What type of laptop should I get?

[dudeabides]

I'm a tech with 10 yrs experience. My office told me to go buy a laptop. What type of laptop should I get that will allow me to access most control systems? What type of ports should I make sure it has? And what about windows vista? I mostly see johnson metasys systems, but I also see systems from TAC.

[beer30]

I think you can still get a new Dell with Windows XP. That's what I would get.

[klrogers]

If you can still get one, Dell D630 with XP pro, it has a true serial port, big enough to use, small/light enough to carry.

Kevin

[Heavyevans]

I've been eying the Dell Latitude E6400 with the E-Legacy Extender lately.

[digo]

If you can still get one, Dell D630 with XP pro, it has a true serial port, big enough to use, small/light enough to carry.

Kevin

I agree. I have a D820 and it's a bit heavy for carrying around.

[Cagey57]

I would also recommend a Dell but.......... don't be in hurry for it. The last one I ordered got delayed almost a month. The Latitude D5500 (?), not sure it's the one with a serial port, is good. You pay extra for WinXP-Pro down grade.

I have had very good luck getting refurb'd Dell Latitude D610's from tigerdirect.com. The last 2 were great, installed 2GB memory for less than $30.00. They have just about every thing you will need for sometime.

dudeabides, my email is in profile, I have a very hungry sales person hounding me about selling laptops, I can give you teh email contact if you want

[dudeabides]

I have had very good luck getting refurb'd Dell Latitude D610's from tigerdirect.com. The last 2 were great, installed 2GB memory for less than $30.00. They have just about every thing you will need for sometime.
[/QUOTE]

Found one on Tigerdirect for $360. Do you know if the D610 have wireless internet? It doesn't mention it in the description.

[Cagey57]

dudeabides, remember no prices, I use general amounts. Check the tigerdirect details for the soecific model. The last 2 I bought had wireless.

send me an email, this is off forum stuff.

[Burnt-Out]

ahhh, I hate dell's - HP is the way to go

I have a d610 now, and it should have wifi - if it was used, its pretty easy to crack em open and take the wifi out, i see em on ebay all the time

[control_8]

I would have to give a BIG THUMBS DOWN for Dell. They are cheap, but that's about it. We've had 5-6 hard drive failures after ~2 years. Multiple power supply failures, and screen failures.

It may be worthwhile to go with Lenovo (or Mac w/XP) install. Anything with an accelerometer that can stop the hard drive upon a drop. I'm not sure if/which Dell models have that feature. A back-lit keypad is nice also, being in dark areas...

I know I might get laughed at for recommending a Mac, but I also think the unibody Macbook might be a sturdy, rugged option...

[Cagey57]

Seriously considered MAC until I found out that I would have to buy WinXP-Pro on top of the MAC just to find out if all my OEM software would work. Buy the time I got all the bells and whistles it was over $1900.00 and I still had no asurance it would run my stuff.

I guess I'll be a "PC" for a while yet!


Brand preference is and will alway be Toshiba, can't get serial ports anymore so...... used Dells work OK til I find an old Toshiba that ain't totally wasted, the're hard to find !

[ControlYourMind]

If you can still get one, Dell D630 with XP pro, it has a true serial port, big enough to use, small/light enough to carry.

Kevin

I'm with you on this one. Our company has around 70 of these, though ours are D630C's. Anywayz according to our IT department, we've had 3 to mess up, but it was due to battery problems. The serial ports work great, I have 9 control programs on mine and I havent had a problem yet. So I highly recommend them.

[simsd]

I bought a Fujitsu on EBay. They sell their refurbs through ebay and when you buy it, you are buying from Fujitsu. The issue you will have for JCI is the serial port for COM 1. So if it doesn't come with one you will need the USB to serial converter. And they don't all work so you will have to do some experimenting or get some advice from one of the posters here.

[crab master]

How much are you going to be behind the screen? Smaller size is nice for packing around but if you are going to spend much time behind it you'll wish you had a larger screen. I no longer have a desktop and I have a laptop with a 17" screen. Yeah it is a bit heavy, but I don't want a smaller screen.

How likely are you going to be using it outside - ie working on a rooftop unit?
If you are then you will want to make sure you order one with a screen you can see outside in sunlight. My last computer I could not hardly see at all outside. I had to set up shading with boxes, RTU doors, other so I could see it somewhat on the roof.

When you say systems from TAC which flavor? CSI/INET, TAC Vista, Andover, Invensys? With TAC Vista the usb to serial port convertors work fine, but I know some manufacturers have problems with the convertors.

The comments on Dell - I've had 4 Dells and they all have been very good. Now some of our techs got a few of the low end models that came with the serial ports, and we lost displays on two and the hard drive on another. The finally went to a different model of Dell and those worked fine.

I haven't worked with Windows Vista, but Windows Seven is on the horizon. I would definitely get one with XP, likely all the software you'll be working with will work with XP. Unless you know it will work with Vista I would probably stay away from Vista.

I wonder how these would be - seem like a great laptop for service. http://www.ruggednotebooks.com/

[gbfromsd]

Been using a Lenovo N3000 dual core for the past year and I love it - it frickin dishes it out man.

[Cagey57]

dudeabides,
put your email in profile, i have a contact that is offering discounts at tigerdirect.com. can't post so need an email Dude(abides) !

[dudeabides]

thanks for all the help

[HVAndyC/R]

Get a mac. best computers out there in my opinion

[dudeabides]

I put my email in my profile. Thanks for all your help!

[Cagey57]

Emailed you the contact.

[dudeabides]

thanks!

[toptech]

I've had a few, hands down this T60 Thinkpad I bought refurbished is the best.
Wireless built in, loaded.
You will need a usb ot serial convertor.
Paid 500 clams.
http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-ThinkPad-T60-Core-Duo-1-83GHz-2GB-60GB-Laptop_W0QQitemZ120410732465QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLap tops_Nov05?hash=item120410732465&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C 240%3A1318%7C301%3A0%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

[toptech]

Been using a Lenovo N3000 dual core for the past year and I love it - it frickin dishes it out man.

Sweet

[noskilltech]

Get a mac. best computers out there in my opinion

From my understanding, alot of control softwares are not mac compatable. Why would anyone want a mac to use for controls?

[HVAndyC/R]

they are very compatible with control software. who told you that? i think you made that up. why would you make something like that up?

[digo]

they are very compatible with control software. who told you that? i think you made that up. why would you make something like that up?

Yes, you can setup bootcamp and install XP on another partition. I think what noskilltech is referring to, is that the vast majority of controls software were not designed to run natively on OSX.

Can you run Lonmaker on a Mac? How about any flavor of Niagara, R2 or AX? Honeywell CARE, Lonspec, Lonstation, XBS, SymmetrE, or EBI? Loytec L-vis configurator? Rapid Balance? no, no, no... and no.

Why don't you tell us which controls software you are running on OS X?

[bdivell]

get an IBM thinkpad

[gbfromsd]

unfortunately, with Vista and soon Win7 - we're still stuck with XP and will be for the
foreseeable future. Whatever you buy it needs to run XP or even Win2000.

[me75006]

Whatever brand you consider, check for a feature that lets you rebuild everything on the hard drive. I have a couple of Dells that feaure the Emergency Recovery option. This when activated opens a hidden partition on the hard drive and restores the hard drive so that its just like it was when the unit was unpacked on day one. The next best is having all the cd's so you can reload the operating system yourself.
These are tecniques that can save you in an emergency, like your Windows gets infested by virus, or in a very unstable state where you cant even boot up windows.
Some like to use these once a year to re do things so as like new.

[bdivell]

sorry to jack the thread but what anti virus software are you guys using?

[Entity]

Your ISP might provide a free one, depends where you will be "visiting" as to what level of protection you require. I had Kaspersky, and I loved it, but kind of technical.

Cheers.

CB

[bdivell]

Your ISP might provide a free one, depends where you will be "visiting" as to what level of protection you require. I had Kaspersky, and I loved it, but kind of technical.

Cheers.

CB

I have Kaspersky On my other laptop but the one i have for work is old so it doesnt meet the requirements , I am going to give avg a try

[digo]

unfortunately, with Vista and soon Win7 - we're still stuck with XP and will be for the
foreseeable future. Whatever you buy it needs to run XP or even Win2000.

I agree. It's nice to hear Windows 7 will have this feature. (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/25/1135211)

[noskilltech]

they are very compatible with control software. who told you that? i think you made that up. why would you make something like that up?
Why don't you make a list of software that is compatable with OSX for me. Because I know that none of the software that I use is compatable with OSX.

To be honest, I haven't used a mac since I was in Jr. High. I'm not a trendy little emo art student so I decided that I have no use for a mac.

[eparizher]

Just wonder what kind of control software is it possible to run on Mac.
And how to implement right button click?

[gbfromsd]

With left click only, control loops are snap man !

[neonhomer]

I would recommend a laptop with a true serial port, but with USB 2.0 and a PCMCIA slot or two.

I am in the process of looking for a new laptop myself. Want to get an Alienware, but I also want to find a laptop with a true serial port and PCMCIA.

I am using NOD32 for antivirus, and XP Pro SP3 for my OS.

[Burnt-Out]

Id go with a Kindle from amazon, sure it wont run anything that we need to get a job done - but battery life is killer, and they look sweet

[Cagey57]

We have been using AVG Free. Over a 2 week period I worked with 3 different IT guys that were running it so if it's O.K. for them .......:)

For very little money you can upgrade to the "Better" versions of the AVG if you want. Also check out the "Conficker worm" thread for malware stuff.

On laptops: I know of 3 techs that tried using MAC's with some of the OEM software. All 3 ended up (1 real soon, the other 2 after a few months) buying a PC mostly because of the extra software they had to or were going to have to buy to integrate the MAC OS with Windows compatable OEM software.

Found out from our IT guy that Alienware is made by Dell, go figure !

[digo]

...Found out from our IT guy that Alienware is made by Dell, go figure !

They were acquired in 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alienware

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0325/alienware.html

[control_8]

On laptops: I know of 3 techs that tried using MAC's with some of the OEM software. All 3 ended up (1 real soon, the other 2 after a few months) buying a PC mostly because of the extra software they had to or were going to have to buy to integrate the MAC OS with Windows compatable OEM software.


I guess I'm a little confused by this...wouldn't all you have to do is XP on boot camp or parallels? Obviously not too much (if any) controls software would work natively on OSX.

I'm also intrigued given the large install base of Macs at schools that more controls companies support Macs (esp. ALC using JRE for WebCTRL)...

[Cagey57]

At the UI level most "Controls Interfaces" are MAC compatable (Web Browser). At the "Device Level", meaning the creation and loading of the "Application Specific Controllers" (ACS) most manufacturers are heavily propritary with their software/utilities and also primarially PC (windows) based. JC specifically doesn't even support Vista and in some cases does not support multiple processors (not even HyperThreading on the older P4 processors). The 3 techs, 1 a controls tech and 2 service techs, had to support several older manufacturers lines that were/are in some cases still MS-DOS based applications using RS-232/RS-485 protocols and serial ports .

All 3 said that they were told that to get "Windows compatability" they had to buy the Win OS (in addition to the Mac OS already on the machine), install it on the Mac, and tweek it to work with the PC based software. None of the OEM's were willing to assist in the "Tweeking" process to get the stuff to work.

[control_8]

The 3 techs, 1 a controls tech and 2 service techs, had to support several older manufacturers lines that were/are in some cases still MS-DOS based applications using RS-232/RS-485 protocols and serial ports .

That's always fun...we're lucky enough that the MS-DOS programs we use for old projects still work with WinXP/USB to RS-232 converters...


All 3 said that they were told that to get "Windows compatability" they had to buy the Win OS (in addition to the Mac OS already on the machine), install it on the Mac, and tweek it to work with the PC based software. None of the OEM's were willing to assist in the "Tweeking" process to get the stuff to work.

Now I understand...that is to get official support from the OEM. I'm thinking it would work without "tweaking" since Apple includes drivers with BootCamp so that all their hardware would work with XP. I'm actually thinking on doing it (XP, controls software) with my MacBook for the fun of it (yes, I need a life).

[Some Dude]

Im going Mac , After vista i am totally done with microsoft if at all posible. Their greed has consumed them. Also my last dell is not anything like the one before it.
I refuse to buy an operating system that needs 300 dollars in extras to work well.
I refuse to but software / hardware that may or may not work with the comp.
I refuse to download program after program to do simple things,
Its just not worth my time and money.

At least with apple everything works together. Now i have to learn a new operating system.

[Cagey57]

In the 15 or 20 minutes I've spent "playing" with Mac's I can see how much more user friendly they are. For personal use I would probably bu a Mac over a "PC" (52/48 split in favor of the Mac).

For work......... I'm still a PC (definately NOT Vista !) and that's not likely to change in the near future, sorry ! Or maybe that's feel sorry for me ! Idunnknow ?

[osiyo]

Im going Mac , After vista i am totally done with microsoft if at all posible. Their greed has consumed them. Also my last dell is not anything like the one before it.
I refuse to buy an operating system that needs 300 dollars in extras to work well.
I refuse to but software / hardware that may or may not work with the comp.
I refuse to download program after program to do simple things,
Its just not worth my time and money.

At least with apple everything works together. Now i have to learn a new operating system.

Hmmmm.

Okay, of course whatever you think is best for you is fine and your choice.

Are you specifically referring only to problems with Vista?

My exposure to Vista is minimal. As I don't use it personally on my machines and probably never will. Some friends and family have bought machines with it loaded.

Their responses have varied. Their initial, first impressions, were fairly negative. But as MS patched and made fixes, MOST are pretty content with it now. Of course, these are primarily home users. So they're using the most commonly wanted and needed apps used by such.

SOME have reported displeasure with the fact that SOME, non-mainstream, software did not work or did not work well. Primarily this meant some high end games, with very specific software and hardware requirements.

But other than that the main problem seemed to be that they had issues that revolved around the fact that Vista is/was a new revision of Windows. That is, they were used to doing something THIS way in whatever previous version of Windows they'd used before. And that wasn't the way to do it under Vista.

In short, they didn't RTFM (or the built in help files). Of course, home users rarely do anyway.

When frustrated by the inability to do something EXACTLY as they'd always done it before, they ask a friend. Usually the friend didn't know a darned thing about Vista, and would tell em how to do it as it'd be done under XP, or previous versions of Windows. So were no help at all, and often obfuscated things even further.

Thus, I got a bit of exposure to Vista. Since I have the unfortunate reputation amongst family and friends of either knowing a lot of "stuff" already or being able to "figure it out". I'm also know amongst that same group as being a soft touch. Meaning, I'm easy, and will usually help em out. IOW ... I'm a sucker.

In any event, some things are indeed done differently under Vista. <Shrug> Not a big deal. It's common for certain details of how some things are done to vary from one major revision of Windows to another. Then, of course there are a couple of major differences associated with the attempt to improve security under Vista, as compared to XP. The UAC thing, and the fact that Vista does not like any application that tries to write to the Windows or Programs directories. The constant UAC warnings I found to be a nuisance. The attempts to stop any writing to the system or Programs directories actually makes sense, for a number of technical reasons I won't go into here. And there are workarounds for that issue, in MOST cases. Not all but most. You just have to be aware of the fact and take appropriate action.

And, of course, just as is the case with any major new revision of an OS, there was the drivers problems. MS had not yet produced Vista compatible drivers for everything. A pretty tough chore, given there are countless thousands of pieces of hardware and software out their which require specific drivers. And the vendors of said hardware and software had not yet revised their own drivers in every case. But this is pretty normal, also. Usually gets resolved in a year or two after the release of a new OS version. Unless you're using some really old hardware or software that doesn't and never did have a large user base. In which case no one may ever write an updated driver for such. Linux has much the same problem.

Anyway, I get whomever squared away. And they were generally happy afterwards and generally satisfied. Especially after I made sure that all the latest patches and updates were installed.

For myself, I've no interest in Vista. There are no significant improvements or abilities in it over XP that I care about or would actually use. Can't see a real reason to switch my personal machines over. Professionally, my work laptop stays XP Pro. I use a number of apps that simply won't run under Vista, and which will probably never be revised to work under Vista. For the makers of such apps, the work of revising is not yet determined to worth the effort. Since there are no indications that the business world has any inclination to adopt Vista in any significant numbers. So they're waiting. (FWIW, said apps also won't run on a Mac, either.)

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that one needs to spend hundreds of bucks extra, to run something on a Windows machine. And even after doing that, something may or may not work. You mean Vista? If one is using Vista, and trying to install older software/hardware it's probably best to check to see if said stuff is Vista compatible. Newer stuff should have a label clearly saying that it is or is not Vista compatible.

Myself, I make it a practice, and always have, that I NEVER switch over to a new OS until it's been on the market for at least a couple years. During the first year or two, at least, every new major revision has issues of the types I've mentioned. This is true of both Windows and Linux.

Don't know about Apples. Don't use em, probably never will. Have nothing against em, in particular. Except that they're even more proprietary than either Windows or straight Linux. The available software for them that is Apple specific is limited (of the type I'd have use for). Etc.

In short, for me ... I don't see a benefit to switching to an Apple machine.

But if they do the trick for others and satisfy their wants and needs, great.

If I were to switch OS's on my personal machines from Windows, would probably go for a commercial version of Linux. Commercial version since the makers of such provide better install and setup packages, better driver support, etc. Yet at the same time one doesn't need to buy hardware that's Apple specific.