PC Tip #2: Choosing the right PC for you

Purchasing a new PC may seem like a daunting task to some. That’s hardly the case. With just a bit of knowledge, you can make your PC buying experience quick, easy, and fun.The first step in purchasing a PC is deciding whether you really need a new one or not. If all you do is surf the web and word processing, a 3 to 4 year old PC will do. However, if your old computer died, you’re into playing the latest games, doing intense graphics work, or something of the sort, then you probably need a new computer.

The second step in the purchasing process is deciding if you need a desktop or a laptop. Laptops have gained popularity in the last few years due to the reduction in price, size, and portability. They’re also very powerful now. They come in all shapes and sizes, suited for all purposes. If you’re just performing basic tasks such as surfing the web or doing word processing, a laptop should do just fine. And you can find some great deals online if you look hard enough. But, if you want to do more intense things with your computer, such as play games or do graphics work, then a desktop would probably be a better choice.

Ok, now you’ve decided between a desktop and a laptop. The next step is choosing what components to buy in your computer (the components you choose will determine how fast your computer will be). Some of the biggest mistakes people make when purchasing new computers are component related. It’s important to understand your needs in order to properly judge what you should buy. I’ve created a table showing what I think the different levels of computer users are.
Desktop

NOTE: If you don’t need a monitor, subtract $150 from the price.

	Needs	Typical Components	Typical Cost
Typical home user	Word processing, Internet browsing, Listening to music.	Low-end Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, 100+ GB hard drive, low-end video card, Windows Vista Home Premium, 19-inch monitor.	$699
Gamer/Intense Graphics work	All of the above + playing the latest and greatest games	Quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 200+ GB hard drive, high-end video card, windows Vista Home Premium, 22-inch monitor.	$1500

Laptop

	Needs	Typical Components	Typical Cost
Typical home user	Word processing, Internet browsing, Listening to music.	Low-end Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, 60+ GB hard drive, low-end video card, Windows Vista Home Premium.	$750
Gamer/Intense Graphics work	All of the above + playing the latest and greatest games	Quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 200+ GB hard drive, high-end video card, windows Vista Home Premium, 22-inch monitor.	$1500+

Final Word

I recommend buying computers online; they are much cheaper online than if you were to buy them in retail stores. Places like Dell, HP, and Lenovo offer great PCs and great deals.

Remember, the key component in buying a computer is deciding what you actually need, so once you do that, you should be fine. Always do your research before you buy; don’t let a salesperson tell you what you should get.

Good luck!

Thoughts on Digital Music

One thing I’ve disliked about online music sales is the price.  At first, 99 cents for a song seems like a bargain.  But, when you start purchasing a lot of songs, it starts to add up.  Buying an album on iTunes is almost the same price as buying a CD!  Why on Earth would you buy an album on iTunes when you could get the CD for almost the same price?  A CD would free you from the effects of DRM and give you a physical copy, all in better quality than iTunes.  The only situation in which it makes sense to buy songs on iTunes is when you’re buying a single.  The situation is still the same when you’re buying from other online services, such as Amazon.  Even though Amazon has no DRM, the tracks are still compressed.  If you buy a CD, you have the tracks in an uncompressed format.

This isn’t the merchant’s fault either; it’s the record labels fault.  They are getting the most profit from the online music sales, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 cents per song.  The rest of the money goes to bandwidth and other costs associated with selling music online.  This gives the merchants only a few cents profit.

Think about it.  The current 80 GB iPod Classic can hold up to 20,000 songs.  That’s twenty-thousand!  Going by the iTunes store price, that would cost you around $20,000 to fill up.  Nobody is going to pay $20,000 to fill up their iPod!

If the record labels would stop demanding so much of the money from each song sold, I bet they would sell many more songs.  If the price of a song was only 33 cents, people would buy much more.  The record companies would make up for the lost profit in no time because sales would rapidly increase!  Three songs for a Dollar!  That sounds great!  Not to mention the reduction in piracy.

I think that the record labels will eventually realize that 99 cents is too much.  Give it a few years and I think things will become more reasonable.  Eventually people will stop buying CDs and just download online, once the price is right and the process is simple enough.

Apple Releases New iPhone and iPod Touch Models

Today, Apple announced the availability of two new products.  The first is an upgraded iPod touch that has 32 GB of storage space.  The second is a new iPhone that has 16 GB of storage.  Both new models are priced at $499.  The only changes in these devices are the storage capacities, everything else remains the same.  These new products are available now and should be arriving in stores in a few days.  The lower-capacity versions of these products (the 8 and 16 GB iPod Touch and the 8 GB iPhone) do still exist, though they incurred no change in price.

The upgraded capacity of the iPod touch should make some people happy, as it makes the iPod Touch a strong competitor to other portable video players.  Before, with only 16 GB of space, despite being a beautiful device with a very nice screen, the iPod Touch couldn’t hold much content.  But now, with the upgraded 32 GB, the iPod Touch now has more than sufficient storage for movies, music, and more.

The upgraded capacity on the iPhone is nice too, but I’d still like to see new features added, such as 3G and Flash support.  I suspect that an upgraded iPhone with these features will make an appearance later this year, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

One thing that bugged me was the fact that Apple didn’t reduce the price of the lower-capacity iPod Touch models.  $399 for the 16 GB iPod Touch isn’t cheap, and $250 for an 8 GB version isn’t great either.  Similarly priced competitor models exist with more storage (namely the Archos 604 with 30 GB of storage), thus making the iPod Touch a less-attractive buy.

Maybe Apple will reduce the prices of these models, in the same way as their infamous iPhone price cut.  Or maybe they won’t.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Microsoft bids for Yahoo!

Microsoft’s recent bid to try and score Yahoo! was unexpected, to say the least. There are all kinds of rumors surrounding this offer, some good and some bad. All we can really do right now is wait and see if it actually happens and what will become of it. Here are my initial thoughts.I think the only reason that Microsoft is doing this is to gain users. There’s no other reason, frankly, that I can think of. They want to gain users in order to compete with Google. They need to address the Google problem before it gets too big. I think they’ll dissolve the Yahoo services and morph them into the existing Windows Live and MSN services to create a more integrated environment. After all, Microsoft already provides many of Yahoo’s existing services. Yahoo should disappear shortly after this happens.

Also, I don’t think Yahoo is the only company that Microsoft has its eye on. There are plenty more companies out there and there are plenty that Microsoft could benefit from buying. Ultimately, I think Microsoft’s goal is to build up a strong user base to compete with Google, because if they don’t, they’re going to be in trouble.

I think Microsoft’s decision to expand will work out for them in the end.  Microsoft is a good company (despite what some say) and I’m sure that this venture will help them combat Google.  I’m interested to see what will become of this.  We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.