The wait is over. After all that waiting, I have finally upgraded my old laptop to an Acer TravelMate 5625WSMi. It is a 17″, 2GB ram, 200GB HD monster compared to my old laptop which was top of the market 5 years ago with P4 2Ghz, 40Gb HD and 256 Ram. I have had upgraded to 60GB HD and 712mb Ram in time but it wasn’t enough for my requirements these days.
The features of this laptop are:
PROC : Intel Core 2 Duo Proc T7200 (2.0GHz, 4MB cache, 667MHz FSB)
Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Tech, Intel 945PM Express chipset
MEM : 2 x 1024MB (2 x 1GB) PC4200 DDR2-SDRAM
STORAGE: 200 GB 5400rpm SATA HD, DVD-RW Drive
DISPLAY: 17″ WXGA+ high-brightness widescreen Res 1440×900 16.7 m Col
COMMS : Built-in 56Kbps international fax/modem
10/100/1000 LAN & 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi with SignalUp
Integrated Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
I/O PORTS: 1 x 10/100LAN port, 4 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x Modem port
1 x Ext display (VGA) port, 1 x Type II PC Card slot
1 x line-in port + 1 x line-out port
1 x S-video TV out port
5-in-1 card reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro/xD)
GRAPHICS : Nvidia GeForce Go 7300 up to 256MB TurboCache
(128 MB of dedicated GDDR2 VRAM; up to 128 MB of shared Sys Mem)
AUDIO : Intel High-Definition audio support, built-in speakers, Microphone, S/PDIF support
POWER : Batt life & type: LithiumIon 71W 4800 mAh (8-cell), up to 3.5 Hr
AC Adapter: 100-240V auto sensing
DIM : 358 (W) x 265 (D) x 29.33~36 (H) mm; WEIGHT : 2.77 Kg
Integrated 1.3 mega pixel Acer Orbicam with 225-degree rotation
FineTouch ergonomic keyboard with launch & programmable keys
Built-in touch-pad with ergonomic buttons and 4-way integrated scroll key
The specialty of my new laptop is that this is my first decent computer which I can play games if I ever have time of course.
I have wiped out the initial installation of Vista Business and installed Ultimate. I had a bit of trouble with Bluetooth but solved it with the Acer’s Empowering tools. Here is the list of applications that I have installed.
- Windows Vista Ultimate 32Bit and some drivers and updates (sweeeeeet)
- Microsoft File Transfer Manager (from MSDN) (to download from MSDN)
- Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (never leave the door without it)
- Paint.Net (bored of Windows Paint?, try this one)
- Windows Live Messenger (another lunch box item)
- Windows Live Writer (latest version works with new Blogger to.)
- Microsoft Expression Web (NVU is alternative for basic HTML editing)
- Mozilla Firefox + IETab + Firebug + FFBlogThis (Do I need to say anything)
- Notepad++ (all your text editing with colors)
- Winmerge (merge files with style)
- MS Office Enterprise 2007 (hmm just Access, Word, Excel and Outlook)
- Turned on Windows Features (IIS and some other things)
- SQL Server 2005 + SP1 + SP2 (Developer version)
- Tortoise SVN (Subversion helper)
- Bluetooth Driver (not installed, hardware is not recognized)
- VS2005 (sweeeeeet)
- Daemon Tools (anything to do with CD/DVD images)
- Team Foundation Client (image downloaded from www.codeplex.com) (nice)
- KB926601 VS SP1 (must install)
- KB932232 VS SP1 for Vista (must install 2)
- MSDN April (CE is available to everyone)
- Acer Orbicam Driver
- Azureus (anything torrent needs this although v3.0 is a bit over featured)
- Acer Empowering Tools (Bluetooth on/off button hidden in this)
- Bluetooth driver again (Empowering tools turned it on so that I can install the driver)
- Foxit Reader (light weight PDF reader)
- Rapid SVN (So that you can see all your Sourceforge, Google Code projects together)
- Synaptic’s Touchpad driver
- Setpoint for Logitech G7 mouse (for gaming))
- IIS was missing after all this I turned it on again, I have selected only IIS this time.
- Windows Mobile Device Center (My PDA now can talk with my Laptop)
- 7Zip (Free compression tool)
- KLM Codec (I still have some codecs missing!)
- Filezilla FTP (Free FTP application)
- RSS Bandit (Free RSS Reader)
- Warcraft 3.0 (still learning)
- Start++ from http://brandonlive.com/
Doesn’t look like much but believe me it took about a week to install all this with my limited time. I still have problems with SQL Server as it is not running under Local System. Setting up Outlook, RSS Bandit, Filezilla, VS2005, Windows Live Writer is all done in time when they are required.
I have done a complete scan disk and defrag. Boot time is now under 1 minute. I have also taken a full Norton Ghost backup without my personal data and copied into my ReadyNasNV+. I am taking the backups seriously now since I have lost 20GB of family pictures.
I have also checked my HD on the net and learnt that its life time is only 5 years or 20,000 POH (whatever comes earlier) on the Technical specs page. POH means “Power on Hour”. So turning your computer off when not used is a good idea; saves power too. I have reminder setup already to look for an HD replacement around the fourth year. 
Now, I am going back to Warcraft 
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