₦airaland Forum

Man so u finally broke out of jail,  Good to see that u have choosing the NIX path,  The enlighten path.!

@Oyb
I don't quite agree with u,  Vista has issues even though ms would have us believe the most of them are imagined,  Yeah things are better now with SP 1. But then it is still bloated and huge a memory hug, un like xp wh is very minimal and gets out the way so that the user can do what he wants to do on his computer without getting in his face,  Yes improvemets has been made in the areas of security.but must users see the UAC as a virus on its own and they disable it.beside vista still needs an anti virus.so security has not been well implimented in such a way that is built from start with the OS,  Must people see the future of computer to lay in ultra mobile devices like the eeepc of this world, u can't run a vista on an eeepc .even MS had to push for XP to be used on ultra mobile pcs, I don't see much hope with windows 7 cus it would be built on the vista kernel.but there are rumours that a new strip down kernel is being developed for windows , which sounds good and could mean that we can still expect another best seller from MS after XP

For I beginner I will recommend ubuntu, it has a great community support and it is easy to to dual boot it with windows, U can go to www.ubuntunigeria. there u would find some guides to get u started , u would also see the contacts of pple u can call for a free copy of ubuntu cd

klez:
1st @ skylabnn, what the heck is "a sponsored job"? If I am badly treated, I don't need someone to pay me before I warn others (and vent my frustration- side effect). I think I have made it clear (and if somehow not, read it now) that I am not saying that ALL laptops they roll out will give you this exact scenario I'm in, but that if u do find yourself in it, you'll be hung out to dry. I am a University student and the said notebook is not entirely mine but I use it very often, more so than the owner and I know everything about it. Like that it's DVD/CDRW drive (which works fine) is on the same IDE channel as the hard drive thus any attempts to play a c.d. and do anything else meaningful results in system crippling. (Who in their right mind still does that? It's just one cable/slot for pete's sake, fit it in!) And that playing any of my games means its strictly a desktop (unless you want roasted laps - try 55C). I understand that you're in a corporate environment, even the worst companies will attend to their biggest costumers while dutifully ignoring the small fry like me. Afterall, he bought only one . Oh, and where did you get those ridiculous reliability figures from? Please don't say the Z word. My point is this: where is the local support or the money value of what I'm buying?

As for Sun Tzu, no, my passport is with me and has never been stamped. And I would happily open my own company AND hire Nigerians if I was in the position to , our people a good at many things. About the issue at hand, however, I never said that other laptops don't have issues. But if I was in UK or US. or France or South Africa, Dell, Acer, H.P or Gateway, e.t.c would have attended to me better than Zinox currently have. And there is no denying that fact. I am a complete computer geek and know my stuff (ATi's new HD 4800 series, anyone?) and read reviews of products online regularly (checking prices afterwards - try newegg.com) and I can say that ZINOX SUPPORT IS AWFUL AND THEIR COMPUTERS ARE THE LEAST VALUE FOR MONEY SYSTEMS I'VE SEEN ANYWHERE). (would've have mentioned Apple or Sony but with them you get style [most of the time] and awesome screens). On the last bit, If Zinox is listed on the stock exchange I might actually buy their stock, but only as long as there are enough people like you to keep them afloat. (Which believe it or not is NOT a happy thought)

+1

skylabnn , Sun Tzu let me start by saying that trying to victimize a a disgruntled customer is no way to support a comapny , the poster came here to experess is frustration at is ordeal in the hands of zinox , i dont support the idea of singling out zinox as a bad performer cus it doesnt solve the issue , hp dell sony all messes up sometimes , but to come here and make zinox look like the victim is really sad to say the least , i was surprised u didnt even address the issue , or save some sticks for zinox for not providing adequate support for its users , well some will see the fact that u two work for zinox and franly speaking ur attitude help reach that conclusion

texazzpete:
@bigbrovar
You simply bought a laptop too powerful for ypour needs. and for someone with some IT skills you were criminally l;ax in picking your laptop. I for one will NEVER buy any electronic device without checking up on user reviews of the device.

woow ,  when a zinox user wasn't satisfied with his product ,  zinox was hounded and blamed for his woes ,  but was a sony vaio user shared is horrible experience with sony ,  he was blamed for getting a laptop too powerful

one u don't know what i use computer for so how can u decide what my CPU usage is ,  i run 3 OS on my systems ,  and i have a server installed on 1 of them ,  i do alot of video and audio editing on my ubuntu box,  not to talk of  huge amount of ubuntu packages i have to compile from source for my Linux Usage Group,  and maybe u don't know ,  compiling packages from source uses a hell of a process power ,  , 

and for someone with some IT skills you were criminally l;ax in picking your laptop. I for one will NEVER buy any electronic device without checking up on user reviews of the device.

and for someone intelligent u sure do make a lot of statements  without knowing the facts ,  ,   i always do a thorough research before i buy any product ,  but no end user experience can be as good as your own experience ,  it probably worked for people using their system for movies and slight browsing ,  it didn't work for me ,

hell, the 8400gt probably added $250 to the laptop price

. i needed the nvidia for my video editing stuff and beside nvidia makes the best drivers for Linux ,  or so i thought!

I struggle to believe that any manufacturer will include up to 20GB of bloatware apps.

me too but that is sony vaio for u ,

For the cdrom issue, there may be workarounds, i don't know.

what freaking  workaround ,  call a spade a spade and not a garden tool ,  sony vaio sucks simple !

if you need a buyer for the vaioin short, i'll call you

prefer u mail me bigbrovar@gmail.com

but they are NOT underpowered. Show me any Sony VAIO in circulation with a celeron processor in it.

indeed , bought a sony vaio , it was very expensive but i fell for the good looks my system model was sony fz21e
160gb
2gb ram
nvidia 8400gt
intel core 2 duo 2.0ghz
webcam
on paper a beast , in reality a fraud , first of the cd rom was set to region 2 meaning most dvds are not detected on my system, when i check most of my friends cdrom , there where set to global region , later i started experiencing problems when i burn cds  , nero would tell me buring successful , but when i putt the same cd in , vista would tell me it is blank all this in less than 2 months of usage , for a guy that hardly plays games or watches moives on my laptop , that is lame ,  i got about 7 software dvds from uk recently , i slot them on my sony vaio and it detected the first one , when i put in the second one nothing happened , then i put in the first one  that worked , nothing happened , till date , my laptop doesnt acknowledge my precious dvds , now it doesnt burn cd/dvd anymore


on to web cam ,  only works if the room am in is as bright and the sun , anything other than that , u wont even see my face , (although the situation is a bit better under ubuntu using a reversed engineered webcam driver)

the system came preinstalled with millions of blotware , things i have no need for and when i start it there all struggle for startup , turning my core2duo into a celeron , it took me days to uninstall everybit of them , somehing a noob wouldnt dare do ,

what about battary life , that is another story ,

i have 160gb on paper , but in reality i had access to just 90gb , the rest taken over by bloats and 20gb for recovery of futher boats incase i removed the one that came preinstalled,  
the touch pad was torture ,  i had to buy a 3000 naira mouse after getting feed up and the punishment that was using a sony vaio computer ,
in the end i just wiped out vista and installed ubuntu , which worked quite well but my cd rom issue was still there , and the computer hardware wise was just a bitch , use to curse at it everyday , i tried selling it , but no one would touch it with a pole , right now am sending it to lagos ,  to some distance relation who deperately needs a computer , i know of a friend who has had similar issues with sony vaio went for the looks and got punked , today am happy with my thinkpad , ugly yes , rock solid yes

texazzpete:
This is not only about patronizing Nigerian made goods.

We. Are. Consumers. repeat that after me, let that nugget of information swirl around in your head a bit.

Zinox laptops and desktops are nowhere near value for mney, except you like throwing cash away at underpowered, overpriced hardware.

i completely agree with u , just substitute the zinox for sony vaio

8 million sony laptops catching fire is isolated

this statement is highly untrue , it was meant to be an exaggeration of events that happened , 8 million batteries where infact withdrawn by sony after incidence of exploding batteries where reported The recall was prompted by safety issues caused by batteries melting, and in some cases, even catching on fire. , the very real danger posed by laptop batteries unpredictably catching on fire has consumers worried. , my aim was not to slight sony as a company but to proof that even the big names in computer makes mistake , and things do go wrong even with the high brands , , my point is that any company can make bad product , and zinox can not be judged on the experience of one guy , if so then sony vaio is the worst company in the world , cus their laptops are just beautifully crafted piece of shit , the one i got recently gave me all sort of problems , from cd rom not writing to poor battary life , to the wacky touch pad , but then sony is a big player in the game that can get away with things like that without a scratch on their image , sony Ericson's can make crappy phones e.g p990i,sony can make laptops with exploding batteries ,M$ can make xbox that would just drop dead , i remembered the last time i got a creative zen , i just plugged it to my computer and the thing just when dead , i searched google and i found out that virtaully the whole world had the same problem , some pple even threatened to sue the company , talk about support its a fact that support sucks everywhere , i have heard horror stories from some global forums i belong to about how bad support can be how there would put u on hold for hours without end , Zinox support sucks no doubt and no one should be made to go thru what the author of this post was made to face , but then shit happans and it didnt just happen bcus zinox is a nigerian company , it would have happened if it was zinox finland , cus i know that sony is not zinox and i still had problems with it , i hell of a problem

@bigbrovar Hey lucky guy. Na you dey enjoy now o, i think you should read the post where we got into arguement over windows and linux

that was aweful of me , i cant even imagine i ever said those things about windows , well i guess now i know better , i installed mint linux on my work laptop and i must say that i was pleasantly suprised and impressed , the distro looks soo published and well thougt out , everything is polished from the start menu which many window users would feel at home with (and which windows copied and implemented on vista) to the art work to the fact that all ur multimedia codecs are installed by default , the distro is based on ubuntu , and the latest version is called Linux Mint 5 Elyssa , and it is based on ubuntu hardy heron , i have since been using it on my work laptop and i plan on installing it on my personal laptop soon when i have the time ,

tundewoods:

Lets give you a run for your money

I am willing to give away that Sony Vaio of the same specs for just N135,000.If your interested then lets play ball.

what u are doing is just not right , u could always make ur own post selling ur own product instead hijacking some guys post , it is just not a professional way of doing things , and it say a lot about the type of business person that u are ,

@bigrovar
There's such a thing as research. if you believed in that' you'd know that you claim that '8 million sony batteries caught fire' was not only daft, but on the verge of stupid.

u see the things we do here goes beyond just expressing an opinion , it tells a lot about the type of person u are , , i have made my opinion known here and that is what count , u dont have to take it , if u think the best way to go is to pick one line of my statements and conclude that its stupid and daft , all i will say is that , let us make Nairaland a decent and healthy place to exchange views,ideas and opinions , i will not call u or ur opinions names bcus it is not in my position to , cheers

bigrovar
Its pathetic the way you present ed you case.

first of all the fact that u called an opinion u don't share pathetic tells a lot about your person ,  i have seen a lot of opinion here that i don't agree with but yet ,  its an opinion .its not my place to judge or downgrade , 

Americans have standard for  testing materials (check ASTM) the problems you listed came as a result of having a transperent and accountable system of operation.  US has Underwrites Labs(UL) where most of these products are tested.

u just pressed home my point ,  America has this American has that ,  this is Nigeria,  there is no standard NSO is more or less dead ,  so infact nobody is on Zinox  neck making sure things are done right ,  something that everybody needs ,   yet even in this american senerio a lot of craps are been sold ,  nowaday most new products are infact beta that should still be in the testing room , 

These isolated cases do not reflect their overal perfomance

8 million sony laptops catching fire is isolated , ?! ,  ok what about xbox 360 dropping dead,  the fiasco that followed the release of p990i, or the fact that the first set of ipod nano had to be withdrawn due to defects,   just recently the latest hp dv6000 has discovered to have some defacts in their boards that make them drop dead ,  ,lets not forget vista ,  i can go on and on ,  am not using this as an excuse for making crap ,  but shit happens ,  u can't tell me that its all of zinox laptops that has problems ,  the are over a thousand user of zinox computers and this is the view of one user ,  taking the fact that happy people are always in the silent majority ,  i will say then u cant judge zinox on the experience on one user ,  if so then sony vaio sucks big time ,  (that is another story) , 

and we are talking of Zinox, you still think that we should cut them a deal because it  a "Nigerian made" IT does  require international standard not Nigerian sympathy standard.

did u really read my post ,  i think u ought to read it again ,  i never said that people should buy zinox out of sympathy ,  yes its good to have a made in NIgeria I T ,  its also not a bad thing to offer them all the support there would need to strife ,  zinox has i mountain of a hill to climb ,  and what there need is constructive criticism ,  i have  wrtten to them after seeing this post on things there can do to improve their business ,  its a NIgerian Company and on that bases i will give it my support and help it grow the best way i can ,  i use a thinkpad and am not going to change that anytime soon ,  and to buy zinox just bcus its niegrian is bad for every body even zinox cus it would not make them strife to compete . ,  their offer of laptops to NIgerian student looks good on paper ,  and it is just some of the advantage NIgerians would enjoy if the company finds its feet ,

Someone mentioned open source Ubuntu which is sponsored  by a South African who  developed Thawte and sold it Verisign for  over $500 million. He was not held to AFrican standard, but ISO.

Ubuntu by itself is nothing ,  ubuntu is a community, supported by a community without which its just crap ,  i have wrtten many bugs and fixes to launchpad and i have written many documentation to make ubuntu better  yet i don't work for canonical but i and millions others do are best to make our OS  better  ,  i didnt just sit by the side line and condem ,  that is the attitude NIgerian should learn to have ,  appreciate their own ,  with time it would get better ,  Taiwan and china use to make crap ,  china still does (sometimes) the government gives them support and today we know the story ,  how can we ever be great if we don't try ,  we have to try ,  we have to make mistakes ,  we have to support each other . and with Gods help we would get there ,

Where is the system to  show that Zinox uses low quality materials ? None, Any data to show that Zinox lithium batteries are  safe?

no system can give guarantee u anything ,  it would try but its not perfect ,  that is why exploding battery passed the test in America , and xbox 360 was given a clean bill of health , so why are u paranoid , how do u know the beef u eat is healthy , have u been to the meat market in lagos b4 , how do u know the water u drink is safe,

First of all am not an Hippocrates , i dont use a Zinox Computer and i dont think i might use one anytime soon , but i respect what the company is trying to do and i appreciate the extreme condition and the hash environment they operate in other to stay afloat, it would be extremely unfair to compare Zinox a relative newbie to veterans like HP and Dell , this are companies with vast experience, and have billion dollar worth of goodwill attached to their name , Zinox on the other hand is very new to the industry and it still struggling to make a name for it self , it operate in a country where it has to provide its own infrastructure for its self, even the hps and dells all out source production of their products to the far east where labour is cheap and cost of production is greatly reduced , zinox could easily do the same but their decided to do it in Nigeria , employ Nigerians and give back to the economy , yes should not be a license for making crap, but when i was growing up there where just two types of products , original and Taiwan , today Taiwan is the original , with time and if companies like Zinox are encouraged the would raise to the standard we have come to expect from renown computer companies , shit happens everywhere , i mean i recalled when sony and dell laptops had exploding batteries http://news.cnet.com/Dell-Exploding-batteries-are-Sonys-fault/2100-1005_3-6115710.html http://news.softpedia.com/news/Sony-Exploding-Batteries-Chronicles-37848.shtml , hp laptops had some defact in their boards that would make just drop dead , and talk about drivers , i know a guy who has not been able to get all the drivers for his toshiba laptop till this very day , tell me a maker and i will give u its problem , sony vaio always have cdrom and keyboard issues ,, hp battary suck in the long run , hp dv 6000 series have issues with cdrom,toshiba board has some issues , and some of its bios are sooo archaic that may lock u out of ur system one day , do a little research u would see that the grass is not soo green on the other side ,
i will end just like i started , i dont use zinox niether sould i use it anytime soon , its the same reason while i dont use compaq,or dell, or sony , (never would i use sony again) i prefer my ibm lenovo thinkpad ,

the project here is massive , never since or heard anything like it , most of the lecturers are from all around the world , its just massive , the school uses only open software , so all the students for the students and the secretaries would be on ubuntu , to make things smooth we used system imager which would allow u to customize ubuntu and send the resultant imager into a server which other systejm would boot from , i customized the ubuntu the school would be using , and its composed of free software , the best that open source has to offer , i would be sending down an aptoncd special science edittion to lagos soon , yeah for some pple its still a windows world , but for me , i have been completely free of windows for the past 7 months now , i dont have any micro$oft technology , , in my life , not even virtualbox xp .all my drives are ext3 and not the buggy ntfs. my two laptops run ubuntu and i can do everything i use to do on windows without missing a thing , am not a gamer so i guess that also helps , i recently got an ipod touch , cus i couldnt lay my hands on the linux powered Nokia 810 , i was scared that it might lock me to windows cus it was built to only work with itunes , but after reading little research i was able to sync it with amarok without any problem , so , i jailbreak my itouch , installed BSDsubsystem and installed open ssh and a bash terminal , so the bitch runs like a full blown linux device , i can ssh into the school server from my bed and i can run bash commands on it ,

one piece of advise , u dont need a simulator , u need the real thing , so my advise for u is to install Linux or solaris on ur computer , u can dualboot it with windows , but u need it to be physically installed , that is the best way to learn , cus u might have problems during or after installations (pray u do) and it is thru solving does problems that would help u in understanding UNIX , i have never had any exams / certification or any format linux education , infact i learned about and started linux here on Nairaland some months ago , today it has gotten me a very lucrative job in abuja , i job that i never applied for in the first place , some white south african guy read some of my guides on linux and decided to offer me the job , so my friend , the best way to learn is to love what u do , and have a passion for it , it is that passion that would keep u up late at night trying to fix/hack/break ur system till u have a perfect system , doing that would give u a knowledge and understanding of linux u can never get anywhere , best of luck

http://blog.wizzy.com/post/Xenophobia-in-South-Africa take time to read the blog posting , its very thought provoking

adewaleafolabi:
Basically they're running clients sharing through NFS. I've read up something similar like that on ubuntu forums, once logged in they get their personalized environment including compiz. Also an example could be found under examples in your hardy heron /home talking about the testimonials of schools. Also since its an educational institution, its better you deal with edubuntu. That makes things extremely easier instead of reinventing the wheel. I'd be dropping more tips later

exactly , and we would be using ldad for authentication of the clients against the file server where the home dir would be mounted , also we would be using system imager and chroot alot, its pretty cool stuff , about the edubuntu , well my supervisor wanted us to use the default ubuntu , but i can always install edubuntu package later on , cheers

adewaleafolabi:
@bigbrovar I just got back online and how's the job? Did you see that stuff done with gimp? Anyway in case AUST is accepting interns i like to enlist.

omo its very challenging ,  the university would be running exclusively on Ubuntu hardy heron ,  so am making a customized Ubuntu  which would run on all the computers in the school ,  the custom Ubuntu has all the best educational software that open source has to offer , the idea is that the other systems in the school would be fat diskless ,  and their home partition would be mounted on a file server ,  so a person can log into any system in the school and he would be taken to his user directory ,  which is default setings wall paper and everything intact ,  its some pretty cool stuff am working on it this very mo ,  how is Lagos ,  miss u guys mehn ,  i would be sending some packeges down to u guys soon ,  cheers

klez:
Just to add meself to this post - anyone in Anambra with ubuntu issues, send me an email, might be able 2 help u out (or I might learn a thing or 2 from u, who knows? .

awesome , please let me know if u want me to add u to the list of sources were ubuntu can be obtain from freely , we currently dont have anybody from the east , if u need me to help you with cds just send me a mail , bigbrovar@gmail.com
cheers mate

http://ubuntunigeria./category/get-ubuntu/

sorry afo , am now in abuja to take up the job in AUST, a cousin miss placed my number , so i could take it with me , however u can reach me on this number 08079535004

i have got a fairly used sony vaio fz21e for sale , i bought it my self brand new last December here are the specs

Processor : Intel core 2 duo
clock speed : 2.0 ghz
HardDisk : 160gb/Go
Ram : 2gb/Go DDR2 SDRAM
sreen : 15.4 wxga (1280 x 800) x black LCD
CD Rom : DVD-CD RW DL/RAM
Graphics : Nvidia Geforce 8400M (256mb dedicated)
Os : Vista or Ubuntu Linux or both
Color : Silver and black keyboard
High Definition HDMI out put
Web cam
3 hi speed usb port

all part in good working condition *
Price 100k
if u are interested call me 08079535004
am based in Abuja
but can ship it to any part of Nigeria at ur expense

This is system is not meant for just reading emails and broswing , its for heavy duty jobs like graphics and gaming

cool hope u send me a copy , looks freaking awesome

Sorry mate we havant been able to download the latest version of Ubuntu Ultimate -now called ultimate edition- , its not easy getting download bandwidth for it now, i personally dont have an internet connecting at home , so i guess it might take some times b4 we download it, however i have the latest ubuntu hardy heron and also a dvd that contain must of the applications u would need , if u are interested pls call me 08022982697 , am based in lagos , cheers
BTW its as free as air

i have used a gateway notebook before and i can confirm that , it rocks , i totally enjoyed , i cant quite remember the name now , but i got it new and then sold it to a guy here in nairaland , the dude still thank me to this very day

drupal is nice i have just tried it out , simply awesome , although am not a webdesigner , its nice using my notebook as a server sometimes

next time when u want to setup the systems in ur cafe , make sure u create a limited account for users , so that only u would have a passworded admin account , that way the cafe users can do wht they want which is to browse , without making any deep changes to ur system, although this comes by default on my Unix based notebook , most window user are not quite aware of the same option on windows

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
get it here

http://www.webworkstudio.net/extras/xnairaland.PNG

sorry no preview, but trust me u'll like it. it's just 517kb.
please atleast post something if u like it

awesome , simply awesome ,

i think the safest is to install a virtaul machine like virtualbox , its makes the whole process seamless, however i need to have at least 1 gb ram to run VB if u use vista , u can read more about it here , https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_SMI-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductRef=innotek-1.6-G-F@CDS-CDS_SMI just choose ur os and download

thnx mata , got the mail and will surely get back to u , soonest

Thanks mate , i am interested , how can we hookup , u can mail me at bigbrovar@gmail.com

https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2412/2519091740_8f1e8f2697_o_d.png



Hardy Heron