The Dell XPS M1330

When I was working for Microsoft, I had a laptop, which for me was unusual because I am a complete PC user.  I thought laptops were slow and didn't really have the need for one, so I never had one.  But having one this last year has been great!  I've got so much done whilst commuting, for example, and when I left Microsoft and had to return my laptop, I noticed my level of productivity went down a tad.  So, I recently decided to purchase a replacement laptop, although perhaps a faster one (if you know me at all, you know I always have to have just about the fastest gear I can get!).  So I went in search and came across the Dell XPS M1330.

My criteria for a laptop was simple - a light-weight, small widescreen laptop with a decent spec, without a huge price tag, and the M1330 is all of these things.  After I finished kitting it out with all the best bits, it came out at around £800, and this is why:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 (2.00 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
13.3" UltraSharp WXGA (1280x800) White-LED Display (300 nits) with TrueLife
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
160GB Free Fall Sensor (7200RPM) Hard Drive
128MB nVidia GeForce 8400M GS
Primary 9-cell Lithium-Ion Battery

Paris, the Eiffel Tower, the Reinne and the Louvre

Ian MacGillivray and I took a trip to Paris early Sunday morning to start work on Monday - blogging the ELF (Education Leaders Forum) conference.

Microsoft wanted both of us to go there and blog about what the world leaders in technology and government had to say with regards to tertiary education, from a students point of view.  On Monday night, they hired out the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, which was beautiful, and Michael Gray and myself managed to drag Ian all the way to the top, where we got to see some spectacular views!

We also got to visit the Imagine Cup world-wide finals on Tuesday afternoon, which was held in the Louvre - again, what an amazing venue!  Feel free to check my Facebook for photos from the events!

I have to say, the most memorable part of the event was watching the students receive their awards.  Talk about passion!  You could actually see them running up to the stage, some teary-eyed, accepting their awards and making really profound speeches about how honoured they were, and offering their congratulations to all the other competitors.

A big thanks goes to Ed Dunhill for putting us in touch with the ELF team, and of course to Dolores Puxbaumer and Greg Butler for giving us such a fantastic opportunity.