I love the Div School...

[theyellowhobbit]

...because they have given me a locker. Which means that now I don't need to carry around quite so much stuff anymore. Of course, this will mean designating what stuff I only need to work on while I'm on campus and what stuff comes home with me. I might designate knitting projects as "for school" and "for home" and leave the school ones in my locker. Though that does mean parting with my knitting.

In other somewhat related news I might be getting a small laptop that is actually bringable to class so I can stop writing my notes by hand. My current laptop is too heavy. But I want something cheap. It would literally be just my note-taking laptop. Just cheap and small. Small is a must because otherwise it defeats the purpose of getting one in the first place.

Any suggestions?

Comments

[superducky1.livejournal.com]

cheez.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

?

[spazerrific.livejournal.com]

mine's nice and light... it's an HP Pavillion dv2000. It was about $1000, which is probably more than you're willing to spend. Your best bet would be to go to staples or best buy and grill the techies.

[platypuses.livejournal.com]

The 100 dollar laptop! It's small, light, indestructible, simple.

"Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time in North America. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home. If you're interested in Give 1 Get 1, we'll be happy to send you a reminder email. Just sign up in the box to the left and you'll receive your reminder prior to the November 12 launch date."

http://www.xogiving.org/

[platypuses.livejournal.com]

(It's a bit more than 3 lbs--1.45 kgs, that is--btw.)

[platypuses.livejournal.com]

Also, another alternative is to eschew a laptop, and get a PDA with a scribbly pad, although they're a pain in the butt sometimes.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Except the whole point is that gripping a pen makes my hand cramp up while typing is a lot easier. So a PDA with a scribble pad defeats the purpose.

[superducky1.livejournal.com]

there are keyboards for PDAs...

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

but aren't they tiny? I need something that's normal keyboard sized

[platypuses.livejournal.com]

Oh righto. Well, there are PDA's with keyboards. I still vote the $100 laptop. Open-source, highly portable. Linux based, so more similar to your Mac-iness, if you ask me, than a PC would be. Okay, I just like what I've heard. Not good if you want to install lots of programs (some may not be compatible with Linux), but very good for simple word processing, as far as I know.

[superducky1.livejournal.com]

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3127_7-5542515-1.html

[ultimatepsi.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously considering getting one of those as a portable internet and programming computer. My current "laptop" is rather closer to a luggable. And I'd really like to have a computer I can use outside.

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

http://www.baucomcomputers.com/

Scroll down to the iBook section - they have a G3/700 iBook with 384MB of ram for $309. Perfect for Mac OS X up through Panther, and nice and light. Yes, it's secondhand, but they're refurbished so it should be ok.

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

Also, check out the first one on this page:
http://www.machsv.com/~used/

That's the exact configuration I have.

[elfsdh.livejournal.com]

On the laptop, I would suggest checking out discounters like Tiger Direct (http://www.tigerdirect.com) instead of a big box store. Places like Staples/Best Buy/CompUSA tend to be overpriced.

If you're considering going the GNU/Linux route with a standard piece of equipment or an OLPC XO, I might be able to help there. :-)

[prezzey.livejournal.com]

I use Linux exclusively on my laptop, it does everything and most of it was quite easy to set up (the notable exceptions being HDAPS - but that's specific to newer Lenovo laptops - and a tablet PC feature which is not relevant here since Rachel doesn't want a tablet PC from what I've gathered). And I use my computer for rather exotic things.

On the desktop I do have a dual boot Windows/Linux with Windows used mostly for gaming purposes ;] so I'm not saying Linux is good for everything, but it's probably good for everything one wants to run on a laptop. Though the specifics might be hard to set up, so it's important to have an idea what one wants to do, in some cases the costs (in hours spent setting it up) might outweigh the benefits (fast, stable, does exactly what you want it to do, very configurable). For everyday office purposes - word processing, web, e-mail etc - that's not the case though; in that arena, recent Linux distributions are easier to get up and running than Windows. (last time I installed both from scratch I timed them. I got Ubuntu set up and in an usable state in approx. 1/6th of the time it had taken me to achieve the same with Windows XP... and I'm not a huge Linux expert and I've definitely installed Windows more often!)

[pocketnovel.livejournal.com]

You should get an OLPC XO (http://laptop.org/laptop/)! I tested one last month and I am definitely getting one for notetaking. It's very compact (but still usable), super light, durable, has a screen that's visible in sunlight, and you can use a pull cord to generate energy if the battery runs out. I am in love with it, I think it's perfect for school. I love taking notes on my laptop but I hate lugging mine around. On November 12 they're going on sale for $399 in the Give 1 Get 1 (http://www.xogiving.org/) program, where you get one laptop for yourself and a laptop is given to a child in a developing nation. Pretty nifty.

[pocketnovel.livejournal.com]

Oh wait, I see I'm not the first to make this recommendation! But like I said, I've tested it and it's awesome.