Pentium 4 notebooks for those with moths in their wallets

LAST MONTH'S introductory article to The Cheap Basket, where I let users know of a $499 QMS colour laser printer clearance, was a huge success [Oh, yeah? Ed.]. My inbox was flooded with INQuiries for more money-saving deals and tips. I have been patrolling several online retailers since then, and I'm happy to bring you today a couple of more offers that caught my eye.

There's something for everyone: from a freeware application that does the same as $45 commercial utilities, to Logitech wireless optical trackballs at half cost, and affordable 2.4 GHz notebooks with DVD and CD-burners below the $1300 and $800 dollar mark.

Usual disclaimer: I apologise for my America-centred purchasing habits. That doesn't prevent buyers elsewhere, however, from taking advantage of the cheap dollar/strong Euro and Pound Sterling. You just have to sign up for some package forwarding company that gives you your own US mailing address. It has worked for me, so far.

Fasten your seat belt, let's get started.

Appetiser: Logitech Trackballs at half price
If you don't like trackballs, feel free to scroll down to the next topic. Trackball lovers (here's one!), however, will be happy to know that you can get at half cost the Logitech cordless Optical Trackman, currently selling for around $52 dollars at Amazon.com, and even more from Office Depot and Circuit City.

A small Yahoo Store is selling the same trackballs, whitebox-packed, for $27.95. After you apply the $5 discount code, the end price is $22.95. Not a bad deal indeed. The $5 discount coupon is GM0302 and expires March 9, 2004. Even without the discount coupon, it's a great price.

You don't have to pay $600+ "Centrino tax"
to get a decent notebook!
A brand name notebook with a 1.5 Ghz "Pentium-M" CPU -that our own Paul Hales loves so much, and Centrino built-in wi-fi, with a 40GB hard disk and 256 to 512MB of RAM will likely end up costing you over $2,000 dollars. As an indicator, you just need to look at the price tags of the IBM T40 or Sony VAIOs with this kind of pedigree.

There is hope, however. What if I told you that you could save $600 and still have a comparable great notebook, even with wifi? It's possible, you just have to drop the Centrino hype and get a regular P4 notebook and add wi-fi to it, using a Cardbus WiFi "PC Card". Here are the two affordable choices I have found.

Toshiba's $899 2-Ghz Celeron notebook. For the severe case of Cheap B*stardness. Want a great notebook for you, your loved one, or the little ones?. You don't have to spend an arm and a leg to get a brand-bame quality notebook. For $899, you get a nice performer.

The CPU will not make you the fastest geek-on-the-block, but at 2.0GHz, with its 256MB of RAM, its 30GB hard disk and its DVD-CDRW drive, it will be more than adequate for your web browsing, e-mail, music playing, CD burning, DVD movie watching and Office needs. Plus, with this baby's specs, if you remove the installed WinslowXP and replace it with something like LindowsOS 4.5 with Mozilla 1.6 and StarOffice/Openoffice as replacements for the bundled software, you will have a screamer! Hint: if you plan to install Linux on this baby I recommend you upgrade to the latest Xfree86 version, 4.4.0, since it includes several stability fixes that apply to this notebook's Intel 852GM graphics chipset.

It includes a 15-inch active-matrix display, two USB 2.0 ports, an integrated 56K modem and an Ethernet port, the whole shebang. To add wifi just insert a $48 cardbus card THIS one from Netgear, and you will have a wifi enabled (dual 802.11 "b" AND "g") notebook, with a fast 2.0GHz CPU, plenty of RAM, and still under the $1,000 mark, without the added expense typical of the $2000+ Centrino models. Find the Toshiba baby here.

The $1249 Sony VAIO FVR-26 (2.8 Ghz P4). For the "mild" case of Cheap B*starditis. So a Celeron 2.4GHz CPU just doesn't cut it, and yet the "cheap b*stard" in you rolls and screams like a stabbed pig at the thought of spending over $2,000 for the latest "Centrino" notebooks with Pentium-M CPUs? OK, I will help you, and cross my "$1,000 psychological barrier" to highlight Sony's impressive VAIO FRV26, currently on clearance sale at Amazon.com. For just $1249 (there's a $100 rebate), you get: a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 512MB of DDR RAM (upgradeable to 1GB), ATI Radeon video (64MB), a 40GB Hard Drive, a 15-inch active matrix LCD, and a DVD/CD-RW drive. Unlike the Toshiba, this one is packed with three high-speed USB 2.0 ports and one Firewire port. If you want wifi, you can add it easily as well.

This one has a nice "while supplies last" notice on Amazon.com. So don't tell me later that I didn't tell you. Get it while you can.

The Software Dessert: save up to $60
I recently needed to erase all the software I installed and data I downloaded and return a demo notebook to the vendor. But I didn't want to simply delete stuff and risk people using some undelete program to peek at my old files, yet at the same time doing a complete format and reinstalling was not an attractive option.

What do you do when this happens? You wipe the free hard disk space. So I headed to Gurgle and typed "wipe free disk space". What I got among the first results was a long list of commercial and shareware disk wiping applications. I rolled my eyes upwards.

Is there anything simpler than a free disk space wiping application? In simple terms: you check the free drive space using an OS-provided routine. You start writing a bogus temp file, to act as the "data eraser" and saving "00" "00" "00" (or "FF" "FF" "FF", or anything you want), until you reach that size (fill the disk). Bingo. There's no more free space and whatever data was in there is now overwritten.

So how much are these people asking for, for their "innovative" disk wiping applications? Let's see... "WipeDrive"... $59.90, SysWipe... $29.95... "FileWipe"... $9.95. Nice but still not good enough. Remember, like the Aberdonian editor I'm a cheap b*stard! And chances are, you are too, if you have read this far.

Open Source finally comes to the rescue, in the form of one appropriately named utility: "Eraser". It's a very nice, free, data erasing utility for Windows that, among other things, includes a function to wipe all free disk space. Just what I was looking for. Not only is it free and Open Source, it's released under the GPL licence, for the joy of Richard Stallman. Find it here.

It installed flawlessly on Windows 2000, put its icon in the Systray, and I quickly found it's one powerful little beast. It even lets you "schedule" your disk-wiping with a very easy to use and attractive graphical interface. I highlighted the C: drive, selected "Wipe Free disk space", let it do its chores, and 15 minutes later it completed its work. Fabulous. Cost of this? Zero. Think of the money you saved vs. for instance, buying the $59.90 "WipeDrive". The only problem for me, being a cheap b*stard, was returning the notebook.

Did you like these tips? Hated them? Know a better deal? Are you a cheap b*stard? Hate them? Let me know. µ

* FORWARDING Fernando says try this lot.