Laptop Advice

[Joedjr]

Hi Dauer,

Salt,

I've got an old laptop that sounds a bit like yours. I had it before I got my imac. The dock for the AC adapter got stripped and it just died like that. Wouldn't've been worth it to fix that at the cost. I did save everything on the HD that was important but forgot to wipe the HD so hesitating on recycling. D'oh.

If you're going for a refurb laptop I highly recommend a mac if it's in your budget. I've heard better things about their refurbs and you get the same replacement policy as the new computers, though it's still at a premium compared to other computers. Refurbished Mac - Apple Store (U.S.)

There should be better refurbs as well as price drops on existing stock after the macworld expo.


Joe,

Yeah, this is definitely one of those "it ain't workin" situations. Doesn't make sense to me. I figure if it was the NIC, wireless wouldn't work either. But in this case only the wired internet in my apartment isn't working. I pick up my neighbor's wireless no problem. I installed ubuntu and when I booted into it, same problem. I know the cable's fine because I pulled it straight from my imac and plugged it in. So I figure either there's some reason comcast won't recognize the computer without more information or there's something else weird that's going on, hopefully not a hardware issue. I'm going to try it at another location, wired and wireless, to see how it behaves.

-- Dauer

Couple quick questions: did it work on windows? you could snag the address from the mac. maybe ubuntu doesn't support that laptop wireline network. Try another distro. mint works here. That laptop does look cool!
Joe

 

[dauer]

I tried it on windows first, then tested with ubuntu. Wired didn't work on either. Wireless didn't work on ubuntu but that's a known issue with workarounds. As I type this the netbook is booting up at another location so I can test it for wired and wireless connectivity somewhere else. Survey says:

same issue. Wireless works fine. Wired hangs when trying to acquire the network address. Tried manually punching in the info from another comp and it's no good. I think I'll need to contact Samsung.

 

[dauer]

Figured out the problem. Since I'd plugged into my cable modem directly I had to reset it after unplugging. Now I heart my NC10.

 

[Joedjr]

Hi dauer,
Glad you got it working! I also have cable modem access and every once in a while it needs a reset. ( after the cable company "fixes" something). The one thing I had to learn with the wireless router is when after the power has gone out, nothing happens without rebooting it, otherwise this setup has been pretty good.
How do you like the screen size on the new laptop? Had a 12" mac that is just too small for full time work.
Joe

 

[dauer]

I've never had issues with my cable modem, but the MAC address gets set based on the computer that's plugged into it, so unless it's reset it won't recognize a new computer when the ethernet cable is swapped.

I used to have a 12" powerbook. My main computer is a 24" imac which is much better for regular use, but as an ultra-portable that I can use for web browsing, word processing etc it's great. I installed RocketDock, DExpose2 and the crystal clear bricopack so it feels more like home. It is a little awkward at times lacking a CD/DVD drive, but it hasn't been much of an issue so far. I may get an external, although once I've got a router I can just use another computer's drive. The battery on this thing is incredible. I optimized the battery life with some advice at sammynetbook.com and would be surprised if I got less than 7 hours with regular use.

I've put in google chrome and love it. It's not customizable like firefox but it's wicked fast and it's really uncluttered which helps with the screen real estate. No menus at the top, just two small icons next to the address bar that open up to larger menus. As much as I hate google, I love their software. I've transitions to google calendar and gmail. Now that I've got the netbook I'll be using google docs more frequently. Easier to access my documents from anywhere that way.

Re: real estate, I've got the taskbar on auto-hide at the bottom of the screen and RocketDock on auto-hide at the top. I've got Executor on here as well for easy access to all of my apps but have to play with it a bit more to get used to it and customize it to my needs. I added google's two finger scroll which is a very sweet bit of code, though could use a little work still.

Performance-wise, I was able to run google earth without any difficulty. To push it I ran second life and got between 12 and 25 fps with all of the graphics settings turned down. For that app those are decent fps. I'm curious to get steam on here and try something a bit more intensive,. As I understand it Civ IV is playable (Civ III more reasonable) as well as most older games, but even HL2 has had some issues on the NC10. I'm guessing that with the smaller library and heavy occlusion culling Portal might run better than HL2. I'll be happy if I can get a few odd indie games on it, maybe pick up the starcraft or diablo battlechests or some of the older pc rpg's that I missed. I didn't purchase it for gaming. I have my imac for that. Still, will be nice to see what it can do.