p.c for student daughter

Jem8472

ok a couple of things I would suggest.
Whatever you go for arrange some for of backup!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So many people forget about this. It is very important if she is going to be doing uni work on it.
Maybe arrange her to e-mail it to you or the best option would be to have a USB memory stick and regulary update it and keep it away from the lapto/PC Maybe at a friends house!
Also if she is going to carry it around a big city (dont know which uni) but get a bag that does not scream I am a laptop to everyone. You dont want to make her a target. That is also the reason to get a good backup routine going.

Little_John

I was suprised ot hear that the laptop she bought wouldnt give internet access, I have an old P233 laptop and I plug it in to my network and it gets access to the web. it isnt wireless but I expect if I put a wireless card in there it would work im sure.

As for accessing the internet while she is away, if she stays in halls they now seem to have somthing in place in most of them either wired or wireless and she will pay somthing to the uni for the service usually cheaper than installing it herself the other thing is that they wont allow her to get a line installed. having a line installed is allso a problem in private rented places landlords dont really like people installing phone lines. they cost and then she will ned to pay for the ISP. if she is with other people maybe they could share the costs of the connection and wireless router.

smileylunar

Hello everyone its the daughter here,
just want to say thanks for all the advice and such, its given me plenty of things to look at, and the different points of view have made me think about what i need
I really want to stay away from a laptop partly because as my mum said i couldnt access the internet on the one i bought last year (it was an old one and can only connect through dial up) but also i didnt actually take mine home or out and about as the uni im at has computers and laptops at a far greater spec than i could afford and it made more sense to use theres when i needed a bigger spec after doing the minimum on mine, and i dont use it on trains etc as i get distracted and dont want to be mugged or break it so i couldn't justify paying money for something that isnt going to go anywhere when it can.
As its the secnd year i will be sharing in a house so will have to go wireless as there is 6 of us sharing and the house is quite big. Although i will have to find out more info about getting wireless as i very little idea about it now. Thanks for the advice on backup, i did do this but on one occasion when i forgot i lost over half an essay of work when my microsoft word crashed ahh the joys of technology. So it makes sense to back it up and leave it away from my room in case of theft fire or my own stupitity and standing on it! Thanks again

albertross_2

youngsmiley,

There are some tips on wireless here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=121274

You could probably still get the old laptop to work on broadband, either by buying a usb pc card, or a wireless pccard, or ethernet card (if it doesn't have one). The last 2 would work with a router.

sleepali

Young Smiley

What laptop do you have at the mo & what operating system are you using ie: Windows 98/XP.

Do you know the size of the hard drive & the memory at all?

Neato

Just to toss this in
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_3005WLMi_LX.A5505.A88/version.asp
If your looking for a laptop THAT has bang for the buck IMHO. I purchased it recently and it has been the best laptop Ive had (and Ive gone through alot) even though it is quite pricey

smileylunar

hello young smiley here,
thanks for the wireless info link,
sleepali my laptop is a fujitsu siemans lifebook B series. Its windows 98, the memory is 192 but am not sure of the hard drive size is there a way i could find this out. To be honest im not sure that i could change a lot to it my uncle put a couple of files on it for me and had a hard time doing it last year

chunter

http://www.wizmarkcomputers.co.uk/alldellevaluecodedeals.htm
If you're after a new Dell. Reasonably comprehensive list of all weekly Dell deals.

As for the Fujitsu, Win 98 and wireless are extremely bad bedfellows (it's like something out of Love Island)

WinME may give you as little better chance, but if it were me, I'd plump for the cheap Dell laptop, which comes with an excellent internal wireless card.

Buy that first and you can work out your wireless internet later....