In case you’re wondering, I have a naming scheme for all my computers. My desktops are named after hostile science fiction artificial intelligences. (Skynet) My laptops are named after homicidal androids (B166ER, Bender). My external hard drives are named after non-homicidal artificial intelligences. (Deep Thought, Cortana) My flash drives are named after models of Terminator from the film franchise. (T-1000, Cameron)
Bender is an MSi A6000-030US. And he belongs to me. I could sit here and type out all the stats. But you can see even in the picture above that he has a crapload of stickers on him that tell you everything you need to know. I’ll just say two things.
- The specs are decent.
- Geforce 8200M G
And I don’t even know what that last one means; the discrete video card was beyond my requirements. I set my expectations on an Intel GMA 4500MHD. Same goes for the BLU-Ray drive and the HDMI output.
The USB ports are so tight, and he smells like a department store.
The keyboard takes some getting used to, but I saw that one coming. The numpad changes things a lot. The “Home” and “End” keys are only accessible through the function key which is to the left of left control, which I don’t like for hot key related reasons. The enter and arrow keys are crammed in between the numpad and everything else and there’s no reference to know which one I’m touching.
I’m going to install Ubuntu on a separate partition. But first I’m going to give Windows 7 a chance. Just using the native install. (I am happy to mention that I skipped over Vista completely.) Hell, I’ll even give Windows Live Mail a shot for RSS feeds and Gmail. I can always fall back on Thunderbird.
And IE8 can’t be as bad as its predecessors, right? Firefox is getting less and less appealing lately after I switched over to Opera. But it’s about time I try Google Chrome as a fallback. Hopefully neither of them let me get pwned.
I’m trying to take advantage of many of the new features of Windows 7 before I totally disparage it. The introductory videos I keep seeing mention that “You may remember [$old_feature] from Windows XP. Well, in Windows 7…” Are they not supposed to mention Vista? Is Vista like Voldemort over at Redmond? Whoever says “You-Know-What” is detected and is immediately accosted by large men?
I have 60 days before my Norton antivirus trial ends. Ditto for Windows Office. I’ll need luck. And Openoffice.
Day 2
So far things are okay. I’m using the new taskbar okay. Response is not lightning quick but it’s MUCH peppier than my last laptop. And gadgets are especially useful for Twitter and weather and calendar functions.
But the following piss me off.
- Windows Live Mail won’t show certain webcomics or not completely.
- Webcam bloatware is pointless, but I should know better.
- I’ve set up Windows Media Player, like, 6 times now.
- start up errors: it tries to repair itself, fails, then starts up normally.
- Silverlight doesn’t do anything for me.
It gets worse.
Due to the low market share of MSI laptops, the Ubuntu installation won’t recognize my card reader or webcam or wireless card without a kernel recompile. This effectively cripples it. I am so so sorry.
