J. Clarke wrote:
Robert Gammon wrote:


J. Clarke wrote:

Corinne wrote:



The ONLY reason I want to replace it is that my machine is eight years
old, but in excellent working condition.

But, I am still using Windows 98 SE and Microsoft is no longer offering
free updates, and I am told this opens me up to viruses, and I certainly
don't want to pass it onto others.

I was told that my machine will not support Windows XP Home Edition.

Can you tell me what I need in a computer in order to support Windows
XP?

Thanks for your help.


Thinking further, you might want at this point to wait another few months
and get a Vista machine--it will have teething problems at that point
(all Microsoft operating systems have problems when first released) but
if you only upgrade when the OS is no longer supported then you'd do
better to start with the newest one than one that is already four years
old.


I disagree. WinXp is the way to go NOW. Get Vista ONLY after the
first or second major fix pack is released. Vista is ONLY for those
that ride the bleeding edge and are willing to put up with the new
release faults when they crop up. In other words, wait a year AFTER
Vista is released before getting the new S/W.


If in fact she is willing to do that.

Corrine is expressing an interest in getting a replacement for her 8
year old Win98 machine. The question in her mind is do it now, or wait
6 months to a year to do it.

Any decent machine you buy new from Dell, HP/Compaq, e-machines....
With WinXP on it is ready to run Vista in its minimum mode. Upgrades
will be needed to get the full experience of Vista as Vista wants more
RAM than most machines are presently sold with.


And she has to buy Vista.

If she wants to go to the Vista experience AT ALL!!! Not everyone will
or should follow the Redmond junkies in lock step with what they put out.

WinXp is now stable. EOL will have little meaning to Corrrine. Virus
writers will soon be turning their attention to Vista. A machine she
buys NOW with WinXP on it will have SP2 installed already. It will run
any S/W she wants to run, surf the internet,... for as long as she wants
to use it. If that happens to run beyond the ROL for WinXP FINE!!!!!
That is still 5 or more years from NOW!



WinXP with SP2 installed is a good platform that will provide you YEARS
of good service before you need/want something else.


But it will be EOLed 4 years or so before Vista.


And I have a 1993 Acura Integra with 240,000 miles on it. I'm keeping
it as the engine still runs fine and I see no need for a new car payment.


You don't seem to be paying attention to what the OP wrote and trying to
work out the practical ramifications.


I am, She is using Win98 on an 8 year old computer and wonders if she
should upgrade to a newer model. If it aint broke don't fix it. Cars,
Computers are BOTH similar in this regard. Sure the new model is sexy,
sleek, smells good, gets you admiration from your peers....


The real risk she faces is a hardware failure that loses all data on the
drive. Other than that risk, she can keep running with what she has,
until something breaks, or she succumbs to desire and gets a new
computer with WinXP on it. If she waits a year, Dell HP/Compaq,
eMachines, etc will only be offering machines with Vista on them,

Robert Gammon wrote:

J. Clarke wrote:
Robert Gammon wrote:


J. Clarke wrote:

Corinne wrote:



The ONLY reason I want to replace it is that my machine is eight years
old, but in excellent working condition.

But, I am still using Windows 98 SE and Microsoft is no longer
offering free updates, and I am told this opens me up to viruses, and
I certainly don't want to pass it onto others.

I was told that my machine will not support Windows XP Home Edition.

Can you tell me what I need in a computer in order to support Windows
XP?

Thanks for your help.


Thinking further, you might want at this point to wait another few
months and get a Vista machine--it will have teething problems at that
point (all Microsoft operating systems have problems when first
released) but if you only upgrade when the OS is no longer supported
then you'd do better to start with the newest one than one that is
already four years old.


I disagree. WinXp is the way to go NOW. Get Vista ONLY after the
first or second major fix pack is released. Vista is ONLY for those
that ride the bleeding edge and are willing to put up with the new
release faults when they crop up. In other words, wait a year AFTER
Vista is released before getting the new S/W.


If in fact she is willing to do that.

Corrine is expressing an interest in getting a replacement for her 8
year old Win98 machine. The question in her mind is do it now, or wait
6 months to a year to do it.

Any decent machine you buy new from Dell, HP/Compaq, e-machines....
With WinXP on it is ready to run Vista in its minimum mode. Upgrades
will be needed to get the full experience of Vista as Vista wants more
RAM than most machines are presently sold with.


And she has to buy Vista.

If she wants to go to the Vista experience AT ALL!!! Not everyone will
or should follow the Redmond junkies in lock step with what they put out.

So she goes with XP and in four years instead of 8 it's EOL and she needs to
upgrade and what does she have to upgrade to?

WinXp is now stable. EOL will have little meaning to Corrrine.

Sorry, but she has clearly stated that the reason that she is upgrading is
that 98 is EOL. That being the case, I'm at a loss to understand why you
think that that is not an issue for her.

Virus
writers will soon be turning their attention to Vista. A machine she
buys NOW with WinXP on it will have SP2 installed already. It will run
any S/W she wants to run, surf the internet,... for as long as she wants
to use it. If that happens to run beyond the ROL for WinXP FINE!!!!!
That is still 5 or more years from NOW!

Not the 8 that she got out of 98.

WinXP with SP2 installed is a good platform that will provide you YEARS
of good service before you need/want something else.


But it will be EOLed 4 years or so before Vista.


And I have a 1993 Acura Integra with 240,000 miles on it. I'm keeping
it as the engine still runs fine and I see no need for a new car
payment.


You don't seem to be paying attention to what the OP wrote and trying to
work out the practical ramifications.


I am, She is using Win98 on an 8 year old computer and wonders if she
should upgrade to a newer model. If it aint broke don't fix it. Cars,
Computers are BOTH similar in this regard. Sure the new model is sexy,
sleek, smells good, gets you admiration from your peers....

While I agree that there is no compelling reason for her to upgrade if her
existing machine is working, she has stated that 98 being EOL is an issue
for her, and that being the case perhaps you should consider the
possibility that her concerns are different from your concerns.

Personally I'm running Linux on a PS/2, but I wouldn't recommend that as a
solution to someone else's problem.

The real risk she faces is a hardware failure that loses all data on the
drive. Other than that risk, she can keep running with what she has,
until something breaks, or she succumbs to desire and gets a new
computer with WinXP on it. If she waits a year, Dell HP/Compaq,
eMachines, etc will only be offering machines with Vista on them,

Yes, she can run with what she has until it breaks beyond repair, but that
does not address any of her stated concerns.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

In article , says...
Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:


On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:32:39 -0700, "Jim McLaughlin"
jim.mclaughlin wrote:


Lots of folks have no use for XP.


I started avoiding XP before if became available, when I heard
about the "product activation" unfeature which gives MS ultimate
control over your OS. I never wanted to get dependant on such a
thing.


FWIW, this "feature" was one of the main reasons I finally got around
to switching to an Apple. The tentacles of Redmond were just too
deeply imbedded in my machine to make me happy.

My switch was to Linux (Mandrake, now Mandriva). Not perfect, but
what is?

Any tech support I've needed has been solved with a simple Usenet
message. Generally speaking, post it at bedtime and read multiple
responses upon awakening.

My desktop[*] has been running SuSE for a couple of years (SuSE was
the first with good AMD64 support), but with 10.0 I've lost
DualHead support. It seems SuSE and Matrox are in finger-pointing
mode.

Bottom line is my computers have never been so rock solid stable. And I
don't spend time or money on things like anti-virus applications.

True, though don't be surprised if Linux starts getting infested
with malware.
[*] My laptop is XP.

--
Keith

In article .com,
says...

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:32:39 -0700, "Jim McLaughlin" jim.mclaughlin
wrote:

Lots of folks have no use for XP.


I started avoiding XP before if became available, when I heard about
the "product activation" unfeature which gives MS ultimate control
over your OS. I never wanted to get dependant on such a thing.

Since then, I've found various other reasons not to use XP.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

I dragged my feet on XP for a long time, for similar reasons, i.e.
microsoft's real power grab of your machine via XP. In the end when I
did upgrade (the cheapo old dell described previously) i was happy, in
that it cured numerous bugs and memory leaks i was seeing with 98.

I wish I could have stayed with Win2K. It's far better than XP.
Win98 sucked. In fact the whole Win9x line was garbage. I wouldn't
use any of them on a bet. Win2K was the only OS from M$ I've been
happy with.

--
Keith

In article .com,
says...

Rick Brandt wrote:
Corinne wrote:
My stupidity is showing here.

By two monitors, are you saying you have two flat screens attached to
one pc? I have a fairly new flat screen monitor, but it looks like
alot of the new Dells come with a monitor as well.

I have twin 19 inch LCDs on my work PC and let me tell you, you get spoiled by
this REALLY quick. Using my single 17 incher at home just feels like there is
no room at all now.

My laptop has a 14" 1400x1050 display and I have an external 20"
1680x1050 LCD display; one desktop. At work I have a similar setup
except the external LCD display is a 20" 1600x1200. If I could get
my Linux machine to understand dual displays again, I'd add a 19"
CRT monitor to the LCD display.

it is cool.
funny but true; original stone age ibm pc would do this; b&w and color
video boards were at different addresses, so you could use both and
send the video to whichever address you like. so we used to do stuff
like do the (scientific curve fitting) programming via the black and
white monitor because it was much crisper, and simultaneously show the
resulting graphics from running the program on the color monitor. and
now here we are again, but with better performance.

Yep. I had a PC in '82 with exactly this setup, both at work and
home. Of course today the desktop is simple spread over both (or
more) displays.

--
Keith

krw writes:

In article , says...
Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:


On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:32:39 -0700, "Jim McLaughlin"
jim.mclaughlin wrote:


Lots of folks have no use for XP.


I started avoiding XP before if became available, when I heard
about the "product activation" unfeature which gives MS ultimate
control over your OS. I never wanted to get dependant on such a
thing.


FWIW, this "feature" was one of the main reasons I finally got around
to switching to an Apple. The tentacles of Redmond were just too
deeply imbedded in my machine to make me happy.

My switch was to Linux (Mandrake, now Mandriva). Not perfect, but
what is?

Any tech support I've needed has been solved with a simple Usenet
message. Generally speaking, post it at bedtime and read multiple
responses upon awakening.

My desktop[*] has been running SuSE for a couple of years (SuSE was
the first with good AMD64 support), but with 10.0 I've lost
DualHead support. It seems SuSE and Matrox are in finger-pointing
mode.

Bottom line is my computers have never been so rock solid stable. And I
don't spend time or money on things like anti-virus applications.

True, though don't be surprised if Linux starts getting infested
with malware.

I'd be very surprised, first I'd have to start installing random
commercial packages. (Weatherbug and the like.)

I can't imagine why I'd do that. All those nifty little tools
are already available from trusted sources.

But then, I'd never have imagined an OS that would run an executable
from email simply by reading it either.

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 20:30:38 -0400, Dan Espen
wrote:

Jim writes:

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article , Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:32:39 -0700, "Jim McLaughlin"
jim.mclaughlin wrote:

Lots of folks have no use for XP.
I started avoiding XP before if became available, when I heard
about the "product activation" unfeature which gives MS ultimate
control over your OS. I never wanted to get dependant on such a
thing.

FWIW, this "feature" was one of the main reasons I finally got around
to switching to an Apple. The tentacles of Redmond were just too
deeply imbedded in my machine to make me happy.

My switch was to Linux (Mandrake, now Mandriva). Not perfect, but
what is?

Any tech support I've needed has been solved with a simple Usenet
message. Generally speaking, post it at bedtime and read multiple
responses upon awakening.

Bottom line is my computers have never been so rock solid stable. And I
don't spend time or money on things like anti-virus applications.

Ditto.

In general, you don't spend money for applications at all.
There are thousands of free applications, and they aren't full
of advertising either, they just do what you want.

I prefer free software. It's not about the money, but the stuff
(advertising spyware, intentional weak links "product activation")
they put in commercial software.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

On 14 Jul 2006 18:29:50 -0700, "z" wrote:


Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:32:39 -0700, "Jim McLaughlin" jim.mclaughlin
wrote:

Lots of folks have no use for XP.


I started avoiding XP before if became available, when I heard about
the "product activation" unfeature which gives MS ultimate control
over your OS. I never wanted to get dependant on such a thing.

Since then, I've found various other reasons not to use XP.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

I dragged my feet on XP for a long time, for similar reasons, i.e.
microsoft's real power grab of your machine via XP. In the end when I
did upgrade (the cheapo old dell described previously) i was happy, in
that it cured numerous bugs and memory leaks i was seeing with 98.

Windows 2000 has most of those improvements without the liability.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

Back to the OP's question and concerns.

Win98 is going EOL at Microsoft. SO WHAT!!!!!

If it still works fine with all you need this computer to do, keep on
using it as long as it lasts, even spend little bits of money to replace
things if they break (power supply, mouse, keyboard, monitor) Shop
around, used items, especially for monitors can be quite good and quite
cheap. Power supplies, Rodents, and Keyboards are cheap.

When it breaks big time, i.e. hard drive fails, processor fails, burns
up...... Then go see what the market is offering and make your decision.

Right now, if you go buy a machine from Dell, HP/Compaq,e-machines,
Sony..... they call come with WinXp (home or Pro). In 6 months to a
year, they will all come with Vista.

End of Life is a meaningless term. All it means is that if you call
Microsoft Support, they will refuse to answer your questions. If you
find a bug (bloody unlikely), they will accept your information, but
nothing will ever happen. EOL does NOT mean that Win98 will STOP
working, that the machine will refuse to boot Win98. Far from it.

IBM stopped supporting OS/2 several years ago. There are tens of
thousands of computers around the world (even ATMs, bank teller
terminals, stock brokerage terminals) that are still going strong with
that old product. Just don't call IBM for support issues with OS/2,
you'll get no answers.

EOL does not mean that the product stops working, it just means you are
on your own for support (and most of us are in exactly that shape
regardless of whether we use something from Microsoft, a Linux version,
OS/2, Apple........)

"krw" wrote in message

My switch was to Linux (Mandrake, now Mandriva). Not perfect, but
what is?
Bottom line is my computers have never been so rock solid stable. And I
don't spend time or money on things like anti-virus applications.

True, though don't be surprised if Linux starts getting infested
with malware.

It is a matter of time. EVERY operating system has holes. Some are just
harder to find. The reason Windows has so many attacks is the infantile
minds of those that rite virus and worms. They have such a hate for Gates
and Microsoft they spend hours, day, even weeks of their time to "get" them.

In a perfect world, we would not need anti-virus software, policemen, etc.

z wrote:


Andy Asberry wrote:
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:11:09 -0700, Corinne
wrote:

Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted here
before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

I am totally lost, and as you can see, I am not too computer savvy.
I just know the basics, and my computer man, in this small town,
just retired due to ill health.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Corinne

I have 5 Dells, all bought within the last three years. A lightning
strike is the only problem at all. Took out all the modems.

Don't be blinded by processor speed; ram is more important IMO, at
least 1 gb. Good graphics board and speakers (if you're into music).

One thing I couldn't do without now is dual monitors. Never thought
they would be so handy.

--Andy Asberry recommends NewsGuy--

I've suspected for a while now that what's slowing down the dells in my
life (mine and other people's) is the onboard video. for one thing it
"borrows" the memory off the main memory, which has to take time, and
of course reducing memory to the system every time i have a bunch of
windows open is exactly the wrong thing to do. haven't tried to upgrade
them with a video board yet. anybody have any opinions? tia.

The memory is "borrowed" at boot time so its not trying to borrow when you
open more windows. If you were playing so high end games you would notice
difference with the shared memory but just opening windows its not going to
make any difference.

ameijers wrote:


"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:11:09 -0700, Corinne
wrote:

Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted here
before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

I am totally lost, and as you can see, I am not too computer savvy.
I just know the basics, and my computer man, in this small town,
just retired due to ill health.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Corinne

I think Dell are very good computers. We had about 70 desktops in our
local network and maybe as many as 10,000 running on a national
network level. I have seen maybe two that failed right out of the
box. Each a dead hard drive, so Dell sent overnight new drives without
having to send in the old beforehand. You will get good directions
for setting up the machine.

E-mail, browsing the web, and small programs are not that taxing on
the system. Video, Music and Photo editing is another thing. I suggest
a mid-range system, based on your comment.

Dell commercial-grade machines are great, their consumer-grade machines
less so. I'd buy off the 'office' page, not the 'home' page. Optiplex, not
Dimension. Costs more, but a better machine, in my experience. We had
several thousand at work until Gateway underbid them. Very low failure
rate on the Optiplexes. If you are on a budget, look on ebay or
www.dellfinancialservices.com, for an off-lease machine.

aem sends....

Same goes with any brand, Compaq/Hp makes good business systems while the
presario/pavilion line are cheaply made propritary things.
For basic use, get a used business machine from someplace like retrobox for
half the price of a good new home system and you won't have all the "free"
software to uninstall.

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:59:01 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:23:39 GMT, Norminn
wrote:

long gone. The pile of junk with WinME barely gets the news and emails,
and can't remember what time it is or where it put it's hard drive.
Come to think of it, it is a lot like me )

Windows ME was released with some 65, 000 "known bugs" as I have read.
Keep in mind when they try to fix one bug, the potential is there to
introduce additional bugs.

For my money Windows 2000 is as stable as it gets.

Oren

I've been using 2000 for over a year now, and VERY SELDOM have to
reboot the system because of a misbehaving program.

Yes, 2000 was the best, XP was a big disappointment after running NT4 and
2000 for a few years.

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:04:59 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:07:59 -0500, Andy Asberry
wrote:



--Andy Asberry recommends NewsGuy--

That may be true, although I generally ignore such things because
they're usually spam inserted automatically by a usenet software or
server.

That is true. A few months ago, Newsguy inserted a cheesy spam message
at the end of every post. I displayed my displeasure by using a long
winded retort as my signature.

Bob, with Newsguy saw it on another group and contacted me about it.
They quickly removed it. I thought that was pretty customer oriented
and very responsive. I then added the above sig.

--Andy Asberry recommends NewsGuy--

Corinne wrote:
Thanks for this info.

True, I don't need anything that does all this fancy stuff, unless I
want to take some computer classes and learn how to accomplish all the
different things these fascinating computers can do.

Appreciate your help.

Corinne,
Depending on how you learn (some people prefer classes over other
mechanisms), there are a *ton* of websites to teach you various things
(many times for free), and obviously you are aware of usenet groups for
specific information.

I look to the internet for everything from clothes shopping to auto
repair to research for projects, etc. before I look to classes and
books.

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:36:44 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:59:01 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:23:39 GMT, Norminn
wrote:

long gone. The pile of junk with WinME barely gets the news and emails,
and can't remember what time it is or where it put it's hard drive.
Come to think of it, it is a lot like me )

Windows ME was released with some 65, 000 "known bugs" as I have read.
Keep in mind when they try to fix one bug, the potential is there to
introduce additional bugs.

For my money Windows 2000 is as stable as it gets.

Oren

I've been using 2000 for over a year now, and VERY SELDOM have to
reboot the system because of a misbehaving program.

Yes, 2000 was the best, XP was a big disappointment after running NT4 and
2000 for a few years.

It IS, not was the best, stable version. The pro version will give a
home user years of stable use, for the moment.

For the same years as the OP, say 6 years 2000 stood up, took anything
I sent to it.

XP really centered on a "power user", at least in pro. Pro opens all
the network, dangerous from start up.

This WindoZe environment, we speak about has left (b)millions open to
attack right out of the box.

Oren

Corinne wrote:
Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted here
before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

If you are sold on a Dell, but your head is reeling from all the info
provided here so far, you might ask specific questions about any model that
interests you in this newsgroup: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell for some user
experiences.

Personally, I have had 3 Gateways which all gave good service, but never
owned a Dell. The first 2 lasted 4 yrs. with no service calls, and the last
one lasted 3 before it developed a problem & I chose the wrong repair
service. :\ Due to that pc being held hostage, I had to buy a pc off the
shelf for the first time, and chose an eMachine because of it's improved
service reputation. I've had it 2 yrs. now with no problems either. I'm
only telling you this, because I consider Gateway's computers comparable to
Dell, if you had any interest in price/equipment comparisons.

Since you aren't into photography or music, it looks like a Dimension B110
[with minimum 512MB RAM], has more than enough storage and a fast enough
processor. Compare it to what you're using, by looking at your My Computer
properties. Good luck in your search.
bj

Oren wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:36:44 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:59:01 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:23:39 GMT, Norminn
wrote:

long gone. The pile of junk with WinME barely gets the news and
emails, and can't remember what time it is or where it put it's hard
drive. Come to think of it, it is a lot like me )

Windows ME was released with some 65, 000 "known bugs" as I have read.
Keep in mind when they try to fix one bug, the potential is there to
introduce additional bugs.

For my money Windows 2000 is as stable as it gets.

Oren

I've been using 2000 for over a year now, and VERY SELDOM have to
reboot the system because of a misbehaving program.

Yes, 2000 was the best, XP was a big disappointment after running NT4 and
2000 for a few years.

It IS, not was the best, stable version. The pro version will give a
home user years of stable use, for the moment.

For the same years as the OP, say 6 years 2000 stood up, took anything
I sent to it.

XP really centered on a "power user", at least in pro. Pro opens all
the network, dangerous from start up.

This WindoZe environment, we speak about has left (b)millions open to
attack right out of the box.

Oren

Your right, I should have said IS.

XP tends to be annoying for the power user too though, most of its defaults
are all wrong, poor memory management, etc.

krw wrote:

True, though don't be surprised if Linux starts getting infested with
malware.

[*] My laptop is XP.


Infections are in theory possible. But usually require the user to do
something dumb like granting administrator privileges to something they
don't know about. Stupid.
[*] My laptop is Mandriva 2006

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"krw" wrote in message

My switch was to Linux (Mandrake, now Mandriva). Not perfect,
but what is? Bottom line is my computers have never been so rock
solid stable. And I don't spend time or money on things like
anti-virus applications.

True, though don't be surprised if Linux starts getting infested
with malware.


It is a matter of time. EVERY operating system has holes. Some are
just harder to find. The reason Windows has so many attacks is the
infantile minds of those that rite virus and worms. They have such a
hate for Gates and Microsoft they spend hours, day, even weeks of
their time to "get" them.

In a perfect world, we would not need anti-virus software, policemen,
etc.


Qualified agreement. Difference is Linux grants rights only equal to
those of the user. If you're dumb enough to grant administrator
privileges to something unknown then it is your fault you got hosed, not
the OS.

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:14:09 GMT, Robert Gammon
wrote:

Back to the OP's question and concerns.

Win98 is going EOL at Microsoft. SO WHAT!!!!!

If it still works fine with all you need this computer to do, keep on
using it as long as it lasts, even spend little bits of money to replace
things if they break (power supply, mouse, keyboard, monitor) Shop
around, used items, especially for monitors can be quite good and quite
cheap. Power supplies, Rodents, and Keyboards are cheap.

When it breaks big time, i.e. hard drive fails, processor fails, burns
up...... Then go see what the market is offering and make your decision.

Right now, if you go buy a machine from Dell, HP/Compaq,e-machines,
Sony..... they call come with WinXp (home or Pro). In 6 months to a
year, they will all come with Vista.

End of Life is a meaningless term. All it means is that if you call
Microsoft Support, they will refuse to answer your questions. If you
find a bug (bloody unlikely), they will accept your information, but
nothing will ever happen. EOL does NOT mean that Win98 will STOP
working, that the machine will refuse to boot Win98. Far from it.


But it will mean something with XP (and later), where you have to have
their permission every so often or else the OS commits suicide.

IBM stopped supporting OS/2 several years ago. There are tens of
thousands of computers around the world (even ATMs, bank teller
terminals, stock brokerage terminals) that are still going strong with
that old product. Just don't call IBM for support issues with OS/2,
you'll get no answers.

EOL does not mean that the product stops working, it just means you are
on your own for support (and most of us are in exactly that shape
regardless of whether we use something from Microsoft, a Linux version,
OS/2, Apple........)
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:35:08 -0400, krw wrote:

In article .com,
says...

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:32:39 -0700, "Jim McLaughlin" jim.mclaughlin
wrote:

Lots of folks have no use for XP.


I started avoiding XP before if became available, when I heard about
the "product activation" unfeature which gives MS ultimate control
over your OS. I never wanted to get dependant on such a thing.

Since then, I've found various other reasons not to use XP.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

I dragged my feet on XP for a long time, for similar reasons, i.e.
microsoft's real power grab of your machine via XP. In the end when I
did upgrade (the cheapo old dell described previously) i was happy, in
that it cured numerous bugs and memory leaks i was seeing with 98.

I wish I could have stayed with Win2K. It's far better than XP.
Win98 sucked. In fact the whole Win9x line was garbage.

At least they were better than 3.x (and DOS 4, if you want thinks that
suck).

I wouldn't
use any of them on a bet. Win2K was the only OS from M$ I've been
happy with.

Why couldn't you stay with w2k? If you're thinking of a new computer,
the first thing I do is reformat and install 2k (that is after getting
a suitable driver for the on-board NIC).
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:19:29 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:36:44 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:59:01 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:23:39 GMT, Norminn
wrote:

long gone. The pile of junk with WinME barely gets the news and emails,
and can't remember what time it is or where it put it's hard drive.
Come to think of it, it is a lot like me )

Windows ME was released with some 65, 000 "known bugs" as I have read.
Keep in mind when they try to fix one bug, the potential is there to
introduce additional bugs.

For my money Windows 2000 is as stable as it gets.

Oren

I've been using 2000 for over a year now, and VERY SELDOM have to
reboot the system because of a misbehaving program.

Yes, 2000 was the best, XP was a big disappointment after running NT4 and
2000 for a few years.

It IS, not was the best, stable version. The pro version will give a
home user years of stable use, for the moment.

For the same years as the OP, say 6 years 2000 stood up, took anything
I sent to it.

XP really centered on a "power user", at least in pro. Pro opens all
the network, dangerous from start up.

This WindoZe environment, we speak about has left (b)millions open to
attack right out of the box.


Once I remember hearing that the average time-until-attack (for a
system running Windows with default settings) was about 5 minutes.
It's probably less now. It can help to have any Windows updates,
device drivers, and a good firewall on a CD, so you can get it
protected BEFORE getting on the internet.



Oren
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:35:46 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

ameijers wrote:


"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:11:09 -0700, Corinne
wrote:

Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted here
before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

I am totally lost, and as you can see, I am not too computer savvy.
I just know the basics, and my computer man, in this small town,
just retired due to ill health.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Corinne

I think Dell are very good computers. We had about 70 desktops in our
local network and maybe as many as 10,000 running on a national
network level. I have seen maybe two that failed right out of the
box. Each a dead hard drive, so Dell sent overnight new drives without
having to send in the old beforehand. You will get good directions
for setting up the machine.

E-mail, browsing the web, and small programs are not that taxing on
the system. Video, Music and Photo editing is another thing. I suggest
a mid-range system, based on your comment.

Dell commercial-grade machines are great, their consumer-grade machines
less so. I'd buy off the 'office' page, not the 'home' page. Optiplex, not
Dimension. Costs more, but a better machine, in my experience. We had
several thousand at work until Gateway underbid them. Very low failure
rate on the Optiplexes. If you are on a budget, look on ebay or
www.dellfinancialservices.com, for an off-lease machine.

aem sends....

Same goes with any brand, Compaq/Hp makes good business systems while the
presario/pavilion line are cheaply made propritary things.
For basic use, get a used business machine from someplace like retrobox for
half the price of a good new home system and you won't have all the "free"
software to uninstall.

You don't have to worry about that last thing is you first reformat
the disk and install the stuff YOU want.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

In article ,
10 says...
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:35:08 -0400, krw wrote:

In article .com,
says...

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:32:39 -0700, "Jim McLaughlin" jim.mclaughlin
wrote:

Lots of folks have no use for XP.


I started avoiding XP before if became available, when I heard about
the "product activation" unfeature which gives MS ultimate control
over your OS. I never wanted to get dependant on such a thing.

Since then, I've found various other reasons not to use XP.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

I dragged my feet on XP for a long time, for similar reasons, i.e.
microsoft's real power grab of your machine via XP. In the end when I
did upgrade (the cheapo old dell described previously) i was happy, in
that it cured numerous bugs and memory leaks i was seeing with 98.

I wish I could have stayed with Win2K. It's far better than XP.
Win98 sucked. In fact the whole Win9x line was garbage.

At least they were better than 3.x (and DOS 4, if you want thinks that
suck).

But it *wasn't* better than OS/2.

I wouldn't
use any of them on a bet. Win2K was the only OS from M$ I've been
happy with.

Why couldn't you stay with w2k? If you're thinking of a new computer,
the first thing I do is reformat and install 2k (that is after getting
a suitable driver for the on-board NIC).

New laptop. It's flaky enough without being out on a ledge on my
own with Win2K.

--
Keith

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:19:29 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:36:44 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:59:01 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:23:39 GMT, Norminn
wrote:

long gone. The pile of junk with WinME barely gets the news and
emails, and can't remember what time it is or where it put it's hard
drive. Come to think of it, it is a lot like me )

Windows ME was released with some 65, 000 "known bugs" as I have read.
Keep in mind when they try to fix one bug, the potential is there to
introduce additional bugs.

For my money Windows 2000 is as stable as it gets.

Oren

I've been using 2000 for over a year now, and VERY SELDOM have to
reboot the system because of a misbehaving program.

Yes, 2000 was the best, XP was a big disappointment after running NT4 and
2000 for a few years.

It IS, not was the best, stable version. The pro version will give a
home user years of stable use, for the moment.

For the same years as the OP, say 6 years 2000 stood up, took anything
I sent to it.

XP really centered on a "power user", at least in pro. Pro opens all
the network, dangerous from start up.

This WindoZe environment, we speak about has left (b)millions open to
attack right out of the box.


Once I remember hearing that the average time-until-attack (for a
system running Windows with default settings) was about 5 minutes.
It's probably less now. It can help to have any Windows updates,
device drivers, and a good firewall on a CD, so you can get it
protected BEFORE getting on the internet.

Uh, what difference do the settings make to "time until attack"? For that
matter, what difference does the OS make? So someone attacks. So what?
What is the time until the attack _succeeds_? That is what matters.


--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Eugene Nine wrote:

Oren wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:36:44 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:59:01 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:23:39 GMT, Norminn
wrote:

long gone. The pile of junk with WinME barely gets the news and
emails, and can't remember what time it is or where it put it's hard
drive. Come to think of it, it is a lot like me )

Windows ME was released with some 65, 000 "known bugs" as I have read.
Keep in mind when they try to fix one bug, the potential is there to
introduce additional bugs.

For my money Windows 2000 is as stable as it gets.

Oren

I've been using 2000 for over a year now, and VERY SELDOM have to
reboot the system because of a misbehaving program.

Yes, 2000 was the best, XP was a big disappointment after running NT4 and
2000 for a few years.

It IS, not was the best, stable version. The pro version will give a
home user years of stable use, for the moment.

For the same years as the OP, say 6 years 2000 stood up, took anything
I sent to it.

XP really centered on a "power user", at least in pro. Pro opens all
the network, dangerous from start up.

This WindoZe environment, we speak about has left (b)millions open to
attack right out of the box.

Oren

Your right, I should have said IS.

XP tends to be annoying for the power user too though, most of its
defaults are all wrong, poor memory management, etc.

The memory management is the same as in NT and 2K, and the main objection
that "power users" have is that they don't have free reign.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:14:09 GMT, Robert Gammon
wrote:

Back to the OP's question and concerns.

Win98 is going EOL at Microsoft. SO WHAT!!!!!

If it still works fine with all you need this computer to do, keep on
using it as long as it lasts, even spend little bits of money to replace
things if they break (power supply, mouse, keyboard, monitor) Shop
around, used items, especially for monitors can be quite good and quite
cheap. Power supplies, Rodents, and Keyboards are cheap.

When it breaks big time, i.e. hard drive fails, processor fails, burns
up...... Then go see what the market is offering and make your decision.

Right now, if you go buy a machine from Dell, HP/Compaq,e-machines,
Sony..... they call come with WinXp (home or Pro). In 6 months to a
year, they will all come with Vista.

End of Life is a meaningless term. All it means is that if you call
Microsoft Support, they will refuse to answer your questions. If you
find a bug (bloody unlikely), they will accept your information, but
nothing will ever happen. EOL does NOT mean that Win98 will STOP
working, that the machine will refuse to boot Win98. Far from it.


But it will mean something with XP (and later), where you have to have
their permission every so often or else the OS commits suicide.

Yeah, you have to have "their permission" when you _install_ and at no other
time.

IBM stopped supporting OS/2 several years ago. There are tens of
thousands of computers around the world (even ATMs, bank teller
terminals, stock brokerage terminals) that are still going strong with
that old product. Just don't call IBM for support issues with OS/2,
you'll get no answers.

EOL does not mean that the product stops working, it just means you are
on your own for support (and most of us are in exactly that shape
regardless of whether we use something from Microsoft, a Linux version,
OS/2, Apple........)

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Your point is well taken. Thanks, and I will look into this.

Corinne

wrote:
Corinne wrote:

Thanks for this info.

True, I don't need anything that does all this fancy stuff, unless I
want to take some computer classes and learn how to accomplish all the
different things these fascinating computers can do.

Appreciate your help.


Corinne,
Depending on how you learn (some people prefer classes over other
mechanisms), there are a *ton* of websites to teach you various things
(many times for free), and obviously you are aware of usenet groups for
specific information.

I look to the internet for everything from clothes shopping to auto
repair to research for projects, etc. before I look to classes and
books.

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:25:45 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Once I remember hearing that the average time-until-attack (for a
system running Windows with default settings) was about 5 minutes.
It's probably less now. It can help to have any Windows updates,
device drivers, and a good firewall on a CD, so you can get it
protected BEFORE getting on the internet.

Uh, what difference do the settings make to "time until attack"? For that
matter, what difference does the OS make? So someone attacks. So what?
What is the time until the attack _succeeds_? That is what matters.

Any interesting read:

"Nothing more than the whim of a 13-year old hacker is required to
knock any user, site, or server right off the Internet."

http://www.grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm

Test Your ports.

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

Oren

Rick Brandt wrote:
The old adage about computers being obsolete as soon as you open the package WAS
true for quite some time, but for several years now has only been true for high
end development workstations and gamers.

The adage was a combination of a few things...the expanding market (the
growth of people buying PCs was increasing every year) and forced
obsolesence (purposeful incompatibilities for OS upgrades, forced
hardware upgrades and application upgrades).

It's always been amazing that each version of Windows made third-party
apps magically break while the virii unleashed could infect every
generation of the OS. Or that the lunar modules required a mere 32K of
RAM to get to the moon, but to write a letter to my mother on Windows
XP requires almost 512MB RAM and 5 minutes to boot just to type
"hello."

But then, the virus writers didn't have the vested interest in breaking
our applications.

For the most part, the "need" to constantly upgrade was marketing and
advertising. My version of DOS-based WordPerfect had capabilities that
Word does not have to this day, but that people have upgraded 3, 4
times. However, when you look at the upgrade market, you see that many
people (home users primarily) have not upgraded from the Win98/ME days.

Oren wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:25:45 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Once I remember hearing that the average time-until-attack (for a
system running Windows with default settings) was about 5 minutes.
It's probably less now. It can help to have any Windows updates,
device drivers, and a good firewall on a CD, so you can get it
protected BEFORE getting on the internet.

Uh, what difference do the settings make to "time until attack"? For that
matter, what difference does the OS make? So someone attacks. So what?
What is the time until the attack _succeeds_? That is what matters.

Any interesting read:

"Nothing more than the whim of a 13-year old hacker is required to
knock any user, site, or server right off the Internet."

http://www.grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm

That's a denial of service attack. It doesn't matter what OS you are
running because it doesn't put anything on your machine--the objective is
to generate so much bogus traffic that legitimate traffic can't get
through.

The same technique will work against a Windows machine, a Linux machine, a
BSD machine, a Mac, a Unix box, a mainframe, or any other system.

Test Your ports.

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

And as always it can't figure out what to do with my machine.

Oren

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On 16 Jul 2006 07:40:19 -0700, wrote:


Rick Brandt wrote:
The old adage about computers being obsolete as soon as you open the package WAS
true for quite some time, but for several years now has only been true for high
end development workstations and gamers.

The adage was a combination of a few things...the expanding market (the
growth of people buying PCs was increasing every year) and forced
obsolesence (purposeful incompatibilities for OS upgrades, forced
hardware upgrades and application upgrades).

Many of the "forced" things gave a user some advances, broader
bandwidth, sloooowly move away from 8bit, to 16bit, to 32bit and here
comes 64bit. Remember when XP came out there was a test app that
checked hardware?

The user got caught between all the hardware and software issues.

It's always been amazing that each version of Windows made third-party
apps magically break while the virii unleashed could infect every
generation of the OS. Or that the lunar modules required a mere 32K of
RAM to get to the moon, but to write a letter to my mother on Windows
XP requires almost 512MB RAM and 5 minutes to boot just to type
"hello."

Some years ago NASA had or may still have a search for certain chips.
I had an old 8bit motherboard with the exact chip. They did not accept
from a layman, but wanted large lots of this chip.

But then, the virus writers didn't have the vested interest in breaking
our applications.

For the most part, the "need" to constantly upgrade was marketing and
advertising. My version of DOS-based WordPerfect had capabilities that
Word does not have to this day, but that people have upgraded 3, 4
times. However, when you look at the upgrade market, you see that many
people (home users primarily) have not upgraded from the Win98/ME days.

WordPerfect bought a company/software called Write and Spell. It ran
on 5.25 floppies, IBM X86 CPU, 1 meg RAM, no hard drive. One floppy
was the program and the other the dictionary. Had to swap them out to
spell check grin. Then another 5.25 floppy to save the document.
This was before the first 10 Meg hardrive.


Oren

Oren wrote:
WordPerfect bought a company/software called Write and Spell. It ran
on 5.25 floppies, IBM X86 CPU, 1 meg RAM, no hard drive. One floppy
was the program and the other the dictionary. Had to swap them out to
spell check grin. Then another 5.25 floppy to save the document.
This was before the first 10 Meg hardrive.


Ah, the good ol' days. The first PC in our house was a Heathkit
build-it-yourself. I remember SuperCalc being a revolutionary piece of
software.

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:35:46 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

ameijers wrote:


"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:11:09 -0700, Corinne
wrote:

Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted
here before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

I am totally lost, and as you can see, I am not too computer savvy.
I just know the basics, and my computer man, in this small town,
just retired due to ill health.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Corinne

I think Dell are very good computers. We had about 70 desktops in our
local network and maybe as many as 10,000 running on a national
network level. I have seen maybe two that failed right out of the
box. Each a dead hard drive, so Dell sent overnight new drives without
having to send in the old beforehand. You will get good directions
for setting up the machine.

E-mail, browsing the web, and small programs are not that taxing on
the system. Video, Music and Photo editing is another thing. I suggest
a mid-range system, based on your comment.

Dell commercial-grade machines are great, their consumer-grade machines
less so. I'd buy off the 'office' page, not the 'home' page. Optiplex,
not Dimension. Costs more, but a better machine, in my experience. We
had several thousand at work until Gateway underbid them. Very low
failure rate on the Optiplexes. If you are on a budget, look on ebay or
www.dellfinancialservices.com, for an off-lease machine.

aem sends....

Same goes with any brand, Compaq/Hp makes good business systems while the
presario/pavilion line are cheaply made propritary things.
For basic use, get a used business machine from someplace like retrobox
for half the price of a good new home system and you won't have all the
"free" software to uninstall.

You don't have to worry about that last thing is you first reformat
the disk and install the stuff YOU want.

Most people don't want to do that though, but its the first thing I have
done with any new system I've ever bought.

J. Clarke wrote:

Oren

Your right, I should have said IS.

XP tends to be annoying for the power user too though, most of its
defaults are all wrong, poor memory management, etc.

The memory management is the same as in NT and 2K, and the main objection
that "power users" have is that they don't have free reign.


2000 Seemed to do a better job running memory intensive apps such as vmware.
I can't get anywhere near the guest of performance out of an XP host as I
could w2k or Linux.

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:26:47 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:35:46 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

ameijers wrote:


"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:11:09 -0700, Corinne
wrote:

Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted
here before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

I am totally lost, and as you can see, I am not too computer savvy.
I just know the basics, and my computer man, in this small town,
just retired due to ill health.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Corinne

I think Dell are very good computers. We had about 70 desktops in our
local network and maybe as many as 10,000 running on a national
network level. I have seen maybe two that failed right out of the
box. Each a dead hard drive, so Dell sent overnight new drives without
having to send in the old beforehand. You will get good directions
for setting up the machine.

E-mail, browsing the web, and small programs are not that taxing on
the system. Video, Music and Photo editing is another thing. I suggest
a mid-range system, based on your comment.

Dell commercial-grade machines are great, their consumer-grade machines
less so. I'd buy off the 'office' page, not the 'home' page. Optiplex,
not Dimension. Costs more, but a better machine, in my experience. We
had several thousand at work until Gateway underbid them. Very low
failure rate on the Optiplexes. If you are on a budget, look on ebay or
www.dellfinancialservices.com, for an off-lease machine.

aem sends....

Same goes with any brand, Compaq/Hp makes good business systems while the
presario/pavilion line are cheaply made propritary things.
For basic use, get a used business machine from someplace like retrobox
for half the price of a good new home system and you won't have all the
"free" software to uninstall.

You don't have to worry about that last thing is you first reformat
the disk and install the stuff YOU want.

Most people don't want to do that though, but its the first thing I have
done with any new system I've ever bought.

True, most people won't. One reason it seems so funny when I see
people who think "normal" is the best you can be.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb
contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

Dear Corrine,
I've been using computers for over 15 years. For the past year I've had
a Dell desktop.
My advice is very simple.DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T Buy a DELL.
Service is non existent.
go ahead ..;....be like me and everyone else I know and pay the extra
for nextbusiness day service.
- I've been waiting over a month for that one.
the further up the management pipeline you go, the more Rude people
are and the less help you get. And getting less help than "None" is
something I find quite remarkable , but it happens with Dell.

Considering how few poeople actually do get off their buts and complain
or admit to making poor purchase decisions the number of public
complaints made about Dell should be enough to worry you - There are
class action suits file in the states for god's sake - this is not just
net urban legend, I've actually downloaded the legal doc's to verify
it as I couldn't believe it .

Their computers are set -up with so much extraneous rubbish, they are
actually designed to underperform. You'll get it complete with software
whiuch you absiloutely do not ever wish to install.
And you'll get no help when you need it.

I'm a pc boy through and through so I won't mention the "get a mac"
thing which many might. But perhaps you just ned to go to the next town
and find another local guy to build you a system - I've had sevetral
homebuilt systems over the years and they have all been better than
excellent. Maybe someone else will give you a brand name to consider .
But please don't let it be Dell - companies with that little respect
for their customers should not be encouraged - as a marketing/ad' man
I 'll also point out that Dell sell on nothing but price don't they?? -
that's cause there aint no quality to speak of -pay extra for a decent
soundcard and they just slap it on top of a cheap integrated
motherboard etc. etc.

Good luck , but just think about all those complaints - it takes a lot
for many people to admit they made a porr purchase decision but Dell
manages to get lots of people to admit it don't they?
Best regards and hope that's food for thought.
Peter p.



Corinne wrote:
Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted here
before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

I am totally lost, and as you can see, I am not too computer savvy.
I just know the basics, and my computer man, in this small town,
just retired due to ill health.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Corinne

In article . com,
wrote:

I'm a pc boy through and through so I won't mention the "get a mac"
thing which many might.

Yes, I might mention Mac. I buy very used very cheap ($25) macs and
they seem to last forever, are EZ to fix and have a dedicated e-mail
group to supply cheap parts or add-ons when desired.

--
Free men own guns, slaves don't
www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5357/