Here’s a thread in which I wrote a somewhat detailed analogy of memory and hard drive space if you are interested. Just scroll down a ways.
I agree with everyone about getting more RAM. If it’s not an option to upgrade when you get it, it’s easy to put in, and many memory retailers will help you get the right kind.Crucial has a great memory finder system.
Eeek, lots to address
Well, since you’re using onboard video, it’s gonna still hog some of your RAM, and seeing how XP is extremely RAM intensive (thanks Windows :rolleyes:) you’re going to probly need to pick up another 256 chip, extremely cheap these days (less than $50). A couple sites;
Internet I-Shop
Pricewatch
NewEgg
Good sites for buying computer upgrades and all that.
Look at it this way. When you open a connection to the internet things can get into your computer or leave when you don’t want them to, through many ports. What a firewall does is it will block these ports and safeguard your computer from bad stuff gettin in, while allowing you to use safe software (like internet explorer) to use the internet.
Popup Blocker, spam blocker, and virus protectors are all completely different systems.
If you’re running Xp, windows has a firewall, and it’s usually activated on a new computer, it should keep you running well.
On the virus thing, you do not need to pay any sort of ‘virus subscription’. There are tons of free programs or programs you buy once and have updates for, and with a firewall / email scanner it’s also incredibly unlikely you’ll even get a virus.
Pop-ups.
There are TONS of free popup blockers you can find on the 'net for Internet Explorer, but the best thing you can do is get a better browser.
Mozilla or Opera are way better and faster than IE, as well as more secure and come with built in pop-up blockers. I know Opera is fantastic for email as well.
Spam blockers are different and rely entirely on your email program. They usually need to be custom programmed or set a specific way, and seeing as how there are so many different types of email out there, you’d need to be more specific in what you have and what you’re looking for.
Well that’s your opinion.
The Google toolbar is free and works wonderfully at blocking pop-ups. Also, pop-up blocking will be included in SP2 for XP. Opera mail? [shudder]. But THAT’S my opinion.
Terrible nitpick here, but it would actually be 6400 exabytes². that is, assuming that the orignal was taken to be (80 GB)².
Then again, saying that it would be 6400 EB² starts to look the same as 80 GB². And really, thre’s no reason to square the 80, because “Square gigabytes” would be a legitimate unit. That is, ignoring any physical meaning, and looking at it only from a dimensional analysis standpoint.
Actually, it would be more proper to say it’s 6.4x10[sup]21[/sup] bytes², which is the same as 6400 GB², which is (80 GB)²
80 GB² would just be 8.0x10[sup]19[/sup] bytes².
Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Nitpick over. I’m going to try to make my head stop spinning now.
Ooh! Ooh! I get to use my “thoughtless janitor” analogy.
Picture working in an office, in one small corner of a large warehouse in which shelf after shelf of old-fashioned paper file folders are kept. In your office is a desk. Here are the parameters of your workday:
[ul][li]Your work consists of updating the records that are stored in the warehouse. The very first file folder (containing the index of all the others) is stored on the first shelf outside your office.[/li][li]You can only do actual work while sitting at your desk. This means anytime you get a file folder from the warehouse, you’ll have to carry it back to your office to work on it.[/li][li]The number of file folders you can have open at any one time (because updating one file often requires getting information from other files) is limited by the size of your desk.[/ul][/li]
The process of getting work done involves the following:
[ul][li]Looking at your to-do list, which tells you which files have to be updated.[/li][li]Going to the index folder to find the location of the files you need to update.[/li][li]Going to those files and bringing them back to your desk.[/li][li]Making the necessary changes (this process is actually very fast and easy - much more so than retreiving the files in the first place).[/li][li]Putting the updates files back in place[/li][li]Updating the index file (some files may no longer be necessary, some may have grown or shrunk in size, or been moved to other locations, etc.)[/ul][/li]
The key element, though, is that if you leave any open files on your desk overnight, the thoughtless janitor will toss them all into the garbage as part of his clean-up routine. In fact, the janitor is just waiting for the lights to go out so he can get in there and start his indiscriminate cleaning so he can go home as soon as possible.
Thus, you have the major components of a computer storage system:
[ul][li]The Central Processing Unit (CPU), the “brains” of the operation. You, in other words.[/li][li]The storage unit (a hard drive, floppy drive, CD-ROM), a permanent or semi-permanent place for records to be kept. This is your “warehouse”, which can be arbitrarily large.[/li][li]The main memory, the place where files are kept while they are being processed.[/li][li]The file allocation table, the main index describing where all files are kept (I know non-Win9X systems don’t use this name, but bear with me)[/ul][/li]
In practice, having a large “desk” means you can have more files open (or very large files, which would be the case if you were editing video, for example). There are diminishing returns, though, and doubling the size of your desk does not necessarily mean you can work twice as fast. Ideally, you get as large a desk as you need, plus a little extra, but not more.
Having a large “warehouse” is always desirable, and you should always get the largest hard drive you can afford (within reason; don’t sell the farm to get a humungous hard drive that you’re going to chuck in two years as obsolete, for example). Hard drives often have their “access times” listed in milliseconds (in effect, how long does it take to get a file from the warehouse), but these can be subject to exageration or resulted from ideal testing conditions, etc. If you care enough to start looking for specific manufacturers and models, I suggest you go to a website like Tom’s Hardware Guide and look at their test results.
In practice, organizing the files on your hard-drive can have a much greater effect than choosing the model. It’s important to delete older unwanted files and “defragment” the rest.
As for the janitor, think of what happens when you have a sudden power failure or comptuer crash or other interruption. Whatever you were working on at that moment is lost. All you have are the files safely stored on your hard drive, hence the need to save your work frequently if the information is critical or your computer/eletricity is unreliable.
I’m not so sure about that. When I bought my most recent computer, I went with the 60 GB drive, the smallest available for the model I was buying. Yes, I know that I’ll fill that up eventually, but the price per gig wasn’t significantly different between OEM and retail, and I know that that price is going to go down. So I can wait to buy more space until it’s cheaper. In the meantime, it’s been a year now since I bought it, and I still have nearly 40 gigs left, so I can expect to use this same HD for another year or two. That’s a Moore doubling time, so I can probably expect to pay half as much for my next hard drive as I would have had I bought it up front.
Memory is another story. More memory will become useful immediately, not just at some point in the future when you’ve accumulated enough clutter, and it’s cheap enough that it’s only a small investment to max it out immediately. You don’t need to necessarily buy it as part of the package with the computer (this can be overpriced), but you should at least buy it separately and install it.
Hard Drive = how much software you can install
Memory = how fast the software will run
Memory is usage, hard drive is storage. No matter what size hard drive you get, you can store unlimited documents, spreadsheets, letters, emails, etcetera. (Unless you need to store more than a million.)
However, mp3’s are a meg per minute. (roughly) So if you’re into music, or video, a big hard drive is nice to have. Roughly speaking, each gig can hold about 17 hours of music.
Additional memory is easier to install than additional hard drives.
Ellis Dee, with the size of modern hard drives, the amount of software you can install is very rarely limited by the size of your drive. What drive size really limits is having large media files.
I reccommend staying away from Tom’s Hardware Guide, as my experience has been that Tom will give rave reviews to whoever has been giving him shiny new stuff lately.