Propellerhead Gear: Winter 2014

It's done...... that which will become known as the Great Rebuild of Winter 2013-14 is finally finished! Here I sit drinking coffee when I should be at work and contemplating my existence, while listening to the sounds of a happy hard drive working to back up a computer. It's the completed "Spectre" backing up the rebuilt "Blackbird". Last night, I finally figured out what was wrong with the HighPoint Caching RAID controller, and got it up and running. Let me just say this about HighPoint: great concepts, good hardware..... terrible instructions and support!

If you are "of a certain age", you'll remember the Japanese models of the 1970s. Superb quality, enough to put AMT, Revell, and Monogram to shame, but they were not for the faint of heart. Not very good instructions to say the least! This is what it's like to work with HighPoint products. You're going to have to figure it out yourself.

...But hey, I could be out there in this instead. I almost forgot; I'm home this fine Monday morning instead of at work, because we had yet another ice storm. Yup, high ground temperature, rapidly plunging temps and precip, makes great ice around these parts. Combine that with the modern inability to drive in inclement weather makes for an extra holiday. Well, not really. We'll have to make the day up later, but that'll be in June, so I worry about that later.

In the meantime, that which rarely happens, has come to pass. All of our "frontline" computers are "up-to-date". My son and daughter are on freshly loaded (within 3 months) machines. The son on his mother's hand-me-down 15.4" widescreen T61 and daughter on a Z61t which replaced the dead X61. Both of them have 64Gb SSDs in them, running Windows 7 SP1 and will be for the foreseeable future since they don't need much storage (especially now that the server is up). AND Windows 8 is the Vista of this age, so no OS upgrade anytime soon.

Can I just say that I'm reveling in the current state of my wife's bliss? You know.....Happy Wife, Happy Life!?! After her recent upgrade to the ThinkPad T500 which is the F35 "Lightning II" on our network, and last week's tablet upgrade from iPad2 to iPad Air. 

The whole thing went very well and is an excellent example of Craigslist at work. As soon as I was given a clearly defined edict to get an iPad Air, I had the parameters necessary to do my job. Although, it being an current Apple product, which meant that there wouldn't be any sort of "great deal" to be found, I could maximize my resources. I knew the 32Gb iPad Air (henceforth to be called the IPA), retails for $599 and even the most aggressive discounts would only bring it down to $560. Don't ya just love Apple? Early adopters/buyer's remorse folks, selling on CL typically price the 16Gb for somewhere over $400, usually around $450. However, after reading several reviews, it was apparent that the current prevailing wisdom is to bypass the 16Gb model since the newer apps have all blown-up due to graphics optimized for the Retina display. ....And since this was Momma's vs. a kid device, prudence would dictate buying the higher spec unit. While looking for the "new" unit for her, I went ahead and listed the old generation 1 iPad that the daughter had been using, on CL as well (Cascade works on tablets too) at the $150 that we paid for it. On Thursday, I found a new, still in plastic 32Gb, IPA for $530. When you factor in the $45 or so tax savings, plus the $30 savings from the lowest retail price; it's a rather substantial $75 off of store price and $115 off of "retail". Yeah, I jumped all over it! The following day, the 1G sold at $150 making the cost of upgrade $380!  

On my end of things (now that my wife is squared away), the Raptor, otherwise known as ThinkPad X301 is running great! The switch over to the Intel 320 (X18) hasn't just been seamless, it's been an upgrade with a the few glitches that I'd occasionally experience completely gone, and it running very smoothly. The Blackbird, of course you know about due to ealier posts. Plus, both HTPCs (Viking and Hawkeye) also got SSD upgrades and fresh OS reloads.

What brought on this bout of introspection? This. I ran across an ad for 2 HP "Blackbird" 002 cases. This machine came on the market around the time that I built my first version of the Blackbird. It was one of those thing that major manufacturers go through periodically just to show everyone that they didn't just build office machines and junk sold at Wal-Buy. It was pretty amazing, with high-end everything and even water-cooling to boot. Dell did something similar are that time in their XPS line. Of course, neither went anywhere in the market and therefore became "one-offs", but hey, that doesn't mean they weren't cool. I've occasionally thought I'd like to build in one of these cases, but at the $300 that the guy was wanting, it only reinforced that the frugal-way is the best way for me. As I sit here with my file server doing it's first full backup on the workstation; both machines together don't break the $1000 barrier!

 

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!

Family Upgrade Time

You might be thinking to yourself; why is he showing us two images of the same computer? Actually, the upper is the ThinkPad T61, of which we have 3 in our house (more on that later). The lower image is the T500, of which we now have 1 that is partially disassembled here by my desk. Although there seems precious little to give between the two (as anyone can see), there are some key items that make a change worthwhile.

I'm sure that most of you readers know that Intel majorly changed the computing world when they brought forth the "Core" chips back in 2006. For notebook computing, that was the "Yonah" (32-bit), then on to the dual-core (but still 65nm) "Merom" (64-bit), then on to the "Penryn" (45nm) processors before the line move on to the 2nd generation "i" Core, "Sandy-Bridge" series. The ThinkPad T61s have the same CPU socket, but some will only run the late "Merom", and not the "Penryn" processors. I don't know whether that's due to not being able to run the lower voltage (25 watt "P" chips) or it's a "whitelist" issue, but it's a shot in the dark on which machines will upgrade to which CPU. This is where the T500 come into our picture.

If somebody backs me into a corner and forces me to respond to what is the most important factor in terms of a successful Windows computer, I'm going to say..... RAM! Lots and lots of RAM: as much as I can stuff in a machine. Well..... what does one have to do with the other? What I know about ThinkPads is this: the series that were originally equipped with last of the Core 2 Duo processors (Penryn-3M, 45nm/25tdp) will generally come on machines that have a chipset which take DDR3. So, it's not really the processor at all that's the issue; it's the major change in the RAM that it'll take. To put it in dollar terms, what you'll spend in buying a 2Gb module of DDR2 SO-DIMM for your laptop will roughly get you 4Gb of DDR3! To me that's a big deal. A T500 is basically a lighter (slightly), T61 with the fastest/coolest running Core 2 Duo processors which will take DDR3. That's it.... that's all it is..... plus; they can also be bought at almost the same price!!! As an example; I just bought a T500 locally (completely loaded with activated Windows 7, power adapter, 2Gb RAM, 160Gb/7200rpm HDD) for $125. I got home and put a single 4Gb RAM module in it, and it's about to replace my wife's T61 which I'll have no trouble selling for a profit on the turn-around. 

As you know; I tend to do things in a series. So, over the course of the next several weeks or months, I'll probably do the exact same thing with my son's T61, and my daughter's X61. I've already done a little research and found that the X200 (above) can often be had around the $100-125 mark as well. 

The only real question for me is, whether I should go ahead and switch the daughter to a MacBook now or later. She already exhibits all the indicators of an "artsy" child who also loves computers. That's an Apple product wielding kid if I ever saw one. Now, there's a friend of mine who has/had a dead MacBook Air which he may or may-not be able to find. If that comes to fruition, there's clearly a challenging new project, which might cause me to succumb to the Siren call of the devil himself.......

I know that it's not nice to speak ill of the dead, but.... can't you just see the horns sprouting from his head?

Today's Sweet Spot in Daily Laptops

Yesterday, as I was discussing updates it occurred to me that I haven't updated that which this Blog is pretty much all about! ...... What's the best technology deals out there right now for the average "Joe". A few posts back, I had briefly discussed the Dell Latitude E6400 and how it was a really good deal for my clients, but even then I didn't get into the nitty-gritty of the specs and what-all that means. 

In my opinion, right at this moment, there's not a better deal than the Intel Core 2 Duo processor'd machines. We're at a point where many (if not most) mainstream software can take advantage of more than one processor core. And the ones that can't, can run on one, while the machine can continue to do other tasks. Now this is anecdotal evidence of course, but on a fairly regular basis, I work on people's machines (as well as our stable of them too). As far as doing things on them, I can break them down into 3 groups. Single core, P4/P4-M, and Pentium M machines. "Core" Duo/Quad machines, and newer i3/i5/i7. Although, I don't deal with the latter much; I do, on occasion end up working on them as well. What I've found to be the case is that there's a huge difference between the 1st and 2nd group, but little between the 2nd and 3rd. Now before you get yourself into a twist, let me note that, we are talking about, a decent amount of RAM (3 to 4Gb), running an operating system that won't bog it down, meaning XPP for P4/P-M, and Windows 7 for Core Duo/2nd Gen Core machines, AND doing typical tasks, like downloads, Internet, etc. NOT, Photoshop and transcoding video! 

The big factor is this; an adequate amount of RAM that isn't going to kill your budget. Not only do P4-M/P-M machines run slow, single-core processors, they use the older spec DDR (or DDR1) RAM in them. Sure, you can get 1Gb sticks, and get those machines up to 2Gbs total, but the cost of 1Gb DDR is pretty much the same as 2Gb DDR2! So, the irony is that the cheaper machine to buy is more expensive to upgrade. Besides which, the chipsets typically limit them to 2Gb total anyway, even if you could afford to buy bigger modules. So, here's how it works out in $$. You can go buy a T42 for say, $50, then you want to max out the RAM so it'll run decent with XP/SP3. That'll cost you about $70, making your total $120. Whereas on any given day, you can buy a T60 for about $75, or better yet, the T61 that I just bought for $90. You and put 2Gb of RAM into it for anywhere from $25-30 making your total somewhere around $100, or if you want to spend as much as you would have on that maxed out T42, you'd have a T60/T61 with 4Gb of RAM in it. Plus it'll have a Core Duo, or might even have a Core 2 Duo in it which is WAY faster than your P-M. ....And I haven't even gotten into the cost to size differential between the PATA that the T42 uses versus, the SATA that the T60/T61 uses!

The thing that made it jump out at me was that last week, I had a client who asked for a decent laptop to use for the next 2-3 years. They had a $200-250 budget, so I started looking around in the C2D type of corporate machines which are about 3 years old. Within minutes of each other, I was able to find both a Dell Latitude E6400, and a ThinkPad T61 for less than $100 shipped. Both were fully equipped, with hard drives, at least 3Gb of RAM. The ThinkPad had a bigger 15.4" screen and the dell had the bigger hard drive. I got them the Dell because it was smaller and lighter. If it hadn't been someone who was expecting to travel constantly with their machine, I'd have probably done the more rugged ThinkPad with the magnesium skeleton, instead of the Dell with the Magnesium outer casing. These are both "business class" machines that sold for between $1500 and $2000 originally. They'll certainly be tougher than the typical notebook that they'd been able to buy at Walmart for $400-500!

These are the computers I recommend because they offer the most "bang-for-the-buck" and they are what I have my family using. Both my wife and son use the bigger 15.4" ThinkPad T61. Granted they are the higher end ones with discrete graphics chips, high resolution screens and have upgraded SSD boot drives, but the guts of those machines aren't any different. 

I have my daughter on the X61 from the same generation. Similar technology, but in a smaller package that's easier for her to handle. These things are also great deals, in that they are often found in the sub-$100 range as well. Yes, I have her RAM maxed out and an SSD in there as a boot drive as well, but those are pretty cheap upgrades if you know where and how to buy.

In the meantime, I'm already scouting out what we are going to do when it's time to upgrade. There'll come the day when DDR2 won't be worth it to buy compared to DDR3, so it pays to be prepared! But for right now: this is the Sweet Spot!

.....It Poured ThinkPads.....and It Was Good

Guess who was sick again yesterday? Other than the usual tap-dance of getting everything set up for a substitute teacher, it was great timing for me! The night before, the deluge of ThinkPads came. I've been looking to finish up my wife's little ThinkPad powered classroom network awaiting the arrival of two more of the beloved A31s that my fiend Andy was sending me. It happened that when I was asking about them, I caught him in a "clean out" mood (it sometimes strikes us ThinkPad hoarders at random times). So, he took the opportunity to dump his unloved ThinkPads and unwanted projects into a huge box appropriately marked "Toys" (from a recent move), then ship it to me. Actually I was expecting it today (or yesterday at best), but Tuesay, it came as I was getting a school bus ready to take our cheerleaders to a basketball game. So the big box came along for the ride. 

This is what I felt like when I opened it that night after I got home. There were 3 ThinkPads (2 A31s and 1 T61) and one R60 motherboard, along with 3 A/C adapters all crammed into that one box. So yeah, that picture is what I felt like trying to get everything out of there!

The A31s are of the NASA/International Space Station fame that I've talked about before, but currently, I'm in the process of changing over to the "x6x" line as the basis of my current general use computers around the house. Of this design series, I've already had a number of the "Zs" (Z60t- son, Z61m- wife & myself) as workstations, but lately, we've begun moving over to the T61 line, along with my daughter's X61.

These are "workhouse" computers, that have just come through the corporate 3 year cycle, so are plentiful and cheap to buy. You might remember me describing my wife's T61 with a 15.4" WSXGA screen, 240Gb SSD. Now, out of the magic "toy" box, came a virtually identical one (although w/o battery, and hard drive). In all probability it will become my son's new machine, retiring the last non-"Core" processor'd machine in our fleet. 

Of greater interest to me though, was the last thing out of the box....an R60 motherboard. A few months back, I was down at the monthly computer Flea Market and came across a much abused T60, after much haggling, I paid the guy $25 and went home with 2, 4Gb sticks of ECC spec'd, DDR2 RAM, and a wretched looking T60 that got power, but not much of anything else. It had a severely cracked screen where someone had stepped on it, and of course, a bowed lid, but to add insult to injury, somebody had painted it blue with enamel house paint. I don't mean "in an attempt to mod" spray paint: I mean in a attempt to destroy, slathered on with a brush, canned paint! Of course, me, being me, the fact that just the A/C adapter was probably worth what I paid just wasn't good enough. I decided that I need to revive this thing. So it sat under my desk for several months other than the occasional forays out for attempted cleanings.

The stubborn streak in me decided that I wanted to get it back up and running again despite the fact that it would probably be cheaper to just buy one! Anyway, I guess that's the geek Propellerhead side of my coming out! As luck would have it, my buddy Andy who had the A31s also had a motherboard from an R60, which (under the casing) is virtually identical to the T60. If you haven't seen the never ThinkPads with the "roll-cage" system, above is an image of the T60 version. All the grey stuff is the aforementioned "roll-cage", to which the motherboard (planar in ThinkPad speak) is attached along with the casing. So yesterday, I happily got to play ThinkPad "Lego" while the sick child slept and watched TV! As I make more progress on this thing, I'm sure I'll add more post this project.

Lightning Strikes: The ThinkPad T61

NO, we didn't suffer a lightning strike. We had a bit of a lightning upgrade though. About a month ago, I was trolling the local Craig's List ads and can came across a poorly written ad for a ThinkPad. And of course, this peaked my curiosity, so I fired off an email to the seller to see what it was about. He turned out to be a recently graduated high school kid looking to sell all his various pieces of computing gear so he could by a Mac before heading off to college. The ThinkPad was a machine that he didn't use which had belonged to his uncle who had given it to him when he (the uncle) upgraded. In fact the kid, who was at work wasn't even sure what it was, but thought it was a T410. Therefore, at the listed $80; I jumped at it. Well....after several twists and turns (fairly common for Craig's List), I was finally able to meet him and it turns out that he was waaay wrong! It was a T61. Although, clearly NOT anywhere close to a T410, it was still a very good price for a T61 in nice condition, so I bought it. At which point, it promptly went under my workbench because I didn't have a use for it.

As most of you are aware, computers on a network need names so they can be identified. And given my geeky nature, I use military aircraft names for this. I also try to use groups which have similar names which roughly are associated to their function. They range from fighters for our daily use laptops like the very advance F22 "Raptor" for my X300 to the rather utilitarian C130 "Hercules" for the WHS file server built from old parts. The new T61 has been named the "Lightning II" for the F-35 depicted above. It replaces my wife's Z61m "Eagle". I know the logical progression would have been for this new machine to be the "Raptor" and the X300 to be the "Lightning II", but I didn't think about it then and will just have to live with this little screw-up in logic!

 

I've been VERY busy doing client work for the last month, so it mostly sat there under the bench, but when I did have a few minutes to look, it left me very impressed. It was in such nice condition that the original product "features" sticker was still on the lid. It really looked like a nice high-end corporate machine that just sat on somebody's desk for 3 years then surplused.....and I'm willing to bet, that's exactly the case. I did an image restore and it ran very well afterward, but mostly it just sat. Periodically I thought about what I wanted to do with it. I thought about replacing my Z61m "Tomcat" with it, but that seemed a waste since that machine sits in the closet most of the time given it's status as a "mobile studio" for a photographer that doesn't do much outside work. Plus, I had decided that I wanted to put an SSD in it since older machines of this type are really great candidates for the gains seen from this type of upgrade. Although SSDs have come down greatly in price, bigger ones (larger than 128Gb) are still pricey for someone like me. 

Then, one day I got my "marching orders". This came in the form of the wife walking in to the office and telling me that she needed another machine, so she could take one to school with her. Her new school district doesn't issue laptops and she wanted to have something that she could use there and not be tied down at her desktop. She wanted ot know if I had any ideas, at which point, I pointed under the bench and smiled. So I told her about the T61 which just "needed" an SSD for which I was given the approval to buy, then and there! Of course, this was what the last post was about, when I got lucky and came across the 240Gb Sandisk Extreme for $155 on Amazon's "Deal of the Day". Less than a week later, the Windows 7 running, ThinkPad T61 "Lightning II" was up and running. 

Total spent: $235 for a "Penryn" C2D processored, WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) paneled, 240Gb SSD, DVD+RW optical drive equipped laptop that I guess originally cost close to 10x what I spent! I'm going to say that I'm pretty happy with the build and believe that lightning did indeed strike on this one. But most importantly, my wife is VERY happy with her "new" and VERY fast machine!

End of Summer 2012.....

Conceptually yes, but not really..... Today is the last day of summer for me. Tomorrow teachers report for training.

Some of you are probably thinking: It must be rough, being off for 2 months straight! I'm not going to get into the draining aspects of dealing with other human beings (unfinished ones at that), and the need to recharge. I'll just leave it at that we get paid approximately 2/3rds of what other college degree'd professionals in a general sense. It's not a bad job with rough kids in the "Blackboard Jungle" sense.

It's really more like the "Welcome Back, Kotter" version, but with a lot more pressure, 5 Horshacks (504 Behavioral Mods), 3 Vinnies (Special Ed), 5 Washingtons (Cultural/Ethinic performance tracking), and 3 Juan Epsteins (ESL). It isn't 1976 after all.

Most of time, it's really fun, and me being me, teaching world history; it's really a little more like this.

The real downside is that it gives me less time to work on my avocation which as you know is all things technology! Since summer is about to be over, lets take stock on what got done......and (unfortunately), not done.

For the bad, I did not rebuild "Hercules", my Windows Home Server, so that'll be on the agenda as soon as the beginning of school stuff settles down, some time around the end of September. I did not rebuild my daughter's X30 "Sparrow" Princess Edition into an X31, but that will really needs to wait until the garage isn't still 110 degree at 9pm. So I'm thinking, 2nd half of October for that. My personal laptop, the X300 "Raptor", was needed for client work and those times when the desktop workstation was down for upgrades on and off all summer. That'll be a VERY short and quick project, so I'm thinking over the weekend some time in the next couple of weeks. I also managed to acquire ANOTHER project during the summer, which is a T61 for my wife, who now would like a second laptop because her new school district has desktops. So, the Z61 will need a reload, and her personal stuff needs to be moved over to the T61 which I intend on installing a SSD. That'll probably be some time in the second half of September when I get enough money to buy another SSD.

That sounds like a lot didn't get done, which is pretty bad! Well, actually, just as much good occurred, but much of it was unexpected which pushed everything back. The most important was that I ended up with a LOT more computer work over the summer than expected. That's good for the bank account, but not as much for personal projects! 

So what were the good results then? At the beginning of the summer, there were two things that if asked, I would have put on a "wish list", and that was a backup DSLR and a tablet. Well....it came to pass that I was able to buy a backup DSLR for my system: the amazing "Plastic Fantastic" with 28-80mm/f3.3-5.6 "G" spec lens.....couldn't be happier. At almost the same time, I bought a broken ThinkPad Android Tablet. WHAT? How does that accomplish anything? Be patient and soon (fingers crossed) and all will be revealed in a future post. Moving on, the main laser printer was upgraded from a LaserJet 4000 to 4100, and as detailed in the last post, the "Blackbird" was upgraded, then upgraded again to what I believe will be it's final version which I would expect to last at least two years. 

It sounds like I didn't get an awful lot done and in some ways made more work for myself, but I don't mind. Some years ago when I made the decision to go back to teaching and not continue my IT career, it was a good call for me. I love teaching, and working on technology part-time helps me love it even more, since I can keep my mind off of the stress of that profession as well as maintain my love for the other.