Madman's current computers & related

Created: 0199.04.22 | Last updated: 2020.06.24

*Last updated mid 2020. If you are reading this after 2020 it is guaranteed out of date! Sorry.*

My 2020 setup

It has been 12 years since I updated this page. I decided to leave my 2008 setup for historical interest (probably only of interest to me)

  • My main laptop, a dual screen that I also have a 4K screen attached to. Lots of memory, SSD drive internal only, 5T HDDs for backups.
  • A single screen laptop, much less powerful, but a backup for when I want to travel with a laptop.
  • A desktop, with 5 monitors used as a backup when my laptop dies, I've had this for almost 8 years, so I doubt it will be used much again.
  • A desktop for multi-media work, it too is so outdated, it has no real value anymore, so it is relegated to playing videos
  • A Samsung Galaxy S9+ my main phone and portable computer
  • A couple Raspberry Pi computers, used for IoT research (even the pi 4 is too slow for real work, though if I need a quick internet search while I am sitting at it, I'll use the browser)
  • A Linux computer that was going to be my new audi-visual recording device, but it ran out of hard drive and froze - the suggestions to fix it didn't work, and I couldn't be bothered to try to fix it
  • A about 12" iPad Pro tablet. It's OK. I used to use it for one application that only runs on iPads, but I no longer need that app (and I've heard it now runs on Android), but this is still officially my 'primary' tablet... it's around here somewhere on my desk, I'm sure I saw it just before COVID-19 ...
  • Several phones including Android and iPhone used as test devices.
  • Several Android tablets and an old iPad Mini used as test device
  • Mac Mini used for debugging iOS and iPadOS bugs in 'our' software
  • All the other computers are special purpose (such as for 3D printing, device control etc..,) ## Notable items missing
  • I haven't got into the watch thing. I was glad years ago when I stopped wearing my watches (and yes I had a very nice watch), so going back to wearing a watch hasn't excited me yet. But I keep looking at how our company could write software to make the lives of our customers better with a watch ... but I just haven't come up with anything yet that I think anyone would think is worthwhile.
  • Linux. I used to run several Linux computers, but I've mostly given up except for servers that I don't personally run (though my company owns)
  • Arduino. I have a couple, but haven't done anything with them yet, so they don't fit into the list above yet.

Between 2008 and 2020

*I've retired my palm pilots, Vista, MS PPC and indeed the two Microsoft phones that I loved the UI, but there were so few programs for it that the UI can only go so far. But I joke that I was one of the last 17 people in the world using the Microsoft Windows phone as my primary portable phone and device.

  • For Windows, everything is Windows 10 now.

  • As above, I'm not currently using Linux for anything, unless you count the Raspberries and the Android devices that are forks of Linux.

  • But i do use Postgres as one of my two main databases now (MS SQL is the other)

  • I keep trying LibreOffice once a year (last was early June 2020), it is a tiny bit better, but it is still very slow compared to MS Office and it horribly corrupts my .docx files. Probably some specific feature in Word that our team uses heavily - I've spend about 20 hours trying to find a way to have documents that work in both MS-OFfice and LibreOffice, but on the LibreOffice forums when I tried to get help, the response was nasty - that I should DEMAND that Microsoft fix it because any problems like that are Microsoft's fault, not LibreOffice's fault. I guess they want to sleep with the 800lb gorilla, but make the gorilla do their bidding. LibreOffice probably hoped they could unseat Microsoft as Microsoft unseated Wordstar and WordPerfect.

    • History lesson: Wikipedia has a different view than I remember of the 1980's and early 1990's on where Wordstar and WordPerfect sat in relationship to each other - but we both agree, MS-Word was NOT the dominant choice until sometime in the early 1990's when MS-Word won. I chose Word for its features, usability and productivity over WordStar and WordPerfect, but back then, you have to realize that Word processing files where NOT shared with many other people or companies - we printed out and shared the printouts. So file compatibility didn't become 'the most important feature' until sometime AFTER MS-OFfice had achieved dominance, and now, even if sometime MS-Office becomes a poorer quality product than LibreOffice - it will still maintain dominance for 'some time' due to this one factor.

    • Full disclosure: I (technically not me personally) own a few shares in Microsoft. Microsoft Word 0.x made my corporate live MUCH better in 1988 and continued to make life easier for me as the product continued to improve and I eventually switched to it for everything from the 'then' 800 lb gorilla (Wordstar) running on MS-DOS although I did use from 1984 until sometime in the early 1990's WordPerfect as well.

    • I have people around the world I have to reimburse so they can buy MS-Office to work on my team, so I have a greater financial incentive to switch to LibreOffice than even if all my Microsoft shares dropped in value to $0.

My 2008 setup

OFFICE

I currently use Office 2003 and I'm looking forward to upgrading to the new office - but I probably won't until I get my next laptop. First let me say, I am a big Fan of Microsoft software, and I have been happy with every upgrade of MS-Office except XP. But, with Office 2007 - I don't have an opinion yet.

One other comment (and yes this and the comment before have been given to Microsoft): If you have relative hyperlinks in your document, the Microsoft file recovery completely destroys every single one. For techies: A relative hyperlink starts with ./ - now. So, for instance, consider a file c:\mydocuments\abc.doc with a hyperlink .\def.doc. This refers to c:\mydocuments\def.doc. When the file is "recovered" the link is left character for character at .\def.doc, so it is now trying to refer to some document c:recoverydirectory\def.doc. When you say "yup, I want that file" Word's recovery moves it into c:\mydocuments, but "fixes" the hyperlink so it now reads ..\recoverydirectory\def.doc. The result is that every relative hyperlink is destroyed and you manually have to fix every single one.

CONCLUSION: DO NOT USE OFFICE RECOVERY if you have hyperlinks. (And I heavily use hyperlinks.)

Is it impossible to fix? No. Microsoft is already storing tons of recovery details. All they would have to add is the directory it started out in. This would be an easy fix if they ever decided it was worth fixing. And no, I don't know if Office 2007 has fixed it.

OPERATING SYSTEM

Well, I said I'd upgrade to Vista as soon as it came out. I haven't gotten around to that yet. Still working on Windows XP. Vista is being used on a couple of our other computers and the biggest problem is software and hardware compatibility. It is at SP1 but I'm not rushing to upgrade just yet.

My main computer: Dell INSPIRON 9400

  • Dual cor Centrino (almost as good as dual processor)
  • 2 Gig RAM
  • 80 Gig HD ()
  • DVD Writer (But I'm looking forward to Blu-Ray - for 25 and 50Gig backups on a single 'tough' CD. Blu-Ray disks are scratch resistant unlike DVD's and CD's and HD-DVD's) Update: Blu-Ray costs more per gigabyte than hard drives, so I'm using hard drives for backups.
  • 17" screen with only 1920x1200 resolution. (OK, yes it's big, but i hear a 21" is coming with even higher resolution!)

Some of the following is out of date (Mid 2008) ... maybe someday I'll update the whole document again.

DESKTOPS (A quad pack of computers)

Madman Special/32&33 - My secondary computers. These are actually a pair of computers with a switch box that switches my screen/kb/mouse between them

  • Intel Pentium 2.3GHz, AMD K7 1GHz, Athalon 1.4GHz
  • 1 ot 2Gig in each. See, when I tell people memory is more important that CPU speed, I follow my own advice
  • Over 1.3 Terabytes of HD between them
  • no modem (I connect to the internet through another computer on the LAN)
  • DVD writers
  • A couple of the worst cases you ever saw with a Gate handle bolted to the top of the one I carry with me travelling.
  • It's my "notepad". You see, the sides are made of cardboard for easy access. I write important numbers on the cardboard sides - a notepad. Goes everywhere with me except to Church.
  • Win2K (Not necessarily a smart idea - much software & hardware is not compatible, but they work for me.)

A fifth old computer is dedicated to scanning, true photo quality printing & photo editing.

Backup LAPTOP, actually my wife uses this one almost exclusively now.

Dell Laptop, 1.4Mhz, 512Meg, 40GigHD, 17.1" screen, high resolution, very bright, very wide reading range. Dual screen capability. Wireless connection. CD Writer. Runs fairly smooth, but Office XP doesn't do well when the network is "lost" and regained a few seconds later. Frequently I have to reboot to get the laptop computer back on the wireless LAN. Oh well, it is still a lot better than having a wire everywhere.

PALM SIZED

2004: Palm type: I decided against a PowerPC because the main things I need in my pocket are notes, contacts, tasks and spreadsheet. I bought my Palm type a year before I got the laptop, so that logic applied back then too. Anything much more significant and I am going to want a full laptop not a underachiever-smallscreen- poor keyboard PC. BUT! to be fair it wasn't an easy decision. The deciding factor: My Handera, with rechargeable NiMH batteries goes 3 weeks between battery recharge. The PowerPC I really wanted (biggest, fastest, most memory) went only 6 to 18 hours between charges. I carry my "palm" with me everywhere - I don't know how I lived without it!

  • Handera 330 (with Excel compatibility, weak Word compatibility, great integration with Outlook contacts, tasks & notes) I have upgraded to software that works well with Word and threw away the free stuff that came with the Handera.

To be honest, now that I finally have a laptop, I really don't use the palm type that much anymore.

2005: OK. I'm converted. I use a PPC Phone now instead of my Palm. Deciding factor: It is 100x's easier to write custom programs for the PPC using Dot NET in Visual Studio. And yes, I've done a lot of programming with both. My first app, which still has features I'd like to add some day, is a calculator with multiple registers and other goodies. See the business section for more. The PPC is much better syncing with Outlook than the Palm was (the palm has limits of 15 all over the place, and in several of them, I have 16 to 20 categories in Outlook.) As for the battery. While I'd love it to last longer, they now come with memory-less lithium Ion batteries, much better than even NiMH and if I need to, i can charge it through the USB port on my laptop. So... I no longer use or like the Palm.

Here are the things I most use it for:

  • Phoning with bluetooth headset so I can interact with the PPC while talking on the phone.
  • Schedule
  • Great calculator (OK so I wrote it, but really - it is great.)
  • Phone numbers
  • Internet access, WiFi or through the phone features. (even won a contest in a dinner theatre by connecting to the internet and finding the answers to a quiz. They did say we could use any method we want to find the answers, I don't think they though of people using the internet though! Some other teams thought it was cheating when they found out, but when I pointed to the 'any method', they reluctantly agreed it wasn't technically cheating.)

2006: It looks like I'll be upgrading in July or August to a PPC with a slide out (sideways) keyboard.

Desires:

  • Blu-Ray
  • Quad core CPU- The photographic editing work I do still makes very good use of any extra speed I can give it.
  • A faster hard drive cluster - I always want more speed.
  • A high speed link at home (2 ways) - I'm unfortunately to far out of the city to get this economically however. And 2 way high speed satellite doesn't seem to work well from reports I've had.

Are those all the your computers?

No, of course not. I have more that are in active use, primarily for testing different browsers/versions and I plan more! One in the Kitchen, One on another desk, and I "borrow" the kids computers for testing Actually truth be known, I let the kids use my other computers when I don't need them. Work needs override even homework, but that conflict doesn't happen more than once every couple years.