On a sunny day (Mon, 08 Sep 2014 22:52:21 -0700) it happened Jeff Liebermann wrote in :
As a sub-subject, I sort of found a solution to all the 'update YAO laptop'.
Sort of by accidenet.
I have Navigatrix (
formatting link
) on a 16 Gb USB stick. It is Linux based, and you can boot from it. Some points that change the 'scene':
1) It has space for data and setup, the file structure is so data is saved on the same stick.
2) These new high end USB sticks are as fast as a harddisk.
So all the utilities (AIS, sdr_fm, I did put on that stick too.
Now the amazing thing: When I put it in my Samsung laptop it works. (sdr stick in USB with antenna, GPS in USB with serial adaptor, etc.)
When I put it in my eeepc it works.
When I put it in a PC it works.
No copying of files, only install things once on the stick, very small, keep it in your pocket, go anywhere and boot any PC or laptop with it.
3) Make a copy for somebody else: dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/sdd
It is so convenient it is amazing.
I mean in the long ago past I had Linux on a 128 MB stick, it was slow, very limited as far as applications is concerned, but this is different, this is full power. And it is hardware independent as most drivers are supported.
I found a similar "solution" by intent. Acer C720 Chromebook running whatever Linux mutation I happen to have on a USB stick or SSD. The laptop currently has Ubuntu 14.04 32bit installed on the 16GB flash and is quite fast. I just bought several non-counterfeit Sandisk USB
3.0 flash drives and installed Mint and Backtrack (KALI) Linux. The internal SSD is faster, but the USB 3.0 stick is quite usable. USB
2.0 is so-so and micro-SD is much too slow to be usable.
Some notes on the install, which will eventually turn into a web page: The best part is the price. They were $130 plus shipping and taxes on Groupon, but it looks like they've run out of stock: They're currently selling used on eBay for $50 to $200. Cheap.
Yep. It's great for those with a clue about computing. There are also half-way Windoze versions: These still require a functional Windoze filesystem on the laptop, but make the applications (and registry) portable.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
You're certainly entitled to an opinion on the matter. However, I have to deal with Lenovo and other brands on a daily basis. Roughly, that's about 4 new and used machines per week, few of which are identical. You have had one anecdotal bad experience. I have a wider range of experience to choose from. One of the joys of doing repairs is that everything I see is in some way broken. Do that for a few years, and everything I'm surrounded with seems to be defective. I'm sure there are users that buy laptops and don't have any problems. It's just that I don't see those users. I only see the problem machines and users. If you're looking for the ultimate machine, just ask your local repair shops which machines they DO NOT see for repair or work on. Buy those.
I did some digging on the Lenovo forums and found that a BIOS and video BIOS update usually fixes the Yoga standby problem.
I have difficulty understanding why people buy 17" laptops. I have several friends, all of whom do some form of CAD, that have such monstrosities. Some were quite expensive. In my never humble opinion, all could have done better with an external 24" 1920x1200 monitor, than with the giant built in screen. In effect, these are portable monitors, with a built in computer, which brings a basically good idea (laptop) to its illogical extreme (portable desktop).
Windoze 8 is a classic case of Microsoft listening to their customers. Everyone who demanded their pet features got what they wanted. The result is bloat and confusion beyond my wildest nightmare. The OS looks like transportation vehicle assembled from an aftermarket gadget catalog. It does everything, except the basic function of transportation. I'm sure that Microsoft's intentions were good, but I question the results.
It's possible that Lenovo fell into the same trap. If you listen to all your customers, and actually give them what they ask for, the results will be the hardware equivalent of Windoze 8. In a "mature" industry, such changes and improvement always require a major justification or sales commitment from the customer. In computing, the competition is so fierce, and the products so close to identical, that even the smallest improvement has a major effect on the perception of "quality" and sales. Add another 10 minutes of battery runtime, and the reviews will hail the improvement as a major breakthrough, even though the effect on battery life might be catastrophic.
Generally, every new machine, router, printer, tablet, smart phone, and e-Toy requires a flash update in order to function. In other words, the firmware isn't finished by the date of first shipment. If you include these devices, I've easily done about 500 flash updates. The only one's to cause me grief are the hacked IOS transplants necessary to jailbreak Apple iPhones and the Android hacks necessary to "root" Android based smartphones, which tend to be both risky and buggy. I'll confess to destroying two old Motorola A855 and one iPhone 3 learning the art. Other than that, no problems that are unrecoverable.
Sure. $75/hr (standard rate), one hour minimum. Image backup of OS to a USB HD will add another hour. No guarantee on any effects to the OS or applications unless I'm also paid to update and clean up the operating system (2 to 3 hrs). Customer assumes all risk for transport and insurance.
Yeah, sorta. The profit margin on desktops seems to be less than on laptops and tablet, causing manufacturers to cut more corners. Desktop component quality is starting to scrape bottom. On the other foot, desktops tend to be less "high tech" than laptops and tablets, use fewer exotic components, and tend to have much better cooling. It's difficult to say which is batter or more forgiving.
I have little fear of tearing apart the laptop. The problem is that it takes time. I recently did a motherboard transplant on an HP laptop: At the price, I couldn't repair the motherboard for the equivalent time in hours. However, I still had to rip it apart, and put it back together, to replace the motherboard. That took 1.5 hrs plus another 0.5 hrs making sure I hadn't destroyed the laptop or trashed the customers data. When the smoke cleared, the total bill was almost as much as the laptop was worth. If it had been a desktop, the motherboard replacement would have taken only about 30 mins.
I've had chronic bad experiences with Fry's for many years. I haven't visited a Fry's for maybe 10 years. Fry's is much like some of my customers, that are somehow able to turn a perfectly working machine into an unreliable and apparently defective machine by there mere presence in front of the keyboard. The machine was probably just fine, until my customer, or Fry's, had touched it. Think of it as the curse of Fry's.
If it's important enough that you will lose time or money by not having a spare machine, I would seriously consider having a spare. An old XP machine is good enough. That's what I'm writing this message on.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
It's rather bad to have the battery die in the middle of the update. Current software checks to make sure that the charger is plugged in. Some software even disabled the keyboard and mouse during the update.
Another problem is a non-standard boot manager or root kit malware. Most flash updates are installed after the machine is automatically rebooted and running only the flash update program. I've had strange boot managers, partition table viruses, flash drive boots, root kits, and RAID controllers, all cause the flash update to fail. The good news is that when it does fail, it doesn't even start the update, leaving the old BIOS in place and untouched. Some tinkering and fixes usually get it going.
So far, the only one that was not recoverable was the HP desktop where they decided to change both the BIOS image, and the recovery image, in the same update, and mangled both. If you look at the date of issue for the flash update, and find that it's a few months old, and that there are not horror stories on the company support forum, it's a fair assumption that it will work. However, if it was issued last week, I would wait a while and let someone else deal with any surprises.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Yes, I can believe you don't understand my needs at all.
If it doesn't fit your needs it becomes a "monstrosity"?
However this is not a laptop, it is not easily ported outside of the house and certainly is not at all a practical replacement for a laptop.
As is not at all uncommon, you bring your biases to the table and construct a rather extreme argument for an absurd opinion.
Rather than be upset that others find useful a 17" laptop, I suggest that you get used to the idea that you are not us and we are not you...
Sorry, this is not a result of "listening". This is a result of MS thinking they understand something they don't really have a handle on at all.
"Requires" a flash update? I think that is rather extreme. No one I know would ever even consider doing a flash update. It is an absurd idea that the manufacturers would continue to ship product with out of date bioses. It is an even more absurd idea that users are capable of flashing all their appliances.
NO GUARANTEE. That says it all.
Ok, my experience is diddly squat, but your experiences with Fry's means they sell laptops that don't work as well as the same machines from other stores. lol You are a trip!
Got any old XP laptops you want to sell? I would love to have one or even two. I'd like to have one running Linux.
Agreed. I also charge $75/hr to listen to your problems, er... needs.
No. If it doesn't fit my customers needs, and it is too big to be reasonably portable, it's a monstrosity. My needs are quite different from my customers.
Would a projection display attached to a smaller screen laptop be a suitable replacement? The LED projectors are quite small (and cheap).
Right. I also get paid for my biases and opinions. Every time I advise a customer on what to buy, it's based on those biases and opinions. If I'm wrong, I lose a customer or at best, end up with an irate customer. Granted, some of my biases result in some non-mainstream solutions, but in most cases, I think they're justified.
Sure. I could easily contrive situations where a 17" laptop would be a good fit and possibly an optimum solution. However, I haven't seen any of those in my admittedly limited experience.
Ever work with a "focus group"? It's like a Ouija board, where the consensus and goal moves around with little rational thinking or understanding. Try asking your friends and associates what they would like to see in their next vehicle. My guess(tm) is that they're ignore all the important items (most of which are invisible) and concentrate on cosmetics and gadgets. Unfortunately, it's the cosmetics and gadgets that tend to sell products. The underlying features that make it usable, useful, and reliable are never an issue until they break or get in the way.
Do we live on the same planet? Every e-gizmo that I've bought in the last 10 or so years have had firmware updates available to fix problems that arise after shipments. These daze, it's usually for security problems. Many of the better device vendors offer firmware updates on their web piles for products that were obsolete long ago. If there's a better way to deal with after shipment bugs and security issues, I'm all ears.
Incidentally, the company motto is "If this stuff worked, you wouldn't need me". It's on my stationary, business cards, and web pile. Nobody has ever disagreed.
So, what do they do when they run into a bug? Throw out the device and buy a newer model?
Some manufacturers try to make it painless. Others seem intent on making it a nightmare to discourage warranty issues. One vendor of network hardware told me that a fairly large percentage of totally dead warranty returns are the result of failed flash updates. However, just because it can fail doesn't mean that it's going to go away or become un-necessary. The rush to market almost guarantees that the firmware, software, and drivers are not going to be done on the day of release.
Read what I wrote. I'll guarantee my work. I will NOT guarantee anything that I haven't worked on, which means that if the flash update in some way affects your OS or software, I'm not going to guarantee it. My plain language warranty, suitable for framing:
I'll spare you my old Fry's horror stories.
Incidentally, Best Buy has a 15 day return policy on computer purchases. I used it recently to deal with a defective Sony laptop, which I exchanged for one that worked. It turned out that the only problem with the one that was returned was that some connector had failed out of place inside the laptop, but I didn't want to wait a week for the laptop to be repaired in Kentucky and opted for an exchange.
Actually, I do. They're mostly older and slower single core Pentium 4 laptops. All have a dead battery, limited RAM, and probably a heavily used HD. I would have difficulties guaranteeing any of them. Mostly, I use them with CF cards for HD's running weather station and data logger software. I think you could do better buying from a refurbisher. If you're serious, I suggest looking at the refurbished machines on the Best Buy and Newegg web piles, which also include refurbished machines from other vendors. Bug me by email if you need help or my never humble opinions.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Nope. I have had them replace Fs everywhere I've lived. It's what they do. I didn't say they replaced every one, but each time they come they test the lines and replace a few. No, it's not a monthly thing.
In the last couple of weeks, we had to send my wife's Thinkpad back for service (keyboard). She called and told them the problem (wrong characters in part of the keyboard) and they shipped a carton for it. A week or so later (she had things to do that needed the laptop and it took me a while to back up the disk) we shipped the thing off. It came back fixed the *next* day. I've had them returned in two or three days before but never within 36 hours. Lenovo is one of the only extended warranties I buy. $60 for three years (from purchase) has been well worth it.
In the distant past, I got into an argument on the reliability of the common F connector. Unfortunately, it was with a mechanical designer who had some experience with the design of the F connector at Jerrold in the 1950's. I was in college at the time and assumed I knew everything and could do anything. He offered to cook or buy a Kosher dinner for the family if I could design a better connector that met all the specifications and didn't involve a new coax cable type (RG-59a/u at the time). This was before ANSI/SCTE 02 2006 so it was somewhat easier than todays specs. I worked on the problem for about
6 months and eventually gave up. I had various indented concentric cylinder and sleeve schemes that didn't use threads, which looked hopeful, but failed most of the mechanical specs. I had a crimp together arrangement that met the specs, but required a pipe cutter or hack saw to disconnect. I tried minor changes, like a different thread pitch, only to discover that more threads would gall together, while fewer threads would fail the vibration tests. I suspect I could do it today with a tapered sleeve and locking ring design, but suspect that I might exceed the minimum cost requirement.
Lesson learned: Mediocrity is a good compromise between function and cost.
Nope. I just pick my battles carefully and my sense of smell is good at avoiding problem areas.
Yep. One installer does a lousy job, and the following installer fixes it for him. I've collected some of the connectors out of the trash (so they can be properly recycled). The usual problem is the water seal o-ring has crumbled, and let water into the connector. The connector is usually fine, but the first few inches of coax cable is a total loss. Sometimes the unplated center conductor or mating connection in the receptacle are rotted.
I know. I just couldn't resist.
Probably true, mostly due to water incursion. If I unscrew the connector, and water comes out, the return loss won't be too good.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
I'm under no illusion that cost wasn't the primary, if not the *only* concern in the design of the connector. That doesn't make it a good connector, however.
The fact that it takes some sort of "expert" to install the connector doesn't make the design somehow better.
Water intrusion doesn't make the design any better, either. It's a crappy connector designed for one thing. Cheap.
You are a trip. No one else in the world can have different needs. lol So a 17 inch laptop is not reasonably portable but a 24" screen is?
What do you think? How much is a LED projector with 1920 resolution or even 1440?
I think your point is absurd. I can put my computer in a bag and carry it with me anywhere I go just as easily as a 15" laptop. Your objections are just silly and reflect your preferences only.
Well at least you recognize that they are biases, even if you don't talk that like, calling a laptop with a 2" larger screen a "monstrosity"!
Ah, so you also recognize that your experience has limits.
I have left jobs because I don't fit well with things like "focus" groups. I work better when the process has rules and is not subject to the whims of emotion.
Every product I have ever seen has bugs. Does that mean they have to be fixed?
That is new to me. Last time I bought at Best Buy they would take computers back, but with a restocking fee. There have been other issues in specific dealings so they have left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
In the past (which may not be the same as current policy) all the refurbished machines I've seen were *way* over priced. Heck, I could actually use an XP laptop (or even Vista or Win 7) for work. Something about Windows 8 or a default setting or something with my new machine prevents telnet from working with my test fixture app. I use the telnet terminal display to show the data going back and forth to the test fixture while the main display is used as a control interface. I'll need to program up a second window in the app if I can't get a portable machine to work with this.
So did I, and i remember the patch to DR-DOS needed to do that (at least in the USA).
Nonsense. Win 95 and Win 98 both ran on top of DOS. I used DR-DOS and Novell-DOS in those days to underlay Win 95/98.
That was Win 3.1, which had code to specifically refuse to run on DR-DOS. MS lost a lawsuit over that one.
still have it on floppies),
memory limitations,
from Trumpet Winsock on 3.1,
needed myself.
False. Not me. It is much better than Win 95/98.
Each to their own. My workplace requires MSWin xp/7 and MSOffice. I have no choice but to comply with that on at least some of my home platforms. I am moving toward putting MS products in VMs though.
I haven't seen that (yet), although it might explain the plague of broken laptop hinges. More commonly, iPads and tablets are used for watching TV in bed. The viewing angle is wide enough so only one is required. However, electronics in the bedroom is generally proscribed by the rules of Feng Shui:
In the bedroom, I've seen big screen TV's, projection displays, and ceiling projectors: Also, whole house systems: and two Tron style glass desktops: Compared to such systems, a 17" laptop is seriously lacking.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
I had a 17" 1600x1200 Thinkpad 21p in '97(ish). It was great as a desktop substitute that I could carry into the lab. These days, large format displays are dirt cheap so I *much* prefer a smaller, lighter, laptop that I can carry everywhere. The size of the display isn't such a big deal, anymore.
On a sunny day (Wed, 10 Sep 2014 16:14:51 -0700) it happened Jeff Liebermann wrote in :
Forbidden - - This site is open to North America only. Well what do you say. Have not seen that since I hacked into and changed the launch codes..
I have a glass table that big, but putting monitors under it would make it more difficult to read than one or more siting on top in the normal vertical mode.
Mouse does not work on glass table, needs a piece of paper under it.
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