This is a new desktop computer with eComStation 2.0 installed and configured. It has a CPU with four processor cores, and is configured for SMP operation. A removable hard drive is included for fast backups. Sound, USB and wired network work. The display hardware is supported by SNAP graphics in VESA mode. Lots of useful OS/2 software is installed.
The Suntan Special Advantage
Mobopeep comes with Suntan Special. I use Suntan Special to install the software on all Blonde Guy computers. Suntan Special software can be used to install all updates to the system and its applications and to install additional applications. When newer versions of software are released, Suntan Special can keep your Blonde Guy computer up to date.
Capabilities
This computer has one fixed 500 GB disk and one removeable 500 GB disk. The computer can be backed up very quickly and easily by copying the contents of the fixed disk to the removeable disk. The durable aluminum removeable disk enclosure and drive trays are pleasant to use. Extra removeable drives are available on the ordering page. The removeable drive cannot be hot-swapped. The computer must be powered down to swap drives.
I have supplied sufficient RAM to allow many programs to run at once, or support virtual machines.
The USB 2.0 ports support keyboards, mice, scanners, thumb drives, cameras, MP3 players, external hard drives, floppies and CD Writers.
The DVD multi-burner can read and write dual-layer DVD media with an 8.4 GB capacity. Software to create bootable backup DVDs is included.
The display hardware is based on the Intel© Graphics Media Accelerator X4500, which provides fast graphics on the OS/2 or eComStation platforms.
Connectors for sound and USB are provided on both the front and the rear of the computer for more convenience.
A SCSI 160 adapter is included for legacy SCSI peripherals.
Defects
Although 4 GB RAM is installed, the computer will only recognize 3 GB due to hardware limitations.
Firewire support is not available for eCS. The firewire port on the front panel does not function.
There are no serial or parallel ports in the computer. One of each may be added as options on the ordering page. Adding a serial or parallel port takes one slot for each port.
Not Included
None of the following items are included: monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, ethernet cable, printer cable, USB cable. If you need any of these contact Blonde Guy for a quote.
Software
- Blonde Guy computers are built for eComStation 2.0, but until the release of version 2.0, the computers will be configured with the best available release candidate.
- Suntan Special is included with each computer. All applications that are pre-installed by Blonde Guy can be kept up to date using Suntan Special.
- The OpenOffice.org office suite is installed. OpenOffice has good compatibility with Microsoft Office documents.
- The ePDF software has been installed to allow the creation of PDF output from any OS/2 application. Speaking of PDF, Acrobat Reader 5, Lucide, GSView and GhostScript are installed. The Acrobat Reader 5 is configured as a plugin for each of the installed browsers. Lucide is associated with desktop PDF objects.
- Computer maintenance programs include eCS-MT, Suntan Special, a trial version of DFSee, Sysbench to measure the speed of the computer, SmartMon to asses hard drive condition, PCI to scan the system hardware and SystemInfo to view the entire computer configuration.
- The Embellish graphics editor and a demo of the PMView graphics viewer are installed.
- The FAT32 file system is installed.
- A number of web browsers are provided: Firefox, PmW-Fx and Seamonkey. KompoZer, a powerful web page editor, is installed. Each browser has flash, java and acrobat plugins configured.
- Thunderbird, PMMail and Polarbar Mailer are installed to provide a choice of e-mail client program.
- Java 1.1, Java 1.3.1 and Java 1.4.2 are all installed to give a choice of Java platform. The Java 1.4.2 plugin is used in the browsers. Suntan Special allows you to change the java support in each browser individually.
- Limewire and Z! music player are provided to support music needs. The CD Player is correctly configured to play music CDs. Generic MP3 players that connect via USB are supported.
- Mr. Message is provided to allow participation with AOL Messenger users.
- Night Vision provides a view of the night time sky and any location and time.
- Software developers will appreciate SmartCVS and SmartSVN, which allow browsing of open source project source code at Netlabs and SourceForge. The Visual SlickEdit and med programmer's editors are provided. The gcc compiler, perl, WDSibyl and the OS/2 toolkit are installed.
- Cameraderie and Fotoget provide support for digital cameras.
Graphics by Colorful Language
Copyright 2009 by Blonde Guy