PSS I noticed you are planing on up dateing from dail up. If you have a choice between Cable and DSL. I would go with Cable (dependeing on the prices difence) DSL get slower the farther you are from the source where Cable dosen't matter where you are.

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it's only kinky the first time

it's not the orgasm but getting there thats fun

a shot in the bush is worth two in the hand

whip me, beat me, tie me up, break my arm, but please don't break my heart

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid people are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" -Bertrand Russell

LixyChick,

I agree with Mark & Booger about using WinXP rather than Vista. You probably will not get anything from Vista that you can’t get from WinXP. Mark may be referring to the reports that quite a few device drivers are not yet available for Vista although they are for WinXp, and as Booger pointed out, WinXP has been debugged, while Vista is new.

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Eudaimonia

TY guys...for taking the time to explain in (somewhat) plain speak.

I've honestly never heard a bad thing about Dells unless I was on here, in another thread, and the preference discussion got going. I was always told that the a brand name on a computer is like a personal preference in a car. If you like Fords you'll down Chevy's...and vice-versa.

I take all the advice, insight and personal stories I get here and weight them carefully. I won't ever try to disagree with you unless I know to what I speak.

As to buying a used puter to save money...it's not an issue. It's like life/health insurance to me, to purchase the best and get only what I need. With computers...I don't understand what all the "bells and whistles" are...but if I am going to need them someday I want to have that option now instead of having to purchase more to upgrade later.

I don't want to overspend for no good reason but I don't want less just to save money either. I want to grow with this new computer and I want it to grow with me. I want it to be able to help me as I learn as well.

BTW...Windows ME is obsolete as far as Windows Update is concerned. Vista is the newest of the new. Someday XP will be obsolete as well. Couldn't being new be a good thing too?

I'll take heed of your advice about XP and Vista...but I need to do more research.

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Minds are like parachutes. They only work when they are open.

~Thomas Dewar~

BTW Boog...we only have one cable company around here. That's Comcast and they have a great intro deal but they zap ya after six months.

Verizon DSL is in the neighborhood and I haven't heard a bad thing about it yet. Price is good and so is the connection. ANYTHING would be faster than what I have now!!

Will my new puter be any faster on dial-up till I get DSL? I don't know if that just depends on the ISP and connection or what?

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Minds are like parachutes. They only work when they are open.

~Thomas Dewar~

I must confess my eyes sort of glaze over when I read technical things. I am more or less computer literate as requirement for my profession and for my MSN Degree work. But my philosophy is "It's all FM".
To explain;
I once dated this wonderful woman who was in the Air Force as an electronics person, (married to a nice man as part of her "cover", she was gay and he was straight, they never had sex with each other, and I got to happily fuck both... damn I love my life!!) Anyway, she used to say that all electronics was "FM" - "Fucking Magic" In otherwords, the question is "does it work, not how it works".
I have an Apple, a used one that is set up to run both the Apple system and Windows XP. I can switch back and forth when I want to. I also have a used Dell. I bought used, (Apple has a refurbished sales program I like) to save money. My machines are both upgradable if I want (the Apple more than the Dell), and have never ever broken. All the problems have been other things like my cable modem, or DSL or whatever it is. Both are wonderful computers, and do all that I need. I have heard of others having problems with Dell, but I think all the problems in my machine were sorted out before I bought it, an advantage in purchasing used.
My Dell is hooked up to an old fashioned twenty two inch "TV" type monitor that I bought used for 40$. The same size flat panel is about 1000$, and I have a sharp, clear picture.
"Fastest bestest" is a trap. Buy the machine you need today and will do what you need to do for the next year. Add on and upgrade as you need. I agree with darling Lil that a 599 machine that suddenly costs 2 times that is scary. The Dell people are kind of famous for this, I am told.

Just my thoughts...

Wanda Kitty

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"I wondered, am I a lesbian, am I straight, or bisexual? Then I realized that I am just a slut.
So where's MY parade?"

---Margaret Cho

I sometimes envy you non-graphic-artist-non-Mac-users. You have it all so simple for your needs.

I love my Macs and wouldn't cheat on them for the world, but saving up for what I need for my needs is akin to saving up for a DeBeers diamond ring for my fiancée.

If I had a fiancée.

Or a DeBeers diamond ring.

Or money, period!

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Latrevo ta megala stithi!

"When men worship me because of my breasts, I feel that I am an embodiment of the goddess that has become...a part of our collective human soul." — Chloe Vevrier

IrezumiKiss' "Erotique Nonstop" — original, libertine, dirty drawings for your pleasure:
FINALLY updated! 5/6/08
More 5/6/08

Irezumi Kiss' Library.com Page - a comprehensive listing of my bibliophilic erotic inspirations & other readin's whut I digs

LixyChick,

I have been using Verizon DSL for 3+ years now for my home network. I have had two outages. I just ran a speed test, and I’m getting a bit over 1 Mbits/sec.

I do suggest that you check with Verizon before you buy the service, because, as Booger mentioned, the farther you are from their point of service, the lower your speed will be. Verizon doesn’t tell you that up front, merely stating something like “available speed depends on distance from Verizon’s service’. They can tell you what speed you can expect if you tell them what your phone number is.

You will also have to put filters on your telephones when they add the DSL service to your phone line, but that takes all of 5 minutes.

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Eudaimonia

BUT cable is dependent on how many people are on the network. During peek hours you might notice a slow down.

I switched to cable for one month last year and it was one of the worst decisions I have ever made. And I'm not exagerating. During peek hours I was getting download speeds as low as 33Kbps. That's slower than dial up. I averaged under 400Kbps, with my DSL I consistently get DL speeds of 1300Kbps and UL speeds approaching 300Kbps.

SBC/AT&T DSL is also a hell of a lot cheaper. Plans start at $15/month. Plus SBC will set you up with a wireless network and router as part of the set up.

GOD I love PCs.

I've been building a comp off and on now for a while. Pick up the case here, the DVD burner there, that sort of thing when sales happen. I don't know if I could hack it if I had to have two months salary to play World of Warcraft at decent framerates.

Lixy - I am computer clueless but I just wanted to say that I hope you enjoy your new computer!

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Life is too short not to love and be loved....preferably multiple times in one night.

I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them. ~ Jay McInerney

OK...... a few things.

Vista. I'm running Vista on four machines here and at work. Have absolutely no problems with it at all. No compatibility issues, no bugs, no errors or crashes. It's a dream.
If you get it from Dell, it will be pre-installed with Vista and will work like a charm.

I agree with Mark that there's no need to upgrade processor speed for the sort of work you're doing Lixy, but I definitely think 2Gb is the ideal amount of RAM. 1Gb you'll manage with, 512 is no good with Vista.

As for cable or DSL, much of a muchness really. As you say, either one is a significant increase in speed. I don't know anything about how they price them in the US, so I'll stay out of that debate.
You also won't really notice the speed difference between cable or dsl all that much for just web surfing. If one is 'faster' than the other, it's mainly for large downloads - movies etc.

Good luck!
And hi! Good to see you too!

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You know, Blackadder, for me socks are like sex. Tons of it about and I never seem to get any.

My Photos:
https://imgur.com/a/80hiRdm

I've just upgraded my puter to a used one with XP...I think it's an HP with a Pentium 4 chip, beyond that it's hard to say what's actually in these used models since the dealers do an inspect/refurbish on each one...but the bottom line is I'm very happy with the new(er) model, & I go along with boog on buy used puters...they're like cars, the biggest depreciation comes when ya take it home...yeh, last year's model will be obselete sooner, but since the Lix family doesn't have any gamers that need state of the art speed & graphix...well, hell, you've survived for a while with an really old system, believe me, you're mind will be boggled enough with even a little upgrade...especially with moving up to broadband. I have Comcast, & yeh, it's a little pricey, but I imagine that DSL would still be a big improvement as well...which leads me to...

I'll try to take the tech-speak down a notch...when you switch to broadband (DSL or cable), you will get a special modem provided, that'll be connected by an ethernet cable that looks like a phone line on steroids...if you want to connect 2 puters, you can get a router that ties into the modem...the router should allow the 2 to communicate with each other & pass info from one to the other...

As for whether to go with an upgrade to Vista, my experience (as well as many other's) is that it's always best to let the techies work out the bugs on anything Microsoft introduces...seriously, my mind is blown enough by my move from 2000 to XP...

Mostly I'm thrilled that you're upgrading so that maybe now you'll have the puter you need to spend more time perving with me...us, I mean, US!!!

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Plug me into somethin'

If the theory does not conform to the facts, then the facts must be discarded.

No good deed ever goes unpunished

Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level, & beat you with experience.

I am computer illiterate, but I know my parents just bought a new (used) computer last week for about 300$ and they chose to buy used because they had heard nothing good about Vista and they couldn't find any new systems without it.

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Si à travers nos veines coule encore le sang...
Si dans les jeux d'enfants on entend encore l'accent...
Si nous sentons encore l'espoir de nos grands-parents...
Si dans les voiles du large souffle encore le vent...
Y'a jamais eu de Grand Dérangement.

I currently have three computers. My main on is running Windows XP hooked up to the world via DSL. My other desk top is in pieces and will like never work again - my special touch. My laptop is running Linux. I love it. It is stable, easy and free (I'm talking software - get your mind back on track). You would be surprised at the amount of new software that is being written to run on a Linux box.

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"In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind."
Nora Ephron

“Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.”
Barbara Bush

"You know that look women get when they want sex? Me neither!"
Drew Carey

I didn't think I had much to offer to you Lixy (Well, not about computers, anyway! ) but here's my 2-bob's worth, for what it's worth.

My main PC runs Windows ME. I've only ever had a problem with it once - easy fixed. It's stable, pretty much bug-free but sadly, no more upgrades. It only runs on dial-up now, too (no cable round here), so a bit slow, like your present PC. Good thing is, though, the virus-writers have always seemed to miss out on ME!!

The laptop I tend to use most of the time now, also has a dial-up connection, but a few months ago I found it can also utilise wireless broadband! So now it "piggybacks" my neighbours service (for a small fee!!) and our phone bills have gone down considerably!! Seriously, the LT runs Windows XP, with the Internet Explorer 7 upgrade (fabbo, btw!!!) with no real worries so far. Not heard much re Vista (not looking/listening!!) so can't help there.

Re Dell - the Pixie lady with whom I used to live (you'll remember who, Lixy), her two kids had a Dell PC (not laptop) and we had nothing but hassle with it. Dell's online AND phone help; well, they didn't - but that might just be a UK thing.

Reading that back, I've been no help at all, really!! But it's been nice talkin' to ya sweetie!!

DM

p.s. LOVE the new Av.!!

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The selfish, they're all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind