I just installed two new memory modules totalling 512mb of "RAM" vs my old one mod of 128mb on my home desktop PC ............ I have more than doubled my operating speed. Before it was getting to the point that it took about a full minute to open and close a program and sometimes things would freeze/lock up. Now it takes 1-4 seconds to accomplish the same tasks. I CANNOT BELIEVE the difference, I am SO EXCITED ........... hahahaha, hee hee YAY !!!
off topic, but I must share the excitement
- Thread starter gregm
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scott55405
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That's great news Greg! Amazing how things like that can make life seem so much more pleasant. Enjoy!
Had a lotta virtual memory swapping going on, didja? 
A computer is "sort of an " appliance.
haha, PC recommendations ??
My downfall is not being the most patient person, hahaha, so waiting a full minute or plus to open a software program, uuugghhhh .......... and just to boot up the computer took four to five minutes which is down to 20 seconds now .......... a cheap easy fix to this ONLY three year old DELL because I sure can't afford a new one now. Anyone have a notebook/laptop computer ? brand ? you like it ? service ?
My downfall is not being the most patient person, hahaha, so waiting a full minute or plus to open a software program, uuugghhhh .......... and just to boot up the computer took four to five minutes which is down to 20 seconds now .......... a cheap easy fix to this ONLY three year old DELL because I sure can't afford a new one now. Anyone have a notebook/laptop computer ? brand ? you like it ? service ?
Laptops
I have An HP laptop-its in for service right now-the backlight in the screen needed to be replaced.A collegue at work here Has a Toshiba "Satellite" laptop-Very nice.Mine and his both have 2Gig processors.Luckly I got the service plan with mine-handy for such things-wouldn't want to imagine how much you would have to pay the HP tech to replace the backlight!!I do like the machine.I really like the CD recorder in my laptop.I am not so patient either.If a transmitter won't retune fast enough for me-I tune it myself.
I have An HP laptop-its in for service right now-the backlight in the screen needed to be replaced.A collegue at work here Has a Toshiba "Satellite" laptop-Very nice.Mine and his both have 2Gig processors.Luckly I got the service plan with mine-handy for such things-wouldn't want to imagine how much you would have to pay the HP tech to replace the backlight!!I do like the machine.I really like the CD recorder in my laptop.I am not so patient either.If a transmitter won't retune fast enough for me-I tune it myself.
Hi Greg,
I have had 3 different laptops IBM, Dell, and I currently have a Fujitsu Lifebook tablet PC. I loved them all and never had any service issues with them. I buy all the PC's for work and we by Dell and we have not had any problems other than user inflicted damage, (dropping down the steps and in the parking lot, leaving them at the airport, spilling drinks on them. we had one person that must have been hammering something on top of her laptop and put big dents in the top and cracked the screen) I love my Fujitsu, I have wireless internet at home and can sit anywhere on my property and work or chat with my friends. It is lite and nice to travel with. One thing you have to remember with the ultra lite machines is they usually have the cd drive plug in with a cable they are not built in the machines. You ahve to remember to take them with you when you travel. My daughter has an HP notebook and uses it hard at college. I found most college kids leave them on all the time and logged into a million buddies with IM all the time.
Mike
I have had 3 different laptops IBM, Dell, and I currently have a Fujitsu Lifebook tablet PC. I loved them all and never had any service issues with them. I buy all the PC's for work and we by Dell and we have not had any problems other than user inflicted damage, (dropping down the steps and in the parking lot, leaving them at the airport, spilling drinks on them. we had one person that must have been hammering something on top of her laptop and put big dents in the top and cracked the screen) I love my Fujitsu, I have wireless internet at home and can sit anywhere on my property and work or chat with my friends. It is lite and nice to travel with. One thing you have to remember with the ultra lite machines is they usually have the cd drive plug in with a cable they are not built in the machines. You ahve to remember to take them with you when you travel. My daughter has an HP notebook and uses it hard at college. I found most college kids leave them on all the time and logged into a million buddies with IM all the time.
Mike
I have a Toshiba for work and just bought a Dell for home use. Like both use the work Toshiba all the time as in IS for company and travel location to location to do support. Just upgrade at home to 3.0 gig procesor with 1 gig of memory. This is one I built at home so generic. Do lots of work from home on it using broadband cable.
Latop loving
Hiya Greggy,
I have a Toshiba Satellite. I have had 2 and they are the ONLY brand I would consider. My current you would have to pry from my cold dead hands. It is actually painted with auto paint and is made to look like the hood of a car, very shiny. It has a huge display, Ram up the umpta, 1 GIG (no pun intended LOL
but the feature that sold me 100% was the fact that it has Harmon/Kardon Speakers and a built in subwoofer (let me remind you we are talking about a laptop.) A HUGE hard drive, CD burner, a built in infrared receiver so I can sync the phonebook from my cellphone to my laptop, an external LCD with audio analyzer, it's fast as lightning, built in media ports for my digi cam, and to top it off a remote control........Excuse me while I slow my pulse, high tech gadgets get my blood racing LOL.
Geoff
Hiya Greggy,
I have a Toshiba Satellite. I have had 2 and they are the ONLY brand I would consider. My current you would have to pry from my cold dead hands. It is actually painted with auto paint and is made to look like the hood of a car, very shiny. It has a huge display, Ram up the umpta, 1 GIG (no pun intended LOL
but the feature that sold me 100% was the fact that it has Harmon/Kardon Speakers and a built in subwoofer (let me remind you we are talking about a laptop.) A HUGE hard drive, CD burner, a built in infrared receiver so I can sync the phonebook from my cellphone to my laptop, an external LCD with audio analyzer, it's fast as lightning, built in media ports for my digi cam, and to top it off a remote control........Excuse me while I slow my pulse, high tech gadgets get my blood racing LOL.Geoff
on a more serious and less "racy" note. My former partner was a CSRrepair tech for Gateway and when I asked him what to buy his immediate response was, Toshiba. He told me that Toshiba has been and continues to be the king of laptops because they don't make home PC's, they specialize in notebook computers. I have never had one single problem with either of my Satellites. As a matter of fact my first one I sold to my mothers best friend and she is still using it to this day with no problems what-so-ever. My current Super Mega Satellite LOL I have had over a year and just seems to keep getting better. Just my 2 cents and experience
The computer I use at one of my offices is a machine I built almost 10 years ago. A dual-processor 333 Mhz Pentium III with 256 MB RAM. It's still doing the job perfectly well. I'm typing this post on it, matter of fact.
I own two Emachines desktops,one at my parents house and my newest at mine. The new one has an AMD Athlon 64bit processor with an ATI Radeon 9600 video card, and a NEC Mitsubishi 17" LCD.I like gaming a little and my favorite is Half-Life. PC World magazine did a survey of 42,000 users of all brands of computers 3yr old and newer in april 2004 and Emachines desktops and laptops came out on top. I think this is partly due to people who pay a lot more for a major brand would naturally expect more and partly because of tech support, or the lack of. I know that it all comes down to individual components and how they ar used/abused. I had one hard drive faliure(It was a samsung)but that was all. Software is another story altogether! I ordered a trial version of the 64bit windows XP, and found out after I got it you have to have a min of 1gb ram plus it disables cd/rw,dvd and a few other things so I gess I`ll wait about that. I also found out that sp2 won`t work on the 64bit models. Oh well that`s what I like about my Maytags, Their simplicity!
The Maytag of Computeres...
Way to go with the RAM Greg! It sure can make a difference-
This is my rig, the 17" Powerbook, slot-loading DVR, backlit keyboard, ambient light sensors, bluetooth, Airport Extreme, FW800, Suds-Saver, etc. etc. And like our washers, all metal! (anodized hardened aluminum) Icing on the cake is OS X, which loves the RAM, but what do you expect when you team up a UNIX core with Aqua interface. No pop-ups, no spyware, no security threats and no silly ctrl-alt-deletes. : )
http://www.eldocountry.com/computerlab.html
Way to go with the RAM Greg! It sure can make a difference-
This is my rig, the 17" Powerbook, slot-loading DVR, backlit keyboard, ambient light sensors, bluetooth, Airport Extreme, FW800, Suds-Saver, etc. etc. And like our washers, all metal! (anodized hardened aluminum) Icing on the cake is OS X, which loves the RAM, but what do you expect when you team up a UNIX core with Aqua interface. No pop-ups, no spyware, no security threats and no silly ctrl-alt-deletes. : )
http://www.eldocountry.com/computerlab.html
scott55405
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Cadman, you pretty much lost me after 17" in your post, but it sounds and I assume is, very cool!
I've thought occasionally about a laptop for my next machine, but I'm not thinking so, unless I were to get one of those "docking stations" like some folks have at work. I like my movable full size keyboard and my mouse (I have a new mouse with a light instead of a ball and really like that). One of those monitors you can watch TV through would be fun too.
My mom has a laptop and those little keys that don't push down and that funky thing you use for a mouse drive me to distraction. The other thing about laptops, if one thing (say the keyboard) goes out, aren't you pretty much SOL?
I've thought occasionally about a laptop for my next machine, but I'm not thinking so, unless I were to get one of those "docking stations" like some folks have at work. I like my movable full size keyboard and my mouse (I have a new mouse with a light instead of a ball and really like that). One of those monitors you can watch TV through would be fun too.
My mom has a laptop and those little keys that don't push down and that funky thing you use for a mouse drive me to distraction. The other thing about laptops, if one thing (say the keyboard) goes out, aren't you pretty much SOL?
Geoff,
how much does that laptop weigh. My Fujitzu life book is rather lite, but all the crap you have to carry to have the drives with you when you travel adds weight to my backpack. Do those nice sounding speakers add weight???
Mike
how much does that laptop weigh. My Fujitzu life book is rather lite, but all the crap you have to carry to have the drives with you when you travel adds weight to my backpack. Do those nice sounding speakers add weight???
Mike
thanks all ......
Hey Mike, Geoff ........ and thanks all for your comments, sounds like some of you have some VERY cool PC's and then some ........ well, now that I have increased "memory", I will stick with my DELL desktop for awhile longer, maybe invest in a "flat-screen" monitor, whereas my desk is to small for this big, bulky monitor. I wanted and will probably still go the "notebook/laptop" route at some point, because I don't like all the "wires" on the side of my desk showing, just kind of a cluttered/trashy look. I like everything all "self-contained" in a laptop
Hey Mike, Geoff ........ and thanks all for your comments, sounds like some of you have some VERY cool PC's and then some ........ well, now that I have increased "memory", I will stick with my DELL desktop for awhile longer, maybe invest in a "flat-screen" monitor, whereas my desk is to small for this big, bulky monitor. I wanted and will probably still go the "notebook/laptop" route at some point, because I don't like all the "wires" on the side of my desk showing, just kind of a cluttered/trashy look. I like everything all "self-contained" in a laptop
Designgeek
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Scott, what Cadman's saying is, his Mac is way fast and has all kinds of nifty features, plus it doesn't get viruses and spyware problems. One of the nifty features is that the machine knows when you're using it in the dark, and then the letters on the keyboard light up like the digits on certain oldfashioned telephones. This is particularly useful for people in the graphics, music, moviemaking, and video production fields. But it's just one sign of the really careful attention to detail that Apple puts into its products.
Cadman, don't I wish I had one like that, eh? Me: My main machine is an Apple iBook G4, all the RAM it can take, extension keyboard and mouse, Mac OSX 10.3.5. The reason for the extension keyboard & mouse is so I can perch the laptop on a stand for better viewing (you can do this with PC laptops too), and if I spill something on the extension keyboard, it's a simple fix or inexpensive replacement. I also have a PC laptop, HP ze-4600, running WinXP, which I use for a couple of Windows-specific applications; but I keep that one away from the internet so it doesn't catch anything nasty.
Personally I think the plain white iBook design is beautiful, it reminds me of something in white porcelain from a 1950s kitchen, but with a rocketship under the hood.
The main thing about Macintoshes is: you pay about 10% more than for a PC, but what you get is rock-solid and immune to the problems that PC users have to deal with if they put their machines on the internet. And it will work with PCs just fine, all the file formats are convertible these days.
If you like interesting design aesthetics: last year's iMac is retro-cool with its hemisphere styling and the screen on the arm. That machine will be a classic soon, so pounce on one if you can find it.
Cadman, don't I wish I had one like that, eh? Me: My main machine is an Apple iBook G4, all the RAM it can take, extension keyboard and mouse, Mac OSX 10.3.5. The reason for the extension keyboard & mouse is so I can perch the laptop on a stand for better viewing (you can do this with PC laptops too), and if I spill something on the extension keyboard, it's a simple fix or inexpensive replacement. I also have a PC laptop, HP ze-4600, running WinXP, which I use for a couple of Windows-specific applications; but I keep that one away from the internet so it doesn't catch anything nasty.
Personally I think the plain white iBook design is beautiful, it reminds me of something in white porcelain from a 1950s kitchen, but with a rocketship under the hood.
The main thing about Macintoshes is: you pay about 10% more than for a PC, but what you get is rock-solid and immune to the problems that PC users have to deal with if they put their machines on the internet. And it will work with PCs just fine, all the file formats are convertible these days.
If you like interesting design aesthetics: last year's iMac is retro-cool with its hemisphere styling and the screen on the arm. That machine will be a classic soon, so pounce on one if you can find it.
Computer desk
Greg, Like you I didnt have a lot of room,and I had to stuff my computer in a corner of my guest bedroom. I found a small desk at a goodwill store for about 15.00.It was painted white so I had to refinish it. I decided my computer would fit and I took out 2 lower drawers for the cpu and fixed the keyboard in the center drawer. My printer is on a shelf in the knee hole behind a peice of black fabric, as are the speakers and subwoffer. Heres a pic. Don
Greg, Like you I didnt have a lot of room,and I had to stuff my computer in a corner of my guest bedroom. I found a small desk at a goodwill store for about 15.00.It was painted white so I had to refinish it. I decided my computer would fit and I took out 2 lower drawers for the cpu and fixed the keyboard in the center drawer. My printer is on a shelf in the knee hole behind a peice of black fabric, as are the speakers and subwoffer. Heres a pic. Don
Parunner,
My Satellite weighs about 9 pounds!! The only time it leaves the house is when I go up to Beckitt Mass. in the Spring and summertime so it doesn't get that much travel. It's pretty much a homebody due to it's weight. Believe it or not, the speakers do not really add much weight at all. It's everything else plus the giant battery that is used to power it that makes up most of the weight. I hope the picture works, the 2 silver protrusions are the speakers and the subwoofer is underneath, internal and ported.
Geoff
My Satellite weighs about 9 pounds!! The only time it leaves the house is when I go up to Beckitt Mass. in the Spring and summertime so it doesn't get that much travel. It's pretty much a homebody due to it's weight. Believe it or not, the speakers do not really add much weight at all. It's everything else plus the giant battery that is used to power it that makes up most of the weight. I hope the picture works, the 2 silver protrusions are the speakers and the subwoofer is underneath, internal and ported.
Geoff
drmitch - desk
Don, what a great idea and my desk is literally almost identical, I am just not sure that I want to make any changes to the desk itself whereas it was my grandmother's. I love the natural woodwork color in your photo by the way. On a separate, Geoff .... my nephew bought a used Toshiba laptop at the bookstore at his university and he loves it !!!
Don, what a great idea and my desk is literally almost identical, I am just not sure that I want to make any changes to the desk itself whereas it was my grandmother's. I love the natural woodwork color in your photo by the way. On a separate, Geoff .... my nephew bought a used Toshiba laptop at the bookstore at his university and he loves it !!!
scott55405
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Are there plugs on laptops where you could plug in a regular mouse and keyboard if you wanted to, or do you need to buy one of those stations? The monitor part would be fine, but I would want a full size keyboard and mouse (for regular use) and just use the built in stuff if I was away or where space was a concern.
Scott
The ports on a laptop depend on the brand and the model you have. The cheaper models and the ultra lite ones do not have all the ports a desktop ot larger ones have. Most likely you can use a USB mouse and keyboard for a laptop. WHat I have on my laptop is a Logitec Wireless key board and mouse. the two only take up one plug on the back of the laptop. Some laptops still have the small round PS/2 plug on them and I used that to plug in the regular keyboard and use a USB style mouse. If you need to purchase a mouse I would go for a wireless optical mouse. You never have to worry about gett the stupid cord tangled up.
Another tip I give my users here at work. If you have cable, dish, or DSL internet access never plug you computer directly into the modem. ALWAYS buy a router, they have built in firewall to give you added protection from hackers breaking into your computer, also purchase, virus scanning software, firewall software, spy-ware and ad-ware removal software. I know its a pretty sad world out there where you have to do this. BUt I have spent countless hours rebuilding my own and friends and families computers because of this snall percentage of computer users that seem to not have a very fulfulling life other than reeking havoc on others.
If you have any other PC questions you can email me [email protected] I have been in the computer field since 1975, that was way before PC were even thought of.
MikeO
The ports on a laptop depend on the brand and the model you have. The cheaper models and the ultra lite ones do not have all the ports a desktop ot larger ones have. Most likely you can use a USB mouse and keyboard for a laptop. WHat I have on my laptop is a Logitec Wireless key board and mouse. the two only take up one plug on the back of the laptop. Some laptops still have the small round PS/2 plug on them and I used that to plug in the regular keyboard and use a USB style mouse. If you need to purchase a mouse I would go for a wireless optical mouse. You never have to worry about gett the stupid cord tangled up.
Another tip I give my users here at work. If you have cable, dish, or DSL internet access never plug you computer directly into the modem. ALWAYS buy a router, they have built in firewall to give you added protection from hackers breaking into your computer, also purchase, virus scanning software, firewall software, spy-ware and ad-ware removal software. I know its a pretty sad world out there where you have to do this. BUt I have spent countless hours rebuilding my own and friends and families computers because of this snall percentage of computer users that seem to not have a very fulfulling life other than reeking havoc on others.
If you have any other PC questions you can email me [email protected] I have been in the computer field since 1975, that was way before PC were even thought of.
MikeO
scott55405
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Thank you Mike, that answers my questions!
I have a cable modem and do have all the things you mentioned as well.
I have a cable modem and do have all the things you mentioned as well.
kenmore1978
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dockiing station
Most laptops that aren't ultra lites still have standard PS/2 and vieo ports you can plug a standard CRT/LCD monitor, keyboard, and mouse into. Dockig ports just make it more "convenient" and they're sorta pricey.
Consumer Reports take on laptops:
#1 Toshiba
#2 Dell
The worst:
Gateway
As for RAM, general rule is, you can't have too much RAM, the more the better.
Most laptops that aren't ultra lites still have standard PS/2 and vieo ports you can plug a standard CRT/LCD monitor, keyboard, and mouse into. Dockig ports just make it more "convenient" and they're sorta pricey.
Consumer Reports take on laptops:
#1 Toshiba
#2 Dell
The worst:
Gateway
As for RAM, general rule is, you can't have too much RAM, the more the better.
