Friday, April 2, 2010

Top 10 Netbooks

The lead-in to this PCWorld article is excellent. Here it is:

"Netbooks are perfect travel companions and meet basic computing needs, including e-mailing, Web surfing, and simple document creation. Best of all, these low-powered machines cost less than the standard-issue laptop."

A personal review: I bought an Acer Aspire One when they first came out, maybe close to 2 years ago? I think it weighs less than 3 pounds. I bought it with the larger (more expensive) 6 cell battery with a 6 hour life before recharging. It runs Windows XP and does all of the above very well. My wife uses it as her primary computer. She travels a lot and likes the fact that it is very light and can be tossed into a carry-on bag. With WiFi available most everywhere these days, including now on airplanes and trains, it is even more attractive. The downside, as far as I am concerned, is the screen size. I think it's 8.9" diagonally. You better have good eyesight or glasses always handy to use it, but it works and it works well. Most of the newer lightweight netbooks have larger screens now as you will see in this article. My advice: do a hands-on check of several and pay close attention to the weight.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Tech Secrets: 21 Things 'They' Don’t Want You to Know

I was hesitant about posting this article. I know my followers pretty well, for the most part anyway, and I don't ever  want to see any of you getting in trouble trying things like these 21 tips. By trouble I mean messing up your machine. But I decided for the most part these 21 tips are mostly harmless. Besides, if you find one or two that really interest you I'd be surprised, but good for you if you do get some good info from some of these tips. It's actually all pretty good stuff that interests me, so here you go. Please write me if you have any comments on this post.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Windows 7 Users ‘Very Satisfied,’ but Consumers Still Love XP

This Wall Street Journal article is consistent with the way I feel and what I have been saying. We all love Windows XP. I could add, for those of us who have or who have had Vista, I'd guess most of us hate Vista. As reported earlier, I had purchased a Vista laptop way back when so I could learn it, teach it, and support it, but believe me folks, Vista is a dog! If someone were to offer me a free Vista machine, I would want to run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on it to make sure the machine could run Windows 7 before I accepted the gift! Yes, Vista is THAT bad.

As posted much earlier on this blog, Microsoft will be supporting Windows XP until 2014, but there is no reason why one couldn't run it beyond that date. If you are an XP user, do be sure to upgrade to SP3 and keep your XP current with updates. And do yourself a favor and upgrade to 2GB of RAM or more if you are not already there.

Finally, I am still very satisfied with Windows 7. I would tell you unequivocally that you should NOT shy away from Windows 7. If you need a new machine, you WANT it to have Windows 7.

Then of course, there are hose who would rather have OS/X, but  that's another story!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Microsoft Answers Forums

Microsoft provides a jumping off point to all of their support forums on this web site, which I recommend you bookmark. You will find forums for many Microsoft products here.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

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