Microsoft Vista Question

[proudofthesouth]

I bought a new laptop computer (Compaq) yesterday. Finally got tired of my Dell crashing and living in Dell Hell.

Anyway, my new system has Vista as the operating system and it comes with a firewall.

My question is do I still need to go out and buy a better firewall (like Panda)?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Richard Kimball]

My experience with Acers hasn't been good, but I haven't purchased one in over five years. The last two I purchased both had the motherboard go bad on them within about a year and a half. I have one in my office now, and have problems with Word and Firefox hanging up on it. It doesn't seem like a bad machine as PCs go, but they replaced a PIII with Win2K on it, and it's a Pentium IV with more memory running XP, and it's absolutely no faster, and frequently slower.

I really don't know where I'd go for a PC right now. One thing is that the quality seems to vary from year to year, even within the same manufacturer. Dell, for example, used to have a rock solid quality reputation, but I've heard a lot of complaints over the last few years.

[Echo Talon]

I am just looking for something to surf and word process. Don't need a screamer. What do you think of the Acers?

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/

Here is a review of system

[mkjessup]

I've heard that Barracade puts out some great routers / firewalls. Pricey though. Has that been your experience?

I picked up my SMC7004VBR for less than $100. One of the best investments I've made, easy to set up, easy to configure, rock solid performance.

I would recommend it unreservedly.

[raybbr]

Rally looking for a laptop that we can roam around the house with. Already have a wireless router.

[Echo Talon]

oh... yea... I personally think just about all the "newer" laptops are similar...

[Echo Talon]

how much are you willing/wanting to spend?

[raybbr]

I really want to keep it around $700 or less.

[BuffaloJack]

I've had my Dell for 4 years and my Linksys Router/Firewall for the same time. My Dell has never crashed, ever. I use both the router's firewall and XP's software firewall. (You can never have enough protection.) McAfee sometimes locks up the PC but only because it's trying to stop something nasty from doing harm and has to devote every CPU clock cycle to the task. A check of the activity log afterwards usually shows why the trouble was present. This was my 3rd Dell and the two older machines still work fine, but like all PC stuff that has some age, they are too slow, don't have enough storage, memory, or speed to keep up with the current bloatware packages offered by the industry.

[BuffaloJack]

Overheating of a PC is almost always caused by a huge dust buildup. Open the box up, ground the case and get out your wife's vacuum cleaner. Vacuum everythin in sight and don't forget to suck the dust out of any floppy drives, CD drives or DVD drives. Also hit the power supply itself as it will accumulate a ton of dust inside it also. Make sure you remove the dust from any CPU fans too.
If you do this every 6 months or so you'll never have an overheating problem.

[stephenjohnbanker]

ROTF!

[savedbygrace]

Yes.

Neither hardware firewalls built into routers, nor software firewalls like the most excellent Zone Alarm Pro, do the whole job. Use both.

And use a good Anti Virus app, like AVG.

Ans whenever you have a choice, chose something, anything, other than Vista.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

[savedbygrace]

Then there's this:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=29

[irv]

Incidentally, Microsoft has fixed the system for the new daylight saving schedule in 2007, but I understand there will be problems fixing the Sun Java files for the new daylight savings

Sun has fixes out for Solaris 8, 9 and 10 and for the various incarnations of Java. I've been applying them at my job to various systems for weeks (1 system every day or 2). No big deal.

Linux systems are even easier. 1 file. No muss. No fuss. As you'd expect.

[proudofthesouth]

I can tell you that the computer geeks that I've spoken to over the past couple of days don't like Acers. They said that the (cheaper) Compaq I bought is better.

[irv]

Get a Mac. ... No restarts.

This is a myth. True, Macs don't give you a BSOD, but they still have problems and still should be rebooted on a regular schedule.

(This comment should not in any way be considered an endorsement of the crapware put out by the evil empire.)

[Echo Talon]

I really want to keep it around $700 or less.

Here, scroll down to the bottom to see the combo deal...

$700 is a sticky deal... you really need more like $1000 to "future proof a laptop"(Ahhhh, no such thing as "future proofing")

One thing that I don't like about that Acer deal is It only has 1GB of ram and its ram configuration right now is (512MBx2) and it only has 2 slots... so... you would need to buy (1024MBx2) and sell your sticks on ebay or do something else with them...

It will run fine with what you want to with it with 1GB of ram, I always like to go overboard... ;)

[Echo Talon]

Linux systems are even easier. 1 file. No muss. No fuss. As you'd expect.

LOL

./config "uhh"

#glxinfo

#glxgears

ish...

[Cicero]

Good. Thanks for the update.

I followed Sun Java closely in the earlier days, but then went over to the MS Virtual Machine, which was much faster and more compatible with windows. (I know, I know.) Then since MS agreed to let Sun handle it, I've pretty much just let it update itself as it chooses.

[raybbr]

Thanks. I think you and I went through this once before. I really want to stay away from Vista for now.

[Echo Talon]

oh yea... you want... XP... hang on...