What annoyed you today?

[picsfor]

Would swapping drive two for drive one to load windows on make any difference? or should I put that six pound lump hammer to some practical use.

6lb lump hammer to be used in conjunction with a couple of Rest Days to get a replacement (or work a few more and get a MacBook  )
You can only spend soo long banging your head against a brick wall...

[jimthetrain]

The annoying thing is it cost over a £1000 a couple of years ago. Just swapped the drive round and the screen is still f***ed. Looking at it now a 17" laptop isn't very portable and now I have the Mac I probably only need a small notebook to lug around with me. I knew I was on a downward slide when High Definition discs all became the Bluray standard a couple of months after buying this with the other system on it.

[picsfor]

then you choice is even easier...

iPad or 13" Macbook.

Price is pretty much the same though you have a trade off for long battery life on the iPad against the optical drive and USB ports on the MacBook!

How long do you sit at Euston or Glasgow?

As for backing the wrong technology - we've all done that 

[Jonathan]

Price is pretty much the same though you have a trade off for long battery life on the iPad against the optical drive and USB ports on the MacBook!

Um, and the fact that a MacBook is a computer.  Seriously, I love my iPad. But if you buy it to replace a laptop there's a strong chance you'll be very disappointed.

Oh, now I have to think of something that annoyed me today.  I know.  My accountant.  And the entire "test" team at Boinx who seem to have taken a few days off rather than test the new version of Fotomajico.

[picsfor]

Price is pretty much the same though you have a trade off for long battery life on the iPad against the optical drive and USB ports on the MacBook!

Um, and the fact that a MacBook is a computer.  Seriously, I love my iPad. But if you buy it to replace a laptop there's a strong chance you'll be very disappointed.

Ahh but its the purpose it has to fulfill. Does Jim need it just to occupy his spare time at terminii, in which case an iPad with a few movies, games, apps and music installed will do fine, or does he actually require a portable computer?

'tis the role of train driver to have turns of duty where you can spend a couple of hours sitting around spare or on a meal break due to the way trains are timetabled - hence the choice...

[spinner]

The annoying thing is it cost over a £1000 a couple of years ago. Just swapped the drive round and the screen is still f***ed. Looking at it now a 17" laptop isn't very portable and now I have the Mac I probably only need a small notebook to lug around with me. I knew I was on a downward slide when High Definition discs all became the Bluray standard a couple of months after buying this with the other system on it.

Past the warranty? Sounds like a video card issue, are you getting any video in DOS? Or when you tried the recover discs? My suggestion is download one of the many Linux Live CD's and give it a run. If it boots up and gives you a nice picture then its your HD, if they don't work it's either the video card or the video screen.


WAMT? Dogs, in particular my two. There's a couple of young fellas painting the house next door and everytime they take a break and have a little chat the dogs go berserk.

[jimthetrain]

The annoying thing is it cost over a £1000 a couple of years ago. Just swapped the drive round and the screen is still f***ed. Looking at it now a 17" laptop isn't very portable and now I have the Mac I probably only need a small notebook to lug around with me. I knew I was on a downward slide when High Definition discs all became the Bluray standard a couple of months after buying this with the other system on it.

Past the warranty? Sounds like a video card issue, are you getting any video in DOS? Or when you tried the recover discs? My suggestion is download one of the many Linux Live CD's and give it a run. If it boots up and gives you a nice picture then its your HD, if they don't work it's either the video card or the video screen.


WAMT? Dogs, in particular my two. There's a couple of young fellas painting the house next door and everytime they take a break and have a little chat the dogs go berserk.

It isn't getting past the moment when you press the power button.

Andrew, I would like something that I can fit in my camera bag that does things like play movies etc but also can display pictures from the camera and a little editing aswell. Had a quick look at the new Samsung n220 10.1" netbook which seems to have great reviews. Less than £290 on amazon.

[Oldboy]

Do you have the prompt like press F8 to enter boot menu? Does Windows give you the option to go into save mode when starting up? It could be that the video driver has been corrupted therefore, go into control panel, device manager and select display adapter with a double click, select driver and click on the Update Driver option. 

[spinner]

It isn't getting past the moment when you press the power button.

Do you know how to access the BIOS on startup? If you can get into that and the screen looks ok, then you can elimnate that, as an issue.

[Hinfrance]

Not getting past 'no operating system' was what my ancient Dell laptop did until I installed Linux. It's worked perfectly ever since.

But it does sound like yours is very broken.

I would consider a Linux powered netbook and put the rest of the money you could have wasted buying an Apple product, around £700 I'd guess, back in the bank. That's what Jobs would do with it.   The money that is, just put it in his bank.

[picsfor]

Andrew, I would like something that I can fit in my camera bag that does things like play movies etc but also can display pictures from the camera and a little editing aswell. Had a quick look at the new Samsung n220 10.1" netbook which seems to have great reviews. Less than £290 on amazon.

Know exactly what you mean Jim. It's that mix of portability (because we carry enough crap already) and usefulness.
When are the TOC's gonna realise that the first things we drivers put in our bags are food & drink, camera and something to read or watch...

WEe could oblige by accepting Netbook's as part of our kit instead of all those useless publications 

[jimthetrain]

Know exactly what you mean Jim. It's that mix of portability (because we carry enough crap already) and usefulness.
When are the TOC's gonna realise that the first things we drivers put in our bags are food & drink, camera and something to read or watch...

WEe could oblige by accepting Netbook's as part of our kit instead of all those useless publications 

We all carry PDA's now but they aren't very good to be honest. We asked for netbooks but they wasted all the available money on the PDA.

[picsfor]

our lot, allegedly, are looking at netbooks because they can come preloaded with all faults and failures with nice pictures and diagrams, rule books and Sect App (with route hand outs), all forms and etc as templates and of course e-mail (with e-mail templates) and internet configured to access only approved sites (the company intranet  ).

If they were to leave some of the simple things on like solitaire etc they might actually be useful. Knowing our luck - they'd put bloody MS Train Simulator on 

Silly thing is - the cost of paper, print toner and admin to shuffle paper each year would cover the cost of purchasing such equipment.
PDA's have been replaced by smart phones which come free with £15 contract (i have a Nokia E71 for personal use) so it's not even as though they're paying loads for the silly things!

[spinner]

Not getting past 'no operating system' was what my ancient Dell laptop did until I installed Linux. It's worked perfectly ever since.

But it does sound like yours is very broken.

I would consider a Linux powered netbook and put the rest of the money you could have wasted buying an Apple product, around £700 I'd guess, back in the bank. That's what Jobs would do with it.   The money that is, just put it in his bank.

I'm trying to resurrect an old IBM Thinkpad doing that. Have Mint installed but the wireless won't work, going to look for a new card after payday. 

[Oldboy]

Not getting past 'no operating system' was what my ancient Dell laptop did until I installed Linux. It's worked perfectly ever since.

But it does sound like yours is very broken.

I would consider a Linux powered netbook and put the rest of the money you could have wasted buying an Apple product, around £700 I'd guess, back in the bank. That's what Jobs would do with it.   The money that is, just put it in his bank.

I'm trying to resurrect an old IBM Thinkpad doing that. Have Mint installed but the wireless won't work, going to look for a new card after payday. 

I've still got one and it works OK except for the battery which won't hold a charge.