Strawberryland Forum

This post is about computers, but I promise I won't get technical beyond laptop features. It's mainly a post in regards to decision making, and perhaps I will ask questions to those who are knowledgeable about a particular laptop brand.

Wendell, my current laptop, is a good laptop. I only had him for a little over a year now, but just this past December/early January, I discovered that complex websites that use that Flash plug-in can be very taxing on Wendell. Videos on YouTube and whatnot play fine, but Webkinz....meh. I mentioned this before, but Webkinz on Wendell is hit-or-miss in performance. Some features play fine, while others like Hoppy Little Rocketship are nearly unplayable due to very laggy graphics performance. Strange, since non-flash casual games (like Peggle) play great. Enabling hardware accelerated rendering in Internet Explorer helps performance somewhat, but it's still far behind Lilly. I normally just use Webkinz on Lilly, but there are times when I will be on trips and Wendell is my only gateway to the internet.

So, when I had HSN2 on Anna-Lena today, they showcased this beauty...
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/7efzdqt">http://preview.tinyurl.com/7efzdqt</a><!-- m -->

It's a neat looking Gateway laptop, with a dedicated graphics processor. Having a separate graphics processor in a laptop can improve performance since it doesn't rely on the CPU or system RAM for performance. This Gateway laptop has an nVidia GeForce 610M GPU with 1gb video memory. Wendell currently has an integrated Radeon 6310 GPU which is embedded inside his main processor. In theory, the dedicated GPU should increase graphics performance.

I really do like that white color option. It makes the laptop stand out. I can already imagine a name for it if I bought it today...



Other laptops i have in mind are the ones below:

Toshiba L755-S5153: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/6puqnwc">http://preview.tinyurl.com/6puqnwc</a><!-- m -->
HP g7-1261nr: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/6oexkqw">http://preview.tinyurl.com/6oexkqw</a><!-- m -->
HP g7-1310us: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/6qraz3x">http://preview.tinyurl.com/6qraz3x</a><!-- m -->

I wonder if I should get the Gateway laptop, any of the others, or just hang on to Wendell? Besides Webkinz, Wendell is fine for the most part, but who knows? Maybe one of these other laptops would be better overall, and Wendell could become a sole Linux laptop.

Any help in decision making would be appreciated, especially if one has good experiences with either nVidia laptop GPUs or HP laptops.

oakfirebolt3967

It's a shame that I cannot decide on my own username there.
Oh, and I got Gryffindor.


And Wade, one thing for you to consider is your budget condition. Do you have enough savings/spares you can use? If you do buy it, will the money really be well-spent? Personally, if I have savings solely for this, I will go all out and buy the most expensive I can afford (i.e. if you're going to buy a new thing, buy a very good one while you're at it). As for having multiple laptops, I have no idea. I still haven't even fully utilized my current one to its full extent.

Just one thing I've heard somewhere: Toshiba laptops are usually heavier than other brands with similar spec, but at the same time they have higher durability.

Blackberry Bun Wrote:oakfirebolt3967

It's a shame that I cannot decide on my own username there.
Oh, and I got Gryffindor.


And Wade, one thing for you to consider is your budget condition. Do you have enough savings/spares you can use? If you do buy it, will the money really be well-spent? Personally, if I have savings solely for this, I will go all out and buy the most expensive I can afford (i.e. if you're going to buy a new thing, buy a very good one while you're at it). As for having multiple laptops, I have no idea. I still haven't even fully utilized my current one to its full extent.

Just one thing I've heard somewhere: Toshiba laptops are usually heavier than other brands with similar spec, but at the same time they have higher durability.

I will take note of this. Thanks!

As for income, I'm getting some money from my first IRS tax return I filed this year, totaling around $830. I used my 1098-T I got from two of the colleges I went to in 2011. So, if I did get this laptop, over half of that money would be toast.

Something to think about a bit before I decide to buy or just keep Wendell. Wendell is a Toshiba Satellite, a C655D-S5139. I keep up with the driver updates posted on Toshiba's website, so there is a chance future graphics software updates may improve performance.

Blackberry Bun Wrote:oakfirebolt3967

It's a shame that I cannot decide on my own username there.
Oh, and I got Gryffindor.

You and most others still have better user names than I.

I'm the WombatLight person!

cpd2009 Wrote:

Stella Grapes Wrote:Pottermore, anyone?

I heard of the site, and know it's based on the Harry Potter series, but thats it. I don't have an account there.

I will go ahead and read up on it though, but I probably won't join. Im not sure if I could juggle both Webkinz and Pottermore at the same time, but in retrospect, I usually only spend an hour at Webkinz per day. Who knows if that may increase in the future.

Eh, I am a silly psychology geek who wants to see where you're sorted to. Getting to Chapter Seven of Book One doesn't take a long time.

Stella Grapes Wrote:Pottermore, anyone?

Hehe, after I read this post, I mentioned this stuff to my sister and she immediately registered to the site... However, she got disappointed quickly, 'cause it seems the site requires her to play along until she gets that personality test where she would get assigned to a house... Also, her English knowledge is pretty much limited, it's unlikely she would play the game.

Myself didn't really checked the site... is it an RPG-like stuff? Anyway, is it made by J. K. Rowling herself?

Stella Grapes Wrote:Someone I know (an Angel Caaaake) was so upset to be sorted into Slytherin that she deleted her account and said her whole day was ruined. :|

Muhaha. Angel Cake is an interesting phenomenon. For some curious reason I like her, despite her annoying characteristics... I don't really know why... maybe it's just that I still value her positive qualities? Or maybe I just like her appearance? (She's a pretty girl, you must admit. ) But I'm sure, a person like her would annoy me to Hell in real life...

Sometimes I also play with matching real people's personalities* to SSC characters. Sometimes it's fun.

Now that we're on topic: few weeks ago someone has posted a pretty poor Strawberry Shortcake personality test on Strawberry's For Everyone. It's supposed to tell which SSC character you resemble from the original '80s series, but actually it's useless. I thought I could create a far better personality test, and I also drafted the first few questions... then I stopped, because I thought I need some help with it, a consultant. I thought to ask Prudie's help, since she seems to know a lot about SSC personalities - her thread about SSC - MBTI pairings is especially notable. So I wanted to e-mail Prudie about it, but then nothing happened - I'm just hell busy... or maybe just lazy? Who tells? But granted, I should really focus on my Flash game nowadays, since I hoped I could release it for now. Either way... Prudie, are you interested? I could still send you the draft after all...


* real people's personalities: Is it grammatically correct?

Stella Grapes Wrote:Eh, I am a silly psychology geek who wants to see where you're sorted to. Getting to Chapter Seven of Book One doesn't take a long time.

Tell you what...I do happen to have a box set of the first four Harry Potter books in paperback. I will research the Pottermore game, and I will complete book one of the Harry Potter series. I shall then find time to read the rest of the HP books.

[strike]Oh, Kiwi, what is your opinion on my laptop choice thingy I posted above? Should I just stick with my current one, or go for either of the ones I linked to?[/strike]

+Technical Stuff Starts Here!+
Speaking of laptops, that is the last time I ever mess around with Windows drivers. Now, I can't get any network connection on Wendell since the required software won't install now.

Thank goodness for the recovery partition. I'll just run that after I get the data backed up. From here on out, I won't perform driver updates unless absolutely necessary. I searched the Toshiba support forums, and some say if everything is working fine, there is no need to install updated drivers for your hardware.


EDIT: Well, after some thought, I decided to just keep Wendell and let my money be best spent elsewhere. Instead, I will eventually get Wendell a RAM upgrade to 8gb, which will help with the graphics processing and speed things up in general.

Yes, Pottermore is made by J.K. Rowling herself.

It really does not take a lot of time to get to the test if you know English, Wade, I assure you.

Gmail isn't being very nice to me, as of late. Just send me a private message here, Kiwi. I'd love to help you out with personality assessments. Be patient if my responses are slow, however. I'm in the process of moving now, however, and not to the log cabin yet. My family is temporarily moving to Indiana, and by my family, I'm only speaking James and myself and our children.

Stella Grapes Wrote:Yes, Pottermore is made by J.K. Rowling herself.

It really does not take a lot of time to get to the test if you know English, Wade, I assure you.

Apologies in advance if I sound rude since I have no intention on doing so, but it really seems that you are wanting me to play Pottermore, when in fact that I really don't feel like it. I do know that you want me to go there since you know what class Im sorted into, but..... It just feels like you are forcing me to join a site that I don't have any interest in. You probably didn't intend to do so, but it still feels like it.

Im not sure. I need to be convinced more to join. Even though you say that it doesn't take a lot of time to get to the test, I'm still unsure if I want to join because after said test, I will probably feel obligated to continue using said site even though my interest will wane, and I currently hold very little interest in Harry Potter, so I don't feel motivated at the present time to join.

You know me Grapes....I know English! :lol: It just feels strange for someone to tell me or ask me if I know English because I naturally do. I know how to read at a college level, but I just lack motivation to actually read Harry Potter, or any book. I prefer my online and video game lifestyles towards paperback books. And even if I do choose to start reading books, they will likely be eBooks on my tablet.

So there's that.

Actually, I felt like you were making something into too big a deal.

Stella Grapes Wrote:Actually, I felt like you were making something into too big a deal.

I didn't think I was. It doesn't seem like too big a deal for me. I just feel that I don't have the motivation or the time to juggle two online sites at one time. That's all.