Two Slashes

Once upon a time, I wrote a short blog post about the way to get the best computer for you. I wrote that piece as the result of a few people asking me for my opinion on what would make a decent machine for what they do; I figured that the more people I could help, the better.

Now, I don’t get a lot of traffic. But sites like FastWeb do. I have an account primarily to help me look for scholarships, but it’s turned out to be a veritable goldmine of humor and other things one generally wouldn’t associate with a college site, at least in my experience. But when I found that FastWeb decided to post a computer recommendations article of their own, I just had to review what it recommended.

FastWeb primarily posts articles for members only, so I’ve gone ahead and made a PDF of the article for your quick reference (nothing fancy) so that you can read it in its entirety if you want, but I’ve got plenty of choice excerpts that might help you get the bigger picture.

Memory: Random Access Memory (RAM) is a temporary storage area for data currently in use. It allows multiple programs to run simultaneously without slowing down your system. The more RAM you have, the faster your computer will run. The amount of RAM is measured in gigabytes (GB) or megabytes (MB). It is a good idea to get a computer with at least 512 MB of RAM. Consider getting more RAM if you will be using your computer for multimedia purposes, like watching movies and downloading music. If you plan on having your computer for a long time, look for a computer with easy-to-access memory slots that will allow you to upgrade your memory.

Kudos for recognizing that more RAM is better, fail-points for saying that it makes the computer faster in such a way that it sounds like it’s the only thing that improves performance. Now, I’m sort-of happy with the recommendation made, but the point of the matter is that it all depends on what operating system, software, and activities you run and do with the PC. My Toshiba laptop came with 256 MB standard; it ran just fine under Linux. I added another 512 MB and saw a bit of an improvement with Windows, but I haven’t noticed any change with Linux because it worked well already.

And did anyone catch the subtle “piracy ‘hint’” buried in there? Look again. Since when is downloading music solely a “multimedia” activity?

Hard Drive: The hard drive provides permanent storage for your computer. Look for computers with at least 20 GB of hard drive space.

Alright, you just got through explaining that more RAM made multimedia work better, and you just suggested everyone go download their music. Now…if I’m going to do that, I’m going to need a lot more storage than that. My music library alone (let’s not even get into my video collection) already fills at least 105% of that drive. Hell, Vista would barely install on that, let alone with enough room for you to save any of your work or install anything else (in fact, would it, once you subtract the space for the FAT and partition table?). Try adding another 0 to the size, or multiplying that by at least 4, and we’ll see then.

Software: The software you need will vary by school and program. Whether you get a PC or Mac, expect to have Microsoft Office XP, which includes Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Many schools prefer students to have the Professional edition of Microsoft Office instead of the Home edition that is usually included with new computers. Make sure you make this distinction when purchasing your computer.

Oh, there’s plenty more than that. I need to question when this article was written though. Office XP? How quaint. I’m confused on the “Home” version of Office, though - since when has Office been offered as a “home” package? And what school requires more than the basic Word/Excel/PowerPoint trio? Surely Outlook Express or *cough cough* Thunderbird is sufficient to check e-mail, and one could get away with OpenOffice? The truth is, you’ll figure out once you get to the school what you can get away with, what you need, and what’s merely for entertainment…like Unreal.

Like I keep saying…figure out what you do with a PC, figure out what works for your situation and budget, and get only what you need. And if you can, get it cheaply/free (while remaining legal, of course).
Even as this is a poor excuse for an educated recommendation, thanks to the author, Ms. Kulla, for an amusing read.