New Computer Recommendations

bvibert said:

I was going to suggest one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-Vintag...sPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

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Wow... 20mb of hd space...

20 or so years later and I'm thinking of getting a 750gb hd..

Whats increased/progressed more in 2 decades...
Storage? or Processors?

bvibert said:

I didn't find this to be the case. Maybe I'm too used to the Windows way of doing thing, but I find OSX incredibly hard to use. I constantly had problems setting things up on my wife's iBook, and ours definitely wasn't free of errors and crashing. It was OK if all you wanted to do was surf the web, that is when the browser didn't crash. Of course that was after figuring out how to get it to connect to our wireless router. Which was not an easy task on the iBook, but one that takes only seconds on a windows machine. I actually had to turn off some of the security measures on the router because the Mac didn't seem to have any way to connect using them...

Not saying that I couldn't get used to it, or that it's not better, just that I didn't find the interface easy to use at all. If anything it's too dumbed down for me..

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That said, I really enjoyed some of the preloaded software, like iPhoto and iDVD. Very easy to use without reading any instructions and I felt I got great results. Photoshop Elements was usable on both our PCs and iBook, so that was nice, too.

Quality-wise, my iBook lasted over 3.5 years before the hard drive died. Before that, the display was twitchy for a year or two and there were minor issues with the letters rubbing off the keys (easily remedied by a warranty replacement and using a cover for the keyboard from that point forward). Meanwhile, we still have some old Gateway desktops lying around that are functioning (including one that Brian replaced the hard drive and processor on to make it a back-up server).

It's hit or miss everywhere. We temporarily had a Dell notebook, too, but that thing was broken upon arrival. And the "help" from India was useless, as Brian can attest to. Nothing like someone reading a scripted manual from the other side of the world to frustrate a person, especially when you know what they're suggesting is not the problem.

ETA: And if anyone is wondering, I replaced the iBook with a Gateway notebook. Loved the iBook as far as ease of use for what I used it, but you can't go wrong with a pricetag that's less than half the price and quality that has stood up better for us in the long run. Gateway has been good to us.

dmc said:

Wow... 20mb of hd space...

20 or so years later and I'm thinking of getting a 750gb hd..

Whats increased/progressed more in 2 decades...
Storage? or Processors?

Click to expand...

That's a good question, they've both made some big advances. I'd guess storage has made bigger advances.

bvibert said:

I didn't find this to be the case. Maybe I'm too used to the Windows way of doing thing, but I find OSX incredibly hard to use. I constantly had problems setting things up on my wife's iBook, and ours definitely wasn't free of errors and crashing. It was OK if all you wanted to do was surf the web, that is when the browser didn't crash. Of course that was after figuring out how to get it to connect to our wireless router. Which was not an easy task on the iBook, but one that takes only seconds on a windows machine. I actually had to turn off some of the security measures on the router because the Mac didn't seem to have any way to connect using them...

Not saying that I couldn't get used to it, or that it's not better, just that I didn't find the interface easy to use at all. If anything it's too dumbed down for me..

Click to expand...

I've had similar experiences with Macs. I never used a PC until after high school, and I'll never use a Mac again if I can help it.

bvibert said:

That's a good question, they've both made some big advances. I'd guess storage has made bigger advances.

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I don't think storage quite yet. HDD's are typically the biggest bottlenecks on a PC. But when Flash Drives come down in price and increase capacity it'll be different.

Mildcat said:

I don't think storage quite yet. HDD's are typically the biggest bottlenecks on a PC. But when Flash Drives come down in price and increase capacity it'll be different.

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This is true, but look at how much more you can fit onto a physically much smaller drive already..

That's a good point. Thinking back to days when you had to compress all your data just to save a couple of kb's. Now you can just add 500 gb's for under $100. And you can buy a few and set up a disk array if you want performance.

Check out this flash drive. http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34065/135/

Way too expensive for a pc now but who knows, maybe in a couple of years they'll be reasonable.

Ever think about building your own PC??

I built one about 6 months ago and ended up with a stellar machine for under $1200.00 soup to nuts.

I own a computer networking distribution company and we also do networking/computer services locally. We are Dell and Apple authorized resellers...we sell 10-15 Dell machines/week...for the average home and business user the Dell has been flawless. Apples are amazing machines but fit a niche market. We also provide montly/weekly remote backups so in case a machine did crash, we can save the clients digital photos, document etc...its a cheap insurance policy, b/c machines do crash!

SKIQUATTRO said:

We are Dell and Apple authorized resellers...we sell 10-15 Dell machines/week...for the average home and business user the Dell has been flawless.

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Dells are good!

Coincidently - I'm going to the Dell Corporate offices today in Austin Texas...
Everyone except me is leaving the IBM thinkpads in the car... I need to keep mine to perform a demo if needed...