[NCLUG] Desire suggestions for college laptop

[BJ Tiemessen]

Now don't get me wrong I would own an iBook if I had the money. My buddy 
just traded in his Dell Insperon for an iBook and I love it. Tiger is 
awesome and his battery lasts 3-4 times longer than mine. If I stick to 
classes in the Computer Science department I usually don't run into any 
problems because we do almost everything under Linux. When I go to other 
departments to take classes is when I run into conflicts. The one 
program that I use the most that is only Windoze (as far as I know) is 
Visio. I have tried many different programs for UML, flow charts, making 
GUI templates, etc. but have not found anything I like as much as Visio. 
I took 3 classes in CIS that used Visual Basic, .Net and Access, and 
there a few programs I have used for research that where written just 
for Windoze, but I have also used programs for research that will only 
run on Linux. Every once in a while I like to play some online games 
that are only available for Windoze (although I plan to try out Winex). 
I am sure one of you would point out that if a specific program is 
required for a class that there will be a computer lab available to use 
with that program, but many times I prefer to go home and work instead 
of spending all night in a computer lab. So yes for most tasks it does 
not matter what OS is used.
Now that I am writing this I do remeber the last requirement I had when 
I was looking for my laptop. I wanted a screen no smaller than 15", I 
hate staring at a little monitor.

BJ

Paul Wehr wrote:

>> At 2:46 PM -0600 23/06/2005, BJ Tiemessen wrote:
>>
>>> <snip>
>>
>> Unfortunately many of the programs used in a college environment only 
>> run on Windoze so this ruled out the Apple iBook.
>>
>>> <snip>
>>> BJ
>>
>>
>> BJ,
>>
>> Would you please elaborate on this point and provide a sense as to 
>> the names of some of the *many* programs.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Joseph
>
>
> Indeed, please elaborate. Certainly there are multiple programs that 
> run on Linux that suffice for most general-studies programs at the 
> university level. For that matter many (no cost programs) that run on 
> Mac OS X that can masquerade as Windoze programs, not counting M$ 
> (cost programs) that--well--behave as Windoze programs.
>
> I know of only too many programs, specifically programmed to work in 
> the M$ environment, that simply _don't_ work. I don't have any faith 
> in programmers using the M$ environment or the M$ (make a quick buck) 
> environment itself. I'm thinking here of the databases put together by 
> huge database companies. "You'll be up and running in a year," 
> pronounced five years ago and they are still working on it.
>
> Paul
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BJ Tiemessen
Computer Science
Colorado State University
Benjamin.Tiemessen at ColoState.edu
Tiemesse at cs.ColoState.edu
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