developer's machine specs -- recomendations?

[Allen Shaw-4]

Who here is happy with their current development machine?  Would you
care to share your hardware specs?

I'm looking to upgrade my 7-year old desktop for something with a little
more snap.  Hopefully under $1000, but it's been ages since I shopped
prices, so clue me in if I'm naive.

For context: This is for full-time web app development primarily in PHP,
running some flavor of Linux.  Essentially no graphic design work at
all.  Desktop or laptop, I'm indifferent.

For the most part I've been fine with my current setup, but I recently
started using a framework which, for all I can do to it, takes 10 and 15
seconds to render a page on this machine. I've finally decided just to
throw hardware at it.  Page-load times are unnoticeable on my rented
hosting servers, so I can't really blame the framework.  On this
machine, when I'm loading pages all day trying "this way" or "that way",
those 15-second page loads add up pretty fast.

I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's
machine.  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than
vendors who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.

Thanks,
Allen

--
Allen Shaw
TwoMiceAndAStrawberry.com

"Data Management, Web Applications, and the Meaning of Life"


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[John Coggeshall]

I always give my teams top line hardware. Typically a MBP with at least 2gb of Ram. We do our dev against VMs using Fusion and Studio (or whatever) as the host IDE through VMware shared folders. It keeps the host clean, allows us to be flexible, and whatever you spend in hardware/software is always made up in productivity

John

On Oct 18, 2009 5:50 PM, "Allen Shaw" <allen@...> wrote:

Who here is happy with their current development machine?  Would you care to share your hardware specs?

I'm looking to upgrade my 7-year old desktop for something with a little more snap.  Hopefully under $1000, but it's been ages since I shopped prices, so clue me in if I'm naive.

For context: This is for full-time web app development primarily in PHP, running some flavor of Linux.  Essentially no graphic design work at all.  Desktop or laptop, I'm indifferent.
For the most part I've been fine with my current setup, but I recently started using a framework which, for all I can do to it, takes 10 and 15 seconds to render a page on this machine. I've finally decided just to throw hardware at it.  Page-load times are unnoticeable on my rented hosting servers, so I can't really blame the framework.  On this machine, when I'm loading pages all day trying "this way" or "that way", those 15-second page loads add up pretty fast.

I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's machine.  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than vendors who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.

Thanks,
Allen

--
Allen Shaw
TwoMiceAndAStrawberry.com

"Data Management, Web Applications, and the Meaning of Life"


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[Eddie Drapkin]

I'd personally spend $400 or $500 of that budget on two nice, large
21" or larger monitors and then build a "budget" PC.  With the
remaining $500 or so, you can put together a decent quad core system:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5226067&CatId=333
+ 2 of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009157
you'd spend well less than a thousand dollars and have a pretty decent
system.

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Allen Shaw
<allen@...> wrote:

> Who here is happy with their current development machine?  Would you care to
> share your hardware specs?
>
> I'm looking to upgrade my 7-year old desktop for something with a little
> more snap.  Hopefully under $1000, but it's been ages since I shopped
> prices, so clue me in if I'm naive.
>
> For context: This is for full-time web app development primarily in PHP,
> running some flavor of Linux.  Essentially no graphic design work at all.
>  Desktop or laptop, I'm indifferent.
> For the most part I've been fine with my current setup, but I recently
> started using a framework which, for all I can do to it, takes 10 and 15
> seconds to render a page on this machine. I've finally decided just to throw
> hardware at it.  Page-load times are unnoticeable on my rented hosting
> servers, so I can't really blame the framework.  On this machine, when I'm
> loading pages all day trying "this way" or "that way", those 15-second page
> loads add up pretty fast.
>
> I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's machine.
>  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than vendors
> who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.
>
> Thanks,
> Allen
>
> --
> Allen Shaw
> TwoMiceAndAStrawberry.com
>
> "Data Management, Web Applications, and the Meaning of Life"
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
> http://www.nyphp.org/Show-Participation
>

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[Hans Zaunere]

Hi,

> Who here is happy with their current development machine?  Would you
> care to share your hardware specs?

I got a new system last year (wha, this year flew by).  Basically a Dell
desktop with the Q6600 and 8gb RAM.  I had 4gb RAM originally which was
fine, but later upgraded so that I could do more VM stuff (VMs really are
key these days, I'll admit).  I run Windows 2008 Server Workstation, and
soon to be Windows 7 (Win 7 is on my laptop for quite a while and I do think
they really got it right this time).

> I'm looking to upgrade my 7-year old desktop for something with a little
> more snap.  Hopefully under $1000, but it's been ages since I shopped
> prices, so clue me in if I'm naive.

My desktop system did come in under $1000 but I opted for the 22inch
monitors and a dualy video card, which put it at about $1300 at the time
(Dec 2008).

> For context: This is for full-time web app development primarily in PHP,
> running some flavor of Linux.  Essentially no graphic design work at
> all.  Desktop or laptop, I'm indifferent.

So for a long time I used only a laptop for development/everything,
considering that the specs between desktops and laptops were basically
inconsequential.

I must say, though - desktop's today are something special in terms of
power/performance/etc.  And especially monitor real-estate and certainly
price.  What really switched me was that nearly all laptops are widescreen
these days.  I didn't like that and so tested a desktop again for real
development, and frankly haven't looked back.

Just to add - if you get a new laptop, get a SSD - huge difference no matter
what the benchmarks say.

> For the most part I've been fine with my current setup, but I recently
> started using a framework which, for all I can do to it, takes 10 and 15
> seconds to render a page on this machine. I've finally decided just to
> throw hardware at it.  Page-load times are unnoticeable on my rented
> hosting servers, so I can't really blame the framework.  On this
> machine, when I'm loading pages all day trying "this way" or "that
> way", those 15-second page loads add up pretty fast.
>
> I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's
> machine.  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than
> vendors who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.

I'd get a nice desktop which is very reasonably priced these days.
Photoshop/AI/etc work very well on these desktops too, unless you're a
professional graphics person, so it serves double purposes.  And with the
monitor real-estate, I'm frankly a bit embarrassed that I used a laptop for
so long :)

I basically use my laptop to remote desktop in when I need to, and for basic
code hacking with Ultraedit on the laptop (Eclipse/etc remain on my desktop
but I can also always development if needed from my laptop).

H


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[Ajai Khattri]

Ive been very happy with a dual-core box I built based on a Shuttle
barebones kit (shuttle.com). They are very compact but capable machines.

I think being able to run virtual machines is important for web developers
so you'll want a box with a decent amount of RAM, maybe 4Gb. Also, two
monitors is very useful, so maybe look at cards with dual-outputs.

Remember disk is cheap. Memory is cheap. So if you're buying a prebuilt
box, make sure the diak and memory upgrades aren't a tota' rip. (If they
are and you still wanna buy, then buy a minimal spec and upgrade
yourself).


--
Aj.

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[P. Ju (朱漢璇)]

Buy a MacBook/MacBook Pro You will love it. I finally switched after
keeping an eye on them for many yrs. Should've switched sooner! You
get the best of both geek and user-friendly app worlds. I use
Microsoft Office for office tasks, and terminal shell to login to
remote servers or load up git source trees locally.

PJ

On 10/19/09, Ajai Khattri <ajai@...> wrote:

>
> Ive been very happy with a dual-core box I built based on a Shuttle
> barebones kit (shuttle.com). They are very compact but capable machines.
>
> I think being able to run virtual machines is important for web developers
> so you'll want a box with a decent amount of RAM, maybe 4Gb. Also, two
> monitors is very useful, so maybe look at cards with dual-outputs.
>
> Remember disk is cheap. Memory is cheap. So if you're buying a prebuilt
> box, make sure the diak and memory upgrades aren't a tota' rip. (If they
> are and you still wanna buy, then buy a minimal spec and upgrade
> yourself).
>
>
> --
> Aj.
>
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>
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>

--
Patricia Ju
phj@...
[phone]

success = fn(perseverance)
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[Brian O'Connor-3]

I'm in the middle of looking for a new laptop to go along nicely with web development right now, so I figure I'd share my 2 cents.

 

Right now, I have a desktop with 2 22" widescreen monitors, but am looking for a laptop to complement it.

 

In my opinion, with web development (and programming in general) screen space is king.  Web development _USUALLY_ doesn't take that much CPU power, but you don't want to be lagging behind when you want to get work done, so you can't get a really old processor.  I think the ideal solution is to get a portable laptop (13"/15" screen, lightweight) that has a video out of some sort (whether it be HDMI/VGA/DVI).  This way, you get the luxury of portability (client meetings, airports/planes, trains, coffee shops), and when you want to work at home, you can hook up a nice 24" monitor, full sized keyboard / mouse and work as if you're on a good desktop.  In addition, you don't have 2 separate computers where you have to worry about file syncing (I know, I know, remote repositories - but that's not as easy as it sounds sometimes).

 

The trickiest part in taking this route is finding a laptop that will support the video out well enough on linux to hook up an external screen, which was the problem with my old laptop (I hate SiS).

 

I'm currently looking at the HP Pavilion dm3z which was just released, and am probably just going to hope and pray that Ubuntu works on it because no one seems to have reviewed it yet.

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:20 AM, P. Ju (朱漢璇) <pjlists@...> wrote:

Buy a MacBook/MacBook Pro You will love it. I finally switched after
keeping an eye on them for many yrs. Should've switched sooner! You
get the best of both geek and user-friendly app worlds. I use
Microsoft Office for office tasks, and terminal shell to login to
remote servers or load up git source trees locally.

PJ

On 10/19/09, Ajai Khattri <ajai@...> wrote:
>
> Ive been very happy with a dual-core box I built based on a Shuttle
> barebones kit (shuttle.com). They are very compact but capable machines.
>
> I think being able to run virtual machines is important for web developers
> so you'll want a box with a decent amount of RAM, maybe 4Gb. Also, two
> monitors is very useful, so maybe look at cards with dual-outputs.
>
> Remember disk is cheap. Memory is cheap. So if you're buying a prebuilt
> box, make sure the diak and memory upgrades aren't a tota' rip. (If they
> are and you still wanna buy, then buy a minimal spec and upgrade
> yourself).
>
>
> --
> Aj.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New York PHP Users Group Community Talk Mailing List
> http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
> http://www.nyphp.org/Show-Participation
>

--
Patricia Ju
phj@...
[phone]

success = fn(perseverance)

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--
Brian O'Connor

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[Dan Cech]

Brian O'Connor wrote:
> I think the ideal solution is to get
> a portable laptop (13"/15" screen, lightweight) that has a video out of some
> sort (whether it be HDMI/VGA/DVI).  This way, you get the luxury of
> portability (client meetings, airports/planes, trains, coffee shops), and
> when you want to work at home, you can hook up a nice 24" monitor, full
> sized keyboard / mouse and work as if you're on a good desktop.  In
> addition, you don't have 2 separate computers where you have to worry about
> file syncing (I know, I know, remote repositories - but that's not as easy
> as it sounds sometimes).

I went down this road almost 6 years ago and haven't looked back.
Having all my tools and files at my fingertips any time makes life so
much easier.  Make sure you have a good backup system in place though!

> The trickiest part in taking this route is finding a laptop that will
> support the video out well enough on linux to hook up an external screen,
> which was the problem with my old laptop (I hate SiS).

I'm typing this on a 3-year-old Lenovo Thinkpad z61m, which is driving 2
Samsung 2343 23" 2048x1152 LCDs (great monitors, love the extra real
estate vs a regular 1920x1080) via an OEM docking station (one DVI & one
VGA).

I just got a new lenovo t400s & docking station which will drive them
both via DVI (there is a noticeable difference vs VGA).  So far I'm very
impressed with the machine, and it is crazy light for a 14" at 3.95lbs.

A good dock is key, mine has power, 2 monitors, speakers, keyboard,
webcam, network, etc plugged in all the time so a laptop without a dock
isn't an option for me.  A second power cord is also huge (the lenovo
docks come with one) so you can keep one in the laptop bag, that way you
never forget it.

Check the specs carefully, some laptops & docks (like the dell latitude
z) don't even support 1 high-resolution screen, let alone 2.

Dan
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[Christopher R. Merlo]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Brian O'Connor <gatzby3jr@...> wrote:

 

[Buy a laptop.]  This way, you get the luxury of portability ...  In addition, you don't have 2 separate computers where you have to worry about file syncing (I know, I know, remote repositories - but that's not as easy as it sounds sometimes).

Since this came up, I thought I'd share what I'm doing, since it seems to work well for me.  Note: I am not a professional web developer, but I do play one at the front of the classroom.

I have two servers at school -- one for development and one for production.  Both Debian (although I am running testing on the dev box and stable on the prod box).  I do my development by using MacFusion (http://www.macfusionapp.org/) to mount my $HOME/public_html directory from the testing box onto my MacBook Pro (or my iMac, if I'm at home), and then run Aptana Studio to develop.  Aptana thinks it's working with files on a local drive, so it doesn't have to do anything fancy -- and neither did I to get it set up.  So, wherever I am -- home, school, Panera, hotel -- I can mount that dev box locally and play with the files.

To push changes to production, I just scp them over to the production machine.

As far as keeping everything else in sync, I have been making heavy use of my free accounts on both Evernote (http://www.evernote.com/) and Dropbox (http://www.getdropbox.com/), and they have been life savers.

As far as a web development machine (oh yeah, the original thread!), I would also recommend a Mac with lots of RAM, because then, in the host OS and two VMs, you can now test pretty much every browser people will conceivably use to visit your site.

Just my $0.02,
-c

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[Michael B Allen]

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Allen Shaw
<allen@...> wrote:
> Who here is happy with their current development machine?  Would you care to
> share your hardware specs?
>
> I'm looking to upgrade my 7-year old desktop for something with a little
> more snap.  Hopefully under $1000, but it's been ages since I shopped
> prices, so clue me in if I'm naive.

Hi Allen,

Every year or so I just go to Best Buy and get a cheapo desktop with
gigabit ethernet and as much RAM as possible. You can probably find an
ASUS or ACER for $600, you don't pay shipping, you get instant
gratification and it's easy to take back if there's something wrong
with it. They're usually super ugly (like a chrome-plated Star Trek
shuttle craft) but the only technical concern I would have is Linux
hardware support. Sometimes the cheapo machines have very new and
unusual hardware that Linux doesn't quite support yet. But knowing
this I always just get something with an Intel chipset with everything
onboard. Meaning get Intel video, Intel network, Intel usb, etc. One
time I got a machine that didn't recognize the network card. It was
some obscure Realtek or some such. I had to download a driver form
their site and build it. Otherwise, the cheapo Best Buy machines have
always just worked great for me.

Incidentally I usually also try to get a 64 bit CPU with Intel VT or
AMD-V capability so that I can run 64 bit guests in VMWare Server.
This is important for testing all of the different flavors of OS. If
someone says your thing doesn't work on Vista SP-this with IE that,
then you can replicate that exactly without too much trouble.

Mike

--
Michael B Allen
PHP Active Directory Integration
http://www.ioplex.com/plexcel.html
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[John Campbell-6]

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Allen Shaw
<allen@...> wrote:
> I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's machine.
>  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than vendors
> who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.

I just got a new MacBook Pro today, and I gave my one year old MacBook
Pro to a co-worker. My new computer has a glossy display, and the
reflection is terrible with a black background in the terminal.  I am
okay with a white background, which makes the reflection go away, but
if you code on a black background, make sure you get a computer with a
matte display.

Regards,
John Campbell
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[Glenn Powell]

On Oct 19, 2009, at 4:02 PM, John Campbell wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Allen Shaw
> <allen@...> wrote:
>> I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's  
>> machine.
>>  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than  
>> vendors
>> who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.
>
> I just got a new MacBook Pro today, and I gave my one year old MacBook
> Pro to a co-worker. My new computer has a glossy display, and the
> reflection is terrible with a black background in the terminal.  I am
> okay with a white background, which makes the reflection go away, but
> if you code on a black background, make sure you get a computer with a
> matte display.
>
> Regards,
> John Campbell

I also have a MacBook Pro. Same issue with the glossy screen.

I got the glossy because I thought it would be more durable...

Having said that, I really like the machine and I take my dev env.  
with me wherever I go.

A little off topic now...

Took me a day or 2 to get used to a white background.

Btw, I use vim,  and open white backgrounds for my dev, and use  
different
colors for ssh to  db servers, production web servers, etc.

I think it helps to avoid confusion and potential problems, especially  
when I'm tired.

Glenn

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[Jake McGraw]

Get the cheapest Intel based, aluminum MacBook with an end-user
serviceable HD and RAM. Do not buy the white plastic MacBooks, they
chip and warp like crazy, I've owned 4 (3 companies + 1 for my
girlfriend) and every single one has warped or chipped in some way.
Throw in 4GB+ RAM and at least a 7200RPM HD, though you may opt for a
SSD. Buy an external monitor (24"+) and you're good to go.

Little off topic, if you do end up going with a laptop, I highly
recommend signing up for a backup service. Personally I use
https://www.backblaze.com/, and I couldn't be happier. Stolen or lost
laptops can be replaced, a few years worth of code can not.

- jake

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 4:02 PM, John Campbell <jcampbell1@...> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Allen Shaw
> <allen@...> wrote:
>> I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's machine.
>>  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than vendors
>> who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.
>
> I just got a new MacBook Pro today, and I gave my one year old MacBook
> Pro to a co-worker. My new computer has a glossy display, and the
> reflection is terrible with a black background in the terminal.  I am
> okay with a white background, which makes the reflection go away, but
> if you code on a black background, make sure you get a computer with a
> matte display.
>
> Regards,
> John Campbell
> _______________________________________________
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[David Mintz-2]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Jake McGraw <jmcgraw1@...> wrote:

Get the cheapest Intel based, aluminum MacBook with an end-user
serviceable HD and RAM. Do not buy the white plastic MacBooks, they
chip and warp like crazy, I've owned 4 (3 companies + 1 for my
girlfriend) and every single one has warped or chipped in some way.
Throw in 4GB+ RAM and at least a 7200RPM HD, though you may opt for a
SSD. Buy an external monitor (24"+) and you're good to go.

4GB RAM? Wow.

My workstation (Dell, Ubuntu) in this office where I am not officially a programmer has 1GB and you know what? It strains to run Zend Studio and Firefox at the same time. Groans and moans and lapses into a catatonic state. I wonder what the real minimum specs are for ZendStudio.
--
David Mintz
http://davidmintz.org/

The subtle source is clear and bright
The tributary streams flow through the darkness

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[inforequest]

Glenn Powell glenn310b-at-mac.com |nyphp MAIN ONE dev/internal group
use| wrote:

>
> On Oct 19, 2009, at 4:02 PM, John Campbell wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Allen Shaw
>> <allen@...> wrote:
>>> I'd love to hear any advice on what makes a good web developer's
>>> machine.
>>>  At this point I don't have a lot of places to ask, other than vendors
>>> who'll just sell me as much as they can con me into.
>>
>> I just got a new MacBook Pro today, and I gave my one year old MacBook
>> Pro to a co-worker. My new computer has a glossy display, and the
>> reflection is terrible with a black background in the terminal.  I am
>> okay with a white background, which makes the reflection go away, but
>> if you code on a black background, make sure you get a computer with a
>> matte display.
>>
>> Regards,
>> John Campbell
>
> I also have a MacBook Pro. Same issue with the glossy screen.
>
> I got the glossy because I thought it would be more durable...
>
> Having said that, I really like the machine and I take my dev env.
> with me wherever I go.
>
> A little off topic now...
>
> Took me a day or 2 to get used to a white background.
>
> Btw, I use vim,  and open white backgrounds for my dev, and use different
> colors for ssh to  db servers, production web servers, etc.
>
> I think it helps to avoid confusion and potential problems, especially
> when I'm tired.
>
> Glenn

I carried a TP42p 15.4" xtra bright xtra high res sreen for years, and
on the advice of others got a new one with 14" widescreen (T400). They
said I'd appreciate carrying it around, 14" was enough, new screens are
even brighter, etc.

Wrong on everything except for the brightness thing. New screen is
awesome bright, high contrast, but of lower resolution and 14" wide
screen sucks as a format. I carry it with an extended battery so it's no
smaller than the old 15" anyway. I miss the old screen size every day.


Good part is I spent so little on the T400 I can buy another and still
be well under the cost of my old t42p. Unfortunately, the old t42p was a
real IBM (not a Lenovo) so it still works great... and my son won't need
to inherit this t400 for a long time. I need another excuse to get
another machine.


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[Chris Snyder-6]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 4:49 PM, David Mintz <vtbludgeon@...> wrote:

> I wonder what the real minimum specs are for ZendStudio.

Well, yeah. It's a big ball of Java, you need to have room for the jvm.

I know it's annoying when people say RAM is cheap, but RAM is pretty cheap.
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[Jake McGraw]

4GB RAM is the minimum that I would recommend for any laptop, as this
is the sweet spot in most instances:

* Represents the maximum most laptop mobos will support.
* Most laptop mobos only support 2 sticks of RAM, which brings me to
my next point.
* 2GB DDR sticks offer the best $/GB ratio:

Compare:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010170381%201309139889&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE

to:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010170381%201309121118&name=4GB%20%282%20x%202GB%29

* In the past, you may have been able to argue that typical clients
would never hit the 4GB ceiling, just try developing using Eclipse,
open a couple of AJAX heavy sites in Firefox and spin up one or two
VMs, and BAM! you've maxed out your RAM.

- jake

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 4:49 PM, David Mintz <vtbludgeon@...> wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 4:32 PM, Jake McGraw <jmcgraw1@...> wrote:
>>
>> Get the cheapest Intel based, aluminum MacBook with an end-user
>> serviceable HD and RAM. Do not buy the white plastic MacBooks, they
>> chip and warp like crazy, I've owned 4 (3 companies + 1 for my
>> girlfriend) and every single one has warped or chipped in some way.
>> Throw in 4GB+ RAM and at least a 7200RPM HD, though you may opt for a
>> SSD. Buy an external monitor (24"+) and you're good to go.
>>
>
> 4GB RAM? Wow.
>
> My workstation (Dell, Ubuntu) in this office where I am not officially a
> programmer has 1GB and you know what? It strains to run Zend Studio and
> Firefox at the same time. Groans and moans and lapses into a catatonic
> state. I wonder what the real minimum specs are for ZendStudio.
> --
> David Mintz
> http://davidmintz.org/
>
> The subtle source is clear and bright
> The tributary streams flow through the darkness
>
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[Michael B Allen]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 5:48 PM, Jake McGraw <jmcgraw1@...> wrote:
> 4GB RAM is the minimum that I would recommend for any laptop, as this
> is the sweet spot in most instances:
>
> * Represents the maximum most laptop mobos will support.

The 4GB limitation is mostly do to the fact that that is the limit of
the 32 bit architecture. If you look at non-low-end 64 bit laptops,
they almost all go higher than 4GB.

Mike

--
Michael B Allen
PHP Active Directory Integration
http://www.ioplex.com/plexcel.html
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[Ajai Khattri]

On Mon, 19 Oct 2009, John Campbell wrote:

> My new computer has a glossy display, and the
> reflection is terrible with a black background in the terminal.

Did you not expect that? Its the major complaint with the glossy Apple
laptops... Im not sure but at some point Apple decided to ship all their
low-end MacBooks with only glossy screens (no matte option). In fact, my
old iBook had a better screen (until it was stolen).

Does anyone know of a good insurance provider for laptops? Being portable
makes them so easy to steal...



--
Aj.

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[David Krings]

Ajai Khattri wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Oct 2009, John Campbell wrote:
>
>> My new computer has a glossy display, and the
>> reflection is terrible with a black background in the terminal.
>
> Did you not expect that? Its the major complaint with the glossy Apple
> laptops... Im not sure but at some point Apple decided to ship all their
> low-end MacBooks with only glossy screens (no matte option). In fact, my
> old iBook had a better screen (until it was stolen).

Making a matte finish is an extra step, means it costs more money. After all,
Apple is nothing more than a publicly traded company that does very well with
consumer electronics (and yea, they make some not so shabby computers as
well). So anything that increases shareholder value while keeping people
buying stuff is a good move. And maybe their spin doctors came up with an
explanation why reflections on the screen are not a bug, but a feature.


> Does anyone know of a good insurance provider for laptops? Being portable
> makes them so easy to steal...

You may want to check your renters or home owners insurance. They usually
include an extra bucket for electronics and typically consider the inside of
your car as part of the living space. Doesn't help when your laptop gets
stolen at a customer's site, coffee shop, train, plane....
I'd contact insurance companies and ask. I am sure they sell you insurance for
anything as long as you are willing to pay.


David
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