New computer questions:
So it looks like I have to get a new laptop. Here’s what I want to know:
- Does anybody have any further thoughts about whether Excel & Word are worth it?
- What kind of warranty would you buy?
The warranty question is really bothersome. I had a two year warranty on this computer, and it lasted about two years and a month. I’m sure that warranty cost at least $150, and the only thing I got out of it were several new optical drives, because the cd/dvd burner kept breaking. Essentially, that means I paid an extra $150 to get a working cd burner.
My boss’s laptop, otoh, is a cheapish Gateway with the standard one year warranty. We didn’t put anything special on it, and it’s 2 1/2 years old without (knock on wood) having had any problems. It does get less use, but now that my awesome wife has given me an itouch, I have - and plan to continue - taken my computer home only on the weekends.
All computers come with a standard 1 year warranty. Is it worth $150 for an extra year? $200 to ensure it makes it to three years?
Does Microsoft Office still have value?
Because my laptop doesn’t have a working screen at the moment (thank goodness for my second monitor), I’m researching repair versus purchase. I have looked at *a lot* of computers in the last week.
I’ve had the impression, thanks mostly to Dell’s barrage of emails, that laptops are getting cheaper and cheaper. Now that I’ve done the research, I can spot the scam.
The stores (online or offline) are filled with computer deals - mostly laptops in the $500 range. But now I know I could never get one that cheap. What do you get for $500?
- 1 gig of RAM, when Windows requires 2.
- 1 year of service, when you need a minimum of 2 (I’d recommend 3).
- No so-called “productivity suite” when most of us still need a word processor and a spreadsheet program.
I also can’t imagine getting a new laptop in 2008 without putting in it an extra $50 for the best wifi card available, and I wouldn’t buy one with less than 100 gigs of harddrive space. And then there’s the “Vista” issue: do you really want that junk on a computer you rely on?
When it’s all said and done, I can’t see buying a computer today for less than about $1100.
So I’m wondering which corners can be cut. For $150-$250, do I really need M$ Word and Excel when I can get pretty much the same thing for absolutely nothing? Are there really any benefits of paying for the same thing? What do you get for your $?
Light blogging
Obviously, blogging will be a bit light this week, because we’re on vacation (insert obligatory note about having a house-sitter). I knew our beach house would have wifi (although it took us a good hour to get it working after we got here), but I didn’t realize how little time I’d be on the computer. Basically, I’ve turned it on to read my daily comics and to use pandora, and that’s about it.
But we’re having a blast - an absolute blast. This is what vacation’s all about.
In a way, this is a good thing
My computer is starting to act up, and I’m not talking virus. It’s a laptop, and the left “mouse” button is broken and clicks if you just touch it. I was starting to adjust to that but now the “t” key is on the fritz. It turns out that “t” is a very popular letter … I mean, look back and see how many t’s there were in this paragraph.
I’ve got another two or three months on my warranty, so in a way it’s good that it’s having problems now. But this is a laptop, and I’m not looking forward to having to send it in, if that’s the solution.
Yuck.
I hate Windows
Yes, I’m talking the OS, not the kind made of glass that helps brighten up the room.
Yesterday, I finally got around to running Windows update on my computer. It turns out, yesterday’s update was a biggie - service pack 3, as a matter of fact. And thanks to that lovely update, M$ turned automatic updates back on for my computer.
I hate this. Frankly, it makes me extremely angry that they feel the need to do this without my permission.
Why do I care so much? I’ll tell you. Yesterday, I started working on a new client from Poland, and there’s a lot of stuff I’ve yet to learn about taxation of aliens. Currently, I’ve got a few dozen firefox tabs open and numerous pdf files. I’m running several tax programs and Excel.
But because Windows turned automatic updates back on (and I’ve obviously turned it back off now), my computer downloaded new updates a few minutes ago. Big whoop, right? Wrong. Now that the computer is newly updated, it wants to restart to make the process official. And that means that every five minutes I have to tell the computer that I don’t want it to restart. Grumble. And if I don’t happen to see the notification, it’ll just restart on me. And all of my work and research will be lost.
Grumble.
Because of M$’s penchant for junk like this, I rarely do updates on this computer. I can’t always just restart the computer at the drop of a hat because M$ wants me to. Why can’t it just install the updates the next time I turn the computer off?
Why does Windows have to be such a lousy OS? When will my tax software be usable in an OS that cares about its users?
Starting anew
In my spare time this week (ha!), I upgraded my linux installation on my personal computer. From the get go, I decided to completey reformat the drive and start anew. I wanted to get rid of any junk remaining on the computer. But I had planned on reusing all of my old bookmarks and feeds in my feed reader, but I somehow failed to get the bookmarks or feeds backed up. It wouldn’t take too much work for me to recreate them, but I just made the executive decision not to. I’m going to start anew and only recreate what I need to. W00t.
Now I just need to get some blank cds
A few weeks ago I complained about my bad luck with cd burners in my current Dell laptop (essentially, I’ve had it for about 18 months and have gone through two optical drives). Well, to make a short story even shorter, someone at Dell read my little complaint and had pity on me:
Today’s mail brought not one but two new optical drives; try them both and keep the one that works best. I can’t say enough how wonderful this is.
And now I’ve got to get some more blank cds and get to testing. Anybody got any suggestions?
Oops!
The mute button on my other keyboard is right where the off button is on this one….
