Tech Talk (09/05)
Setting Up A New Computer
by Brian K. Lewis, Ph.D.*
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
Well, it finally happened. My faithful, five-year-old
Fujitsu laptop starting giving me problems. Specifically, the power connection became very "flaky" and would stop
recharging the battery. I would suddenly get a warning that my battery
was very low and that the computer would have to shut down. Then I had
to play with the power cord connection to get it charging again. This
gets old after several repeated failures while you are working on the
computer.
After some discussion with our friends at Discount
Computer, it turned out that the cost of the repair would probably
exceed the cost of replacement. So, I had to figure out how I was going
to make a transfer of two operating systems and all my data to a new
laptop. As I investigated the problem further, it turned out that the
wireless PC card that I used to connect to Verizon’s broadband would not
work with a new computer. Most brands have replaced the PC card slot
with an ExpressCard slot. This, as I learned, is totally different and
the two cards are not at all compatible.
So what was I looking for in a laptop? Obviously a
fairly large and readable screen and a great keyboard. I spend a lot of
time reading and writing with my computer so these were very important
to me. Secondly, I wanted 4 GB (gigabytes) of RAM and a dual core
processor. Eventually, I plan on moving to a 64 bit OS before my next
laptop becomes totally obsolete. I also wanted at least a 250 GB SATA
hard drive to match the 250 GB external drive that I use for backup. I
don’t expect to use all of this drive space, but I do plan on allocating
a partition to a Linux OS, preferably Ubuntu. I also wanted four USB
ports, an HDMI port, an eSATA port as well as an SD card reader. It was
a given that the laptop had to have a wireless connection and an
Ethernet connection. So it looked like I had to do some fairly detailed
investigation to find a computer that had the hardware I needed. As I
learned, finding all of these items in a laptop took a lot of research.
Especially since it had to be one that I could afford. Again, with an
assist from Discount Computer, I was led to my final choice.
I purchased an ASUS N50VN-X5A at a time when it was
on sale. (Every little bit helps!) It has a 15.4" LCD screen powered by
an Nvidia GeForce 9650m graphics card with 1 GB of graphics memory. I
really prefer separate graphics memory to the Intel integrated graphics
on the motherboard that have to share memory with the computer’s RAM
allocation. This laptop is also equipped with ASUS automatic panel
brightness control. This does seem to work quite well.
The keyboard on this system is phenomenal. I am an
"almost" touch typist and really like the size of the keys and their
response. An added bonus is that a full number keypad is included on the
right side of the keyboard. You don’t have to use the numbers that are
across the top. Getting back to using a full number pad, just like those
found on a full-size separate keyboard, is taking some time, but I
really like it.
The CPU is an Intel 8600 dual core operating at 2.4
GHz. Combined with the graphics card, there is a rapid response to
almost everything I do. It would probably be faster if the system
weren’t burdened with Windows Vista Home Premium. I seriously thought
about installing XP, but I want to move to Windows 7, which is expected
to become available later this year. Going from Vista to Win 7 will just
be an upgrade. But going from XP to Win 7 would require removal of XP
and a "clean" install. I would rather not do that at this point since I
am essentially doing that in moving everything from my old laptop.
As for the other hardware items on this system, it
has a 7200 rpm 320 GB SATA drive, 3 USB ports, an eSATA port, HDMI & VGA
ports, S/PDIF port, fingerprint scanner, a 2 megapixel webcam, bluetooth
wireless, 8 in 1 memory card reader, 1 GB LAN, 802.11n wireless,
ExpressCard slot, Firewire port, DVD super-multi optical drive and Altec
Lansing speakers. All in all, I got more than I anticipated in a laptop.
It also came with a USB mouse and a carrying case.
So now all I had to do was move everything from my
old laptop before it completely expired. I did have a backup of all my
data from my WinXP and Ubuntu partitions. I also had an install disk for
re-installing Ubuntu. Something I have yet to complete. That will be the
subject of my next article.
Once I received my laptop, my first actions were to
remove some of the superfluous software that came with it. The first
package to go was the trial version of Microsoft Office. Next, I removed
the Norton Internet Security. Of course, Vista complained loudly about
my system not being protected. However, at that point I had no Internet
connection, so I wasn’t concerned. I also purchased a USB wireless modem
from Verizon instead of an ExpressCard modem. The main reason being that
the USB modem was free and the ExpressCard was not. Once the wireless
modem was installed I downloaded a ZoneAlarm firewall and Avast!
Anti-virus. After they were installed, Vista stopped warning me that my
system was insecure. I also downloaded Open Office Suite, version 3.01.
Since my financial records had all been in GnuCash on my Ubuntu
partition, I downloaded a Vista version of GnuCash. Then I copied the
GnuCash documents from my external drive to the new laptop.
Did I mention that the external drive was a 250 GB
SATA drive and that the external case had both USB and eSATA
connections? That’s why I wanted an eSATA port on the laptop. The
difference in transfer speed between the eSATA and USB is very, very
noticeable.
Most of my writing on the old laptop had been done
using Open Office, version 2. However, when I transferred all the
documents from the external drive to the new laptop, Open Office 3
didn’t hesitate in opening them for editing. I was a little concerned
about losing documents as I had a 20 page (50 MB) Barbershop show
program I had been developing in the Ubuntu partition. It came through
with all its graphics intact. I was very relieved to find I had not lost
anything.
Next I downloaded and installed GIMP. This is a
photo-editing program that has both Vista and Ubuntu versions. I had
been using it in Ubuntu for all my scanning and photo work. It works
quite easily with my Brother MFC printer/scanner. It is, in many
respects, the equivalent of Photoshop, but the price (free) is much
better. Picasa was also included in the software bundle that can with
the laptop. I use it for maintaining my photo library and for e-mailing
photos. It reduces the size of the photo file to something that will
transmit quite rapidly. It usually ends up under 200 KB.
I also had NVu installed on my WinXP system. I had
transferred it to the external drive and was surprised to find that it
worked with no glitches. So, I simply transferred it to the Vista
system. It works quite well there. I can’t get a new version of it as it
is no longer being supported or upgraded by Linspire. There is a new web
page designer called Kompozer, but it is still in beta. The Linux
version of Kompozer doesn’t work at all with some versions of Ubuntu and
I haven’t tried the Windows version. So I am sticking with the older
designer software, NVu.
This computer has some new security software working
with the built-in hardware. So far I haven’t activated the fingerprint
print scanner. It has a tutorial where it scans your finger three times.
If all the scans match, then you can go ahead and setup the scanner.
However, it doesn’t seem to like my fingers. It generally doesn’t find a
match 2 out 3 tries. And of course, there is no real info to help you
determine why it doesn’t work or what you need to do to improve the
scanning results. The other security item is a visual scanner using the
video cam. My main problem with it is that it is V E R Y S L O W. If I
am willing to wait while it keeps trying to scan my face, it will
eventually log me on. I can type the password multiple times in the time
it takes for the scan to decide I am the right person. In both cases,
the software was included in the ASUS bundle, so I keep playing with to
see if it can be made to work better. Obviously, on a laptop, either
security version would be helpful in blocking access to my files.
As you can see, the transfer of my Windows programs
was not really a problem. Although most of them did not need to be
upgraded to work with Vista, installing downloads of the latest versions
was the easiest way. Especially since all of them are free under the GNU
General Public license. As all of my data was on an external drive,
transferring it was a matter of simply copying the files to the new
computer.
What has frustrated me more than anything else are
the problems I have had with Vista. In June, September, and October of
2006 I wrote a series of articles on Vista’s beta version. So I had a
good idea what I was getting into with Vista. However, this installed
version, which includes service pack 1, seems to have some significant
bugs. The primary problem is getting the computer to shut down. It also
seems I am not alone with this problem. The web is full of comments and
requests for help in this matter. Unfortunately, most of the solutions
are not broadly applicable. I’ve even found suggestions to edit the
registry in locations that don’t exist in the Vista registry.
Frequently, after waiting for 10 or fifteen minutes for the computer to
turn off, I’ve used the power switch to finally shut the computer down.
When I do this I rarely get any message from Vista when I restart.
I’ve also found hibernation to be a problem. If I use
hibernation more than twice in the same day, programs lock up and stay
in memory so that even the Task Manager is incapable of shutting them
down. When that happens you can no longer restart or shut down the
computer using the Start menu. Instead I have to hold down the main
power button on the computer for more that five seconds to get the
system shut off. Of course, when you restart, Vista tells you the
computer was not shut down properly. A normal restart does seem to work.
I’ve also removed the sidebar and its associated
gadgets. As for the Aero interface, I don’t find it impressive even
though Vista rates the video function at the "five" level. As some of
you may know, the default setting in Vista for the power icon (next to
the lock icon) on the Start menu is to cause the computer to go into
hibernation. You supposedly can change this setting in the Control Panel
and when you do, the button changes to a red color from its default of
brown. I have made the change several times, but the function of the
power icon has never changed, neither has its color. As you may suspect,
I will now turn my efforts to installing Ubuntu on the unused partition
of this laptop.
*Dr. Lewis is a former university and medical school professor of physiology. He has been working with personal computers for over thirty years, developing software and assembling systems. He can be reached at bwsail at yahoo.com.
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Copyright 2009. This article is from the
May 2009 issue of the
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