Taking a Laptop on "tour"

Oh the dilema of choice!

In just under 2 weeks time i am flying out to Las Vegas to attend this years Oracle HCM User Group conference (OHUG). I’m planning to take one of my many laptops with me so that i can do some of the following:

  • Keep on-top of my email
  • Keep an eye on the HRMS Aces forums (as an Admin)
  • Keep my Blog up-to-date
  • Download and view any photo’s that i happen to take with my camera
  • Work!

The last point is the stickler. The conference runs for 4 days, plus a 5th-day invitee-only CAB day (to which i am invited). As i shall be out there for 7/8 days i am bound to have some downtime (ie non-attendance of conference sessions). I’m sure that some of this ‘spare’ time will be taken up with activities such as:

  • Sleeping
  • Drinking Socializing with my fellow conference attendees
  • Shopping – although probably not too much
  • Sight-seeing – again probably only on my last full day
  • Relaxing by the pool in the Hotel

Whilst i do not have any ‘client-funded’ work to do during this time, i do have significant amounts of ‘non-funded’ work to be done, some of which will hopefully lead to funding, and some of which will simply be to further my own corporate cause. It is therefore this point that causes the ‘travelling hardware’ dilema.

If it were simply the case of Blogging, photo-viewing, web-mail reading etc, i could probably get away with taking one of my Acer Aspire One netbooks; I have 2 of them – one has 1.5GB RAM and the 8GB SSD, still running the standard Linpus install but with XFCE as the desktop client. The other has 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD and is dual-booting (with either custom Linpus Lite or Ubuntu Netbook Remix). Both of these are capable of meeting most of my requirements.

However by throwing “work” into the mix, i am forced to consider a wider range of hardware options:

  • Dell Inspiron c/w 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD
    This is my “Windows” workstation – its running XP SP3, and has a full install of Oracle EBS 11.5.10.2, plus Workflow builder and JDeveloper 10g. Plus the usual MS Office suite thrown in for good measure.
  • Dell Vostro c/w 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD (dual 250GB drives)
    This is my main Linux machine – its running CentOS 5.3, has a full install of Oracle EBS 12.0.2 (as previously blogged here), plus is running OO3, Zend Studio Developer IDE, XAMP. Its also got JDeveloper 10g installed (but i’ve yet to get it to work). And just for good measure i also have Sun’s VBox VM software with a full Windows XP VM
  • Finally i have the machine which i am currently sat at writing this Blog. Its my aging, but trust, HP Pavilion. This has 2GB RAM, 120GB HDD (which is fairly full i’m sorry to say)
    This is running XP SP3, Zend Studio IDE, JDeveloper 10g, plus a whole host of other net tools etc. It also houses my Photoshop CS2 install and my document reference library.

I can probably discount the HP Laptop for starters. It’s over 4 years old, so the battery does not run for much more than an hour before giving up the ghost. In addition, its my main corporate machine, so is packed to the gills with all my company paperwork, spreadsheets, invoices etc etc. Its also my main email archive machine, so have Outlook PST files with email data running back over 15 years (you never known when you might need that Oracle 8i tuning tips email). It’s like an old friend, and is safer staying at home.

So that just leaves me with the 2 Dells.

If i were after total compatibility and comfort, i’d probably plump for the XP Inspiron. Its a smaller machine physically (its not the 17″ widescreen Behemoth that the Vostro is), and is likely to fit in with any wired/wireless networks i’m likely to encounter whilst travelling. However, it does not contain half the web-development toolkit stuff that i have mainly because its essentially my Oracle EBS 11i development and demo system. The full install does not leave much room for much else.

So we are looking at the Vostro then. Its big, its shiny black with a humongous widescreen pannel. It does have most of what i need, but does have its foilbles…

  • It’s much happier running wired network (it has a Gigabit Ethernet card) than wireless. The wireless drivers are a bit hit and miss – i often have problems at home with it.
  • It runs very hot when in use – again this is because the OS does not fully support the Active Power Management hardware properly – and when i say hot i do mean hot hot hot.
  • The trackpad is not to my liking (even though i’ve tweaked its setting to the best i can).
  • The powerpack is a bit of a brick

So it does look like the Vostro edges it.

Thank you for listening, i’m glad i had the opportunity to talk this through with you.