New stuff

New job means new laptop. New laptop means new laptop bag.

The new laptop is a Lenovo T61p with the 15" screen. I'm running Vista x64 on it and that part has gone smoothly so far. Design-wise, I think I liked my Dell D820 better. The T61p feels much heavier than the Dell (though I do have a 9 cell battery in this one), the screen is slightly off center, and I don't like the keyboard layout at all. I'm perhaps overly concerned about keyboard layouts and this one just doesn't do it for me. The biggest issues for me are that the arrow keys aren't normal sized keys, the escape key sits above F1, and the lower left corner is a special Fn key, rather than Ctrl. By default, Fn-Space triggers the built in Lenovo Zoom utility, which is really jarring when you just intended to pop up intellisense. I'm sure I'll get used to all that though.

The new laptop bag is an Ogio Metroid and it's nothing but fantastic. I was originally worried that the T61p wouldn't fit, but it easily does. The Metroid is a backpack with a laptop pocket, but it also has a file section in the front that keeps my papers from sliding down and getting crumpled in the main pocket. There's plenty of room for all my junk and the mp3 player pocket fits my external hard drive just fine. Plus, I got it from amazon for $60 (of which work reimbursed me $40).