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Damian · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 12:22 am Post subject: Computers and related things

So I just got Windows 7 Pro up and running on my MacBook alongside Snow Leopard, because my roommate is awesome and can get it for free because he's in a computer science class right now. Fun stuff.

Um let's talk about computers because I feel like we haven't had this conversation in a while? Or, well, technology in general. You know.

I'm also thinking about:
a) getting a new monitor; probably 23-24" HD something. Thinking about a Samsung perhaps, one of them has a built-in TV Tuner. But, any recommendations there?
b) possibly getting an iMac to replace this 6-year-old desktop computer. It's still functioning fine but it's so out of date these days. This is a less serious consideration, but something to think about. I might take the iMac with me to college and have both that and my MacBook. Is this a good idea or superfluous? Probably superfluous, but I don't know. If I just got the monitor I'd be able to dual-monitor with my laptop. But I don't like working on laptops all the time, really.
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Lester Square · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:00 pm Post subject:

I recently replaced my 9-year-old pile-of-shit laptop with a merely-two-years-old one. I feel so goddamn modern. It's even got Windows XP!!Y'know, as opposed to Windows 1 or whatever the hell I used to be on.
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LynkStar · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:21 pm Post subject:

I have a 15" Late 2008 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, which I sometimes put through my 23" Samsung TV. Damian, the Samsung works fine with Macs. Smile

I doubt you'll need two macs at college. Seems to be, as you said, superfluous. If you're getting the TV you can always get a wireless mouse and keyboard for the mac and use it like a desktop - that is, with the mac closed and the TV as the only monitor.
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Izzhov · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:45 pm Post subject:

I'm still running a Toshiba that I got when Windows XP was the most recent Windows OS. And I'm still running Windows XP.
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Genius_41 · is a stale Arsecrumpet™ Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 170

Only last year I upgraded from my old laptop- a beast running Windows 98, with 64mb of memory (of which some was faulty Razz

), an 8gb hard drive, and 500mhz of raw power. A relic from about 1998, I believe! Then the bugger caught fire. Then I got my current, not nearly as crap, Windows XP jobby. Smile

I'd like a mac some day. Smile

dPaladin · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:31 pm Post subject:

I got my brother a 24" AOC monitor for mad cheap (it was a deal on some site) for Christmas and it's fantastic. You don't really need a built in tuner if you have the ports open for one. You'd probably get a better tuner if you buy a separate card than if you got a built in one, and it might be cheaper. I base this off of absolutely nothing other than the fact that I was just shopping for tuners and there are some perfectly adequate tuner cards in the $30 neighborhood.

Also here's my computer

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883147078
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LynkStar · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:47 pm Post subject:

Damian · Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:19 pm Post subject:

Wow, dPal, that IS really sweet for the price. Damn.

My old computer is a little nicer than some of your old ones, I guess. Razz

I at least have a WHOLE GIGABYTE OF RAM on my WinXP, allowing me to do most things except, say, run Finale and FL Studio and Firefox all at the same time.

Mike · is a stale Arsecrumpet™ Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Posts: 179

About two weeks ago I finally scrapped the clunky and terrible old 10GB-hard-drive desktop dinosaur I'd dragged all the way through college in favour of a 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM, Win7 Toshiba laptop. I'm surprised how much I dig 7, actually. Vista was like being slapped in the face by Bill Gates every five minutes.
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Ricky · is doing a barrel roll! Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 443

Cheese Monkey · Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 12:12 pm Post subject:

Could you elaborate on how 7 is better than Vista? Razz

I've heard the rumor many times, I'd just like some more detail.

Next week sometime I hope to purchase a fairly expensive HP desktop from Best Buy. This will replace my current desktop which I put together from spare parts, which runs Windows 2k and has parts in it that could be considered old when I built it in 2005. ROFL Lune

Small wonder why I've been using my Vista laptop as my primary comp until now, eh?

But anyway, the machine I'm looking at has 8GB of RAM, 750GB of hard drive space, and Win7 64-bit. The only fail part about it is the video card (it's integrated), so I plan to buy an nVidia card separately. There's a slightly better machine with 1TB of hard drive space and a dedicated vid card available, but the card is an ATI, and I kinda need nVidia for what I want to do. So, yeah. Razz

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dPaladin · Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2010 5:48 pm Post subject:

I've been told a few things about Vista/Win7:

1) Most commonly, I am told that Win7 is better than Vista because it doesn't steal ur ramz as badly and it apparently uac is different or gone? I don't know. I've only used 7 in computer labs at school.

2) One of my Super Computer Guy friends says that Vista with the service pack/upgrades is essentially no different than Windows 7. My dad, also a Super Computer Guy, though maybe less Super, seems to agree with this.

3) There aren't as many drivers for Windows 7, especially 64 bit. I don't think this will be a problem for very long, if it even still is. Win7 is popular and MS is going to support it better than they do Vista, and will indeed probably encourage everyone to buy it with a [s:2272a7161c]free[/s:2272a7161c] expensive but arguably still worth it upgrade.

Some of the complaints I've heard about Vista make no sense. For example, stability. I've found it to be quite stable, and I only crashed it when I was installing a theme and screwed up some file. That was the only time I crashed Vista in 2 years of using it and it was pretty much entirely my fault.

Also, @Damian:

I'm not a tuner card expert by any means, but there are several types of digital cable (and inputs) to choose from, so the type of tuner you get depends on what you want to do. Like, if you want to plug some game consoles into your monitor (which is what I was shopping for), you're going to want composite and maybe r/f (same as an analog antenna jack in this case. I'm including this because someone reading this might care, and it took me forever to figure out that they were the same thing) inputs.

If you just want to watch tv with the tuner, then a built in one might be fine. I assume it means you have built in speakers too. If not, you'll need some. You also want to make sure the tuner supports ATSC and/or (preferably and, not or) QAM. If it supports NTSC and not those other two, then it's analog, which is Old And Busted. ATSC is the new prevailing standard, but QAM is used for sending unencrypted stuff over the air. So if you want to get free local channels (and maybe some others), then you want a tuner that picks up QAM. If they DO give you free cable, then you can plug the antenna directly into the tuner and watch it that way.

I found this thing, which seems to be perfect for just watching tv with no frills or extra shit you're not going to use:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815260023

Newegg rocks.

EDIT: Also! Deal of the day today on Woot:

http://sellout.woot.com/?ts=1269142828&sig=f1e6bb8c9ff64a1b

I am considering getting this because that's dirt cheap.
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Sammich Ultima · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:46 am Post subject:

compu stats thread?

os[Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack 3 (5.1 - 2600)]
cpu[1-AMD , 2171MHz, 256KB]
mem[2x 256MB DDR]
hd[260GB, IDE]
gfx[RADEON 9800 SE Secondary]
sound[SB Audigy 2]

been told i should probably invest in a new computer though it's not a high priority at the moment. had this since late 2003. sadly upgrading to windows 7 would break some software and functionality and things i still find useful.

Sam · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2010 1:02 pm Post subject:

I would hate to go back to using anything other than Windows 7 now.

Ricky · is doing a barrel roll! Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 443

Well, I'd gladly go back to Ubuntu Linux if it weren't so crazy hard to install all the things you need on it. Once you have it up and running it's awesome, but it'll take you an entire weekend to do so. If you go that route, NEVER UPGRADE YOUR OS. I made that mistake as I had forgotten how difficult it was to get Microsoft Office, Flash, and my PDA driver to work. That being said, anything that is natively supported install easier than Windows does. I just don't want to dedicate twenty hours of my life again to getting all the programs that I need to run.
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dPaladin · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:11 am Post subject:

Ubuntu Linux is notoriously easy to use compared to other linux distros. I'm not calling you a liar, I'm jus' sayin'.
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Ricky · is doing a barrel roll! Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 443

Damian · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:31 pm Post subject: