Vaardu

Thought it'd be relevant.

Hope they do a re-release of a Nokia E90 Communicator.

Are you allowing VirtualBox to take control of the microscope? If you click "Devices", it should show you what is connected to your PC and allow you to pass it through to VirtualBox.

I used to smell of it when I went to college on my scooter. On the topic of little things that make me happy, I guess finding some listings of computers or toys from childhood do.

I have an old Nokia smartphone that I wish to use again and perhaps others, I don't throw away many electronics because they still have use left. The problem I have is the batteries. There are many battery replacements for Nokia smartphones, and in this case, a Nokia E90 Communicator. I have one, and the original battery isn't in good shape now and was wondering if anyone has bought a CS branded battery from eBay?

There was a 1920x1200 D830? I have the 1680x1050 version. The fan's been replaced but it kind of hums and not sure how to solve that.

My old X230 has cracks and missing rubber feet. I wouldn't call that top quality, personally. My older D430 and D830 are almost rock solid, and I've yet to acquire a T400 or a T60 to compare, because those were tanks.

Apparently digital cameras like my GH4 has a 29m 59s limit. Kind of ridiculous considering the USA don't have any limit.

Cracking yokes is fun.

Stupid stuff I bought? Well I suppose I bought what was once pointless was the Fizzbook Spin NL1. But it's not pointless anymore after I restored it. Does that count? EDIT: I suppose the VTech kids toys I bought from eBay over the years count. I have an I.T Unlimited, the I.T Laptop, a kid's laptop called "Slimline MPE-342", a kid's computer called the Impact, a kid's laptop from 2002 called the Researcher Notebook. These were impulse buys. I just had to have them. Not only I wanted them just for giggles, I wanted them because history. It's history to me. I'm still confident of finding alternative ways of using them.

Getting that satisfaction of fixing a computer that you couldn't fix a while ago. Or perhaps putting a laptop back to working order. That feeling is what keeps me going to be honest.

Trotting in to say neigh to that.

Honda S-Wing 125, but I've not ridden it in months. Being on L-plates is kind of a bummer, and embarrassed myself so many times by dropping the bike and being terrible at negotiating roundabouts. It's no wonder I've not done my test (I cannot handle a manual as well as I thought) and attempting to do anything involving handling my scooter as it's impossible to push the bike around on a flat road. It's a heavy 125. Makes me wonder if I do go manual, I end up with an MSX 125 because even if it looks small, I should be able to handle that a little better. I've been riding 3 years, and not long after one year of riding I've been subject to abuse by other drivers on the road.

VTech and computing I don't think I've met anyone else who is several years older than me, as a 22yr old who remembers the time before your parents granted you a computer; you had something less advanced, yet you still did the usual computing stuff. The brand in particular may very well be familiar to you as a child. VTech is known for their Laser 128, IQ Unlimited and the like. But in this case, I'm talking about the I.T Unlimited and the I.T Laptop and the Impact. These are kids toys, yes... However, the charm's within what these toys were actually capable of. Notably, only the basics such as programming (LOGO and BASIC), spreadsheet, word processing, printing and most cases emailing. For printing, these sported parallel ports and for data transfer, a serial port. To make it more interesting, these toys also sported what appeared to be preloaded drivers for the printers listed. There were over a dozen parallel printers within that list. Before I go off-tangent on just one part of the subject, this is more about how that's kind of changed since the mid 2000s. Kids using tablets, smartwatches and "smartphones". There's no interest in actual computing to the majority. It's not surprising how developers and hardware developers do things such as the Raspberry Pi with the CANO/KANO to encourage children to get into computing. Looking at VTech back in, let's say, 1998 and 1999. VTech did their part in kid's computing with the I.T Laptop. Sold in 1998, it had all the bells and whistles of an actual computer. Be printing, spreadsheets, word processing and email, even some BASIC programming. Considering the amount of them on eBay I've seen over the years, I could say it was almost adequate. The downer was the lack of a backlight, making it almost useless if you are in overcast and in dim-lit rooms. It was advertised with the capability of email and newsgroups. Unfortunately due to the scarcity of the official accessories of these things, I cannot try for myself. So, this is a pursuit of mine I wish to accomplish just for the novelty. At this point in 2017, I currently own 4 VTech toys capable of (or previously capable, as modems and printers are borderline non-existent) some barebone networking and correspondence. I was also hoping if anyone else here remembers anything of the sort back in their day. The brains of the toys VTech's I.T Laptop was interesting to partially disassemble. What I discovered was actually surprising. As it's a kid's toy marketed for 12 to 16yr olds in the US and UK, it is eligible to be called an actual computer. The brains of actual laptop is of course seen in PDAs and I believe certain portables of the 90s. The I.T Laptop actually sports a Motorola FreeScale DragonBall CPU (left) as the heart. There were ROM chips and RAM chips here and there, the storage for the "C:"[ATTACH=CONFIG]47196[/ATTACH] drive and memory for programs. It appeared to sport around several megabytes of storage and RAM. Most seemed to be branded from AMD and in-house. Unfortunately, I wouldn't even dare myself to attempt to run a different OS on the kid's laptop because something is bound to go belly-up. But it is interesting to note that the TV counterpart (I.T Unlimited) also sported a Motorola CPU and another large chip right in the middle of the board, but I've no image of that because internally there's another board covering that chip.

I realised the plague of Fizzbooks being problematic here on this forum. It's no wonder those have ever been abandoned and in some cases, put up on eBay for someone else to suffer with more problems. But that wasn't the case for me. Prior receiving my Fizzbook Spin NL1 from eBay, I had one from Argos. Knowing myself in 2009 and all, I ended up with a ThinkPad SL510 from the refund, which had it's own issues lead to its demise of a dying motherboard as of 2017. This one had issues, mainly BSODs and most cases, touchscreen glitches. Now, considering other users here work or worked in schools had a fleet of these, it was almost a no easy task for myself to get one working as it should. My particular Fizzbook runs Windows XP Professional with Office 2003. When I got it, I only got the unit with one adapter and it had no stylus and lacked the cover for the HDD and RAM. This is where things went even more downhill. This netbook uses no ordinary 2.5in drive we see in many many laptops. It's one of those iPod hard drives or drives previously had in Macbook Airs from 2009 and notably used in the ThinkPad X300 and Dell Latitude D420 and D430. Although, the Dells use a thicker HDD, so those wouldn't have fit the Spin's internal space. Now, I have two of these NL1s from eBay because of parts. One had the missing stylus and cover along with some missing screws, and an almost-dead battery. And the other had a better battery, the underside cover and stylus yet looked more battered. Under the NL1 with the cover present, it had what I needed for installing the drive (which was a plus because I was almost ready to buy the rubber caddy and a new ribbon cable) and a drive already in it. This drive was on its last legs, and it was in bad shape upon turning it on. Installing XP was the easy part, but the OEM key on the device wouldn't have worked. Regardless if I had used a XP Home CD, it wouldn't have worked and accepted it. So, to elaborate, the XP Pro install was obtained from eBay as well. Looking for drivers was the hurdle I had to get over. I had the choice of using CTL's drivers for their NL1, and obtaining some from Zoostorm (which I have already received a DVD with everything I needed). Zoostorm did their part, although in a more tedious way (you need to contact them and they will NOT charge you anything for it). After the setup and being relieved no further changes needed to be done during it, installing drivers became a breeze as the screen is now calibrated. It runs XP, it runs smoothly and surprisingly quick loading up Word 2003 or OneNote 2003. The Fizzbook Spin NL2 I also possess didn't need more than a new 2.5in drive and that was that. Windows 7 Pro on there accepted the key under the device as it should. Definitely an adventure for me, and a bit of a throwback because I loved small netbooks like the Asus EEE PC 701, Vye's ultraportable PC and the like. I'll have pictures up on this blog, but as of at the moment providing pictures with my desk in an atrocious state because unfortunately I'm a little lazy and laid-back...