OT. Dell

[Nige Danton]

Yep. I switched to Mac's 4 years ago after 15 odd years of PC's. Best thing I ever did. Miles better.

-- Nige Danton

[John Stumbles]

Heh heh! it did occur to me .... maybe just to leave knoppix liveCDs in their disc trays.

Yes and chucked it out. If I wanted lighter weight at all costs I'd learn to use xfce or suchlike. I wanted usability: I've spent too long learning the Windoze[1] way of doing things to want to learn a different one[2] and kde wasn't so heavyweight that it was a showstopper.

[1] windoze classic: when I was thrown into a pit of XP machines the first thing I did was customise them to the classic 9X/NT/XP look'n'feel. Never did like teletubbies :-) [2] unless I can see that it's really worth the effort.

[Colin Wilson]

Availability is subject to outside forces beyond their control, but my experience with delivery and reliability is 100% perfect.

Not only me, but everyone else I know who's bought a Dell machine (some have bought several), which number perhaps another 6 or 7 people in our office alone, have had similar experiences - not a faulty machine amongst any of them in the last 3 years.

[Derek Geldard]

I call 'em Bellytubbies :-)

DG

[andywells]

what you say - I guess that is why you had to quote some obscure US web site.

[Steve Firth]

No it's not, and I provided evidence to the contrary.

I didn't have to quote that survey nor is it obscure. You OTOH are an unmitigated arse.

[Steve Firth]

It may be a good idea to lengthen that short order. There's a whole raft of news Mac stuff due out at Macworld. The rumour mill is in full flow, but the likely new machines include an ultra-mobile with 64Gb of SSD drive, a Mac "nano" like the mini but about half the height and several otehr rumoured bits of stuff as well as speed/memory/specification bumps for the established stuff.

[Huge]

Oh, the Mac's already bought. I just need to find the round tuit.

[Mark]

It varies a lot IME. Sometimes I can build a PC from good quality parts for less money than a retail system (like I did last year). I tend to find that the big companies such as Dell tend to overspec the processor compared to the other components fitted leading to a more expensive than necessary system.

I have experienced problems with HP systems due to buggy drivers .

YMMV again. My current homebuilt PC is quieter than anything else I have experienced. I can hear the HD seeking if the room is very quiet, otherwise it is inaudible.

Theoretically it's not your problem, but it is usually less hassle to sort it out oneself than try to explain the problem to a droid in a call centre the other side of the world. A return to base warranty is useless if you need the PC every day.

You often get licensed software chucked in but usually alongside trialware that won't uninstall.

Linux is not for the fainthearted but is worth perservering with IMHO.

To the OP: Dell is no worse than anyone else IME and has the advantage that they will sell you a PC with XP or Linux instead of Vista. You would need a much higher spec. PC to run Vista satifactorally than you would with XP. Spend the money you save on DIY ;-)

M.

[Stuart Noble]

with it since

I hear HSBC have just upgraded their system to XP. I guess they don't fancy being Vista guinea pigs

[Mark]

If you would like to try Ubuntu or Kubuntu you can request a Free CD from

don't have to install it to try it out, it will run from the CD, but slowly.

Or download it for free 700MB

buy one on ebay for £1.50

-

[Man at B&Q]

But what about sharing files from the same location on disc on a dual boot machine?

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

Everytime I try to switch to Open Office I seem to find a new incompatibility. Latest is trying to put a table of contents in a two column layout. Works fine in Office but open the doc in OpenOffice and it reverts to a single column and screws the layout.

Luckily I get the full MS Office Pro for about =A330 through the home use program for as long as I stay with my current employer.

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That's not 99% of the world. What you share on your own network etc is your choice. What I was referring to was the habit of sending Word files when plain text would do just fine.

[Derek Geldard]

Well, plain text can be a bit poxy.

But wordpad files (.rtf) can be read on all (?) windows boxes, and I'd imagine on most unix clones.

DG

[The Medway Handyman]

Microsoft - because I don't know anything else.

Most of the time my PC is fine & does what I want it to do. I have no real idea how it does it, buy I know how to drive it.

Having said that Norton 360 won't run Antispam because there is some sort of conflict, but I expect shit from software. I wouldn't put up with it with any other product, but you don't seem to have a choice with software.

Thanks for the advice though.

[tony sayer]

Yes you do!. Ditch the Norton anti virus if you have that and use AVG much better:)

And as to spam .. a lot of its filtered off now by a good ISP. And if your using Thunderbird you can block a fair old bit of it....

[T i m]

If he used nothing he'd be better off than with Norton AV. It is (still) bloated and won't play well with anything else.

I've seen that POS (all domestic variants) cause more issues than any virus ever has (on too many machines).

All the best ..

T i m

[Andy Champ]

That is a report of a 3rd party support company that finds not many Mac users call them compared with the numbers of Macs out there.

Interesting as it is, it could be that Macs are good - or that their support is good - or merely that Mac users don't call that company.

I'd say to anyone looking at buying a Mac exactly what I said to my mother. Sure, they may be good, but don't ask me for help, I don't understand them. If you know what you are doing (and you obviously do), or you know someone who will help you, fine, go ahead.

Andy