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Computer advice requested

Solid advice.

Don't go cheap now.

I am not personally a big fan of the toughbooks.  Most of the specs that
thing has are for military field use.  Way too much $ for what they offer in
my humble opinion.
I have always had really good luck with Toshiba.  I would argue that I
travel, bump, drop, spill whatever on the road than anyone on the list.
There is one I have been eyeballing for a while now.  Toshiba U205 I think.
It isn't a Ultra portable or anything like that but it's dual core, a gig of
ram, and one model has dual 120gb hard drives.  It's right around 1100 (US$)
It's pretty hard anymore to find a new laptop that doesn't at the very least
have a CD burner.  It's running about 50/50 on dvd burners...  My suggestion
would be to get a good laptop you like with an extended warranty.  I don't
own a home BUT my renter's insurance covers the laptop in case of damage,
theft, I decided to chuck it down a flight of stairs... whatever.  It's like
a $100 deductable.  I don't know if that kind of insurance is available up
in your neck of the woods or not.

Honestly if your Dell has stood up to the abuse you describe, I think
Toshiba (and definately Panasonic) is a step up on the durability ladder.
IBM/Leonovo Laptops are decent.  (Lance sells them BTW)  Stay away from
HP/Compaq if you can.   I bought one a few years ago cause I got a helluva
deal.  Never again.  From my personal experience as I mentioned above I am
getting on (average) 4-6 planes a week and flying different places.  Almost
every day I rent a car in a differnent city and I throw my laptop
bag(s--most of the time I carry two laptops) around alot.  I am constantly
throwing it in the passenger seat of rental cars, I have sent both flying on
seperate occasions as I was using them for GPS and some nitwit slammed
brakes in front of me.

Anyway all of the major manufacturers have a business class notebook that is
moderately priced and has all of the features you were looking for.

One last bit of advice.  INVEST in a good laptop bag.  Targus makes an
excellent backpack style.  (I actually have a couple flavors of these)  It's
easy to carry and has plenty of room.  My complaint from a "road warrior"
standpoint is that I have too much crap to carry and they are structured for
laptops not stuffing all the crap I do in them.

HTH
Chris

On 5/8/07, Allyn <amalventano1@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Since you said durability, I'd go the Panasonic Toughbook route.  The only
> task needing specific specs would be the digital darkroom
> stuff, and for that I'd recommend 1gb of ram in whatever it is that you
> get.  Skip the 'cheap now, expensive later' idea and just
> get a good toughbook right off the bat.  Modern laptops are powerful
> enough to double as desktop machines, at least for your
> purposes.
>
> Side note - invest in an external hard drive for backups - and USE IT for
> backups ONLY.  Never trust the system drive with the only
> copy of your photos.
>
> HTH
> Al
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: C Boyko [mailto:roccit_53@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 10:44 PM
> > To: scirocco-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: OT: Computer advice requested
> >
> > Okay, I've got a really old laptop that eventually I'm going
> > to have to replace. I think what I'll do is buy a new but
> > inexpensive laptop for use running MS and to do school stuff
> > like recording marks, and later get something that is better
> > for manipulating digital still images (perhaps a desktop), I
> > still do not know the digital darkroom well, but am already
> > frustrated at the slowness of shuffling 10Mpixel files around
> > on this machine. The only other things I'd need a machine for
> > would be simple word processing and running iTunes, just to
> > load music files onto my iPod shuffle. I have no need of
> > anything fancy for gaming or video, and probably don't need
> > to burn DVDs. Likely a really basic machine will be more than
> > what I need. SO...what am I looking at as far as specs? And
> > what are your suggestions as far as durability goes? It'll
> > get banged around a bit getting in and out of the car I
> > imagine and I'm pretty sick of wrenching on my old Latitude
> > and would prefer something not prone to breaking.
> > Durability is probably more important than features.
> >
> > If you have any sites like "buying a computer for Dummies" or
> > anyplace that's good to buy from, LMK. Thanks. (you can
> > contact me offlist)
> >
> > And Dan, could you post about that error message with the .bat file?
> >
> > Cathy
> >
> >
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>
>
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