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By leo.flor, July 29, 2012 15:20

When my old laptop suffered the inglorious death of being dropped, I had data on it that I hadn’t yet backed up.  Rather than pay some company (a potentially high-cost) to recover the content, I decided it was worth trying myself first.  So I bought this USB/SATA Hard Drive Adapter (@ PC Village, downtown Toronto).

Couldn’t be any simpler, you just remove the hard drive from the old computer, plug it into the adapter and the entire unit to the USB of another computer.  It works on different hard drive types (desktop/laptop).  I’ve decided it’s useful not only as a tool for recovery but also as a thriftier alternative to buying enclosed external hard drives.  I’m now taking drives from otherwise useless old computers and using them as extra backup storage, you can never have enough backups.  (To protect the circuitry I keep hard drives in antistatic bags after taking them out of the computers.)

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By leo.flor, June 22, 2011 10:31

After my laptop committed suicide (a contributing factor to why I haven’t blogged in a while!), I had decisions to make as to what I was going to replace that decrepit, obsolete piece of junk with.  I started my process in the same logical way I evaluate most devices: examining my interface with said equipment, namely the keyboard and screen.

A disturbing trend that I’ve noticed with laptops in Canada is the need to want to support French on the keyboard.  Frankly I don’t utilize enough French to make it worth it for one of my primary interfaces to be compromised.  (My problem with the multilingual keyboard is the placement of the enter and shift keys (as Peter so eloquently points out on his blog), among the MOST USED keys on a keyboard!)

It is crucial to your laptop experience to have a worthy screen and video card.  Your eyes will gaze upon this thing for countless hours, you want it to be pretty.

Lastly, your machine has to be fast and stable.  Nothing worse than your computer crashing constantly or it taking forever to open Windows Explorer (*cough* Vista *cough*).

After weighing all of these factors, I bought myself a refurbished Macbook Pro 15″ with anti-glare screen (support for 1680×1050 resolution, perfect for my eagle eyes). Refurbished on the advice of a friend who always buys refurbished Mac machines for his business, also Apple has a great warranty and they test the heck out of the refurbs, I’m told.  Most of these are just open-box returns anyway, good way to save a couple of hundred bucks.

At first I wanted to stick with PC but none of the laptops I looked at really did it for me.  Perhaps I was soured by my recent experiences with Microsoft OSs but something told me it was time to look at Apple. After all, my iPad has proven to be a useful, elegant tool, why not give their laptops a look.  I figure if I wanted to get nostalgic, I could always install Windows with Boot Camp or run Parallels.

Likes:
I splurged on the screen upgrade because I want to see a lot of screen real estate.  And call me spoiled but since I’ve been working from home much more frequently, I wanted to be able to sit in the sun and stay connected (it’s summer, get outside!).  Also, Spaces (virtual desktop) is beautiful, reminds me of the Unix machines I worked and played with for Computer Science courses at the University of Waterloo and my first programming job (I had an SGI on my desk).

Speaking of nerding out, I love that Terminal allows me to truly relive those Unix glory days.  I may have to break out a shell programming textbook!

LOVING Apple shortcut keys and gestures on the Multi-Touch Trackpad.  As I anticipated, I easily adapted to new shortcuts.

Dislikes:
Price – Time will tell whether I got what I paid for.  So far, so good.

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By leo.flor, August 19, 2010 09:49

The first product team I worked on at Microsoft was in the Mobile Electronics Group.  I was a Software Tester for Microsoft Pocket PCs which was trailing in the marketplace at the time to Palm.  I was like a kid in a candy store coming in to work every day, I have loved little electronic gadgets my whole life.

Me “getting reps” on a Nintendo Gameboy (reference to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell)

The Pocket PCs were very functional, I liked how it synced with Outlook; Office Documents like Excel and Word were not only viewable but editable.  Although there were not a lot of websites formatted to the small screens of the PDA web browsers, you could surf with them.  My favorite app for it was Pocket Streets.  In a time before Google Maps, it was like having Mapquest on you which was handy living in a new city.

No matter what though, the electronic organizer market would not breakthrough to everyday consumers until they were combined with cell phones (they seemed to figure this out right away in Japan).  Ahh the smartphone, what would we do without you.  If today’s everyday business world was the old wild west, your smartphone would be your gun.  Like guns, different ones are suited to different people.  Make sure you pick a good one for you.

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By leo.flor, August 18, 2010 12:08

My first computer, a Tandy 1000 HX

Since owning my first computer I have followed the nerd path.  Early on I made it a goal for myself to someday work for Microsoft.  When I was in high school Microsoft was THE place to be.  The home PC (personal computer) market was just about on the cusp, the tipping point.  I knew that Microsoft recruited many Waterloo grads which was why my primary objective was to get in there.  I even put two University of Waterloo programs on my application.

My time at the University of Waterloo was absolutely invaluable.  I met most of my inner circle at this great institution.  It provided me knowledge and challenged me every day not just preparing me academically but also for the rest of life’s lessons.  Waterloo’s co-op program was a big reason I decided to go to there.  It seemed completely logical that I get work experience as well as have some ability to pay for my schooling along the way rather than racking up a huge student loan.

On my 5^th and 6^th work term I had the collision and realization of two dreams.  I was accepted for an internship at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington.  I can’t say enough of what a great experience it was to be an intern at Microsoft.  Being around so many talented people can only help you grow too.  Seattle was a cool city to live in and the surrounding area Pacific Northwest is absolutely beautiful.  I’m certain that this was where I fell in love with snowboarding.  It was easier to travel to cool places like Whistler and Las Vegas from there too.    I was able to reconnect with family that was in Vancouver which was the cherry on top.

My office during my second work term at Microsoft.  I had three computers at my disposal localized to different languages; I was testing Encarta Interactive English Learning in Spanish, French and Japanese.