HELP with "dima" on VGN-FZ140E/B!

Hello,
I am an incoming freshman college student and I need a laptop.
I am seriously considering the Vaio VGN-FZ140E/B 15.4" Notebook PC (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7100, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)
However, 2 things worry me about this Vaio. First off, I've heard many things regarding the battery life. I've heard as low as less than 2 hours, or as much as 3.5+ hours. Can anybody clear this up? (I am not planning to do any heavy gaming or any special things on this comp, just regular student work and web browsing and such).

The thing that worries me the most, however, is this "dima" program by Sony on this computer.
On the Amazon.com customer review for the Vaio, somebody posted the following:
"BE WARNED - MAJOR FLAW
WARNING: Do not buy a new Sony Vaio of any kind with Vista if you want to record any audio off of your sound card - meaning the internet. Sony has permanently disabled the "wave" or "stereo out" abilities of they're new computers. On all other major brands there is a simple two click solution, but Sony has deemed it in their best interests to make it impossible to reverse. This is a serious and deliberate flaw that they've built into their computers with bigger "corporate interests" in mind, not the usefullness of their computers to the average consumer. Be warned. See this forum for more information."

Afterwards I went to Circuit City and saw a "dima" sticker on the vaio there. The guy working there didn't know much about it (nobody seems to), but all he said is that it seems to be some kind of program in the computer that restricts music downloads.
What he told me seems to go along with what the guy off the Amazon review board wrote.
Now this is something that worries me, seeing as a have an iTunes library of well over 5,000+ songs, as well as somebody who shares music files via AOL Instant Messanger with others. However, I do not use programs such as "limewire" to download music (have had a bad experience with viruses). When I download music from the internet, it is only purchases through iTunes. Other than that, I just share music files via AIM.

Can somebody clear up the meaning of this dima and what it does exactly (and also what does the quote that I posted mean exactly as well). I was almost going to purchase the computer today but I did not want to do it without first finding out exactly what the guy on the amazon.com review was talking about. I also did not want to do it without finding out about this dima program as well.
I need to buy a laptop by tomorrow, but I want to make sure that this computer will not cause a problem for me in regards to my music and such.

Thanks in advance for any help

 

dima? never seen it... do you mean dlna?

 

Yeah maybe it is dlna, my friend may have written it down wrong.
I just figured it has something to do with what that guy posted in the amazon.com forum regarding Sony not allowing you to "record any audio off of your sound card"

 

You're basing your entire decision on what some idiot on Amazon said? I've never heard of anything like that. Must be a disgruntled Apple user or something.

 

Yes, it seems like you mean dlna: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Living_Network_Alliance

I'm still not quite sure what dlna means regarding this computer, but so far its done everything I want it to do.

 

It's all marketing. DLNA was created by Sony and Intel.

And this makes absolutely no sense:

"WARNING: Do not buy a new Sony Vaio of any kind with Vista if you want to record any audio off of your sound card - meaning the internet. Sony has permanently disabled the "wave" or "stereo out" abilities of they're new computers."

 

Haha yeah, must be some Apple-using Hippie

I just wanted to find out what this guy was talking about, but I've looked into it some more and apparantely it is BS. I thought that maybe the dlma program had something to do with what hes talking about, but as someone mentioned its just some sort of media program so there is no problems.

Thanks for your help guys, I'm about to go out to the story and pick up my Vaio now

 

I am not so certain! It does look as if the "wave" and "stereo out" options are no longer shown as possible recorder inputs. Now granted I have only tried this using the "Sound Recorder" applet. If you right click on the Speaker icon in the system tray and select "Recording devices" you see only the microphone. No option for WAVE or Stereo Out there like it has been on other XP machines (don't know about Vista).

So the original poster MIGHT be right, we might not be able to record any streamed sounds from the internet. Sigh.

Gary

 

Hey guys, I got my Vaio today and I really like it! Everythings going fine, except for one problem: the screensaver.
The screensaver wasn't coming up, so I went to control panel and it was off, so I turned it on and switched the timer to 1 minute to test out if it would work, but after several minutes of sitting there the screen saver never came on, even though I had just switched it on.
Has anyone had this problem before? How can I get the screensaver to work?

 

You could always try using the WaveOut plugin for Winamp to record (some) internet streams...