I just confirmed the order for RUBY's replacement. The new machine (as yet unnamed) will finally displace EMERALD as the most powerful laptop, and in fact most powerful machine period, that I've ever owned. The core is an Intel i7-3632QM processor, most notable in that it will finally give me the hardware virtualization support I've been dying for since I got RUBY. The four hyperthreaded cores will also give me a solid test platform for some of the parallel code I develop for work.

This machine also represents my first excursion into SSD technology on a laptop, starting with a 512GB drive. I'm told they make a shocking difference in terms of image activation time, so I'm looking forward to seeing it go.

For memory I'm pulling 16GB of DDR3 1600Mhz RAM, which I am told may well be my bottleneck on many applications, which I admit tickles me a bit. This will also be my first 16GB personal machine, so I'm excited to have that much main memory to play with. Between that and the SSD, it opens up all kinds of new options for operating on large datasets in reasonable (read: overnight) amounts of time.

The new sound card is nothing to write home about, but the graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce 640M, with 2GB of GDDR5, so I suspect this will also be able to hold its own if I decide to carry the latest video games into the field with me, or do any heavy-duty XNA or Unity development.

Finally, there are two more items I'm varying degrees of excited about. This will be my first machine with a Blu-ray reader, and my first machine with an anodized alumninum case, something I've been wanting since case destruction is generally what kills my laptops.

Overall, I'm very excited to be getting the new kit, and I hope it lasts me another three years.

After QUARTZ was rendered immobilized by hinge damage, and EMERALD still having worrisome damage to its power brick, I moved using my Christmas gifts to procure a replacement. Today RUBY arrived. The 9th mainline machine I've owned, and the 8th laptop, RUBY is a Duo Core 2.2 Ghz machine with 8GB of main storage, the most I've ever had in a single device. It also represents the first non-server 64-bit machine I've ever owned, and the first Windows 7 box. Its got fully a half-terabyte of disk available, and 512GB RADEON for graphical purposes. This machine marks the end of my Alienware experiments for the time being, being the first on-brand Dell I've purchased since SAPPHIRE in 2006. I'm very excited to bring this lighter, more streamlined workstation into the field to see how well it does once its been loaded for operation.

Well, EMERALD is now taking several tried to boot, and occasionally fails to detect its RAM bus. Given the case is also failing, its clearly time for me to get another source of mobile high-powered computer. So I placed an order for QUARTZ today. Stepping back down to a 15.4" screen, QUARTZ will be my second Alienware. Despite being considerably smaller than EMERALD, QUARTZ will only weigh about 13% less, although it will also have a smaller power brick, something that severely impeded EMERALD's portability. The new machine will also be considerably more power-efficient than the older model, as well as being my first Vista box.

If all goes well, I'll be taking delivery between 2/27 and 3/3. In any event, I should have it before Intercon.

We're all entitled to a few dumb things, I like to think. I really hope so, because I blow through mine very, very quickly. Today the way in which I chose to ignore common sense was to leave the power brick for EMERALD in Worcester when I flew to Newport News for a few days. I didn't realize I had done so until I was pulling into Logan, and it was far too late to go back. So, I decided, I would go to Airport Wireless, and pay an exorbitant fee to get a new adapter for my power-thirsty machine.

I'll spare you the details, but the clerk and I broke into two iGo universal adapter packs (the biggest ones he had), and not a single one of their jacks would match my power socket. It was just as well -- neither of them put out the 7.89A of juice EMERALD draws at full power, although one of them claimed it could handle peaks that high. In miserable dejection, went to Virginia.

On the ground, went off to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (probably another post about that later), and then went off in search of a Best Buy to get an adapter for my machine. There I met with abject failure -- the only adapters they had that might have a compatible plug (very unlikely) produced a mere 5A of DC. I was SOL.

So I went to plan B: buy a new laptop. Fortunately, Best Buy had a few on sale, and I didn't need a powerhouse. Minimal form factor was on the menu, as I needed to transport anything I bought in my existing laptop bag along with my enormous Alienware. So I looked at the MSI Wind, but when that proved out of stock, I bought a tiny little Eee PC. It is black, and has joined my expanding flee as ONYX. At a whopping 900Mhz, its the slowest processor I've paid money for since high school, but given its mission of checking email and browsing the web, it'll do just fine.

Introducing ONYX My new Eee PC!