Hornby and global warming

Wal-Mart are clearing out 13" TVs with built-in VHS players for $70 - no market for them any more. Their 20" flat screens are $100. A 19" Eaton Viking colour TV cost me $500 in 1973, and an 11" B&W was $115 in 1966.

But not as high as Little Johnny (Howard - Australian PM for those of you that have never heard of him ;-) ).

Does that mean that there may be a useable North West Passage in the future?

Note, I'm in Australia where the opposite effects of global warming are only too apparant, e.g. severe droughts & ever repeating "lower than average rainfall".

Greg Procter said the following on 21/02/2007 21:33:

Here in the UK they must have halved in the last 10-15 years as well.

kim said the following on 21/02/2007 23:48:

I think you're going to the wrong shops.

Dragon Heart said the following on 22/02/2007 02:35:

Actually from about £280, inc VAT.

We have Dells at work, and having poked about inside them they are just standard motherboards and standard bits and pieces, rather nicely put together. They happen to have chosen middle of the road parts rather than super specced parts, which is why they have excellent reliability, but if the M/B did ever fail we would just buy a new one from ebuyer or where-ever. There's nothing unique to Dell in any of the Dells we've got. Well, apart from the nice moulded ducting to chuck processor heat straight out the back :-)

Compaqs on the other hand seem to do nothing by any known standard. I couldn't even find a power supply to replace one that failed that would fit in the case.

MartinS said the following on 21/02/2007 21:00:

Oh, that's alright then :-)

Greg Procter said the following on 21/02/2007 19:02:

Er, I'm not sure that melting icecaps are a minor local anomaly. The UK isn't known for it's icecaps.

Kevin Martin said the following on 22/02/2007 06:47:

In the UK it's hard enough to get news about anything that's happening outside London, never mind the other side of the world. If you looked at the BBC website a few days ago you would think that the whole country is affected by congestion charges at the moment, and that the whole country was immobilized by 6ft snowdrifts :-)

Is John Howard another Blair as regards Iraq? We don't hear that much about him...

"Dragon Heart" wrote

It is only in recent years that people like DELL have had any sales impact against say IBM.

I believe IBM sold their PC manufacturing business to the Chinese some time ago.

John.

No they don't. They're both cheaper *and* more ppowerful.

MBQ

Once again, you show you know absolutely nothing about the price of PCs.

MBQ

er yes, as the cost of manufacturing falls for the same reasons (component supplies get cheaper).

MBQ

IBM PCs are made by Lenovo in China (who have now launched models under their own brand).

You can pretty much ignore manufactureres "guarantees" since you have greater statutory rights, against the seller, under the Sale of Goods Act. Avoid extended warranties for the same reason.

MBQ

Your lucky ;-) But try this for size.

We also have an Australian National still held in Guantanamo Bay, whereas Blair at least took yours home, on the basis that they would not get a fair trial.

Perhaps he is guilty, but he deserves a fair trial. The US claims the "evidence" against him is very strong - so the problem with a trial is?

Howard has managed to ignore him up till now, but even his Liberal (Tory to you) croonies in marginal seats are starting to worry about political backlash. The Polls are against him for the first time in 5 years and panic is setting in (election due later this year) on this and other key matters (global warming is one - for which like Bush Junior, Howard has refused to sign Kyoto agreement).

Howard has been a past master at poll driven policy - now he is on the back foot.

Still all will be well, because VP Dick Chaney is coming tomorrow ;-) I'd love to be a fly on the wall when David Hicks is discussed, because even Howard has been recently pressured into saying "Its taking far too long".

Lenovo.

The IBM thinkpads were probably the best notebook PCs out there, being more rugged than most and having a proper docking station with a positive bus connection which had the sockets for a full size display, keyboard, mouse etc.

Every other portable I have owned, has had flimsy USB ports made of soft metal which have distorted quickly with use. USB is a cheap and nasty system anyway, where two pieces of PCB slide against each other without positive contact. These ports are used for keyboard and mouse when it is on the desk, and for mouse elsewhere. And they don't last very long.

These portables were all from major names with a reputation.

Christopher A.Lee said the following on 22/02/2007 11:02:

I've got a very old Thinkpad 570E that is still going strong. Slowly, but strongly :-) It certainly feels like a more solid lump of kit than a modern laptop.

They are. We used them in my previous job.

But they're not generally available in the high street.

I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not worth getting a high-end laptop. Get a decent "proper" which is much cheaper which can have keyboard, display etc replaced cheaply if they fail, and use a cheap laptop running a virtual desktop program like VNC to do all the work at the PC. Treat the laptop as a throwaway machine.

I tried that (A =A3399 Thinkpad from the highstreet, BTW) and was pleased at how easy it was to setup VNC but the laptops display resolution is lower that the host and I got fed up of having to scroll around all the time. If you set the host up to match the laptop then it's a pain having the lower res when you do actually use the host.

Thinks: Is it possible to set the screen reolution differently for different users in XP? That could be a way around it.

MBQ