On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:33:01 -0500, "Atila Iskander"
wrote:


"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 23:46:35 -0500, "Atila Iskander"
wrote:




Tell him to buy himself a laptop
At the prices of laptops today, the savings for a desktop are not
worth
the effort.
Plus the laptop provides a built-in backup power supply, aka battery.


Laptops have a place, but for home use, I still prefer a big honkin'
desktop with a 21 inch or larger monitor, keyboard that can be moved
around, etc.

When I want portability, my netbook has traveled to much of the US and
Europe with me. Or it can sit on my belly when in front of the TV.

You are not thinking outside of the box, and are suffering from tunnel
vision
.
A properly set-up laptop as the equal to your "big honking box"
but with a smaller footprint
AND a backup battery
I also have no problem hooking up 2 monitors, a keyboard and a backup HD to
my laptop

How do you hook up two monitors? Even with my docking station (a graphics card
doesn't work in it, for some reason) I can only connect one external display.
I used a USB adapter (they're *slow* but still useful) but it wasn't reliable
enough (worked at first, then nothing, reinstall, worked, nothing...).

Battery "backup" doesn't work, either. When the power drops the system
reboots or hangs. That may be a dock problem, though.

Just because it's "portable" does NOT mean that it cannot perform in a
non-portable role as well
I have 2 older laptops acting as server and firewall.

When I replace mine, they're dead. My wife's screen died last fall and for
some reason it doesn't like running without it. I'll have to try again
sometime.

Not only are they on a smaller footprint but they also use less power.

Not as fast, either, but I don't miss that aspect at home.