I can’t find the XP CD so unless I find the bugger… it’ll cost me an extra $100-200 US.
The repair alone if I took it to best buy will be $70… or $130 if the CD drive is kaput.
So it might be more likely I’ll be better off getting a new lap top… grrr…
Any advice as to where to get the lap top and what to get?
Not needing a gaming machine… just something to run Open Office, surf the net, and possibly play DVDs… any games I’d run would be older games like Civilization Three which would run smoothly on anything these days.
You can get a good netbook for $400 Cdn. Before my house was broken in, I had an MSI Wind running XP and I thought it was a great little computer. Good for surfing and looking up D&D rules on.
For my laptop needs, I use a Macbook which you can get from you know where… You might want to tell us what you used it for, and maybe some kind (twisted) soul might recommend a Windows laptop for you.
Personally, I’d just run down to Best Buy, or Circuit City, or Target or whatever you have in your dystopian empire and slap the greenbacks down…
Good news! I had forgotten my CD drive was… goofy… I had needed to tilt the lap top back to get the CD drive to work. Having tried this I got windows reinstalled. Now I need to remember where I put the CD key… curses himself for being cluttered
Good news! I had forgotten my CD drive was... goofy... I had needed to tilt the lap top back to get the CD drive to work. Having tried this I got windows reinstalled. Now I need to remember where I put the CD key... *curses himself for being cluttered*
Swissdictator
Maybe you should have converted over to Linux. :D I've been tempted to for a while, but I haven't been able to bring myself to.
Netbooks (7-10inch screen baby computers) are cool but they ditch the DVD drive and some use flash drives instead of hard drives to keep them cheap and get the battery life up. Asus has one that runs Linux and sells for under $300 (and some places have it for under $200).
Mac all the way, I work on both daily. You spend more but it pays off in the end. My current tower is 8 1/2 years old and can still run the latest version of OS X…
If I tried to install Vista or even Windows 7 beta on my 2004 HP box it would grind to a halt, food for thought.
Bilbo I’ve known about Linux since I was in middle school (I started 8th grade in 1998…) when I had a tower partitioned between Red Hat Linux 6.0 and Windows 98. I think Linux is good, and I’d say better then Windows… but I don’t want to deal with the learning curve right now… Eventually I probably will switch.
Willmark: No offense man, but I’ve had horrible experiences with Macs over the years. Maybe their latest stuff is better, I may grant you that as I haven’t tried Macs since about 2000. The only time I’ve dealt with them is the new ones in our computer lab and the whole window function got really annoying. Plus I’m a gamer to a degree… and Macs seem (unfairly) left in the dust there.
I’m just glad my lap top won’t have VISTA aka “Very Idiotic System That is Abysmal”
I don’t see what issues people have with Vista. I’ve used it on my gaming rig for almost 3 years now and its worked tremendously well.
Macs are great systems and a great OS, but only for the average user. If you want to do very specific things or have an exotic system at home, you’re kinda hosed as you can’t get deep into the system without lots of extra and expensive software. I’m running a home WLAN with about 5 computers attached to it and have great difficulty sharing 2 or more external hard drives across the network. Its really too much of a hassle trying to get them to work together. That being said, I like to use Macs for pretty much all of my “regular computing” - email, surfing, streaming, photoshopping, publishing, etc. its just a lot more friendly and easy.
I don't see what issues people have with Vista. I've used it on my gaming rig for almost 3 years now and its worked tremendously well.
GRNDL
Latent issues mostly. I've found most ardent haters have never tried it themselves. There are some things in Vista I've been missing since Windows 3.x and am glad to have. The only thing burning me is that apparently Windows 7 is proving to be what Vista should have been and I'm feeling greatly cheated. They totally released a bogus version with Vista. I should have known...:|
There was a columnist who noted that the first "altered" version would usually be followed by a second more stable version. 95->98 NT->XP or something like that.
I am going to agree with GRNDL and Willmark. I have had my old G4 labtop for nearly 4 years now and I love it. I have never had a major software issue. I had my disc drive go out and a battery fail, but both were under my 3 year Apple Care Warranty and replaced for free.
There are some specific things that I can not run and from time to time have had to chock through virtual PC. The dual core Macs can run windows on a hard drive patrician if you have to go there. The graphics and publishing software is likely to be the specific arena where Macs dominate. Other then that, they are solid and STABLE for everyday use. I though I would miss the games when I bought my Mac, and from time to time I did (the laptop is my only machine now), but as time has gone on I have had less time for that avenue and I do not miss it. If I need a fix, I will throw in my Mac version of Sim City or good old Diabolo II (same disc runs on both, bless Blizzard).
Willmark: No offense man, but I've had horrible experiences with Macs over the years. Maybe their latest stuff is better, I may grant you that as I haven't tried Macs since about 2000. The only time I've dealt with them is the new ones in our computer lab and the whole window function got really annoying. Plus I'm a gamer to a degree... and Macs seem (unfairly) left in the dust there.
Swissdictator
Boot Camp: Partition your drive an play those PC games, or emulate with VMware Fusion or Parallels.
This will very quickly turn into a Mac vs. PC with Linux users back-stabbing all in question thread, methinks... but it is in the Off-Topic section, so that's probably ok.. :P
mad:mad:mad
That is all. 