OK, after last weekend’s lightning strike and a computer and phone blowing up, we’re back, broadband is good!
Although, I have to admit, Vista on this new box (yes, finally protected with a surge protector) really does suck. Still, what can you expect when you spend £ 300 on a box?
On the other hand, Mac OS X on a Mac Mini (price: £339 + VAT) doesn’t suck.
Interesting that Kay Tie refers to Mac. I’m seriously thinking of going the Mac way and will ask DK about it. The Apple guy in this region is on at me constantly about it. Vista appears not the way to go.
Mac is the way to go. No viruses, no trojans, no spyware. Elegant, fast and reliable. You know it makes sense.
I have been a Windows user since Windows 3.0 in 1990. In June 2005 I bought a PowerBook and moved across to using a Mac (although I kept my Windows laptop going).
I haven’t looked back. Seamless, hassle-free computing that “just works”. I had a hard disk failure while travelling last year. I got Mac OS up and running from scratch on a new drive within an hour. Try doing that with XP (“No drivers found for your network adapter. Windows will connect to the Internet to search for drivers. OK?”).
Tim,
You need quite a beefy laptop to run Vista sensibly. I know someone with a Dual Core machine, and they’ve had to switch off the higher end features.
If it really gets difficult, a memory upgrade is probably a good value option (my guess is that you got 512mb at that price). You can buy a 1GB stick for a laptop for about £45.
Or you could install Ubuntu 🙂
“Or you could install Ubuntu :)”
Funnily enough, that’s what I did with my spare Windows laptop. Ubuntu works very well on a weedy 1GHz machine.
But… I had a great deal of hassle getting WiFi to work, thanks to Dell using Broadcom (spit) for the WiFi hardware, who have refused to support Linux.
Kay Tie,
I don’t want to go discussing it here, but if you want to get that fixed, contact me via my website.
Mac Minis are fabulous value for money – definitely the way to go for those not interested in technical hassles.
And Ubuntu is another hassle-free option as well. As a long-term (1993) Linux user I am amazed at just how smoothly Ubuntu configures itself and basically just works. Those installing it for the first time should also visit
Easy Ubuntu
for a quick and easy way to install useful freely available but non-GPL software.
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