Any IT Geeks Out There

[MDS69 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close MDS69]

And I mean IT Geeks in a friendly affectionate way :wink:

We are looking at upgrading our home computer. I had a quick look around Harvey Norman and there is so many to choose from with a whole bunch of stuff I don't understand ops:

Our main uses will be
Photos both storage and manipulation of (in a basic sence, not looking for photoshop professional maybe just the home version)
Internet browsing
Itunes
basic word and excel (the wife and I can use our work computers for anything more technical)

We are not into downloading movies or playing games.

Laptop or desktop we are not fussed.
Looking around and talking to friends etc you get a whole range of different opinions and I fully expect the same here however at least here I can go back and read the comments again as I forget half the stuff I am verbally told :lol:

500Gb hard drive seems to be standard these days as well as 4Gb of RAM
intel core 2 duo processes look to be the next one up from the Pentium. Are they better. i7 quad looks to be the next one up again. I think I remember someone saying their preference was the core 2 duo over the i7 but can't remember why, maybe it was the speed???

Are the AMD brand processors any good. I had never heard of them before until today.

In the current Harvey Norman catalogue on page 40 the Compaq PC for $1492.00 looks pretty good (well to me anyway) can anyone comment on this or others.
We don't want to go down the path of building our own as the interest free thing works for us.

How do you move over to a new computer your old programs like your itunes library, DVD burning software, the list of favorites you save in the interent explorer and the like

Finally can you take word and excel 97 and put it on a computer with Windows 7 and will it work or are we better off paying the nearly $400 for Microsoft Office with word, excel, outlook, powerpoint and a few others.

Thanks in advance and looking forward to any replies and opinions.

[WBY 1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close WBY 1]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

go a mac. so much less hassle to use than a pc but you have to get used to the small changes. I've always had pc's but just changed over to a macbook pro a couple of weeks back and love it so far.

[Big Fella Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Big Fella]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

And I mean IT Geeks in a friendly affectionate way :wink:

We are looking at upgrading our home computer. I had a quick look around Harvey Norman and there is so many to choose from with a whole bunch of stuff I don't understand ops:

Finally can you take word and excel 97 and put it on a computer with Windows 7 and will it work or are we better off paying the nearly $400 for Microsoft Office with word, excel, outlook, powerpoint and a few others.

Thanks in advance and looking forward to any replies and opinions.

Well I can't give you the best advice here as like everything else here we all have our own opionions and needs. However from my perspective anything with a Intel Dual Core processor is great as well as 4Gb of RAM. Find a machine that has as much hard drive as you get in there, as you need lots of room for photos.

We tend to prefer laptops as they are portable so when we go away we always have heaps of storage space when we go O.S for photo downloads and internet access wherever we can scam it from and we also have a wireless network at home for our 4 computers.

As for the Microsoft Office issue, no you can't tranfer that between machines unfortunately. Check out the link Here. It's not that expensive.

I've got Windows 7 Ultimate and love it. Lacey and the Kids have that crappy Vista and it sucks Big Time! Do yourself a favour and try and get them to throw in the Ultimate version for nix. It's worth a try.

Anyhoo that's my 2 cents on this one. Good luck mate

[Signature035 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Signature035]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

...... Personally.... I would stay away from the major retailers.

There is so much better value out there with custom builds, even DELL has better value. Have a quick look at their site.

I helped my Sister in Law buy a basic system from Dell about 2 weeks prior to Christmas complete with 19" LCD monitor for $649.

[McBAIN Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close McBAIN]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

yeah i'd second signature's comments re major retailers, interest free just means that the interest is bundeled into the price... (that said i did use it on boxing day to buy and airconditioner!)

but even JB hifi or WOW would give you more PC for your $'s. Dell are good too, they have really annoying international sales and support but can't fault their machines or prices, good returns policy to if things go wrong.

i just built a new home pc week before christmas, 3 years of procrastinating but finally got around to it when the old one took 3 or 4 goes to get it running. bit like an old car, must have needed to warm up!

my view, and you'll find many contradicting ones on the web cos everyone's got their own needs.

Mac vs Pc -> i almost bought a mac this time, i like the idea of it all being in one box, but that's also a downfall for me because i like to crack open the case and plug another hard drive in when i run out of space. there is a mac pro but they start at $4g's
laptop vs desktop -> comes down to portability really, i already have a netbook and work laptop so was after a desktop, more space for extra drives and expanding. it may just be me but i find you can get a far more speced up desktop for the same $'s as a basic laptop, plus i could re-use the monitor and keyboard i already have and direct those $'s to getting more features in the box.
AMD vs Intel -> i look at this like holden vs ford. some will swear black and blue that ones better than the other, i think they both do the same thing and AMD bits are generally cheaper.


if you take a decent number of photo's you'll soon fill up 500Gb. the other thing to consider is how you back them up though. another benefit of desktops is extra drives in the machine. i have a pretty basic setup with two drives in the computer and one on a usb connection, then i use a program called goodsync (it's about $30 bucks) to copy the images onto the second internal drive, and again to the the external usb (and again to another portable drive that i take into the office incase anything happens to the house) could be a bit of overkill but there's a lot of photo's there!

not sure if any of that helps but good luck!

[PradoBoy72 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PradoBoy72]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

if you take a decent number of photo's you'll soon fill up 500Gb. the other thing to consider is how you back them up though. another benefit of desktops is extra drives in the machine. i have a pretty basic setup with two drives in the computer and one on a usb connection, then i use a program called goodsync (it's about $30 bucks) to copy the images onto the second internal drive, and again to the the external usb (and again to another portable drive that i take into the office incase anything happens to the house) could be a bit of overkill but there's a lot of photo's there!

not sure if any of that helps but good luck!

If you are using this machine to store digital photos a portable external drive I believe is mandatory (doesn't matter what flavour of Operating System/desktop v laptop etc). In this way you can have a full copy of all your photos and store them somewhere that isn't the same place (at work, in the car) because a hard drive corruption, theft or any other issue means you could lose the lot forever (you don't have negatives to reprint). I have both a 320 and 500 GB external drive an backup to both, one is always offsite.

[FlyingBushPig Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close FlyingBushPig]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

go a mac. so much less hassle to use than a pc but you have to get used to the small changes. I've always had pc's but just changed over to a macbook pro a couple of weeks back and love it so far.

Yep, Imac sounds like it's just what you're after, and if you need more HD space, just plug in a USB or firewire external one. Thay are a great machine and slightly portable if you need it to be.
(I have an older PPC model: use it for major photoshop work and web surfing mainly)
After you've settled in with the Mac OS, you wont want to go back. Just little things, like, when you ask to force quit something, it actually does it, rather than just staring back at you...not that force quitting is required very often.
That said, Mac is limited in availability of software - you can get around this by running windows as a separate OS on your mac but you may not like switching between the two.

[dereki Member Find all posts View Profile Close dereki]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

Mac v PC... I have and like the Mac, however I know non geek people that wish they didn't get one.
The problem they have is that the software *they* want to run does not work, or is only
available in limited form on the Mac. They also don't get the slightly different
interface design. My advice is to work out what software you want to run and get
the best platform to run it. eg oziexplorer is windoze only from my quick reading
of their web site. MSN Live support is limited (not that I care) and some stuff
that the kids bring home from school can be problematic.

Windoze 7 is much better than Vista and I have heard it closes the gap between PC and Mac.

Screens... the glossy ones look great in the shop... I have 2 Macs and a Dell PC at work. The Dell
display is antiglare/matt finish and the Mac has a gloss screen. No one can stand to use the Mac
because the way the light is in the room, your basically looking at a reflection of yourself
while working. Having said that I haven't noticed a problem at home. Someone else in
the office has a older matt finish MacBook and borrowed mine (Gloss screen) while his was being repaired...
He was glad to return mine, so he could get back to the matt screen.

Disclaimer... My opinions and limited experience only.

D

[MDS69 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close MDS69]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

Thanks to all for your valid comments.

[WBY 1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close WBY 1]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

thats a good point about Mac compatibilty with certain software like Oziexplorer etc. But if MDS69 is just looking to do basic stuff, then he shouldn't have any problems with Mac programs, he'll just need to buy Office.
and yeah get an external harddrive like others have said- it will also help with transferring files over to the new computer.

[steve61 Member Find all posts View Profile Close steve61]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

We bought a Mac for our daughter as her school uses Mac instead of PCs. I have to admit I am a PC fan BUT the Mac is easier to setup and has great built in programs for photos etc. JB HIFI threw in a office pace when we purchased our Mac laptop.

Cheers
Steve

[switched Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close switched]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

I suggest you build a computer. There are stores that can build you a PC to your specifications and it doesn't come with costs of overheads.

Heres a suggestion for PC configurations:
http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=rmp_sg_whirlpoolpcs

Check out places like MSY for pricing. They can also build you your custom PC for about $70 from memory.
I often build PCs for friends and families and they are amazed at what they get for their money compared to in store prices.

[-Junior- Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close -Junior-]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

As others have said, it will be a lot cheaper to have a system built.
Have dealt with these guys several times and seem to know what they are doing.
http://www.jw.com.au/index.asp

Also dell would not be a bad thought either.


N.B. I have no aff with above mentioned company.

[bgreeni Member Find all posts View Profile Close bgreeni]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

I am no expert but have been using computers since way back in the days when main frames ruled.

I would love to move away from Windows (and I have a second computer that acts just as a server backup that runs linux) but there is just to much stuff I want that only runs on windows.

I agree about staying away from chain stores. A few months back I bought a top of the line quad core etc etc for a little over $1000 from Arrow computers. Had a problem but it was immediatly rectified the next day - great service.

On using MS office - have a look at OpenOffice - it will do nearly everything you want office for and it is FREE.

[dereki Member Find all posts View Profile Close dereki]

Re: Any IT Geeks Out There

OpenOffice is very good, complete, quality product. I use it at home and work for just about everything. (Mind you I run Linux on my work desktop
and OS-X on my laptop, so I am basically WinDOZE free.)

Only problem is that it can have issues with Word documents when converting back and forth. I have corrupted a few trying to edit docs from work.
The kids have had problems with openoffice and school projects which require powerpoint, the conversions just seem a little flakey there as well.
We manage to work around the issues.

Worth a try, can't beat the price

D