The most likely possibility was that perhaps some pet hair or hair had gotten stuck inside and just needed a camera blower to clean it. I lent a concentrated amount of my own CO2 but to little effect. Other suggestions included burnt chips and an impending fire. I quickly shut it down and did not turn it on again.

A call to Lenovo saw me bounced around to 2 different venues thanks to the efficiency of outsourcing. So was the very polite advice, which was to bring it to the service centre where they would charge me $50 for simply looking at it (or at their discretion).

I protested that while IBM was still IBM, my Thinkpad was always looked at for free, then I would be charged if I required further work. Of course these were the same guys who, in Melbourne, pronounced my Thinkpad deader than dead, causing me to weep in my husband’s arms for its demise, only to start it up months later back in Singapore to find it running again, as if nothing had happened.

Further investigation uncovered that Melbourne’s erratic power supply may have been at fault.

Anyhow, while that old Thinkpad sits in the unexciting museum cupboard in my study reminiscing about the good old days (it worked for 10 years – might actually still work but I haven’t tried turning it on), I thought the Lenovo’s days were numbered when the smell persisted on the vent itself and I removed it from the room. I even contemplated buying a Mac, only to be rather concerned about the “toxic smells” coming from it too (Google: Mac+toxic+smell).

3 days later (and many hours wasted researching for a non-toxic laptop later), the smell was suddenly gone. A few good sniffs delivered just hot air up my nose and I was relieved that the need to search for another laptop was over.

Incidentally, Nokia is still the greenest company. Have a look at the Greenpeace report and see where Lenovo and the rest stand.

1. Pay all your bills online

You’ll save time and fuel paying online than standing in a queue for hours and later eating a fuel-guzzling meat patty on processed bread and trans fat-filled fries, then taking a fuel-guzzling cab or adding your weight to that piece of public transport home (costs less if you weren’t on it). Plus tell the billing company to stuff that monthly bill and send it to your email – save trees!

2. Watch your DVDs on your computer

Stuff that 50 inch widescreen HDTV. Well, who needs it anyway when you have your 21″ LCD computer monitor attached to your laptop, which combined, are so much more fuel-efficient. In addition to saving much money from NOT buying the TV, running an LCD monitor uses much less electricity than a CRT while using a laptop uses a LOT less electricity than a desktop (plus all those kickable parts – that’s how I broke my final and very last desktop – actually my chair did).

3. Book your air tickets online

They’re even cheaper online than offline. I swear! I haven’t called a travel agent in years. Then again I haven’t gone for a holiday in about that long so never mind. Not travelling. That’s green too.

4. Shop online

Aside from shipping that puny little thing you bought online and the 4 hours worth of electricity you’ve spent on browsing, you saved money and fuel utilised, from travelling to the mall, eating at the mall, travelling back from the mall with snacks you never intended to buy and the puny little thing you could have bought online.

5. Chat with your friends online

People actually spill more when typing to a pretty avatar. Didn’t you read MSNBC’s article on how bikinis turn men into boobs? It is hard enough to catch up with friends nowadays. Everyone is so busy with their lives. Plus chatting online relieves some workplace boredom and loneliness so it’s really good for morale. Tell your boss that the next time he catches you chatting to your friend who was also fortuitously online at the same time.

6. Turn off your screensaver

It saves your screen but no less electricity than when it is on. Turn off your monitor at the switch. That’s just as easy and you burn more calories doing so that if you just walked away. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Check out Mr Electricity’s authoritative website on saving electricity. He knows physics. He’s my new idol.

7. Turn it off when not using

The myth that it uses more electricity to start again than leave on has long been debunked. So turn it off and give that computer a rest already. Plus in case someone sits at your desk and tries to login to your computer, he or she will have that evil BIOS password to contend with. If you haven’t installed one already, what are you waiting for!

And for all the couch potatoing, let’s go take a walk round the block and stretch that achy back. It’ll save a fuel-guzzling trip to your masseuse.

Initially I thought the problem was just system restore. I’d managed to free 13GB by deleting all the old restore points (but the most recent will be retained) but still wondered how Vista and friends could take up 60GB!

Today I found out why.

Lenovo comes with its own Rescue and Recovery program and it makes scheduled backups. I found 3 and deleted all of them and disabled the scheduled backups. Now I have 54GB free, which is really more like it. 40GB was assigned to 3 backups! Imagine that.

If you have a space problem, wondering where the heck all your GB went, check out not only System Restore but also your manufacturer’s proprietary backup software that comes with your computer. Very likely it is sucking up most of your GB too.

On the upside, I now have a habit of backing up everything to my several portable hard drives (redundancy is so important) as well as to DVDs. It is a better way of backing up your important data and keeping your computer space free for important things. Like running WoW or Elder Scrolls III.

Is it for work, school, design, gaming, or just surfing and email? Each function requires a slightly different configuration.

If you need it for work or school, you’ll probably carry it around. So portability is a concern. You’d probably want to look at the laptops with a weight under 2.5kg (including battery pack – ah this they don’t always tell you in the specs).

If you want it for design, get one with a large screen and the best graphics card you can afford.

Similarly for gaming, you’ll want a large screen (minimum 14″ – come on, how are you going to PvP on a 12″) and a good graphics card.

In fact for the above two categories, get a desktop if you can afford the space and don’t need the portability. The price you pay for a laptop can buy you two desktops already. Or else just get an external 20″ screen. I have one. It is very very nice.

If you’re a light user, just surfing, blogging, and email, get a basic model with some scalability so you can expand with your growing needs. After all, with photo storage, everyone needs more than 100GB.

2. Decide on a budget.

Sigh… this is the part when reality bites. Perhaps I should retitle this, “decide on a realistic budget”.

Laptops are expensive. As I mentioned before, you can get 2 desktops for the price of 1 laptop, and usually with similar specs.

But there is nothing like a laptop nice and warm on your lap, beside you while you sleep, and greeting you with a startup when you wake.

Okay, I digress.

Yes, decide on how much you can afford and then match it to your needs.

3. Do some research.

So now you know roughly what you want, visit some review sites to see what you can get for that price and range. Then isolate your selection to let’s say 3 models and search online to see what peeps are saying about them. Read in particular what users say.

CNET Reviews
Epinions

or just Google it.

4. Go touch them.

This is what I call the “touch test”. You’ll be touching it, holding it, day in, day out. You have to like touching it. Hence, the touch test.

With technology, you can read the reviews and be absolutely certain you want something but then at the store, when you handle it for the first time, you become sorely disappointed. It is almost like having an online romance (not from personal experience but I can relate) and then meeting that person IRL.

Anyway, be prepared to be surprised.

I was, with my first digital camera purchase. I spent a month and a year deciding to get the Canon A70 but the moment I touched it I cringed. It felt so heavy, chunky, and plasticky. Vincent immediately passed me the Panasonic Lumix F1 and the moment I touched it, I was in love. Never mind I never read a word about it before the “touch test”. I bought it and spent many wonderful months with it.

So head to the store and touch the laptops. See if you like how the keyboard feels when you touch it. See if you like the touchpad or prefer the pointer (little nub thing). See if you like how it looks in real life.

5. Go haggle.

First, know the market price. Check them online. Browse the retail stores. Have an idea the margin with which you can wiggle.

Then after talking to the salesperson for a while, ask politely what is the best price they can offer you. Once you’re happy with the price (or if they can’t budge but you’re still happy with it), try to get the salesperson to throw in some goodies like free memory cards, DVD-Rs, an extra battery, and a nicer laptop bag.

Note: Computer fairs often throw in the goodies for free although prices are rarely that much lower, so if you can wait and don’t mind shoving thousands of other sweaty people, go then. Or, better yet, call the shops if they offer the same deal during the computer fair season at their shop and just go to their pleasantly empty shop then and buy it.

6. Sleep on it.

If you’re unsure, tell the salesperson you’ll sleep on it (maybe he or she will throw in the goodies at this point), and see if you can sleep at all. If you can’t, get up and surf a bit, look at its picture, and return to get it tomorrow.

1. Turn off Aero

Yes, you bought the upgrade for the pretty but it seriously lags your computer. I finally turned it off after yanking out wads of hair in frustration. Save your hair, especially if you’re a little short, and turn off Aero. Download some pretty themes instead.

Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> System and click that link at the very bottom called Performance. Choose Adjust visual effects and select Adjust for best performance.

2. Turn off Sidebar

Another pretty thing that sucks the speed from your computer. Turn it off. You lived 10 years without it, you’ll survive another 10 without it.

Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> Windows Sidebar Properties and unclick the Start Sidebar when Windows starts.

3. Use SeaMonkey

For some reason, Vista hates Firefox. It hangs, crashes, does everything bad it never did before. Or maybe not so surprising, considering Firefox is becoming the most popular browser around.

Solution: Use SeaMonkey instead. Download it here.

4. Cull your Startup programs

Remove stuff like Google Desktop et all, which you never used before Vista.

Solution: Head over to your Control Panel -> System and click that link at the very bottom called Performance. Then select Startup Programs and sift through carefully.

Let me know if these help. After completing steps 1-4, mine certainly did. Only thing is now I have to move all my dang bookmarks to Seamonkey (which really should have rebranded itself since it still looks like Netscape… but that’s for another post).

The good: I enabled the Aero display setting again and this time it doesn’t seem to lag the system as much. I decided since I am running Vista, I might as well maximise my user experience. I did shut down the Windows Sidebar, which I read slows the system considerably. That might have helped.

Next up, Firefox crashed on me again. Twice. The first time Vista managed to save it after (no more blue screen) grey screening it for about 30 seconds. The second time it died but the beauty of it is Vista managed to restore all the 10 tabs (yes yes… I overloaded the browser) with the actual pages all intact.

The bad: Even more software incompatible with Vista. ZoneAlarm (although they promise compatibility soon), Kerio Personal Firewall, even my USB Modem for M1 Broadband! I dread to find what else is incompatible. Haven’t tried any games or DVDs yet – I hear that’s where most of the conflicts lie.

Vista is a very different animal.

It is very slow but this can be rectified by removing the animations and special effects (which really just returns it to an XP xp). This I did almost immediately as the most annoying thing to me is a slow system.

Now, the interface looks deceivingly similar to XP and the earlier incarnations but hidden are the many regular functions we take for granted. Here’s one example.

When we shut down, we click Start and then the bottom right most button which is Shut Down. So naturally I did the same when I shut down the Lenovo the first time. To my surprise, it declared that I hadn’t shut it down correctly the last time and ran a scan. Hmm… I looked closer. Ah… that button I clicked was Sleep. I had to click to open the task list and then locate Shut Down amongst an array of buttons. Since, I have gotten it right.

Other functions like the Task list, Control Panel, and Display Settings all look a little different but can be gotten used to after a little meddling. For some reason the fonts look very blur when I choose a lower resolution. Could it be because I removed most of its jazzy graphic features? I have to go back and figure that one out.

I like: Better interface after you get used to navigating it. The novelty of the analog clock (thanks to Google?) and the slideshow of my baby and cats smiling back at me when I work. The lovely keyboard (okay, a Lenovo feature).

I hate: The speed and the space it takes. Plus so many of my beloved programs don’t work on Vista for now like SpyBot Search and Destroy. But this will be rectified in time I expect.

More on Vista when I start using more of the Lenovo. If you can’t wait, check out CNET’s page on Vista.