winter's computers
found, loved, and nurtured for spring
my ugly geek secret

Saturday 3 November 2007

getneckid

Model

  • NEC Versa VX
Introduced
  • 2000
CPU
  • Intel Pentium III (Coppermine), 450MHz
RAM
  • 192 MB
Video
  • ATI Rage Mobility-M
  • 14.1" XGA (1024 x 768) TFT LCD display
Disk
  • 18 GB harddrive
  • CD-ROM
Network
  • Wireless (CardBus NIC)
Operating Systems
  • Microsoft Windows 2000
Features
  • TouchPad
  • TV Out
  • Infrared
Formerly called balthasar and running Ubuntu Linux, getneckid was too slow and awkward to use as we had to sync my wife's phone via a second laptop running Windows, sync that laptop to ScheduleWorld, and finally sync ScheduleWorld to stinky. Also, for some reason, her web browser kept freezing up on her (I tried both Firefox and Opera). It looked like a memory problem but I wasn't able to resolve it or even prove definitively that this was the issue. I'm going to test it with the latest Ubuntu, but I never had the problems we when we used that laptop before. It seems to be some particular way she uses it, like maybe having both Evolution and Firefox or Opera open at the same time.

getneckid is still slow, of course, but documents load particularly slowly due to the virus scanner (Avast), a component not required for Linux. Opera was working well for her as a web browser, so I installed the Windows version. Overall it seems to be working well so far.

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