Thursday, September 04, 2008

Stepping up a tech notch

Got myself a new laptop Monday evening. A Compaq C795TU. I don't remember why exactly but I've wanted a Sony Vaio for ages. Problem was they were out of my budget range and I kept hearing that Vaios didn't have anything special about them really anyway. Then I caught sight of those pretty Dell Inspirons in all kinds of colours - red, pink, yellow, spring green, and some even with the most delicately beautiful artwork on them but they too were slightly too expensive for me again. Besides when I looked around in what my favourite Mizo poet who I won't name here aptly calls this "one hoss town," there were just black Dells. Oh well, that left me with this..


Funnily enough I don't enjoy working on a laptop at all. Not yet anyway. The keyboard is so hard and congested, and without the helpful little USB mouse, my poor right hand would be all cramped and arthritic-looking. Also I'm terrified that I'll break the glass screen. So to say nothing of lugging it around, much less balance it on my lap, I'm nervy about using it anywhere but up on my usual safe desktop table!

What's kind of neat though is the dinky little webcam. Not that I thought people used webcams anymore. I once used a webcam when chatting to someone who claimed an ardent interest in getting to know me better and whoosh, it was almost like dipping a live coal in cold water. LMWAO. Perhaps I'll stick a Bandaid over the cam :P



29 comments:

  1. Congratulations. With laptops, the two things I still can't get used to are the keyboard and the absence of a mouse for scrolling around. I solved the keyboard problem when I bought a USB keyboard - works fine with me. I used to use a USB mouse but have now become quite used to the scroll pad(?) but I still prefer the USB keyboard for typing (though I haven't been typing much lately).
    Love your webcam photos ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. congrtulations, a va nuam awm bik deuh ve a. web cam chuan a ti naupang chhia che ni maw..hehehe.Ka nuate thlalak dawn apianga in siamchhia min hriatchhuah tir e. Sometimes there are things that you wanted, but couldnt have it for a reason and have to settle for second best. Mahse i laptophrim2 ah hi chuan features a i ang deuh vek a, brand sony vaio a nih vanga man sang deuh ta pawh a ni thei tho asin. Neih ve a chakawm khop mai

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks guys. Plats, someone did tell me about the USB keyboard but I'm hoping to be able to do without it. Don't think I can get used to the scroll pad though - at least not in a hurry. Sigh.

    vana, lei ve rawh. Chuan webcamah kan in siamchhiat khum thin dawn nia haha

    ReplyDelete
  4. nice!!!! Congrats on the lappy. And dont worry, you've quickly get used to the congested and crampy keyboards. Too bad there's not much of a choice over there... here, a pink viao is a rave among women!

    And be careful with web-cam. I read somewhere recently that hackers can access your webcam even when comp is shut down! google for the news, you'll find it. So just don't point that thingie towards your bed... hmmm.... :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Kim. I was reading in the papers just this morning that Sony is recalling some 440,000 Vaios worldwide due to some wiring problem which causes overheating or short circuits. Phew, am I glad I couldn't afford them. Guess the ladies in amchi Mumbai are sadly parting with their pink Vaios too. What happens when a company recalls its products though? They give you a refund or a trade-off with another product?

    And haha, I'll definitely make sure I don't take the lappy to bed except in ummm exceptional cases ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. "One hoss town"..ha ha ha..so aptly described the place, that friend (?)of yours.

    The keyboard is yes, a bit cramped, but I'm sure after a couple of days you'll get used to it and your fingers will smoothly fly away. I think a laptop is fun for watching movies, you can keep it as close to your nose as you want without having to break your neck or back in the process.

    Nice pics. Have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey you also wanted a Sony Vaio? Birds of feather......because I had also wanted a Sony and I got it when I was in Japan last year.........a gorgeous Japanese beauty: Sony Vaio TZ. It is light and the battery life is amazing and the dispay is out of the world. Since I mostly use it for travel to access the net and some of my business files the weight was the critical thing.

    You will get used to using your lappy. When I first tried mine, the fingers did Yoga postures that would have made any Yoga master proud of them.

    If you are going to use it often I would suggest that you get a USB mouse. That would be a neat addition and very useful.

    Have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Congrats! Since you're so tech savy i'm sure you'll put it to optimum use. But you're not too good at making faces!
    Me too, hubby thought i need a laptop for travel use, so he got me the new tiny leaptop recently. I'm yet to figure out how to use it!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Congrats to you too, mesjay. And while I may be fairly net savvy, I'm not very computor savvy. I'm hoping to use it for showing clips from Hamlet et al at work :) And I didn't use all my silly faces pics - there's a couple I censored :P

    Loch, wowser, you bought your lappy with Japanese money? That must've set you back by quite a lot of yen. My brother-in-law once bought a music system in Japan and he said in Indian money it was about one lakh. *Gulp*

    ambs, yep one hoss town is such a good description for good ol' Aiz. It was our incorrigible poet Mona Zote who coined the term :P I haven't tried out movies yet because I don't have headphones. Will get them next week for sure. The default laptop sound is a bit too tinny for me.

    ReplyDelete
  10. A va lawmawm ve. I chawi thei a nih chu :)
    Samu-a nu pawh hian computer a hman ve duh tum hian a chang hlei thei thin lo va, keima pualin laptop ka la lei ang, a ti ve deuh reng ta mai.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hey Japan is not as expensive as it is made out to be. My Sony Vaio TZ made and bought in Japan was definitely cheaper than in India, Hong Kong, Singapore and the duty free shops at Doha airport not to speak of USA and Canada. Sometimes by as much as 15% and with lower configuration. Yes Japan is expensive generally but really it is not much more expensive than say Hong Kong specially for visitors.

    Let me give you an exapmle. Whenever I visit HK I dare not stay in any old hotel as I had bad experience there with lower end hotels, albeit many years ago. However, because Japan is so safe and cleanliness and hygiene standards so uniformly high I can stay at lower category hotels and still be very comfortable. So at the end of the day I spend less per day in Tokyo than I would in Hong Kong. Ditto for transportation. The train network is safe, clean, extensive, efficient and therefore very effective way of moving from point a to point b.

    So don't believe everything that you hear, read and see on the MSM......mainstream media!

    ReplyDelete
  12. my dear sony vaio i lei lo chu a fuh maithei, he newa hi ka chhiar a...Sony Electronics Inc. announced yesterday a worldwide recall of 438,000 VAIO laptop computers -- including about 3,800 in Canada -- due to a possible burn hazard to consumers. A link chu ka post lo mai a thui deh duah a, i duh chuan googled mai roh hehe, again congrats

    ReplyDelete
  13. Nia nei ve ngei rawh se samua-nu chuan. Chuan room hran atangin in !Y dun thin anga, a romantic dangdai ngot ang :D

    Loch, have you heard about Sony recalling its Vaios? Get it fixed before it blows you up in a little hotel room somewhere in Tokyo!

    Vana, Kima ka chhan naah khian ka ziah tawh khi. Lawmthu ka sawi leh mawlh mawlh e :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. I think I will go along with my good old south Asian mentality and ignore such warnings. These guys will recall anything that may blow up even if chances of that happening is one in 100 million. Secondly my lappy was ordered and bought in the month of March while the recalls are for laptops from April or May. So I am pretty safe!

    While you are at it please check your batteries and keep an eagle eye on further recalls. As you know most laptop batteries are made by companies like Sony and Panasonic. So chances are that HP or Dell laptops are carrying Sony batteries!!

    Happy banging away at the keyboard today and don't bang so hard that it blows your battery!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Congrats! And about the keyboard thing, not to sound too negative :-) you know I have used laptops for work and personal purposes for the last few years, but I still hate the keyboard! And if there's ample space, I'd still hook it up to my old keyboard and mouse.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi ,

    I was reading ur blog posts and found some of them to be very good.. u write well.. Why don't you popularize it more.. ur posts on ur blog ‘Calliopia's Canticles’ took my particular attention as some of them are interesting topics of mine too;

    BTW I help out some ex-IIMA guys who with another batch mate run www.rambhai.com where you can post links to your most loved blog-posts. Rambhai was the chaiwala at IIMA and it is a site where users can themselves share links to blog posts etc and other can find and vote on them. The best make it to the homepage!

    This way you can reach out to rambhai readers some of whom could become your ardent fans.. who knows.. :)

    Cheers,

    ReplyDelete
  17. Loch, I don't know where the batteries are so I haven't a clue what make they might be. And when the fingers are busy doing strange yogic postures, it's hard to bang away too hard at anything :(

    Thanks Jerusha, good to know even longtime lappers still have kb and mouse grouches!

    Ray, thanks for dropping by and the kind words. I'll look up rambhai and see how it goes. I'm not really looking to popularise my blog - rather the opposite because I blog on purely personal issues while I've noticed that most "popular" blogs deal with highly impersonal socio/politico/economic/techno etc matters. Perhaps I'll use rambhai to popularise my other blog on Mizo literature though :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Laptawp lei thar ve a.. dahthrat tlat mai chu.. hmang ngun la.. a dik mai ang.. kei pawh a tir chuan ka khawr trut a.. tunah chuan keyboard pangai ah chuan ka type dik thei tawh lo zawk... I laptop aia te zawk hmang pawh kan la awm hi.. lol..

    (hey, ppl. kan laptawp thar nei-i hian,, a tih keh palh zuk han hlau tlat pek a)

    ReplyDelete
  19. "kan laptawp thar nei-i" te min ti vel!!! Hmph!! Awwwwww hlau eee, cellotape charna kar a i blog ron chhiar te ka peih don hlei nem lal ku elexx!

    ReplyDelete
  20. what i hate hate hate about laptops more than keyboards, more than anything else is the annoying over-saturated over-contrast glossy screen. that's why i chose to buy apple mac, amongt many other reasons. it's ridiculously expensive, though but worth every penny :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. ekhai, a va ropui ve, orkut pic ah khan ka lo hmu tawh tho na a, nie laptop keyboard hi hman than loh chuan a hman a nual lem lo keipawh ka ti khawp mai. wi-fi connection te awm ve se duh leh thingpui in pah ten verandah ah te ve hmang vel ta la a nuam leh zual ang:))

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hey, Girl, I am positively GREEN with envy. CONGRATS! Nuam awm bik ve awww. I usually connect a mouse when I do use a laptop, coz I hate to have to gingerly skim the sensitive little pad...I am decidedly not the "gingerly" type. Here's looking forward to even more vibrant posts typed on the new laptop! Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  23. pnb, the apple mac on your blog looks like big bucks alright. I agree the screen is over-glossy because my computor station faces a set of windows and while I have no problems with my desktop, the glare's a bit much with the lappy.

    azassk, wifi te poh nakin kum 10 ral hnu chuan kan la nei ve leh mai ang chu. Tih hunah chuan verandah atangin ka ron be thin don che nia :)

    Ddb, there haven't actually been any posts typed on the new gizmo yet lol. To tell the truth, I can't remember many of the usernames and passwords I use all over the web so I keep going back to my hardy ol' desktop which has all my cookies saved for when I need them :(

    ReplyDelete
  24. Ka lo en har ltk a, kha laptop te chu khawih a nawm hmel fu si kha. Tunah chuan nuam dawn cher cher tawh hle mai, thlasik laiin khawih a nuam lutuk an ti, malpui hi a lum vung vung zel :-)

    Kei pawh laptop hi kan awt lo ve triah triah khawp a, ka awh berna chu, mut paha movie en nan :-)

    ReplyDelete
  25. father my son, tunlai tak hian khua a lum lutuk a malchung lum vung vung lam sawi awih rih loh! :D Nia khawih a nuam ang ka zei rih lo mai mai mawle...

    ReplyDelete
  26. congratulations...

    dont worry bout the keyboard and mouse etc...u'll definitely get used to it and after sometime, u'll start having problems wen typing on ordinary desktop keyboards (laptop keyboard hman thran chuan desktop keyboard ah chuan a keys inkar kua ah fingers a tla thla duh lutuk :D )

    ReplyDelete
  27. Haha a tla zep thin a nimo? Deuh teh thuih thin don a :P Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Vana khuan a sawi toh tho a. Sony vaio i leilo chu i ti fuh khawp mai. Mahse Dell chu ka awh pui che...i budget in tlin sela chuan in. Sony Vaio chu a over heat thei a, user te pawh an inti kang nual. Product tam tak an recall a, retailer in sony ah an return sup sup an tih kha.

    A friend of mine bought Sony Vaio, pentium dual core 1.7XX Ghz, 160 GB HDD and 1GB memory chip. Having the above facts in my mind, I just said "Man, you're an idiot!"

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hehe anih tak chu mole. A va uihawm zok ve o.

    ReplyDelete