Comments on: Open Thread: Laptop or Desktop? Or a Whole Wardrobe of Computers?

By: Catching Up On Old RSS

Catching Up On Old RSS — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:46:28 +0000

[...] What Kind of Computer?: For me, it’s more than just one or more computers. It’s mobile devices such as my Nokia handsets and now the Internet tablet. [...]

By: Beautyfil Mind » Blog Archive » Open Thread: Laptop or Desktop? Or a Whole Wardrobe of Computers?

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 09:44:16 +0000

[...] Share/E-mail [...]

By: Rich Ward

Rich Ward — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:08:17 +0000

HAD a laptop. It had a small plastic and metal grounding clip that broke/fried on the motherboard. Replacement motherboard more than the laptop’s value. I eventually may get either a real cheap replacement or invest in a more hardened, robust laptop (like a durabook or similar). Surrounded by desktop work stations here at work and several at home/home office. I like the standardization of parts for PC’s, I build my own and can easily replace anything that fails from a wide variety of inexpensive parts. I wish that laptop designs were more standardized and user serviceable. I am setting up my new home office with a scenic view of the river and so it will be a nice combined work and relaxation area with a new desktop that is in a custom (home built) wood cabinet and also designed a desk system that will let me work standing, or on a stool or on seated on a desk chair. It will also have a bench where I can build and do repair work on computers.

By: s123viv

s123viv — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:59:09 +0000

i am so happy to find this place. i was really bummed over losing gc. this will be so comphy for all of us. thanks!

By: Nakul Malik

Nakul Malik — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 03:31:42 +0000

i have a custom built rack in my bedroom that has 2 switches, three routers (one per ISP), three Wireless Routers, A full height fileserver with about 800 GB of space, a RAID-5 1 Terabyte NAS, a desktop that i use occasionally(once in 3 months maybe), An ATA-186, a 8×24 PBX and an HP MFD. Also, theres an old P-1 90Mhz and an industrial server in the rack that i use for testing.
I got some custom cables, connected a KVM switch to the systems and ran the cables about 20 ft. through the walls to my study.

The only machine i actually work on is my laptop which i work on while lying in bed. I access all the other machines thru the network.

By: Mike Panic

Mike Panic — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:26:56 +0000

My desktop is in a decicated part of my home, I go there to work and nothing else. I plan on buying a laptop sometime this summer when SP1 comes out for Vista, my goal is to be able to blog / surf at the local Panera bread or on vacation or at a friends house, however I’m a bit weary of blogging while watching TV in my living room. I watch TV to relax and destress, not to do more work in front of.

When I finally do get a laptop I will be buying an external hard drive just for it. Too many times I’ve had to take apart friends’ laptops and fix hard drive issues (like the old freezer trick), soda gets spilled in them or they get stolen. For the amount of work I do, I need to have a secure backup for that stuff daily.

By: Brian Purkiss

Brian Purkiss — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 14:10:07 +0000

Laptop vs desktop.
It’s totally personal. I personally use a laptop because I need the portability.
Currently I don’t have the funds for a desktop in addition to the laptop, but that’s probably what I’ll end up going for when I do get the funds.

But desktops are better, unless you need the portability function.

By: Dee

Dee — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:58:53 +0000

Laptop all the way. I have two homes in two different states, I have about 3 different “workplaces”, and another few around my main home. I do loads of research in libraries… and institutional libraries are often difficult to find a free computer to work on. Mobile working appeals to me. I don’t have a lot of data to store – it usually gets backed up onto my external hdd anyway, I can always have my information with me, and I don’t need to fuss with syncing between multiple machines (I’m not a huge fan of web-based tools).
The freedom to move is liberating too!
I don’t know if it’s just coincidence, but I also had lost weight since scrapping my desktop PC 3 years ago and moving to a laptop…

By: Judi Sohn

Judi Sohn — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:54:32 +0000

Last November I combined a Mac desktop and Windows laptop down to a single MacBook Pro (running Parallels). It was a problem when I traveled and I didn’t have access to graphic files that were on the Mac. Now everything moves with me and no worries about keeping files in sync.

By: next STEPH

next STEPH — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 03:53:28 +0000

I have the wardobe, I have used Acer laptop given to me by my folks(like a comfy blanket), a custom desktop with a wide flat panel monitor for serious web production, and the brand new addition, the Dell Inspiron 640 for presentations and conferences:)

By: Sergio

Sergio — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 23:32:22 +0000

I have a beefy desktop workhorse that sits in my home office and that holds up well for my software development tasks (databases, webservers, source control, etc). I also have a laptop that isn’t quite as powerful and I use for lighter tasks.
When I’m at home and need to get some programming work done, I often find myself opening up the laptop and a remote desktop session to the desktop downstairs. With a good network it’s quite acceptable. The GUI isn’t as responsive but at least the processing continues to be fast in the background. It’s a strange feeling when you have a windows vista session with visual studio open on a tiny macbook.

By: Logical Extremes

Logical Extremes — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:44:25 +0000

@Mike Gunderloy… and I thought I was a bit extreme! I don’t really have any servers inside the firewall at home (other than network backups), just 2 Mac laptops, 1 Windows desktop, 8 assorted Mac desktops, occasional Linux, and a few other odds and ends network devices. I do a lot of images and video, so CPU, disk space, and RAM are all important, and keep me mainly on a desktop. I tend to get a long life out of my workstations, so I don’t like to skimp on specs. But for communication, I have been migrating largely to web-based so that aspect is more portable.

By: damiengwalter

damiengwalter — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:18:40 +0000

At the moment I run a 14.1″ HP DV1066 which is about three years old. The Pentium M processor and gig of ram are starting to show their age but it fulfills all my needs – communications, downloads and lots of graphic design. The 14″ screen is the most important part, its the optimum balance of portability whilst remaining usable for graphics. I have a more powerful desktop but never touch it. I really want a Blackbook but can’t justify it until it can offer something my current rig doesn’t (other than OSX of course). With that I’d team a big HiDef flatscreen and and Apple TV.

By: Audrey

Audrey — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:32:41 +0000

I use a MacBook, but hook it up to a flatscreen monitor and external keyboard when at home. This has been a good combination for programming, writing, graphic design, etc.

By: dragev

dragev — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:19:18 +0000

At home our main computer is a 15" Toshiba Satellite A40 laptop and typically "feels" like a desktop because it is normally connected to an external 19" monitor, full-size keyboard, a printer and a real mouse. When we want or need to go somewhere else with the computer, we just disconnect it, pick it up and go. Here are a couple of disadvantages I have found in this setup: (1) The main annoyance I have found it that if the default BIOS setting for video output is set to select automatically, then if we boot up with the external monitor connected, and later want to disconnect it, the system doesn't detect this, so the system is left in a state without any video. Alternatively, I can set the BIOS video output setting to always go to both the laptop screen and the external monitor, but then I am restricted to the resolutions of my laptop, and to add more grief, my external monitor is a widescreen LCD while my laptop screen has "normal" dimensions and so the graphics are stretched somewhat on my external monitor. (When I "upgrade" in the future, I'll likely get a widescreen laptop---unless I find I want to dump my widescreen monitor too.) (2) The audio port is located in a place convenient for connecting headphones (on the side, near the front), not speakers, so the speaker cord is in the way of the DVD drive and not nicely tucked away at the back of the laptop like the other connections. It would be nice to have a digital audio connection at the back for connecting Dolby 5.1 speakers and a regular audio port for headphones at the front of the laptop. Another thing, our external monitor is DVI capable...and I have not seen any laptops on the market that have a DVI output port. Has anybody found a laptop with digital audio and video output options? I would love to find a true media laptop with digital audio and video output (for both monitor and TV) and then I can't think of a compelling reason to go back to a desktop. We also have a couple of old desktops that are used by the kids or are intended to be setup as mirrors of the laptop (I'm considering using a combination of Unison and a version control system like Subversion or Mercurial), so that we can work on either sync'ed up computer.

By: Karoli

Karoli — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:05:52 +0000

Laptop(s), laptop(s), laptops.

A nice big beefy laptop (aka desktop replacement) running Windows XP as the main machine, with a Mac on the side running Parallels, so I get the best of all worlds.