Time for a new laptop. Maybe...

[16VGTIDave]

Backups, plural. More than one. I have 2. One is an incremental backup run hourly and the other is a full clone that is bootable. The clone is kept "off site" and brought in once a week for updating.

I often hear people say they have "nothing of value" on their computers. Then I watch them cry when the realize they've lost the video of their child's first steps. Or the documents they need to provide to the government for personal taxes or business reasons. I used to cringe and even apologize when handing an invoice to someone that included $1500+ for data recovery services, in addition to my fees. Usually months or years after I'd recommended implementing backups, which they had obviously declined. And I wouldn't markup the recovery fees. Now I just add my 20% markup on and let them worry about how much they could have saved by having a backup or 2. I sometimes even have to shake my head in dismay when they still refuse to implement some sort of backup afterwards.

Stupid is not learning from ones mistakes. There are many stupid people out there...

[Grant Lamontagne]

I don't recall the last time I used a DVD drive in a laptop, and I'm giving serious thought to an ultrabook without a DVD drive and I'm wondering if there's still some important reason to have one?

Def

[Sazabi]

Grant, if you ever do find yourself needing a DVD drive, you can always pick up an external one for between $20 and $30.  The only reason to get one with it is to swap it out for a secondary hard drive enclosure or an ultrabay battery.

[microbe]

i got an external DVD drive when I bought a laptop without one. It turned out to be a waste of money in my case. I only used it once to watch a movie when there was a power outage. (At that time, I was happy I had it)

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yeah, that's what I figured.  I don't need to worry about a DVD drive.

Def

[dks]

Yeah, that's what I figured.  I don't need to worry about a DVD drive.

Def

next thing you will  tell us you do not need a floppy drive either..... 

[Don Pablo]

5 1/4" or 3 1/2"?
Which is not needed? 

[dks]

 a 5 1/4 , one side, normal capacity, is absolutely needed even for a basic pc

[Don Pablo]

Ok, grey or black? 

[dks]

brownish

[Don Pablo]

Are there any other requirements/features that I should know about for this brownish 5 1/4" floppy drive?

[dks]

It has to be very floppy

[Don Pablo]

floppy floppy floppy?

[jzmtl]

I don't recall the last time I used a DVD drive in a laptop, and I'm giving serious thought to an ultrabook without a DVD drive and I'm wondering if there's still some important reason to have one?

Def

My Asus zenbook doesn't have one, never felt the need for one. If I really need it I can always image the disc on my desktop then mount it on my laptop with daemon lite.

[Fortytwo]

I don't recall the last time I used a DVD drive in a laptop, and I'm giving serious thought to an ultrabook without a DVD drive and I'm wondering if there's still some important reason to have one?

Def

My Asus zenbook doesn't have one, never felt the need for one. If I really need it I can always image the disc on my desktop then mount it on my laptop with daemon lite.

Agreed, an external DVD reader/writer should come cheap if ever needed but it's far between these days. I much prefer having it separate and saving the space.

[Syph007]

I cant think of anything Id need a dvd drive for any more.  Maybe to read some of my old backups of work stuff, but for day to day use, nope.

[Poncho65]

Who would have thought in 2006 (just 10 years) that optical drives would be made obsolete essentially in a decade I know that as soon as netbooks and tablets came out cd/dvd drives were no longer needed How long have they been out now 6 years or more? When I got my first computer over 20 years ago I would never have thought we would have been this far along with certain bits of tech Still no real hover boards or flying cars though

[dks]

I remember reading an article that was saying that the new 286 machines would never really be used by consumers and they would only be for serious businesses, as the consumers did not need that much power, or ever will.

It was in PC compute or PC advisor, so it was a serious article, that proved seriously shortsighted

The problem with CD/DVD/Blu ray drives, the reason they are still needed, is that many organisations will still give you a CD disk, if you go to a seminar or a meeting or buy a product and, you will need to play it somewhere.

[Syph007]

I remember reading an article that was saying that the new 286 machines would never really be used by consumers and they would only be for serious businesses, as the consumers did not need that much power, or ever will.

It was in PC compute or PC advisor, so it was a serious article, that proved seriously shortsighted

The problem with CD/DVD/Blu ray drives, the reason they are still needed, is that many organisations will still give you a CD disk, if you go to a seminar or a meeting or buy a product and, you will need to play it somewhere.

My wife goes to these workshop/learning things and what she usually comes home with is a small usb fob with the material on it.  So they switched to handing those out instead of CDs.  Much smaller to carry too, and small size ones are pretty cheap.   

[Grant Lamontagne]

Even flash drives are considered old tech now.

Def

[Don Pablo]

The hot stuff now is data storage on glass discs:

Show content

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/16/11018018/5d-data-storage-glass

. 

(Why did they have to put the bible on it? thats only a few megabytes. )

[Grant Lamontagne]

The hot stuff now is data storage on glass discs:

Show content

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/16/11018018/5d-data-storage-glass

. 

(Why did they have to put the bible on it? thats only a few megabytes. )

That looks like one step away from the Star Trek isolinear chips!

http://www.nerdlingen.de/wp-content/uploads/isolinear2.jpg

Def

[Don Pablo]

Those isolinear chips look like transparent flash drives. 

[Grant Lamontagne]

How cool would that be? 

Def

[Whoey]

 

http://shop.empmuseum.org/product/Star_Trek_Isolinear_Chip_USB_Drive

[Grant Lamontagne]

That is pretty cool. ...

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

I have been using this teeny HP Split (earlier version that the reviewers all say to avoid like the plague, not the later one that everyone says is so great) for a few weeks now, and I have to say, I am very surprised at how well it is holding up.

Pros:

1- I love the battery life.  I charge this bugger at night and use it all day long and it still has power when I plug it in again before bed.  Admittedly this is largely because it has two batteries, but the first one is usually at 2% and the other is well above 60% when I plug it in, so even one of the batteries would probably be sufficient, more or less.  My old laptop barely had a battery that would last long enough to move the charger from the living room to the kitchen, so being able to go all day without plugging in is a whole other world to me.

2- I don't find the small screen (I think it's 11 ish inches?) that restrictive.  Mind you, I have also been a big fan of netbooks for a while, and resisted tablets for the longest time, preferring to have a keyboard, and compared to the 7 and 10 inch screens the netbooks had, this is massive.  I also like the small form factor, and while I might prefer something a bit bigger, this works well.  What I need is a 13 inch computer with a 17 inch screen.  Does Tardis make laptops? 

3-  I hate to admit it, but I am really digging the aluminum chassis.  I never had a metal computer before, always avoiding them because of the price and weight issues, but I will say that I think it is pretty sweet.  It has a matte finish and I have to keep resisting the urge to take a buffer to it and mirror polishing it! 

Cons:

1- It is slow and painfully underpowered.  I'm ok with the proc being what it is, but having only 2 gigs of memory should be illegal.  Many times I have to actually type things and wait 10 seconds for the words to appear om the screen.  Other times it takes web pages forever to load, because the machine is busy doing something like downloading a photo to update Dropbox.  I have actually disabled Dropbox on startup because of it, and I use Dropbox constantly so that's frustrating.  If I could double the RAM in this machine I'd be thrilled.  If I could jump up to 8 gigs and Win 10 (stuck on , and maybe swap in an SSD I'd keep this machine for years to come.

2- HD is super small.  This was a lightweight machine, not meant for anything more serious than executives responding to emails on their lunch breaks, and as such only has a 60 gig hard drive.  I have portable flash drives bigger than that.   

3- It's top heavy.  Since it is basically a tablet with a docking station, most of the electronics are in the screen half, so unless you are using it on a perfectly flat surface, it has a tendency to flop over backwards the second you take your hands off the keyboard.  It kind of defeats the term "laptop" since it is kind of difficult to use in your lap.

All in all, I am managing better with this machine than I thought I would.  It's a nice machine, and I really quite like it, although the lag involved in finding typos is quite frustrating, as is the time involved in going back to fix them.  I am still planning to get a new machine (maybe after Christmas) but I will say this has changed my aim slightly on what I am looking for in a new one.

Def

[Syph007]

Mine wouldn't boot this morning and since it has a wonky charger and wifi... it was fixed permanently with a hammer.  I feel better but then had to order a new one.

I grabbed this dell latitude for 599 CAD

http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/latitude-35x0-laptops/pd?oc=s005l356015usca&model_id=latitude-35x0-laptops

So we'll see how well it works.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Mine wouldn't boot this morning and since it has a wonky charger and wifi... it was fixed permanently with a hammer.  I feel better but then had to order a new one.

I grabbed this dell latitude for 599 CAD

http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/latitude-35x0-laptops/pd?oc=s005l356015usca&model_id=latitude-35x0-laptops

So we'll see how well it works.

I was looking at a slightly upgraded version of that- basically the same thing but with an i5 and 8gigs.  It looks like a good machine, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

Def

[Syph007]

Mine wouldn't boot this morning and since it has a wonky charger and wifi... it was fixed permanently with a hammer.  I feel better but then had to order a new one.

I grabbed this dell latitude for 599 CAD

http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/latitude-35x0-laptops/pd?oc=s005l356015usca&model_id=latitude-35x0-laptops

So we'll see how well it works.

I was looking at a slightly upgraded version of that- basically the same thing but with an i5 and 8gigs.  It looks like a good machine, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

Def

It's more than enough for my needs!  Non 3d cad and email.  I only buy the Dell business machines as they come with anti glare screen.   In my day most were anti glare then apple convinced people glare was great.