[Hidden-tech] Does this sound like a good computer deal?

[Don Lesser]

I want to second Dan's comments. My experience is with PCs so I'll comment
on getting more out of your PC rather than a Mac/PC debate.

My last home PC had 256Mb memory and a decent processor. It became
intolerably slow as I added various antivirus, antispam, firewall, etc.
software. If you press CTRL-ALT-DEL and select the Task Manager button and
look at your Processes, you'll see how many processes run and how much
memory and processor time they take. My latest home PC has 1 Mb memory and
runs my basic software (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, QuickBooks) much
more comfortably. Not doing anything super processor or memory intensive,
just routinely using 5 - 8 programs at a time.

I can't even remember your initial specs, but I agree with Dan that if you
have room on your hard disk, getting a 1 GB memory upgrade will vastly
improve your performance. Go mail order. Inserting the memory is pretty
easy.


Don Lesser
Pioneer Training, Inc.
14 Bobala Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
(413) 536-1030 (phone)
(413) 552-0472 (fax)
dlesser at ptraining.com
www.ptraining.com

-----Original Message-----
From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net
[mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of Daniel
Fried
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 9:45 AM
To: ussailis at shaysnet.com; az at a-zinternational.com;
hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: RE: [Hidden-tech] Does this sound like a good computer deal?

   ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
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Jim,

Getting a bit off subject here, but there are a couple of issues I have with
your two points.

1.  Dual-core processors are not about "true multitasking" as you put it,
they are about running multi-thread applications more efficiently.  Not all
applications can make use of this capability well, but for those doing some
kinds of heavy processing work; dual-core can be a huge advantage.  Also, as
dual-core processors become more common, more software will be designed to
take advantage of this.  This does become a more "every-person" issue as the
OS becomes more multi-thread friendly.  A dual-core processor will not help
your web browser or word processor, but it will help Windows Vista (or OS X)
a lot.

2.  Comparing older computers with older software to current RAM standards
is not particularly useful.  While 64MB may be fine with your older system,
512MB is the realistic minimum for running Windows XP alone (all the eye
candy in the operating system isn't cheap).  1GB will help with the other
bloat-ware applications.  I generally do enough in Firefox that Firefox will
take up 200MB of RAM by itself.  Most of the Office XP apps that I am
running take about 30MB of RAM each, so having Firefox, Outlook and Word
open at the same time eats a huge chunk of available memory which doesn't
take into account Windows XP itself, IM, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam or any one of
a number of things that could be running (my system runs a web server and
remote database at startup).  Adding the extra 512MB of RAM will generally
be helpful to anyone running XP or newer operating systems.

-Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: ussailis at shaysnet.com [mailto:ussailis at shaysnet.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 11:38 PM
To: dan at creativeconstructs.com; az at a-zinternational.com;
hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Does this sound like a good computer deal?

I couldn't agree more. You are being 'had.'

And, here is a couple more reasons:

1. Advantage of dual core processor that ain't there, yet. 

I just read in an EE mag that there are still problems addressing dual core
processors. A company in Canada thinks they have this figured out. If that
is so, you can not do true multitasking. Whoops, did I just go again the
dogma of the Windows generation? Yes, I did. To run two tasks at the same
time requires two processors. That's what the 'duo' core is suppose to have.

So, if you can't do true multitasking with a new computer, why buy it? The
reason for the dual core processor is to do true multitasking. 

2. Memory. If all you do is writing & web browsing, and if a computer of 5
years ago would do the job then with 128K, why does the same word processor
need more memory now? 1Gb is cheap, but probably not necessary.

I run Word & Excel on several machines with memory sizes from 64M to 256 M.
I don't see any speed differences. Possibly there are differences, but my
old eyes blink slower than these differences...I don't see them.

Save your $$


Jim U.

jim at nationalwireless.com



Original Message:
-----------------
From: Dan Fried dan at creativeconstructs.com
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:21:27 -0500
To: az at a-zinternational.com, Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Does this sound like a good computer deal?


   ** The author of this post was a Good Dobee.
   ** You too can help the group
   ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
   ** If you did, we all thank you.




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