IT has come

So I came home today to the pleasant discovery that my S96J has arrived. And the FedEx is down the block from my house so that was nice too.

So yesh. Typing on it now. Internet explorer is driving me ****ing insane. As is the fact that a telemarketer just kicked me offline (at home, nothing but dial-up here >.<) so I have to download it all again and it was at 48%. Grr to stupid New York Times. Also hate touchpads. So I shall me jumping around quite merrily when my trackball mouse arrives from Newegg.

Ok, so that was the *****ing. I know there are several review threads already and whatnot, but I know I personally am the kind of person that loves reading as much reviews as possibly before getting something, so I figure I'm returning the favor by posting my own impressions.

Anyway, only had ShinyGoBonkers (as I named by laptop....because I am odd) for an hour or two so more later. For now just first impressions:

1. Overall, I like how it looks a lot. Yes it is plain, but it's a nice plain. Simple. It makes me merry. The powernotebooks sticker less so. (Don't get me wrong, Powernotebooks was awesome in their service, nothing but positive things to say like most people, just that their stickers don't um, make the notebook prettier).

2. It's heavier then I imagined. Though take that with a grain of salt. I donated blood today and have been a bit lightheaded/weak since, so the heaviness may be attributed to weakness on my part. We'll see when I actually get to carrying it around some.

3. It was a bit warm when starting up Windows OS but cooler now. Havent done anything heavy yet so we'll see real heating test later.

4.The resolution is great. Just the right size, very neat and visible for me. Actually makes my 1024x768 (or whatever the exact numbers are -- you know the resolution I mean) desktop look icky.

5. Brightness is nice. Right now I have it plugged in and the brightness on 80% and it feels perfectly comfortable. I'd say in a semi-dark room I could have it at about 40% if battery life was an issue without being TOO annoyed. Doing normal tasks, at least.

6. Miscrosoft/Windows is being an arse to me. It says I need to validate the XP Pro but the web page it gives me tries to sell me something to make countefit Windows Genuine when mine IS and I just need to validate it >.< Anyone know what I should do?

Haven't really done much yet. Want to get the basics like Firefox, a valid Windows, my writing, some files, Anti-spyware/virus etc first. And I-Tunes. But not sure if I won't just wait till I can take it somewhere with free wireless because downloading things on dial-up is sad. And I hate the touchpad. Though might play Civ IV on it later since I only just got that game yesterday. Dunno. Have a group project to contribute assuming my group members contact me, and an Arabic test it might be nice not to fail as badly as the previous one (10/150 yo. XP) so it sorta depends on how much sleep I want to get. Might just say screw it, play with my new baby, and just get 3-4hrs of sleep again

 

ooh, the smell of a new laptop... always great. have fun.

 

Yes, yes it is. And now with Firefox it feels better already. Now if only Windows Pro would stop taunting me, and I got my trackball mouse, life would be merry indeed.

Random: the hinges on this thing are strong-seeming.

And lol I am being so bootleg about this all. I have it on top of a children's atlas on a chair because it's the only hard surface I could creat in my room because my actual desk is covered in my crap as is almost everything else XD

 

You DID make sure you had a working firewall in place before you connected to the Internet, right? These days, it is impossible EVEN WITH HIGH SPEED to grab the necessary patches from Microsoft before your computer is infected. Used to be the record shortest time between plugging in a clean Windows XP machine without protection and the time you were infected was 4 seconds but this LONG AGO passed under a second. Now, that's the record shortest time, mind you. But an average unprotected Windows XP box is only going to survive for a few minutes before becoming infected.

 

Sounds like your really enjoying your new laptop, but l feel l have to mention this : Change your sig from 2MB memory to 2GB since the last time l checked Windows needed either 256mb ram or 512

 

Congrats on the new purchase Cassandra! I'm still dithering on the exact model I want...

Way to scaremonger, yamla! Do you have any evidence to support your claim? I've read reports suggesting time to compromise in the vicinity of 20 minutes, but sub 1 second seems most unlikely... especially since an attacker would need your IP address first, which would be dynamically assigned and hidden behind a NAT layer.

 

I have the defult Windows Firewall on. Downloading Avast right now, after that Ad-Aware probably. Any other suggestions? If I did catch something hopefully I'll get rid of it or whatever. Compared to the nest of spyware that is my comp, eh.

And lol yeah, ill change me sig XD

 

My XP box is one of the undead versions, then - if you have common sense, you're not going to lapse into a state of disrepair within a few seconds of booting into windows, heck, even days, weeks, whatever - your XP box is very, very unlikely to become infected all on it's own.

 

Only other one I can think of is Spybot Search and Destroy. Between this and Ad-Aware you should get 99% of malware you're likely to come across. Of course, switching to Firefox (which you've already done) will prevent a lot of it in the first place.

People used to recommend Zone Alarm Personal for firewalling, but it doesn't play nice with the firewall software in WinXP SP2. For home use, the built in should be fine.

 

lol downloading Firefox was the very first thing I did XD

And XP Pro is still being an arse and not letting me activate it *stabs microsoft*

 

kool! congratz on the laptop.

You shuld put the avatar as ur lid picture , definately hot!

Enjoy it hehe


Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

lol I have a collection of pretty female fantasy-ish character art on my compy. Lol I used to be majorly into online roleplaying so nice char avatar pictures are nice to have.

and thanks^^

Lol I know this sounds reall sad but I dunno where the camera in my notebook is. I KNOW it's there, but I cant find it lol. Once I do and I get it to work I plan on using some mad mirror tricks skillz to get pictures. Cos though there may be plenty o' S96J pics out there I dont think there are any made by a person too cheap to use anything but the built-in camera and some mirrors XD ShinyGoBonkers shall me the first!

 

you might want to give powernotebooks a call to about the valid key code problem you are having. also, the camera is on the top edge of the screen in the middle.

 

Ahhh, there it is! Thank^^

The XP Pro issue resolved itself after I rebooted the laptop while installing Avast so all is good now^^

Um, does anyone know what drivers I should/need to install? I've heard things about needing a driver for the camera, and good things about omega drivers for the ATI, but I'm a bit confused...

 

I, too, call BS on yamla's FUD on Windows XP. An un-firewalled version of Windows XP SP1 will likely be compromised before updates can be downloaded. However Windows XP SP2, which covers all commercially available copies of Windows XP these days, featues a firewall that is turned on by default, which prevents the machine from being compromised due to non-user-related exploits. See http://www.avantgarde.com/ttln113004.html but take it with a grain of salt, the source likely has commercial interests in mind.

Also, I have to agree with ejl. If you bought the notebook from PowerNotebooks, you're paying for their tech support, might as well use it, right?

With regards to the drivers, there should be discs included with your notebook that have drivers. There should be one for the camera called bisoncam or something like that. I'm sure the tech support guys can point you in the right direction.

 

congrats on the new laptop!! i like the name =P. I would suggest using snoopfree, i use that incase i didn't catch a keylogger, it prevents anything from hooking your keyboard without you knowing/allowing.

 

Congrats! Good to see you are enjoying your new laptop. I've still got a couple weeks before i get mine

Now you should look to make your way into the software forum and get the latest useful freeware.

 

Gah, site hates me and making me repost.

Anyway:

heavier then I thought in a not-cool way. Like, i know it's a good weight for a gaming laptop of its specs <7lbs but it was not comfortable carrying it around. Though I guess my badly suited bag was partially to blame.

Sorta warm but maybe Im expecting too much there. Nice and quiet.

Plays Civilization IV great at highest settings. Havent tried anything else yet. Beautiful screen. Earphone jack makes nice sounds. Photoshop worked well the little I did with it.

Can't get the internet to work even when I connected to a network in my school library. Must investigate.

 

I wasn't meaning to imply that the XPSP2 firewall did NOT count, just that you need to make sure it is enabled. It is by default but I've seen computers where someone has turned it off "because it was annoying".

Almost everyone these days has a hardware firewall in place anyway, particularly if you are using wireless.

 

Now some pictures taken with the laptop's very own camera! Probably the most craptastic S96J pics out there, but they're um, samples of how the s96J's built-in camera works, I guess. XP


An approximation of my face when I got the laptop. Kindasortainmyheadatleast XD


and here it is, my precious SHINYGOBONKERS


More ShinyGoBonkers goodness^^


the sexy screen I really love muchly.

That's all, didn't have time for any fancy mirror messing around yet. Now I am off to ostensibly write a 10page minimum novel fragment for tommorow.

And since this seems to becoming my thread of misc nonsense, got a trackball and bag today for my precious too. XD

 

All of the drivers and Windows updates are already loaded for you at our factory. There is nothing more you need to do other than stay up with the security patches and updates from the Windows Update site.

 

kool, thanks for the pics.

By the wait the picture of the screen, with the picture of the screen in side that picture is kool! (confused =\!) lol!!!

Thanks for sharing,

MysticGolem

 

Awesomness^^

and thanks lol. I enjoy messing around with the camera + mirrors. XD

 

Um, this is probably going to sound silly Cassandra... but is there a plastic screen over the lens by any chance? This is fairly common to prevent the lens being scratched during shipping.

You wouldn't be the first person to be caught out by this, I hereby reveal RogueMonk's Secret Shame(TM)...