An old charm: Toshiba Portege M200 Tablet PC

Recently, I bought one of these laptops to fulfill my childhood dream of owning a Tablet PC.

Now, if you're trying to find a tablet PC under $100, this is the laptop to buy. (I got mine for $60 on ebay and  +$30 for the special stylus (NO, a DS stylus will  NOT work - lesson learned) and an IDE hard drive.) Just for   my own use, I bought 2 1GB RAM sticks for $15 each, but that's not at all required.

It's sad to me that a laptop once worth $2,450 USD is now worth barely an iPod.

Until I get the IDE hard drive in the mail, I've been running an Xubuntu live USB
(With no additional work to get the tablet to work!)

And you would think the battery would be crap by now, but I still get around 2 hours worth of use - that's actually more than one of the newer laptops in my household!

I'll be updating my journey with this laptop on the following permanent page (http://jcoinster.blogspot.com/p/my-tablet-pc-old-charm.html) as well as on future blog posts!

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Best compilation of computer and software beta testing

I have searched for a list like this for a while! The only thing is, I haven't seen many companies, any actually, have a beta test yet.

Check it out here:
http://www.amylynn.org/home/board/viewtopic.php?t=1319

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How 15 bucks helped me save 400 on a new laptop, spoken from an ex-busted laptop!

A while back, I posted a blog post from the same laptop, suffering water damage: http://jcoinster.blogspot.com/2010/10/9ott-9ob5v3e-3ey9o4r-0p4r9o3en6m.html

Finally, I can say that this laptop is fixed and working just as it did before, only with about an hour less battery life...

To recap the story and update it:

Someone used I a bit too much water while cleaning her laptop.
The first thing I did was make sure only the keyboard was damaged and then called the manufacturer.
Upon calling, the support, the man told me it would be about 50-70 dollars for a new keyboard.
Upon me calling that crazy, I hung up.

So I went to Amazon and searched the replacement number on the back. Low and behold, it came up for 15 bucks.
I ordered it, got it in the mail and when I opened it did not find the right keyboard, my luck.
A quick email and a few days later, a resend and retrieval, the right one arrived.

Today, here I stand knowing I saved someone 400 dollars and my reward: Brutally crushing the old keyboard

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Shout out to GOOGLE: Why

Did you really accomplish much from sending these laptops with open arms?
More importantly:
How many of the 15,000 individuals that received them actually give you feedback?
How many were just sold on eBay to people who really would have shown dedication?
How many people who got the laptop used the basic form, giving little to no useful information?
How many people did you track online with intentions of banning or blacklisting if that even exists in your standards?

Send me a code, a sign, anything explaining the simple term: WHY

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Freebie: Crome's New Laptop (Qualify)

Advertising 10 second boot, instantly resume from sleep as well as built-in Wi-Fi, 3G and a webcam, this laptop seems to have great potential!

The only "problem" is it doesnt have a caps-lock key. But who cares. No one liked when people wrote LiKe ThIs AnYwAY. OR EVEN LIKE THIS!!!!

Lastly, it out power's my netbook by 7 hours (Advertised 8 hour battery)

Now, How to get one?

"If you didn't send off for a Chrome sticker via the Chrome Facebook page, we've got bad news for you: those stickers are attached to Chrome notebooks and they're being shipped to some very happy Facebookers. Don't despair, though, because t...here are other ways to get on the program provided you live in the US."

 

However, I did send off for one of those as well as apply here: 

http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program.html

 

Best of luck to everyone!

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