Bootable CD w/OS for firewall

[jjohnson at sunrise-linux.com (miah)]

On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 11:24:04AM -0400, David Kramer wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, miah wrote:
> > I really wish laptop batteries didn't suck as much as they do.  Every
> > laptop that I've ever had that I've left plugged in for months at a
> > time has a battery failure.  If I'm never using the battery, but its
> > installed wtf is the battery going dead?  It seems to me like the
> > laptop doesn't detect 'battery full' condition too well and tries to
> > charge it constantly thus killing it off.  I'm no EE person though and
> > don't know how truthful that is.  
> > And seriously, $200 for a battery is insane, I really wish they'd
> 
> LiIon batteries are a lot better than NiCd or NiMh, but your point is 
> valid.  I prolly would not put the battery in the laptop.  Because for the 
> replacement cost of one laptop battery, you can buy a kickass UPS unit.  
> Totally rediculous.

Exactly, I can goto MIT flea and pickup a ups for $30 =)

> > standardize on a form-factor or that non-vendor replacements were
> > actually cheaper.
> 
> That's the major problem with laptops.  They are made of all proprietary 
> components, except for the memory and hard drive and CPU.  A standardized 
> laptop battery shape would force the hands of the designers to certain 
> fixed form factors for the laptop itself.
> 
> There are now some external battery packs on the market that are way cool 
> though.  You have a thin flat panel that the laptop sits on top of, and it 
> plugs into the power jack.  Very long life.

I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to design a couple different
standardized battery form factors that all laptops could use and not
hinder innovation much.  I'm not saying there should be 'one size fits
all' but maybe give a choice of forms, but standardize on it.  If
there are only 5 different battery form factors for all the different
laptops it'd be nice.  The world gets by fine with AAA, AA, C, and D
batteries =)

I've seen some of these, I haven't had a chance to try any of them
though, the one I saw had a really ugly form factor and would have
needed to be velcro'd to the back of the lcd.  

-miah