Time for a new laptop?

I thought it might be my imagination, but running powercfg.exe /batteryreport shows the truth – my laptop battery isn’t what it used to be.

Battery capacity history | PERIOD | FULL CHARGE CAPACITY | DESIGN CAPACITY | | — | — | — | | 2015-11-17 - 2015-11-23 | 5,656 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2015-11-23 - 2015-11-30 | 5,480 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2015-11-30 - 2015-12-07 | 5,177 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2015-12-07 - 2015-12-14 | 5,177 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2015-12-14 - 2015-12-21 | 5,177 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2015-12-21 - 2015-12-28 | 5,177 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2015-12-28 - 2016-01-04 | 5,129 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-04 - 2016-01-11 | 4,059 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-12 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-13 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-14 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-15 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-16 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-17 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-18 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-19 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-20 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-21 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh | | 2016-01-22 | 3,276 mWh | 6,600 mWh |

This is not the original battery that came with my Dell XPS 1645. I originally had two 90mWh batteries, but both of those wore out. The current replacement was the only one I could find online (from a 3rd party – unfortunately Dell weren’t selling theirs anymore). I bought the 1645 back in 2010, so it will turn 6 in April – that’s not a bad effort for a laptop that has been lugged around a fair bit.

And so my mind now turns to thinking about getting a replacement laptop…

My initial specs are:

• Gen 6 i7 or Xeon CPU
• Minimum 16GB RAM (Prefer 16 would not be the maximum)
• Minimum 512GB SSD (Ideally PCIe interface)
• Decent screen resolution
• Lighter than my 1645 (3.06KG/6.6lb according to the kitchen scales)
• A bit smaller than the 1645 (380x260mm)

Possible options:

• A Surface Book would be nice, but I’ve read about stability issues - both firmware/software and also physically balancing it on your lap while typing (aka ‘lapability’)
• HP zBook Studio (supposed to be out in December, but I can’t find it anywhere yet)
• Titan X4K – haven’t heard of these before, but they look quite configurable (though aren’t any lighter)
• Lenovo X1 Carbon 4 – Coming in February?
• Lenovo P50 – (not smaller or lighter)

Let me know if you have any other suggestions or recommendations?

Upcoming Developer Events

There’s been a few announcements lately that will interest you if you’re a developer:

Know it. Prove it

Microsoft Virtual Academy are running their “Know it. Prove it” challenge again during the month of February. It’s a chance for you to focus on learning something new in one of up to 10 ‘learning challenge’ areas. Register at the site to track your progress towards completing one (ore more) of the challenges and also earn some TechReward points (which you can redeem for actual stuff).

Executable Specifications in .NET with Storyteller 3

Next week JetBrains are hosting a webinar from Jeremy Miller on Storyteller, a tool for creating executable specifications in .NET. As well as creating Storyteller, you might also recognise Jeremy as the author of StructureMap. Register here to watch it live. Hopefully a recording will appear on the JetBrainsTV YouTube channel at a later date, as it turns out to be 1.30am in my time zone.

hack.summit()

Pluralsight are running hack.summit() a 4 day virtual developer conference, February 22-25. Speakers include well-known names such as Jon Skeet, Kent Beck, Joel Spolsky, Bob Martin and Yehuda katz. Register via the website – the cost is a donation to charity OR sharing the event on Twitter or Facebook.

DDD Melbourne 7

The date has been fixed for this year’s DDD Melbourne – Saturday, August 13th. That’s a week and a bit after NDC Sydney, if you were wondering. Speaking of Sydney, looks like they’ll also be hosting a DDD there sometime this year too (no date announced yet).

Welcome to 2016 with Weird Al

I knew Weird Al Yankovic was touring Australia in January 2016, but when I jumped at the chance to see an NBA game during my visit to Toronto late last year I had resigned myself to the fact that doing so would probably mean passing on Al this time (I had seen him on his Poodle Hat tour back in 2003).

That was until Narelle spotted cheap tickets to Weird Al’s Adelaide concert appearing on lasttix.com.au. By clicking on the special (and avoiding signing up to lasttix because I didn’t want to if I didn’t have to), I ended up at ticketmaster, but with a cheaper price of just $60 per ticket instead of the usual $90+. Bargain!

There was a great crowd, a good supporting act in Mickey D (nice to have a comedian that was funny without being crude), and eventually Al and his band came on to give us a performance just like we were hoping.

It was a great mix of old favourites and songs from his latest album Mandatory Fun (which reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts recently)

All in all a great night out – even better as I went with friends Tom (whom originally introduced me to Al’s albums many years ago) and Derek (who wasn’t a huge Al fan before but I think enjoyed the night anyway).