Older laptops will not run the latest games. If you want to run the standard games that come with the Windows OS (FreeCell, Minesweeper, Hearts or Solitaire), no problem. If you want to run the latest PC games you need to check the minimum systems requirements found on the box or on the game manufacturer's website.

Gaming is usually more Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) than Central Processor Unit (CPU) bound. The CPU is less important than the GPU. These graphic chips and cards for desktops are manufactured by companies like Nvidia and ATI. These type chips can sometimes be found in desktop replacement laptops.

An example of this type computer is the $4000+ Dell Inspiron XPS with a 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 graphics chip that started shipping in June 2004. Another less expensive choice would be a $2000 Alienware mobile desktop designed for gaming.

If you main use for the computer is to play high-end games you should seriously consider a desktop computer. You can purchase a big monitor, add high performance graphics boards, you will find the keyboards are much easier to use on a desktop computer than the fixed ones on laptops and they are typically a lot less expensive than an equivalently powerful laptop.

The four most well known IM services are AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MSN messenger and ICQ. As of September of 2004 53 million adults use instant messaging. AOL is used by 37%, Yahoo by 33%, MSN by 25% and ICQ by 6%.

The minimum systems requirements to use the latest versions of these services on a laptop are:

AOL Instant Messaging 9.0 requires a minimum of Win 98, 166 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 205 MB Hard Drive space, Microsoft IE 6.0 and 28.8 modem.

http://free.aol.com/tryaolfree/wr6_cntrl/
non_qualify.adp?wrfd=#sysReqWin

Yahoo Instant Messaging 6.0 requires a minimum of Win 98, Microsoft IE 5.5, 56 K modem and Macromedia Flash Player 6.0.

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/messenger/win/tech/tech-05.html

MSN Instant Messaging 6.2 requires a minimum of Win 98, 233 MHz CPU, 64 MB RAM, 50 MB Hard Disk space, and Microsoft IE 5.01 or later.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?
FamilyID=1b5bfaee-4bfa-42bf-a42e-417d748cefa1&displaylang=en

The complete requirements can be viewed for each of these instant messaging programs at the above links.

At times we get phone calls from people wanting to use one of our refurbished laptops and one of their interests is using it with a digital camera. This posting focuses mostly on file sizes and figuring out how best to handle these type files and which laptop will work best. The hard drive size is most often the most important factor to consider. CPU can matter, but mostly as relates to the editing sofware.

Photo Files can take up lots of space on your hard drive. So, you might need either large hard drive (10GB+) or to buy an external 20GB or 40GB Hard Drive or a CD-RW or DVD-CDRW to store all those photos.

You will need to think about what kind of pictures you are going to be taking and the associated file format size. Will be mostly taking 4×6 photos, with an occassional 8×10 or will you be taking hundreds of photos a month or just a roll or two. If you plan on taking much larger photos. Once you have thought about this then you need to understand the size of the appropriate files.

Now lets talk about photo related file types.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) provide the best output and are great for print and can provide the very best quality. Uncompressed TIFF files are cumbersome in-camera, being slow to process and write to memory, but they useful when working in an image editor. Great large format photos lots of hard drive space will be used.

RAW files are versatile, but support of these files in 10 years time, let alone 70 years, may reduces their longevity. They offer unparalleled versatility for the many of users.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) can provice excellent output, are universally legible; viewable by all web browsers and image-editing programs. Highly compressed JPEGs can still provide quality prints, so long as they aren't going to be repeatedly edited and substantially enlarged. For sheer functionality and all-round versatility, the high-quality JPEG, is difficult to beat.

Yet, there's no one file type that does it all, so you really need to know when to choose the best to suit your needs, but if in doubt, go for the highest quality JPEG your camera can produce.

Comparison of typical file sizes produced by the 8-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 8700 with 3,264×2,448-pixel image size.

– RAW (12-bit NEF) 11MB
– HI (8-bit RGB TIFF) 23MB
– FINE (High-quality 8-bit RGB JPEG) 3.6MB
– NORMAL (Standard 8-bit RGB JPEG) 1.6MB
– BASIC (Highly compressed 8-bit RGB JPEG) 0.9MB

Everything you wanted to know about file formats and were afraid to ask!

A great resourse for people want to learn about digital photography:

Popular Photography and Imaging

The type of software you use may also matter to manipulate and keep track of the photos. Be sure to check the minimum systems requirements found on the box or on the software manufacturer's website.

So, you can now calculate the amount of data you files will take and make a determination how large a hard drive you need and if you should consider external storage (USB hard drive or CD-RW or DVD-RW).

I recently heard about a way to send large e-mail attachments that will avoid clogging your inbox and causing bounced e-mails. Pando Networks Inc., has developed a program that allows you to distribute very large files, like photos. This is an efficient way to share files without using a website to share your personal videos or photos.

Laptops typically come with an AC adapter that can be used any place in the world.

Most laptops use an external power supply (AC adapter) that plugs into an AC electrical outlet and supplies DC power to the device. Most power supplies will run on both 50 Hz and 60 Hz and are dual voltage (110V 60 Hz and 220V 50 Hz electricity), which varies by country. Some dual-voltage devices can detect the local line voltage and automatically switch accordingly, but others may have a switch to change from 110V to 220V. If it has a switch, remember to have it on the correct setting for the local voltage.

If your AC adapter is dual voltage then you should be able to use it internationally with just a power plug adapter that fits the wall outlet.

You will need the correct power plug adapter so you can plug in your laptop when you get to your destination (and points in between). There are 9 different power plugs in use around the globe. An alphabetical list by country: http://traveloasis.com/elad.html

If your device is not dual voltage, you will need a transformer to change the local line voltage to the correct voltage for the device. To determine which transformer you need, check the wattage your laptop requires, and buy the next bigger one.

Be sure to check on the website of the manufacturer of your laptop to make sure that it indeed has an international automatic switching power supply.

It can be daunting to move your programs and files to you new laptop computer. Perhaps, it might be a blessing in disguise … a chance to clean up the old and start with a new fresh laptop computer. Kind of like cleaning up a closet where junk has been accumulating for years.

You will need to load/or/move your applications and data files (including Registry settings), while leaving the new computers pre-installed software intact. If you have all your applications on CDs then you just start loading the CDs and load each one. You could then go to the software vendors website to update to the latest version or stick with you old tried and true version. Install all of your software from the original installation CDs or files you download from the Internet. Installing them from scratch generally gives you better performance than copying them.

A couple of software programs that can make this task easier are Spearit Software's "Move Me" (www.spearit.com), Laplink's PCmover (www.laplink.com) or Symantec's Norton Ghost (http://sea.symantec.com/content/product.cfm?productid=9). If you are moving to Windows XP it offers the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, which looks easy enough, but isn't: (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/getstarted/bott_fstw.mspx).

Set the new computer near the old one. If you have a network, plug your new computer into it and get it running. The new computer's name on the network must be different from the old one's.

If you don't have a network, you can use a parallel file-transfer cable or a Laplink USB 1.1 or 2.0 file transfer cable.

If the two computers are in different locations or cannot communicate with each other directly over a network, your files can be transferred from the old computer to a third PC that functions as a "file server" using a LAN. When that transfer completes, the files can be transferred again, this time from the file server to the new computer.

You can also use removable media (such as ZIP disks or CD-RWs) to transfer your data, provided that each computer has the capacity to read the disks.