A personal computer for those who still have dollars to burn

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): First, when business has ground down to a snail's pace, what is the most ideal thing that employers can do in addition to keeping their employees on the payroll? Those who can still afford it should, of course, continue to invest in human resources. Lucky employees, who can still hold a job, can spend their time learning new things or reading books to improve their skills.

Or taking good courses.

Speaking of courses that employees can take, Cisco Systems of Indonesia has pioneered a highly welcomed move by offering a two- day training camp at Hotel Millennium Sirih this weekend. The registration fee is a meager Rp 150,000, (US$16.66) which entitles participants to eight sessions of their choice, two lunches at the hotel and a certificate at the end of the program. The instructors will be Cisco's own systems engineers, and that's probably why the company can afford to offer the courses virtually free of charge. The bad news is, the courses are fully booked and registration closed last week.

Cisco Systems is commonly considered the third major player in the computer industry, the two others being Intel and Microsoft. While Intel provides the brain for 80 percent of the PCs in the world and Microsoft makes the software that enable us to work with these boxes, Cisco provides 80 percent of the devices that help our computers talk to each other -- routers, switches, hubs, etc. However, as Daniel Tofani, Cisco's Country Manager for Indonesia said, the sessions during the entire training camp would cover general topics in LAN, voice-over data, etc., and not be limited to products only sold by his company.

It shows, however, how people need IT courses that can help them gain more knowledge. Indeed, the world's IT industry has been plagued by a lack of workers with IT knowledge and skills, and the current economic crisis is a good time to invest in human resources to fill the need. I just hope that more major IT vendors with presence in this country will follow suit by offering short but valuable courses to our workforce like the ones that Cisco is organizing.

Presario

While the employees spend their time reading or sitting in classrooms, the boss can perhaps indulge in a new toy called Presario 4615. Compaq, which has just bought Digital and become the second largest computer company in the world, informed me that this would be the top-end Presario that they will make available in Indonesia in the near future.

And the top end it certainly is. I felt so sad when I had to return it to Compaq after three weeks of enjoying its speed and features. This Presario comes with amenities that I had not really expected: Pentium II 300 MHz, 32 MB of RAM, a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) drive that also works as a high-speed CD-ROM drive, a whopping 6 GB hard drive, JBL speakers that are supposed to be attached to the sides of the matching monitor, two USB ports and a 56K fax modem. Wow!

As a top-of-the-line multimedia machine, it also comes with various sound enhancements to complement the DVD drive, including Dolby Digital Surround Sound capability. To increase overall performance, Compaq has also chosen SyncDRAM for the memory subsystem. In SyncDRAM, the memory is synchronized with the system's clock signal, making all operations run at the same speed as the processor bus.

The hard disk is a Quantum Bigfoot TX. This is a low-cost but very reliable model from Quantum. Unlike the 3.5" hard disk that you're familiar with, Bigfoot comes -- as the name correctly indicates -- in 5.25" format. When I opened the casing, the first thing I saw on the top was this big hard disk.

The motherboard uses an ATX design, with the sound card and graphics sub-system already built in. Unfortunately, only three expansion slots are available: two for PCI cards and one for an ISA card. The latter was already occupied by the modem. So, if I had wanted to equip this machine with an MPEG card such as Boser, I'd be out of luck. But, because the processor is so powerful and the system very efficient, I could run the software-based Xing MPEG Player to play Video CDs without any problem in the full- screen mode. No hiccup whatsoever.

But the availability of only two PCI slots is quite a limitation. Should I decide to network this PC with a Network Interface Card and add a SCSI drive for a CD-Writer, I'd have expanded the system to its limit. But, then again, the Presario is not meant for power users that enjoy playing around with gadgets. The overall design says it loudly. The casing is the smallest that I've seen. While it is categorized as a mini tower, its depth is just about 60 percent of the depth of any standard PC casing. It's so luggable that when I took it out of the box, I thought it was a notebook. The downside of this compact design by Compaq is that servicing can be tedious. The power supply on the lower left side of the chassis, for instance, blocks access to the motherboard.

Power

Despite the size of the CPU casing, Compaq has packed the next-to-the-best in terms of processing power into this machine (Pentium II's top speed is 333 MHz). But the 300 MHz brain is really breathtaking. On this Presario, CorelDRAW 8.0 sails as smoothly as Windows Paintbrush does on the 133 MHz that I'm using to write this article. Compaq targets this machine for those who really want and can afford the most powerful home PC.

Although it is assembled in Taiwan, the CPU casing is sturdily built. The metal cover of the casing is thick and heavy, and the design of the front panel's face is simple but cool. This CPU design is shared by its siblings, the Presarios 4620, 4540 and 4550.

This Presario comes with a few CDs, and it has Microsoft Works already installed. One of my favorite non-productivity tools, which was also included, was Moto Race. It was a 3-D game featuring motorcycles racing, and it played superbly with the background scenery recreated flawlessly in real time--thanks to its ATI Rage Pro #-D graphics controller.

The price for the Indonesian market has not been set yet, but in the United States similarly configured Presario can be bought through mail order stores for US$2,299.

If you still have tons of U.S. dollars stored under your pillow, this tire-burning PC will definitely give you a lot of excitement. But, remember, don't get carried away by the Moto Race craze!