Kokomo PC Users Group

Volume 19 Issue 12...December 2001

Presidents Message:

Welcome to another exciting month of PC computing. The evenings are getting dark early, the temperature outside is well below ‘room temperature’, all we need is some snow and we will be in the prime computational season.

Our meeting last month was in a computer lab that I had not seen before. It was a little hot and crowded, but on the whole it was sufficient for our purposes. Our question and answer session was very helpful and answered a number of questions for the Group.

Our meeting presentation was the second in our series of ‘low budget’ meeting presentations. We discussed Word Processors, their history, operation, features and tips and tricks. Everything went very well. We had excellent participation from the members and everyone learned something that they didn’t know before. Based on the results of our two experiments with ‘low budget’ presentations I believe we will continue to have them well into the future.

We are beginning to have problems finding a room at Ivy Tech. They are expanding very rapidly and filling most of the rooms. It is supposed to get worse for the spring semester. I have asked our Membership Services Director, Rodney Malkoff to begin to investigate other options. We may need to meet on a different night of the week or we may need to find a new location. If anyone has any thoughts on this issue, I would like to hear from you.

Da Prez,

Mark Pendergast

[email protected]

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New Computer for Xmas!

I am buying a new computer for the kids for Christmas. Their Gateway P200 is out of gas. The hard drive is full, the video is too slow and the processor is almost stone age. My son has developed a taste for 3D games and is sitting on a number of software titles that we can’t even run on our machine. The kids have also crashed it so many times that it has brain damage.

I have been looking at computers for about a year. Normally, I would just look up what Gateway had on sale and order one. Unfortunately their service has been going downhill steadily for about three years. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a replacement CD ROM drive that they sent me as a warranty repair unit that lasted three months, which was just long enough to get me out of the warranty period.

As a starting point I looked around work and saw we were ordering Dell computers. I read up on Dell and found that they had first rate machines as well as first rate support. This sounded like just what I needed. I went to their web site and started configuring some machines to see what they had to offer.

About that time Dell came out with their cute commercials with Steve, the junior salesman, that was making videos to help the neighborhood kids sell their parents on buying a Dell computer. "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Feffercorn, its me, Steve.". My family loved Steve. This commercial was followed by the Steve in the Electronics Store ad "Dude, your gettin’ a Dell!". And more lately, Steve as Santa’s elf.

My wife called Dell to find out about shipping and delivery. She was not impressed that they do not offer C.O.D. (As I mentioned at the last meeting our UPS service tends to be more like OOPS service.) So she started looking around for local Cash-and-Carry options.

We looked down in Indy at Best Buy and she fell in love with a Sony VAIO. It was sexy and cheap. When I looked up Sony they had an even lower service rating than Gateway. We had a long discussion about service and who was going to get stuck with fixing the computer when it got brain damaged. By the time we agreed that she was right, the VAIOs had all sold out and the new models were not as sexy or as cheap as the old ones. I started looking at Dell computers again. We agreed that the new UPS guy could not be half as bad as our old one and that I would track down any lost boxes.

I started with the standard Dell bundle and customized it with a few of the luxuries that I felt we needed. This is what I ended up with:

The 1.6GHz processor seemed like a good compromise. I could have gotten a 1.4GHz, but the price difference to 1.6 was small and the price difference to 1.8 was much bigger. I also looked at the Celleron processors, but a good authority told me that the main difference was front end bus speed to the processor. Because the kids would be playing graphics intensive games I decided that this was probably not a good option.

The 128MB of RAM came standard. I can’t believe that Windows XP is so fat that it will eat that much RAM. Also the kids tend to single task. They play one game at a time. This should prevent overloading the memory. (Also it is easy to buy more later.)

I could choose the mini-tower case or a compact case. I always choose more room. It always seems that you want to add something that requires a drive bay.

The 40 GB drive was standard. The 40GB should keep the kids happy for a long period of time. I almost always add a second drive later. The only have 6GB now, but it is full.

The graphics card upgrade is almost entirely for my son. He has several 3D graphics software titles that run very poorly (ie: crash at every opportunity) and several that we didn’t even load after we read the specs. The cost was very reasonable.

The CD-RW drive was free, My wife wants to burn her own music CDs and we would also like to scan some of our pictures. I will probably use it for backup of files as well.

The 10/100 NIC will probably not be needed until I get my new system. The 56K Telephony modem is pretty standard.

I upgraded the service to ensure I got lifetime phone support. This is a feature I don’t plan to live without.

Well, I have probably told you more than you would ever want to know about how I selected my new computer and how my various computer-phobias affected the decision.

I would like to hear from you if you have had an experience buying a new computer or upgrading an existing one. Just shoot me an e-mail with your life story and I will print it in the newsletter. Not only will you be doing all the other Group members a favor, but you will receive user bucks that can be used to pay for your membership.

Mark Pendergast

December 2001

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