Well, you might be thinking why I've been out of blogosphere for soooo long. While doing my tax return a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I should get a bit more techno savy with my systems at home. Up until now, I've been operating on a PC which is 3 years old and the speed, or rather the lack of it, was driving me crazy. I've been thinking for a long time to get myself a new laptop as my work computer and get a home network going. Then I also find my memory is failing me especially after having a child. So I've decided on getting myself a PDA, after all these years of relying only on Microsoft Outlook. The only problem is, I'm no IT geek. I only have a wishlist with a budget and there are no shops here I can walk into and ask informative questions.
So, I've been literally spending days and nights reading up on wireless technology, what is WIFI, how to set it up, what I need etc. Then I have to shop for them online. Reading all the specs on the different models and brands was more tiring than reading tax laws.
So, after all that work, I would like to share what I've decided to buy. If you've got any comments or experience with any of the items, please let me know your comments coz I would appreciate them.
1. PDA - Palm LifeDrive Manager
2. ACER Travelmate 5614 (17in screen for my movie buff husband for when we travel and all other features for my Accounting work & home office)
3. Dynalink DI-624S Wireless Router
4. Maxtor 300GB external Hard Drive for my back-ups
So, any comments?
7 comments:
Gimme a buzz anytime if you run into a wall. Help will always be available from my side. Just holler.
Right now, the only thing I can think of is the secure your wireless signal from the rest of your neighbour. The calls for WEP encryption which is a feature available in your wireless router. Pretty simple but may need to walk through the setup with you.
Jaywalk, you're always a God sent in a time of need! Thank God for IT savy people like you! You'll definitely hear from me in the next week or so when I receive my router and laptop.
I got my LifeDrive yesterday and it took me a long time to work out why my touchscreen wasn't responding to my touces before I finally got on the net again for help only to learn about Hard Reset. The Palm doesn't come with a booklet instruction manual & I'm used to going to booklet manuals first. Talk about catching up with technology...
sorry. I'm prob more technologically challenged than you dear. My PC is 5 yrs old! If you did that much research, I'm sure you're on the right path!
I don't trust WIFI - beaming my data out for anyone to sniff is not something I am keen on.
Your computer doesn't sound old. Mine was 6 years old before it passed on recently and was replaced (I was hoping to go another 2-3 years more with it).
I do have a laptop as well - small, only a 12 inch screen. I am disappointed with the harddrive performance, anything that accesses the hard drive is much more sluggish (not surprising since laptop harddrives are slower).
Although, their portability is very nice.
As for a PDA ... I thought about it a while ago, but decided against it. I am not a very organized man - I don't make lists. I just keep everything in my head (and I mean everything: phone numbers, e-mail addresses, passwords, birthdays, etc). If I forget, well ... I forget.
Computers have not progressed that much over the past 5-6 years (they have barely doubled in speed - when they should be about 8 times faster: 8Ghz or better).
I still have to do my taxes, they are late (5 months and counting). I would like to get them done before the governement sends me a reminder (they always send one polite one and then a sterner one a month later).
My current PC (3 yrs old) is only a cheapie-it's only got a celeron processor, no USB 2 plugs, no DVD recorder, just CD and when I have 6 different applications or more open at one time (which is all the time), it runs so slowly. Switching from one application to another sometimes takes about 5-10 seconds. Maybe I'm getting more impatient coz I have less time but I doubt it coz my husband complaimts about the speed all the time.
The new ACER travelmate notebook, yes although slower than the newer PCs these days, is a 2GHz Duo Centrino processor. It's got 1GB RAM. So I'm hoping that will be much speedier than my 64MB RAM.
And it's got 4 USB2 plugs.
I've heard about the security issues with WIFI. I'm hoping Jay would give me a hand with securing the network. I'm thinking, the convenience of it may outweigh the security hassle? Will let you know how I go.
I'm still waiting for the notebook, external HD and router to arrive. It's taking forever. That's the downside of living in a remote location.
Well, if your old machine had only 64Mb of RAM, you could improve its performance significantly by upgrading to 512Mb.
My old computer was a 1Ghz Athlon with 512Mb of RAM. My laptop is a 1.4Ghz Athlon with 768Mb of RAM and the new desktop is a 2.2Ghz dual core Athlon.
Believe me, having dual cores is worth it. The computer is significantly more responsive.
BTW, Richard, there's an incentive in doing tax returns when you know you're going to get money back... that's the case with ours :o)
Is the Athlon faster than a Celeron? Pardon my ignorance. I should check on the net but that'll take some more time...
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