Laptops

I posted the pics of the double neck on a bass forum and it got quite a favourable response, which is nice. Several people did comment on the 'buttocks' at the base of the body, which is one of it's more unusual features. It definitely counts a success and I have ideas for the next one, which I will have to build as I already have the necks...

The Inspiron 9400 was posted yesterday to the buyer with some regret, but it's replacement turned up today. It's a used but immaculate Acer 5535 with a dual-core 2.1ghz AMD Turion, 4gb RAM, a 320gb hard drive, ATI Mobility Radeon 3200 HD graphics and a 15.6" 1366x768 screen. The screen is glossy too, something I'll have to get used to. It's interesting to compare the consumer orientated Acer to the remaining Dells I have, which are designed for corporate use and much more restrained in their design.

In my experience, Acer hardware is fine. The real problem I have with Acer is that the sheer amount of crapware that is installed by default. This one came with recovery disks, so I repartitioned the drive into one large partition (Acers always have 2 partitions by default) and reimaged it. Upon booting up Vista, it had at least 30 programs preinstalled, tons of useless games (including Cake Mania and Chicken Invaders 3 - WTF!), trial versions of AV software and Office, and all sorts. Uninstalling it all is such a pain but I found a program called the PCDecrapifier that makes it easier. Not quite as good as a fresh install of Windows but I don't have the right disk to do it, and once it was all off there it actually ran a lot better. I'd much rather have Windows 7 on it but Vista will do for now.

Peter Steele of Type O Negative has died of heart failure at only 48. I really like a lot of their stuff, and he had an amazing voice. Listening to October Rust now which is a really good album.