(no subject)

So my laptop, my primary workhorse when it comes to my day job, has been acting very wonky lately. I thought it was the wireless card for a while - so I bought a replacement. Didn't really solve the problem though, and further testing seems to look bad. The machine just hard locks, no kernel panic and the caps-lock light has a tendency to blink, which if I can't remember if that's kernel panic (thought Linux did both caps lock and num lock though), or more likely I think I remember reading that the blinking caps lock on an IBM (Lenovo now) T42 is a hardware fault of some sort. Considering that this kernel has been rock solid stable (no it hasn't been updated in a while, yes I'm a bad human being), and considering that this can happen back to back very quickly - this is seemingly hardware related.

Joy.

So in classic fashion I started fretting, the T42 *is* over 3 years old, probably pushing closer to 4. I do use the machine a *lot*, and it's not like it hasn't served me well (it was bought off of what was left of Orion Multisystems when they imploded - the words "cheap" don't begin to describe how much I picked it up for back then). So couple that with the fact I just started working for kernel.org full time, cross that with my increasing want to work from wherever I want to (like going to Ottawa to see Terri in Jan/Feb) and really it boils down to - I need my laptop to work. So dickering with the hardware and trying to get it to limp along a while longer, while admirable (and I will likely do it anyway) isn't going to cut it.

So after mucking about, and fighting (literally) with Lenovo's website (ok honestly Lenovo - your website SUCKS - when I'm getting "Session Timed out" when I've been on your website for a total of 10 minutes, most of which has been constant clicking on your site playing with options and reading help and such and I'm in the middle of putting something together is just not right. Bonus goes to your rep that when I mentioned it to him, he sighed and said "Yeah.... we know about it, we are trying to fix it... sorry..." this should tell you something) I got a quote together, sat on it, stared at it, talked with the bosses about it and then because the holiday deals were so good - I jumped.

So I've got a nice Lenovo T400 on it's way, given what I remember of Lenovo's shipping habbits I'll see it sometime next millenia (Their record stands at average wait for machine from purchase at 1.5 months from purchase date from my own, my brothers and friends experiences). I'll be happy if I see it before I go up to Ottawa in Janurary. It's a pretty nice machine, reasonably decked out though not quite every option checked. Price was still *quite* reasonable too, got something like $571 or something like that off the machine, bought some extra ram and a bigger hard drive 3rd party and saved another $150 over Lenovo's pricing and the final total was still cheaper than what my brother paid for his T61 a couple of years ago.

So yeah, I'm now moving slightly closer to being an all 64-bit, only things left are my T42 (which I think is still going to get used but in a less critical role), my firewall (via epia-m system), and my mythtv frontend box. Of the machines that I currently use those are the only 32-bit machines left. I do still have my old Fujitsu P2040 that's 32-bit (though that's a Crusoe processor too) and a few other odds and ends but yeah.

Looking forward to it, hopefully won't have to wait too long for it.

---

ADDENDUM: I'm a little shocked, Lenovo claims my T400 shipped today (Dec 3, 2008) and I should have it next week. Either I'm hallucinating or they are on the ball right now. Well more time to play with the new pretty I suppose!