Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Back to school computer ideas 2011


Face it, back to school time is one of the best times to buy a new computer. Whether for a middle schooler, high schooler, or a college student, here are my suggestions for computers as of August 2011.

Netbooks often suffer from poor keyboards, 10" screens, and slooooow processors. The Lenovo ThinkPad X120e is faster than most netbooks (it uses a new AMD dual-core processor that beats the intel atom), has a slightly larger screen (11 inches) and a nice keyboard. You'll pay between $450 and $500 for it.



Need something cheaper? The Samsung NF310 is a good choice. It's under $400 and features an Intel atom 1.5ghz N550 processor and 250 gig hard drive.






Want a full size laptop? The Asus A53 series is nice. 15" screen, 4 gigs of memory, and 320gb hard drive. Under $400.

These recommendations should be good through December, 2011.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Add some NAS to your home network


We take a lot of pictures and have other digital assets that we want to be able to access on any computer in the house or home office.

Putting some network attached storage on the network solves many problems. Which one to buy? One of my favorite is the Synology DS series. Two hard drives so you have redundancy, and it's fast. Buy it for $300 and then add two hard drives. I'd suggest the Samsung F4 2tb. It's fast, cool, and quiet.