morning lineup firegeezer on 27 Jun 2008 08:09 am
Morning Lineup - June 27
I suppose that this weekend I will begin the chore of moving files and stuff from this computer over to my new one. Adding to the drudgery will be the slow process of installing all of the other programs that I keep on there. Most of them have to do with image management and that sort of thing. But it’s so tedious to get it all done.
After hemming and hawing about, I finally decided to buy an HP. For a while I was considering buying a Dell and ordering it directly from them. When you do that, almost every model that they make can be ordered with the Windows XP installed as an option. That was a strong selling point, but the cost wasn’t worth it. Those sale prices that you get at the retail chains aren’t matched at the factory online stores, so I grudgingly ruled that out.
This HP is a fairly new line that they’ve been offering for a while called the 3400 series. It has an extremely small “tower” that is only 4½” wide, 11″ tall and 13″ deep. That’s getting back to “desktop” classification. But it still has the CD/DVD burner and plenty of USP plugs. It also has 3 gigs of RAM and a 500 Gb hard drive. That’s amazing.
“But wait….there’s more!” What really clinched the sale for me is that it has a WiFi card installed and ready, just like a laptop does. I can very easily set this up anywhere in the house and even move it without a great deal of fuss. Office Depot had the things on sale last week for $450. Just couldn’t pass it up.
“Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created
this model to illustrate how a “home computer” could
look like in the year 2004. However, the needed technology
will not be economically feasible for the average home.”
As a footnote to our discussion the other day about the newspaper industry melting down, several major newspapers announced Wednesday and Thursday that they are laying off still more people. The Palm Beach Post will be slashing 40% of its news staff. (News ….. isn’t that what a NEWSpaper does?…. ed.) The Hartford Courant, one of the nation’s oldest active newspapers, is lopping off 60 newsroom positions and reducing its news pages by 25%.
The Boston Globe has approached its unions and asked them to take a 10% across-the-board pay cut. And the Baltimore-Washington Newspaper Guild has lost over 1/3 of its membership in the past five years. And the beat goes on.
Now let’s beat it on over to the apparatus and get the equipment checked out. I’ll start the coffee.
on 27 Jun 2008 at 1:18 pm 1.RGoodell said …
I feel for you, having recently traveled a similar path. I elected to give Vista a try and found the road to be rough, but also shared the same milestones with programs and data.
My experiences are chronicled at the address below, if you have interest:
http://forum.gaurc.us/index.php?topic=119.0
on 27 Jun 2008 at 8:27 pm 2.Dal90 said …
More trivia on newspaper consolidation…
The Boston Globe yesterday also declined the print the Boston Herald. Herald is moving ahead with laying off 130 workers at their printing plant and outsourcing it to Dow Jones in Springfield, and another Massachusetts newspaper I can’t remember. One of the companies has the Saturday–Thursday press run, and the other will print Fridays.
The Globe’s slave cabin boy (I’m not bitter…) the Telegram & Gazette already prints four other newspapers besides itself — two Massachusetts dailies, plus two New York dailies for distribution in New England and upstate New York.
I have a really informed guess that the Globe couldn’t print the Herald on the T&G presses due to capacity issues…printing five daily newspapers is enough of a challenge. But they would have the spare capacity on their own presses as the Globe circulation continues to circle the drain — and I’d bet dollars to donuts they were asking their unions for contract concessions in exchange for giving their shops more work.