Salute

I've just agreed to run a couple of games at Salute, the big London wargames con, at the end of April. It'll be the same ones I ran at Dragonmeet, The Kobold Project (the highly abridged version) for Forgotten Futures and Elvis: The Legendary Tours for Diana: Warrior Princess.

Don't know if anyone else here plans to go to it - it's a good one-day con, I actually have more fun as a player than I do when I go there to GM but never mind.

See http://www.salute.co.uk for full details.

Laptop lunacy

At some point in the next few months I want to get a new laptop. When I say "new" I mean "not so old and crap as the current one", which is a P200 running Windows 98. It's a Compaq Armada, fairly reliable but HEAVY, slow, not fond of most recent software, and tending to throw fits if I try to use it on any WiFi setup or network but my own. About the one good point is a 3-4 hour battery life with low usage.

What I'm looking for is something small, light, and with a VERY long battery life - ideally at least 4-6 hours with minimal disk access, since I want to be able to leave a presentation running for several hours at sites where mains power isn't available. I want it to be capable of playing DVDs, and it needs to run a web browser, text editor, and Powerpoint. It also needs to be easily networked via cable or WiFi.

What I'm thinking of here is something like a Centrino machine running XP, or possibly something like an Apple Ibook G4 if that'll run the PC version of Powerpoint (or at least show PowerPoint stuff without me having to buy the software again).

I'm not in any huge hurry for this, it's a "want" item rather than a "need" item. And I'd be perfectly happy to go with an older machine or lower spec than the current maximums if the basic needs above are met. So... any suggestions, or anyone know of anything going really cheap?