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I should hit 125,000 words today on the draft for A MAGIC OF DAWN. My best guess that the draft would hit about 150,000 before revision is still looking about right; so is my prediction that the polished and revised 'submission draft' will be rather longer than that.
Deadline in June. That's still looking good also... Send good writing vibes my way, please!
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The news feeds are tossing computer stuff my way this morning:
Steve Jobs actually said it a couple years back in one of his keynote addresses: sales of notebook computers will soon outpace sales of desktop machines. It's true here in the Parsley Leigh household: since I replaced my desktop iMac with a Macbook, there are no desktop machines in our house. And now the NY Times has realized it too. "More notebook machines will be sold worldwide this year than desktops, the first time in the industry’s history, according to the research firm IDC. In the United States, the milestone has already been reached: last year, notebook sales passed those for desktops."
What about you folks? Do you still use a desktop machine or a notebook/netbook?
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And in semi-related news: In a report on customer satisfaction, Apple has a significant lead. "The Mac producer received an 80 percent score, or "good," on a combination of ease of use, meeting needs and a pleasurable experience. Its next-closest rival, Gateway, scored just 66 percent, or "okay." Other competitors fared worse, with HP and its sub-label Compaq receiving 64 percent and 63 percent scores that are considered "poor;" Dell has dipped to 58 percent. " The article also notes that Microsoft has just launched an ad campaign suggesting that buyers should look only at the specifications and pricing of a computer, not at the other aspects such as system design, software integration, and customer experience.
Hoe do you buy your computers? What's the most important factor(s) in making that decision?
Deadline in June. That's still looking good also... Send good writing vibes my way, please!
*******
The news feeds are tossing computer stuff my way this morning:
Steve Jobs actually said it a couple years back in one of his keynote addresses: sales of notebook computers will soon outpace sales of desktop machines. It's true here in the Parsley Leigh household: since I replaced my desktop iMac with a Macbook, there are no desktop machines in our house. And now the NY Times has realized it too. "More notebook machines will be sold worldwide this year than desktops, the first time in the industry’s history, according to the research firm IDC. In the United States, the milestone has already been reached: last year, notebook sales passed those for desktops."
What about you folks? Do you still use a desktop machine or a notebook/netbook?
********
And in semi-related news: In a report on customer satisfaction, Apple has a significant lead. "The Mac producer received an 80 percent score, or "good," on a combination of ease of use, meeting needs and a pleasurable experience. Its next-closest rival, Gateway, scored just 66 percent, or "okay." Other competitors fared worse, with HP and its sub-label Compaq receiving 64 percent and 63 percent scores that are considered "poor;" Dell has dipped to 58 percent. " The article also notes that Microsoft has just launched an ad campaign suggesting that buyers should look only at the specifications and pricing of a computer, not at the other aspects such as system design, software integration, and customer experience.
Hoe do you buy your computers? What's the most important factor(s) in making that decision?
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My most important factor in buying a computer: weight.
B
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I still have a desktop, it might even be eight or nine years old. I don't know what I might buy next but if it is another PC I think I'll wait for Windows 7. I will probably get a 64 bit machine next time and a larger monitor. That is about the extent of my thoughts on it at this point, other than wondering why my external hard drives keep dying.
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When I married Debbie, she brought an iMac to the household, and my desktop went bye-bye. I now use my laptop for everything except the internet, and use the iMac desktop for the internet. This is partly by choice and partly by circumstance. We have cable internet, and the iMac is the one wired into it. My laptop has wireless, but we haven't been able to get the wireless capabilities of our internet to kick in. (The "choice" bit is that it is actually MUCH better for my writing to not have internet access on the computer I write on.) I use my laptop for internet while on the road, but not here at home.
The iMac is relatively new enough (and very nice) for us to be happy enough with it, but it has already become clear that it would make much more sense for Debbie to have a laptop as well. We priced Macbooks a while back, and we're very interested. As a few other things are cleared up, it's definitely on the list of priority purchases. I would easily see us switching over completely within the next two years. The iMac will then probably sit here gathering dust, because getting rid of a computer is HARD. :) At least for us.
I'm sad to see Dell dip so low on the customer satisfaction list. :( Unfortunately, I've seen it in action though. I have a lot of personal customer loyalty to Dell because I had stellar experience with my Dells and with the customer service for years. I recommended them highly to one of my sisters, just five years after I'd gotten my desktop, and she had nothing but trouble. :( Another sister bought her husband an HP laptop as a gift, and has also had trouble. Both brands used to be so well known as industry leaders for quality.
I've always been dual platform, having learned computers on a PC way back when (DOS!), but quickly realized that I needed to be able to use both. And there was no question that the Mac set up was so much better than DOS. (To wit, the whole Windows steal.) Nowadays we're very happy with Macs.
We may be unusual in that we buy based on the ability to downscale the "bells and whistles" on a machine. I just don't need a lot of the extras that come with. I need solid word processing, solid memory, and quality mechanics for an affordable price.
And Microsoft ad campaigns have NEVER made sense to me. This one doesn't sound any more logical.
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-->Not unusual to me! I'm forever looking for the "off" toggles to all the nonsense the computer thinks I want it to do.
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I'm a computer consultant. People call me up, tell me all their computer problems and I try to fix them. Currently, that mostly means removing malware from their computer or telling them to buy a new one because what they have isn't worth the cost of fixing. The idea that specifications and pricing are the only things that matter is laughable in my opinion. People do care about customer experience and some of them care about system design. I have a lot of clients who say they will never buy anything from Dell again because Dell's support has been terrible in recent years and getting repairs that should be covered under the warranty has been difficult.
When I'm giving someone advice about what to buy, there are a number of factors I discuss with them. Laptop vs. desktop is an important question and there are both pros and cons either way. Specifications and pricing are both important but a good price and good specifications aren't enough. Reliability and service are also big issues. If it fails and can't be easily repaired, that's a problem for a lot of people. Different clients place differing amounts of value on each factor but generally they do care about all four of those factors. There is no major computer maker that I can whole-heartedly recommend to everyone.
It is also worth noting that a lot of what leaves people dissatisfied with new computers is caused by the default Windows settings. If MS wants to convince people to stay with Windows, maybe they should work on that instead of advertising that price and specifications are all that matters. Each version of Windows seems to do more things that annoy people. The average user just doesn't have the know-how to adjust their computer to fit their own needs. Microsoft could make things a lot easier for them if they chose to do so. Computer manufacturers could do a lot more too. Users who are too stubborn to even attempt to learn the basics sometimes contribute to their own problems though. Nobody should have to become an expert in order to do simple stuff with their computer but you wouldn't expect to be able to drive a car without learning what the various controls on the dashboard do, so why expect to be able to use a computer without learning a little?
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LOL! Here here!
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I just went to 10.5 on my new computer at work, and I've spent a week trying to figure out how to turn things OFF.
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I use the mac for work in part because at this point in time it's not cost or time effective to create viruses for the mac (there obviously are some), so I don't have to nuke the drive and reinstall periodically. This is not true of the PCs, sadly.
I like the portability, and also have a PC laptop (we kind of don't get rid of anything easily; until about 3 months ago, we had the first generation g3 desktop in use) as well, but that one is also pretty much used for gaming.
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I still use desktop machines. For starters, it costs money to buy a new machine, and these desktops (I have two) are far from new.
Also, I don't see the point of a laptop if I'm not going to carry it around with me, and I don't really want to carry one around with me. If Apple comes out with a good netbook that weighs under 2 lbs, I might consider that.
My computer-buying decisions are based on the standards I use for every purchase: What about this is going to annoy me, and is it something I can deal with, or is there a less annoying option out there?
Macs remain much less annoying to use than PCs (though the gap is narrowing, but not because PCs are getting less annoying). A desktop computer only strains my back when I relocate (and really, I pay young men to strain their backs instead).
I would consider a netbook, but I suspect that would be unhealthy for me. I need my unplugged time.
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We have three main computer users in the house (the fourth resident is 12, and doesn't get a lot of input into what type of system he uses :) ). The only one with a laptop as a primary machine is the teenager who will be going off to college in the fall, as it was the most efficient way of getting her a machine she could use both now and at college.
My husband is a computer programmer by trade -- he has two desk machines at work, and one at home. He has an MSI Wind that he travels with, but it's not his primary machine. He has occasionally tried to replace a desktop with a laptop machine, and has never been happy -- a laptop with a display large enough to be usable for work is too big to be portable, which is the only real advantage a laptop would have.
We have no brand loyalty, other than no Macs (nothing personal, really, but J works in a Windows environment at work, and it's not worth the effort to try to find Mac equivalents to the things that we use). My desktop is a Dell, his is a Dell, both over four years old, both running XP or Linux. The teenager's laptop is a Toshiba, and the MYTHtv box is a "horrible frankincense monster" which I think began life as an HP mini-tower, got its hardware scavenged for other systems, and then was rebuilt using bits and pieces from Newegg.
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Desktops
The desktops are all home assembled, and the laptop's a Sony.
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Oh and it's never a Mac vs. PC choice. PC's are simply not needed here as 'gaming' machines.
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