Episode: 2092
Title: HPR2092: My new love
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2092/hpr2092.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 14:13:39

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This is HPR Episode 2992 entitled My New Love.
It is hosted by Swift 110 and is about 31 minutes long.
The summary is, I talk about how I got my latest laptop.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by An Honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
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Hello, this is Swift 110 and today goes a little something like this.
Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down and I'd like
to take a minute just sit right back.
I tell you how the candy prince of a town called Bele.
Actually, it's not exactly that kind of story.
The story in this case did not occur in West Philadelphia.
It would actually actually occur some 200 miles to the southwest of Philadelphia.
As it turns out, I had my eyes when getting a particular laptop.
It was considered getting a T420 looking at what was available for the price and specs.
Something that I found to be very interesting.
So I don't really horizon talk about wonderful.
Some kind of wonderful actually.
What happened was that I happened to be in a pawn shop on Friday about a month ago now.
Close to a month ago.
And as I was in there, I bruised the shelves, all the various nicknacks and pattywack,
give it all the bone.
Different stuff that was in there.
Some stuff was cool.
Some stuff I just had, and I'm interested.
But what ended up happening was that I saw this and she was lovely.
You're probably thinking about this Stevie Wonder song.
Isn't she wonderful?
I mean, really?
I just looked at it and I was like, oh my goodness.
I know words have been a little cool, J. I need love.
I mean, I looked at her and she was just cool.
She's like one of those rap stars' girlfriends.
I mean, she's just so black.
I'm talking about a thingpad, by the way, and specifically a T420, so random in terms
of amazement.
But I saw a laptop on a shelf, so I asked the attendant, I said, well, what are the
specs of that machine?
Like, I don't know.
Well, I'll look at it.
You want to see it?
I said, so.
I knew I had windows on them thinking, okay, well, now I've got to figure out how to look
at the specs of this machine, because I don't normally use windows.
I use Linux.
I was like, all right, let's look at the specs, let's look at the condition of the screen.
Let's do this look-o.
You know, like when you buy a new car, yeah, I was going to look at this laptop that's
new to me.
And I was like, well, all right.
And it honestly, the price that I saw on the sticker was $189.99, which to be honest,
I would have paid for such a laptop, but the guy gave me the price.
Now, I'm not going to tell you what the price was, I was going to the specs as I found
them out.
I respect the machine.
I looked for cracks anywhere, picked it up from the corner and listened for creaking,
thanks to some folks on IRC.
And specifically the IBM A-PET channel, not a free note.
Now what happened was that I checked out the laptop, looked at it externally, looked
at the screen, looked for the little white light spots, for anything that would be a good
thing to not get it, anything I would make me decide to change my mind.
Even though at this point I really wanted it, it was like, yeah, I want this laptop.
I really wanted it, and I am truly, truly determined to get it.
And so, the specs are as follows, the specs are as follows, the T420.
It's a Core i7, specifically 2620, so when i7, 2620, it came with 4 gigs of RAM, I know,
4 gigs of RAM isn't much, but 4 gigs of RAM, work with me.
It also had 320 gig hard drive, 14 inch screen, which is one of the reasons why it's
that I wanted this laptop, was because it's a little bigger than the X201.
I actually have two of those, that has a 12, 12 and a half inch screen, 14 inches, definitely,
I got a screen size to work with.
And I just thought about how great it would be, how a little bigger, bigger of a screen.
So that's cool.
So after the inspection, it dawns on me that I don't have all the money for it.
Think about those specs, think about what you view that laptop as being worth.
And oh, and by the way, in video, I mean, not in video, because that's the screen graphics,
it comes with the Intel 3000 graphics, and the aspect ratio, sadly, 16 by 9, there.
But it has a 1600 by 900 display, that's the resolution on it, which is the best aspect
ratio of any laptop I have. And this is actually now the most powerful laptop that I have.
The second most powerful laptop I own is the X201, well, they're twins, you know what I mean?
And so I was very happy with the machine, I made my decision to buy it.
I looked at the specs, I looked up how it could be upgraded, turns out it could go up to 16
gigs of RAM.
Now let me go backwards for just a second with regards to the I7 processor.
I would have been fine if it was an I5 to be honest with you.
I7, for that price, like yes, all right, I7 LAN.
I knew it was going to upgrade the RAM from 4 gigs, of course, duh, that that almost immediately
to 16 gigs of RAM.
I still figured in, I'm going to put Linux on here at some point.
I'm going to go ahead and get an SSD in there.
That's coming later.
Finally, a new battery is good.
Dude, I later.
So I'm in the store thinking about the specs and what I'm going to do to the laptop in order
to upgrade it to its full potential.
And I'm just thinking about the price and just how fortunate I am.
I was at that point to see this wonderful laptop, exactly what I want.
And to be in a position to just get it, I like it.
You know, I remember years ago when I was unemployed, didn't have any money, didn't have
a laptop at all, and just all I had was a, I remember not even having a computer at all.
So to be able to see a laptop that I like and to buy it without messing myself up financially.
And that's a beautiful thing, beyond.
That's a beautiful thing.
It's going to say beyond compare, but that's going too far.
So the decision was made to get the laptop.
I said, all right, I'll get it, make the certain upgrades to it.
But I realized I didn't have all the money I needed for it, despite its low price.
Now it's a pawn shop.
And I asked what I thought was going to be a stupid question.
A very stupid question.
I asked if I could put it on layaway.
Layaway being the concept of putting money on something to buy it.
You give them money each week, however it works.
And then as you do that, eventually you pay for a thing.
So I put it on layaway.
Not that I didn't have the money already.
I just didn't have it on me.
But I didn't want to take a chance somebody getting it while I was gone.
And then I miss out.
Then I'm really upset with myself.
I said, okay, I'll put it on layaway.
Put $25 on it.
Not bad.
So then I came back the next day.
Mind you, this was a Friday.
Actually, you know what?
No, it was a Saturday.
The following day was a Sunday.
I was going to run down there to the pawn shop.
I hope I didn't say pet shop before.
Pond shop.
To get the laptop, I was going to pay the rest of it.
Fine.
I get to the pawn shop.
It's closed.
Oh, no, it's closed.
All right.
You know how when you're excited to get something and it kind of builds up
and you want it right then and you're like, oh, I got to wait now.
Great.
Got to wait.
Well, the following day took my behind over here to the pawn shop.
Thankfully, it's not far from me.
Pay them her money.
Talked to the cashier for a while.
She told me she just got a Lenovo laptop, but it wasn't think bad.
She got like, probably like some kind of idea pad or L series or something.
Well, it'd probably be just fine for her, but should have got to think that that's all
I got to say.
I talked to her about some of the specs and about, you know, some of the features of the
think pad that I have and how you can do the light, the think light showed that to her.
Talked about the durability of it because she talked about a laptop she had to just
die on her.
I was like, well, now you know, so that was cool.
Eventually, I left.
I mean, she was kind of cute, so it was kind of easy to talk to a cute woman, you know,
who would disagree with that?
That's why I left.
And that was that.
I was excited.
As soon as I got some Wi-Fi, started working with the laptop, using Windows on 4Gigs
RAM, and I really looked forward to getting more RAM.
So I'm trying to think, I got it on a Monday, oh yes, that's right.
I think the very first day that I had the laptop, I went and got a gig stick of RAM, so that
gave me a total of 12 gigs of RAM.
Let me go into that story.
Actually, let me go back.
Back even further.
A digress to impress.
The total price that I pay for that laptop, mind you, the i7, 2620, 4 gigs of RAM, 320
gig hard drive, 1600 by 900, resolution, 14 inch screen, aspect resolution, and
16 by 9, okay, T420.
I bought it for the whopping price of, ding ding ding, 125 dollars.
Can I get a whoop whoop, I'll wait, okay, I got it.
Now I got the laptop on the way to the micro center, I says all right, go ahead and get my
8 gigs stick.
So all they was on sale for 30 bucks, great, I'll get this one this week, next week I'll
get the other one.
I could have just got two at the same time, like a moron, I think that way.
So anyways, go ahead, two micro center, and get the RAM on me.
Then I get somewhere with Wi-Fi and a nice table, and I install the RAM.
And first the RAM was giving me problems because those little middle pieces that can clip
into it on the side, well I didn't install the RAM properly, and there's some pictures
that I have that illustrate that.
Too much of the copper was showing when the RAM itself, and I just didn't install it
right.
It's why I wasn't showing.
I got frustrated.
Eventually I got it right, ended up with 12 gigs of RAM, fantastic, RAM with that, 12
gigs of RAM, Windows 7, life is good.
So then, I'm on my merry way, following week, I go back, and I spend a real little upgrades,
started having it, yes, a re-bub.
That's when, not only did I get another 8 gigs stick for a total of 16 gigs of RAM,
which is twice the 8 gigs of RAM that you can put maximum in the next 201.
So 16 gigs of RAM, and I said, you know what I'm going to find, look at me, and I says
D, I'm reading about them for the last couple years, it's time to go ahead and do it.
I decided on a size 250 gigs, SSD.
Originally, I planned on getting a crucial M200, M as in Mexico, or mate, my T, which I
run clean enough as the desktop environment I'm running on right now.
But when it ended up happening, it was actually that I, they didn't have the MX200 in stock.
So I said, ah, great.
So I got a Samsung 850, instead, vNand, that's right, vNand, like a boss, 90 bucks, thoughts
myself not bad, I go ahead and get it, got it.
So I spent my money, and then I smiled, I would smile more later, of course.
So I ended up installing the RAM, grand total of 16 gigs of RAM, and SSD, I was going to
add in addition to the hard drive already existing in the laptop, I already had 320, and
now I'm going to add a 250.
On one hard drive, my plan was to put, my plan, of course, was to put, well, Windows is
already on one, I'll go ahead and use Windows for a while, and this is why I was thinking
before I did all this, by the way, I'm so out of order, it's crazy.
But initially my thing was I'll use Windows, and I'll turn it into like a two week challenge
of using Windows, I kind of cheated at the end though, I'll tell you more about that
another time, and I said I was going to have Linux on the SSD.
So I do a boot system on the laptop, where the main hard, the first hard drive has Windows
7 on it, already installed, done, installed as of February 2016, nice, and then I turned
around, got the SSD, now I was going to, I replaced what I did was remove the optical drive,
and I got a sled for the SSD to fit into, sliding to the slot, and I installed the SSD, and
I was so happy when I got everything up and running, it's a beautiful thing.
And then I entered the world of SSDs, fantastic, I mean this thing is just fast, now I'll be
more specific at another time, about how fast it loads up, it boots up in comparison to
Windows, I'll do that later, but I was just amazed at it, be honest with you, I was like
oh my goodness, this is great, and that's when I want to go ahead and make my point, about
a week later, looking up MicroCenter online, and they turned out had T420s in stock, didn't
know, you got actually search for it on their site, it's not going to be obvious, well remember
I paid $125 for mine, well for an i5, you know what, I'll pull it up right now, I'll do this
live, and it'll make the point even better about the great deal that I have, because there
are laptops that they're selling refurbished, mine the only fault in this laptop remotely
is that on the trackpad it's worn in the middle, which doesn't look good cosmetically, but
it works just fine, so frankly I don't care, alright, so that's the only thing, I just thought
of that by the way, it's happened to look down at it, it was like oh, there you are, so anyway
let's see, T420, it's in the Nova, here's what they offer, okay, so they got a T420, Core
S7, 2620M, of course, 2.7 gigahertz, that's what I have, Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64
8 gigs of RAM, 320 gig hard drive, you know how much they want for it, 329.99, plus tax of course,
which is about $10, at least $10, so roughly 3.50, 3.50, okay, now they have another T420, Windows 7
Professional, that's cool, refurbished, that one's an i5, 2.5 gigahertz processor, 4 gigs of
RAM and 320 hard drive, now even for that one is an i5, still is more than what I paid for my
laptop, in fact all together what I paid, not only for the laptop which was $125,
with the upgrades that I've done for the RAM, the sled for the SSD and the SSD itself,
for all that, oh, in all the RAM, the SSD and the SSD enclosed, the SSD sled that goes in the
optical drive, the optical drive used to be rather, I paid a grand total of $295, so for less than
300, I had a fully setup system, whereas had I bought it from micro centers specifically,
add net other, the RAM would have been an issue, well, because if they put 8 gigs in the machine,
it means you got 2 4 gig RAM sticks, 2 4 gig RAM sticks, which means I would still end up
getting 2 8 gig RAM sticks, so that already adds to $350, $60, so I'm already paying over 400,
just to include the RAM, plus that 90 bucks for the SSD, $500, okay, plus the sled was
roughly $20, $520 for that, okay, so $220, almost the price of this second i5,
is the difference in the price between what I paid for this laptop, plus the upgrades,
which you would have to pay for this laptop, plus the upgrades that I made, so I got a good deal,
very, very, very good deal, now when I got this laptop, I put a lot of, I inspected it quite a bit,
this wasn't a quick decision I made, it really was not a quick decision at all, and I'm so proud of
the way that I got it working on here, so the operating system I ended up putting on here,
that I decided to try something different than the standard Linux Mint that I put on my
day, I put blue boon to on here, just lighty bun to, very fast, again, SSDs rock, very fast,
and I install my programs, and I got everything up and running, I'm likely not going to keep
blue bun to, but you know what, I'll save that for another recording, I'm seeing more material,
but it was a very interesting thing, I did finally get the RAM installed, the 16X RAM,
which obviously, duh, and I did figure out, thanks to the instructions, putting SSD in the actual,
enclosure, sled thing that you put in the optical drive, former optical drive, formerly known as the
optical drive, there, let's throw that joke in here, why don't we, so I got everything set up,
pictures, I've probably had those available, also check out my blog, I changed my blog to Swift110.wordpress.com,
yeah, Swift110.wordpress.com, in fact, let me double check that right now, make my life a lot
simpler, googly, googly, oh crash bandicoot, let me see, it's, Swift110.wordpress.com,
sorry about that, let me try it again, I don't know why I get that mixed up, by the being by the
one, there it is, so my blog, Swift110.wordpress.com, Swift110.wordpress.com, hit me up, read my stuff, I got
hundreds of stuff, hundreds of blogs, I'm going to go ahead and do my little plug here, hundreds of
plugs, I mean hundreds of blogs are on here, posting, that's on here, I talk about stuff, whether it's Linux,
here it is in general, I rant about stuff, nature, walks, people, thoughts, places, things, I talk a lot, as you
can tell, because I'm already running over 26 minutes here, almost 27, okay, I can talk, so you can
read stuff, hopefully you'll pick stuff on the way, and you'll enjoy it, you're bound to find
something you like, I promise, check out my blog, Swift110.wordpress.com, you'd be glad you did, I guarantee it,
had to do it, now the laptop I'm actually on right now, you hear the typing from on the laptop, and so I'm happy to
have it set up the way I did, I'm considering getting a WAN card for it, considering getting another
battery at some point, but those are all the things I implement in the future, and pretty much I try
to think of what else I need to say, I will say that I love this laptop, the extra screen real estate
makes such a difference in my workflow, like it's just nice, I don't like the fact that it's 16 by 9,
pottery, I don't really like rectangles, I just figured it out, I would like for the screen to be
taller, 16 by 10, oh my goodness, would have been better, but I can deal with it because it's bigger,
okay, bigger, I talked about before my Fujitsu Lifebook 42, 15, it's old as dirt, 10 years old, but it has
my loving, love, love, love, love, 4 by 3 screen, it's a square, square bis, okay, I'm talking square
bis to your baby, square, square bis, okay, square bis, not rectangle, square, okay, if you square,
you'll always be around, okay, you get it, all right, I like square, so I'm gonna actually probably get
one of those monitors that's 4 by 3 as well, that's another subject for another time,
they're with me here, it took a while to get used to having such a big laptop, I do have a 15.6
inch Sony VIO, but it's laid out differently in a number, it actually has like a section where the
number keys are and stuff on the side, I don't know what I'm trying, I know what I'm trying to say,
but I don't know how to say it, anyway, it has that and it's just the ring, so it took me a while
getting used to the layout, but I'm glad it has a nice thing, light on here, I love my hardware buttons,
as far as the trackpad, I only really used the buttons at the bottom, the two buttons, I don't
use the three above it, I don't use them yet, this actually has a fingerprint reader that I don't use,
I haven't used an SD card in it or anything, I haven't needed to,
it's nice that having a laptop with a higher resolution, it also gives me a better picture when
I connect this to an external mod, an external LCD TV that I have, so it boosts the image there,
I'm just really glad, I mean it's heavier than the X201, the X201 rather without a dock attached to it,
it's definitely heavier, so I carry this around with me, but it makes up for it because of the screen,
so I'm really happy with it, I might get a dock at some point, we'll see how that works out,
but I don't know just yet, that'll be in a future at some point, it's very likely though,
but I'm not carrying it around like that, that's just, that's just, no, I kind of got used to
carrying heavy laptops with my Fujitsu, that thing's like 5 pounds, a 12 inch 5 pound brick,
now that's entertainment, anyway that's all I really have to say about this laptop,
if I think of something I'll just do another recording, hope you guys all have a fantastic day as I
have, and I will see you next time, goodbye.
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