A story of my love for my old laptop, an IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T43, and my disappointment with the “updated” version, the Lenovo T61

I bought my ThinkPad T43 in August 2005. I love this computer. It is thin, light, powerful, and tough as nails. It may not be as pretty as an iBook or MacBook, but in size and weight, it compares favorably. Until a few weeks ago, I only replaced a trackpad button (too many video games) and the optical drive. Both were replaced nearly instantaneously by Lenovo’s outstanding on-site support (I am not kidding, they are awesome, both then and now).

It came with Windows XP Pro, but I started using Ubuntu Linux with it about a year ago, as well, and it works nearly perfectly with both operating systems.

A few weeks ago, the motherboard on my T43 fizzled. I was certain my warranty had expired, so in a fit of impulsivity, I ordered a new ThinkPad T61 with all the bells and whistles. I was even thrilled to order it with SLED Linux pre-installed instead of Windows.

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About two months ago, I bought a Philips VOIP 841 Skype phone to replace my old-fashioned land line. I started using Skype because I wanted the flexibility of having the same number at work, home, or whatever coffee shop I happened to be at. But ordinarily with Skype, you are tied to your computer, which runs the Skype software.

Not so with the VOIP 841. It plugs directly into your ethernet jack (or in my case, my router) and connects to the internet and your Skype account by itself. No computer needed.

And for that, I love it. The sound quality is great on our standard Qwest DSL (1.5 mbps) line, even though five of us share the line. The phone is wireless so I can wander around the office, and, of course, it takes up a lot less room than the big office phone it replaced (and looks good, too).

But the phone has two flaws, one of which drives me insane, and I am seriously considering burning the thing.

First, the lesser flaw. There is no way to clear the history so that, if you listened to your voicemail on your computer, your phone does not keep blinking “40 voicemails” at you. You have to listen to each voicemail one at a time in order to clear the notification, which is rather cumbersome and annoying. This flaw, however, I could deal with, if not for the second flaw.

Second, the serious flaw. Call waiting on this phone is broken. Badly. When someone calls in, the phone beeps to let you know. But even if you reject the call, it keeps beeping every few seconds no matter what you do, cutting into your conversation repeatedly, again and again and again and again. I called Philips’ overseas support line, but this problem does not seem to be in the binder they give their CSRs.

This is a serious flaw. I cannot carry on a conversation while my phone is beeping at me every few seconds. It turns a pleasant conversation into one where I want to stomp on the phone.

And for this flaw alone, I cannot recommend the VOIP 841. Get something else. But test it first to make sure the call waiting features work properly.

My good friend and financial advisor, David Benning, recently loaned me The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to do About It, by Michael E. Gerber. David is a small business owner, like me, and he said The E-Myth Revisited had changed the way he approached developing his business.

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Well, the invoices went out, came in, and Time59 dealt with the billing and A/R aspects of my test account beautifully. I was very happy with the ease and simplicity of the whole process. I didn’t have to deal with any expense tracking, which is currently not available. Expense tracking is a planned feature in a near-future release, however.

As an added bonus, Time59 works quite well from a Blackberry screen, making it a fantastic option for attorneys on the go. Time Matters also offers this option, though not online, but it is just as cumbersome as Time Matters is. This is slow, but just as simple as using Time59 from your computer. I love having this option, since I always have my Blackberry with me, but don’t always have my laptop.

The downside to all this, of course, is that you have to be connected to the Internet in order to use Time59. This is no problem if you bill “after the fact” by going through your timekeeping notebook at the end of the day, week, or month. It is less convenient if you like to bill in real time.

As soon as Time59 allows expense tracking, it will be a great solution for a small law office. It would be nice if Time59 also had a timer for billing in “real time,” and on my “wish list” would be a simple desktop client to allow me to track time from my computer and sync with the server whenever I am online.

As I mentioned, I had a short-notice brief writing project to do over the weekend. A new client called Wednesday and asked for a summary judgment motion that was due today. Since I have been dabbling in free and open-source software lately, I decided to use OpenOffice.org Writer to draft the brief.

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I recently downloaded the trial version of Office 2007 for a long-term test, and I wanted to share my thoughts and reactions after living with it for about two weeks. I primarily use Outlook and Word, and Excel only occasionally. My comments will obviously focus on those programs.

I’ll start with my conclusion: Based on Outlook and Word, Office 2007 is probably not worth the upgrade. If you were hoping to do amazing new things, or that you would save tons of time because of new streamlining, this is not the office suite you are looking for. What Office 2007 does is fine-tune the interface, which is nice, but not really worth $239-679.

But I am going to get Office 2007 anyway. It took me a few days to come to this conclusion, but the new software takes some time to get used to. When you learn where things have gone and how to manipulate the new interface, it really does make more sense, and it really is easier to use. Still, this is a minor upgrade for the user, whatever Microsoft’s marketing division may say. (My IT friends say MS did a number from a systems perspective, but that doesn’t mean much to me.)

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