The "Ark"

As you guys know, the “Grail” has already been attained (in the form of the Nikon D300), so in the grand tradition of that esteemed (and mythical) archeologist Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones, my current “Frugal Propellerhead” project has been anointed; the “Ark of the Covenant”. Other than the relatively blasphemous/irreverent connotation, it’s appropriate in that the Ark was the box constructed to hold the “tablets of the law” as handed down from God to Moses. Besides, my friend and fellow ThinkPad fanatic has already claimed the use of the “Holy Grail” term for his amazing Z61m.

Anyway; on to my project…… You might ask yourself, why someone who owns a fairly nice desktop workstation, AND a super-cool ThinkPad X300 would need (or even want) another computer! Here it is: now understand that this may or may not bear any actual “good logic”, but just what I think of as a half-decent rationale for me having this really cool thing.

I’m thinking about starting yet another “side-business”. You know that I already have a computer business that supports my technology addictions and sometimes the occasional family outings to Chick-Fil-A. Now, I’m thinking of leveraging my meager photographic skills and growing collection of equipment into a business as well. Yep, I know, there are more, “I own a DSLR camera and know a little bit about taking pictures than you” photographers than you can shake a stick at, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I’m better than most of them, plus I have a better plan!

Most photographers really make the bulk of their money charging you for those pictures in print form and if you want the files, they charge you more, since they, not you, own those. My plan is to charge straight up for my time and expertise (well…OK, mostly time and the use of my expensive camera), and you own the files. “Flash Drive Photography” You bring me a flash drive; I take your pictures, we’ll take a look and see if they’re any good right then on a computer, I put them on the flash drive. You pay me, take them away, print them, email them, use them in whatever manner brings joy to your life. Simple huh?

Yes, the concept is pretty simple. Take something that is already a pretty serious hobby and that I’ve got money sunk into anyway and try to make something out of it. We maintain a yearly family membership to the Dallas Arboretum since that is way less than the cost of paying for professional portraits for the kids anyway. Now for the last piece (not really since there’s always more equipment to be bought, but humor me); I need a computer that’ll allow me to dump the files and review them “on site”….which is where this whole post was going anyway.

I do have that James Bondish/”Q” Branch-cool ThinkPad X300, but it’s not really something that you’d want to use to review photo files on a regular basis. Yes, it whips out from your svelte aluminum briefcase on the London to Paris, EuroStar train dodging bad guys, while you look dashing in your tux, but some random old house, field, railroad tracks that you are shooting at!?! Not so much. Besides, of its weaknesses, probably the most glaring is the screen that isn’t very large at 13.3”, and has particularly poor viewing angles as well. Not something that you’d want your clients to look at while deciding whether or not that you made them look good….or not in their pictures. Plus, it’s primary storage and boot drive is a 64Gb SSD. Fast yes, but obviously, not a lot of storage AND SSDs are not something that you want to constantly execute a bunch of writes and erases on either.

Therefore, my answer is the ThinkPad (what else?), Z61m, that I picked up as a partially completed project from my friend Ed ($75). It came with a bad screen (lower third shows jibberish), small HDD (40Gb), little RAM (1Gb), slow processor (Celeron version of the Core Solo), and bad battery. However, it had the really cool looking titanium cover, webcam, 15.4” screen which can be replaced with up to a UWXGA (1920 x 1200) screen, UltraBay Enhanced modular bay which can take a variety of devices, and the ability to take the “Merom” version of the Core 2 Duo line of processors. Therefore, I could turn it into a VERY powerful computer, the trick would be to be able to do that without breaking the bank! Here’s what I did:

• Picked up an Intel T7200 (2ghz Merom) CPU from a recycler for $24. That’s the most bang for the buck since it’s the slowest (therefore the cheapest) of the 4Mb cache “Merom” line, but has double the on-die cache of the previous Core Duo “Yonah” line.

• Bought a Samsung 128Gb SSD in the 1.8” micro-SATA format complete with 1.8” to 2.5” adapter for $125. Eventually, Two reasons for the 1.8” drive: they are cheap right now (way cheaper than the 2.5” drives of the same capacity), AND I’ll be able to use it to eventually upgrade my X300. By then the bigger SSDs like the 256Gb should be a lot cheaper.

• Bought two compatible Atheros A/B/G/N WiFi adapter from Hong Kong for $26 each (one goes into my wife’s Z61m) so the machine can connect to the new/faster “N” home access point at the faster speed.

• $40 for a replacement WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) screen, from an eBay recycler.

• $15 for a UltraBay Enhanced, SATA HDD adapter so I can use a 500Gb Samsung SpinPoint drive as storage. The drive was given to me by a friend who needed files copied from it since the USB connector from the external case malfunctioned.

• $35 for a 85% 9-cell battery from another ThinkPad Forum member.

• Accumulated 4Gb of RAM and A/C adapter from dead machines, no costs.

• $340 total spent on a machine worth easily twice that.
  

• Fun of the project and scoring the parts cheap: PRICELESS!

The idea is that this machine not only has a bigger screen, but it’s larger, has far wider view angles as well as higher resolution, so better able to handle the large photo files. Of course, the ability to have a big 500Gb mechanical drive will be advantageous for storage. Now, if I can figure out a way to anodize the titanium lid a really cool satin black, I’ll be one happy camper!