Writing with a broken laptop

Well, the laptop is not broken, but the USB ports are. Which means my mouse doesn’t work. So I have to use the track pad. Which means as I type my mouse pointer jumps all over the place.

Owie. Going to buy a new laptop soon anyway. Wish someone had a quad core out there (big evil grin) with 4 GB RAM, super nice nVidia graphics, 15.4 inch screen, 160 GB SATA 7200 RPM drive. Dell is some of the way there (core 2 duo, 2 GB ram) with the other bits for 2500 USD. IBM’s offerings use ATI graphics at the higher end, and since I run Linux on the laptop for most of my work (yes including office apps, it works really well for that), that is pretty much out. Annoying, as I like the IBM machines. Wished they used nVidia. HP (been using HP laptops for the past 5 years, I really like them) doesn’t seem to have what I want. Not even close. Apple isn’t a consideration. I have tried to like OSX. I really have. I just don’t. I am reminded of Irix when I use it. I like Linux, I want to use Linux. Windows XP on the side. Don’t want Vista. I have played with Vista, and it broke things I use/need like Cygwin. Once that is gone, the laptop is mostly useless running windows. Can’t do X, cant do quickie test bits in a cygwin shell window … AMD’s desktop/laptop offerings have not been on par performance competitive with the Intel offerings. I would like to see parity again, but I am not sure when it will happen. Rumors of delays bug me. I need a 64 bit development platform that goes anywhere. This is a mobile workstation. Needs good graphics. Lots of RAM. Lots of fast disk. What I have doesn’t cut it any more. And the USB ports are broken …. Grrr…. I heard of a Canadian company that has quad core laptops. 17 inch displays (really don’t want that, just 15.4 inch wide screen). Will look into them. See if they are affordable. See what their battery life is. FWIW I have been playing with the Intel quad core chips. Yeah, there are some codes that they don’t do so well with. I know what they are. But for others, these are really nice chips. Cudos to Intel.