While it’s true a whole bunch of you build your own PCs, it’s also true there are many out there with Dell PCs. Something Dell does not do (or at least not to the best of my knowledge) is ship their PCs with driver discs in case you have to reinstall Windows. Fortunately it’s easy to create your own either on CD/DVD or USB stick. Step 1. Find...

Recently the guys and gals at Alienware introduced one amazing little brute of a laptop, the M11x. It’s probably safe to say that the little 11-incher would probably destroy whatever PC you’re using right now, power-wise.   The M11x comes in Core 2 Duo, Core i5 and Core i7 flavors. In i7 trim the price comes in at just under $1,100. You’re...

It’s the little things that matter in life, and this obviously includes your PC. The Dell Studio XPS is a fantastic PC, no question. The two models offered currently are the XPS 8100 and the XPS 9000. The base 8100 model (no monitor included) is $649. And what you get, said honestly, is a very fast machine. The specs include an Intel Core i5-650 3.20GHz...

Over the years, I have dealt with Dell sales quite a bit for ordering servers, desktops, laptops, monitors, (you name it). Last week, however, I dealt with Apple sales for the first time on purchasing a refurbished laptop with a 3 year warranty for my wife. One “trick” I have learned is that even though you can purchase everything through the...

As mentioned before, Dave bought a netbook. I went with the Dell mini 10v, he went with the Asus EeePC 1000HE. Both are almost identical as far as specifications are concerned (CPU speed, screen size/resolution, etc.) What it really boils down to when choosing one of these are the details, such as the keyboard layout, power supply type, battery options, RAM...

Note: There is a video at the bottom of this post of my 10v, so be sure to check that out. As I had been saying many times since 2009 started, my plan was to get a netbook as my next laptop. So I bought a refurbished Dell Inspiron Mini 10v. My overall opinion of the unit is that it’s a decent solid build and is definitely the right size. However the one...

I just bought a Dell Inspiron mini 10v. It will be arriving either later this week or early next week. After examining all the different ways I could purchase it, I decided to go refurb. Why? Because it’s nearly $100 less than new. For a laptop that’s in the sub-$500 range, $100 is a pretty big consideration. In my situation, I paid 23% less compared...

The best box that Apple makes is the Mac Pro. The best box that Dell makes is the Precision Workstation, commonly abbreviated as PW. Both are business machines first and foremost. It is very easy to configure either to run you $20,000 for final cost. How to do it? Simple. Check off every single possible option you can throw in when configuring it. First, the Mac...

Last Friday I went to configure my father’s new PC, a Dell Inspiron 531 mini-tower. This is Dell’s lowest-priced offering and it’s as basic as basic can get. A box with Windows XP, mouse, keyboard, power cable and not much else. This box comes provided with a 1.6GHz single core AMD Athlon 2560e 512K, your option of Vista or XP (the chosen OS...

I bought a refurbished Dell Dimension 4400 back when Windows XP was brand new in 2001. It was $625 shipped. The only thing I ever did to it was upgrade the processor from 1.6GHz to a 2.4GHz and bumped the RAM from 256MB to 512MB. Other than that, everything in it is original. I used it for a few years then gave it to my father who has been using it ever...

If posed the question as to what you think the worst possible thing could happen to a PC is, your answer would probably be, "when the hard drive dies". Wrong. The worst possible thing that can happen is fire. This is when something in your computer overheats, catches fire and starts melting the "guts" (motherboard, chips, etc.). Fire is the...

Yes, this is a netbook 9-inch screen model that I’m talking about. The computer industry is hurting right now so most of the larger OEMs are slashing prices left and right and Dell is no exception. The Inspiron Mini 9 is selling well, but evidently not well enough so the price has been dropped significantly. With Ubuntu Linux installed, the price is $249....

I really find it humorous when I read articles like this basically insinuating that Dell can’t build a decent small computer, and in this case a SmartPhone. From the linked article above, the tail of it states this: Still, would you buy a Dell smartphone? What kind of features should MePhone have in order to convince you to chose it over an iPhone,...

Recently announced: Best Buy will be carrying MSI’s offering in the itty-bitty "netbook" style laptop, called the "Wind". It will come with Windows XP Home Edition, an Intel 1.6 Atom processor, 120GB HDD, 3-cell battery and comes in black or white. I’ve been following the netbook-style laptops for a while now and the industry has...

Don’t Make Me Think is a book about web usability. It’s an older book but required reading for anyone who designs web sites. In a nutshell it states that if you want a successful web site, make it stupidly easy to use. Go complicated are it’s nothing but a big ball of fail. In the world of tech commerce there are basically two types of...

Even though I champion Dell as the best go-to company for most consumers wanting a computer from a well-established company, my single largest complaint about them is the constant shifting of model names; it confuses the crap out of people. Classic example: Inspiron. This should have never been made a desktop model name. Inspiron was known by everyone as...

If you were thinking of buying a new Dell PC but Vista makes you want to crawl under the bed, go into fetal position and suck your thumb, you can cancel those plans because Dell does have a few boxes that you can have delivered brandy-new with XP instead of Vista. There are 4 boxes. Two Inspiron and two XPS desktop models. None of these are Dell’s...

Gizmodo has a true-blue video of a real Psystar box with OS X running. And yes it’s is OSx86 Project OS X that’s running on the box. Now you know. The only people who really care about the Psystar are Mac owners (including Dave). Personally speaking this is not really a hot item to me, but evidently this is news. So.. what can be said about the...