I used to suffer from this. Now I buy a box 500 holed A4 for my printer. I prefer the box.
I use cheap notebooks
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Re: I use cheap notebooks
#62I thought this would be about laptops. The laptops I use for work and personal stuff cost around $100 and are effectively disposable. They are not great for intense use, but the vast majority of tasks go just fine. And when developing any serious slowdown shows up right away so my work ends up being usable on low end hardware with janky connections. When one of these laptops got stolen recently I just got another one…
My main laptop used to be a Thinkpad T530 from 2012 that I bought used off of eBay. I ran Linux.
I never worried about it at all. There's holes in the keyboard and through the laptop to deal with liquid spills. The case was a nice hard plastic with enough flex to prevent breaking.
Honestly, if I dropped it on the floor - I'd check the floor first for any damage.
Taking it apart was straightforward, albeit a bit frustrating. I found the MBP mid-2012 unibodys much, much easier to take apart and clean.
I recently decided to upgrade and bought a M1 MBP Pro off of a college kid wanting to get a gaming laptop. It's a huge upgrade and I actually find myself loving MacOS. Everything feels so nice and looks so nice.
But now I am just terrified for this laptop. It has a hard case. I'm meticulous about a clean keyboard and screen (fingerprint magnet). I keep any and all liquids very, very far away. I never place it anywhere where there may be dust.
I sometimes wonder if the stress is worth it. I'm tempted to buy myself an X220 or something else in the X series since the T530 was heavy to lug around.
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I had to guess, various used laptops from a decade or so ago. For most practical applications, computing performance plateaued around 2011. Just look at how many people can't/won't use Windows 11 just because their ancient relic otherwise still works perfectly fine. And if you want a source, anecdata is I'm posting this from an i7 2700K (aka Sandy Bridge) machine.
Thanks, time to look into older machines.
Look into business laptops by HP/Dell/Lenovo. You can still easily get parts for them (keyboards/batteries/chargers) they are well built, have easy to find driverpacks from the OEM and were more the most part lightly used and only retired because the lease is up or the latest version of windows doesn't officially support it. You can get very good condition 4th/5th gen intel core laptops for around $150.
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#64I'd love to get into using notebooks more, but I just don't think it's for me. I buy a stack of cheap legal pads (although I get A4 sized) and a box of cheap Bic pens that I think I got about 10 years ago. I tear pages off of the legal pad and staple or join them with a paper clip to keep them organized, but they end up being recycled when they're done. For long term stuff that I want to search, I `notes` directory with some text files and a `:date 2023-03-10` at the top has served me well.
I still really love seeing what people do with their notebooks, I guess I'm just not one of those people though.
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#65I use the cheap Muji ones and the Muji gel pens (which are refillable for under https://www.muji.eu/product/recycling-paper-notebook-dark-gr... https://www.muji.eu/product/gel-ink-ballpoint-pen-0-7mm-1104... Get through a notepad once a month or so and a refill every 3 months.
The Muji ones cost considerably more than the cheapest similar notebooks from eg a supermarket.
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#66I've suffered from exactly this. Bought an expensive notebook, imagining that it would cause me to "really do this new thing properly" or some such fool thinking. Opposite is true, every time. Making a purchase can be the opposite of putting in effort, rather than an assistive force if one is not careful.
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#67A tip not just for notebooks but for anything (e.g. electrical appliances) if you're buying them for the first time: Buy them cheap. If you use them until they're used up (in the case of notebooks) or broken (in the case of electrical tools), buy a more expensive / higher quality one. If not, you didn't waste too much money on it.
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
What laptops are you using that are only $100?
If I had to guess, various used laptops from a decade or so ago. For most practical applications, computing performance plateaued around 2011. Just look at how many people can't/won't use Windows 11 just because their ancient relic otherwise still works perfectly fine. And if you want a source, anecdata is I'm posting this from an i7 2700K (aka Sandy Bridge) machine.
If you want a source, Steam Hardware Survey[0] somewhat agrees with what you're saying, especially when taking in to account that gamers would have better specs than average.
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#69I miss netbooks. They were small, underpowered, and somehow really neat.
Re: I use cheap notebooks
#70I almost exclusively (On the rare occasion I use paper, mostly as a prop to look professional or not mess up a low tech ambiance, or some other specific use case) use an A5 6 ring binder. I especially like how you can print 2 pages on a US Letter, cut it in half, punch it(If you don't have a 6 hole punch, use an existing 6 hole sheet as a stencil and punch the marks), and it's close enough to A5 to work. It's great f…
Why not print on A4?
In the US A4 is hard to find. Not impossible, but it is special order while letter is available anywhere. A4 and US letter are very close to the same size, if you don't have a ruler you can't tell by looking.