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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Monday, December 6, 2004
Is This My Last Thinkpad?
IBM is in talks to sell its Personal Computer (desktop, notebook, and laptop computer divisions) company. The rumored acquirer is Chinese company Lenovo Group, Ltd. although Samsung and Acer are also mentioned. Analysts praise the sale as the right move, noting that the only thing IBM about an IBM computer is the name.I beg to differ. If you've never carried an IBM ThinkPad you won't understand this, but ThinkPads are the cream of the laptop and notebook genre. Yes Virginia -- they're even nicer than the luscious Apple PowerBooks. The ergonomics are simply the best in the industy (even if the OS is wonkier).
Over the years I've used laptops by IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, and Apple (four different PowerBook models). In all of that I never once considered giving up my desktop computer as my main workstation. I carried small laptops, desktop-replacement laptops, and mid-range laptops, but none was ever good enough to get me off the desktop.
But my current IBM ThinkPad T41 has pretty much done just that. I think it has a lot to do with the keyboard -- hands down the best laptop keyboard I've ever used. I have a bunch of parts for a new PeeCee I've been meaning to build since August, but the TPad has made that seem somehow less important. The intelligent, automatic, self-configuring, networking lets me walk into almost anywhere, anytime, and simply fire up with a net connection. The battery life is phenomenal. I use a spare battery in the CD-ROM slot, but with that I can get 10 hours of work time -- with WiFi enabled.
None of this cool stuff came from an Asian design team. It came from IBM. Sure, all the manufacturing came from Asia and that means all the cool stuff is affordable. But IBM provided the creativity and innovation that drives it.
If IBM sells off their PC division I, for one, will be sorry. In a world of commoditized, generic, indistinguishable computers only two companies have any personality left -- Apple and IBM. Their personalities differ, as do their approaches. But both add something important to our computing experience. If either leaves the game our personal computing world will be much poorer.
Posted by: 
Terry Frazier at 9:09 AM
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Categories: Productivity, Technology, UnWired
Terry Frazier at 9:09 AM
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Saturday, May 15, 2004
A(nother) New Treo
Ever since I bought my new Treo 600 people I call have complained about the poor sound quality whenever I try to use a headset. My Shure QuietSpot headset, which worked so well I recommended it here on the blog, sounded terrible and I had to stop using it.
I finally got around to going to the Sprint store to get the Treo checked and the tech sent me back to Best Buy to get a new unit. So now I have a new Treo and I hope the headphone jack on this one works as designed. Some research on the Net indicates some Treo 600 users have had trouble with poor sound quality, buzzing, and internal noise. I love the device but the headphone problem made it impossible to use effectivley as a phone. I'm hoping for better luck this time.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Mobile Blog Notifications
I recently bought a new Treo 600 to replace both my cell phone and my PDA, which happen to break within a month of each other. One of the things I did, naturally, was get a plan that give me Internet access. I've never done that before but now I want to take advantage of the mail-list feature in Conversant and have new posts sent to my cell phone account. So this post is a test to see if I get a notification on the phone whenever a new message arrives.
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This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:57 GMT
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