Hey Tony, I'm sorry you're stressed.

I meant to ask you, what part of London are you in?

Geez, i didn't think our lingo [lanquage] differed that much , they might be called line trimmers in the US, as they sometimes called here too, just a long electrical or motorized tool that spins at very fast speeds a line to trim back the grass from fences and path ways etc.
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ELECTRIC-WHIP...QQcmdZViewItem

Brian

Mel - to answer your question: many hi-level tech folks I know do, in fact, use their notebook at their "desktop" computer. In other words, it is their only computer. They use it portably while on the go, and while at home, they dock it . . . that is, they plug any peripherals they want or need into it - usually a monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, and maybe a few others.

The heat issue is huge in terms of notebooks. It is one of the reasons that component failure is so much higher than with desktops. Anyone thinking of using a notebook as their only computer needs to think about this problem. I have not had a desktop part go bad in the past 4 years or so. I have had to ship every notebook I have had during that time off to service repair centers, some went multiple occasions. That covers around 5, including all of them in the household and office.

Here is something else to consider: tablet PC's. I am completely sold on them and don't imagine I would ever get another plain notebook again. I absolutely love using just a pen to navigate, and getting rid of the mouse. And of course, being able to use handwriting is nothing short of revolutionary in terms of use for me. It certainly is not for everyone - you pay a premium and the specs are usually not the best in terms of performance. And screen size is normally "small."

Dual-boot systems: love em, best way to go if you have some technical know-how or are willing to invest some learning. I have a mixture: one has XP and Linux, another has XP and Vista, and so on. Linux is so lean and mean. Vista is so dumb and crippled, on purpose so it stays more secure, but is so much better than XP for media. Gotta say something about memory usage . . . it is just like the best tech guys have been writing - it appears to be a hog but in actuality uses memory far, far better than any previous version of Windows. But of course anyone who is remotely a techie will need to dual boot for now.

rafi

Hi Rfinnery, i seen some were that you need 2 gigs of Ram just to run Vista, [properly] i would imaging, considering the better quality media it would most likely need it.
Have you heard of that program nLite for Win 2K or XP ? i used it on a machine not that long ago, it only had 256 mb/SD ram, pent 3/733ghz i think, it was painfully slow, i used nLite program on it and it absolutley flew, running XP/sp2 OS, you knows, they may make one up for Vista one day.
nLite may help Notebooks too, the program is designed to takes the bulkyness out of the operating systems and has some really good system tweaks, so it should have some impact on CPU activity, also going in to statup and unchecking the programs you really don't need to be running in the back ground [ except all antvirus programs, of course ] anyone that is not confident doing this, should not attempt it, if in doubt don't uncheck anything, but for the anyone that is, just press start, run and type msconfig then click on the startup tab.

ahhh...a weed eater!!!

( or some call them edgers)

Brain - yep, I have used nLite and still have it around. It sure is a leaner and meaner Windows - and has its uses. BTW, the guy has already released a Vista trial version.

Vista doesn't need 2 GB to run well - you will need it if you want to use all the multimedia features. It runs great on much less - as long as it is setup properly. It appears to devour memory, but in actuality it just uses it much more effectively. Think about it - with all previous releases, we always wanted as much free memory as possible. But that number is almost meaningless with Vista. With an efficient system, it makes no sense to have a lot of free memory sitting around -- better dynamic allocation should use ALL the memory possible and just make it instantly available when needed. Vista is much, much better at this than all previous versions. But of course, it still has plenty of weak spots.

rafi

A weed eater, geez, i would of thought that as being a cow or sheep, not a whipper snipper , i will ask at our local hardware shop if the have any weed eaters, i wonder what response i will get

Yep i catch on, I guess its much like the old carby setup compared to fuel injection, one pc tech did tell me once that with all microsoft new operating systems it takes at least 12 months before they get most of the bugs worked out, [that was in the XP days] anyway some clients would want the newest systems out as soon as they were released, he said " oh what a headache they bring on themselves ", as he shaked his head.
I have never tried Linux, i believe they are better than Microsoft, and i hear very good reports about Mac's, if i win lotto i might buy one
all the best
Brian

To Brian and rfinney – are you two guys having a wrong name spelling competition?


I’m just joking of course but it did make me laugh (Rfinnery and Brain).


Both of you have considerably more knowledge than I do about computers of all types so I always show your postings to my engineer/mate for him to explain them to me. He also has a tablet pc but it is so small I find it too much of an eye strain and even he is not that convinced about it.

Right now I am concentrating on my dual-booted Asus notebook. For those who know, this is the spec. Processor AMD Turion 64mk 36 2GHz, 1024MB RAM DDR2, Hard Drive 120GB, 512MB Display card, Wireless LAN 802.11b/g, Screen 15.4inch WXGA Widescreen Colour Shine TFT, Dual-booted XP/Vista Home Premium. Plus I have the VNC to allow me to run it as my PC from anywhere.

Tony

PS. Brian – we call them STRIMMERS in the UK.

PSS. Karen – I live in the London Borough of Bromley, about 8 miles from the City centre. My mood changes by the hour.

Weedeater Brian, Weedeater. Whipper Snipper...never would have guessed that one. I had images of you trimming the hair on a whippet dog.

And I knew I called up the right people with the computer knowledge. I just holler "Honey!!!!" for my own tech here. He's pretty good. But I always pass on to him the things Finney and Brian tell us. Thanks a lot.

Billye