Okay, that title may have been a bit misleading. “My” laptop is alive and well and sitting on my Mother’s desk. Her laptop (which ironically used to be mine, so perhaps my title is truthful after all) has finally melted down. Pretty sure it is the thousands of hours of solitaire she plays on it! It is quite old and the screen of the Sony Vaio has started distorting something terribly. 
I’ve put out a few queries hoping to find some kindred spirits with similar problems, but none have spoken. In reality, it’s okay, as I never particularly cared for that machine, and now it can simply power an old monitor somewhere and run an email application or something.
Recent conversations with my very good friend and often times business partner, Joseph, led me to contemplating on my personal blog about the aspects in my life I’ve allowed to keep me from attaining the success we both believe I deserve. In determining what’s holding me down one thing became very clear to me: get focused on something and hone in on making it happen.
Which brings me to the dead (dying) laptop and my good replacement. Knowing I had a viable, mobile notebook around, though mostly used my desktop behemoth was a crutch. Not having it for the past couple of weeks has made me feel stuck; chained here to the desk with no hope of ever computing anywhere else.
Of course, I have my Blackberry Storm (9530) and there is definitely a lot I can do with it. In fact, just recently I was able to get the Blackberry WordPress application operating within parameters. While I can now, technically, create and publish a blog post on one of my dozen or so websites, it just isn’t as intuitive, fast, or enjoyable as using a full sized keyboard. And though I can take and upload pictures, there are few features of the BB WP app that renders that process nearly as much fun as using the WP admin back end.
I look at the handheld access as a nice back up plan in case, for some strange reason I am in the middle of nowhere with no ability to access the Internet with a standard computer. As long as I’m in the nations best 3G zone (or whatever Verizon’s slogan of the month is) I should be covered with my trusty BB Storm.
My longer term plans however call for the ability to write. Both on a daily basis in order to generate my survival income as a freelance writer, as well as my creative projects. With this in mind, today I set out to make an investment in the tools I’d need to deposit into my Bedouin toolbox.
Initially it occurred to me to simply take advantage of Verizon Wireless’ offer on their cellular enabled HP 1105nr netbook. I was literally a text message of approval from having my sister join me for the trip to Prescott to see the actual working computer at the Verizon store and likely making the purchase.
When she indicated work would hold her late, I decided to do some research online. Googling for some reviews, I discovered that the HP was an “okay” choice, but the data plan required 2 years of commitment and might not be the best expenditure of monies on my part.
CNET provided me with plenty of comparative reviews and I was able to whittle down my potential choices to netbooks under $500. There was actually several of them that seemed to be winners, so I compared two of them, one from Dell and one made by ASUS offered at TigerDirect.com
As a disclosure, I have owned or purchased no less than a dozen Dell machines in my life. And I have nothing but great things to recall about those experiences. Most of my computer building supplies, and various other peripheral purchases comes from TigerDirect.com. I’ve likely spent thousands of dollars with them over the years. Again, never had a transaction I didn’t like (even the silly WiFi locator I once bought from them. What the hell was I thinking there!)
Dell has transformed its buying process into something truly magical. They would probably allow you to buy a cow with purple spots and red hooves if they sold cows. At times, their abundance of choice can be somewhat overwhelming, however I persevered. My historic tendency is to get the very most stuffed into a computer as will fit, both the physical space and my budget. This time I chose just the components that I felt were immediately needed.
Over at TigerDirect.com, the choices are simpler. Usually just down to the colors offered. Any other customization usually comes in the form of having knowledge about what you want, and searching for those components separately. They do offer some items down the side of the page that might relate to your purchase, however, nothing like Dell.
So, I dropped the ASUS netbook I thought I wanted into my shopping cart. Not content to simply push the purchase button, I went researching some more. I was curious about solid state drives, or SSD, and checked into that (the Dell offered the option of either a 160GB HDD or a 16GB SSD). That learning was interesting, but the result of it actually, somehow led me to my Amazon.com account.
Since I was there it seemed prudent to see their prices for the ASUS. They were actually selling a later version model of the computer in my TigerDirect.com shopping cart, and it was in the neighborhood of $12 cheaper. Ordinarily, that small of an amount would not make me choose to make the buy at Amazon.
What did push me over to them was the supporting information on the page. While less technical data than at TigerDirect.com, I had already read everything about the computer there, and had followed up with the offerings at ASUS site itself. The information at Amazon that got me was the user comments and ratings, as well as the “Buyers who purchased this computer also purchased this item” feature.
They told me something that I wanted to know, but hadn’t fully articulated in my own mind. What was the maximum memory this netbook could hold, and how much was I getting for the purchase price. The fashion they did this was in the form of letting me know that some percentage of visitors checking out this computer also purchased this memory stick.
Also, several of the user reviews mentioned they had upgraded the total memory of the machine. That was enough to convince me to spend another $27 to double the RAM of the machine. Past experience has told me that this is a very worthwhile add-on to my purchase. Plus, that $27 was really only $15 since I would have been buying the computer for $12 more at TigerDirect.com.
My final actions today had to do with gaining a better understanding of the Mobile Broadband Connection data plans from Verizon. If you don’t know why they have two plans that allow you 5GB of transfer: one costing $15 a month, the other $30, hoping to find out on their site is pretty useless.
Have you done this? Spent WAY TOO MUCH time on a site trying to find an answer to something like this? What is the difference between these two offerings? And please don’t tell me $15! (I just knew if I was forced to call them that would be their answer.)
Fortunately, when I did break down and call customer support, they were very helpful. Apparently when I signed up for my Storm’s data plan, I didn’t buy the $44.95 plan that I would have needed if I required access to a corporate blackberry / exchange server. I only pay $29.95.
As a result, I’ll need to spend that extra $15 on the broadband connect plan. It will cost me $30 a month to be able to tether my netbook to my Blackberry Storm for Internet access. The cool thing I learned as an extra tidbit from my day’s research is that the ASUS has built in Bluetooth that should allow that Internet tethering to occur wirelessly. And that’s just as good as having the 3G antenna built in because no one will need to see the phone connected via a USB cable or have a USB antenna sticking out the side of the netbook.
My orders are in. I’m anxiously awaiting all to arrive. When it does, I’ll do some sort of un-boxing post, complete with pictures and smells (or their descriptives!)
Till then, have patience if you can. It’ll be hard for me, too!
