Question for all you Tech "savvy" O/O's

That's actually the other reason, I'm going refurbished.... Getting one with Windows 7.

 

My little 5 year old Acer 10" net book works just fine for surfing loadboards and getting rate confirmations from my email. Battery lasts long time.
My 6 year old Gateway 17" is a lot nicer to work on but the battery doesn't last too long so it needs to be plugged in mostly. A gen is a good idea with a battery drainer laptop.
Don't worry about software. You can get what you need free after you buy the laptop. Open Office, etc. I always reformat and clean install Windows first thing on a new machine to get rid of all the bloatware.
My Galaxy is too small to navigate websites with ease.

Lappy is a must have for today's trucker.

I'm fixin' to get a new Lenovo soon. Great deals on their website. You're welcome

 

I'm not a huge Linux supporter but some of you guys that are frustrated with Windows 8 might do well to give a Linux distro like Ubuntu or Mint a try. They've come a long way in making it user friendly, in fact, I can usually install Ubuntu and be up and running in less than half the time of Windows now. Especially if you mostly just want to email and websurf. The benefit is it's free, they don't come out with a new version every few years, the version you get just gets updated, mostly automatically. You will likely never have a virus, trojan, spyware problem. More than likely your computer will perform better at the tasks you do.

If you want you can even partition your hard drive and dual boot Windows and Linux. Probably can find a geeky friend to set it up for you if you're not sure how.

 

For most folks, I'd recommend buying a throw away laptop (cheapest new one you can find), but spend about $200 to have a solid state hard drive installed. It's cheap insurance and will speed the system up more than any other upgrade. The #1 reason for computer failures for travelers is a drive crash from rough handling. Solid state drive has no moving parts and won't crash. #2 is dirt (dust, pet hair, etc).

 

as for open office. might try libre office instead. it can do more documents then open office can. apparently msft had some code problems with word documents and open office can't open then anymore. libre office has no problem.

 

How did you go about setting that up?

 

Not sure how he is doing it, but there is a place called GoToMyPC.com that advertises on XM.

 

I have a good friend who is a network admin. He set it up for me.

Let me get past this week and then I'll post more details about it.

 

There's several ways to skin that cat, although it's not all it's cracked up to be. File access like that is usually a bit slow. Remote desktop straight up sucks without high speed wire on both ends.

Probably better to sign up for one of the online backups versus direct between remote and home systems. Choose one that permits you to browse your file storage. A power outage or hiccup with the internet service or computer at home and half the time your screwed until you get home or can coach someone thru resetting/restarting things.

 

I have a solid state hard drive.
It is brilliant.
More then double battery life.
Startup time is very short.
And more being scared about when will the harddrive break again.

Works like a USB stick.

ps I have heard that the 10" webbook/small laptops will disappear from the market because all major players are switching to tablets as the is more money in that market.(i hope that this info is wrong)