Yarnell fire and new computer

[der.hans]

Am 07. Jul, 2013 schwätzte Betty I so:

moin moin Betty,

> Hi all;
> (I used to be the lady that was 'nice penguin @ webcanine dot com' but had
> to change my email so now I have this one.)
> We lost our house in Yarnell to the fire last weekend and are staying in

Sorry to hear you lost the house. Hope you, the family and the dogs are
all OK.

> Phoenix. But you guys have always been good for information on computer
> stuff in general, so i thought i'd ask here first.
>
> We have good insurance, and it is going to cover replacement cost for our
> computers up there. They were old, pentium III's that i had put ubuntu on
> and were great desktops. but i am thinking that since we don't do a lot of
> computer intense work up there, just surf online and read emails, that
> maybe it would be better to just get laptops. Then i was thinking maybe of
> getting a chromebook instead of a 'regular' laptop; but my son said that
> those are all 'cloud ' based.

A relative in Flagstaff tested a chromebook and found it lacking. He has
some particular needs, but he said the chromebook wasn't hacking it for
normal use and he hadn't even gotten to the specialized things. Most of
his use was in areas with wifi, but not necessarily good connections
upstream of the wifi.

If you don't regularly have Internet connectivity a cloud-based setup
seems less than optimal to me. I already find phones and tablets to be
paperweights[0] on a regular basis[1], I don't want my laptop to also be
completely network dependent.

That said, pay attention to Joseph's feedback as he is knowledgeable about
Chromebooks and, unlike me, actually uses one :).

I do suggest following his advice on the Zotac-like desktop. I was also
going to recommend it as I have been happy with mine for a light desktop
for a couple of years. Initially, I bought mine based on specific feedback
from Joseph and a couple of other PLUG members :).

> But does that mean that they have no functionality if we're not online?
>
> What do you guys think?
> I have time, since it's going to take about 4 months to get a new
> manufactured home up there :(
>
> also, OT, i did just finish an html class and made my final project a few
> webpages with photos of the place and the fire stuff. of course, we haven't
> been allowed back up there but we're hoping for early this week.
>
> http://ipmarizona.com/eclass/before.html

I bet the dogs do love it up there. Glad you got out of there.

[0] well, not completely useless as I still do some non-networked stuff on
both types of devices.

[1] just spent a week with almost no data connectivity and spotty phone
reception on my phone. Also had crappy wifi from another cell provider and
my mobile broadband card from yet another cell provider had absolutely no
data connection at all. One of the aforementioned is the cell provider
that ostensibly has the best coverage in the southwest. The week was
spent in a medium-sized city, so I wasn't even in the boonies. The drive
too and from was in the boonies and was conducted offline due to lack of
connection.

ciao,

der.hans
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