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The Promethius
office will be closed in observance of the Christmas holiday
Thursday, December 23 and Friday, December 24.
To observe
the New Year holiday, the office will be closed Friday, December
31.
If you have
a network emergency on one of these days, please call 317-513-8428.
Santa
Doesn't Know Hardware
Santa doesn’t
work at Promethius but if he did, Christmas computers would
have more stringent specifications. The junk that he often delivers
just wouldn’t pass muster. Unfortunately, elves often
don’t seem to build quality PCs.
Santa might consider talking to folks at HP/Compaq
or Dell. Their elves continue to make quality technology. You
certainly can’t stop at the name, however. All manufacturers
have cheap, underpowered models. Here are the keys to a healthy
relationship with your PC:
Reputable
Manufacturer
a. Our “Nice List” favorites are Compaq and Dell
b. Gateway and Sony top our “Naughty List”
Reputable
Reseller
a. If buying a Dell, Nice List says go to www.dell.com
b. If buying a Compaq, stay on the Nice List and go to www.cdw.com
c. Most retail chains are on our Naughty List (e.g. Best Buy,
Circuit City)
Adequate
Hardware*
a. For a PC, plan on a 2.8 GHz processor, Go with the higher
end processors (e.g. Intel Pentium 4 rather than Intel Celeron).
For a laptop, 1.6 GHz Pentium M (with Centrino Technology) chips
are great.
b. Hard drive space is important these days too. If you store
lots of songs and videos, then you’ll need more hard drive
space. Plan on 40 Gb as a minimum and add whatever you can afford.
c. Memory (RAM) is the biggie. Don’t let them stick you
with 128 Mb of RAM (Dell is notorious for this). Bump it up
to AT LEAST 256 Mb and increase to 512 Mb if you can afford
it. RAM is relatively cheap and you will notice if you don’t
have enough!
d. If this is a gaming machine for the kids (or husband), increase
everything and pay special attention to the video card. Ask
the CDW or Dell representative to assist.
Adequate
Software*
a. Windows XP is the no brainer, right? Yes and no. You do need
Windows XP, but you have to decide between XP Home and XP Pro.
If you think you will ever need to communicate with your office
from home, choose XP Pro. If you are strongly opposed to computer
headaches, choose XP Pro. If you have ANY extra money, choose
XP Pro. Are you seeing the pattern? XP Home is cheaper and that’s
the only positive.
b. Antivirus, antivirus, antivirus. We have already covered
this many times, so that’s all we’ll say here.
So, be specific
when you sit on Santa’s lap. Ask for a PC and you’ll
get what a 400-year-old man thinks a PC is. If you want something
that runs well, talk to Promethius first (317/733-2388).
*It
really depends on what you’re doing with the computer,
these are just guidelines.
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Definitions
of the Month
Courtesy
of Webopedia.
Pentium
4 -
The next generation of microprocessors from Intel. Features
such as a 32-bit microprocessor, hyper-pipelined technology,
a rapid execution engine and a 100MHz system bus that delivers
three times the bandwidth of the Pentium III processor are designed
to enhance online gaming, digital video and photography, speech
recognition and MP3 encoding.
antivirus
program -
A utility that searches a hard disk for viruses and removes
any that are found. Most antivirus programs include an auto-update
feature that enables the program to download profiles of new
viruses so that it can check for the new viruses as soon as
they are discovered.
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