Entertainment For Lively Minds
ATM - Netbook/Notebook Help...Possibly dumb question from techophobe
Posted by Six Dog on 4 November 2011 - 12:03pm.
Young Six Pup has requested one of these as Santy Claus present this year. Very happy to buy one for him as this will be very useful on his introduction to secondary school next summer AND, more importantly, provides him with his own iTunes, so my PC isn't clogged up with the Black Eyed Peas and Taio Cruz
Having never used one of these little boxes of wonder (standard laptop & desktop combo) am I right in thinking they don't have any form of DVD/Bluray drive? If so, how do you install stuff like MS Office and Anti Virus programmes?
Any help gratefully appreciated.
Technofear. It's happening again. Vivian!
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No DVD drive
Most of the software you'll probably need can be downloaded and then installed from t'internet.
If you've got software on disk, and your PC has a disk drive, you should be able to "share" the disk drive with the netbook.
You'd need to have the netbook and PC linked in some way, either wirelessly or plugged into your router via ethernet cable.
I'm a mac user, and this method works with them.
More windows-savvy members of the Massive will be of more use than me from here on...
Anti-Virus
As above, there are loads of free Anti-Virus programmes you can get online. I've also been advised that many of the free ones are actually better, due to them being more widely used and updated. My good lady recently got a Netbook and it has a Firewall on it - I added Malwarebytes which is a pretty good virus scanner/remover.
For other software, if it's something you have on a cd-rom you could copy the relevant files to a USB stick via your PC, then install them that way.
Beware with netbooks
If you are purchasing for a tech-savvy kid, you will hit some problems pretty fast.
Netbooks are optimised for web browsing, email and long battery life. What this means is that performance is typically low and specs are miserly compared to a full laptop.
If your son is planning to manipulate photos, load videos, manage his music etc, he'll hit the limits pretty fast.
This is not to say that netbooks are bad - they offer excellent value for money, but that low cost is there for a reason. Also watch out for overall screen resolution. If the resolution is too low, you can't browse the web so well as you never have enough screen to see a web page layout. Let him look at the target model in a shop and browse a few of his fave websites first - just to be sure.
If money is no object, I really recommend the MacBook Air as the best of all worlds but if on a budget, I have never had problems with Dell although YMMV.
I had a quick look online at dell and saw a deal for a 15" laptop with a better-than-netbook spec for £289. Worth taking a look at.
For web browsing
Netbooks are fine (there are very few websites that don't fit on a 9" screen at standard resolution).
But you're right — they are slow. My eight-year-old Pentium 4 laptop is quicker than a netbook.
This is pretty much the minimum of what you need
Dudely,
Generally you have to download the software from the web. As mentioned before everything should run o.k. from a USB if you want to do it that way.
I've found that free firewall and antivirus programs work just as well as the full bhoona proper programs.
I would recommend
AVG free for antivirus
Zone alarm for firewall
Newer versions of windows come with a firewall installed (I've never used it long term so I have no idea what it's like (I trust zone alarm)). If you are wanting to use zone alarm's firewall, switch the windows firewall on, download zone alarm. disconnect from the net, deactivate windows firewall, install zone alarm.
Merry Christmas!!!
Just cough an extra thirty quid
and buy a USB external DVD-RAM drive for the odd occasion you need such a thing.
Thanks all
Hugley appreciated.
Judging from the comments here and some reviews, now leaning toward the laptop option.
Terrifyingly, the older Stimpette wants a new laptop
but she wants a Windows machine (because that's what all her friends have got and being part of the gang is SO important for teenage girls).
She's going to buy it with her own money so I can't really put my foot down and insist she has another Mac but I don't know the first thing about buying or running a Windows machine. I've been Mac since 1985 and am worried that I'm about to enter a world of pain, viruses, firewalls and endless reinstalls. It can't be THAT bad, surely?
Oh it is
It's hell on earth.
Maybe you could explain it to her using a Steve Jobs glove puppet? Or play Mac podcasts to her while she's asleep.
On a more practical note
Here's what I'd do.
Before you let her get her paws on it, set yourself up as the administrator, then add her as a user; you can set it up to prevent her from installing software, if you think she's going to install something unwise.
As far as firewall/anti-virus software goes, I rate (the free) Microsoft Security Essentials, because it doesn't seem to consume too many resources or slow down boot time.
Windows updates generally install themselves in the background without much fuss. You just need to reboot sometimes.
Then just educate her as to sensible behaviour on the internet, which is a good idea whatever platform your on. Don't forget Macs have anti-virus software too (built into the OS) – Apple just chooses not to draw attention to it.
I really wouldn't worry too much.
My advice would be to tell her to buy from a strong brand (Dell would be my choice) and just get a Windows savvy pal to decrappify it (remove all of the 'offers' that'll be preinstalled, only to nag her to 'register' and ultimately pay a sub for products she may never need).
Once it's been set up (half an hour's effort at most) you can pretty much relax. The nice thing about Dells in particular is that they come with a recovery partition built in - hit the requisite keys during boot-up and you can return it to day one factory settings with a few clicks.
Windows 7 looks after itself pretty well on the whole. It's not as bullet proof as a Mac, but you already knew that.
Don't worry
The days of Windows machines being unstable are long gone. I had my last laptop for just over three years running Vista and I didn't even consider doing a reinstall, previously I would had started afresh around once a year.
With the new methods of program installation under Windows 7, things just don't get installed without your sayso. There's now a simple way of making sure that before anything gets installed, you need an admin password. I reckon that if you're careful to read any box that comes up (and not just click OK), you can get away without an antivirus program altogether.... (I'm not about to try that though!). I don't think I'd want to run a Mac without some sort of firewall so using the one built into Windows isn't that much of a pain if you even notice it's there!
Thanks chaps
I'm sure it's not going to be as bad as I'm expecting and I've made the point to her that, to an extent, she'll be on her own if she wants to go the Windows route.
Nope!
get her a Mac and let her run BootCamp or whatever the flava is this month. All her friends will be jealous of her anyway.
She's already got a Mac!
A cast-off iBook of mine but, in her circles, that marks her out as some sort of weirdo. I've offered to pay half if she gets a new MacBook but she's insistent on a Dell with the changing lids. She's a 16 year old girl, I can't understand her :-)
Her friends are just jealous Stimps.
FACT! for sure like
The thing is, I just *know* that it's the interchangeable lids
that she wants... *sigh*
Many 'sheaths'
for Mac laps are available, I saw an extremely fetching black rubber one at the first MacMassif Meet, anyway as a 'good' father you should've pointed her at Sky 1's Modern Family where they all use Macs, especially Haley who is the coolest chick in town. Prolly like the universe too, like...