After a frustrating time during the snow when my hard disk in my thinkpad crashed big style I have successfully moved to an ubuntu build with a vmware for those windows based applications I need to use and demo. That week started with snow thus no access to the office, but with the beauty of spare technology I was able to swap the duff drive with the one from my original Macbook that is not being used being only 80GB 
With my Macbook Pro I connected back to the office and downloaded the VPN software, whilst downloading the standard build in VMware format and the Ubuntu Karmic Koala 64bit. Within a day I was back up running with the exception of some quirks with the vpn build needed for access to work, but this was only a minor issue as I could still connect via the vmware image.
It was interesting when I rang IBM support to get the old drive sorted on warranty. Basically they wouldn’t except a linux disk test error message stating exactly how many bad sectors I had, instead they insisted that I download a Dr PC window version tester to test the disk that only reported a vague disk error message. This proved a challenge as I had to borrow a windows PC to burn the bootable CD to test the disk, great fun, what if I didn’t have access to a window PC. When I rang back with the error code the agent was only interested that I had a disk error message to satisfy his requirements to send out a new disk. This turned up the following Tuesday so it was a good job I had that spare otherwise with the snow I would have to use the Macbook…
Lets hope this disk can last more than 8 months…….
So today we had a great discussion at work about how to make ourselves more mobile and less back breaking wandering around LS09. Cali at work has a knee injury and wants to ensure that she doesn’t have to lug around a heavy Thinkpad. So the most common devices suggested so far in order of popularity were:
- Eee PC or other netbook.
- Blackberry
- iPhone
- MacBook / MacBook Pro
- Thinkpad
- No device
So bottom of the pile comes the standard IBM issued laptop with top of the pile being Eee PCs/Netbooks all self funded. What does this say about the devices in use today, I think the main conclusion I can draw is that most of the techies (and some non techies) like to have the right device for the right situation.
So what is the right device for LS09? Well guess what? It depends? I do sound like a consultant now my research so far goes like this..
People who will be blogging will have a suitable device in terms of size of keyboard/screen so this will be the folks with MacBook/MacBook Pro/Eee PC/Netbooks/Traditional Laptops (all shapes and sizes), this normally discounts anyone using iPhone/Blackberry/SmartPhone sized device but could be done if the user wanted to.
Having a schedule of what is going on at LS09 the users are typically taking iPhone/Blackberry/Smart Phone/PDA style/size devices as they are easy to carry etc. I am betting there are a reasonable amount of people that will also have some larger device laptop/netbook style in addition to the mobile device.
There are will be a large number of users who will have a traditional laptop/Mac to be able to continue and do their day jobs whilst away, so the normal working device works for them.
The final group are those that take no device. I wonder how many of those there will be?
So what device will you be taking this year to LS09?
I will be taking my iPhone and MacBook to ensure that I can do some real work plus have portability for the days I just want to know my schedule.
It only seems like yesterday it was y2k, and we are stepping closer to the end of the decade. A mixed week so far, busy in some respect not in others. But as far as the rebuild of the laptop that has already progressed nicely.
I have managed to install a base WinXP partition and start to get the patches upto date plus some of the smaller applications. The Ubuntu partition was installed last night after a failed attempt with a duff CD. This morning installed the VPN clients and got the core/base IBM layers installed this did take too long. I then went and did the productivity based layer including Notes 8.5 and Sametime 8 this seem to take forever due to the network connection drip feeding the packets, I mean in today age and I managed to get a throughput rate between 19-64kbps which is poor, I should have dialed in it would have been quicker.
Had the partition completed by early afternoon and now need to put the extras on such as VMWare and a few other apps.
Nipped out for an hour to see Cameron’s first Xmas concert and this was good although it was chaos, children and parents everywhere, hey ho. The little one is asleep now and I don’t blame him, Ruth over for dinner tonight (ok takeaway) and Debbie & Roman over for lunch tomorrow.
So I thought as I have a load of admin type stuff to do today, plus a few calls I would try and multi task and start the rebuild of my laptop ready for the new year. So the first challenge was digging out my XP cd and created an updated version with SP3 included. Although the slipstreaming piece was straight forward I discovered that my burning software refused to recreate a bootable CD so had to hunt around for some trial software. After some digging I downloaded a trial of Nero 9 to see if this would achieve the desired goal.
Whilst that was going on I started the job of tidying my current disk drives so that I would be able to swap the 200GB D drive with the 100GB C drive and have a larger partition. The main reason for doing this was in prep to dual boot with Ubuntu client that I have been trying on my other laptop and seems to work well. I will have a dual boot so that some of the software I have will need to be run native on Windows for customer demos.
So waited an hour and still no serial number from Nero, so I decided a plan B was in order so I used my install of ultraISO to create an ISO from the original CD then replaced the contents with the SP3 version. I started the process of installing Win XP and all the associated application I seem to need to do my day job. The list was nearly two sides of an A4 sheet so lots to be done. I will need to visit an office shortly to complete some of the setup as I will need LAN speeds for some configurations and to test the internal wireless authentication.
Next step is dual boot with Ubuntu, this will be done very soon. Although a lot of my colleagues are hassling me for even reinstalling Windows natively on my drive and not using a VMWare image for my needs. My one arguement is that I have not road tested this TP with Ubuntu in real life scenarios such as a customer demo/presentation so once I have completed a couple successfully I will then move to a VM image for Windows. I am hoping by this time some one would have furnished my with a shiny new MacBook or MB Pro..
Todays partial experiment with some changes in presentation content went OK, I suspect this will be a long road and not everyone will like. Now planning activities to do over the Xmas period ideas so far:
- Rebuild main laptop as it runs like a dog, has not been done for around two years and need clearing down
- Clean up MacBook and organise my photos
- Prep technology for Lotusphere 2009 trip
In additional to the above I need to do loads around the house and chill out so lets see how things go..
