Tag: Compaq Presario

switching teams

No, not that team!

This evening, I placed an order through the Apple Education Store for a brand-new 20-inch 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with iWork ’08 preinstalled. I have been eying this thing for months as a replacement for my Compaq Presario R3000 laptop. The old girl is still chugging along, but her memory is failing and she can’t keep up with all the apps I need to run at the same time.

I decided to go for a desktop since that’s really what I need at home now. The Presario worked okay as both my desktop and portable laptop, but it’s heavy, and the keyboard isn’t comfortable for long-term use. A Macbook would be lighter, but the keyboard thing would still be an issue. And, since I have a laptop at work, I won’t need to have something to cover the portability thing. In any case, I mainly needed it for work-related things such as taking notes at conferences and staying connected to work while on the road.

I waffled for a while between getting a Windows machine or getting a Mac, but in the end I decided that I’d get more bang for my buck with a Mac. I’m sure there will be a few applications I’ll miss from my PC, but from what I understand, there are more and more equivalent or better applications to do the same thing on a Mac, plus there’s the whole Parallels thing if I want to bother with it.

I’m not going to get rid of the ol’ Presario anytime soon, either. I’m pretty sure it will take me a while to transfer all my important files, and I may just turn her into my dedicated music server, depending on whether or not my external hard drive containing all my tunes will work with the iMac or not.

new computer

At last, I have moved out of 1998 and into 2004!

Last Saturday, before my Monday from hell, I went shopping to see what my retail options might be for a new laptop. One goal was to stop by the Gateway store and check out the laptop I was thinking of getting. Turns out, they’ve closed the store. I ended up at CompUSA instead, and after talking with a very helpful salesman, I was introduced to the Compaq Presario r3120us. My impression of Compaq computers thus far has been so-so. They’re sort of like a Ford Taurus – nice sedans, but not terribly exciting. However, I was impressed by what is in this laptop, and the price was comparable to the Gateway I was looking at. This one has a few more advantages, such as a 15.4″ WXGA screen. I ended up coming back the next day and buying the last one they had in stock.

I really wanted to write this entry while connected on a Wi-Fi network. Unfortunately, I’ve tried it in two places so far without any luck. I think that I need to change a setting to connect with the wireless LAN in the library, and it’s possible that the server was acting funky at Common Grounds. A bit of a let-down, but I’ll get it figured out.

I am pleased at the speed of my dialup connection on this computer. It’s almost as fast as the network at the university! Well, for browsing, anyway. Downloading takes a bit longer. I’m probably going to try out the CD-RW this weekend by making a mix CD for a friend. If I have time, I may even watch a DVD.

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