BreakPoint
Lets say you wanna work from your best coffee spot and your instrument is not attached to your laptop - No remote allowed, how do you make programming ?
To be more open, I mean If you wanna make programming via your laptop but you may not be able to run some of the sub VI to test the actual instrument. How do you create appropriate VI's that acts as temporary VI's for your instrument?
In the past I've recorded waveforms on actual hardware when I had access to it, then created a simulation mode for my software that when activated will load the recorded waveforms from disk rather than from the actual hardware.
I've also created a soft simulator with switches and knobs and even a rudimentary function generator to simulate simple waveforms. My code would just have Boolean that I would switch when I wanted to run in Simulation Mode.
Adding a Simulation Mode can be a lot of work on code that has already been written. But it can be very, very useful in the long run. When creating new projects, always consider creating a simulation mode.
Just remember to have a foolproof way to know when you are in simulation vs. "the real thing". The US Airforce allegedly came close to starting WWIII when someone ran a simulation tape and others didn't know it was a simulation, thought that missiles were on the way!
I got a recent upgrade to a new Dell 7720. i7 2.3G, 8G RAM, Dual Video with the i7's built in Intel video and a discreet nVidia 650M GT and a 32G MSATA drive to speed up booting and prefetching.
...oh, and a Subwoofer. 
....you know, 'cause you need that Brony Dubstep crankin' while you're coding LabVIEW.
One thing I don't like about this laptop is the Western Digital Scorpion Blue drive. This laptop is only a few months old and it's had the hard drive replaced already. (Under warranty) Other than that, this thing really rocks. I typically use the latptop and two external 22" monitors to make for a three monitor setup.
In the past I used to have a dual or triple boot setup to allow me to boot different versions of Windows and Linux. But now I'm just running Win7 and using VirtualBox to run virtual machines.
I've used a lot of Dell machines over the past 10 years and for the most part they've always been solid performers and the warranties have always been honored when there has been a problem. ( I just call now and tell them to send me the "hero kit" and I swap the parts myself )
That said, ThinkPads have always been exellent laptops in my opinion. I haven't owned one since they were bought by Lenovo, but they still look and feel like solid machines.
