It's nice when technology is affordable, easy to use and open source, all in one package. That's why I'm so psyched about my new laptop, an IBM ThinkPad T43 for under $300 from a supplier on ebay. It came loaded with Windows, but I replaced it with the Linux operating system Ubuntu 9.04. I couldn't get it to load from the download, but got ahold of a CD and the process took about 15 minutes! For a final touch, I've loaded it with an awesome purple theme from Gnome-Colors. Apparently ThinkPads have been rented to corporate folks who barely use them, which makes it possible to purchase them nearly new on the cheap. My friend Mark was the one who got the ThinkPad Linux idea in my head, but apparently he's not the first one to think it up. There's a whole website called ThinkWiki about ThinkPads running Linux. Lenovo bought the ThinkPad line several years back, but IBM as he original manufacturer is not only fine with Linux on their machines, but promoted it in a series of ads a couple years back.

This is an advertisement for Linux which IBM released in September 2003 in their "The Future is Open" campaign. I think the idea behind it was brilliant and they had nice cameos as well.

Take a look:

A great ad for Linux by IBM.

Linux advertisement from IBM, released in September … more about "IBM Linux ad: Prodigy", posted with vodpod

No deja de ser curioso que tenga que ser una de las grandes empresas, IBM, la que acompañó a Microsoft en sus inicios, quien haya creado este maravilloso vídeo donde se explica a un niño las virtudes de Linux de un modo poético.