset is laughable.
Good one. I open IE - 0.02 seconds (as its OS-native). I open Opera (yes I have it installed) - 8+ seconds loadup.
That's windows, and you can't change it.
And yes, IE *is* not a very good browser, but its hardcoded into windows. You can however, unlock a couple of secret options with RegEdit.
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I hate to tell you Light, but there's something screwed over with that version of Opera you have there. Mine loads up virtually instantly too, on par with IE.
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
Good one. I open IE - 0.02 seconds (as its OS-native). I open Opera (yes I have it installed) - 8+ seconds loadup.
That's windows, and you can't change it.
And yes, IE *is* not a very good browser, but its hardcoded into windows. You can however, unlock a couple of secret options with RegEdit.
Well if initial loadup times are the sole measure of performance then I suppose IE wins even on my system (though it's more like 2 seconds vs 6 here, probably because of the amount of crap plugins it has to launch whenever you open a new IE window). However it's much faster computationally when dealing with multiple windows, doesn't clog up the taskbar and is intuitively faster for me to use.
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well since setekh is showing of his new laptop, i might as well pimp mine. I got it from my university, that means i didn't pay for it :D. its soon two years old but its powerful enoguh to run apps that i need for my courses in school
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Originally posted by Windrunner
well since setekh is showing of his new laptop, i might as well pimp mine. I got it from my university, that means i didn't pay for it :D. its soon two years old but its pwerful enoguh to run app that i need for my courses in school
I feel like strangling you now :p
I want a free lappy too :(
Takes me too long to actually save up for one, I usually end up spending what I have long before I get halfway :D
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Originally posted by Zuljin
I feel like strangling you now :p
I want a free lappy too :(
Takes me too long to actually save up for one, I usually end up spending what I have long before I get halfway :D
well move here where i am living and apply for the same program course like i did, and you will get one. right now the students get a ne HP laptop. the same spec like setekhs
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Originally posted by SadisticSid
Well if initial loadup times are the sole measure of performance then I suppose IE wins even on my system (though it's more like 2 seconds vs 6 here, probably because of the amount of crap plugins it has to launch whenever you open a new IE window). However it's much faster computationally when dealing with multiple windows, doesn't clog up the taskbar and is intuitively faster for me to use.
IIRC since IE is part of the OS, part of it is already loaded when windows starts. So in effect IE doesn't need a whole lot of time to execute.
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Originally posted by HotSnoJ
IIRC since IE is part of the OS, part of it is already loaded when windows starts. So in effect IE doesn't need a whole lot of time to execute.
[color=66ff00]Translation: Windows is so slow because it's preloading that mountain of crap; Internet explorer.
Thankyou for using the M$ to Linux translator. ;)
[/color]
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Venom: if the contact list not being below the folder list in Outlook is your only gripe about the Mozilla platform, ditch trying Mozilla and use Thunderbird. The Mozilla suite is at its end anyway - all future development will be into Firefox/Thunderbird.
Catch me on ICQ and I'll explain exactly why IE/Outlook is so much worse than a Mozilla-based browser or Opera.
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Well, first, explain to me why Mozilla will simply "erase" all the pics that won't show, effectively rendering any attempt of checking the URL by yourself impossible. Explain to me why even when allowing popups cookies and unholly undead invasions on that particular webpage, mozilla won't let me run a flash page or install the latest macromedia plugin, why IE takes 17 mb or memory and mozilla 51, what was the big idea of using a netscape plateform which obviously does not like a large number of websites.
Explain to me why mozilla is so much better than IE ( note that I don't like IE much coz for some reason it always crashes on me. That's something that happens on a higher plan of reality I believe, coz in the same circonstances, on the same PC, IE will crash for me but not for anybody else. That's why I turned to mozilla in the first place... :p )
As for thunderbird, dunno, never tried, so I won't say anything about this one, but I do intend to, coz I'm obviously not pleased with mozilla.
BTW, which one should I try: thunderbird, or firefox ( last time I checked they were separate stuff, I believe it's still the case? )?
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Thunderbird is good, Mozilla is awesome; firefox at least. They've gone through several dozen name changes, it seems.
Thunderbird = MZ_EMAIL;
Firefox = MZ_BROWSER;
:p
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Ah ok, that clears things up, thanks.
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Originally posted by Nico
Well, first, explain to me why Mozilla will simply "erase" all the pics that won't show, effectively rendering any attempt of checking the URL by yourself impossible. Explain to me why even when allowing popups cookies and unholly undead invasions on that particular webpage, mozilla won't let me run a flash page or install the latest macromedia plugin, why IE takes 17 mb or memory and mozilla 51, what was the big idea of using a netscape plateform which obviously does not like a large number of websites.
Explain to me why mozilla is so much better than IE ( note that I don't like IE much coz for some reason it always crashes on me. That's something that happens on a higher plan of reality I believe, coz in the same circonstances, on the same PC, IE will crash for me but not for anybody else. That's why I turned to mozilla in the first place... :p )
As for thunderbird, dunno, never tried, so I won't say anything about this one, but I do intend to, coz I'm obviously not pleased with mozilla.
BTW, which one should I try: thunderbird, or firefox ( last time I checked they were separate stuff, I believe it's still the case? )?
Mozilla not showing broken images: I agree, that is annoying at times and should be at the very least user-configurable. I'd bet there's a bug open for that very issue already. ;)
Flash + Mozilla works fine for me, but you have to install the Flash package after installing Mozilla, otherwise Flash won't be configured for anything other than IE.
Mozilla takes up 38mb with me currently, after having browsed a number of pagesm not 50. But yes, its footprint needs work, but that's what FireFox is for.
Mozilla is a current browser that fully supports current web standards. IE doesn't even fully support the years-old CSS1 standard that it claims to support. Mozilla is much more secure and protected against spyware, whereas with IE, you need to run AdAware every so often. Same with viruses - all those malicious auto-executing email viruses are harmelss on Mozilla/Thunderbird (they don't execute automatically). Mozilla is always under development, whereas Microsoft has said that IE6 is the last version it will make until the Longhorn-integrated IE in 2006/2007. :-/
Lastly, go with FireFox / Thunderbird, unless you'd be using them in a mission-critical environment (like at work). They're both in beta, but more stable than IE. They're light on their feet, and are infinitely extensible. They are Good. :yes: