Tech Question

[JonCole]

It's hard to tell what exactly you need because I'm not sure of your use case.  I mean, as far as your daughter needing one for school, I think you should put a lot of weight on the battery life of whatever laptop you end up getting.  In fact, in my own buying decision battery life was almost the single priority I had, so I bought an Asus Eee PC 1000HE, a netbook that gets about 7 hours of battery life.  If you don't mind buying a netbook (which typically run pretty low on the power/performance side of things, but keep portability and battery life in mind), Asus has an updated version called the Eee PC 1005HA, which weighs a little less than three pounds, gets about 10 hours of battery life and has a 10" screen.  Also, keep in mind that since you're sacrificing power for portability, the prices on netbooks typically run quite low, that particular one going for $330.

Now, with the assumption that portability is still a priority, the Acer Aspire Timeline series will give you a little more oomph! while keeping price low and battery life high (~8 hours).  The screen size of the Timeline is also a little more usable, usually running between 12" and 15".  The Acer Aspire Timeline 1810t has the svelte design of an ultraportable laptop, packing an 11.6" screen and noticable upgrade from netbook processors and integrated graphics chips.  The Acer Aspire Timeline 3810t knocks down the price a tiny bit and packs a larger screen, if 13" is more your preference.

Finally, if you want a compact, portable laptop but you really want some performance, the new Alienware M11x is actually affordable and packs a solid punch.  I've actually been lusting after this sonovabitch for a little while now, but it goes for $800 starting price and performs like a gaming PC.  With graphics switching to optimize for performance, this laptop can get 8 hours of battery life when doing light tasks like web browsing or word processing.  When you want to watch HD videos or play 3D games, this tiny titan can tackle anything by switching to a more powerful graphics card.  And best of all?  The laptop packs a 11.6" screen, small enough to fit in the smallest of bookbags.

Now, those all kept in mind the idea that smaller screens, high battery life, and portability were a priority, but if you want desktop replacements or don't mind 15" screens, there are tons more options.  Either way, you should probably more clearly define exactly what you want to do with the laptop, which will make it easier to figure out what you need.

[FooFa]

I believe the notebook variety would be good. It's my understanding that they are for simple activities such as would be required in school. I think that the main thing that they don't allow is much or any downloadings of anything one might want to download. That's why they are much more reasonable.

[Silva]

I believe the notebook variety would be good. It's my understanding that they are for simple activities such as would be required in school. I think that the main thing that they don't allow is much or any downloadings of anything one might want to download. That's why they are much more reasonable.

Exactly!

[mickey]

Can one of my smart herd friends tell me what to look for when looking for a lappy?  Like what does that DDR2 Memory mean and how much is needed?  160GB hd or 250GB hd??  Any advise would be great.  We are not looking for anything greatly expensive hence no damn Mac!

Here is the advice I generally give to all my clients at the seminar:

"If you don't know what all the fancy mumbo jumbo splash words are, ignore them.  I have no idea what 'FUEL INJECTED DOUBLE OVERHEAD CAMS" mean, so when a salesman starts spraying that in my face, I walk away."

If you are a general use computer user: internet, email, movies, music... 90% of the lappers and deskers will do what you want it to do.

In general, the higher the numbers, the better. 

Set the price you can easily afford.  Then subtract 10%.  Set that as your price point.  That way, if the next step up is slightly higher, you still have wiggle room.

Give up on the hard drive.  Invest in a portable usb hard drive.  Organize it and keep everything on there.  If your computer is stolen, broken, replaced, all your stuffs is already for the next computer. *DOES NOT INCLUDE PROGRAMS*

[Silva]

Here I go with another question.  My daughter is looking to purchase a lappy - hopefully she will get me a new one too!!!  We don't do all that fancy stuff on it - she needs hers for school, I need mine...well....just because I can have one. 

How do we choose a decent lappy?  One with good memory, good speed, just overall a good lappy.  I have an Acer that I have had for a few years.  I added memory to it when I first got it and most of my large data files like Itunes is on an external HD.

Can one of my smart herd friends tell me what to look for when looking for a lappy?  Like what does that DDR2 Memory mean and how much is needed?  160GB hd or 250GB hd??  Any advise would be great.  We are not looking for anything greatly expensive hence no damn Mac!

A lot of people confuse memory with hard drive space. Hard drive space is where you store all of your data. It is where your programs are installed and where all your data files (documents, video, pictures, music) are stored. The memory is the Ram. It's where the programs are store when they are loaded up and running, so the more memory you have the more programs you can run without your system slowing down.

Hard drive space these days is relatively cheap, so you can get a pretty decent bang for your buck. Typically upgrading from 160GB to 250Gb isn't that much of a difference and upgrading a hard drive at a little point is a lot more work then memory. That being said, like Mickey was talking about, external hard drives are a good solution for keeping your data. It's also good to have the information in more then one place. So if you have the hard drive space on your laptop you can have a copy of all your music on your laptop and on your external hard drive. Hard drives have moving parts. Anything with moving parts is going to break. It really is just a matter of when.

When it comes to memory DDR2 it is the somewhat older technology. Were DD3 is the new, more expensive, but faster technology. DDR3 runs at twice the speed of DDR2. Were is is newer though, a lot of the time, it's not work purchasing it just yet. When it comes to the amount of memory it is good to go with at least 3 GB of RAM. Most systems are going to be running a 32 bit version of Windows, which only will be able to use a little more then 3 GBs of memory. If the system comes with 64 bit Windows then the limit is much higher, but you have to be sure that all of your software is compatible with with 64 bit Windows.

[baybee33]

First let me say you guys are awesome!!!!! 

The lappys we need don't need to do much - like Mickey said - email, internet, music is basically all I personally use mine for. I have an external HD (not a portable one though, I never quite take my lappy anywhere anyway) that has my pictures and Itunes stuff on it.

My daughter would need her lappy for the same things as me but for doing homework as well.  I guess that could be stored on an external HD. 

I just didn't know about the Ram which is what controls the speed of the lappy is what I am getting from the posts.  We will probably have to purchase some kind of Windows Office programs as well so we can have Excel and Word.

Thanks again for all the great advise.  I will pass it on to her when we start looking at lappys - hopefully she will still buy me one after all of this!

Oh I think I actually know what "Fuel Injected Double Overhead Cams" are/do.  LOL

[FooFa]

Question related to this:If notebooks are set up for basics only, wouldn't using an external hd and using them like a regular lap top cause them to run slower?

[Silva]

Question related to this:If notebooks are set up for basics only, wouldn't using an external hd and using them like a regular lap top cause them to run slower?

A notebook is really just another word for a laptop.

I think you are talking about a netbook. Netbooks are a scaled down version of a laptop. They have a much smaller footprint and have a lot less processing power to save battery power. Intels version of netbook processor, the Atom, is a low power CPU that would be classified somewhere between a cellphone CPU and a laptop CPU.

Storage on netbooks can vary. Sometimes they come with hard drives with a lot of storage sometimes they have a few GB of solid state storage similar to a thumb drive.

So to answer your question, no, just hooking up additional storage would not slow it down.

[baybee33]

OK pardon my language for this moment - I F*&^ING HATE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES.  This is the second one that has just stopped working period.  I have one of the IT Techs at my job looking at it and he was like "yeah your shit is f&^%ed up" - I am so done.  He suggested I get a 32GB flash drive.  Not that I don't trust him but......you guys are MY IT people!!

I am so pissed that I may have to go out and now purchase something else to hold my extra shit.

[FooFa]

OK pardon my language for this moment - I F*&^ING HATE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES.  This is the second one that has just stopped working period.  I have one of the IT Techs at my job looking at it and he was like "yeah your shit is f&^%ed up" - I am so done.  He suggested I get a 32GB flash drive.  Not that I don't trust him but......you guys are MY IT people!!

I am so pissed that I may have to go out and now purchase something else to hold my extra shit.

Fungus groups have shown numbers through the roof when I talk about stuff I don't know about. Do you let the kids use it ever? They have been known to download from sites that say-  We are control your death and will FUCK your system up beyond repair!
I've not ever had an issue with them, they started coming without even the need for an installation disc.

I have a gut feeling that if a netbook were intended to be used as a regular lap top, it would have not been a netbook. Kind of like putting lipstick on a pig or something. In the over ten years of my usage of the interwebs, I've never had a HD fail, break or become unusable. I'm not mentioning that in a nanny nanny boo boo sense. I'm saying that there is no reason for them to stop working.

Chances are it has been dropped too often or somehow abused through no error of your own. And yes Silva, I understand that anything with moving parts will eventually malfunction.

The ancient FooFallians were a nomadic people who believed in instincts over facts. They had mad sex and got fucked up a lot as well.

[Silva]

OK pardon my language for this moment - I F*&^ING HATE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES.  This is the second one that has just stopped working period.  I have one of the IT Techs at my job looking at it and he was like "yeah your shit is f&^%ed up" - I am so done.  He suggested I get a 32GB flash drive.  Not that I don't trust him but......you guys are MY IT people!!

I am so pissed that I may have to go out and now purchase something else to hold my extra shit.

Yes, hard drives break. Portable hard drives certainly do have a higher chance to fail due to their frequent movement. Flash drives are solid state, meaning there are no moving parts, so they are more stable. There are solid state hard drives out there to, but their price/GB is a lot higher then a traditional drive. Prices have come down in the last few years, but are still very expensive in comparison.

Viruses and infections will not cause hardware to fail, so I would not see that being a cause of this issue. I see it much more likely that it was something shock related. The are a lot of portable hard drives out there that have rubberized external cover that would help with that.

[baybee33]

FooFa - no those little (and big) brats don't touch my HD - EVER!!!  I am the only one that uses it - got it back today and my data is gone - the guy tried everything he could - I must have looked like a mess when I got it back cause he hugged me and I actually let him.

Silva - I am so going to have to invest in one of those flash drives then but I guess at this point it is too late - all my pics from the past 3 years are gone - I can recover the music from my IPod for Itunes but my pics......all my memories..... gone.

This has been a really bad two days for me - haven't had that in a long time - guess I was due.

[IamZ]

I have had only one HDD fail. It's not even the external one. It's the good old bulky internal drive that had never left the PC. The controller chip on the drive just blew up then smokes were everywhere.

[Silva]

FooFa - no those little (and big) brats don't touch my HD - EVER!!!  I am the only one that uses it - got it back today and my data is gone - the guy tried everything he could - I must have looked like a mess when I got it back cause he hugged me and I actually let him.

Silva - I am so going to have to invest in one of those flash drives then but I guess at this point it is too late - all my pics from the past 3 years are gone - I can recover the music from my IPod for Itunes but my pics......all my memories..... gone.

This has been a really bad two days for me - haven't had that in a long time - guess I was due.

That really sucks. There is always a way to get the info off, but it tends to be expensive. Data recovery company's like Drive Savers make a whole lot of money on it. You can call them to get a quote, but I have heard prices from $700 to $10,000 to recover data.

For the pictures, I keep them stored in many different places. Pictures tend to not be that big either so they don't take up much space and also can be store on DVDs and CDs.

There are also offsite storage sites like http://adrive.com and http://mediafire.com. There are also places like http://flicker.com and a million others that are good for pictures.

[spb13]

Also look at carbonite.com unlimited automatic offsite backup for $50 a year. The one big caveat is that it won't backup from an external drive. If you just want to put the pictures somewhere "safe" smugmug is $40 a year (I think...) for unlimited pictures. You can make your galleries private and or password protected so you can put all if the pics up even if you don't want to share them. Let me know if and I can get you a discount code for $5 off the first year.