Tech Stop: time for a new computer?

Hummm … time to bite the bullet — you realize it’s time to go computer shopping. What sort of machine should you buy?

By THOMAS R. WILES
Truckers Connection

9/10/2008

You have a computer you’ve had for a few years. Perhaps it has been a reliable machine and hasn’t given you too many problems. However, you know it’s getting towards the end of its useful life and it’s time for a replacement.

Computers, like everything else, have a useful lifespan. Parts wear out, display panels quit working and all hard drives eventually die. Beyond that, our expectations change. Many times if a computer still works, it works just as well as the day it was new. However, over time we always want these magic electronic machines to do more.

As a result, software is always evolving, growing ever more sophisticated as time passes. As software becomes ever-more sophisticated, it develops ever increasing hardware requirements.

Hummm … time to bite the bullet — you realize it’s time to go computer shopping. What sort of machine should you buy?

If you expect to take your machine with you and use it in your truck, you should almost certainly be shopping for a laptop. Laptop computer sales surpassed desktop computer sales some time ago. Today’s laptop computers are more powerful and capable than ever.

That being said, desktop machines still make sense if the machine will be used for specific tasks that don’t require portability, say for example, in a home office.

Most people will be shopping for a Windows-based machine. Of course, if you are willing to spend a bit more money for Apple hardware, you can get an Intel-based Apple machine that’s also capable of running Windows should you need it.

Assuming you are shopping for a Windows-based machine, almost all of the new machines are coming with Windows Vista preinstalled. Windows XP is no longer for sale in the vast majority of new machines.

Windows Vista has gotten a lot of bad press, a good part of it being deserved. On the other hand, Windows Vista has been on the market for well over a year at this point, and Microsoft has slip-streamed in a bunch of modifications that have addressed most of the early problems and complaints.

Windows Vista is a good operating system, provided it’s running on the right hardware that’s been engineered to properly run it.

Here’s a tip you can use if you go into a store such as Circuit City, Best Buy, Office Depot, Office Max, etc. Built in to every copy of Windows Vista is something called “Performance Information and Tools.” You can get to this in Windows Vista by clicking on the Start button and then typing “Performance Information and Tools” and then clicking on it when it pops up. It’s located in the Windows Vista Control Panel. If it’s never been ran before on that particular machine, it will take a couple of minutes to run a few simple built-in benchmark tests. When the tests are completed it will display a test score.

Run this on every computer model in the store that you are interested in and compare the scores from machine to machine. A score of 4.0 or above is good. You will discover something interesting. A higher price on a particular computer doesn’t necessarily guarantee a higher performance score.

From a specification standpoint, to run Windows Vista properly you will need three gigabytes of RAM and a large hard drive, generally the larger the better. You should also be looking for a dual-core processor such as an Intel Core 2 Duo, which come in several different speeds.

A good LCD screen size for use in a truck is 15” inch widescreen. 17” inches is obviously a bigger display, but you can run into problems powering a machine with a 17” inch screen in a truck from a typical 300 or 400 watt power inverter. Also, 17” inch machines are not as portable. A machine with a 15” inch widescreen display will usually power just fine from a 300 or 400 watt power inverter plugged in to a 12 volt lighter socket.

Machines with displays smaller than a 15” widescreen are even more portable, but keep in mind the smaller the screen, the more difficult they are to use.

If you are planning on plugging in older hardware devices into a newer machine, check to make sure that Windows Vista device drivers are available. If your printer or scanner is more than a couple of years old, there may not be an updated device driver available so that’s something to keep in mind.

Additionally, check to make sure that the specific software that you use will run on Vista. You can find this out by doing a quick search on Google or Yahoo. Most major software will run just fine on Vista, but there can be problems with specific pieces of software. If there’s a piece of software you have to run, then it’s better to check it out first rather than get a nasty surprise when you try to install it or run it on Vista.

Vista is definitely more secure than its predecessor, Windows XP. If you’ve got the right hardware and software, Windows Vista can provide a great user experience.

E-mail me with comments or questions at tomwiles@gmail.com. I do a mostly-daily MP3 audio podcast located at truckertompodcast.com where you can either listen online on your computer or download it to listen on a portable MP3 player.