| | 1 | = A ramble about making purchases = |
| | 2 | As a software architect, I make big decisions for a living. I spend hours |
| | 3 | and sometimes days drawing out all of the pieces of the puzzle, to decide if |
| | 4 | a proposed solution will work. I try to poke holes in it, find what's wrong |
| | 5 | with it, draft a replacement if it's unsatisfactory. Defend my own |
| | 6 | decisions, pick the correct technologies for the job and rationalize their employment based on criteria like robustness, support, sophistication. That |
| | 7 | being said, making major personal purchases is all too often very difficult |
| | 8 | and I never really am happy with the decisions I make. |
| | 9 | |
| | 10 | I find it particularly difficult to make selections that involve my working |
| | 11 | environment such as purchasing a new laptop for my main at-home use. The |
| | 12 | fact that I live in a sailboat has kind of set in recently, and I've figured |
| | 13 | out that due to the space constraints a desktop solution would not work for |
| | 14 | me. So it took me over a week to make a decision about which computer to |
| | 15 | purchase. And even then, the final two came down to not really the machines |
| | 16 | I wanted, but two of the several machines I found acceptable that were |
| | 17 | available in the United States. |
| | 18 | |
| | 19 | My first draft pick was the |
| | 20 | [http://samsung.com/uk/products/mobilecomputing/xseries/np_x60tv02suk.asp Samsung X60]. Unfortunately, this is from a line of Samsung devices created |
| | 21 | for the UK. Of which, the availablity in the united states (even when |
| | 22 | making an over-seas order from an online store) is pretty close to zero. |
| | 23 | The only one retailer I found selling the device in the US wanted more than |
| | 24 | twice the normal retail price for it. |
| | 25 | |
| | 26 | After making several attempts at finding a way to get this machine, I felt |
| | 27 | somewhat thwarted and constructed a list of machines I felt were acceptable |
| | 28 | and had all of the features I really felt I needed out of a notebook. |
| | 29 | Simple things, such as a dual core processor, lots of ram, a high resolution |
| | 30 | 15.4" wide screen, a fairly thin profile and a hot-swap bay where I could |
| | 31 | remove the optical drive and dawn an extra battery. Finding machines like |
| | 32 | this took quite a bit of time, since the bay actually seems to have become |
| | 33 | a very unpopular feature. So I finally narrowed it down to two contenders |
| | 34 | after a few days of looking. |
| | 35 | |
| | 36 | Today, I ordered a |
| | 37 | [http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2767 Lenovo Thinkpad T60]. |
| | 38 | I am neither happy with the decision nor do I know if it will be, because |
| | 39 | after noticing their sale (particularly in upgrade components) I managed to |
| | 40 | fiddle with the system configuration form until I had selected a machine |
| | 41 | that they claim will take until ''April 14th'' to build. That being said, |
| | 42 | I'm still not convinced that I made the right decision by not buying the |
| | 43 | [http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050488,39268623p,00.htm Asus V1J]. |
| | 44 | |
| | 45 | After all, I've had good luck with Asus in the past. I'm currently drafting |
| | 46 | this post on an Asus and although it's on it's last legs and hardly |
| | 47 | functional, it put in a fantastic 4.5 years of service and something like |
| | 48 | 20,000 hours of actual (ab)use. It's been thrown across the room a number |
| | 49 | of times (not by myself, and don't want to talk about it) dropped, received |
| | 50 | lots of spills, and whatever else you can imagine. But the whole purpose |
| | 51 | for buying my machine is as a birthday present for myself (from my |
| | 52 | girlfriend and I). And while the V1J looks incredibly sweet, and has every |
| | 53 | feature I could want other than a fast hard drive -- and a bunch I don't |
| | 54 | even know what to do with -- I thought the more wise decision would probably |
| | 55 | be the Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad. I've yet to figure out what in the hell made |
| | 56 | me think that, and as a result I won't be getting my machine for over three |
| | 57 | weeks dispite the fact that I paid for rush shipping. That alone gives me |
| | 58 | half a mind to call and cancel. |
| | 59 | |
| | 60 | Either way, I've already spent the money and I still haven't made up my mind |
| | 61 | which brings me back to what I was originally writing about. What makes |
| | 62 | purchases so difficult? It seems that, atleast speaking for myself, I have |
| | 63 | no problems making a decision that I will have to live with for months or |
| | 64 | years to come and standing by it. I take my time in making the decision, |
| | 65 | but once I make it I stick to it valiantly. When it comes to spending |
| | 66 | money however, particularly when there isn't a hard-line (low) budget |
| | 67 | involved, I find its very difficult to really figure out what to purchase. |
| | 68 | I eventually just come to a ''"cross your fingers and pray"'' point where |
| | 69 | I make a selection out of the remaining contenders just for the sake of |
| | 70 | making a decision. |
| | 71 | |
| | 72 | [[AddComment(appendonly)]] |
