It has been a glorious day. Barely a cloud in the sky and just a gentle breeze to keep me cool.
I took the dogs for a haircut. Came back and the new laptop had arrived. It was delivered by a firm called DPD, a new company to me, I got e-mail updates telling me within an hour when it would arrive. it arrived ten minutes into the time slot. That is impressive. Parcel Force could do with poaching the brains behind this company. Fed-Ex were always my preferred carrier but there is not a lot to choose between them. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Joe would be delivering my package between 1231h and 1331h. It’s nice to know the posties name without having to ask. The computer that tracks their vans could do with a bit of a patch 1331h is a bit daft. Leave it as it is DPD…..I enjoy quirky as long as it comes with efficiency.
We then went to pick the dogs up and took them a walk…..they looked beautiful when I got them but the walk put paid to that. Covered in muck they were.Photos of smart dogs are delayed for twenty four hours!
Yesterday we went tile hunting for my sisters new kitchen. I dropped into PC World and they had a deal on memory sticks. I have Bluetooth on the new machine but not on the old so I thought file transfer would go quicker through memory sticks. I bought a load of 1GB sticks a few years ago but the photo printer stole them……Feel guilty Rupert? You should have flaming ears. Look what you get these days….
I’ve blathered on…..Oh! How I've blathered. I just get excited.
WHAT I GOT.
Product Category Product Description.
Memory - 1st Hard Disk Change to 240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR |
520MB/sW) from 250GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE
(5,400rpm)
2nd Hard Disk Change to 240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR |
520MB/sW) from 500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE
(5,400rpm)
Amendments Charge Amendments Charge: £0
Product Category Product Description
Chassis & Display Optimus Series: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB
Memory (RAM) 16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 250GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)*
2nd Hard Disk 500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)*
· These I changed after ordering.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options 3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard & Mouse INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Intel Anti-Theft Technology FREE 90 Day Intel Anti-Theft Trial - Prevent Data Access upon Theft
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity 1
Total Order Price Ex VAT £1,014.17
Total VAT Amount £202.83
Total Order Price £1,217.00
Total Order Price £1,217.00
I changed to solid state hard drives because it’s the way things are going. CDRs were the way to go and I have a couple that are unreadable. I only get about two images a month worth keeping so I print them. Posh ink, posh medium. This went to print last month.
The only thing Wonder Woman came loaded with that I didn’t want was Solitaire. So, so far, I’m happy. If anyone out there knows of anything I should have or could do without then let me know. Don’t be backward coming forward. This machine is the price of a camera lens. I like PCSpecialist so far. I’m sure if you have any suggestions they will swap stuff about. They seem like normal folk or as normal as they can be dealing with a muppet like me.
Tomorrow we are away to Glencoe.
Have fun.
Congrats for your new PC! I also have invested on external 'portable' hard drives (Western Digital or Seagate). They are slightly more expensive but for me they save up a lot of space. Last one I bought was 2TB an it can fit in a pocket (3 x 4") with a case. The have the USB 3 latest plug. Nice Harris Hawk!
ReplyDeleteMaria, Thanks. Hard drive capacity is not an issue as I back up to external drives. It seems the best way.
DeleteThat Harris Hawk shot is a stunner Adrian. If you ever in the Cambs area check out The Raptor Foundation near St.Ives a fantastic range of birds, great site and you can book a "hunting" trip too.
ReplyDeleteI'm drooling over that Land-Rover, the engine choice too...clever.
Douglas, this one is at Helmsley near York. a great day out to be had at Duncombe Park.
DeleteI was very envious when i saw Paddy's wagon.
I like your long rambling posts. Some day I'm going to have to make the effort to really understand high tech stuff. The hawk landing is awesome!
ReplyDeleteThanks Red, I have trouble understanding it. The hawk was very obliging and is happy flying circuits as long as you put a bit of meat on the pole.
DeleteI bet its getting a tad crowded in the RV with Adrian, the dogs, Bertha and now Wonder Woman.
ReplyDelete;>
ImaBurdie, yes it is, I'll have to move into the roof box.
DeleteI could live very happily with that Land Rover. Just what I need.
ReplyDeleteWonder Woman looks a cracker, and should perform well at all times; even multitasking. I'd get her some anti virus protection though. Some good free ones online. I uses Avast at the moment, and in the past used AVG.
Lovely shot of the Harris Hawk.
Keith the defender is a beauty. I use Microsoft security it's free doesn't seem intrusive and I've had no trouble for three years. I've tried most of them over the years and some are a real pain. Microsoft have a new anti-virus programme....It is Beta at the moment I'll probably give that a whirl.
DeleteLooks like an excellent laptop, with the SSD drives it should certainly boot pretty quickly and you'll have no moving parts (other than a fan or two) so if it gets bounced around it shouldn't come to too much harm (well the data anyway).
ReplyDeleteAs Keith mentions a virus checker would be a good idea -- AVG is the one I usually suggest, although as I'm no longer a Windows user I haven't used it myself for a while.
My other suggestion would be backups. While SSDs are great my experience of them is that if they fail they fail hard. Usually with a normal disk you know they are slowly failing as you end up with the odd file you can't read or it starts to make a funny noise. With an SSD all will be fine until one day you turn it on and the disk just won't work (it will probably report the wrong size) and you won't be able to access anything on it. So backups of the important stuff is the answer, but as you shoot lots of RAW images you can't be keeping them all on the laptop anyway so I'm guessing you have this covered.
Mark, thanks as I said to Keith I use Microsoft security these days and have had no serious problems.
DeleteI back up on a Sunday to a couple of remote hard drives so the computer drives don't need to be that big.
Today is fine in Glencoe but tomorrow looks as if it will be horrendous so I'll start setting it up when it rains.
Congrats on your new pc purchase! My old laptop is perched on a box in the spare room..not sure what it did to deserve that, except slow down to a snail's pace and aggravate it's owner into quivering fits. Love your hawk shot- very cool!
ReplyDeleteTerri, the current laptop is fine but just can't handle a lot of the things I ask of it.
DeleteThe hawk is one of my favourites.
That new woman looks the dogs doo daa's.....i dont understand all the tec talk, but you do and thats what matters. That hawk shot....i liked it the last time you posted it, you should be proud of it .
ReplyDeletepeter
Peter, I am more than pleased with the Hawk. It is my favourite from last month.
DeleteCongrats on the new computer. Hope it will be able to do all you needs it to do!
ReplyDeleteMonica, It should be fine and can be upgraded should the need ever arise.
DeleteI like the 12.31 -13.31 delivery time by the transport company. Is it a Swiss company? Good luck with your new Wonderwoman, let's hope she doesn't catch a virus.
ReplyDeleteI hope she doesn't catch anything either.
DeleteThat Defender looks a real beauty Adrian, nothing like the usual mental image you get when you hear the words Land Rover!
ReplyDeleteI hope you're going to be able to cope with all these high tec women that you're acquiring at the moment. The new Wonder Woman does appear to be a bit of a super model, I hope you're up to the task? Don't forget about Bertha in all the enthusiasm about your new found friend or she might just throw a bit of an f-stop and go all out of focus on you, you know what these highly strung females are like?
As for your delivery firm, I'm afraid they've got rather a bad name around here! Their local depot is about five minutes away and as you can imagine at certain times of the day every other van seen is a DPD van and, I guess, due to their tight delivery schedules 'Joe' and his mates have little or no respect for the speed limits or other road users, hence a lot of complaints, unfortunately without much success.
I hope that piece of string is long enough for you to be able to retrieve the memory stick when one of the dogs decides it would make a tasty little snack!!
Safe trip to Glencoe...enjoy the weather!!...[;o)
The Defender looked great Trevor.
DeleteI hope so too. Bertha should get an airing this week as there are lots of Red Deer and supposedly Blackthroated Divers and eagles.
I'm sorry to hear that DPD are a pain. First I've seen of them.
The memory stick is ridiculously small. If it does get ingested then I assume it will be washable.
It's all been said.
ReplyDeleteAye Graham, A gobby lot are my readers.
DeleteLooks a mega beast with the wide angle, Harris looks good too.
ReplyDeleteJay, after three weeks I'm very pleased with it. I'm not sure the screen is to my liking but until I find somebody with a calibrated monitor It's difficult to tell.
ReplyDelete