Propellerhead Gear: Suits Me To A "T"

The IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad "T" and I go back a loooong way. Actually, back to the beginning......Y2K. Remember that? Anyway, it was my first real full-time IT job and the responsibility of making sure that my department's technology, at the University of Illinois-Chicago was Y2K compliant. It was a poke in the eye, but hey, I got to make the call on, and order up my very first laptops. I replaced the aging ThinkPad 380ED with brand new T20 for our mobile workers. Let me tell ya; I was the IT guru/hero immediately! I learned to love that machine and almost every "T" thereafter. By that point in my mobile computing life, the ThinkPad roots already ran deep. I had bought a legendary 701c a few years earlier, which was followed by the phenominal 600. When the "T" (for titanium) came out in 2000, I understood that in order to get under the $4000 price-point, IBM had to do away with some of the little refinements that had always been there, like covering the ports, and many of the rubberized surfaces, etc. Remember the old days when every ThinkPad came with a form that the owner filled out and mailed in so they would send you an engraved little plaque with your name on it? Be that as it may, the new "T" was an amazing performer and extremely well put together. And in IBM tradition, it was filled with innovations ranging from the titanium infused casing (hence the T), to the "Thinklight" to give you just a little bit of illumination when typing in the dark. At right around 5 pounds complete with optical drive, this computer defined the "Thin and Light" category of mobile computing. I was able to use the T20 at work for my 2 years at UIC, but later would personally own every model of that series, T21, T22 and finally the excellent T23. The later machines introduced me to the world of "high resolution" at 1400 x 1040 (SXGA+) in a 14.1" screen and I've been addicted every since.

Then came the T30 of 2002. I owned it, I used it, but unlike my other "T" ThinkPads; I did NOT love it. Let's just say that the smoking hot P4 was just not a good fit for the "T" Series philosophy.......as witness by the "big butt" on this machine as compared to the T23 which came before and the T40 that came after! This model is probably responsible for me diverging and getting involved with the "X" machines.... but that's a different post.

I think IBM recognized it's mistake and replaced the T30 the following year with the T40. With it, the design went 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Kinda like the supermodel in the little black dress. Don't get me wrong; it looked great, and I loved carrying it, but they made it so thin that the chassis flex, combined with the hotter GPU begat the infamous ATI, BGA failure issue. I never had it happen to me, since I was ultra-careful not to stress the bottom of my T40, T41, T42p, or T43, but it was a common failure and gave IBM a substantial "black-eye", although pretty much every manufacturer in the industry suffered similar failures. At this point, I'll have to admit that I personally jumped ship and went with the X300 for my next personal laptop (which I've already written about).

Although, I had already personally moved on, the T60 and T61 of 2006 and 2007 were important machines in several ways. Sadly, 2005 brought the sale of the ThinkPad brand by IBM to Lenovo. Although, many of us loved our ThinkPads, IBM was basically loosing money on every computer it sold, so the hand-writing had been on the wall for some time.

Business aside; what about the machines? Those of you who are sharp-eyed, might have already noticed that I put the images in reverse order. Why? We bought them that way! Before I had gone over to the X300, my wife had been using ThinkPads out of the lower-end of the corporate line; the "A" Series, the "R" Series and the "Z" Series. So instead of the T60, she was using the Z61m which was essentially a widescreen version of the same machine. So a couple of years ago, I picked up a T61 for her, installed a big (in those days) 240Gb SSD and she was set.

I really like this series of machines (T60/61). While not as thin and light as the T4x, neither did they suffer from the same chassis flex and heat issues of the T4x. Lenovo went to a rigid internal "roll-cage" design which made these some of the most rugged laptops ever designed. The only real "black mark" were the high-end models' use of the nVidia GPU which often failed leaving a completely dead machine. Of course, this was an industry-wide issue and that video chip manufacturer would end up paying settlements in the billions over it! Up until recently, we had 3 (2 with the nVidia GPU), outfitted with SSDs and 4Gb of RAM. They've been excellent machines for us. Last year, we finally got into the T60 game when my brother sent me some of his old machines for use in my wife's classroom. Yup; they are older and somewhat slower, but they are just as rugged and serviceable on a day-to-day basis.

2014 dawned a new age in our house, when the T500 came to replace my wife's T61. If I hadn't told her about the switch, she probably wouldn't have noticed the difference! The machines are almost identical in looks and performance..... at least for what she does with it. The screen resolution is the same, although I think the newer panel is a little bit better than the old one, but the new keyboard isn't quite the equal of the old one, so it's a "wash". I do like that the newer chipset uses the current standard DDR3 RAM which makes upgrades cheaper. So now, both she (T500) and I (X301) both use the same spec of memory, which I prefer. I have a single 4Gb module in her machine which will allow me to easily get to up to 6 or 8Gb in the future.

For the better part of 15 years, between myself and my family, we've used/owned all 12 models of the "T" series from the original T20 to the T500. I'm certain that we'll get around to the newer T510/520/530 as well, when the time comes!

"What" Made Me Who I Am? Part 2

This morning, I was watching some Youtube videos by a guy who collects a lot of things that I enjoy, such as console radios/tvs, computers and other electronic gear. It started me thinking quite a bit on why I like what I do. Of course, there is natural inclination. I like things that do something. I like intricate mechanisms. I like well-fitted enclosures that protect, hide and enhance. All these things, I feel like I was born with a natural propensity toward. However, you can't leave out environment. I'm the son of an engineer with an engineer brother, so all my life, I've been surrounded, or more accurately immersed in technology. You can pretty much say that it started with this..... a Telefunken Sonata stereo console "system". Within this cabinet was a receiver, turntable, and 2 oval speakers. I can remember sitting in front of it in our living room (both in Hong Kong and later in Texas), listening to my Dad's records. It was a seminal moment in my life, when Dad allowed me to put on records and start it under his watchful eye. It's still in our house today! Although the receiver has long-since died from lack of replacement tubes, we have the cabinet in my son's room holding up his LCD TV/Monitor that his old video game consoles are hooked up to. It had been stored in the garage for a number of years, but I recently refinished it and brought it inside. It gave me a sense of continuity and warmth, just to still have it almost 50 years down the road.

Some of you will recognize the Voigtlander Bessamatic Deluxe, that was another "Dad-instrument". I believe that I not only learned the love of photography on this camera, but also the love of fine instruments. This thing was absolutely 100% mechanical, built in the post-war West Germany that was renowned for such things (as was the Telefunken). This camera was built in the last years of the here-to-fore dominant German camera industry right around the time that it was surpassed by the rising tide of Japanese electronic and manufacturing prowess. The things that I take away from this camera is the feel of fine mechanical construction that's indescribable, and oddly; that distinctly smell of German leather from the case!

Then came this...... "Are you kidding me?", you say? It was the first half of the 70's and American console TVs still dominated that landscape. I clearly remember my dad taking me to a store (which no longer exist) on Ave Q in Lubbock, Texas that sold (as was common in those days) appliances as well as televisions. This was not only to be our TV for the next 20-or-so years, but my Christmas present that year as well. A big (25") Zenith (it was either Zenith or RCA then) console TV in those days was a "capitol" purchase. This was the set I remember sitting in my parent's home for virtually the entirety of my teenage years onwards. It was what I religiously watch the daily reruns of the original Star Trek episodes as well as Batman with Adam West. For a few years during my Junior High years, shows like Emergency, and Happy Days. And yes, for a time, it did indeed serve as the stand for their new TV!

And then came the "teen" years. If you were a teen in the U.S. of the 70's, there was one important thing.... and that was "cool", as in being cool, and having cool stuff. Like the kids running around wearing their giant headphones now, it was cool to have component stereo equipment. Most of you remember the ads in just about every magazine..... of the obviously cool guy with the "hot" girl (or at least that's what we say now), in the cool apartment with the cool stereo equipment in the background!?! The more components, the better, the more knobs and switches, the better, and by the later part of the decade; if it was BLACK, even better! I bought a used receiver from my brother's friend Richard. It was a fairly high-end piece by Kenwood that was branded Realistic (Radio Shack). It looked somewhat like the one above, but bigger, with more...you guessed it.... knobs and switches, plus an unusual feature of that time..... a remote control. 

And if you wanted to separate yourself from the crowd, you had multiple components variously stacked all over your built-in bookcase. For me, this ranged from a Dual 1215 (actually my dads), a Advent Cassette deck (that originally belonged to my sister), and a 8-Track deck (that belonged to my other sister before they moved away). I was one of the few people who I knew who could record on 8-track, which most car of the day, came factory equipped.

All this played through a pair of KLH, 2-way "bookshelf" speakers. For Abernathy, Texas in the late 70's, this equipment separate me from the pack, and was one of the few "cool" things in my life. Most people still had the old consoles in their living room that had the stereo, record player AND TV all in one big cabinet!

A few years down the road, this came into my life. A TI 99/4A of the early 80's. I was back home at the time, having done a "reboot" on my academic pursuits by going back to get a teaching certification. My brother was working at Texas Intruments as a design engineer and thus had access to all things TI. This ranged from weird LCD watches to TI's foray into home computing. I played games on it, and even learned a little bit of programming in Basic before it went into to my friend's Mom a few years later. 

But it was actually about 10 years later when I bought an IBM ThinkPad 701c that I really fell in love with computers. Now, many years later, it's considered a work of art and resides in museums. For me though, it was the computer that changed how saw and dealt with an entire category of devices. This became the first digital device that pretty much went with me everywhere. Due to it's amazing folding keyboard (hence the "Butterfly" name), it's compact dimensions allowed it to easily travel. From the arrival of this machine till today's X301, there's been very few periods in my life where I didn't have an "Ultra-portable" in my possession. 

No, I wasn't just born a full-blown Propellerhead. From those days of sitting with my dad listening to music on the Telefunken or out shooting photographs on the Voigtlander, till now, these are the products that have shaped me. If I wasn't married with kids, I could completely see myself being just like the guy who made those videos.... maybe with the exception of collecting vacuum cleaners!

Propellerhead Gear: ThinkPad X301 "The Ultimate Road Warrior"

Now that I've finished the Compact DSLR System series, I thought I'd start another. Something that fits with my resolutions for this year. In short: I'm going to "Love What I Have"! My plan to to complete, optimize, and finish off. With the exception, of the already started rebuild of my desktop workstation; I plan on changing very little. Each month, I'm going to examine at least one of my core devices or systems. 

So, today, I'm going to start with my main "mobile system"; the ThinkPad X301. I just love this machine. There's virtually nothing, I'd change about it. For me, the size is perfect. I really like the resolution of 1440 x 900 in the widescreen 13" format. Yes, it does cause me to scroll more when reading, but I find that I regularly set two windows side by side while working. And when I'm traveling or simply catching up with a missed TV show at home, I really like the 16:9 ratio as well. Sure, I'd have loved for it to be a better panel, even an IPS maybe, but I find the X301's to be somewhat better than the original in the X300. Enough so that I can live with it. What else do I love about it? It's thin AND light. At the time of it's introduction, the X300 was one of the thinnest in the world, yet still was able to have an optical drive! In typical ThinkPad fashion, the keyboard is fantastic (and always key), comes equipped with the TrackPoint pointing stick. 

Also, I love that I'm done with it as well! The RAM is maxed out at the chipset's 8Gb limit, and although drive could be larger, I've decided this last upgrade to the 160Gb, Intel 320 is the end of the line. For what this machine does for me, the Samsung 128Gb was actually fine size-wise, but when I found the Intel, new for $50 on the local Craigs List, it was a no-brainer. What that upgrade gives me isn't so much the 32Gb of extra space, but that this drive has TRIM, which should keep it running well for the duration of it's time with me. Furthermore, the bump in capacity combined with the installation of Google Drive actually leaves me with 105Gb of free space from the formatted size of 149Gb. Nice!!!

If I do need more storage when out and about, I have this. This, is the Iomega SSD Flash external drive. When introduced in 2010, in capacities of 64Gb, 128Gb, and 256Gb, they were $229, $399, and $749 respectively! YOW!!! Last year (I can say that now), I found an eBay seller out of China (where else?), selling the case for about $14. Actually, it was the whole thing, down to the retail box with instructions..... except w/o the SSD inside. So, in went the original 64Gb, 1.8" Samsung drive, and whatta-ya-know..... my very own high speed external drive! Iomega claimed that these things are 10 times faster than a regular mechanical drive through USB 2.0 and even twice as fast as USB 3.0. 

What's this? It's my "rig" of course, or at least when it wants to travel in style, that is! It's a perfect fit and match inside this 3" Zero Halliburton computer attache in gunmetal grey. That's only if it needs to go out for formal occasions. Mostly, it travels in a plain black backpack that doesn't look like it carries anything more important than a few books and papers. The attache was an indulgence at about $65 off of eBay because I always wanted one. The backpack was basically free. I found some ThinkPad backpacks from an outfit in PA that I buy off-lease laptops from and was able to get one for about $20. When it showed up, I found that one of the accessory attachment loops was torn. So I contacted them to see if they had another to swap out. They didn't have an identical one, but sent me a similar one and told me just to keep the first bag...... so free..... with a torn loop that has since been cut off. 

There are a couple of other traveling companions for it of course. Both the ThinkPad mouse, and the Nokia BH-503 connect through Bluetooth, so that's convenient. They are also small and light.

These day though, all this nice "road-warrior" gear stays put up the office closet mostly. This being my typical position of use, but it's ready to go.... if and when it needs to!


 

Blessings, Curses, and Resolutions: 2014

I'm blessed and I know it. There aren't very many guys (or gals) out there that have as many "toys" as I have. With my main hobbies of computing, photography and audio/video, I have pretty much everything that I need, and most things that I want. Sure, I don't shoot pictures with a Leica, don't have a 100" projection screen with a bunch of high-end components running the sound, but I'm good with what I do have. And of course, I'm fairly overrun with computing equipment. All this puts me in this current situation of having everything, but with nothing working at an optimal state.

I'm sure most of you have probably come to the conclusion that I'm about to make a resolution. Actually, it's more like resolution(s), or a resolution in multiple parts. So here's what I need to deal with: I have to run counter to my nature. By that, I mean that I have to suppress that very thing that I'm really good at.... planning and finding bargains to fit those plans. Plus, I'm kind of an "idea man", I'm just not the best in execution. Actually, that's not completely true. I tend to do very well, when I've fired up and motivated by some specific goal, and I'll work incessantly at it till I get it done. I'm just not much of a grinder, or somebody who will plug away at something over a long time. I tend to lose interest and move on to something else if I don't get something finished, or if I'm interrupted. So it's my intention to take my rather long list of semi-finished projects and "git-er done"! What are they?

In my mind, my little home server looks like this! Ever since I loaded "Vail", the Windows Home Server 2011 update to the original WHS, I've never fully gotten it configured correctly. 

Part of the problem is that one of the two SSDs that I picked up for the Highpoint RocketCache drive controller failed, so I need to resolve that one of two ways. I need to either get another 32Gb SSD giving me the fully allotted 64Gb of cache that this controller can use, or I need to just get a 64Gb drive and use just one. I believe their specs show that running two is faster, but it's probably not enough to make much of a difference. It'll probably end up coming down to whichever I find a better deal on, or whatever I can "trickle down" from an upgrade somewhere else. As crazy as this sounds, I actually have a spare Samsung 128Gb SSD. This could go into one of the two HTPCs which would give up it's 64Gb SSD for the cache drive, or I can use a spare 50Gb SSD for that purpose, and eliminate the need to shuffle drives!

Of course, that doesn't address the bigger headache of getting that server configured properly and all the computers on it so it can serve it's intended purpose. 

.....Which of course is this. To be the center of our digital life! This one is going to be the "bear". That's understood! I know what I know because I managed desktop support, not servers! I'll get it done though. Is there a trickier project on the horizon?

You Bet! What's so tricky about this? It's the replacement/upgrade to my wife's T61. Now you understand. There can be no slip-ups on this! The make it even trickier, I want to do a little drive shuffling. Even the upgrade to the T500 won't be able to take advantage of the SATA-III interface on the SanDisk Extreme II drive in her old machine. So my intention is to take the 256Gb SATA-II Samsung from my desktop and put it in the new machine and use her Extreme II SSD when I rebuild my desktop on the Ivy Bridge motherboard. This would allow me to upgrade without buying anything. There's going to be a little "tap-dancing" going on!

Last resolution this year? A little bit less of this! What is it? As you can see, it's an Intel 320 SSD. I got a GREAT deal on it. It's brand new, 30Gb+ bigger than the 128Gb that's in my X301 right now, AND it supports TRIM, so it should run better for longer than what's in there. Oh yeah..... I paid $50 for it locally off of Craigs List. That's really a great deal, but the fact is, I didn't need it. The X301 gets along fine with the Samsung 128Gb SSD in it. Which points to the fact that, as good of a deal of it was, I didn't need to do it. It's not like the old manual lenses I bought. It doesn't serve a real purpose. So, it's my intention to make 2014, a purposeful year for the Frugal Propellerhead. It doesn't mean, I won't buy, but only to do so out of need. Next time, I'll examine what it is that I see as real needs for the upcoming months.