Jon has made performance and scalability testing the focus of his career since 1988. He has completed hundreds of engagements encompassing thousands of tests against applications from every major industry and then some. To him, technology is a playground to which the rules of the game are constantly changing... Jon works out of the Arizona office (360+ sunny days a year; sorry east coasters) and lives in Goodyear with his wife and college son (Go ASU).
Tools that make consulting a pleasure
Over the years I have had many different laptop computers that I used on client sites. One of the nicer ones was a Dell Inspiron with a 15-inch screen and a 1600x1200 screen resolution. The drawback was it weighed over 10 pounds. In recent years I downsized my machines to a 12-inch screen with a 1280x800 resolution. I did this for a few reasons. First was that they only weighed about five pounds and second is that on my numerous plane trips I could actually open it up without having it pressed against my stomach; especially when the person in front of me reclined their seat.
Well, over the past year and a half I flew enough to attain platinum level status in the frequent flyer program for US Airways. I am getting upgraded to first class ahead of the hordes of gold level people. So I upgraded my laptop from a Dell XPS1210 to an Inspiron 1720. This baby rocks. It has a 17-inch screen with a 1900x1200 resolution. Here is the kicker; it has a full keyboard with a numeric keypad. It is a pleasure to use on client sites. I outfitted it with VMware so that I can create a virtual machine and load whatever tools I need in a matter of minutes, and when I'm done I just blow it away.
For added toys of convenience I found a USB powered network hub with four ports. I can't tell you how many times I was in a room with other consultants and there was only a single network cable. I also purchased a USB mobile battery to power USB devices (and my cell phone) and a USB fan and light. To round it all off I got a 320 GB mini drive. With all of this cool stuff I bought a rolling laptop case that also fits nicely on top of my suitcase for the airport (until I check my luggage). Now I have my sights on a mobile printer. I'm looking at a Cannon BJC85.
Does anyone have a BJC85 that can share their opinions of it? What about any cool gadgets or software?
Posted by Jonathan Harris on Thursday, August 28, 2008 11:46 PM EDT
Leave a comment
| 
There are currently no comments for this blog entry.