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Subject:RE: Hanukkah came early this year From:"Darren Barefoot" <darren -at- darrenbarefoot -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 30 Apr 2003 08:26:27 -0700
Hi,
Well, the approach I'd recommend is to find out how much money you can
spend, and then find the fastest, meatiest, sexiest machine for that
money. I'd equally prioritize RAM and processor speed (2.0 GHz is going
to seem pretty low in a year and a half), and Jeff Hanvey makes a sound
observation about the video card. If you're not going to be editing any
media files (for example, sound and video), I wouldn't sweat about the
hard drive size. In all my years of tech writing (well, all six of
them), I haven't been able to fill up a hard drive with work data. I had
to go looking for MP3s and pRon.
Just kidding about that last bit. DB.
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-124377 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-124377 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com] On Behalf Of
DGoldstein -at- DeusTech -dot- com
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 6:02 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Hanukkah came early this year
My boss is offering to buy me a new machine, with the understanding that
we'll save money by not buying the latest and greatest -- which is fine
by me.
My main question has to do with processor speed and RAM. I work
primarily in Word, often with files over 1 MB -- ranging in size up to
6.5 MB. My secondary applications are Visio and Excel. I expect in the
future to also get back to Dreamweaver and PaintShop Pro -- in the case
of the latter only on graphics for manuals and Web sites, *not* huge
files for brochures and such.
My instinct is to say, don't worry about the processor (Dell's cheapest
is a Celeron at 2.0GHz), but I would like a full gig of RAM to keep Word
happy. Any thoughts on this? Also, any thoughts on video cards, upgrade
capabilities, etc.?
I also plan to ask for a CD-RW, which is my preferred method for daily
backup. I am not worried about hard drive size, as 30 GB seems to be the
smallest standard size and that's plenty for me. I am keeping the old
Acer 77e 17" monitor, hoping that when it dies I can plead for a
flat-panel.
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