[AT] Slightly OT Tractors and technology

[David Bruce]

For a number of reasons I'm wedded to the desktop form factor so I have 
opted away from laptops and now tablets but I can see their utility in 
other settings.  I do have an Android based tablet which serves me well 
on the rare occasions when I travel - this would have been very nice 
back in the day when I left home early Monday morning and returned late 
Friday night.

My approach to buying a computer has not changed over the last decade. I 
do not buy the latest and greatest rather the generation just prior. 
Doing that I can usually get near ten years of service from a system. I 
do a little video editing, more photo editing, and as the technology has 
matured quite a bit of streaming video. With the desktop form factor I 
can add hardware to make each of these easier to accomplish.
For my mom (at 82 and now in a nursing home) I always bought off lease 
desktop machines. The latest is a Win 7 based HP machine that did 
everything she needed but it would not meet all my needs. Buying off 
lease "business" models also means I did not get all the crapware like 
is installed on a typical consumer oriented machine.

David
NW NC

On 7/1/2014 8:27 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> David,  go buy the cheapest one you can find that will meet most of your
> requirements and
> save the rest of the money.  Next year (or two) you'll be able to buy one
> that exceeds your current
> requirements for less than the other half of the money.   I really have no
> more use of
> a desk top computer.  The notebooks these days can be configured to do about
> anything you can
> do on a desk top.   I bought this notebook I'm using now about 4 years ago
> (at least that long)
> and it's still going.  It's off the shelf from Best Buy and I think it was a
> hair less than $600.00.
> It could use more RAM but I do some fairly complex graphics on it with no
> real problems.
>
> Charlie