Laptop Battery

I always enjoy receiving recommendations from the list for exceptional vendors. So I wanted to return the favor and share a positive experience of my own.

A few days ago I ordered a replacement Macbook Pro battery from the Subject company. I'd had some bad luck with a couple of PC batteries from cheaper, Amazon, third-party resellers in the Fall quarter last year, so I decided to stay away from the $49.00 choices from Amazon.

As per usual, the vendor's application incorrectly charged 8.75% tax instead of the 8.25%. I normally don't bother messing with this because I figure it costs the University more than the $0.41 in my time/salary than the savings we get if I bother to call and get it worked out. But on this order they also charged tax on the shipping to the tune of $1.66. So, for $2.07 I figured it was at least worth asking about. Note too that the shipping would have been free if we could wait, but the faculty needed the battery before the coming weekend.

I had only a short wait on hold, the person who answered listened carefully, was sympathetic, and offered right away to put me through to her manager. When I suggested that their accounts receivable person would be sufficient, she offered that he would be one and the same and put me through.

Tyler picked right up and immediately took care of the tax difference. He then proceeded to offer me a blanket 5% off whenever I need to order in the future, 10% off if I ever needed to "bulk" order more than 10 batteries at once. I told him that was mighty unlikely, but when I mentioned the technology support list he very quickly extended the 5% and 10% offers to anyone on campus who wants to order through them. He said I could call him directly with any future orders to make sure I get the 5% and so the tax could/would get applied correctly.

True to my word, here is Tyler's contact information.

Tyler Benowitz
ALX Global LLC
DBA-Laptop Battery Depot and Camera Battery Depot Tyler@alxglobal.com
TEL: (858) 224-7423
FAX: (866) 209-1308 (Toll Free)

http://www.laptopbatterydepot.com/
http://www.camerabatterydepot.com/
http://www.alxglobal.com/

Coldfusion and ASP.NET MVC web hosting

DailyRazor
http://www.dailyrazor.com/cfmx/cfmx_plans_starter_order.php

Host Excellence
http://www.hostexcellence.com/index.php/v2/pages.packages

DreamHost
http://www.dreamhost.com/

On Mac OS 10.1 ... lost preview.html.
All downloaded files are coming in as Colorsync...

Instructions to restore Preview.app
download pacifist
http://pacifist.en.softonic.com/mac
Install pacifist
Drag pacifist to applications folder and open.
When you open it read the instructions,
insert Mac OS X Install CD 1
then click the button 'Open Apple Install Discs'
A list will pop up and if it shows your mac install disc in the list click 'Choose'
Then let it load, you may need to insert disc 2 as well, then disc 1 again.
When the next window opens follow these instructions

Click on 'Contents of OSInstall.mpkg'
Click on 'contents of essential system software'
Click on 'Contents of essential system software group'
Click on 'Contents of Essentials.pkg'
Click on 'Applications'
Click on 'Preview.app'
And finally click on the 'Install button on the top left of the window, big yellow arrow looking thing.

Downloading Movies

Download uTorrent from Softonic and install
http://utorrent.en.softonic.com/download

Go to Google search and search for movie... in this case...

Voyage of the Dawn Treader torrent

I usually select links that go to ISOHUNT.
Select one of the torrents on the list and download... only takes under 30 sec. for it to download.
Best to download on the desktop to make it easier to find.

Click on the torrent file. It should open up in uTorrent. It should start downloading almost immediately.

FTP service recommendation

Is there a FTP service or some other file transfer service which people could recommend?

http://www.dropbox.com/pricing

2GB free account
Free : 2GB
Pro 50 : $10 month : 50GB
Pro 100 : $20 month : 100GB

Dropbox is a wonderful utility for non-sensitive data. I'd not recommend it for sensitive data as it is 'in the cloud' - but I use the 2 gig to store stuff between home and work. Some of our faculty use it between home, work, and iphone.


It is especially great for those of us that lose the usb keys!

eReader

Trying to choose an eReader... considered

iPad
lowest end runs about $500... specs for 16MB version....

9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology

1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip
Built-in 25-watt-hour rechargeable lithium-polymer battery
Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n)
Input/Output: Dock connector port, 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack,  Built-in speaker, Microphone, Micro-SIM card tray (Wi-Fi + 3G model only)

Support for 1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable


H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format



Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet
http://www.cruzreader.com/

eReader : $200
• Full color TFT display

• 7” diagonal 800x600 screen
• Android 2.0
• 256MB RAM, 256MB internal storage
• Supports ePub, PDF, TXT, PDB, HTML reader files
• MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV audio support
• MPEG-4, H.264
• JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP image support
• 802.11 b/g wifi
• Li-Ion battery - up to 10+ hours of life, 24+ standby
• 4GB Bundled micro SD card
• Full size SD card slot
• Dimensions: 7.5"x 5.6"x .57"


TABLET  :  $300

• Full color TFT display
• 7” diagonal 16:9 800x480 screen
• Capacitive touch screen – ultra responsive!
• Android 2.1
• 512MB RAM
• 1GB internal storage
• 4GB internal installed SD card
• 8GB bundled SD card
• Supports ePub, PDF, TXT, PDB, HTML reader files
• MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV audio support
• MPEG-4, H.264, H.263, MOV, AVI video support
• JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP image support
• 802.11n wifi
• Built in speakers
• Mic and headphone jacks
• Mini USB
• Li-Ion battery - up to 10+ hours of life, 24+ standby
• Dimensions: 7.5"x 4.75"x .6"

======================
distributed by Borders and Costco... September 2010... company is taking pre-orders. Went to Borders in Kailua to test. Screen was kind of small. In September, the only version they had was the $200 version.

IN THE MEANTIME
Sony Vaio 4A1L 12" laptop... 1ghz... 512MB RAM... to get a headstart idea on what the speed would be like on similar configurations... installed xp, acrobat 9, kindle for pc, adobe digital editions. At first the processor was really slow but I think that was due to all the updates from xp, antivirus and acrobat that it had to deal with before going into production.


UPDATE:  October 3, 2010
Ended up with an iPad... lowest end specification ... 16GB.
Great resolution... like how the screen turns from portrait to landscape. Captive touch screen is more responsive than most readers or tablet I've played with. A little "weighty" to hold in your hand for long periods of time but light enough to carry when on-the-road, which is quite often these days.

Got a RED cover so I can spot it easier if I accidently lay papers on top of it. Originally got a cover where the unit slips into it but it covered the sides of the screen... if I ever needed to touch areas on the corners of the screen, i would have to manually move the cover out of the way. The RED cover encapulates the 4 edges of the unit, thus giving access to the whole "real estate". Needed a stylus and out of all the brands, boxwave was the best.

The only "pain" is uploading videos and books to the unit. I currently have to do it from the MAC. Only because I haven't take the time to figure out how to do it on the PC.

FREE BOOKS
Most of my technical books come from here...
http://www.ebooksdownloadfree.com/

DRUPAL Links

Panels
http://gotdrupal.com/videos/drupal-panels

Webhosts : testing platform
http://www.000webhost.com/

Start Guides
http://www.topnotchthemes.com/handbook/download-quickstart-guides

Videos
http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=52252

20+ Drupal Videos for Beginners
http://mydrupal.com/drupal-beginner-videos-basics