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This document contains information about Blonde Guy computers that have been configured with the eComStation operating system. Current contact information for Blonde Guy is available on the web at http://www.blondeguy.com.
Blonde Guy offers eComStation users well designed computers that are ready to use. All the hardware works, and has OS/2 device drivers configured. Software is configured to work properly. You can watch YouTube videos with sound, for example. The computer will work with many USB-connected cameras and MP3 players. All the operating system patches are installed. Many freely available programs have been installed.
The software installed on Blonde Guy computers has been installed by Suntan Special. Blonde Guy's Suntan Special software can be used to install updates to the system and its applications and also to install additional applications. When newer versions of software are released, you can use Suntan Special to keep your Blonde Guy computer up to date.
I saw an opportunity to get some great computers that were a couple of years old, and to install eComStation and a whole load of software. The result is a computer with eComStation preloaded without the waste of manufacturing a new computer. These computers are typically a bit too old to run Vista, but run eComStation faster than a new computer. Two year old hardware is the latest with eCS drivers. So buying this kind of computer turns the eCS driver disadvantage into an advantage -- allowing higher performance on a greener PC choice.
This section lists the steps in processing your order. I wrote this section so that my business will be as transparent as possible.
Blonde Guy computers are configured with the eComStation volume assigned to drive C:. A maintenance volume is assigned to drive E:. A bootable DVD is provided to allow restoring the original Blonde Guy factory installation.
The eComStation volume has applications installed in the C:\P directory. All of the applications were installed using Suntan Special. Suntan Special can be used to smoothly install and configure upgrades to the installed applications.
Blonde Guy computers have a bootable maintenance volume, to make it easy to take care of backup, restore and other maintenance. A bootable restore DVD is also provided. The primary boot volume has a maintenance folder with useful utilities.
The Maintenance volume, E:, has sufficient tools to fix problems that occur over time. The factory backup image is stored in the E:\image\Factory directory. All of the maintenance functions have been collected in the Maintenance Folder.
The recovery DVD supplied is a bootable eComStation DVD with network support. You can boot the machine from DVD, connect to your home or office network, and perform maintenance functions. The maintenance folder is available on the recovery DVD. The factory backup is stored in the \image\Factory directory.
The Maintenance folder is found on the primary boot volume, the maintenance volume and the bootable restore DVD. The purpose of this folder is to put all maintenance and recovery options in one place. This folder is provided on all bootable volumes and on the Recovery DVD.
Backs up the computer to the e:\image directory and creates a bootable restore DVD. Only the eComStation (C:), Data (D:\home) and Maintenance (E:) Volumes are backed up.
The backup method supplied does not work well on a running volume. If you have booted from the Recovery DVD, you can backup and restore all volumes. Otherwise, if you have booted from the hard drive, the backup program will skip the booted volume. You may boot the computer to the maintenance volume to backup the eComStation volume.
The backups are simple zip files. You can use unzip to extract some or all of the files in a backup. Backups are located on the Restore DVD and on the Maintenance Volume (E:) in the \image\Factory directory.
Icons to restore each disk are provided in the Maintenance Folder.
Starts networking. This icon is useful to start networking on the restore DVD.
Blonde Guy's installation and configuration utility. Suntan Special creates a well configured workstation or server by installing a sequence of fixes, patches, drivers and applications to your OS/2 or eComStation computer. Suntan Special also helps to keep your system up to date by downloading upgrades to your system and its applications.
DFSee is a generic disk, partition and filesystem utility for maintenance and data-recovery. It supports partition tables (FDISK, LVM), FAT, FAT32, HPFS, NTFS, and partly JFS, EXT2/3 or REISER filesystems. DFSee is commercial software which requires a license key for continued use.
The eComStation Maintenance Tool is intended to update an eCS installation with IBM Convenience Package updates (known as fixpacks), apply customized updates supplied by Serenity Systems, install selected features, or backout updates that have been applied. It is also capable of applying and removing updates from IBM and Serenity Systems that are not applied using the IBM service process.
PMVNC is an OS/2 implementation of VNC. Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a desktop sharing system which uses the RFB (Remote FrameBuffer) protocol to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard presses and mouse clicks from one computer to another relaying the screen updates back in the other direction, over a network.
PCI is a program to scan the PCI bus and report on the cards found.
SmartMon is a VIO program that can display and monitor hard disk status.
Sysbench is a comprehensive benchmarking program for OS/2. Measure the speed of the system using SysBench.
SystemInfo is a clone of the Norton SystemInfo for Windows originally by Alexey S. Smirnof, and continued by Yuri Prokushev. List lots of information about the system with SystemInfo.
Blonde Guy computers are guaranteed to work when they are delivered. After that, the user is responsible.
Blonde Guy will attempt to answer all e-mail questions about customer's systems.
Blonde Guy will post questions, answers and helpful tips on the website.
Blonde Guy offers a trade-in policy. If you already hold valid licenses for eComStation and the rest of the software, then you may buy any replacement system at a discount. See the order forms for each computer for details.