Laptops

[gui_tarzan]

Avoid the Toshiba. . . I've heard horror stories about they're customer service if something goes wrong

Eh... uh uh. I've had several Toshiba laptops through the school and never had problems with them or the company.

Toshiba or Gateway would be my choice. You'll pay a little more than Dell but you'll get better support. This comes from someone (me) that has several hundred machines to support and lots of years doing it.

 

[tobby4]

oh yea.. my dell crashed twice... got a new HD and then it crashed a week later... and I have no clue how it happened....

 

[gui_tarzan]

If you've narrowed it down to a Dell or a Mac, get the Mac. You will never be sorry as their support is top-notch unlike Dell's which sucks sewer water.

 

[joshua]

If you've narrowed it down to a Dell or a Mac, get the Mac. You will never be sorry as their support is top-notch unlike Dell's which sucks sewer water.

Yeah if you have a local apple store all you have to do is take the thing in and have them look at it. They either fix it in the store if possible, or ship it overnight to get fixed. My friend had a dell that he had to ship back cause it had problems like a week after he got it and had to wait like 3-4 weeks to get it back.
My powerbook went in for service and they fixed it and it came back within the week. The store checked it out for me before giving it back and found something else and sent it back again. It was gone about 8 days, and usually it doesn't have to be shipped twice like that.

 

[Poni]

Do they have 2 mouse buttons yet?

 

[joshua]

Do they have 2 mouse buttons yet?

Well the build in one doesn't but you can use any USB mouse in the world you want to. (Or bluetooth if you have that)

Or this http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

 

[Poni]

That looks cool, but does the OS allow you to have the drop down options with the left click?

 

[joshua]

That looks cool, but does the OS allow you to have the drop down options with the left click?

Yes, when you plug in a multi button mouse it acts as the ctrl-click menu. It has done this for over 10 years.

The mighty mouse you can set to act like a 1 button mouse or act as both regions are different buttons. Its odd cause its more of a touch sensitive area than actual buttons.

 

[derek]

whats a good virus scanner and firewall for mac's?

 

[cvm4]

That being said, part of my tax return this year will be getting a new laptop- Alienware m5700. When the new one arrives, I will be punting my current Dell laptop into the street and then running over it with my car.

Now you're speaking my language! I just wish I could afford an alienware computer. Man those laptops are sleek and sweet! :awholelot

 

[MadAl]

Ok I been over at the Apple site reading. Now that I see there is a office pack for the Mac I'm more interested in it. Here is a dumb question tho. If I order online or even go into the store do I need to prove I'm a student or teacher to get Office 2004 for Mac - Student and Teacher Edition?

Jason - have been hearing horror stories as well tonight from some of my friends. So I think the Toshiba is out.

No, I bought a laptop in September, the promotion was on then. If you wanted the discount on the hardware you'd need an id.

 

[derek]

Ok, I'm back home with my new iBookG4. got the 14', with the superdrive. So far this thing is great. Found my wireless network just fine, I activated the firewall it came with. I need to find a virus software. Going to look into Virex.

Now I need to figure out how to use this thing. ANy one got an good tips and tricks and add on software?

 

[tobby4]

Very nice... you will not be dissapointed.. If you want/need the Office software shoot me a PM and i can get it out to you....

 

[derek]

I will let you know about that once I get used to it.

What do you use for virus protection & firewall?

 

[tobby4]

I dont... i know it is horrible but I have yet to find one good enough yet...

Hopefully Joshua knows of a good one...

 

[joshua]

I will let you know about that once I get used to it.

What do you use for virus protection & firewall?

It has a built in firewall you can access in system preferences. There are no OSX viruses so you don't need to worry about that really.

Hope you enjoy the new machine!

EDIT:
Nice piece of software http://www.adiumx.com for aim/icq/yahoo/everything all at once
You can find anything you need at http://www.macupdate.com or http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/

 

[derek]

So I'm sitting here on couch. My wireless works great. I'm starting to get the hang of things. I love this laptop!

Never knew that about the viruses. Thats very interesting.

Thanks for the links I have already DLed adiumx and I will check out the others later.

 

[MithShrike]

OK bugger the consumer level notebooks. Please people I work in a computer repair shop and these consumer level laptops are usually crap. Dell you have to go with a Latitude. However, I have to say the best business class laptop I've ever dealt with is an IBM Thinkpad T-Series.

 

[tedski]

Mith ... Funny, I just picked up a used IBM T-23 this week. 1.13GHz P3, 1GB ram, 40GB hd, DVD drive ... for $300. Not a screamer, but excellent for my mom to use at home for email, typing, digital pics, etc.

 

[MithShrike]

Yeh our shop just got two T-22s in. Blew out the partition and loaded up 2K and the Red7 "Happy Pack" on 'em. Great little word processor machines and for general usage.