Gregory B. Michetti of the Alberta-based systems integration firm Michetti Information Solutions, Inc. can be reached via www.michetti.com  or e-mail IT101@edmontonians.com  Click here to see archive editions of BizIT 101.

BizIT101 by Gregory B. Michetti

Greg’s Fall Tech Guide

The back-to-school and Christmas seasons are the two busiest PC-buying periods of the year; especially for students.

Aside from deciding if you should purchase a new laptop and iMac, you are faced with another major decision: Should it be running Microsoft’s Vista for an operating system or should you remain with flavours of Windows XP? And, if you already have a laptop, should you upgrade to Vista… and, if so, what version?

Despite its performance problems, Vista does grow on you and it’s pretty cool looking. It will surprise you in some areas—connection to a movie projector for classroom presentations is slick… and really tick you off in others—printer drivers are still spotty. Nonetheless, it is worth considering. Also, with students searching and surfing the web for decent content to use in assignments, the built-in Instant Search features of Vista help big time.

If you decide you must have Vista, purchase Vista Ultimate or, at the very least, Vista Business—forget about anything else. And, if you don’t have at least 2 GB of memory and a Core 2 Duo microprocessor, upgrading isn’t really an option. Even if Microsoft’s, with its Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor at www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx  tells you it’s OK to upgrade, you will still need to buy more RAM—which is not always readily available… nor is the upgrade copy of Vista. 

Bottom line: only get Vista with a new computer.

On that note, I only recommend two hardware lines for Windows-based portable units for the home environment: Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo. HP has a leg up, mainly because of the great units they sell and, at the retail level, you can bundle this with a new printer, camera, spare cartridge, extra paper and so on.

If you use your notebook while in class—say something like Microsoft’s OneNote—then check out the HP Pavilion tx1200 Entertainment Notebook PC series. At roughly $1,150, this slate-style notebook has the now standard HP glossy exterior, weighs less than four pounds, and has a 12-inch touch-screen display. Or consider the HP Pavilion dv9400 Entertainment Notebook PC with a 17” widescreen BrightView display… just in case you want to watch a DVD while you “study”. These units start at $919 and come with AMD Dual Core processors, up to 2GB of memory and160GB hard drive.

Now remember, a bigger screen is nice but it is generally meant for use at a permanent location (like a dorm room or bedroom desk). The smaller tx1200 can be carried around in a backpack and used wherever you are on campus. In other words, the cardinal rule when buying a  laptop is to initially determine where you’ll be using it most of the time.

To illustrate my point, the HP Pavilion dv6500 Entertainment Notebook PC series, starting at $1300, has a 15.4-inch BrightView widescreen display, Intel Core 2 Duo processors, optional NVIDIA GeForce graphics card and up to 2GB of memory. In other words, it is somewhere between the classroom and the bedroom butis priced higher.

Now for printers: Again, I’ve got to go with a few HP models. I strongly recommend a “DeskJet” or inkjet model. Forget about mono or colour laser printers for the home user… while nice, they use considerably more power to operate and the supplies are more costly.

I suggest the HP Deskjet D4260 Printer: small, inexpensive ($89) and comes with excellent printer software (HP Smart Web Printing) that simplifies printing web pages, a task you can finally do effectively. The HP Photosmart C5280 All-in-One Printer means you can scan and copy. You may want to be cautious about buying a dedicated photo printer—you can print pictures only. Hold off on buying that unit until you can get it in a deal with a new digital camera. As an aside, I’ve found women seem to print a lot more than men… so, if you are a parent, getting the printer for the daughter, as opposed to the son, is a smart buy.

Frugal parents who are always looking to save some dough should consider purchasing a used XP Pro laptop from a bored executive at the office. Hint: The sales guys are the first ones to approach because they get the best units and only “do” email and word processing. They also get bored quickly with old technology.

Also, if the laptop does not come with productivity software (like MS Office 2003) and you are still on a budget, note that, last month, Google began providing Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice 8 office productivity suite to users—free of charge, as opposed to the $100 it cost in the past. StarOffice works with most Microsoft Office apps and used to be the “paid-for” version of Open Office with far more options. It does not have an MS-Outlook e-mail client equivalent, but this may be moot as most students use a web-based e-mail scheme like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo. Anyway, it is worth checking out at http://pack.google.com.

A quick note to employers on “passed-down” portables: Make sure your hard disk drive is, in fact, wiped clean of corporate data. Some great advice comes from the Markham, ON firm, CBL Data Recovery Technologies, Inc. and can be found at http://www.cbltech.com/blog/data-recovery/attention-students-dont-put-your-data-at-risk.√!

Gregory B. Michetti of the Alberta-based systems integration firm Michetti Information Solutions, Inc. can be reached via www.michetti.com  or e-mail IT101@edmontonians.com 

Click here to see archive editions of BizIT 101by Gregory B. Michetti.