Since I have a third machine running linux and MythTV that is on all the time anyway, I decided to set up a Samba share on that machine and make that my work files’ primary repository. An added advantage of the Samba configuration is that I can use rdiff-backup for easy remote backups of the repository. Configuring Samba was relatively painless, and far simpler than I remember it being from a few years ago.

Problems arose when I attempted to set up Offline Files on my laptop to create a local mirror of the files on the Samba share. For some reason, once I activated Offline Files on the laptop, it had trouble consistently connecting to the file server on my home network. Often it would only show the cached, offline version of the share even though it was clearly connected to the network and able to resolve and ping the file server. Restarting the laptop solved the problem about half the time, which suggests to me that the problem may have something to do with a race condition between connecting to the wireless network and/or Samba, and determining the Offline Files state upon startup.

Offline Files comes with a couple other annoyances that made it a less than optimal solution. For one thing, the local cache is kept in a folder at the root of the C: drive, which can only be relocated using a special tool on the Windows administrator tools CD. Since I normally keep my OS and program installations on C: and all data on D:, I don’t care for anything that keeps user data on C:. In addition, Offline Files has a habit of being somewhat noisy when it can’t find a network share, which can be distracting when you’re away from your home network. There is a way to change behavior based on which network interface is being used, but that didn’t help me since I use the wireless interface both at home and at school.

Ultimately I gave up on Samba in favor of a free (for personal use) piece of software called GoodSync from Siber Systems. Siber makes RoboForm, a very useful and well-regarded Windows tool for password management. I chose GoodSync (despite it silly name) because I am generally happy with the way RoboForm works, and so far it has fit my needs perfectly. And ever since I turned Offline Files off, my laptop has had absolutely no problem connecting to the Samba share at home.

GoodSync has a number of options for both one-way and bidirectional synchronization, and supports sophisticated options and filters for which files get synchronized. It is entirely transaction based at a file level and keeps its own database of states and changes instead of just looking at modification dates. The “analyze” feature tells you exactly what changes will be made upon synchronization, which is helpful when configuring complicated jobs. Synchronization can be set up to occur automatically similar to the way Offline Files works, but for now I’m doing it manually whenever I know a synch is necessary.

The only issue I’ve had is that GoodSync leaves _SYNCAPP directories at the bases of the file hierarchies that it’s synchronizing. Presumably this is where it keeps its internal database. While this may have been the best solution in terms of organizing and protecting the database, the presence of these files is distracting. A quick change to my Samba configuration allowed me to hide these directories automatically. However, I’m still not sure whether they ought to be included in the repository backups.

Update 3/08/06: I contacted Siber to ask about this and received a reply in broken English that didn’t really answer my question, just saying that the _SYNCAPP folders were important. I’m going to have to do some tests on my own to see if the metadata is rebuilt automatically if lost.

The real reason I chose the Dell, though, is the screen. It’s a 15.4 inch widescreen WUXGA LCD panel, which has an outstanding resolution of 1920×1200 pixels, which until only recently was unheard of for any consumer-priced LCD display, much less one on a laptop. I don’t know how Dell did it, but they were offering the WUXGA screen as an option for only $150 more than the default 1280×800 screen, which for me was a no-brainer.

I had been somewhat concerned that the high resolution would make text too small considering that most screens of the same physical size only support 1280×800, which provides approximately 72 DPI. This screen is fitting 50% more pixels in the same length on each axis, which bumps the DPI up to 108. Then again, I’m one of those relative old-timers brought up on UNIX workstations running X-windows on gigantic high-resolution displays, so I don’t mind tiny text in exchange for screen real estate.

My worries were put to rest as soon as I fired up the machine, however. Although the text is tiny to be sure, it’s perfectly readable for my eyes and very sharp. The screen’s brightness seems very good overall, and I haven’t detected any dead pixels. Dell pre-sets the default Windows installation to enlarged screen fonts for high resolution displays so that text comes out looking more like 72 DPI size, but I got rid of that setting as soon as I reinstalled Windows, which happened about five minutes after I first powered up the new machine.

Who put all this crap on my laptop?

I had heard tales of Dell’s prolific preinstalled bloatware, but I still wasn’t ready for the sheer volume of crap that commenced in pummeling Windows performace during and after boot-up. The barrage of application windows and configuration popups could only be described as comical. I knew I’d be reinstalling Windows when I ordered the machine, however, since I can get Windows XP at a substantial student discount. I wished I’d been able to order the machine with no OS at all, but settled for the least expensive option of XP Media Center Edition instead.

A clean install of Windows XP Pro went smoothly, and was greatly aided by Dell’s resource CD, which detects the peripherals and launches the appropriate driver installers.

Industrial and interface design

For the most part, I prefer the Inspiron’s 6000 design over the more common black Dell laptop (Latitude?) design. The outer enclosure is metallic silver plastic with white plastic trim, which while less preferable than a metal alloy material still feels relatively well constructed. I do feel as though the glossy white trim detracts from and cheapens the design by some degree. It sort of looks like the designers were going for an iPod aesthetic but it just doesn’t work in this case. The trim does break of the visual mass of what might otherwise be large portions of the enclosure, however when the laptop is closed I think the striping effect may cause it to look a bit thicker.

The keyboard provides good tactile feedback and is easy to type on, although a few times I have been thrown off by the placement of the page up/down cluster, which is separated from the arrow keys. There is no numeric keypad, although you can hit Num Lock and hold down Fn to use a cluster of the regular keyboard as a numeric keypad instead (good luck getting that to be anything but completely awkward, though). Excessive heat underneath the spot where one’s wrists rest while typing does not seem to be a problem.

The touch pad seems to work well for the most part, although I almost always use a small USB wireless mouse instead. The vertical scroll section on the right edge is a nice touch and feels very natural to use, although I question the value of dedicating the real estate for a horizontal scroll counterpart on the bottom.

An attractive round power button is centrally located above the keyboard, with the standard caps lock, scroll lock and num lock indicators on a small panel to the left. These indicators are joined by indictors for the wireless network interface and Bluetooth, both of which I presume to mean that the interfaces are powered on but not necessarily connected. These indicators could be helpful in terms of power management. I would have liked to see a wireless on/off hard key, however–instead, Dell provides a soft key control for the wireless (Fn+F2). Unfortunately, in my experiments I have not been able to get that control to work until the Windows logon screen appears. In most cases this wouldn’t be a problem, but a hard key without dependence on Windows drivers would be preferable on airplanes and in other environments in which it’s important for the wireless receiver to always be turned off.

A set of media buttons are present on the front bezel between the speaker grilles, and are accessible even when the laptop is closed (I suppose this is so that you can use the Latitude as a gigantic iPod?). They look good for the most part, although the icon for the leftmost button, mute, is badly designed and unclear. What’s more, the volume control and mute buttons don’t appear to work until after Windows has already started and you’ve logged in, which doesn’t help if you’re trying to suppress the initial Windows startup sound. Fortunately, an alternate method of muting (Fn+End) does seem to work at the login screen (before the Windows sound plays). This was surprising to me, since it implies that the hard keys are more reliant on Windows than the soft controls.

I should note that the observations above about the wireless and sound controls were made after I had already reinstalled Windows. Although I’m pretty sure that I properly reinstalled all the Dell device drivers, it’s still possible that the controls would behave differently on a stock Dell installation.

The various I/O ports on the sides and back of the machine seem generally well placed. I appreciate the fact that there are two separate pairs of USB ports, one on the back and another on the right, since many USB peripherals (keychain drives, mouse dongles, etc.) block the adjacent port when plugged in.

There is a complete absence of legacy ports (serial, parallel, and PS/2), which helps to reduce clutter and eliminates the need for one of those flimsy rear port doors. This lack of legacy ports may need to be taken into consideration by those expecting to be able to use older peripherals, machinery and engineering equipment, however–for example, I’m not going to be able to connect directly to our 3D scanner and some CNC equipment at school, which still use serial RS-232 connections despite being recently manufactured.

The high-resolution screen, as I mentioned earlier, is beautiful. The whites are whiter than my (cheap) desktop LCD monitor, and brightness seems relatively good when running off wall power. The screen’s surface falls in between my previous laptop’s glare-reducing matte finish and the ultra-glossy screens found on newer Toshibas. Text and graphics are visible from a wide degree of angles. I have not yet tried to use the machine outside, but I don’t expect good contrast in sunlight since that is an inherent caveat to TFT technology.

Performance

I’m going to leave the hardcore benchmarking and battery timing stuff to other reviews; suffice it to say that performance is quite sufficient for the CAD and graphics tasks for which I bought this machine. SolidWorks, the Adobe CS2 suite, and Office all seem to run well. I ordered the least expensive 512MB configuration because Dell seems to overcharge for RAM, and I’m planning to swap out one of the 256MB sticks for a 1GB stick from Newegg.

I did install World of Warcraft and tried the 1920×1200 display mode, which looked beautiful but was a bit sluggish–by no means a slideshow, however. A lower resolution widescreen mode (1280×800, I think) still looks very good and runs smoothly. Normally I don’t like to run games at anything but an LCD monitor’s native resolution, but the WUXGA screen’s DPI is so high that I hardly notice that the image is being scaled up.

Conclusions

Pros:

• Industrial design is a step up from the plain black Dell notebook, although the white trim detracts somewhat
• Well organized and uncluttered I/O ports
• Dell Resource CD makes it easy to install device drivers after reinstalling Windows
• Quiet and efficient cooling system avoids hot-spots under palms
• Beautiful, high-resolution WUXGA display available as an inexpensive upgrade

Cons

• Amount of bloatware crap installed by default verges on comical; reinstalling Windows is imperative
• Wireless interface and mute/volume controls appear to rely on Windows drivers
• No legacy ports, which is really only an issue if you need to attach to certain types of equipment and can be considered a plus otherwise

Finally, I should note that I got a good amount of useful information both before and after my purchase on the NotebookReview.com Dell forum. There seem to be some well-informed folks there who respond to questions patiently and quickly. NotebookReview also has a Dell coupons page, which can save you quite a bit if there happens to be a good one available.