Helloooo...
I can't believe how time creeps up on you, and how much I've neglected this. I have been keeping up a bit (and Mike tells me things ;)) - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and all that, and congratulations to Stan and Sarah too while I'm at it :D
I actually do have a specific reason for this post today; I'm buying a new laptop and Mike said I should talk to some of his friends about reccomendation and since most of you are very computery people I thought I'd ask what I should avoid/gravitate towards and where the best place is to look for a reliable, reasonably priced machine that will last me a a long time. The laptop I am replacing, a Sony VAIO, lasted me five years, although I had to replace the CD drive, reformat it, the keyboard is failing in places, the battery doesn't work, it crashed when I tried to install a wireless card and just a few days ago, the adapter totally fizzled out. I could actually deal with this, but I'm starting to worry that pretty soon something big is going to go wrong, before I can salvage the stuff on the computer (most of it is backed up, but I have a lot of pictures I'd be really sad to lose and nowhere else to put them right now). Also, since putting XP on it (it came with ME) it's run quite a bit slower and takes a really long time to boot up and shut down.
I don't do a lot of gaming or multimedia on my laptop - really, I just use it for academic purposes, writing, storing pictures (but I want a CD-burner so I can put them on CDs) and surfing the internet.
Anyway, thanks and I hope you had a fun LAN party :) Wisconsin is fun, but so far everybody seems so...normal. ;) It's a little boring...
EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to include a price range. I'm willing to pay up to 1,000 dollars, I think. Also, my mom gets a discount at ABC Warehouse, but I don't know how much yet.
I actually do have a specific reason for this post today; I'm buying a new laptop and Mike said I should talk to some of his friends about reccomendation and since most of you are very computery people I thought I'd ask what I should avoid/gravitate towards and where the best place is to look for a reliable, reasonably priced machine that will last me a a long time. The laptop I am replacing, a Sony VAIO, lasted me five years, although I had to replace the CD drive, reformat it, the keyboard is failing in places, the battery doesn't work, it crashed when I tried to install a wireless card and just a few days ago, the adapter totally fizzled out. I could actually deal with this, but I'm starting to worry that pretty soon something big is going to go wrong, before I can salvage the stuff on the computer (most of it is backed up, but I have a lot of pictures I'd be really sad to lose and nowhere else to put them right now). Also, since putting XP on it (it came with ME) it's run quite a bit slower and takes a really long time to boot up and shut down.
I don't do a lot of gaming or multimedia on my laptop - really, I just use it for academic purposes, writing, storing pictures (but I want a CD-burner so I can put them on CDs) and surfing the internet.
Anyway, thanks and I hope you had a fun LAN party :) Wisconsin is fun, but so far everybody seems so...normal. ;) It's a little boring...
EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to include a price range. I'm willing to pay up to 1,000 dollars, I think. Also, my mom gets a discount at ABC Warehouse, but I don't know how much yet.