Why am I not posting to my blog?
I post here when I want to share what is happening in my virtual life. For the most part, I try to follow the rule of “if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing”. Sometimes I rant and rave. It is MY blog, after all. *wry grin* But these days my virtual life is giving me mostly tears. And I’m loathe to come here and cry repeatedly.
Why has my my life in SL turned to tears? Because I loved SL so much, I bought myself what I was assured was a kick-donkey top of the line gaming computer – an Alienware M17x. I had to buy a new computer because the nVidia GeForce 8800M video cards in my Dell XPS M1730 burned out in November and Dell and nVidia could not tell me when the cards could be replaced. Up til the,n well, I’d found Dell first line support a bit annoying, but no more so than much of life. Dealing with ordering the Alienware became an ordeal, thanks to Dell, who now own Alienware. I was going to blog about that, but quite honestly – it infuriated me every time I thought about it and I didn’t thing that frustration and agony needed to be aired.
At long last my gorgeous fantastic super-duper Alienware M17x arrived (late, thank you Dell Order Modification Dept). Sensational. Until I ran SL. 30 minutes into it, then Blue Screen of Death. The whole first weekend – BSOD on SL, Portal Factory, SOLITAIRE!!!!! I mean – obviously a Dell issue. Then mysteriously it stopped BSOD’ing. Only SL died. Repeatedly. With the BSOD. Just “normal” SL crash-end. I called SL support to see if they could help. With great joy in his typing, Fog informed me that I was running unsupported software and graphics. Not HIS problem. Oh? Then why are so many folk running the same and SL works for them?
Anyway, there really is a post here someday about Dell and Linden Labs and customer support if I can stop crying. I took a day and drove my computer to an SL friend who has years experience in getting machines to run SL. We thought it was solved. It seemed to run without crashing. No BSOD. Until I brought it home. Turned it on, raced into SL. Hung out there for an hour. Went to feed the cats, the dog. Came back to BSOD. Rebooted – let it sit running Firefox and Norton for an hour. No problem. Raised the machine on blocks (better ventilation). Went into SL with my alt. Didn’t move, just sat there. 2 hours – SL crash.
The truth is, I’m no techie. By my mother I’m a techie, but by a techie I’m no techie. I do NOT know what to do, where to turn, except to continually throw myself and my useless extremely expensive computer onto the mercy of friends. And there is only so long you can impose on friends. Dell isn’t going to care that one application doesn’t run – they will blame the application. And trying to fight your way past firstline support sucks you dry of all energy, patience and coherent thought. And LL has already gleefully told me THEY don’t care.
So I sit and look at this $$$$$ computer that won’t do the one thing for which I bought it, and I cry. Maybe that makes me a drama queen or totally emotional. So be it. But because I cry every time I look at it, and I cry each time I boot up SL on my other computer (which needs to run other software, do other things), I’m not having fun. I have nothing positive to share. I cry, my heart sinks, and all I want to do is simply walk away from SL for good and go back to reading. THAT is technology that actually works right out of the box.
The E4300 keeps this tradition alive with a beautifully solid magnesium alloy chassis housing a superb keyboard and trackpad as well as a pointing stick. The E4300 comes with a couple of processor options. I’m looking at a unit here with Intel’s SP9400, which is a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo with a whopping 6MB of L2 cache. The E4300 is also available with a 2.26GHz processor if you need less power. Other specs on my unit include a 13 inch screen, 7200RPM hard drive with 160GB capacity, 3GB RAM and Intel’s current generation GMA4500MHD graphics chipset with hardware Mpeg-2 decoding. There’s also a DVD rewriter which slots into the side, Firewire, an SD card slot, USB 2.0 ports and crucially for multi-environment users, an anti-glare matte screen. Unbelievably the E4300 weighs only 3.8lbs including the six-cell battery in a pretty thin chassis. So now high retail price starts to make sense.
light enough to hold in one hand as a netbook replacement. High definition video played without a hitch, remember this has Intel’s onboard graphics chipset with the hardware HD decoder so the processor is able to laze around which watching most videos. But even when watching high definition Flash content on YouTube there was no stuttering.
Engadget have posted image and video of the new Dell Mini 5 Android Tablet.
