Gatermann just sent me a link to a $33 Dell P3-500 at Surplus Computers. It got both of us feeling old, because the day when that was a hot machine doesn't seem long ago at all to either of us.
My initial reaction: That's a lot of computer for 33 bucks. You get a 500 MHz CPU, 128 megs of RAM, and a 6 gig hard drive.
And then I got to thinking about it some more. I can think of people who could get by with that machine, but there's a good reason why the P3-500's star has fallen and you can get one for $33 without feeling like you're at a Who concert.
There's advice flying around the 'net today about how much energy we save by shutting PCs off when they're not in use.
Having widely dispensed the advice to leave PCs on all the time (but I've been saying for 15 years to turn monitors off), let me be the contrarian and talk about the counterpoint.
I read Jim Louderback's column from this week on DVD recordables with interest, but it was disappointing.
The most useful information in this column: Generic recordable DVDs don't necessarily cost less than the brand names.
The rest of the column is just about hazing and an incomplete description of how he did various things you're not supposed to do to DVD discs and then tried to see if they still worked.
I've been watching color laser printing for about 10 years. I remember when I was impressed to see one priced at $9,999. (No, that's not a typo; I meant to type 10 grand minus a dollar.) And I remember I was riding the Metro in Washington DC in 1997 the first time I saw one priced under $4,000.
Today, you can buy a color laser for less than I paid for my first black and white laser, a Panasonic Sidewriter model that cost me $349 in 1994. If you shop around, you can get one for considerably less.
I haven't bitten just yet, but I'm getting closer.
So, if you haven't totally wireless-ized your computer setup yet, I've got a great excuse for you not to do it. Or at least to leave some wires hanging around for special occasions.
Yes, it's possible to improve the performance of an aging laptop. What's better is that there are at least three things you can do that won't cost any money. And while there's a lot less under the hood of a laptop that you can replace when compared to a desktop, there are two (sometimes three) hardware upgrades you can make that can make a big difference.
People have been asking me a lot of notebook/laptop questions lately, so I figure it's probably a good time for me to write about them. I'll tackle reliability first, then I'll tackle upgrades.
About five years ago, I wrote and published a newspaper column titled, "10 Reasons You Shouldn't Buy a Laptop." I still think the best way to get a reliable computer is to skip the laptop and get a desktop, but since people are going to buy laptops anyway, here's what I've learned about keeping them reliable.
In case nobody noticed, it's August. July came and went, and there's no Gigabyte I-RAM on the market yet.
But there are a few benchmarks out there, and Anandtech has an article that, once you get past the usual rambling and over-the-top introduction, has some useful insights.
