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As I gear up for the new band I'm putting together, I need to snag a couple of laptops. My needs are modest.
It'll be running Ableton Live, spitting midi and audio out a usb port to my audio device, a Steinberg UR22. There will also be a usb DmxIs unit for lighting. DmxIs runs in Ableton as a vst plugin. MIDI and DMX are exceedingly lightweight protocols, and there will be very little audio.
My priority is cheap and dependable. I'm buying two instead of one so that I have a hot swappable spare since it's live performance (I also have spares for both audio & dmx). I want something with Windows 7 pre installed. Even though I'll probably smoke it and do a clean install, this way I know they have the drivers for it. I don't trust Win 8 just yet as it's still fairly new and pro audio can be a bit bitchy.
Dell has an Inspirion for $400, but there are a lot of people complaining about quality. Here's an Acer for $430 that would be fine, and in fact I could go with a smaller screen to get the price down.
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-NX-M34AA-005-ASV3-731-4634-17-3-Inch/dp/B00CLZWK64/[^]
It looks like $400 is the going rate, would love to get closer to $300 if I could find something dependable.
I won't be gigging until early next year so I'm wondering if it's worth it to wait for Black Friday deals. If it's only going to save me twenty bucks I'd just as soon do it now and be done with it.
What do you guys think in terms of brand quality, deals, etc.?
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I would suggest that get a $500.00 Lenovo Thinkpad (even if its an older model).
Dont buy a cheaper Dell. Forget the cheaper quality, the awful support for home-users will drive you crazy. (Latitudes and Precisions are OK, but other than that it's a mistake).
Take a look at the L Series (Formally SL Series)[^]
Few years back I bought a Thinkpad SL510 from newegg.com for $320.00, all I did was installed an 80GB SSD and it still works great.
- It has the best built quality among all my laptops which also includes $1700.00 Dell Latitude.
- And surprisingly I am still getting driver updates for even Windows 8, on this 3-4 year old Thinkpad.
- The keyboard is slightly better than my Macbook Air.
- The only thing I dont like about the L/SL Series is the poor LCD viewing angle.
IMO, based on your budget, either buy a Thinkpad or Apple. 
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My work computer for the day gig is a Thinkpad and I like it very much. Maybe I should poke around and see if I can find a deal. 500 bucks a pop for two of them is a bit more than I care to spend, but you're right, I do want something dependable on the gigs.
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Ended up going with a couple of Thinkpads. They're typically built like a truck and I realized that since I'm hauling this stuff around to bars I actually care about that sort of thing.
Thanks for the help!
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Nice, those extra $$$ are well spent.
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Yeah, the pain in the wallet goes away quickly. The pain of a crappy product lives on day after day.
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Heigh-ho the merry-o, a rebuilding we will go.
One of the drives in our external RAID array has died. The last spare drive is now in the array, which is rebuilding merrily.
Now for the hard part; convincing corporate IT to buy me another couple of spare drives  .
Software Zen: delete this;
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Just present them with the dead drive, and a cost estimate for the lost work when the next one fails - and it will, it will...
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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Them: "It's just a backup, right? What are you guys doing your own backups for, anyway? We give you 100MB, what more do you need?"
Me: "It's close to 3TB. You won't give us the space or the bandwidth to get it to you." (we're in Dayton Ohio, they're in Rochester New York)
Them: "Then you shouldn't back up so much."
Me: "Grrrr...."
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: Me: "It's close to 3TB. You won't give us the space or the bandwidth to get it to you."
Hoarder 
Gary Wheeler wrote: Them: "Then you shouldn't back up so much."
Give them just the 100MB they allow you and see if they get the picture
Loading signature...
. . . Please Wait . . .
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Gary Wheeler wrote: We give you 100MB, what more do you need?"
Back everything you can up, until it fails. Then ask for a file you know is not in thier backups to be restored. 
Who has backups that are only 100mb anyways???
Common sense is admitting there is cause and effect and that you can exert some control over what you understand.
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check the serial numbers of the drives, we had a spate of failures that just so happened to have sequential serial numbers
(why on raid would you put drives in from the same batch? )
ps
if 2 drives fail you may not be able to recover
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Exactly! That's why I deliberately have drives from different manufacturers in my NAS - it's easier than checking batches when you order blank drives.
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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Gary Wheeler wrote: Heigh-ho the merry-o, a rebuilding we will go.
So you're not "Happy", I guess - which one are you then? 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
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I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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He's Grumpy of course!
speramus in juniperus
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Better Grumpy than Dopey...
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
-----
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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Bang-on, given that I don't have time for this crap today ...
Software Zen: delete this;
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Tell them that you'll have to initiate emergency back-up procedures until spare discs are acquired, but that having to print out every file every day, and then having to manage all that hard-copy output, might not prove to be incredibly cost effective.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Show them the last couple of day of Dilbert. (Start at least Sept 6) Tell them that will be how you need to retrieve your data due to failure.
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Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: Now for the hard part; convincing corporate IT to buy me another couple of spare drives
The time in $$$ that'll take will cost more than the drives.
Marc
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You're not kidding. I've priced three drives at roughly $200. I and the local IT guy will probably spend twice that amount in fiddle-faddle before the damned things show up on my desk.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I nominated One Direction and Bieber thousands of times. Destination[^].
I did it for the benefit of all humanity - I'll accept my Nobel prize later.
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A 5 does not do justice to your endeavours for man-kind.
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