Almost forgot to tell ya... Got a long-awaited email today from MS with a coupon code for a free Visual Studio 2005 Standard.
About a month ago i took 2 free online classes of Visual Basic 2005 - they were pretty useful btw - cool stuff like multithreading - and now got this email. Normally, the VS 2005 Standard is like $300-$400, depending where to buy. I paid only $10, for delivery. Well, let's see if I get it. Guess that will be a non-resale version. Who cares! I'm not gonna sell it for profit. I was thinking about buying a copy anyway, so why bother if they offered me free classes plus free software...
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
eBay is losing grip
After getting a laptop from eBay (mentioned in an earlier post) I decided to beef it up a little. Found some fancy USB2 DVD-RW device sold by a relatively high rated seller. Something like 97.5% positives. The price was acceptable too - 80 bucks including delivery. OEM packaging, no software, nothing. Pretty good deal overall.
When a few days later the item arrived it turned out to be a broken thing. I guess that's what people call DOA, or dead on arrival. No external damage, the packaging was ok. The device did not work. I tried connecting it to 4 different machines, including a company HP server, none of which could find the device. The server however showed up some error message about a problem with a usb access to the device.
While I was struggling to get my money back (read some advices on my eBay page ) i decided to shop around and found an awesome deal at a nearby Staples. They were selling a Sony USB2 DVD-RW thing in a retail packaging, with a power supply (cool!) and a Nero DVD-making software, all for $98. Whoa, that was a cool deal - for an extra $18 you get an extra 5v power supply that you can use to power up other things like a cd player or a walkman plus you get a licensed copy of Nero. So I got it. It runs great.
Now I'm looking for some memory for the same laptop (it uses DDR333 pc2700) and i already spotted some good deals at compusa for almost the same money as eBay people sell it for. The difference is like a dollar or two.
So I think that shopping on ebay for some relatively inexpensive hardware doesn't justify other hassles anymore. At least for me.
When a few days later the item arrived it turned out to be a broken thing. I guess that's what people call DOA, or dead on arrival. No external damage, the packaging was ok. The device did not work. I tried connecting it to 4 different machines, including a company HP server, none of which could find the device. The server however showed up some error message about a problem with a usb access to the device.
While I was struggling to get my money back (read some advices on my eBay page ) i decided to shop around and found an awesome deal at a nearby Staples. They were selling a Sony USB2 DVD-RW thing in a retail packaging, with a power supply (cool!) and a Nero DVD-making software, all for $98. Whoa, that was a cool deal - for an extra $18 you get an extra 5v power supply that you can use to power up other things like a cd player or a walkman plus you get a licensed copy of Nero. So I got it. It runs great.
Now I'm looking for some memory for the same laptop (it uses DDR333 pc2700) and i already spotted some good deals at compusa for almost the same money as eBay people sell it for. The difference is like a dollar or two.
So I think that shopping on ebay for some relatively inexpensive hardware doesn't justify other hassles anymore. At least for me.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Never thought that getting a Windows XP tablet edition is such a big deal.
A few weeks ago I got myself a tablet PC Toshiba Portege M205 on ebay. Pretty cool thing. Had a few issues like dirty screen and 10 missing screws, but I managed to make it work.
The longest it took me was finding a tablet (Wacom) driver for it. Finally got it from the Toshiba web site, for some older model and OS, like Windows NT4 or something. So far works ok, however it lacks some unique features like signature login, character recognition, etc.
I tried finding an OS for it, read a lot of MS information pages, and finally found out that MS does not sell Tablet edition separately from hardware. Which means, the only option to get the tablet edition is to get the original Toshiba dvd. Ha! - interesting. The last one I saw on ebay was sold for about $60. Which is unsatisfactory.
The only 'other' way to get it is through MSDN :) which I'm being helped right now with.
Anyway, recalling how long it took me to install the current OS, i don't plan to reinstall Windows on it again any time soon.
The longest it took me was finding a tablet (Wacom) driver for it. Finally got it from the Toshiba web site, for some older model and OS, like Windows NT4 or something. So far works ok, however it lacks some unique features like signature login, character recognition, etc.
I tried finding an OS for it, read a lot of MS information pages, and finally found out that MS does not sell Tablet edition separately from hardware. Which means, the only option to get the tablet edition is to get the original Toshiba dvd. Ha! - interesting. The last one I saw on ebay was sold for about $60. Which is unsatisfactory.
The only 'other' way to get it is through MSDN :) which I'm being helped right now with.
Anyway, recalling how long it took me to install the current OS, i don't plan to reinstall Windows on it again any time soon.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
The blog is up, i’m not lost, the site is alive!
Hey my friends, the site was down for quite a long time. Now it's back up. It is now a blog.
A lot of things happened in the last few months. Most of them are good and for good :) We'll see how it goes.
Vlad.
A lot of things happened in the last few months. Most of them are good and for good :) We'll see how it goes.
Vlad.
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