New Juice From Dell

This morning was rather surreal. I was driving back from buying today's newspaper when a monkey crossed the road in front of me. Looks like someone's kera went on the loose because the nearest monkey colony I can think of is about two kilometers away in a palm oil plantation. I might be wrong but don't think they forage that far.

Anyways, back to the surreal morning. I was cooking scrambled eggs for breakfast, as I found not a single nasi lemak seller while buying the newspaper, when a DHL van pulled up at the front of the house with its horn blaring. I didn't other anything from Play-Asia with DHL; my courier of choice would be Fedex. In fact I didn't order anything AT ALL from Play-Asia these past few days.

The package that the DHL man passed to me turned out to be the laptop battery that I ordered from Dell a couple of days ago (Thursday). I was surprised because the lady on the other end of the phone (when I made the order) said that I would be getting the battery next week.

She must have heard the dismay in my voice (it was very audible and perhaps my colleagues heard as well), since I'll be off to Kota Kinabalu to climb Mt. Kinabalu next week. But I didn't expect the battery to arrive today! These Dell folks have game! Props! Salutes! Pimps! Hoo-ray! That's why I buy Dell.

Do you know that if you were to order a battery from Dell, their invoice comes an unexpected amount of legalese and a very funny Product Safety Data Sheet?

From the Product Safety Data Sheet:

3. Hazards Identification:
Symptoms of exposure: Skin contact, No effect under routine handling and use.

4. First Aid Measures:
Ingestion: If swallowed, Obtain medical attention immediately.
Ingestion: Drink milk/water and induce vormiting; seek medical attention.

8. Exposure Controls/Personal Protection
Gloves: Not required for handling of battery.

9. Physical and Chemical Properties:
Ordor - N/A

10. Stability and Reactivity:
Reactivity: None

All these (and many more point) and the lawyer/anti-terrorist-agency-friendly Invoice to prove that I didn't purchase a spent uranium rod.

Thanks to DELL, my laptop is now a mobile powerhouse! With its upgraded RAM, HDD and a new battery, it not longer needs to be tethered to a power supply brick. Yay!

Now to look for a chocolate chip cookie and to check on the dog. Hope she doesn't pick a fight with any unexpected stray monkey coming into our house compound.

Dell Inspiron 8600 Notebook - A New Lease of Life

For the latest articles, head over to the brand new www.nineoverten.com.

I've been using a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop for quite a number of years and I love it to bits. When I bought it more than 3 years ago, the specs were pretty impressive, a Centrino processor, 15.4 inch WSXGA+ wide screen, discrete graphics in the form of an ATI 9600 Pro Turbo graphics card with 128 RAM and of course, an upgraded 3 years warranty plan. Total damage to the pocket: RM 6277.


Most people would ask, why spend such an unholy amount of money on a laptop. Well, I was using an Inspiron 5000 prior to the 8600, and that cost more than RM 11,000. High priced laptops tend to last longer, and I was using that Inspiron 5000 for 5 years.

The warranty for the 8600 just expired in the last quarter of 2007 but the laptop is still running fine, with the exception of the battery acting up, only holding a charge for 30 minutes.

However, 3 plus years is a long time and not willing to be left behind the Joneses, I decided to perform some upgrades. I bought the parts yesterday and my initial intention was to have the laptop run Vista. I installed the parts, which was relatively easy, and then began the process of installing Vista. It was a pain.

The operating system couldn't make nice with my internal network cards (both wired and wireless), and it crashed quite often. Having gotten fed up with the bratty OS, I decided to use Windows XP Pro instead, which was the original OS the laptop came in, and with the new upgrades, it's plenty fast! Woot!!

So, what are the laptop's specs now, post upgrade? The ones in bold are the upgraded parts:

• Intel Pentium M Processor 725 (1.6 Ghz, 2MB Cache)
• 15.4" WSXGA+ Display (1680 X 1050 resolution)
• 1.5 GB DDR 333 RAM (previously 512 MB)
• 120 GB Hard Disk Drive (previously 60 GB)
• 128 MB DDR ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo Graphics Card
• 8X DVD +/- RW Combo Drive

Now I can run an AVG scan along side Warhammer 40,000 without it bordering me one bit. So if you have a 3, or even 2 year old laptop, consider upgrading. Laptops utilising DDR2 RAM have the most gain from this exercise as DDR2 RAM is cheap. And if you are wondering what to upgrade, go for the RAM/HDD drive route. Total damage to my pocket: RM 470.

Now, if only I can get Dell to give me a new primary battery, type 8N544, 72 watts. I would much appreciate that.