| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| ButteryHOLsomeness |
advice on buying not so new but not ancient computerthanks to everyone that helped with my digital camera questions. i've got another one for you.it turns out that our wee inheiritance we recently received was only for dh's grandmother. we'll be receiving the same again from his grandfathers estate in about 6 weeks so we're seriously considering getting another computer as and upgrade for our medium ancient computer (we actually have an even older one..glorified calculator... for dd) currently we have a 750mhz, 128mb ram, 80 and 14gb harddrives (partitioned) 94gb total, with windows 98se (though we have windows 2000 to update to, eventually :rolleyes: ) i know it's ancient but it still does ok for most things but it doesn't have excel and that's starting to interfere with my abilitity to get work (i'm self employed). i think it's time to face facts and get an upgrade. i've been looking at Dell who aren't my favourite but for about £400 i could get a decent computer by our standards. we're looking to spend between £300-£400 and this is what i'd like for the basics DVD R 2GHZ or higher 512mb ram 80-120GB harddrive 32BIT or higher graphics card at least 4 usb ports windows 2000 or xp plus windows office package with excel we don't have to have the monitor, we could use one we already have or get one from freecycle. though we'd like to get a tft monitor eventually so advice on good yet inexpensive models of those would also be appreciated. Any advice much appreciated 
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| jema |
For that sort of money these days, you could easily get a Dell with a tft and Xp.
If you have any sort of student/teacher in the family, you can get MSoffice for £99, but these days OpenOffice is free and will almost certainly be just as good for you. I am using it for most purposes now. You are a bit vague on graphics card though. The question here, is what games do you want to play? |
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| Treacodactyl |
There are a couple of problems with Dell. Firstly if something goes wrong you have to either phone an 0870 number and hold for ages which will cost you or you can email them. Their call center is not based in Europe and I've not found it very useful - often having to start all over again trying to sort out a problem. I've found they often need to be chased several times before getting a reply. It can be hard and expensive to repair or upgrade a Dell PC yourself.
Having said that I'm not sure if any companies are any better. 
If you're are going to use the PC a fair bit I'd suggest trying to view the TFT before you buy. Some makes are very good but some are very blured. I've gone back to an old Dell 17" CRT and it's better than the Dell TFT I've used. |
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| jema |
How recent a Dell TFT was that? we had one in November and it seems OK.
I agree you run a risk with any mail order PC company. I used to recommend a local (to me) place for this very reason, and the service was excellent, until it went downhill, leaving me with some egg on face 
I don't think you will find an established company without complaints agains them. I said Dell because they are far from the worst, and the prices (when you use the special offers, not on the site) are about the best. |
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| Treacodactyl |
It was this years model of TFT and the high quality one. For me it was too bright and couldn't be dimmed to a usable level. I've used several different types at work so I am used to TFTs and found quite a difference.
The problem with Dell is if something goes wrong. I've sent countless emails trying to sort out problems I've had with them and it's still not sorted. i wouldn't recommend their budget PCs at all. |
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| jema |
So much is down to luck... I could recommend a cheap high quality dehydrator with quick delivery
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| Bugs |
 I don't like you any more
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| bagpuss |
I would suggest looking at sites like
http://www.ebuyer.com http://www.dabs.com as you should beable to get something new for that price and those specs or go to pc world and look at something like this PATRIOT - Intel Pentium 4 Processor 515, £350 including VAT with the specs you want |
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| Jonnyboy |
I know someone who used ebuyer, they bought three budget PC's and were very happy. | ||||
| dougal |
If you are on broadband, set aside some budget for a router. (It would act as a firewall and allow plural machines to share the connection.)
If you work long hours at the machine, get a decent screen! And a keyboard and mouse that you are *comfortable* using. De luxe versions are still pretty cheap. As jema suggests, the graphics card is pretty irrelevant unless you are planning to run games. (It might be more important when micro$oft eventually ships their next windoze "longhorn" - 2006?) I used to advise that "lego" pc's (made of interchangeable, largely unbranded parts) were the way to go - offering excellent potential for piecemeal upgrade - and no problem with proprietory spare parts. Check out your local "chip shop" offerings against mail order. At least you should be able to try the feel of mice and keyboards... And treasure whatever technical documentation you may get - it'll be so helpful when you want to upgrade ram or whatever in future. And if you're working on Word/Excel documents, processor speed is pretty irrelevant these days - everythings fast enough... Any laptop is the opposite of a 'lego' machine - proprietary and limited in upgrade potential. |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
thanks for everyone's responses!
i had considered ebuyer but i am concerned about the ability to return for refund, it's only 7 or 14 days for an online store vs 28 for a high street store. i used to work for samsung doing tech advice and setting up warranty repairs and i have heard more than one complaint about items purchased via ebuyer so that concerns me as well. it seems that they are good as long as you don't need to them to fix anything 
they do have excellent prices though but the short turn around time for being able to return for refund concerns me a lot, also you have to pay to return it yourself! if something like this doesn't work within 28 days i simply don't want it! i won't accept repairs after all the rubbish i personally had to put people through doing my job for samsung (and believe you me, i was actually one of the helpful ones!)... as for the graphics, i need at last a 32 bit graphics card maybe a little higher in case some games come out in the future that i'd like but to be honest i don't like about 90% of todays games, especially those 3d first person view things arghhhh! so a massive graphics card isnt' really an issue. dell... we have a dell computer for our 'newer' computer. it was an inheirited computer... i know first hand about the call centres in india and how slow the service is, unfortunately this is quite common with many of the big companies (not just computers) in fact samsung had a few call centres in south africa that i had to refer people too...
we have a few computer places here nearby so i'll pop along and see what they have on offer. does anyone know a website that will explain the approximate equivalents for Intel pentium mhz vs AMD and/or ACER ? I would prefer the AMD processors but would like to know approx what i'm getting and i only understand intel, if you know what i mean! I was recommended this computer. I'd need to upgrade to the 512mb ram and the dvd rw but that won't be much more. also they are selling a 17" tft by Benq for only £163 (that includes the VAT) http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=86864 how good are Benq monitors? |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
dougal, thanks for reminding me about the router! we definately want to network the 3 computers though only the new one we buy and our 'newer' computer (750mhz) will be able to manage the broadband connection
whilst i'm thinking about it...we currently have BT asdl broaband, i'm not that thrilled with them. our contract is nearly up and we are consideing Madasafish and their brilliant £17.99/month for 2gb connection but also perhaps Bulldog... does anyone know anything about these companies? do you know if they allow you to split your useage between more than one computer? i know that bt does but many companies don't. it's not been an issue until now so i haven't really checked |
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| dougal |
Huh? If they are all networked, and you have a router on the network, (or even one machine permanently 'sharing' its connection), then its simply a setup matter to access the broadband link. |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
i meant that we have never even attempted to connect the 450mhz super antiquated machine to broadband as the poor thing struggled with a standard modem connection, it wouldn't be able to handle broadband speeds.
I don't want it connected to the internet anyway as my 3 year old daughter uses it. the only time she gets on the internet is when she's sitting on my knee and we go to the sesame street website. i prefer to buy games for her that she can control herself and keep her off my computer since i use it for work. |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
oops, sorry, really tired
we want all three computers to be able to share info between them but only want two of them connected to the internet... does that make more sense? wouldn't we need a network card for that or can that also be done via a router? also we'd want them all hooked up to use the one printer/scanner/copier machine. |
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| dougal |
To network three computers together, all three require some form of network interface. "10/100 Ethernet" is the commonest but requires a wire from each computer to an Ethernet "hub". *Some* routers have such a hub incorporated into the same unit. (And the others connect to a hub, in the same way a computer does.) "100baseT" Ethernet (faster) nowadays costs hardly any more than "10baseT". 10 will talk to 100, (and vice versa) but at a speed of 10, which is why 100 is usually referred to as 10/100. To run anything at 100, you need a hub capable of 100 (check it on router-internal hubs). "Gigabit" ethernet is 10/100/1000 - don't bother paying extra for it, you don't need it. There are alternatives to ethernet networking, such as wireless, but these are going to be more expensive (and usually slower). Note that even at 10, your internal computer to computer Ethernet is going to be faster than your external Broadband link. Your "antiquated machine", once networked to the other computers would also be physically connected to the router. You could prevent it connecting to the internet, by deliberately mis-setting its TCP/IP network settings... BUT its, um, complete nonsense to say it "couldn't handle broadband speeds". Yeah, like my old car "couldn't handle" new tyres? Don't expect to use it for video conferencing, but web browsing would be massively less constipated than using a modem... Windows should handle printing and computer/computer file transfer without using TCP/IP (the language of the internet). A more professional (but more complicated for you) alternative method would be to use a router that can be configured to specifically block outside traffic to/from the specific computer. Networking allows access to network-shared items such as printer(s) and routers, and shared folders on other computers. BUT, if you just want to transfer the occasional document - a USB "pen drive" (memory plug) would be simple and keep that machine quarantined from the net...
Only if that printer/scanner/copier is happy to be shared! Printer sharing is routine. Scanner sharing is very far from routine. There may be some clever-clever 3rd party software for windoze scanner-sharing that I'm unaware of, (some does exist for Mac OS X) but manufacturer-provided scanner networking is not the norm - and costs rather a lot, compared to a second cheap scanner... Computers can share their 'personal' attached printer to the network, or this can be simulated by attaching a "printer server" box to the network. This is a tiny computer, just sharing the attached printer(s). You can find routers that incorporate a printer server as well. Some printers can take optional plug-in internal ethernet interfaces, but these (and printer servers) can cost *more* than a cheap printer. If you go for multiple printers, life is much easier when they all use the same ink cartridges! |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
thanks dougal!
the printer we have is a multi machine so wouldn't all the functions work if they were connected up to all the computers? not a problem really if the scanner doesn't work for the most ancient machine... it's used for a toy really and a learning tool nothing more. we have 2 pen drives a 256 and a 512 so we do use that a lot to transfer files. it's more the computer i'm on now and the newer computer that would need to share files. also, do all the computers need to be working on the same operating system to be networked to each other? we've got windows 98se on both the computers we have now but we have windows 2000 sitting around waiting for us to switch our broadband provider (we can't remember our details so if we reformat now we lose our internet connection and since we hate bt and are planning to move very soon as our contract will be up it's pointless to do anything other than wait to install until then) but the new system will have XP. personally i WANT to have 2000 on one of the computers because i have heard it has less software conflicts, particularly for games. anyway, can you do this? i'm not sure i could be bothered to reformat the most ancient computer so i'd just leave it in 98se if i can |
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| dougal |
I've tried to explain that sharing a scanner is not natural (for scanners) and that's whether they are 'incorporated' with a printer or not. Unless you are looking at something that says you can do that with your specific copier, assume you can't.
Basic facility is "networking" - ability to access shared (I'm being general) 'things'. The internet is a network - my machine is networked to whatever machine is hosting this forum - and I'm sure they run different OS'es. But they are connected and 'talking' in the same language - TCP/IP. This is the 'modern' networking language. Its a massive network, but my machine is "networked" to the forum hosting one. Windows machines can talk an older language (Netbeui?) - you should be able to 'talk that' between your own computers, and only 'talk TCP' on those that get access to outside. Using that older language, your machines should be able to do "windows file sharing". And yes, two different 'languages' ("protocols") can use the same physical connection... |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
thanks dougal, i thought they could but i thought it better to ask that way if we have problems setting it up i know if that's something to be concerned about which i now know it isnt'
so on the scanner issue. will having the multi machine hooked up to all the computers for the printing purposes then make the scanner work funny even if it's just being used by one specific computer..in other words i only have the scanner bit setup on one computer (it does have to be set up seperately) ? am i making sense there? i guess what i want to know is will i still be able to use my scanner even just on the one computer if i choose to set up the multi machine for all of the computers |
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| dougal |
Basics: Computer interfaces like USB and "Parallel port" are 'personal' to that computer. They are means of connecting *that computer's own* things. Those things are relatively dumb. They only expect one "boss". Cheap printers are dumb. If they had more smarts they'd cost more! Network inferfaces are extras. The best analogy I can give for a network is a telephone conference call - anyone can talk to anyone. (Whether they understand is an additional matter.) But a network "interface" allows that thing to tap into the conference. But it costs. The cheap thing is to attach a printer to one computer. And then have that *computer* advertise "hire me to handle your printing" on the network. This is normal and simple - for printing. Obviously it requires the "advertising" computer to be running - that computer is the only way to its private (but spare time for hire) printer. AFAIK there is no easy and general way to do a similar thing on windoze with any general scanner. If there is for yours, you can trust the manufacturer to trumpet the fact. Getting trixy, and nothing to do with networking, there are ways to connect one item to two (or more) computers. Probably the oldest was a "parallel port switch". If your printer happens to have usb *and* parallel, you could connect a different computer to each socket, and then be very careful that only one of you ever tried to use it at a time - even then it might still get confused! And don't rty and connect a USB anything to two USB computers without some sort of special switch intended for the purpose... even a tree of USB devices is a connection 'private' to one computer. One boss, remember. Giving printers their own network smarts is usually only justified if the printer is an expensive one. USB interfaced devices can (remarkably) be connected/disconnected while their computer is running, without risk of hardware damage. (This was a great new feature of USB.) So moving the printer around, like the pen drive, may prove your simplest (and cheapest) solution. For this, you'd need to install the relevant software on all the computers... (other way round to your quote!) |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
excellent, thanks
we have a few nice long usb extension cords that we use now so that we can have the printer plugged in but take it off and stick in the pen drive so that would work just fine and sounds much easier and less expensive than doing it the other way around! |