Boss Man Likes Me / My New Laptop

It looks like boss man likes me.

On Tuesday, I finally decided to go ahead and buy a new laptop computer.  I did this primarily with my upcoming business trip to Rochester, New York in mind.  When away from home, it would be best if I had a way to remotely log into the work systems for when something inevitably fails to work properly.

Wednesday, I started talking to IT Guy (my predecessor) about the laptop I'd purchased.  After a time I'd covered most of the interesting aspects about it including how good of a deal it was and why.  Also on the table was a discussion about why the configuration I'd chosen was particularly well-suited for a "good" laptop.

I was careful to pick out components that would work well but also save power, such as an Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor.  The ones that begin with P indicate a TDP of 25 watts, maximum.  Most Dell laptops come with T-series processors that indicate a TDP of between 30 and 39 watts.  This should add up to a significant power savings.  Also of importance was my decision to couple the laptop with an LED-backlit screen.  This alone can potentially save 30-40% of the power budget of a machine.  The video card has been upgraded as well.  There are both good and bad things about that choice power-wise, but one thing to consider is that the video card has a TDP of 11 watts.  It also happens to feature ATI's UVD 2.2 acceleration technology which will let me watch HD video using virtually no CPU power, thus saving battery life during movie playback.  Last on the list of power-minded decisions was the inclusion of a 9-cell battery for extra run time.

It's no slouch, either.  The screen is 1920x1080, so there will be enough logical screen space to do things without becoming frustrated.  Using my P3's old 1024x768 screen was a nightmare for doing any kind of meaningful work.  The processor runs at 2.4GHz, and can likely be easily overclocked if needed.  Thanks to UVD, however, nothing should require that action.  The laptop was a 7200 RPM, 320GB drive.  This alone should help make the machine feel snappy.

Why does boss man like me, however?  Well, IT Guy appears to have told boss man about my purchase.  The next day, Boss Man called me into his office to "talk about computers".  He asked me about the laptop I was buying and then, quite unexpectedly, asked me to cancel the order so that the business could buy it instead.  How cool is that?  It works out well for everyone.  I get a new laptop, my ancient work machine gets retired, and I have a way to remotely administrate when I'm out of town.

I suppose something had to go right this week.  Thanks again, Boss Man.

Difficult Users

I hesitate to say that I hate my users at work.  Honestly, hate isn't the right word.  They cause me no end of frustration some times, and they constantly complain that everything is slow.  Granted, a lot of our equipment is ancient.  Often times, things are slow.

However, my problem is that they've all fallen into the Basic Computer User's practice of thinking everything is always slow.  Even when things are moving along at a good pace, the user still sees it as being slow.  They're frustrated, and understandably so.  Lodging complaints when they aren't warranted or just telling me how slow something is is generally as diagnostically relevant as saying metal is metallic.  There just isn't much useful information there, and it doesn't provide any insight into what may be causing it.

Oh well.  Perhaps that's just part of the job of being a network administrator:  One part geek, one part guy, and one part dartboard.  Ouch.

Pig Flu Makes Me Hungry

That's all I'm saying.  Every time someone says "swine flu" I have two reactions.  First, I get the negative connotation associated with "swine", but then the secondary meaning of swine meaning pig floats in.  Then pigs being the source of pork floats in.  Bacon.  Mmm.  Sausages.  Also mmm.  Spicy pork from the local Chinese buffet place?  Mega-mmm!

I'm completely at everyone's mercy every time they say swine flu now.  Perhaps this is an abnormal reaction to the events happening now, but what can I say?  I'm not normal.