Okie tech Thread (Tulsa, Lawton, Duncan: tornado, travel, house)

[mkfarnam]

Originally Posted by TheComputerGuy

Who's pro Dell?
Ask Jessaka how thrilled she is with her Dell.

Dell has a large market share because of the federal discounts,
and because most people don't know of any alternatives.
In my experience, they are the most failure prone machines out there.
I'm SO sick of working on Dells...
Then again, I should stop whining because they do generate a good portion
of my business. It appears that most people would rather pay someone to
solve their problem quickly as opposed to dealing with Dell's tech support...
(Your mileage may vary.)

With the exception of their XPS series, they are comprised
of cheap, underpowered, substandard components.

I have heard both good and bad stories regarding their support.

Gateway is not significantly better, but they seem to last a tad longer.

Compaq makes a better quality machine, but they still appear
to be too proprietary to be cost effective in maintaining over the long haul.

Acer while more expensive used to be a pretty solid machine,
but they seem to be going down hill as of late.

HP was also a pretty solid machine back in the day,
but they've been putting out a lot of substandard machines
in the name of cost reduction.

E-Machines, while cheap, are less proprietary, and can be a good choice for a civilian to start with, if the are handy enough to change out their own components when they fail.

The best bet, is to build your own machine from quality components that are hand-picked for the machine's particular mission.
Obviously this is not an option for many people.
It's possible to to obtain a machine like this on line, from a local
computer shop or to do it yourself.

NOTE: The above statements are only my opinion based upon over 20
years as a network technician and IT manager, and your mileage may vary.
Not looking to get into any debates on the subject.

BTW karibear....
You may want to consider transferring you data from Zip disks to CD or DVD...
Those disks have a reasonably limited life span.

You didn't give any specific recommendations.

I didn't even know that Gateway was still on the market.

At one time, I didn't want anything to do with computers.
finally,
My first computer was a "Gateway Astro".w/windows 98. (dial-up)
The computer and monitor was all one unit and it only had a A-Drive,
no CD-Rom. That's when floppy discs were used more.
That's what I learned on. The hardest part was trying follow the instuction when you didn't know what was what.
I can't remember how many times I ran the recovery disc through it and put it back to factory specs.
Other then my own errors it didn't give me much trouble.
Then I seen Dell advertising the "Dimension 3600" on TV so I called and order a "Dimension 4600" w/XP and extra features. That's what I have now and I've had it for 3years with no problems.
I have been wanting lay the tower in it's side, take the side off a vacuum the dust out of it

[karibear]

Originally Posted by mkfarnam

You didn't give any specific recommendations.

I didn't even know that Gateway was still on the market.

At one time, I didn't want anything to do with computers.
finally,
My first computer was a "Gateway Astro".w/windows 98. (dial-up)
The computer and monitor was all one unit and it only had a A-Drive,
no CD-Rom. That's when floppy discs were used more.
That's what I learned on. The hardest part was trying follow the instuction when you didn't know what was what.
I can't remember how many times I ran the recovery disc through it and put it back to factory specs.
Other then my own errors it didn't give me much trouble.
Then I seen Dell advertising the "Dimension 3600" on TV so I called and order a "Dimension 4600" w/XP and extra features. That's what I have now and I've had it for 3years with no problems.
I have been wanting lay the tower in it's side, take the side off a vacuum the dust out of it

I should change my original comment just a bit. We didn't have much trouble with the Dell computers, other than the normal operator errors of people who were computerphobic, it was the lack of tech support and their attitude that did them in.

I have a friend who bought a new Gateway several months ago, with a bunch of pre-installed programs - one of Gateway's strong points, and the reason why I never considered getting one - I didn't want to pay extra for a lot of programs I wasn't interested in. After using it for awhile, she started having problems with it and called Gateway. When she described what was going on, the techs she talked to had no idea what the problem could be and had her send it back for repair. This happened, I think, 3 times. Then someone a bit brighter than the others asked her if she'd ever paid for the programs. She said of course, she paid for them when they came pre-installed. He said, No, what's pre-installed are test runs - if you want to KEEP them, you have to pay for them separately. Otherwise, they vanish after being opened x number of times. First time she'd heard that! She told him in no uncertain terms that THAT was NOT why she'd bought a Gateway, with programs pre-installed. She could go to any computer store and 'test' a program, she expected to keep what she'd gotten when she paid for it, and she wasn't about to pay for a test drive. They eventually kept the computer I think, and refunded her money, but it wasn't a good situation. She'd lost all her email addresses, about 3,000 family photos that had been scanned and emailed to her because she was the one member of her family who was interested in keeping track of them, all of her financial stuff, including records of past taxes... you get the idea. Now she has a basic machine that she does her own work on rather than buying something ready-to-use.

[mkfarnam]

Originally Posted by karibear

I should change my original comment just a bit. We didn't have much trouble with the Dell computers, other than the normal operator errors of people who were computerphobic, it was the lack of tech support and their attitude that did them in.

I have a friend who bought a new Gateway several months ago, with a bunch of pre-installed programs - one of Gateway's strong points, and the reason why I never considered getting one - I didn't want to pay extra for a lot of programs I wasn't interested in. After using it for awhile, she started having problems with it and called Gateway. When she described what was going on, the techs she talked to had no idea what the problem could be and had her send it back for repair. This happened, I think, 3 times. Then someone a bit brighter than the others asked her if she'd ever paid for the programs. She said of course, she paid for them when they came pre-installed. He said, No, what's pre-installed are test runs - if you want to KEEP them, you have to pay for them separately. Otherwise, they vanish after being opened x number of times. First time she'd heard that! She told him in no uncertain terms that THAT was NOT why she'd bought a Gateway, with programs pre-installed. She could go to any computer store and 'test' a program, she expected to keep what she'd gotten when she paid for it, and she wasn't about to pay for a test drive. They eventually kept the computer I think, and refunded her money, but it wasn't a good situation.

about 3,000 family photos that had been scanned and emailed to her because she was the one member of her family who was interested in keeping track of them, all of her financial stuff, including records of past taxes... you get the idea. Now she has a basic machine that she does her own work on rather than buying something ready-to-use.

unless
her emails were Gateway.net, she wouldn't lose them. If she had any online emails like say Yahoo,or anything other than the ISP, she could be off line for a year, buy a new computer, go back on line to yahoo are which ever and her front page and emails would still be there.

One good thing about Dell, you can talk to a technician on line IM and do tests.
The computers practically fix themselves.

[TheComputerGuy]

Originally Posted by mkfarnam

You didn't give any specific recommendations.

Yes I did.

" The best bet, is to build your own machine from quality components that are hand-picked for the machine's particular mission.
Obviously this is not an option for many people.
It's possible to to obtain a machine like this on line, from a local
computer shop or to do it yourself."

[jessaka]

Okay, CG, when you move here I will let you build me a new computer. No really. Just wanted to say that my replacement computer came yesterday. Yea. Hopefully, no more blue screens.

[jessaka]

MikeBonnell.com - Computer Wallpaper, Backgrounds, Screensavers and Ecards

I just spent 30 minutes or move going through this person's website to get free wallpaper. I can't believe that it is free. I want to share it with you all because it is really beautiful--abstract and surreal.

[mkfarnam]

Originally Posted by TheComputerGuy

Yes I did.

" The best bet, is to build your own machine from quality components that are hand-picked for the machine's particular mission.
Obviously this is not an option for many people.
It's possible to to obtain a machine like this on line, from a local
computer shop or to do it yourself."

I stand corrected.

[karibear]

Originally Posted by mkfarnam

unless
her emails were Gateway.net, she wouldn't lose them. If she had any online emails like say Yahoo,or anything other than the ISP, she could be off line for a year, buy a new computer, go back on line to yahoo are which ever and her front page and emails would still be there.

One good thing about Dell, you can talk to a technician on line IM and do tests.
The computers practically fix themselves.

She used her ISP for emails, not Yahoo or one of those. I had one through Yahoo, and it decided for some reason I wasn't checking it often enough and terminated my email address! Same thing happened with Netscape.net. Now I just use the ISP, it's less frustrating.

When the program that files them vanishes, the files frequently vanish, too. I have about 3,000 emails from an older version of Netscape that are still on my data storage drive, but even with a newer version of Netscape installed it can't find them. They're there, they just aren't accessible. My old boss switched to Earthlink some years back, and their proprietary disk overwrote all his email addresses. Nothing left anywhere. Now he's switched again, this time to HughesNet, and I haven't heard any complaints. Yet.

[LadyRobyn]

Originally Posted by jessaka

MikeBonnell.com - Computer Wallpaper, Backgrounds, Screensavers and Ecards

I just spent 30 minutes or move going through this person's website to get free wallpaper. I can't believe that it is free. I want to share it with you all because it is really beautiful--abstract and surreal.

jessaka, his work is very pretty. The 'abstracts' are Fractals... I can tell by the 'style' that he uses some of the same programs I do. I have a vague idea how he does his surreal landscapes too.

Gimme a bit and I will DM you and show you some of my stuff. I've been doing landscapes and fractals for awhile now. - LR

[mkfarnam]

Originally Posted by jessaka

MikeBonnell.com - Computer Wallpaper, Backgrounds, Screensavers and Ecards

I just spent 30 minutes or move going through this person's website to get free wallpaper. I can't believe that it is free. I want to share it with you all because it is really beautiful--abstract and surreal.

Actually, you can use almost any image for wallpaper. Right click the picture below, on the menu it says, "set as Background", if you clicked that it would now be your wallpaper.