Weapons of Mass Computation

Granted, the diverse capabilities of personal computers can be overwhelming and angst-inducing (a topic which Walt Mossberg spoke about with great eloquence and conviction at Monday night’s EDN Innovation Awards dinner), and I’ve experienced this angst both personally and indirectly (is it just me, or do all of you also find yourselves becoming the defacto 24/7 tech support guru for family and friends?). That same diversity, though, makes the personal computer perhaps the most incredible piece of technology accessible to the common man and woman (with the cell phone a close and closing second). I wholeheartedly love computers (I’ve come out of the closet and said it…….I feel much better now). Therefore, a notable percentage of what I’ll likely be writing about going forward will be computer-centric or, at minimum, computer-assisted.

With that factoid in mind, I thought I’d detail the various computers currently inhabiting Chez Dipert. As you’ll soon see, I’m bilingual, fluent in Windows but rapidly coming up the learning curve on OS X. While I often used a Macintosh in college, I became a 100% Windows guy at Intel (for perhaps obvious reasons). Within the last year, however, I’ve become reacquainted with the Apple side of my brain, tempted by the elegance and power of Apple’s and partners’ software and the ever-increasing economic viability of Apple hardware. My Microsoft Windows-powered machines are on the left side of my L-shaped desk and my Macs are on the right side. Draw your own conclusions.

Dell PowerEdge 400SC desktop PC, Windows XP Professional
Upgrades:
1) Replacement front bezel with dual USB and audio input/output access
2) 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 CPU with HyperThreading (Northwood)
3) Dual Western Digital 250 GB SATA HDDs in RAID 1 configuration
4) Seagate 80GB PATA HDD
5) Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATA RAID controller PCI card
6) Generic IEEE-1394 PCI card
7) Adaptec AHA-2930 SCSI PCI card
ATI Technologies Radeon 9800 XT graphics AGP card
9) GFX-1600SW PCI adapter for the Silicon Graphics 1600SW LCD
10) Kingston Technology 1 GB (total) DDR400 (PC3200) Memory
11) Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS sound subsystem
12) Plextor 52x CD-RW drive
13) Pioneer DVR-106 DVD-RW/+RW drive

Dell Inspiron 700m notebook PC, with 1.6 GHz Pentium M processor, 60 GB HDD, 512 MB DDR333 (PC2700) SDRAM, CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, Broadcom 802.11g mini-PCI card, Windows XP Home
Upgrades:
1) Additional 1 GB Kingston Technologies SDRAM

Fujitsu Lifebook P-2110 notebook PC, with 867 MHz Transmeta Crusoe processor, 30 GB HDD, 256 MB SDRAM, CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, Intersil (then GlobespanVirata, now Conexant) 802.11b mini-PCI card, Windows XP Professional
Upgrades: None

Apple 1.8 GHz dual G5 PowerMac (900 MHz frontside bus) desktop PC, with 250 GB SATA HDD, SuperDrive (Pioneer DVR-106), OS 10.3
Upgrades:
1) Second Maxtor 250 GB SATA HDD, converted to RAID 1 array using SoftRAID
2) 1.5 GB (total) DDR333 (PC2700) SDRAM, from Corsair and Samsung

Apple 1 GHz 12” G4 PowerBook notebook PC, with 256 MB DDR266 (PC2100) SDRAM, Airport Extreme 802.11g Wi-Fi, OS 10.3
Upgrades:
1) Additional 1 GB Kingston Technologies SDRAM
2) Seagate 100 GB Momentus HDD
3) Matsushita/Panasonic UJ-815 SuperDrive