My Alaskan Arctic T43p (pic!) (*FIXED!)

[identify9]

First time posting - joined today after much lurking about. Thanks to everyone who has inadvertently contributed to my (limited) knowledge and understanding this past year.

Here's a pic (if it shows up) of my beloved T43p - sitting on the steering wheel of my Kenworth tractor which is pulling a Vacuum trailer which is parked a few hundred feet away from the Nordic 2 drilling rig at Milne Point in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It was a balmy -14 F today with a refreshing breeze. This is my normal desk setup, BTW - I spend about six months out of the year up there, and there's a LOT of waiting around in the modern oilfield. I've got a lap desk thingy that attaches to the wheel to which I velcro the laptop. Sometimes there's decent wireless from the rig (today was one of those), but mostly I connect via cell phone that I boost with a Wilson cell booster. Works pretty well...most days.



That's Crunchbang Linux that I'm using - my current favorite distro

-Steve

[Saucey]

There's no photo!


Welcome to the forum!!

[identify9]

Fixed! (I hope...)

[Neil]

Yep, I can see the picture now. But the drilling rig shows up better in the pic than does the ThinkPad.

BTW, the temp today, way down south, here in Ark. was not much different than up there. High was 21 F, with a nice 10-15 mph breeze.

[identify9]

Hard to get far away enough to take a decent shot inside the cab. Trust me though, it's a very pretty machine

It's been an interesting winter, hasn't it? After living in Alaska for 35 years, we just relocated to Colorado Springs. I came back to work at the beginning of December, and a few days into my hitch it warmed to 45F and started raining - trucks were sliding all over the place, and it just about shut the field down. In the meantime, Colorado Springs (and most of the rest of the lower 48) had a subzero blizzard. I was amused - my wife, not so much.

[Dos3.1]

Cold shot...I mean, cool! Well, cold, too! Though, right now, here, it's -20C (with a wind), or about -5F.

Please take more pics. It's interesting to see "ThinkPads around the world!" Speaking of which, I'll be making some "ThinkPad porn" of my own soon, to show off my collection

I took a look at Crunchbang and think I'll give it a whirl next. So far I've mostly been running Mint with the odd Ubuntu, and some older distros to try and get older TPs (A20, R30, 600) to work ((Edit: I'd spell this first distro out, but it got flagged the first time, lol!) DSL, Puppy, Lubuntu, etc., whatever is "light" first and foremost). Still experimenting on those machines, but haven't had great luck. My T60s are happy with Mint and sometimes Ubuntu (mostly, it can do some odd things, like lose wifi ability!).

Welcome, stay warm, keep the rubber side down and between the ditches...

[identify9]

I like the idea of 'ThinkPads 'round the world'. Like Flat Stanley, or garden gnomes, or pink flamingos - showing up in exotic, unexpected locales - running with the bulls, skydiving...possibilities are endless.

I've been running #! for about a month now - like it very much. Tiny footprint, but can do everything I need fast, fast. I love having the Conky up where I can see it most of the time, and take it as a personal challenge to utilize as few resources as possible. The biggest problem of course, is the demands of the modern Web. Right now, I've got Chrome up with five tabs, and I'm almost maxed out on RAM (one of the tabs is YouTube). I've gotten fond of going back in time and browsing with text browsers - W3M and Lynx mostly. Was very excited to find Links2 tonight - don't know how I missed it earlier - superfast, great image and video support, and renders pretty close to the way the page looks in a graphical browser. Now if I could just get it to load Gmail....

Let me know how your #! goes. The only trouble I had with it on my T43p was the Trackpoint - was like pushing a particularly dull rock through a screen of clay. Had a lot of trouble with scripts and the command line (been using Ubuntu as primary OS, so am deeply ignorant of Linux) - finally found a GUI utility call 'configure trackpoint', which has solved all my problems.

[Dos3.1]

I like the idea of 'ThinkPads 'round the world'. Like Flat Stanley, or garden gnomes, or pink flamingos - showing up in exotic, unexpected locales - running with the bulls, skydiving...possibilities are endless.

Yes, hilarious!

Let me know how your #! goes. The only trouble I had with it on my T43p was the Trackpoint - was like pushing a particularly dull rock through a screen of clay. Had a lot of trouble with scripts and the command line (been using Ubuntu as primary OS, so am deeply ignorant of Linux) - finally found a GUI utility call 'configure trackpoint', which has solved all my problems.

I've got my first T43 coming to me in a few days! Can't wait, as I've heard it's one of the best and I've never even seen one before! I have a T42 (and it's great), so in the same neighbourhood.

As for Linux, there's tons for me to learn, too...it's cool, tho' - kinda like the old computer days, with text browsers as you mentioned, when the WWW was just starting off, and the BBS was king! (Ever seen BBS the Documentary on YouTube? Excellent!!!)

[Norway Pad]

Nice shot, I like the T43P. I have one on its way from the US these days, looking forward to exploring the UXGA world not only through a T60 but also a T43.

For the temperatures in general, I visited my mom yesterday. She lives further north from where we live, and I had the "pleasure" of experiencing -15F. Luckily I have an electrical engine preheater on the BMW, but it took a while before the shifting and steering was smooth. Otherwise, weather has been strange so far this winter. We had rain and no snow at all before early January, and December was all rain and ice, like indentify9 describes for the beginning of December in Alaska.

I like the idea of 'ThinkPads 'round the world'. Like Flat Stanley, or garden gnomes, or pink flamingos - showing up in exotic, unexpected locales - running with the bulls, skydiving...possibilities are endless.

Maybe one of us should start a thread like that in this forum section? I would be happy to do so later this weekend. Flat Stanley style pictures of Thinkpads around the world. Taken outside, and if possible showing ones favorite Thinkpad in front of a scenery specific to that country or place. Or even more spectacular shots, showing the Thinkpad in locations or situations where you normally wouldn't expect to see one.

[ZaZ]

It was a balmy -14 F today with a refreshing breeze.

I went to get groceries today, about noon, it was -12°F, though it has warmed up to -8°F right now.

I always wanted to drive the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse. Summer seems like a better idea.

[Temetka]

Nice pic of your machine in action at the job site. Your choice of Linux dsitro's is rather nice as well.

Regarding temps: It's 70 degrees Fahrenheit at my house here in southern California. I'm getting cold just looking out the window of your cab.

[identify9]

Watching BBS right now - that's fascinating stuff. I don't know why I get so jazzed about old tech, but I do

Good for you on the 43! I'm planning on collecting all the 40's - and crushing my enemies when the T50 board becomes available, lol.

I like the idea of 'ThinkPads 'round the world'. Like Flat Stanley, or garden gnomes, or pink flamingos - showing up in exotic, unexpected locales - running with the bulls, skydiving...possibilities are endless.

Yes, hilarious!

Let me know how your #! goes. The only trouble I had with it on my T43p was the Trackpoint - was like pushing a particularly dull rock through a screen of clay. Had a lot of trouble with scripts and the command line (been using Ubuntu as primary OS, so am deeply ignorant of Linux) - finally found a GUI utility call 'configure trackpoint', which has solved all my problems.

I've got my first T43 coming to me in a few days! Can't wait, as I've heard it's one of the best and I've never even seen one before! I have a T42 (and it's great), so in the same neighbourhood.

As for Linux, there's tons for me to learn, too...it's cool, tho' - kinda like the old computer days, with text browsers as you mentioned, when the WWW was just starting off, and the BBS was king! (Ever seen BBS the Documentary on YouTube? Excellent!!!)

[identify9]

And I've got a new to me T60 on the way!

This has been the strangest winter I've ever seen in 35 years in Alaska. The world is quite obviously mutating into something different than what we've come to expect as far as weather goes.

Yes, please do start the thread. Aurora's doing rain - http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=110097, I'll do the Arctic, you do raids on unsuspecting villages, etc. - it'll be awesome!

Nice shot, I like the T43P. I have one on its way from the US these days, looking forward to exploring the UXGA world not only through a T60 but also a T43.

For the temperatures in general, I visited my mom yesterday. She lives further north from where we live, and I had the "pleasure" of experiencing -15F. Luckily I have an electrical engine preheater on the BMW, but it took a while before the shifting and steering was smooth. Otherwise, weather has been strange so far this winter. We had rain and no snow at all before early January, and December was all rain and ice, like indentify9 describes for the beginning of December in Alaska.

I like the idea of 'ThinkPads 'round the world'. Like Flat Stanley, or garden gnomes, or pink flamingos - showing up in exotic, unexpected locales - running with the bulls, skydiving...possibilities are endless.

Maybe one of us should start a thread like that in this forum section? I would be happy to do so later this weekend. Flat Stanley style pictures of Thinkpads around the world. Taken outside, and if possible showing ones favorite Thinkpad in front of a scenery specific to that country or place. Or even more spectacular shots, showing the Thinkpad in locations or situations where you normally wouldn't expect to see one.

[identify9]

Minnesota is often much, much worse than up here - even before the weather got weird. Nice thing up here is that it's usually super dry and not particularly windy. Wind and humidity ruin -50F - otherwise it's quite pleasant for a few minutes.

I've never driven the Dalton, but have lots of friends who are line haulers - and a good buddy who did it on his motorcycle last year. Just make sure to do drive it before breakup or after it's dried out in late summer. Breakup is no fun at all, especially now that the permafrost is less perma than it used to be.

BTW, the ones who really impress me are the ones who show up on Deadhorse on bicycles. Holy Cats!

It was a balmy -14 F today with a refreshing breeze.

I went to get groceries today, about noon, it was -12°F, though it has warmed up to -8°F right now.

I always wanted to drive the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse. Summer seems like a better idea.

[identify9]

Thank you, thank you. I'm really liking #! - really nice community also.

I get nauseous from the heat at around 70F. Last time I was in San Diego was Christmas of '95. It was around 80F. I cowered inside as much as possible, lol.

Nice pic of your machine in action at the job site. Your choice of Linux dsitro's is rather nice as well.

Regarding temps: It's 70 degrees Fahrenheit at my house here in southern California. I'm getting cold just looking out the window of your cab.

[Dos3.1]

Please take more pics. It's interesting to see "ThinkPads around the world!"

I like the idea of 'ThinkPads 'round the world'. Like Flat Stanley, or garden gnomes, or pink flamingos - showing up in exotic, unexpected locales - running with the bulls, skydiving...possibilities are endless.

Maybe one of us should start a thread like that in this forum section? I would be happy to do so later this weekend. Flat Stanley style pictures of Thinkpads around the world. Taken outside, and if possible showing ones favorite Thinkpad in front of a scenery specific to that country or place. Or even more spectacular shots, showing the Thinkpad in locations or situations where you normally wouldn't expect to see one.

Go for it, Norway Pad, glad you like my idea and identify9's expansion on it!

[Temetka]

So seeing #! on your laptop made me want to try it out again as I tend to distro hop a lot. A simple torrent later, a new VM in virtualbox and I am up and running. So nice and clean compared to a lot of the distro's I have been using. I was pleasantly surprised to see conky installed and running as part of the default setup. Very nice touch on their part. So thanks to your Thinkpad and pic, I have re-discovered a rather nice *nix variant.

I am in the process moving everything back to my Latitidue E6500 for use as my primary computer. I think #! will become the distro I for dual booting once everything is all setup. Maybe tomorrow I'll bust out my S3 and take a pic of this laptop that has really come to fit me like a glove.

[identify9]

I am very happy to have played a part in your distro hopping adventures

This has definitely been my favorite so far. Enjoyed Ubuntu when it wasn't so overblown, tried Mint (meh), Puppy (really like it intellectually, but I need to know more before getting the most out of it), and Tiny Core (same story). I'm going to try Peppermint on an X40 shortly - hard good things about it on older hardware - though it's hard to imagine anything better than #!

My next step will be to lock Windows away in a virtual box and only being it out in dire straits

Sent from my phone which wishes it could have been a T43p

[identify9]

BTW, which S3 do you have? And have you rooted it? Having a bad time with mine...

Sent from my phone which wishes it could have been a T43p

[Temetka]

I was just gifted an E6520, so moving all my stuff to it.

With regards to the S3, it's an AT&T S3. No, I have not rooted it. I don't have any plans too. It's a company phone. It's mine, but the company paid for it, all I pay is the $7 a month insurance. Since it's a tool I need for work, I won't be rooting it.