grammarwoman | This is my brain on Post-it notes

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This is my brain on Post-it notes

Well, there's nothing like getting the stick after the carrot. I glumly decided that I couldn't justify the Burbank trip, what with the economy tanking and making muddy the solid financial ground I thought we'd found. Then the husband's car broke AGAIN, and yeah, it looks like we're going to have another case of happy bonus money being eaten by mundane costs.

This is on top of entering week five of cold symptoms, and having the PA diagnose it as a combination of cold and allergies. (I staunchly maintain that this doesn't feel like any case of allergies I've had before, since I don't want to scratch my face off, but the chest congestion is driving me batty.) Plus the husband is on antibiotics for his own sinus infection, and the Emperor's birthday is in two weeks and 75% of the prospective guest list have already canceled, and I'm evidently insane because I'm actually pondering hosting Christmas this year, and...the brain, it just doesn't stop.

However, I am bound and determined to find some silver lining here, so I am by gum going to get myself a new laptop.

Of course, now this opens up a huge Vista* of dithering. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go PC rather than Mac, as much as I still feel brand loyalty to the latter company. I'm poking around the Dell site, especially the outlet deals, but there are so many choices for my limited brain power! My needs list is: supports basically unlimited online surfing, including as many YouTube offerings in a row as I want; runs Microsoft Office; supports whatever software I need to start vidding; wireless is a given; as big a hard drive and as much RAM as I can get; DVD RW drive; decent battery life.

I am useless when it comes to hardware, I know, and it's a willful blind spot. That's one of the reasons I count on my husband so much.

So, anybody feel like offering an opinion on computers, especially when it comes to specs and software to enable vidding?

* Vista = DO NOT WANT. Do they actually sell computers loaded with Windows XP anymore?

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I'm so sorry to hear that you won't be able to go to Burbank, I was trying to rack my brain to figure out who I could introduce you to online to find a roomie.

*gives you hot honey/lemon tea for the plague*

Please, for the love all that is holy… DON'T GET A DELL! I have fought my mother's since she took it out of the box (plus just ask IG how good her Dell is. eep). The laptop I recently bought is a Toshiba Satellite A305 and it's really frelling good and it wasn't very expensive (with tax I paid just over $800) at Best Buy. There are others of the same brand more inexpensive, mine is just geared toward heavy graphics since I wanted something for vidding.

Sadly all computers are coming with Vista now and Microsoft is discontinuing support for XP soon. I prefer XP myself because Vista has a bunch of crap with it I do not want or need.

I know there are folks that are way more computer savvy than me, but I just wanted to share what works for me.

If you get a laptop that's configured for gaming, it should be pretty good for vidding, too. You need a good (fast) graphics card and lots of memory. Processor speed should be high, too.

I never used XP, so I don't know anything about it, but I've been working with Vista for a while now and it's not nearly as bad as I had feared when I was looking for a new computer.

There's a rumor that mac is coming out with a $800 laptop in two weeks...Hold out, if you can and still are considering a mac.

And agreeing with kazbaby...dell laptops aren't made for living a hard well used life...neither are gateways...IBM/Lenovo builds the best tank-of-a-laptop I've ever come across...but you pay dearly, just as you would for a mac...and the mac can run windows or OS X and is rather elegant, and the trackpads on them track the best with cold/wet fingers I've ever found (though I'm a big fan of the IBMs with both trackpad and trackpoint devices).

Not sure how legal you like to be with your software, but I'm sure we could hook you up mac or pc...and like you said, screw vista, man. They moved everything and made it more useless and unsupported. Worst case, find a company that'll sell you a box with linux on it and load your own copy of XP on it and not pay the microsoft tax. Lenovo will let you buy a linux laptop. And Mac delivers and OS that is very stable, and iLife has all the fun iMovie stuff you'd want for vidding. And for those windows progs you just can't live without, you can either dualboot with Boot Camp to get native support (for gaming/vid speeds) or run the same OS under VMware Fusion.

I personally couldn't live w/out my mac now that I've had it...it's too much easier to do everything with than windows, once you get a hang of it. Just be sure to get the applecare 3 year plan with it, because their hardware's been known to have issues on new release hardware.

Again, hold out for a couple weeks to know what the apple side of the market may have available in your range.

As for vidding....you want 2GB ram minimum, and a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad chip...beyond that, everything else is pretty standard on laptops....of course, the more HD space the better, but if you have network storage at home, 80-120GB would likely do you for several projects just sitting on your harddrive. I use my mac for audio recording and do well with the 120 GB drive, partitioned as 20 GB for windows and 100 GB for Mac OS X and data.

I gotta disagree, I have a Dell laptop at work and love it so much I bought the same one for home. You just have to get a GOOD one, like the Latitude D830 or today's equivalent thereof. Inspirons are crap.

You Absolutely Must Get a real video card with dedicated video RAM. Most laptops do this "shared" bullshit that does not cut it for serious use (gaming, video, or otherwise). Get the largest, best screen you can afford. Min 2GB RAM, 4 if you can afford it.

For the love of all that is holy, do not buy a Compaq. EVER.

I will admit that my Dell experience is from the corporate world of on-call rotation laptops and is quite an extreme. The problems I had were that, after a year of being an on-call rotation laptop, the dell latitudes had very flimsy screen hinges, the keyboard was down to about 97% (keys not working/sticking,etc at times), and the whole case was generally flimsy. I could grab it in two hands at the middle (either side of the screen when closed) and twist it back and forth about 5 degrees either way...

Now, the situation that this happened in is a laptop that had to travel back and forth to work every day, was rotated around 7 people all whom had no interest in the longevity of the computer, and who would only use it a couple times a week. They aren't good for the hard-travelled.

Overall, the systems were stable and provided the needed computing power...it was just that the long-term resilience of the casing back then (4 years ago) was not up to par with something I'd want to own.

I've had experience with IBM thinkpads, IBM/Lenovo thinkpads, Dell Latitudes, Old gateways, new gateways, Sony Vaios, and Mac Book Pros. Of all of them, the sturdiest were definitely the vaios with the metal casings, and the IBM thinkpads of yore. The Sony Vaios are shiny, but break down from cheap manufacturing errors the day after warrantee expires. I've relegated my Sony (after spending $200 in repair charges to get the memory slots resoldered, and then to have the video card go wonky, which is sad to see happen on a 16" 1600x1200 pristine display) to being a linux router. The mac's have about the same reliability, but they've got apple care protection which can cover most issues for three years, at the expense of paying about what the the repair costs would be up-front.

Yeah, what to do. You know I would never-NEVER-talk you out of a mac(unless it involved the word 'air') so that's my take on that. However, since the pc is your comfort zone, i can tell you that the Toshiba mentioned above has gotten good reviews. IBM/Lenovo are definitely tanks as far as laptops go, but if you're gonna pay that much, get a mac. I can't comment on the Compaq/HP yet...
We can get XP on a pc for you, the Dells you get from the company-(not the crap ones made for Wal-mart, the real ones)-are coming to us with both XP and Vista disks now. The real problem with Vista is/was that most existing pc's couldn't carry it and it didn't support anybody's hardware. It basically meant you had to get all new stuff like printers. So again, if you're going to have the same type of interface and make sure you have the special drivers, you might as well get a mac. The upside of Vista capable pc's is that they barely notice the XP operating system they're so amped-up to carry Vista.
So i guess to summarize, if you get a pc your dear hubby and i can make it fly between his skills and my stuff connections, but Vista isn't really that far from OS X from what i remember so you might do just as well to get a mac.
I say its time to go do some in-the-store hands-on playtime! The most important part of any laptop is whether or not it fits you.

The most important part of any laptop is whether or not it fits you

+11ty billion

I had forgotten about this aspect, but yes...laptops are all about ergos...you'll spend 90+ percent of your time typing on it's keyboard and using it's mousing interface. Make sure you can live with them before deciding on one. For instance, some people can't keep their palms off of the macbook trackpad while typing and it would drive them bonkers. Others don't have warm enough blood in the ends of their fingers to be able to use some company's trackpads, and others can't stand the half-stroke or layout/stretch of some keyboards. Fit is probably as important as specs, unless you're planning on "docking" for more than half your time using it.

Also, one bonus to the Mac with having a little one around is the mag-safe power cord. I can't tell you how many times I've drunkenly stumbled over my powercord for the laptop only to thank the gods that it comes unplugged with zero force and doesn't harm the machine or pull it off of the table onto the floor.

Having destroyed three laptops in school, I can tell you that gateway and dell laptops are total and complete crap. my first gateway overheated at the drop of a hat. my dell lost its key sensitivity almost immediately - nothing like standing on the "e" key to get it to work. my second gateway lasted longer, but then the motherboard fried itself somehow and I almost lost all my data.

I now have an Asus brand laptop, which I adore. I bought it gently used (like three days of use while the person waited for their i-Book to be fixed) from someone I know. It's got great web compatibility, video has been crisp and clear so far, and doesn't seem so determined to be a pain in the ass with cutesey computing crap.

forgot to sign the above-

Judy

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This is my brain on Post-it notes

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decision derision

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Get an Asus

Re: Get an Asus