On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:01:38 -0400, "Lee Michaels"
wrote:


"J. Clarke" wrote

My machine is about 5 years old and it runs Vista just fine. And it
wasn't cutting edge when it was new. It did get a new video board
about a year ago, but that was because the old one died--it was
running Vista fine to the end.


So vista killed off your old graphics card, eh?

Reminds me of an old, reliable HP II printer I had. I got a postscript
cartridge for it and cranked out huge amount of work from this machine.

Then I got windows. It did not take long. Windows killed that old, reliable
machine. It just couldn't keep up.

The HP III that I got free about 4 years ago (freecycle.org) developed
a smear issue when printing anything other than text. Not a toner
cartridge problem and I'm not currently able to do the disassembly to
repair it (recovering rom back surgery is only slightly faster than a
glacier melting).

Having found a Brother 2040 for my wife at end of year close-out
pricing last year, I considered the 2070N (same printer with network
capability) as a replacement for the III but found it discontinued.
There was a good deal on Ebay (do your homework - you can see prices
of previous sales), so that's what I'm now using. These little
printers weigh less than 15 lb and use less than half the power of the
II/III series (something like 500 watts max).

I still have a couple of the HP 500/520 series inkjet printers - these
were the ones that had a 3 year warranty (even the refurb units).
Although big, slow, and noisy by curent standards, they still work OK
for draft printing. Ink is cheap, as there were millions of these
sold and there are still new and refilled cartridges available.


Technology marches on, leaving a trail of old, toxic electonic waste. I am
now reviewing software based on their ability to run duo core versus quad
core. One application, I may just change some software over that is not as
versatile as what I am running now. But one application cries out for the
extra speed and processing power. The present setup is freezing and slowing
down.

Some software doesn't understand multi-core processors (the software
that came with my weather station) but the affinity utility can force
a program to use just one core.


And if I go and change it over, a major hassle, what will the situation be
like in another year or two?

grumble, grumble



I got 6 years out of the previous laptop; this dual-core one is from
the Dell Small Business line and came with XP installed and Vista
Business in the box. Since the next version of Windows (currently
identified as Windows 7) will probably be out in early 2009, Vista may
never get installed.