rayzoredge

Those seem like decent figures, Tram, but then again, I believe those times for loading programs would be typical for the hardware you have. (My work laptop with a P4 1.8GHz and 512MB of RAM just opened up WMP in 2 seconds.) What I'd be interested in as far as benchmark figures and tests go for the new Windows OS would include but not be limited to: 1GB of data copied from one internal SATA drive to another (or some interface that wouldn't bottleneck the transfer speed) 1GB of data copied over a network from one Windows 7 machine to another interoperability/compatibility with other machines running different OS Basically, the benchmarks that people would be interested in would be OS-dependent to see what and how the OS does with certain, common tasks to compare if XP, Vista, and W7 can do these simple things efficiently. We already know that Vista has a problem with file transfers for some reason (they're insanely slow) and has problems with networking with XP computers (which I guess can't be too bad of a bat to swing at Vista, considering that the OS works with its own rather well), but does Windows 7, seemingly with a Vista core, suffer from the same problems? The boot time is interesting to note for me, considering the fact that Windows XP Professional with SP2 takes my aging P4 3.2GHz with 2GB of RAM a little over two minutes to boot, but then again, I do have a lot of things that run at start-up...

I'm sure that support for Vista will be continuous, but the focus is moreso on the development of Windows 7. The aim is probably to ditch the reputation of Vista and abandon the name altogether to focus on marketing the next new Windows experience... which really seems to be Vista anyway, renamed to Windows 7.There wasn't a lot of adaptation to Vista thanks to all of its problems, naysay, and whatnot. If Microsoft is going to make a positive turnaround, it makes sense to market something that actually rivals Apple's Leopard and the more-prominent flavors of Linux like Ubuntu.I remember when I was wary of moving from Windows 98 SE to XP... and I didn't make the jump until SP1. After SP2, I was convinced that XP Professional was the most stable and usable Windows operating system to date... and I'm still convinced that it is. If Windows 7 is really just a husk over the Vista core, let's hope that they at least work on the core enough to make a viable replacement for XP.

Echo, I am so with you on so many levels with choosing the generic over the brand name. I ridicule lots of people in my head that come out of Abercrombie and Fitch stores, wearing their ugly Ugg boots and Gucci sunglasses INDOORS, clutching their leather purses, wearing their Tag Heuer watches and whatnot.Why would you spend so much money on a brand name?My personality must seem like a hypocritical one, just because I laugh at what I call "sheeple" (which I just discovered is not just my invention), yet I somewhat defend my ownership over my Oakleys, a $200+ pair of sunglasses... that's a markup of ten to twenty times from what you can snag at a department store. I also have a watch that costs $100... something I could have snagged for $70 cheaper. My cell phone is a $300 Motorola i580... and we all know that we could have just settled for a $50 one that just makes phone calls.And guess what?All my clothes come from Walmart. I guess I can somewhat classify myself as brand-concious because I love durability and function. I have Oakleys because I liked the look, I liked the ballistic protection, and I liked the durability. My watch can tell time, the day, set multiple alarms, measure temperature, act as a compass, and do a multitude of other things. It has been proven consistently that my phone can be dropped from multiple stories, run over by a car, dropped in water, and thrown violently at a concrete wall without losing any functionality of the phone.With that, I love those brands because I know that they make quality products.I like Hewlett Packard and Dell because I know that HP makes good computers that keep me happy, and I know that Dell is a company that I can recommend because they make good budget computers (with the exception of the XPS, which I still think is overpriced). I love Logitech with their peripheral input devices and their sound systems because I know that they are pretty awesome (for the most part). I own a pair of Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers and I won't hesitate to buy another speaker set by them. Even with EA's evil rap and their assimilation of great games and turning them into evil mush with their copy protections and whatnot, I still love the games that they're associated with (Spore, Battlefield series, post-Westwood Command and Conquer series, etc.).I even choose Pop-Tarts over the value ones at Walmart, but that's because the value ones taste like crap.However, it works both ways. I always buy the generic brands for medication and drugs, because really, it's the ingredient you're looking out for and not the name that works (unless you're really into the placebo effect). I never go out of my way to buy any clothes from any fashion retailer (like The Gap or Old Navy). I will buy most value foods over their brand counterparts. And I could go on and on.It really depends on what I'm buying and what my research comes up with. I always check out professional as well as consumer/peer reviews on things, and I always do my homework to figure out what's the best choice in value, whether it means that I spend less or that I spend less in the long run. And of course, I have my guilty pleasures...

It's easy to say that you would be rather dumb to be spending that much on a pair of sunglasses, but then again, the K-Mart specials and the Wally World shades are what I lived with for the longest time, but I was constantly breaking them because people would sit on them, I would have them slip off my head, kids would get their hands on them, the sun would melt cheap plastic pieces if I leave them in my car, etc. It just makes you wonder if you would rather drop more money on a durable brand and model than spending $10-20 every couple of weeks... not to mention be able to find a cheap pair that you actually like. (And I'm rather picky about how my sunglasses look...)After babying my pair when I first got them for a while, then having a handful of incidents with them, I'm at a comfort zone with my Oakleys where I don't worry about whether they get sat on, dropped, etc., whereas with a cheap pair, they're as good as gone.

Source So who's in on it? It's funny that I just read the article about it and went back to Xisto only to find that Saint Michael mentioned it in the Shoutbox. For those of you who don't know, Microsoft is officially releasing the beta download of Windows 7 this Friday to the public, and is only releasing 2.5 million keys for the beta. After all those keys have been released, Microsoft will not issue any more. The beta version of Windows 7 will work until August of this year, in which it will not be available for usage and the operating system will just be a 16+ GB "paperweight" on your hard drive. I for one am not even going to try, considering that I'm already hard-pressed to snag a computer that would run Vista efficiently, and from the sounds of it, Windows 7 is pretty much a "better" Vista. The suspicion almost seems confirmed since you need Windows Vista with SP1 to even install the beta version being released... Windows XP users are out of luck. Sad, really... I thought that Microsoft was actually ditching Vista and actually putting something out worthwhile... It's funny how Steve Ballmer had to throw out some features of the new Windows OS to show that it was the "best Windows yet," but with some of the most drab and lame features like transparent windows that we've had with Linux's Compiz/Beryl. Right now, I just am very skeptical of how good the latest "best" version of Windows is going to be. If you miss the 2.5 million keys that will be issued starting Friday, I'm sure you can actually just snag a pirated copy off of a torrent site, just like the thousands of other people that already have Windows 7 prior to this announcement.

Haha... I like you already.Welcome to Xisto. It already sounds like you'll be posting a lot of stuff that I'll enjoy reading, even if it's drivel on a topic I wouldn't normally find interesting.

I figured that this would draw some discussion considering the numbers and pros and cons of owning a laptop vs. owning a desktop. Does the cost of ownership of a laptop compared with a similarly-equipped desktop give a rather reasonable and almost-sensible argument against even wanting to own a desktop, or will owning a desktop be more satisfying and even economically balance out? You give up the ability to upgrade as you please and even the ease of being able to fix some hardware-specific issues like replacing fried components, plus have the additional increased risk of heat-related problems (thanks to the tight form-factor of a laptop), but as a counter-argument, if you purchase a desktop replacement every time, would it be worth it to play with what you have until the next major upgrade of hardware? Let's try this. So I'll go out and buy the Gateway P-7811FX for $1100 and sit on it for a few years. With the same specifications for a desktop machine, I'll decide within that few years to upgrade my processor, throw in some more RAM, snag a new video card, and maybe even a new motherboard. Hard drive space is also a must-upgrade, thanks to our tons of pictures, videos, games, and bloatware. To just throw some numbers in the air, a new processor (that's worth upgrading to) can cost a couple hundred dollars; RAM being typically less than hundred dollar upgrade; a video card being a couple to a few hundred dollars; and if you want to add an additional hard drive, it could cost from less than a hundred dollars to a bit over that mark. Throw in a new motherboard that's worth upgrading to can add a couple more hundred dollars. Not counting the motherboard, and estimating costs (processor: $150; RAM: $100; video card: $200; hard drive: $100; motherboard: $150), an overhaul to snag decent upgrade hardware can run around $500 at a typical minimum. (The numbers I threw up seem typical to me having paid attention to hardware prices and technology advances over the years.) Let's also say that a new decent laptop with similar upgrades in hardware will cost around $1100. We'll take our 750W desktop machine into comparison with our 120W laptop with cost of ownership for those few years, then add onto the cost of upgrades/replacement. 750W Desktop: $900 (initial cost) + [3 years * $211.70 for annual electricity bill] + $550 upgrade = $2085.10 120W Laptop: $1100 (initial cost) + [3 years * $32.85 for annual electricity bill] + $1100 replacement = $2298.55 Looks like the laptop loses by about $200 here, and that's assuming that nothing fails on either machine, that both machines are on similar loads for three years (2 hours of intensive activity, 8 hours of normal tasking and idle every day), and that the prices for an upgraded laptop and the price of upgrade components for the desktop are about typically-sound (minus the motherboard, which would bring the numbers to about even). Again I ask, what do you guys think? If these numbers are reasonable, would you pay around $70 more per year on a 3-year replacement cycle for the portability of a laptop but suffer possible heat-related issues (assuming you don't replace the motherboard on the desktop)?

So I finally bit the bullet and dropped around $200 for a pair of Oakleys. And I must say that although I'm happy with my purchase, I have to say that they are probably (and probably obviously... ) overrated.If you want a pair of shades that are cheaper than Oakleys but will last longer than a pair of shades that you can pick up at Walmart (like those Foster Grants, Raybans, etc.), pick up a pair of Wiley-X's.However, if you want to empty your wallet and get a pair of quality spectacles, go for Oakleys.I must admit that Oakleys are very overpriced, but maybe I'm wrong. There's just something inherently wrong with dropping a couple hundred dollars on a pair of sunglasses... even with all the design features that are incorporated into the glass that earns the Oakley name.I've had my sunglasses for probably over half a year, I think. That already trumps the record amount of time that I've had for a cheap Wally World pair before they were dropped, cracked, sat on, or just plain fell apart.My Oakleys (which I finally decided on snagging a Straight Jacket with polarized black lenses, all black so that I can wear them in uniform if I wanted to) feel rather sturdy and have been dropped a few times, although I've tried my best not to get them near my girlfriend's kids. I'm not sure if it was a freak thing, but one of the times that they've dropped off of my head, a nose piece came off and I had to give Oakley a call to order some replacements (since I couldn't find the lost piece). Everything looks like it snaps into place, so even if you "broke off" a piece, you can always put it back together. Since then, I've had no problems with pieces breaking or flying off.The lenses don't scratch very easily... and you can't really see any miniscule scratches unless you put the lenses up to the light. Light transmission for the black lenses is surprisingly not much, but it does reduce a lot of glare from sunlight, so there's a plus. Of course, every pair of eyewear has to fog... but I'm actually satisfied with the fact that when I put on my Oakleys after having left them in the car the night before, they only fog up to a point where I can still see through them with just a light white haze, unlike my Wiley-X XL-1 pair that rendered me blind every time they fogged up. Water drops bead on the lense as advertised, although I haven't tried using a Sharpie marker on them (like they show on their video test). I also have neglected to test the ballistic test... for good reason. Being Asian, I went for the Asian Fit customization, which supposedly keeps the whole thing from slipping down my nose like I experience with most sunglasses. It actually works, and it even fits my not-so-Asian friend, so I don't really know why you wouldn't want to just default to the Asian Fit design. (Maybe it's a comfort thing for non-Asians... I wouldn't know.)So, to basically summarize this quasi-review, I have to say that if you have the money to drop on Oakleys, go for it. They're wicked expensive, which would be my main gripe, but hopefully they'll last you the amount that you would pay for replacement sunglasses, if you know what I mean. (I think that if I sat on mine open, it would snap into three modular pieces, of which I can just snap back together.)

Sorry about the late reply... this topic literally got buried fast.I did try out World of Warcraft for a bit... which is why I experienced the frustration of having to anticipate playing the game, only to be stopped to download a dozen or more patches, each of which I had to do individually because Blizzard either doesn't care or didn't think of new players to the game having to deal with multiple patch downloads. Out of the few days that I could play the game, I wasn't too impressed, but then again, maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance. I won't know though, because I'm not too keen on paying for a couple of month's of gameplay, which I can spend on getting two other games for my 360 or Wii, or just save and continue what I'm doing anyway with snagging games for my PC in less-than-legal ways. (Maybe that gives me even more bias against pay-to-play games...)Blizzard did a handful of good things with the game that I've read about and that you guys put into the spotlight, such as the whole concept of gaining an additional bonus to your experience relative to how long you've been away from the game (although I'm sure this is limited to a constantly-paying account, which makes sense in the money-grubbing marketing world). For what it is, the graphics are still pretty decent for a four-year-old game, and most computers can still run it at a decent framerate. (Even my aging HP zd8000 with the old, mid-range ATI Radeon Mobility X600 with 256MB of VRAM can still render the game at near-high quality @ 1400x900.) Maybe the variety of things that you can do gives it a plus also, whether it be questing by yourself, doing a raid, sitting at the auction house like an eBay hawk, etc.If the game wasn't pay-to-play, I would sure as heck give it more incentive to give it more of a chance than I did. But with the bi-monthly fee (by game card), combined with the initial frustration and continued frustrations of frequent and bloated patching, combined with my lessening interest in RPGs doesn't give me much of an inclination to give World of Warcraft the credit that over a million other people praise it with, especially if there are a ton of free other MMORPGs out there, with new ones developing and with the opportunities to learn from and even adapt the concepts and features that make World of Warcraft such a better MMORPG than its other competitors.

Dun-dun-dun! For every vote everyone else got, SM gave himself two.

I like the comparison of the hard disk requirement of Windows 2000 compared to Vista's... it seems rather insane how operating systems have bloated so much. At the same time, we've come a while from Windows 2000 to get to what we have today with Vista, Leopard, Ubuntu 8.10, etc. (Then again, a ton of people are still using XP, which is based on code from Windows 2000... ) Windows XP Professional in comparison requires 1.5GB of space. Crazy. I know that Vista actually has new code in it, and that Microsoft took quite a plunge into unsafe waters, which would warrant the plethora of issues and the bad rep that Vista has dealt with. So in that sense, the operating system is okay, but with a two-year period of opportunity to right the wrongs (and consequently, make it much better than its predecessor), and the fact that Vista is still poorly regarded, it's hard not to say that it stinks, in my opinion. And 35GB for a freakin' game? That is beyond outrageous... and that doesn't include any future patches or expansions for the game (if the developers plan on expanding). Does it come on a BR disc or 8 DVDs? It's amazing to know that I was kind of irked with the idea of 5 CDs for F.E.A.R...

With most new computers, yes, the space seems ample. But people are upgrading their gear, their gadgets, to include but not limited to new digital cameras, camcorders, and bloatware/software (like how most productivity pieces are now GBs instead of the usual hundreds of MBs in disk space usage). Individual pictures at their current resolutions now take up a MB each (typically), and count each twice if you shoot RAW. Home movies take up quite a bit of space themselves, mostly from hundreds of MBs up to the GB and over. And did I mention games? Games nowadays take anywhere from hundreds of MBs to multiple GBs. (I'm paying attention to my bias towards World of Warcraft, which is now, fully patched and expanded with Burning Crusades and Wrath of the Lich King, around 12GB... by itself.) For software developers (and in this case, Microsoft) to assume that people have enough disk space to throw in resource-heavy and disk-space-heavy features and unnecessary or poor code is kind of a technologically-immoral deal. To hear that Windows 7 is even worse with this gives me even less incentive to even "upgrade" to an operating system that hasn't even been released yet. (Granted, it's in beta now, but if it's anything like Vista, there won't be a heck of a lot of hope from people that complained about Vista's issues.) The crazy part about this statement, although I'll agree with you to some extent, is that there are some systems out there that are branded with Vista-compliance and compatibility, yet run slower than obsolete machines running XP. I think there was some sort of lawsuit against Microsoft from a consumer complaining about false advertisement of her "Vista-ready" machine, on behalf of all consumers afflicted with the same issue. (I don't remember the turnout of that verdict.) Why should the consumer sink in even more money into a machine that will operate slower with Vista than it would with XP or any competent flavor of Linux? Why can't the software developer optimize code and protocol in such a way that the software works most efficiently with the hardware it has to its disposal? I actually remember looking forward to Longhorn (Vista) when it was announced years ago. It looked good, and I was suckered into the eye candy. As far as usability goes, however, with my use of Ultimate, that image was ruined. As pretty as Windows 7 is going to be, I'm not going to be convinced if the operating system is still not user-friendly.

OP: I'm sure that you did your homework on your laptop purchase, and I'm sure you've done just about everything to keep the laptop alive and working. When you mentioned Toshiba, I immediately threw the bias against the company, because there's a reason why our company's fleet of Tosh*tbas don't work as well as they should. (A history of hard drive failures, component replacements, and whatnot indicate to me that I can't depend on a Toshiba laptop. What I don't understand is why our IT guy insists on sticking with the brand...)I'm guessing that the error was attributed to a BSOD, which my first thought, and what you figured out already, was bad RAM. Then again, you didn't even replace the RAM... maybe it was just poorly seated?Also, Googling DCOM threw me towards Wiki, which seems like a networking component of Windows. Why it's system-dependent, I don't have a clue (since it uses that protocol to communicated with components on a network, it seems), but I don't ever remember even wanting to disable DCOM. Did you check services.msc to make sure that for some reason it's not disabled? Check the DCOM Server Process Launcher, COM+ System Application, and the COM+ Event System services. (I don't know what other dependencies there are... those seemed like the likely ones.) I'm not sure how you are, but back in the day I was a tweaker... mostly to a fault. Nowadays I leave most things alone and only turn off things that I'm dead sure I don't need (like Automatic Updates and the Error Reporting services).As far as the OpenGL vs. DirectX discussion goes, isn't it rather misleading to show images of different games to see the visual impact both technologies are able to render? Isn't it dependent on how developers utilize the technology and make up the code? For all we know, we could be seeing a graphically-hindered game (thanks to laziness and/or poor coding) for the DirectX component compared to the best that OpenGL can offer.With the samples for OpenGL and what we've all witnessed with the graphical engine behind Crysis, I can safely say that both technologies are rather capable to their extents to be pretty darn aesthetically-pleasing. (As far as efficiency goes, I don't know how or if I want to touch that... considering that there's bias everywhere and fanboys will love to back up their respective APIs.) Then again, that's just me.

At first glance, eye jewelry is pretty ugly, no matter how pretty the piece is. That's just in my opinion, of course... different cultures have different ideas of beauty.The eye tattoos, however, can be pretty cool. The gripe that I would have with that is that it's very distracting... and it's not good for a "professional" look or business application. (Then again, that's my/the general idea of professionalism.)If they can make these sort of things temporary, like FX contact lenses that you can put in and take out, then I think it would be kind of neat. (Then again, they already have FX contact lenses... but nowhere near the consumer level, as a pair of these special lenses can cost hundreds of dollars.) The eye jewelry is just too much... not to mention that it will give people another thing to worry about: breaking fingernails, chipping nail polish, and pulling jewelry out of your eyes.

Baniboy: Firebug is a great web developer's tool. You should check that out and see if it suits you. NoScript will block everything anyway, so running AdBlock in conjunction is rather redundant. I would like to recommend the Download StatusBar just because the Downloads dialog box is rather annoying. StumbleUpon is a great time-waster. I'm not sure if this would be the best add-on to throw into the mix of recommendations, considering the fact that you can spend so much time just finding the best of the Internet. Greasemonkey is also a great way to fiddle with pages by adding bits of Javascript, so a web-savvy user can, let's say, bend things to his or her will a wee bit.

SM: I actually remember the post about SxS, which is why I brought it up and the pro and con of disabling it (if you can even do such a thing). (Summary for those that have not been informed: In theory, it sounds like an awesome idea to ensure program compatibility and dependability with multiple copies of old and new DLLs, but at the same time, the redundancy absolutely kills disk space... by the GB.) And since no one has found a way to disable it or really keep it under control without sacrificing Vista's stability, it's a black mark against migrating from XP in my opinion.Tramposh: Like I said, SxS is theoretically a good idea, and you would be dumb to try to get rid of system-dependent files. On the same token, Microsoft seems to have taken the road that everyone has a ton of space nowadays, and thus made this feature as bloated as it could possibly be. (Or maybe not... maybe I'm wrong, but it's still a rather bloated feature even if it was optimized. Then again, it's Microsoft... )With the advent of Windows 7, which visually looks much like Vista, my guess is that it IS Vista but with a different name so that Microsoft can ditch the dirty operating system the world knows as Vista. How many geeks do you know tell you that Vista is garbage? How many IT professionals have "upgraded" to Vista? Why are computer manufacturers/distributors STILL offering a "downgrade" to XP from Vista with their prefabricated systems? (I remember some statistical number like 18% for XP-to-Vista upgrades as far as the commercial sector goes, which is pretty bad considering the hype that Microsoft backs their new operating system with.) When someone hears Windows 7, it's going to be a new thing to either be slandered or to be praised. We'll have to see if Microsoft finally got their act together and put together an operating system that can compare or even be better than Linux, Leopard, and/or whatever else is out there.Hopefully I'll be able to afford a new machine, and obviously it will come with a copy of Vista. I don't think I would mind too much to work with Home Premium or Ultimate, and I might even give Vista a better review once I'm actually stuck with it as opposed to having the choice to go back to XP. (I say this because of 64-bit systems becoming more mainstream... and although XP Professional has a 64-bit version, it has been long since abandoned.)

I was actually wondering if it was a bug in the system too... considering that I was at NEGATIVE 116.72 or something like that for a while... can't remember.It fixed itself though after a few posts. I noticed that it came up after frequent posting (since I usually do my Xisto forum kicks in one shot), but funny enough, I didn't post any one-liners or anything that might even seem like spam to a bot...

I've had the restart problem before where it would fail at the initial checks or something (I can't remember), and then it ends up not doing anything at all. Then again, I'm not too worried about shaving a few seconds off of boot-time... unless it does make that much of a difference. I know I can shut the service off very easily, but isn't the program dependent on the service itself? Like I said, I can't remember if it's a resource hog or not... but personally, it doesn't bother me much. (Hence, the very minor gripe.) http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Both programs get kudos from two sources that I personally trust. Looks like Defraggler is a dumbed-down, simpler defragmentation program... which actually is a good thing for some people. (No schedules, no background scans... it only runs when you run it.) It might be dependent on what kind of usage you want to get out of the program... and of course, whether you want to fork over the money for Diskeeper's additional features (which can possibly be overrated).

Obviously, I'm going to say that the defragmenter that comes with Windows XP sucks.I've been using Diskeeper for at least half a year now, and can vouch for how much better it is over Windows XP's solution. - It can continuously manually and automatically defragment your hard drives WHILE you multitask, whereas M$'s crap has to restart itself if you make any changes to your hard drive, no matter how miniscule.- It has a frag shield to prevent much if any further fragmentation to your hard drive, but only if you have Diskeeper running.- It seems to do a decent job, performance-wise.- It's rather informative in what it's doing... it will let you know when it's automatically defragmenting, what it's moving, what the clusters are, etc.- There are many settings you can set.- You can defragment your boot table (although this requires a restart, in which you can't do anything until it's done).The only gripe that I have about it so far is that it is a service that continually runs in the background, but as far as it being a memory or CPU hog, I don't really know.I would make the plunge into trying out Defraggler and other solutions, but I'm not the kind of person that will install different things just to check them out... unless I'm on the way to re-wiping and re-installing. (I have a set way that I like my PCs, and I hate crappy uninstallations that leave registry keys, DLLs, and other files.)

Mods: Please rename this topic to "Why Vista?" Figured it would be more of a discussion on why or why not we should upgrade to Vista instead of just being about SP1.Funny enough, I was bored enough to read the CNet review on Vista SP1... and even they can't find any real differences with their benchmarks. There are some items to note that sped up after the patch, but amazingly enough, some things didn't change or worsened with the update.I'm not sure if I have any real basis on being able to bash the operating system as much as I do, considering the fact that I've only used it for less than two weeks. But those two weeks have been rather, well, unhappily-spent with an operating system that made me gripe about the simple GUI changes that of course threw me into an unfamiliarization tizzy, the supposed resource-hogging (which is to blame for poor system specifications and/or utilization of those resources... not sure what Vista does with that constant load on RAM and CPU resources during "idle"). Then again, can anyone tell me why any XP user should make the jump? Are the few pros I'm seeing really worth the plethora of cons I do see? Or am I just being stupid, staying on the XP-SP2 bandwagon and trying to stick with a dying OS? (I didn't even upgrade to XP SP3... the supposed updates didn't seem necessary to Joe Schmoe, the average consumer, and thus, I didn't see any of what SP3 brought to the table as a necessary upgrade.)Being as stubborn as I am, I'm being very reluctant to "upgrade" to Vista... and an eyebrow is raised for Windows 7, since it looks EXACTLY like Vista. (As far as the underlying code goes to make the current Microsoft operating system better... only time will tell with its release later this year.) With that being said, XP is going to finally bite the dust as far as support and upgrades to keep it up with the times... which leaves a lot of hardcore XP users searching for an answer, especially when 64-bit goes mainstream (as XP Professional has a long-abandoned x64 version).

I finally got off my bum and actually looked up a kW calculator as well as figures that match this power consumption scenario. (Please correct me in my numbers if I'm off or incorrect.)I'm going to round off and say that the desktop with similar specifications will run me about $900 as opposed to the laptop that I'm interested in, which I can snag at around $1100. So far, that's a $200 difference in initial hardware purchases in the desktop configuration's favor.I'm going to set this up so that both computers run at maximum power draw for a couple of hours (750W and 120W, respectively) and have normal tasking and idling for 8 hours (which I'll assume will draw 30% of wattage), for a grand total of being on for 10 hours per day.Here in New Hampshire with PSNH, a kW costs about 15 cents per kW.So, with those numbers, the desktop PC will generate a maximum of 750W and idle/normally load at 250W, and the laptop will do the same with 120W and 40W, respectively. This means that the desktop will cost $0.58 a day, whereas the laptop will run $0.09 a day. Multiply both by a theoretical 365 days for the year, and you'll get annual costs of $211.70 for the desktop and $32.85 for the laptop.Already, within the first year, the cost of ownership for the desktop is now $1111.70. The laptop will cost $1132.85. Where did the $200 savings go for the desktop? And of course, it only grows from there.Even with a 500W desktop, the annual costs for the same run-time will come up to $124.10, about 4 times the cost of the laptop.-The desktop might seem like an evil choice here in terms of the electricity bill, but at the same time, the whole concept of being able to upgrade and not have to purchase a whole new system every time is still a decent arguing point. Now having done my homework, I'm starting to lean towards snagging the laptop...Any thoughts on this whole subject?

I actually did some numbers up and designed a desktop with similar specifications to the laptop that I'm looking at... and in going for that route, I would save about $200, which I can safely say goes to paying for the portability if considering the laptop. Having a desktop will let me upgrade it when I want to, which would be nice, but I don't think I'm a person that will be throwing money left and right to snag the latest and greatest, even when it hits the bargain bin. (Maybe every couple of years or so, I'll actually put money into upgrading components as I go.) At the same time, cost of ownership could be lower with a desktop just because I can upgrade components as opposed to being stuck with a laptop and having to buy a whole new system... but then again, failing components will yield the same result as owning a laptop and having to basically buy a whole new working system anyway.This also brings up the question again of the cost-effectiveness of a 750W beast and its monitor compared to a 120W paperweight running constantly. How much will it cost per kW, and moreover, the final bill per month? How much do those computers really draw for wattage to play occasional games and run at near-idle for a good portion of the day, overnight, or even a few days straight?

Going back to the hardware code that the activation software generates, why not use that as a clear indicator whether you're activating the OS a bit much or not, or even prevent piracy in that fashion? Most OEM versions of Windows will come with a pre-fabricated system, in which the hardware code will most likely never change. (How many of you actually upgrade or change components in your HPs, Dells, Gateways, etc.? Or even laptops?) On initial activation, the hardware code should be noted and linked to a user account (like a Windows Live account...). If someone re-activates their OS many times in an hour, or if the hardware code sent does not check with the initial code, you can set a red flag for possible piracy, in which case can be cleared up by actually talking to a representative to tell him or her that you actually did throw in another stick of RAM or that a power surge killed your installation prematurely and that you had to activate your operating system twice within the hour. Now there's an idea...Yeah, people can call in and lie about an upgrade or two, but if the hardware code comes in vastly different and the customer did something like purchase a new computer without an OS, then I suppose that M$ would have a right in being able to throw in the possibility of piracy.Tell me if I'm wrong, but I believe that retail versions of Windows never require activation. Is this true or do I just have a "special" copy?

Ah.I've seen benchmarks for quad-core processors and dual-core processors and both are actually rather comparable, and it is obvious that a quad-core isn't four times better than a single core or two times better than a dual core. I'm sure I could save quite a bit just sticking with one of the best: the Intel Pentium Duo Core E6600, but then again, I don't really know whether I want to do that or not.This kind of back-and-forth bantering with myself as far as being selective with components and future-proofing is why I have the zd8000 in the first place: to snag a laptop that was powerful enough to run my games and wait to build a rig that would be future-proofed to some degree. I did not know about the synchronization issue with quad-core processors... which means that I would have to see what prices are like for a synchronized quad-core, but then again, my nature with technology does not bode well with paying full price for the latest and greatest. (It might seem kind of strange to see my selection of components with that statement being said, since the 260 GT is still relatively new.) I'm not sure how to say that... maybe that I like to go a bit past mid-range and mix a combination of value with performance?Also, thanks for the link, but I'd rather just snag a 64-bit copy of the OS that I'll go for. (As much as I hate the idea of going to Vista, I may have to suffer... or learn to tweak it enough to minimize my suffering.)

Out of curiosity, what would the lack of synchronization between the two dual-core CPUs cause as far as problems? (I figured that the multiple cores would work different aspects of things when it comes to programs, or even games, like having one core track and position the location of the objects of a game, where another would do the calculations for simulated physics, etc.) The only thing that I can imagine is if they don't work in tandem that one dual-core CPU would have to wait on the other if it finished it's calculations/task first (if the final task was dependent on the completion of the secondary task), which would probably mean lag time and ultimately inefficient computing... at a real-time cost in experience of an extra split-second or so.I understand that heat is a major killer when it comes to computers, and that's why my battery in my HP died prematurely (since the zd8000 model was infamous for its heat output), but for the longest time, I ran my laptop elevated on boxes and maximized air circulation to keep the laptop cool, which I think wasn't too bad of a deal. I do like knowing that with the case I selected for the desktop that air flow and circulation would be pretty awesome.I never really thought of the operating system at all, because I assumed to be running Windows XP Professional (since I haven't found any real upside to moving to Vista other than DirectX10 support). The laptop comes with Vista Premium (64-bit), but I currently don't have a 64-bit OS. (I forgot about the limitations to running a 32-bit OS.) I thought that the limit to a 32-bit OS was 3.5GB?