[link|http://www.jbidwatcher.com/|JBidWatcher] is a Java application that lets you keep track of auctions on eBay. What's very nice about it is it also lets you "snipe" at auctions without being tied to your PC (e.g. if you're bidding on an auction that ends during office hours). ("Sniping" is when you bid on an auction just before it ends.) Unfortunately, it seems like that's often the only way to have a chance of winning on some types of items, so something like JBidWatcher is a nearly-essential tool.

There are services out there that will snipe for you, but the idea of giving a web site my eBay ID and password doesn't appeal to me.

It runs very well, is easy to use and has worked well for me. On my cable modem connection I was able to set the snipe time to 10 s and win an auction.

I took a star away because it's a Java application, but it works well in spite of that. I used the Windows package:

JBidWatcher-1.0pre6.exe 990,222 bytes.

Cheers,
Scott.

I'll see about trying it on the new toy I expect in a few days - a Fujitsu [link|http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=P7120D|P7120D]. Assuming Mepis installs on it without incident, of course.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.

The DVD/60GB/Atheros/Bluetooth version. It was about $1345 on eBay (+shipping/tax). I hope to have it by the weekend, but it'll probably be next week. It may be a few days more after that before I can get Linux on it.

I had to bid on a couple before I was able to win one. I love the idea of it being so light and small, having a 1280x768 display, and having such great battery life. Being able to have an optical drive or an additional battery was a nice plus too.

If it had gone above my limit, I would have ordered a new one from NewEgg. They have been having weekend sales on them that drops the prices to ~ $1500/$1800. If you're thinking about one, these specials seem to be related to back-to-school, so they may end at the end of the month. Of course, the price should be lower in a few months, assuming you can find one.

The [link|http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=Q2010|Q2010] seems to be the latest version. It's nice - bigger screen, Core Solo - but it has soldered memory and a 1 GB limit. It's very spendy too.

(Note that the cheaper version of the P7120 with the CD-RW doesn't have Bluetooth - if that's important to you.)

I thought about a MacBook, but I don't think the Core2 would have anything close to the battery life of this thing. It's smaller than the MacBook too.

A bad thing about this laptop is that it uses a special memory module: DDR2 400 MHz Micro-DIMM (172 pin). It's very expensive to max it out at 2 GB. The cheapest compatible 1 GB modules for it that I've seen are [link|http://store.ememory.biz/fpcem182ap.html|$389 for 1 GB] - Fujitsu wants $850 - for 1 GB. (Newegg has 512 MB modules, but they're not DDR 333 parts.)

I'll report back when I have a chance to play with it a little.

Cheers,
Scott.

It's a very nice little box. The keyboard works well, the screen is pretty nice, but not perfect, and it's amazingly light weight even with the DVD replaced by the 2nd battery. I'm sure I'm going to be very happy with it.

I haven't used it much yet, and haven't installed Linux on it yet, but it's worked well with WinXP with the extra 512 MB of RAM installed. (I can't really say how much slower it is with only 512 MB - I bought more before I even received the laptop.)

The wireless networking works fine. I haven't tried to burn a disk with it. Since I've got a 512 MB, 1 GB, and 4 GB memory stick, I don't think I would be burning many disks with it anyway. It's a "nice to have" thingy in case other drives die.

It's very small and very light-weight. It weighs 2-3 pounds less than my T41 and it's noticable in a briefcase.

There are a few minor things I don't like about it:

1) The lower left and right corners of the screen are noticably dimmer than the rest. It's not much of a bother, but I'd be pissed if I spent over $2k on it.

[edit:] There is one pixel that is stuck on (green) about 3 mm from the left edge. Otherwise, the screen is fine. [/edit]

2) I had one key come partially un-snapped. It snapped back in place easily, and hasn't come undone again, but I wonder a little about the durability of it.

[edit:] It happened again this morning (the A key). One of the Stooges on Jabber ;-) pointed out that replacement keyboards are available on eBay for ~$20. I might grab one, but so far it's not a major problem.[/edit]

3) The drive bay battery was completely dead after having the system turned off for a couple of weeks. It's charging up fine (the main battery charges first, then the bay battery), but why did it happen?

[edit:] It charges and discharges the batteries sequentially. The main battery is charged first, the secondary battery is discharged first. I need to make sure it does a full shutdown as it defaults to suspending when the lid is closed.[/edit]

4) The touchpad driver doesn't seem to have the finger-scrolling that I'm used to with my T41. I don't know if there's some other way to get it working.

[edit:] The laptop has a fingerprint reader. Rubbing a finger across it enables either the scroll-wheel action I was looking for, or it pops up an icon on the screen (like on some Logitech mice) that lets the touchpad smoothly scroll the screen up or down. In looking around some more, I see that it is possible to enable scrolling on the touchpad itself. It uses a [link|http://www.synaptics.com/support/index.cfm|Synaptics] touchpad. [/edit]

5) There are some drawing artifacts in the "tray" at times with [link|http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/|TClockEx] - a fancy taskbar clock. I have to stretch and shrink the number of rows in the taskbar to make it redraw correctly. I've never seen that with Win2k. I don't know if its related to XP or the screen geometry or TClockEx.

[edit:] This seems to be a problem with TClockEx, but one that I can live with.[/edit]

6) The Home, Page Up, Page Down, and End keys require that a Function key be pressed. It makes web browsing with the keyboard a bit of a pain.

Otherwise, I'm very happy with this little box. It's nearly perfect for a minimal highly portable PC. Of course, it's not very fast. I just installed BOINC on it and should have some benchmarks in a few days. I might get MEPIS installed in a few days too. If so, I'll report back with more info.

[edit:] With BOINC running full time, the screen at 50%, and the wireless on, the battery meter says the life is over 6 hours with both batteries fully charged. I haven't done a full battery run-down test yet.

Cheers,
Scott.