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laptop

New Laptop Is In The House: Lenovo W701 Core i7 Review

Lenovo-W701 Review As you may have already noticed, I always was a ThinkPad junkie. This year I did a very extensive research, having that Lenovo was one of the last manufacturers to add Core i7-based laptops to their inventory. None of the laptops appealed as a worthy replacement, so as soon as W701 model was up on Lenovo’s site I had it ordered.

The specs aren’t beefed up as much as I would want them to be, but 8GB of RAM (with ability to upgrade to 16GB) and Core i7 were a must. While I was at it, for some reason, I decided to go with 17 inch screen option – which clearly was a mistake. The laptop came out to be extremely bulky and heavy – which sort of defies the whole purpose of having a laptop as a mobile (as in – you will be able to move with it) computer. On a bright side – the system can host 2 hard drives (with option for RAID) and an optical drive, something that had cost me a USB slot before.

The screen option, since I was going with 17 inches, is the WUXGA (1920×1200) RGB-LED-BL with hueyPro color calibrator. Since I do a lot of photography this turned out to be a good idea, having right colors and all. Of course, I did calibrate all my previous screens, but having a combo of a high-quality screen and color calibrator tailored for that specific screen is definitely a better approach.

Next big thing for any laptop is the keyboard. You think having laptops so many years around most manufacturers would have that part figured out, but it’s not the case. Most of them, following Apple’s lead, have attempted to create those “island” keys. They might look good, but hardly useful, especially for people who alternate between different keyboards all the time. Lenovo, while also following the trend with such keyboard on ThinkPad Edge systems, have made yet another improvement to the “real” ThinkPad keyboards. Just as I fell in love with my T42 keyboard and somewhat disliked T60’s, the keyboard on W701 is a step above all. Typing is a pure pleasure I haven’t experienced anywhere else. Since the size of the laptop allows it (it’s a beast) Lenovo has a numeric keypad included as well. Not that I personally has any use for it, but I’m sure I will – now that I have it available.

Perks of the system, aside from 5 USB ports, CompactFlahs and SD card slots, color calibration, web cam, fingerprint reader and both DVI and VGA connectors include small Wacom tablet with Wacom pen (which even has its own storage in the right side of the frame). While ordering I thought of this as of purely waste of money (there is no way to skip it if you order color calibrator option), but surprisingly I had immediately found the pen option very useful. Some of my mail (the one that comes in paper form) was stolen and some bank statements with it. Obviously I had to close the account and move all the automatic payments to new one, which – in some cases – requires sending a voided check with account number. So I scanned the check, voided it by simply writing over it with Wacom pen, signed all the required forms using the same pen and e-mailed everything back within minutes. Once I’ve realized what just happened I thought that such option might have some merit not only for artists, but even for ordinary people like me.

Overall build of the laptop feels bulky, old and excessive. I am used to thin boundaries of the screen, so the W701’s full inch (or more – on the top and bottom) frame around 17″ screen looks ancient. I am sure there are perfectly justifiable technology reasons behind it, like wireless antennas, web cam and so on, but I’m a consumer and I don’t care – I want the frame around my screen to be as thin as possible.

Speaking of bulky – the power supply issue is one of my major points of despair. Lenovo has changed the power connector YET AGAIN! Older power supplies from T60 and X60 series are not compatible – just like they weren’t between T40 and T60. But more to that – the power supply falls a few inches short of the size of my X61s. Yes, it’s that large. Surely, you need a lot of juice to power this laptop, but the power brick the size of another laptop itself – that’s something.

The battery is located underneath the front edge, below the keyboard, and there is no room for a larger battery, like in case of IBM/Lenovo T series. I realize that this is a desktop replacement, not really a portable solution, but it is still a laptop, so some effort should have been made to make larger batteries available. Given that 9 cell can only drive this powerhorse for less than 2 hours, I want more options.

The W line of ThinkPads is a newer addition to the growing inventory of Lenovo laptops. The T series is no longer a top level in terms of performance. Lenovo seem to be bringing the best from A, R and T series into the W line, but there’s definitely a room for improvement. We all used to having limited options for our hardware configurations, but given the size and capabilities of Lenovo’s T and W series, I would expect a lot more options in the next iterations.

The overall experience (I am using W701 for two weeks now) is very positive. Of course, there are couple of drawbacks, but in general I am very happy about the purchase – it provides me with all the features I need to get current and most of the future things done.

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business

Small Business Issues – Part IV

Since I have covered this business in three posts already it would have been worth it to post an update as events unfold. If you’ve missed it here’s the required reading – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 respectively.

The way thing were unfolding the business was supposed to crumble in 6 to 7 months. At least that was the term I have predicted based on all the issues I had uncovered back in March. So overall-  from my point of view at the moment – this company has got until about August to shut its doors. When I communicated this to the business’ manager he, obviously, didn’t quite trust me. We haven’t built that trust yet, as I was only doing initial assessment. Turned out I should have been paying more attention to the depth of the problems. But before we get to the conclusion – here’s issue #4 – problems with sales and marketing.

Although I’ve covered marketing somewhat in previous posts, I completely skipped on the way the pricing was made. As you may already know (and if you don’t – read on with more attention) the initial pricing is build based upon your cost of running business plus the margin. In other words, if the cost of doing business (CODB) per client is $100 and your margin is 20% (all numbers are not real and are just for example’s sake) then your minimum price of service per client should be $120. If you go lower than that then there is no point to be in business at all. You may slightly deviate in one way or another, based on market conditions, your own value proposition and competitive advantages you possess, but that’s how you determine the initial pricing. Once you’re ON the market – you can (and you must) take steps to reduce CODB and increase margins. Market won’t let you go far off the median – unless, of course, you’re government-mandated monopoly, like AT&T or cable companies.

So for this company in question the pricing structure was determined at the whim of the managing partner. Employees’ salaries tied in directly as a percentage of the price of service and, therefore, are also at the same whim. Having heard about so many promotions and sales event but having absolutely zero knowledge of how these things worked this partner distributed flyers and promo cards with 10, 20, 30 or – the latest – a 50% discount. Funny part is that his two employees who actually performed the services and collected the money found out about promotions from clients who showed up with promo materials. Of course with rates already lowest on the market their salaries were discounted into ranges of minimum wages or less. From previous experience I can attest that sometimes expensive places do these kinds of promotions for a very limited time to get new clients in. Experienced sales people pitch more expensive services that span longer periods of time, so overall this tactic is very successful. But just discounting your service by 50% out of nowhere is a message to the employees “we’re going out of business, grab what have left before we close our doors“. To the clients it reads like “we’re so cheap that McDonald’s looks like 5-star restaurant compared to us“.

As you may have imagined already the employees’ outrage resulting from latest 50% pricing cut was on par with recent volcano eruption. Both employees have quit on the spot. There wasn’t much of quitting involved though – the volume of clients only allowed for one and a half day of work per week.

Having said all that I must admin – I was (again!) being overly optimistic about those 6 to 7 months, it all fell down in less than three. In my defense I can only say that I based those assumptions on brief initial analysis.

Categories
business

But We Already Have A Web Site, What Do We Need A New One For?

The small business owners just don’t get it. We, the technical types, can hype ourselves about HTML5, Flash, patterns, interactivity, social features, geolocation and other cool buzzwords, but regular small shop owner couldn’t care less. They have enough on their hands to worry about, so why should they care about brand new web site if they already have “a web site”? Just because you want their money it doesn’t mean they are willing to give it to you.

Here’s what you can you, as a small business owner, should know about the web site and his business. First of all – even though you may not realize it, people are talking about your business. With the proliferation of the web sites like Yelp, Kirtsy and omnipresent Craigslist, there’s always somebody talking. As an example, let me tell you a little story of one of my remote relatives who owns a shoe repair business in Williamsburg.

One day he came back from work and told his family that one of his clients told him that someone somewhere on the internet posted that his business has closed. Family council have decided to take immediate measures and my number was dialed. I was told to fix the internet or whatever was saying that his business is closed. As you can imagine – I was thrilled at the task of fixing the whole internet on such a short notice. As it turned out – it was nothing more than some weird check box on Yelp’s web site that anyone can tick signifying that business has closed. Of course, there’s no way for Yelp to verify that, so they have just gladly accepted it – just like they did accept my correction of this. In just a click of the mouse the internet was repaired and continued to go on as usual.

As I have read, with much amusement, the business already had quite a few reviews. Most of them discussed the pricing structure – or rather a lack of one. A few more things here and there that I thought my relative should have known about – and I was ready to bring the happy news back to him.

What this boils down to is this – now matter how small your business are, in this day and age, there’s something online about your business. If it’s not your web site – then it’s someone else’s rant about your business (not necessarily a happy one). If, after such a rant, your potential client will see a web site that was designed by an 8-year old, that potential client will never become a real one. A few years ago you only competed for customers’ attention amongst your competition, but you always were. Now you’re competing against a number of sites that hold numerous reviews and ratings, people’s blogs and tweets and whatever else. Keeping up with all that flow of information with old and antiquated web site is just impossible.