Thats’ Why…

The last two are fake…

Lappy T400 – My Story and Review of the Lenovo T400

As stated previously, I’ve been mulling this decision for a while… the move back to Windows. The idea got serious when I started on Twittle with Josh, and then even more so after Apple came out with their new laptops. The idea of buying another apple laptop was one of, "eh, been there, done that." Sure I could pour my education of developing applications into the Mac platform, but let’s face it, the mac platform doesn’t need any help in that respect… it has a thriving, well built community.

I had all but settled on a Dell E6400 before my friend Josh had pointed me to Lenovo laptops. I had always known ThinkPads were very well respected, but I still considered them boring… their designs have changed little since their inception. Seeing what the T400 had going for it over the dell, as well as several in-depth reviews, I went for it.

The Thinkpad keyboard is world renowned as is the TrackPoint. The screen I ordered is the best you can possibly get in 14" laptop variety… it fits the same amount of pixels as my 17" iMac which means it’s pixel denisty is greater and thus has a much sharper picture. The screen is also LED backlit, which means it’s uniform unlike previous MacBooks and current iMacs. Another advantage of LED backlighting is that it doesn’t take any time to reach full brightness, it’s just bright to begin with. Feature-wise the only minor thing missing is a better video out port, VGA rather than DVI or DisplayPort… a minor annoyance.

I ordered Lappy on the 29th of October, and Lenovo said it would ship the 10th of Novemeber and then since I ordered ground, it would come 5-7 business days after that. I somewhat understood the timeframe given the amount of customization I did to it. The GPS, Screen, WWAN, Web Cam, Memory Card Reader, DVD Player, and Fingerprint Reader were all custom order options. On the 4th of November, Lenovo told me my computer had already shipped… 6 days ahead of schedule. The next day when the UPS website didn’t list an estimated delivery date, I called them up to find out what the deal was. Lenovo had shipped the computer Express 2-Day rather than the Ground I had ordered. I got Lappy last Thursday.

If there is one thing I have needed to keep telling myself over and over again, is that I didn’t get this machine to look or behave like a Mac. I knew that for the most part, there would be massive compromises when running Windows instead of OS X. I was right. From the point I was able to secure a 64-bit Vista disk, it took me a good 5-6 hours of configuring drivers and software to get the machine into a usable state… no Mac user would ever put up with that. Even after a clean install I was still looking at a computer that would take 1GB just to run (with no apps running)… some Macs only ship with as much since OS X and the hardware manufacturer controls what it takes to get the hardware to run. Windows drivers are written poorly and for the lowest common denominator. If I want a real ATI driver I have to install all this Catalyst Software bloat.. same goes for the Intel Video Card. Lenovo has a proprietary battery monitor that you have to use if you want to use the hybrid graphics that came with the computer, so in the system tray you HAVE to have TWO battery icons, not one or the other. This only scratches the surface of how bad hardware manufacturers are at making software. Once again, I realized these deficiencies when getting my new laptop, and I accepted them.

The laptop itself is nice. Everything negative that you would read in a review is true. The keyboard has some odd flex on the left hand side, and a bulge on the very left of the spacebar, it’s less noticeable in other places… I feel like all of these bulge/flex issues are probably related. There is also a tiny amount of flex just above the UltraBay (DVD Drive). One of the features I was most excited about was the fingerprint reader. In less than 4 days I had already uninstalled the application as it was too annoying to be useful. Other than these few issues, the laptop is brilliant. It’s got a drain in it in case you spill a drink. The outside is made of a soft plastic material that almost feels like rubber… it’s very nice. The palm rest rolls off towards the user which makes typing even more wonderful than the keyboard already makes it. The speakers sound superb for a laptop. The monitor is THE BEST MONITOR I have ever seen on a laptop… Mac or PC. There is also a well placed USB port on the right hand side of the computer… perfect for a mouse (Apple has removed all right hand USBs from their MacBook Pros). The built in web camera could look better and you can tell it doesn’t have the same polish to it’s color profile that Apple’s do.

I’ve only had two issues thus far after my clean install of all the drivers, and they don’t seem like they are coming back either. The computer froze completely when trying to video conference on skype (upon recommendation I later removed the proprietary driver in favor of the built in MS one), and I also had a kernel panic when the computer tried to dynamically turn on the DVD drive from power saving mode. Neither of these issues have come back since Friday, so I’m crossing my fingers that they won’t return.

I’ll be writing more about it as the days progress, but for now I am 100% happy with getting it, and feel good about my future with it.

Wordpress vs. Drupal

A good read about using these CMSs/blogging engines. I’ve been a heavy user of wordpress for about 3-4 years now and use it to power ferraricolor.com and my other personal sites. Ferrari’s site is on the cusp of being too big for Wordpress as I had to hack and use plugins to get some of the functionality that exists on the site. That being said, the support system and knowledge-base (codex) is incredibly deep. I don’t have much experience with Drupal, but I know it has it’s proponents for larger sites that get hit with heavy traffic. Assuming we don’t migrate to something ASP.NET based for future ferrari iterations, drupal is high on the list.

it all starts here

As most know, I’m switching my main computing platform back to Windows. I’ve been mulling this decision since the inception of this website, and it hasn’t come as an easy decision. I think this surprises most people because I was (and i’m going to try and not sound snotty) the first person of any of my friends and family to own a mac. Whether intentionally, subconciously, indirectly, or directly, everyone I knew switched over to a mac after I purchased my Powerbook 12″ and showed them how easy life was on a mac. No viruses, a modern OS with a great web browser, better keyboard shortcuts, better support, better build quality, more value, and most of all better software. It’s this last one that made me start thinking about moving back to a PC.

The company I work for (a printing company) runs Windows as our IT infrastructure (Servers). We use Macs in production (which I manage and maintain), we use Linux for our high-powered RIPs (which I also mostly maintain) and our office/pencil pushers use PCs for communication, job management, accounting, etc.. There are very few things I would do differently when it comes to our setup. Sure there is an argument for Linux and Open Source desktops, but the cost of windows is so low on the typical bundled dell that it just doesn’t make sense quite yet, not to mention the Active Directory integration. Active Directory, for those that don’t know is like an Address Book on steroids, it manages who is allowed to connect to servers, their contact information, and at times helps users use different machines without actually setting them up on each individual computer. Linux could work on the desktop, but at this point it’s just a novelty that can work, not necessarily should work… wow, tangent.

Back to great software on the Mac. The Mac as far as I am concerned has the best software in the world. When it comes to “Web 2.0″ software, it gets even better. iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, GarageBand, Photobooth, Mail.app, Safari, Twitterific, NewsFire, Pages, and even the second class citizens like Thunderbird, Cyberduck, and Camino, and many others run and feel absolutely brilliant on a Mac. Integrating them into the web makes these apps even more seamless.

In comparison, Windows Apps blow, but the platform has so much potential it’s ridiculous. Windows has these amazing technologies like Sharepoint, WPF, C#, yet are paired with these absolutely god awful implementations. You know that “Cancel or Allow” Apple commercial, it’s 100% true… Vista can really be that annoying. The “Ribbon” invention was also good, but was poorly implemented on Office 2007. But Vista still has it’s benefits. Want your processor to run at 10% speed and turn off all visual effects to conserve batter life… you have complete control over that. .NET also has the kind of breadth in frameworks that let you churn out solutions quicker… a situation like the original Coda toolbar would have never happened with WPF.

The argument remains the same as it always has. Apple offers a solid and less than flexible foundation vs. Windows being a little less than solid, yet offers a moderately more flexible environment. Linux is even further in the flexibility category, but compatibility and available apps remain few and far between… driver support and stability can be an issue as well. Windows command line may be horrible in comparison to a Unix command line, but there are a myriad of things in windows i can change if I want to.

I look at the state of the Mac and say that it’s doing pretty damn good. I look at the state of Windows and it’s suffering. I needed a new laptop, and Apple didn’t come out with something I could consciously buy without making many sacrifices while spending a premium. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t always been this way, contrary to popular belief, Macs used to be very price competitive. When I was considering the M1330, a comparatively equipped mac was cheaper than the crappily built dell. Even with the decision to move back to Windows I am still making sacrifices, no more Aperture on my mobile machine to edit photos, no more easy to use GarageBand to record my band, everything else I will do on my iMac at home or my PowerMac at work… Coda, Things, CSSEdit, NewsFire, Screenium are the few that come to mind.

Sadly, there is no such thing as a perfect laptop, especially as your needs increase and become more focused. What I’m getting out of the switch seems to still feel worth it though. I had an amazing amount of choice in the style of laptop I wanted, there is literally only one feature I’m missing from my new Lappy 486, rather than 5 missing features. I also get to try and help a dying platform and attempt to stir up competition again. I get to learn how to make solutions for people using the tools I respect. I get to take my knowledge in places I’ve always wanted to go, but never felt like I had the resources to do so. I still own 3 Macs, and will still make fun of PCs, Windows, and PC culture… and you’ll probably hear a few jabs at Apple now and again, but no one is perfect… no company or person.

It’s been a week since losing massive amounts of sleep over selling my MacBook. But I can now say I’m genuinely excited, even while knowing that buying a PC means registry hacks and the downloading of 30 drivers just to get the laptop into usable condition. Flexibility and choice come at a cost, in both time, and effort. I’ll have more details about Lappy 486 as it’s arrival date comes closer, for now it’s being built.