posted on June 29, 2002 12:36:44 PM new
Sigh. I need to get two new computers; 1 keyboard; and one monitor. The Kid has been without one for well over a year, and mine is about to expire.
Variables: 1)I'll never get a celeron processor again. 2)I'd like Windows XP on mine. 3)Most of the kid's software is 3.1 and just beyond. 4)No Macs. 5)Who is known for excellent tech support? 6)Stuff I don't know yet.
Minimum requirements loosely defined: We don't buy or use hard-core video-laden computer games, unless that's what educational software for kids is these days.
Questions: Should I get a zip drive to download stuff I want off of mine?
Someone please just tell me the best options? I break down when merely picking "The green or the blue?"
posted on June 29, 2002 01:58:11 PM new
PCs are a buyers market right now. You should be able to find a good deal.
Dell and Gateway are known for customer service. BUT, all have trimmed back on customer service since sales have been very slow.
Any new PC you buy will more than likely have XP on it.
As far as transferring material from your old HD to the new PC, the easiest way I have found is to slave the old HD into the new PC and drag and drop what you want. If you have a CD burner in the old one, you can also just copy to a CD and load it into the new PC.
posted on June 29, 2002 06:31:41 PM new
I know as much about it as you do, nycyn. I jut bought a new one last december...its a HP pavilion XP. Dont know the wattage, dont know the gigamathingy, dont know the modemesclustelecti either. All I know is that it only cost 600.00 brand new from Circuit City and runs just mighty fine
PC's are inexpensive now...grab a new one and tell the dealer what you are looking for and what you USE it for. He or she will lead you to the right one.
Dont forget to talk to it first. Get its vibes. (JUst like a car. Name it, and its your friend, lol)
edited to add 6 HUNDRED, not 6 dollars, lol.
[ edited by hepburn101 on Jun 29, 2002 06:32 PM ]
posted on June 29, 2002 06:32:43 PM new
All the current processors are as fast as anyone needs for practical puposes.
The hard drives have gotten as big as anyone reaslly can use.
Right now memory is cheap so buy as much RAM as they can fit in the thing because it makes the machine run fast and smooth more than any other thing you can change.
A CD burner is usually cheap and more convienient than a ZIP.
Monitors are coming down hard in price.
Don't consider anything less than a 19 because soon it will be obsolete. In a couple or 3 years you can buy a big flat screen to replace it cheap.
posted on June 29, 2002 06:52:29 PM new
I need a personal shopper. Somebody just bundle me up and build in your commission. I can't take the stress. Destinies of hundreds of people not a problem. But this, this I can't do.
I'm expecting a major windfall in overdue OT. Hope I'm not evicted by then.
Besides, the one I'm on is going fast. It begins to break up after five minutes and the only solution (sometimes) is to turn it on and off and on and off.
posted on June 29, 2002 07:37:11 PM new
Zone Alarm has been a good firewall for me. I just use the free version. I do very much need it with a DSL.
I also never use Microsofts e-mail and news program because almost every virii and worm is made to go through MS products. Since I never open an unknown attachment and don't use MS Outlook I have never had a Virii since being on the net from before there WAS a web.
posted on June 29, 2002 08:08:55 PM new
hEP: aND TECH SUPPORT? (oops)
What about this spam from Dell?
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posted on June 29, 2002 08:13:04 PM new
I just saw an advertisment for a Dell for $700.00, free shipping. Go to their website. Now will someone tell me what a CD burner is? Can you tell about the only thing I know about this computer how to turn in on and go directly to eBay. This is one reason I liked my webtv. Now don't laugh, I didn't have to know anything it was done for me. They saved everything I just hit the button. I thought I never had a virus but with this new Norton I put on I have had two or three emails with it. Of course it was ones I never open anyway. You know those porno ones. When I see them I just zap them out and quickly. I have O L express
and I like it but then if there was no choices in this world it would be rather dull. Good Thread
posted on June 29, 2002 08:42:40 PM new
A CD burner will allow you to make a CD very similar to the ones you buy that hold music or programs. Of course it will read them itself - but some can be read in other CD drives and some can even be read in regular commercial read only machines. You can even record a sort of fake DVD on a CD disk.
They used to be fairly difficult to use because if you do not keep a steady flow of data to the burner it will ruin the burn. It used to be that the computers were to slow and would get too busy doing some operation and drop a few bits of data and mess up the CD. A solution was to record the whole set of data you wished to burn on your hard drive so it could flow smoothly to the drive. But the hard drives were not big enough back then to hold the data easily. Now with faster machines and bigger drives they work much better. The commonly used sort are write once - you can't erase and reuse them but you can buy them for about a buck.
posted on June 29, 2002 11:29:16 PM new
CD burner software has come a long way in the last 2 years. A burned CD can be used on nearly all CD drives for the last few years, they even play on audio CD players in your car or stereo system. They have very fast burn speeds now too. The new software also has buffer under run protection.
A CD burner can also save HD space and great for back-up.
The newer CD burners also read DVDs.
As the OP said- get as much Ram as the machine can hold. Your chip on a new machine will be at a 1 gig. Most new machines have state of the art video and audio cards too.
You may not want a firewall if you're on a dial up service. Your IP address constantly changes on dial up.
With DSL and cable, you're always connected and with cabel and I think with DSL, you have an assigned IP address that never changes. One a hacker gets your IP address, he/she can continously target your ports until they find a way to get into your machine.
I don't think I will be buying a PC again. The lap top I bought earlier this year is just as powerful as a PC and has just as much HD space, and it's portable and takes up much less space.
posted on June 29, 2002 11:47:53 PM new
portable is the definitive word. Long distance calls become very scarce when on vaction if your ISP happens to have a phone number in the same area as you are vacationing.
posted on June 30, 2002 08:32:14 AM new
Re laptops: Yes I've been wondering about those, if it is really true that they can do everything a PC does at the same rate and quality. A little hard for me to comprehend. And how about the screen quality? And how about doing your auction pics and all that? Can you upload from your digital camera? The modem? They can really squeeze everything into those? oh yeah, isn't there a bracket thing so that you can slide it under a regular monitor?
posted on June 30, 2002 10:04:36 AM new
They have what is called a docking station you slide it into to make it easier to use at your desk with a full sized monitor. There are problems with the new Windows. It will see the dock as a new configuration and refuse to allow you to use the MS programs until you call in and prove you have not pirated it to a second computer.
That's why I am not going to have any new MS products - I will use Windoze 98 and then go to Linux. I have enough control freaks without paying them.
posted on June 30, 2002 10:13:31 AM new
Linux, hm. I'd like to lose MS (gawd I pine still for the DOS days) but am afraid to be all alone on my own out there. Can you imagine: "Anybody here know Linux?"
posted on June 30, 2002 11:08:43 AM new
Whatever you buy today will be obsolete in a couple of weeks.
I had a small IBM and then bought a much larger Sony RX580. I only noticed a substantial increase in speed when I replaced the dial up connection with DSL.
posted on June 30, 2002 11:17:42 AM new
Gravid, our next system will be using Red Hat. No more Billyware. Between XP and Palladium carp, I'll take a small loss and more control over my system any day. You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on June 30, 2002 11:22:05 AM new
Yup - There are a couple versions now that are almost as easy to install as MS. I think they are about to find out how much people resent being managed.
while we are talking about it - I just see NO reason a lap top should be twice the cost of a desk system. Maybe a small premium - 20% say for the increased labor and abigger mold for the case instead of a front plate - but not double. It is a rip.
posted on June 30, 2002 11:47:08 AM new
Red Hat here.
Gravid, I'm thinking it might be Linux' time for the next couple years. Billyware is going to be tracking all its users, and the next step will be direct marketing, as I see it. The business ethics of MS suck, and with all that money, their product bites.
No, laptops shouldn't cost double. As long as people are willing to pay a huge premium for portability, they'll keep overcharging. You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
Your OS is Windows, right? Nope. That's the small loss. Lots of good open source stuff out there. I'll see a tech buddy next month who works in gaming, but plays with Linux for fun, and get some recommendations from him, since I am a newbie at this. Ahhh, the fun of newbieness. There's a lot on Usenet also. You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on June 30, 2002 12:57:44 PM new
Usually when you get a CD that has a version of Linux on it they bundle a bunch of things like a word processing program and a web prowser with the operating system.
Technically the basic operating system is free - but the versions you get off the web are hard for most people to install.
The companies that package an easier to install version with support and extra bundled programs still charge a tiny fraction of what Windows does.
Linux can run for years and never need rebooted because it has crashed. Much more stable than windows.
posted on July 1, 2002 08:53:23 AM new
Decide in advance if you need a laptop or not. If you dont need the portability, desktops not only cost less to start (maye $600-700 instead of $1100-$1200 for a comparabile system), they cost a lot less to maintain and upgrade. You can do your own work on a desktop, but a laptop you are often held hostage by proprietary parts and $75/hour labor to install them.
Linus is great for two things:
1. Doesn't crash (although XP is closing the gap)
2. Doesn't make microsoft money (great for people who hate bill gates).
But, be prepared for more headaches, esp. if you want to run a gamut of software, such as the older educational stuff. Personally, I run XP (which lets you set up environments for programs that need win95, etc), and, every friday night from 10-10:15 I set aside time to hate bill gates, but I leave linux to people who want to spend more time on their computer than I do.
Any processor above, oh, 600Mhz will be fast enough. 20Gigabtye harddrive is fine. Ram should be 128Megabytes, preferrably more. Monitor should be at least 17". Whether you want to pay more for a flatpanel, only you can decide. They cost more, but the gap is narrowing as production volumes go up.
Dell generally has the best price/support curve out there (IMO).
I wouldnt bother with a zip drive. It only holds 250Meg pre disk, and the disks are expensive. Better to get a cdrw (700meg per disks, cheap disks) if you dont have one already. Or, you can even copy, hard disk to hard disk, with a bit of work to physically install (temporarily) the older harddrive and with a utility like GHOST to be found in Norton Systemworks PRO (cheap after rebate usually).
If you want it easy, and want a desktop, go to dell and buy a middle-to-low-end system. If you want a laptop, the choice is less clear. IBM has the best (thinkpads), but they tend to be pricy, intended for business people. I'm not sure who makes the best consumer-grade laptop.
hope this helps.
[ edited by captainkirk on Jul 1, 2002 08:58 AM ]
posted on July 1, 2002 09:37:35 AM new
gravid, DH wants to use Opera for a browser, and they do have an Opera for Linux. We might just install it on our 2nd computer.
CaptKirk, good point about the cdr instead of a zip drive. Like the hate BillGates time, but I really despise what XP is doing, like my privacy (which is fast eroding), and like to tinker.
Just call me snowyegeek. You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on July 1, 2002 09:47:14 AM new
If I had time to tinker, I'd play with Linux too. I've got several copies on cdrom, just no time. Maintaining 4 pcs (and 8 kids) keeps me busy enough.
If nycyn were flexible about software, and venturesome about support, I'd say "go with linux" too maybe, since there finally are a variety of software that run just fine under that OS. HOwever, I worry about compatability with her existing trove of software, esp. the older educational stuff, and the thought of her getting one linux machine and one XP is not very exciting either - better, if possible, to have the same OS on both machines for ease of learning, use, sharing, etc.
As much as I hate to admit it, XP has been a pretty decent OS so far.
posted on July 1, 2002 12:26:22 PM new
why do you say that xp home edition "sucks"? Its working fine for me so far. Unless I'm missing something?
I also have win2000, and it, too, is stable but has less driver/software support (at least for the programs I run...which is a pretty broad range given the diverse interests in my family).
Note that nycyn is very interested in being able to run her son's educational programs, so the right answer should certainly favor that objective. One nice feature of XP: the ability to specify a run-time environment (windows 9X....640X480 resolution...256 colors) for each program. I've had great luck running all sorts of kids programs this way.
I just went to the dell website, and priced up a dell dimension 4500 desktop:
1.8Gig processor (more than you need)
20Gig HD
256Meg RAM
standard video, sound, speakers, keyboard
upgrade to optical mouse
upgrade to dvd drive
free cdrw burner (ends today)
17" crt monitor (flat panels available if desired)
free shipping (ends today)
Total $950 (plus tax perhaps)
good luck.
PS - have a little more left in the budget? go for the 40Gig harddrive, only $40 more. Make sure to get an ethernet NIC card if you are going to have broadband internet access (dsl or cablemodem). I forget if thats included, but its only $20 more if not).
[ edited by captainkirk on Jul 1, 2002 01:06 PM ]
